Thursday, August 29, 2013

The Weekly Character: Deberos Ferrel

Here we are for the weekly character again. It's gonna be a busy week (I'm moving into another apartment in Bologna, the city where I attend university) and I won't have much time to write on here... or do anything apart from lifting boxes and walking stairs. Sheesh.

Hope you enjoy this week's character: he's a bit of a charmer, you could say.


Saturday, August 24, 2013

Halfling in Space!

Hiya all. In the previous article, I wrote about my Star Wars homebrew rules. As always when running a roleplaying session, I make maps to make everything feel more alive... I think that really provides the players with a kind of immersion that is otherwise hard to achieve. So, I thought: Why not sharing some of those maps with you folks?
Although these maps take scale into account, they have no grid or hexagons or whatever. They're here just to provide a visual reference for what's going on (my Star Wars system doesn't have strict rules on distance, instead enhancing the cinematic action and avoiding endless turns with loads of actions).



Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Oups! Realizing you're working on something that has already been done.

Hello everyone. Today I decided to write about something that has probably happened to everyone at some point in his life: discovering that something you had put a variable amount of effort into, a "creation" of some sort, (comic book, novel, game system, boardgame...) has already been done by someone else.
Is this a pointless rant? Maybe. But I guess a blog can be a good place for a rant. Now, why this blog? Because this kind of dreaded, unforeseen, discouraging trend has applied to three (THREE!) of my ideas in the last few months. Let's see:

  1. I had been working on a Pathfinder adventure that pitched the heroes against a horde of hobgoblins, bugbears and mercenaries. It was meant to be structured as a military campaign, featuring battles happening following a timeline. The PCs would have had a chance to slow and eventually stop the menace of the invading horde. The title on the first draft was: The Black Horde. The hobgoblins would have a distinctive look, kind of a samurai-based armor, to match their belligerent but still lawful nature. And then I got to know that:
    - A D&D 3.5 adventure from James Jacobs (which humorously enough works on Pathfinder) and Richard Baker, The Red Hand of Doom, features an horde of invading hobgoblins, with a timeline of events happening in strategic locations in the Elsir Vale.
    - There's a region in Golarion, called Kaoling, that is ruled by eastern-looking hobgoblins. It's part of the Tian Xia continent.
    ... Hell yeah, not only the whole concept for the adventure was now redundant, I even got to throw away a dozen nice ideas on samurai hobgoblins. NICE.
  2. I happen to know some Star Wars - crazy geeks, and they happen to be my friends, and we all happen to like roleplaying. Since I honestly couldn't adjust Pathfinder to work with George Lucas' narrative universe, I developed a quick and slim rule system, using d6s only, that allowed for heavy roleplay and "theatre of the mind" situations, without any grids or movement or anything like that. To further implement a narrative element, I had 1s and 6s on d6s represent aces and troubles, which canceled each other and, if any remained, would allow for bad and good things to happen in addition to the you fail/you succeed dichotomy. The whole character generation took about 15 minutes and the system looked smooth. I had of course no intention to sell something like this (it's Star Wars, so it's subject to copyright) but the system on its own looked nice, and that was my brainchild... until Star Wars: Edge of the Empire came out, and I watched a couple of videos on youtube, and damn. Although the dice system is different, the advantage/threat rules strongly resemble my concept. The fact that it's Star Wars related makes me think that, when confronted with that kind of universe and given the already available RPG sources on it, creative minds come to similar solutions. Which, if you're the one hired by Fantasy Flight Games, is great. On the other hand, if you're the one sitting in front of his computer killing his eyes after a full afternoon of study, things are quite grim.
  3. Last but not least, being the tinkering little bastard that I am, in my "spare" time (which is to say, while not working on the other two things) I was throwing down some ideas for a skirmish-size miniatures game. I had been playing Okamiden (stunning game) and thought "all right, I'd love to see some minis with a strong japanese feel. Not anime-like, really, I was thinking about Hokusai. I checked the internet to avoid, you know what? Working on an already existing concept. I found nothing. I was overjoyed. Had I found a little, empty niche for an hypothetical product?
    I worked on it, got the rules ready for playtest, built some characters... and then, while on coolminiornot, I stumbled upon Bushido: New Dawn, an existing game that had the EXACT SAME THEME AND BATTLE SIZE AND CONCEPTS. The rules were different in many ways, but the whole atmosphere was there.
So, you could still say this is a rant. It probably is. But it comes from someone that already has lots of stuff to do, and still can't restrain himself from game design. I understand (really!) that at the same time, different people in different parts of the world can come up with the same idea. It's natural. It happened with some of the greatest scientific discoveries, so why should the tabletop market be any different? Still, when you have to throw away a whole lot of work because of this kind of conjunction, it makes you angry. And then you go on your blogger page and write a stupid rant. Hell.

