Illustration by David Rapoza.

In part one of our look at Players’ Option: Heroes of Shadow, we discussed the new classes and class builds. In this installment, we’re going to take a look at the options meant to supplement previous material such as the new feats, races and paragon paths. Some players will consider it a bummer that the new classes in Heroes of Shadow are ‘constrained’ by Essentials-style designs. For example, over the entire  heroic tier, a Vampire player only has to decide what his level 2 utility power is. That means anybody hoping for an entirely new ‘old-school’ class is out of luck.

Still, there’s still much in the book for people like me who still prefer Player’s Handbook builds. As Antioch at Points of Light has already noted, pre-Essentials classes can avail of  new races, powers, paragon paths, epic destinies and feats that can be used even in campaigns you’ve started pre-Heroes of Shadow. There are also write-ups for a few of the core races which tell you how to give them a darker place in a campaign set primarily amidst Points of Darkness.

Of the new races the most interesting are the Vryloka. They possess the vitality of vampires but without the taint of undeath. They’re like the new Tieflings, except instead of being the descendants of damned Turathi nobles, the Vryloka are from a kingdom even more ancient than Bael Turath. They acquired their power from the Red Witch, a mysterious figure likely to be touched on in future supplements. The Revenants, who were introduced as a DDI exclusive way back in Dragon 376, are deceased individuals revived by the Raven Queen. Shades are individuals who trade a part of their soul for the negative energy of the Shadowfell.

I find it interesting that all the new races have the option of a DEX/CHA stat bonus configuration, which means that just about all of them have the potential to make excellent rogues and assassins. Save for the addition of a floating modifier and the rewording of certain features, Revenants remain mechanically identical to their original appearance. Shades and Vryloka introduce racial utility powers, which players can choose in place of class powers to bring the dark ancestry of their characters to the fore.

Illustration by Mark Winters.

As noted, there are many powers you can take or retrain into for characters you already have. Wizards could choose among the various nethermantic and necromantic powers intended for Mages, which inflict a lot of direct suffering like Rotting Doom, a level 1 at-will that negates healing for an entire round. Clerics might want to poach Raven’s Talon, a level 7 encounter power for Death Domain Warpriests which can fell near-dead enemies to grant a nearby ally a healing surge. Paladins should consider the Blackguard’s Frenzying Smite, a level 5 daily that dishes 4-weapon damage and isolates the target from the front line.

As far as feats go, Heroes of Shadow feats follow the trend established by the Essentials feats. That means power creep, plain and simple. That’s because the designers are now phasing out the need for multiple feats to develop your focus on a particular weapon or implement. By providing kickers like preventing enemies from granting combat advantage or gaining attack bonuses against bloodied opponents, the new Expertise feats just seem to be obvious choices. On the other hand, interesting feat trees like the Born of Shadow allows you to build a character that thrives in dim light or darkness.

I don’t really have the epic tier experience to speak of the  nuances of the new Epic Destinies. However, the ten new Paragon Paths which provide shadowy options of shadowness for shadowy players of any class or power source are cool. I’m interested in exploring the Nocturnal, which allows primal classes like my Dragonborn Thaneborn Barbarian Multiclass Warlord to become life-draining predators of the night. As for my Tiefling Psion Multiclass Wizard, I doubt he’d go gritty, but if he did I’d take Shadow Shaper if only because he’s already optimized in such a way to synergize with the psychic damage, which this path specializes in.

The book doesn’t give much in the way of new swag. Only four new items are listed,’ though I’m a little puzzled by whether these qualify as truly mundane items despite being labeled as ‘adventuring gear’. For example, the use of blessed soil to keep the dead from rising as undead would be useful for any ‘Schattenjäger’-type hero, while a raven’s feather allows you to know whether the person it is attuned to is dead. They are certainly more ‘fluff-potent’ than a rope made of giant hair or a sunrod. If anything, these seem like they would have been rituals if rituals hadn’t already fallen by the wayside since Essentials.

Illustration by Albert Dal Lago.

If there are any shortcomings in Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow, it’s that while it provides a wealth of options for players who want to flirt with powers and origins from the dark side it just doesn’t care about how such characters influence party dynamics or campaign building. These are things that players can work on with their DMs to be sure, but considering the amount of help that the Power books, Player’s Strategy Guide and Player’s Handbook Races give in this regard, it’s something I consider an oversight.

That said, it’s still a pretty neat book, it just isn’t enough of a must-have to justify a price tag of 30 American dollars.  Otherwise, it’s a good supplement for groups that are really committed to a campaign filled with shadowy protagonists with shadowy motivations in a campaign that supports their shadowy deeds.

If you enjoyed this review of Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow, or any other post here at My Girlfriend is a DM, consider supporting us by donating to our PayPal account or by purchasing a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition role-playing game product from our Amazon store. Your purchase or payment will help support this blog as well as events like POLYHEDRAL.

Illustration by William O'Connor.

The aggregated consciousness of the collective RPG blogosphere has already dispensed its fair share of opinions on Player’s Options: Heroes of Shadow, the latest book for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Rather than attempt to summarize or respond those opinions, I’m going to go straight into my own review.

Heroes of Shadow is the first hardcover supplement to be released by Wizards of the Coast since they accidentally printed the Dark Sun Creature Catalog onto hardcovers. It introduces a new power source – the shadow power source – and discusses its place in the Dungeons & Dragons core universe. It then introduces new classes, builds, feats and powers that players can use to tap into it.

In effect, Heroes of Shadow is Player’s Handbook 4. I suspect that Wizards of the Coast just doesn’t call it that because numeric labeling could be off putting to potential new players, which is what the Essentials’ brand identity is all about. Personally, I’m waiting for Heroes of the Exoticized Orient, where I can tap into the bad-ass abilities of the Asian power source.

The first chapter opens with an introduction to the Shadowfell, and describes how various individuals can tap into its power. There’s a lot of shadow this and shadow that in every paragraph, and while I fully intend to make serious use of the flavor material provided here, I can’t help but think “In the dark shadows of the Shadowdark, emerges a grim and shadowy figure.”

There’s also an interesting bit about how to depict a bargain between a player character and The Raven Queen. It’s nothing Girlfriend DM hasn’t done before, albeit differently, but it is still interesting for DMs who haven’t considered how to create a formal and concrete relationship between a player character and a patron god, particularly a dark one with ties to the shadows.

The bulk of Heroes of Shadow is in the second chapter, which presents the new classes and class builds. Most of these make use of the Essentials style of class build, which means a stronger and more specific flavor to them, but your powers are locked down based on key decisions you make (in the case of the executioner, your selection of guild determines at-will powers) rather than being a free for all.

Illustration by Eric Belisle.

The Binder is a malicious class that deals in psychic and shadow damage, but most notably she gains unique summons at 9th and 25th level. They have their own stat blocks and are no slouch in the combat department. For example, compared to previous summons, the Shadow Lurk has beefier defenses, a speed of 8 and a 10 foot partial concealment aura, plus the power to make allies invisible as a minor action. Warlocks are Girlfriend DM’s fave, so we’ll definitely give this build a try.

I never really examined The Executioner when it was sampled in Dragon 391 and 394.  An Assassin build that stacks flavor on top of its mechanics, the Executioner is fairly interesting. For example, when using a garrote he can prevent an enemy from speaking. He can also apply poisons on food, drink and objects to inflict penalties for one adventuring day (i.e. ‘before the next extended rest’). It definitely appeals to players who want a more malicious brand of rogue or assassin.

The Vampire class – no relation to the Dhampyr and Vampiric Bloodline feats from Dragon 371 –allows you to transform your chosen race into a ‘lethal creature of the night.’ Of course, as a DEX/CHA based Striker class, some races synergize better than others. A Vampire must manage her hit points and surges carefully. Allies can loan her surges to regain her bloodied value, and she can steal surges from enemies. She’ll need it cause she only gets TWO surges after every rest. No CON modifier bonus, just two.

The ‘dark paladin’ known as the Blackguard has the heavy armor and resilience of a defender, but his dark nature means he’s a striker: oriented towards destruction, not protection. Dark Menace functions as his damage bonus, which allows him to deal CHA modifier damage against enemies granting combat advantage. Like Avengers and Sorcerers, Blackguards are reliable strikers. I like Domination Blackguards more since the damage bonus scales with level growth.

These classes follow the Essential style of class build, which means that classes like the Vampire follow a relatively linear progression with few level-up decisions to be made. For those spoiled rotten by the amount of choices in pre-Essentials classes, they won’t get the kind of satisfaction out of leveling up that they would from more complex build patterns.