... When this kind of thing happens, you risk immobilism. I'll try to fight that (I always do), but honestly, three in a row? Holy crap.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

The Weekly Character: Maele Azoria

(still in a hurry, terribly busy)
... half-elf cleric, level 1 pregen, 20 point buy, thus legal for Pathfinder Society. Art from the incredibly talented Steve Prescott. That dude never ceases to amaze me.
I hope one day I'll get half as good as him.



Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Weekly Character: Ediard Lenkar

Hooray! Back to you with another level 1 pregenerated character, 20 points buy and Pathfinder Society legal I guess (half-orc, magus).
Sadly I'm in a hurry (academy paintings need to be done ASAP) so I'll just leave you with my friend Ediard, he's a nice guy. Just don't get him started on the whole weapons versus magic discussion, he'd talk about that for days.

Cheers!



Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Grayfield Manor: PDF (first version)

It's finally here!...
Clicking the link below, you'll have access to the PDF version of the adventure. It's completely free, so take a look and, if you happen to run it or just have some advice to give me, feel free to write a comment. As I wrote in the title of the post, this is a first version. There's plenty of time to improve!

Grayfield Manor PDF

Enjoy, everyone!

Monday, August 5, 2013

The Weekly Character: Zibog the Hobgoblin

Character came early this week! (actually, I'll probably be busy with university stuff during the coming days and it's wiser to post this now).


The piece above is from D&D 4th Monster Manual: Steve Prescott, folks.


This week the character is an NPC, a hobgoblin cleric of Asmodeus. I chose Asmodeus because he's lawful evil and the society and religion entry for hobgoblins in the advanced race guide for Pathfinder says they usually worship powerful tyrants of hell and other devils. Well, I guess Asmodeus is the most tyrannical, slavery-promoting, intrigue expert of all the devils, and can give his followers a distinctive appearance, with horns, long black and red cloaks, and that heavy, menacing black spiked mace. He also grants his clerics both buffing and offensive powers, in the form of the law and fire domains (that I chose for Zibog here).
About Zibog himself: I love how hobgoblins are like the goblinoid nazis in Pathfinder. I also love nazis from a story-telling point of view: you can do anything to them and never feel guilty. Kinda like zombies. Write a comic where a nazi or a zombie get tossed into a shredder machine and everyone is like "Hooray!"; do the same with anything else and people start getting upset. BUT I digress.
As I was saying, hobgoblins are fantasy nazis, and they're a great monster race for a militaristic, warfare-oriented campaign. I'm currently working on an adventure whose structure is fairly complex: it will probably be suited for 4th level PCs and basically it will be about defending a small province from the growing attacks of hobgoblins and their allies (bugbears, monsters, and even some human mercenaries). The whole thing is still in a very early stage, but I want this to feel like a true conflict, where PCs won't be able to participate in all the battles and will have to choose where to act in order to win the struggle. It will also have significant moments of truce between one fight (or, should I say, "mission", given there won't be just combat encounters) and the other, allowing for the PCs to rest and recuperate their strengths. This gives me a chance to challenge the players with high CR encounters, because they will almost always be at full potential. I'll let you know how things go.

That said, Zibog will probably be one of the baddies in the adventure. He's not the BBEG (mwah mwah I'll never tell you who that is mwah mwah), but he still has some tricks up his sleeve. In combat, he prefers to reach a raised position and hurl divine fire at his opponents; when cornered, his ability to channel negative energy can weaken opponents and even finish them after his soldiers have dealt enough damage.
Mood: Greedy, arrogant but quite intelligent and aware of everyone's qualities and flaws. He's opportunistic by nature and, while not believing hobgoblins are a "master race", he surely thinks they can secure a good portion of the land for themselves.
Goals: Although Zibog's goals will be tied to the adventure, he is basically trying to help his people building a fortress and rule a province from there.
What he likes: Fire. Although not mesmerized by flames the way a goblin is, Zibog takes great pleasure in burning his enemies to ashes, and can sense his lord Asmodeus' glory in the fire.
What he hates: Whatever (or whoever) provides him with material proof of his inferiority when compared to something or someone. Zibog suffers from quite the patological kind of pride.

Here are Zibog's stats, complete with gear and equipment. His Challenge Rating is 3. His abilities array is the standard one for heroic NPCs and his favored class is Cleric (4x bonus hit points).

ZIBOG
CR 3 (800 exp)

Male hobgoblin cleric (Asmodeus) 4
LE medium humanoid (goblinoid)
Init +0; Senses Darkvision 60 ft., Perception +3
---DEFENSE
AC 18, touch 10, flat-footed 18 (+6 armor, +2 shield)
hp 34 (4d8+12)
Fort +6, Ref +1, Will +7
---OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft.
Melee mwk cold iron heavy mace +4 (1d8)
Ranged light crossbow +4 (1d8/19-20)
Special Attacks Channel Negative Energy 2d6 (DC 14, 5/day), Fire Bolt (1d6+2, 6/day)
Cleric spells prepared (CL 4th, concentration +7)
  2nd - cure moderate wounds (DC 15), hold person (DC 15), produce flame*
  1st - cause fear (2) (DC 14), magic weapon, protection from chaos*, shield of faith
  0th - detect magic, mending, read magic, stabilize
  * Domain spell
Domains Fire, Law
---STATISTICS
Str 10 Dex 10 Con 14 Int 13 Wis 16 Cha 14
Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 13
Feats Scribe Scroll, Selective Channeling
Skills Appraise +5, Diplomacy +6, Heal +7, Intimidate +6, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (History) +5, Knowledge (Religion) +5, Sense Motive +7, Spellcraft +5, Stealth -2 Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth
Languages Common, Goblin, Infernal
SQ Aura of Evil, Aura of Law, Orisons, Spontaneous Casting, Touch of Law (6/day)
Possessions mwk cold iron heavy mace, light crossbow (10 bolts), masterwork chainmail, heavy steel shield, scroll of cure light wounds (2), cleric's vestments, silver unholy symbol of Asmodeus, waterskin (full, water), red leather gloves (worth 10 gp), red leather boots (worth 20 gp), black and red cloak.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Playtesting your own Adventure: Can you leave the table unscathed?

Hello everyone (if there's someone out there, actually I don't know. On blogger no one can hear you scream, I guess...).
As I previously stated here on Halfling's Den, yesterday evening I ran my own adventure, "Grayfield Manor", for a group of 7 players (6 males, 1 female). Although I've been GMing for a bit, I never had to "playtest" something that would have been published online. I thought some people might be interested in reading about this kind of experience, so I wrote down a list of "goods" and "bads". Everything in this post (and on this whole blog, actually), is strongly IMHO. Furthermore, please understand that the following text contains some spoilers about the adventure itself, so do mind that when reading.
First of all, the party composition:
- Female 1st level catfolk fighter (melee, weapon finesse and two-weapon fighting).
- Male 1st level oread monk (archetype: monk of the four winds).
- Male 1st level grippli wizard (archetype: spellslinger).
- Male 1st level elf warrior (ranged, longbow plus point-blank shot and precise shot).
- Male 1st level human inquisitor (trickery domain).
- Male 1st level dhampir summoner (quadruped eidolon with bite and reach).
- Male 1st level human druid (with animal companion, deinonychus).