Still, if your party is made up mostly of players who like to play brooding and gritty characters, or you want a few less than heroic origins and motivations, these characters are for you. In the second and final installment of this review, I’ll be looking at the new races and the options presented for use by pre-existing classes.

Illustration by William OConnor.

If I wasn’t bound by time, space and money, I’d probably run every single published adventure I could get my hands on. Now I understand that there’s some pride to be taken from making your own stuff, and there are definitely a great many campaign and adventure ideas I’d like to develop myself. Still, I get drawn to pre-made content because it gets me thinking about how other people approach adventure design and how such designs are presented.

That’s one of the reasons why I decided to run Bark at the Moon, a full-length adventure extravaganza penned by the prolific Robert J. Schwalb for Dungeon 185, last February. While I could have handled the execution better, I’m pretty pleased with it. Bark at the Moon’s premise centers around re-emerging hostilities between eladrin and lycanthropes residing in the Feywild. There are a lot of evocative bits: a town gripped by fear of night time assaults, an eladrin battle maiden spectre and a werewolf lord resented by his clansmen.

The adventure places great emphasis on the passage of time and the use of skill challenges. The former gives a sense of urgency to the adventure and the latter is used to advance player knowledge. Not that my players had any need to feel pressured. They were very intent on learning as much as they could, yet avoided wasting time on making random checks simply because they felt stumped into caution.

The skill challenges are much better than usual as they help the DM in matters of exposition, even if the players start out by simply throwing skill checks around to see what sticks. The only real challenge my players faced was that they didn’t have enough hours to indulge in an extended rest, making the last battles a challenge. Whether or not that was intended design isn’t something I’m going to second guess.

Illustration by William O'Connor.

Still, an important measure of any adventure – in my opinion – is how much stress it can endure from the capricious whims of an adventuring party. I think it holds up pretty well. The antagonist’s deal is pretty broadly defined that a DM can shoehorn just about any idea that the players come up with. In my case, I decided that the antagonist had been posing as a shrine caretaker and had moved a stone marker that represented the uneasy peace that was in place between the eladrin and the lycanthropes.

The most successful encounter I think is the one where the players have to speak with the eladrin battle maiden ghost. I got a lot of RP mileage out of that. It’s an important encounter that serves to give a sense that there are things happening beyond what the party sees before them, and the gist of the encounter is so simple, that a DM can easily run it without much awkwardness (as is usually the case with published skill challenges.)

I think Bark at the Moon follows in the footsteps of HS1 The Slaying Stone: The players get a lot of autonomy on how to solve problems, but the DM gets a decent amount of structure to work around their general unpredictability. The premise is slightly better than Slaying Stone, where instead of hunting for a magical McGuffin, they have to Kill a Foozle who has a very interesting reason for being.

Metagame is written and directed mostly by Matthew David,  and stars John Rael, Leeman Parker, Sophie Green, and Jen Brown in addition to David as Tom the DM. They graciously offered their time to answer my questions. This is part two of the interview.

Matthew David as Tom.

My favorite aspect of the series so far is how much attention you give to the dysfunctional qualities of Shawn, Terri and Doug. How do you come up with such well-layered idiots?

Matthew: I’ve got to say that Sophie, John and Leeman have done an amazing job bringing them to life!  On the writing side, I owe their layers to  rules on comedic character writing I picked up from John Vorhaus’s The Comic Toolbox. I took a personality I’d actually seen around a gametable at some point and exaggerated it as far as I could.  Then I added in some sprinklings of humanity to give them depth, personality traits that would make them more than just cardboard cutouts.  Mostly variations on insecurity.

Then it was just a matter of putting all the characters in a room in my head, coming up with a strong first line to kick off a scene, and write down what they said as fast as I could.  Most of the time I had as little clue how a scene would end as a viewer at home would.  I just let their voices carry the way.

Sophie, where does Terri’s slightly unhinged sensibility come from?

Sophie: It stems from a desire to be liked so much, [combined with her] sexual frustration and large mood swings. I’ve always loved how Matt wrote her as having a teasing type of sense humor. She’s one of the guys, but not at the same time.

John Rael as Shawn.

John: I think it comes from Sean’s general naivete and therefore sexual inexperience/ignorance: He just really doesn’t understand and doesn’t even know how to pretend to understand. The character Terri is just as naive, but makes great efforts pretending not to be.

Leeman, from what aspect of yourself do you draw upon to channel Doug’s schizoid qualities?