Please note the absence of a strong healer (the total healings the party had were two Cure light wounds spells prepared by the druid, and a Potion of cure light wounds obtained from an NPC. However, they were very solid 25 points PCs, so I ran the adventure as written without making any adjustments, basically assuming my players were a good equivalent of a 2nd level balanced party made of 4 to 5 adventurers including a cleric, a fighter, a wizard and a rogue.

The GOODS
(I like to start with those)

1. The gears are in the right place: Or as you could say, the adventure works, mechanically speaking. The PCs faced the three combat encounters and the traps in the order I had anticipated, and although somewhat limited by their lack of a good number of "tanks" and quite slowed by their numbers (they had a total of NINE models, and the kobolds were 8 to 6 based on the encounter), managed to reach the final fight without losing anyone. Which is good, because the last combat in this adventure can easily kill a couple of PCs, if not carefully managed. Both the players and I rolled incredibly bad and we saw only one 20, while I counted about twelve natural 1s, so the rolls were balanced (although in the boring way; more on that later).
This means I don't have to rewrite any encounter; which is a great achievement.
2. They liked the setting: This is a bit narcissistic of mine, but the players liked the hamlet of Copperwood and its inhabitants. They engaged in a lot of conversation with the patrons at the tavern and even joined the Middenlog brothers playing cards. The names felt right.
3. No one died: Three of the players (the catfolk fighter, the human druid and the elf ranger) were completely new to D&D and roleplaying games. The rest had no experience with Pathfinder, although they played D&D 3.5 so it was easy to get going. Not knowing what to do and how to do it, the newbies were sometimes in danger of getting pierced to death by kobold spears. The more experienced ones helped them creating a plan of action and there were no casualties (the kobolds, on the contrary, died of horrible deaths). I always love when a newcomer to D&D emerges alive from their first game.
4. Funny PCs: When you ask your players to build throwaway PCs, you know you're in for some twisted characters. Although some PCs were OK, like the elf fighter and human inquisitor, the grippli ("Calamity Kermit"), dhampir ("Edward Fallen") and druid's deinonychus ("Denver") were bat-shit crazy.
5. Funny battle plans: When your monk grabs a kobold, holds it in mid-air and then drops it face first in the trap the kobold itself burrowed into the ground, you can't but laugh. When you realize that one hour ago your druid purchased whisky from Copperwood's emporium just to create a molotov cocktail and throw it at the final boss' minions, you realize it's genius. Then a player finds the precious Elixir of red dragon breath that, along with some negotiation, would persuade the kobold sorceress Gonthlarym to simply leave the manor and hand the PCs the medical recipe they were looking for, looks at it for about 1 second, and although knowing the sorceress was clearly prone to negotiation (damn, I had her learn Common for a reason, folks!), drinks it at once and unleashes 7d6 fire damage on the kobold spearmen and the druid, incinerating the kobolds and almost killing the poor druid. CRAZY. The adventure assumed that Gonthlarym, if the elixir was lost or the PCs refused giving it to her and attacked, simply swallowed the recipe the players were looking for. However, the inquisitor cast Command blocking her for 1 round, and then the PCs simply assumed (rightly) that she had the recipe on her and easily got it. I was amused, but there were some problems too. More on this later.

The BADS
(ouch)