Leeman: I am pretty lucky that Doug and I are pretty similar.  This is good because it means I don’t have to act, which is good because I’m not a good actor.  When John and Matt told me about the character they told me just to play it like myself.  Now after getting through all these episodes and seeing what Doug is like I don’t know how I feel about people thinking that I act the same as Doug.

For all intents and purposes, Tom and Sara are the ‘straight arrows’ of the group. Now they are awkwardly drawn to one another in nerd romance. What’s that all about, Jen?

Jennifer: I think that the two characters are linked because they are the “normal” ones; they recognize the ridiculousness of the characters around them and that gives them a kind of kinship. The nerd romance creates extra tension for the characters, more than their wacky antics alone could do, and helps give the series a shape.

Jennifer Brown as Sara.

Jennifer and John, on top of your role as performers, the two of you also had directorial responsibilities. What was it like directing yourself in episodes like “Behind Their Backs,” “Nerdflirting,” and “A Long Time Ago”?

Jennifer: Directing was pretty surreal. It was my first time directing film, and I had no idea what I was doing. Luckily, everyone is very kind and patient. Animating the episodes is a pretty big job, but I think being on set helps with the animations. A lot of them are from jokes during filming, or a funny idea that an actor comes up with.

John: For me, it was a blast, but I’m really glad that I had Matt and Karus [Marshall-Walsch, series cinematographer and editor] to help me with filming because I end up being a lot more focused on all of our performances and can tend to forget details like where the camera is pointing.

So, off-camera, do any of you happen to roll dice on a weekly basis? If so, how close is your tabletop persona to your on-screen character’s personality?

Jennifer: I played a bit when I was younger but then nothing until starting this series. Matt, John, Sophie and I got together a bit to play, and I really got in to it. My tabletop persona is a bit more hack-and-slash than my character’s persona; she’s always looking for the humanitarian response, and I tend to go in swinging.

Sophie Green as Terri.

John: The first time I played it was in high school; there was no board or figurines, and we had to spend most of the night creating our characters. I was frustrated by the random stuff our DM was ‘pulling out of his ass.’ Playing with Matt was much more fun, quick, and painless. I tend to get excited and bossy: pretty much the same way that most guys get when they play Halo.

Sophie: Terri and I are very different from one another. Terri loves being evil, I love being the good characters. I like battle characters, she’s all about magic. Terri also has an overt sexuality she brings to the game table, which makes me uncomfortable but you’ve got to love how bold she is as a player. I wish I was as dark as she was sometimes.

Matthew: I wish I had time for a weekly game.  As it is, my weekly games quickly turn into either monthly games or yearly games.  I gave Dark Sun a whirl last month with a group of my old D&D comrades, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to swing another one anytime soon.  Too busy roleplaying with cameras to roleplay with dice.  So sad.

Leeman: I still have yet to play D&D.  I have been asked a few times to sit down and play a game, but I just don’t think I have it in me.  Sitting around for a few hours a month pretending to play a game is enough for me.

Leeman Parker as Doug.

What’s coming up next on Metagame, and what are your plans with regards to the show’s future? How many more episodes should we expect it to run?

Matthew: As you can see from Episode 8, we’re taking our crew of knuckleheads away from their regular environment of Tom’s table and seeing what’s it’s like when they run amok by themselves.  Expect a couple more episodes in that vein. Season One is planned for 11 episodes.  There’s still a big question as to whether or not there will be a Season Two.  We’ve got different projects that we want to try and only so much time available to work on them.

Metagame is written and directed mostly by Matthew David,  and stars John Rael, Leeman Parker, Sophie Green, and Jen Brown in addition to David as Tom the DM. They graciously offered their time to answer my questions. This is part one of the interview, part two will be up on Thursday.

"I slit your throat!" (From Episode 4: "TPK")

Metagame debuted on the web relatively quietly, with little pomp and fanfare heralding its presence. Tell us a bit about Metagame.

Matthew: We were slow getting out into the public.  I was getting kinda despondent over the lack of responses I was getting [after emailing as many RPG and D&D sites as I could find] until out of the blue ENWorld’s Morrus put us on the front page.  That was a good day.

Oddly enough, I stumbled upon the show by doing a YouTube search for D&D humor. I discovered your show simply because I needed something for Video Wednesday.

Matthew: I’m pleased the YouTube search gods were smiling on us that day.

What is Metagame really about?

Sophie: I think it’s about people who find a world to control when they perhaps don’t always fit in the normal/boring world. It’s about a group of friends who are facing themselves and each other.

Leeman: It’s about the whole role playing game lifestyle and the bizarre and odd personalities that choose to play.  It’s also about a group of friends hanging out and having fun.

Matthew: The series is about insecurity! The game table provides the launching point for the characters, [and] the series is about them, their relationships with one another, the faces they present to the world and the insecurity which boils beneath. I thought it’d be a lot of fun to show that with a tabletop role-playing game as the backdrop.

Jennifer: It started as a way to flex our movie-making muscles. We had collaborated previously on other projects, and were looking for more things to do.

John: We’re actors who were sick of just ‘waiting’ to work so we decided to make our own. And in the digital age, this wasn’t very hard. We’ve all learned a hell of a lot about the process of film making.

"You were playing without us!" (Episode 7: "Behind Their Backs")

Everybody’s got their fair share of jokes about player antics at the tabletop. It’s pretty much a staple of gamer culture. What compelled you to put the time, money and resources to turn yours into a web series?

Matthew: There are many reasons. First of all, when we started [Metagame] no one else was currently doing anything quite like it, and I thought someone should be.  Second, I’d just finished taking a class on sketch writing for the internet at Second City, and a lesson I learned was to make something about a topic you have a lot of love and passion for.  And I thought, “That’s D&D!”  Write about what you know, right?

John: The subject matter is fairly ‘untapped’ by sketch comedy. There have been a million sketch/webseries about videogames, but hardly anything noteworthy about role playing games. It was also about the characters that Matt wrote. I wanted to play every character, shoot every scene, and edit every episode. Not to mention that I always want to work with Matt.

Leeman: I felt that Metagame had something different about it.  It seemed to be more than just surface level jokes about nerds. The scripts were really funny and John and Matt told me that to play the character I just had to be myself, and I figured I could handle that.

"I've got a Slave Leia outfit I can use for cosplay!" (From Episode 5: "A Long Time Ago")

Matthew: It’s been a great chance to work out our creative and technical muscles.  I liked the chance to mix in some animation with live action and throw in a slowly evolving story while I was at it.  It’s a project that’s challenged all of us and made us stronger on a lot of levels.  Every episode has been a great learning process.  I sometimes joke that Metagame is the film school that I never had.

Jennifer: I got really excited about it because I had just started learning to animate with Flash, mostly just for fun, and wanted to see just what I could do with it. You can kind of tell that the animations are pretty rough in the beginning episodes, but I hope they’re getting better.

John: No matter what happens, working on the series has been worth more than half a dozen classes in editing, lighting, photography, etc.

What’s up with those long-winded synopses that are in the show notes of every episode?

Matthew: Ha!  I quickly realized that in each episode viewers generally arrive to the game world in media res, so I wanted to give the audience a chance to catch up with what was happening.  They’re a way to get clued in to the “moment before.”  I write them how I think Tom would write them if he was keeping a game journal.  But mostly they’re for my own twisted amusement.  I get a huge kick over writing a piece of an epic tale that might in no way, shape, or form be used in the episode itself.

"I rolled a 14 on my pickpocket, what did I get?" (From Episode 1: "Pilot")

How much of the material is improvised by you and how much of it is pre-written or based directly on your own experiences?

Leeman: I would like to say that it is improvised since that would make me sound like a very creative, on-the-spot type of guy, but it is all written.  With that said, I am terrible at memorizing lines and so what I say is usually not exactly what is written, but it’s usually pretty close so I don’t get in too much trouble.

John: Pretty much all of it is scripted, however with my character Sean it’s extremely easy to turn a three word line into a full performance piece.

Jennifer: Most of the material is written by Matt. There are little bits improvised, mostly by John and Sophie, and Matt is always up for suggestions about what we think would be good.

Sophie: He’s really freakin brilliant. We all joined I think [because of] how clever his writing was.  Also, Leeman and John read the lines with such creativity. Only thing I ever really improvised was my freak out in the kitchen in Episode 4, “TPK”. Fun times.

If you enjoyed this interview with the cast of Metagame, or any other post here at My Girlfriend is a DM, consider supporting us by donating to our PayPal account or by purchasing a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition role-playing game product from our Amazon store. Your purchase or payment will help support this blog as well as events like POLYHEDRAL.