1. Bad rolls: As I mentioned before, both the players and the GM rolled poorly during the whole adventure. Heck, as a general rule the rolls were 10 or less. I can't count the times my kobolds rolled 1 on the damage die, thus dealing no damage because of their poor Strength. Don't get me wrong, this is assumed to happen, just not this frequently. High Armor Classes, low rolls: combat lasted too long and people started to get bored. Only the spellslinger, with his ability to negate armor bonuses (see firearms rules), could avoid missing consistently. I hate when this happens, and under normal circumstances would have faked some hits or misses, but I was playtesting the encounter as written and rolled my dice where the players could see them.
2. Funny battle plans: Turns out they were too funny. Now, when I gathered these players for the session I knew what their play style was. Not a lot of dramatic and intense roleplay, doing things "for the lulz" and the likes. Hacking and slashing at things, people, animals, or air if necessary. The newbies (especially the druid) were more of the same. You know how it's going to roll when the first question you're asked after having described a building is "how does it work, destroying walls?..."
Now, these people are not dumb, they're not jerks, and most of all they're not aggressive. They're simply playing to have fun and kill some monsters, no big philosophical questions when faced with a harmless kobold female whose fellow reptilians the PCs had exterminated without even thinking about what they were doing. That's why they got the recipe, killed the kobold (burning down the manor in the process) and exposed Copperwood to retaliation from the rest of the kobold tribe. Kinda like "You're not going to die because of the sickness, guys! However, once you've stopped coughing, take those goddamn spears 'cause there's a whole army of scaly bastards coming for your hides."
3. Well that escalated quickly: I'm not whining, nor am I usually disappointed when players do things in a way I hadn't thought of. But the last hour of the session was simply outrageously crazy. It wasn't just about breaking the constraints of the written module; it was about pinning logic against a wall and breath fire against it. And this taught me a lesson.

The LESSON
(learning from your experiences is fundamental, children)

1. Thou shall have faith in your encounter building/combat math abilities.
2. Thou shall not, however, give your monsters high ACs. More hit points are better. Players feel better when hitting and not killing than when wasting twelve arrows against a 5 hp kobold.
3. Thou shall anticipate the most frequent choices players will make during an adventure.
4. Thou shall not, however, think you're safe from their awesome, crazy ideas. That's impossible.
5. Thou shall write an adventure with a certain type of player in mind (roleplayer, monster basher, chaotic evil jerk).
6. Thou shall not expect your adventure to be fitting for every kind of player.

What this all means, basically, is that I realized it's impossible to know where things will lead once the GM screen is on the table and the character sheets are out. Some say that no adventure can work for any group without a GM to tailor it to suit the needs of his players. That's very, very true. We had a good time; but I'm aware of the fact that, had I not been running the module "letter-by-letter", instead changing things on the fly to better appeal to all players, things would have been great.
Does this mean I won't write any more adventures because "they can't work without a GM"? Hells no. That's the beautiful part of roleplaying: it means something different for everyone, and all you can do when writing is to give someone enough informations to run your story, which suddenly becomes HIS OWN. A hybrid, something along the lines of a cadavre exquis.

Have a great time playing, folks!

Friday, August 2, 2013

The Weekly Character: Gralgor Copperhall

Whoa-hey! Great news everyone, tomorrow evening I'll be running Grayfield Manor, my one-shot adventure for Halfling's Den, for the first time. I've gathered a bunch of old and new players (a good assortment, given this adventure is for 1st to 3rd level PCs) and I sure hope we'll have a good time. Interestingly enough, one of the newbies is a girl (the first girl to be playing in this group, while the other one I GM for has three) and it will be nice to see how she will, not being too used to boardgames, react to a RPG session. Once we're done with the adventure, I'll post some of my thoughts and stuff like that... I guess.
But I digress. Here we have this week's character. I always loved the idea of a dwarven paladin, however, that damn -2 to Charisma can prevent them to be 100% efficient once at the table. And then I read about the Stonelord, an incredibly peculiar archetype for dwarven paladins. It simply forgets about Charisma and transforms your 5 feet tall, bearded and brawny defender of all that is good into an elementally-fueled basher (see "stonestrike", below, for a thorough description of bashing).
A couple more things: this PC is 20-point buy; this, along with being core-race and core-class, makes it legal for Pathfinder Society play, which is a plus. The art, as noted on the picture itself, is from Eric Belisle, and was originally meant to represent an Antipaladin. However, the kilt-wearing guy never looked that evil to me... As always, if you're the owner of this art and don't like its badassery to be displayed here, just leave a note in the comments down here. I'll remove it.




To use this pregen sheet, just print it and (if you want to use it multiple times) ask someone to laminate the paper. This way you can use a marker to mark HPs and the likes, then erase it with water.