Ralph Horsley

Over the two year of life span of 4th Edition so far, a few names have emerged as the go-to illustrators for the product line. Such illustrators, like William O’Connor and Wayne Reynolds, have become a recurring presence that have come to represent the visual identity of 4th Edition, much like Jeff Easley and Larry Elmore in previous editions.

One such artist is Ralph Horsley, whose work has been omnipresent since the first set of core books.  Hailing from the metropolitan borough of Leeds in England’s West Yorkshire county, Horsley has been doing fantasy illustrations for over two decades for a variety of clients such as Games Workshop, Paizo and Green Ronin Publishing. He’s also done a lot of work for Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: The Gathering and Upper Deck’s World of Warcraft TCG.

In 4th Edition, Horsley’s most recognized work is in the chapter splash pages of the core books. He introduced new players to the archetypal adventuring party in the first chapter of both the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. He also depicted the town of Fallcrest in the latter. He’s also provided cover illustrations for adventure products such as  Marauders of the Dune Sea and the Tomb of Horrors and is currently the standard bearer for the art direction of the new Essentials line in products like Heroes of the Fallen Lands and the Essentials Roleplaying Game Starter Set (aka The Red Box).

Illustration by Ralph Horsley from Heroes of the Fallen Lands.

If linework is Widermann’s strength and draftsmanship is Argyle’s, then Horsley’s is composition. I’m no art critic, but it’s plain to see how the elements in each of his pieces all seem perfectly staged to train your eyes to a particular spot. It’s a very deliberate approach that ensures each of  illustration is a memorable one.

Illustration by Ralph Horsley from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms.

Take for example the cover illustration for the recently released Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. The combination of perspective and the lines created by the party’s weapons suggest a forward momentum to what is essentially a two dimensional image. The rats which emerge from the illustration’s corners also help sell this energy.

The cover illustration to Heroes of the Fallen Lands is quite similar, and what is expressed is a kind of daring intrigue-ridden invitation: Are you curious enough to explore, or bold enough to venture forth? There be kingdoms that are forgotten and lands that have fallen, are you adventurous enough to find out what beckons?

Another good example, is the cover to Tomb of Horrors, which positions an adventurer and a monster in downward motion. In tandem with the famous ‘mouth’ it suggests a situation where the adventurer is between a rock and a hard place. Pretty fitting for an adventure product whose namesake is infamous for gotcha scenarios.

I only wish that Wizards of the Coast would put out more Eberron products, because I think the energy that Horsley infuses into his work would be great for the etherpunk borderline anime world.

When Eberron debuted for 3rd Edition, most of the covers were illustrated by Wayne Reynolds, who since then, has distanced himself from the setting through work at Pathfinder and Magic: The Gathering. Horsley could pull of a similar energy, but his sense of color is much more vibrant than Reynolds’.

He employs greater contrast such as in adventure books contained within the recently released Red Box. I don’t think I’ll ever buy The Red Box, but I’ll have to admit that it has one bad-ass dragon. And if you’ve read previous installments of The Art of 4th Edition, you’ll know that drawing a bad-ass dragon makes for the best 4th Edition artist.

Illustration by Ralph Horsley from D&D Essentials: Roleplaying Game Starter Set.

If you enjoyed this post about Ralph Horsley, previous posts about The Art of 4th Edition or any other post here at My Girlfriend is a DM, consider supporting us by donating to our PayPal account or by purchasing a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition role-playing game product from our Amazon store. Your purchase or payment will help support this blog as well as events like POLYHEDRAL.

My first set: Lustrous Shadow with Gold by Chessex. These babies gave me 3 crits in a row against one of my players. Whoops!

“But how many sets of dice do you really need?” you might ask.   Darling, that’s like asking a girl why she needs one more pair of shoes. Many of mny close girlfriends own more than a handful of dice sets. And when the boyfriend protests a dice purchasing habit, many a girl gamer will defend herself. One girl says, “You can never have too many dice!” while another will say, ”And the best part is, they’re cheaper than shoes!”

It’s true! I have found myself more than willing to splurge on dice rather than shoes.  In my frequent chats with girls about our dice, we have made the following observations.

They are just so darn pretty. How can you resist?

Of course, different girls have different tastes.  One of my friends has a collection made up almost entirely of pink dice.  Another is trying to collect dice sets for each Lady Gaga song.  I’m not quite sure what my own aesthetic standard are for dice, as they don’t seem to have much in common so far aside from the fact that they’re all ridiculously pretty.

Amber Gem Game Science Precision Dice.

Dice, like ex-boyfriends, get very jealous.

The problem with buying more dice is that the older sets seem to throw a fit over the introduction of newcomers. Such a crotchety response usually manifests in rolling  badly out of spite. I’ve seen one older set roll a critical failure THREE times  in a row. Ouch! These dice are essentially feeling inadequate and taking out their frustration on you, their master.

Another gamer couple has told us in all seriousness that you need to have the dice share the same space so that they can “get along”.  Rather than scoff at the idea (I’m always willing to try any bit of advice at least once), I’ve found it to be uncannily true.

Being pretty doesn’t equate to rolling well.

Okay, so despite the fact that dice aren’t as expensive as shoes, I’ll admit that you don’t have to convince your shoes to cooperate with your desires. Dice, more often than not, are fickle servants who must be rolled frequently before a game truly begins, to ensure that they are ‘trained’.

The whole point of dice is to roll high.  Roll high, and kick ass.  One girl asked me once, “Is there a way to roll it better, to get higher numbers?”.  Ah, if only this were possible without having to actually load the dice.  Many of us girls have latched on to GameScience Dice.  Their sharp edges are supposed to guarantee true randomness, at least that’s what GameScience’s Colonel Lou Zocchi says.

Chessex Gemini Translucent Green-Teal w/Gold - my gelatinous cube set.

Well, a girl will find any excuse to own more dice.

The truth of the matter is that while GameScience do really seem to roll out more randomly – ensuring that there are more 20s… and more 1s – the real reason my girls and I have gotten into them is that the gem dice sets are just SO sparkly.

My previous purchase was a gorgeous translucent teal set from Chessex.  I told myself I really needed them to (a) add a splash of color to my collection and (b) the corners were ironically so rounded, they rolled like gelatinous cubes and practically danced on the table.  (the d12 is practically an orb).

I knew it would be difficult to justify yet another dice purchase to Matthew, so I had to sneak the money to my friend right under his nose while he as playing BANG!. She then passed me my dice in a similarly clandestine fashion. You know there’s something wrong when you have to hide dice purchases from your boyfriend.

Fortunately this particular set was greenish in color, so I rolled a part bluff, part diplomacy check to tell him, “I got them for US.  Isn’t green your favorite color anyway?”  He gave me a skeptical look, but at our next game, he confiscated them and rolled them throughout the whole session. That was okay though, because my Tiefling Warlock (who was an angsty runaway teenager with a Dark Spiral Aura) didn’t really match those bright green dice anyway.  Well, that’s what I told myself while I pouted and rolled my older set.

Dice also make the best gifts for fellow gamers.

As an early Christmas gift, I received a gorgeous Steampunk set from Q-Workshop from a good friend.  I literally had tears in my eyes when she handed them to me.  They are easily my most beautiful set: each die has its own unique steampunk design.  THAT, and the dice even come with their own backstory:

Gorgeous.

These cubes are a part of a mad scientist machinery, that was supposed to influence time fate of those, who use it. Unfortunately for the scientist, the matter of the machine warped in the process, leaving behing only those cubes with the machine carved in them. The machine still works in the dice, ensuring the paint doesn’t wear off and altering the fate of those who use it.

It is in my humble estimation that the strongest bonds in gaming groups are forged between those who buy dice for one another. I spent weeks thinking about what set I could possibly get a fellow gamer who favors characters who fall into the Dark Side easily (my first campaign with him saw his Jedi transform into a Sith and try to kill all of us).  For Walker Using Ranger’s recent birthday bash, she received no less than three sets of dice.  (I was informed that my dice are in honor of Lady Gaga’s “Monster”).

And recently I earned myself one gazillion girlfriend points when I bequeathed Matthew with a set made entirely of pure metal.  I may have made a mistake as he tends to roll his dice hard, and these dice can easily cause 1D12 damage to glass tables and 1D8 damage to wooden ones (I am not joking, the damn things leave marks).  But boyfriend gamers deserve only the best, don’t they?

So for today, I present the following reasons why – gaming grognard or curious outsider – you should go check out POLYHEDRAL.

1. We’re not exclusive, we’re inclusive. It’s an event focused entirely on being hospitable to newcomers of RPGs and old-time gamers who grew up. Never played an RPG before? Out of touch with the new rules? It doesn’t matter, because our DMs will teach you! You don’t have to do a lot of scary math or make funny voices and we characters are pregenerated for you! And we give out free dice.
   

   Illustration by Patrick Thomas Parnell.

2. It’s value for money. Okay, so the entrance isn’t chump change. But going to the movies and grabbing dinner and coffee can cost more than that. For PHP 250, we give you two free drinks, a chance at some of the fantastic raffle prizes, games and free dice! You can never have too much dice, so you already win when you enter the door!
3. Gladiator combat is awesome. One of the most popular events at POLYHEDRAL – despite the technical hiccups it has endured – is the gladiator combat, where everyone min-maxes to their heart’s content to earn bragging rights and win sweet minis. It’s a party atmosphere like no other when people are cheering for death with drinks in hand.
4. The DMs and GMs are welcoming and good-natured. We insist on having no other kind. POLYHEDRAL DMs and GMs know how to teach the rules efficiently, design great scenarios and give people a sample taste of what role-playing games can do. They also know how to make funny voices for the NPCs. Go ahead, ask Ruffi to do one.
5. We sell premium quality dice. Our Dice Queen, Corinna, is always there to sell some of the finest dice you can buy. She’s got Chessex which come in many appealing colors and many other premium brands that are hard to find around these here gaming parts. FACT: Most stores didn’t start carrying full polyhedral dice sets again until AFTER the first POLYHEDRAL.
6. There’s lots of phat raffle lewt. Our grand raffle prize is the Red Box, which contains everything you need to get you and your friends started on Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, lots of great miniatures for Star Wars SAGA Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, a set of GameScience dice and a set of Chessex dice. And if you arrive early, we’ll instantly double your chances for the prizes!

So come to POLYHEDRAL: TRIPLE CRIT on December 4^th, 2010 at Last Home Resto Bar. Unit 6, Madison Square @ #4 Pioneer Street in Mandaluyong City. Registration starts at 1:00pm!

Illustration by Tyler Jacobson.

In the last installment of our review of Heroes of the Fallen Lands, I explained how the Warpriest and Mage builds retain many of the structural conceits of Player’s Handbook while changing up the manner in which player customization is achieved. The Warpriest straightjackets choice through Domain-based restrictions but provides some customization through utility powers and daily miracles. On the other end of the spectrum, the Mage makes use of an expanded spellbook mechanic that broadens power selection, providing much utility for a wizard of her kind.

The remaining builds in Heroes of the Fallen Lands are the ones that deviate the most from the build formula established and retained since the first Player’s Handbook. In a manner that evokes previous editions, these builds – the Thief (Rogue), the Knight and the Slayer (Fighter) – eschew the ‘special moves’ that have been derided as anime-like by some (“White Raven Charge!” “Reaping Strike!”) in favor of generic attacks that be augmented by class features to get the job done in any situation.

As far as these new builds are concerned, they all gain various at-wills that provide a static boost to their basic attacks. Fighters like the Knight and Slayer make use of stances while the Thief makes use of various rogue tricks.

While various build-specific utility powers, class features, tricks and stances are unlocked as they grow, they do away with the resource management of your usual encounters and dailies, instead requiring players to maintain situational awareness to employ these powers.

KNIGHT: A warrior clad in the iconic sword and shield fashion, the Knight is built with the intention of protecting her party mates. His stances and class features such as Defender Aura and Battle Guardian are designed to impede enemy progress, increase her durability and penalize foes for targeting her softer allies.

The mechanics of Defender Aura are pretty analogous to the Combat Challenge feature that the Player’s Handbook Fighter uses, right down to the Battle Guardian power standing in for the  ‘mark.’ However, the Knight’s abilities are more passive, and therefore less of a tracking burden. It’s not stronger or weaker, but different and simpler.

As he grows in level, more stances are added to the Knight’s repertoire, most of which are generally geared towards strengthening her ability to hold the line. In exchange for giving up the standard power structures of previous class builds, the Knight gains utilities that allow him to impose her presence on the field and endure in the face of adversity.

By reducing the number of powers down to these stances and utility powers, a player controlling a Knight can direct her energies towards fulfilling her role in shielding allies rather than trying manage the resource and action economy of the ‘old-school’ power structure.

THIEF: True to Rogue form, the Thief build is a stealthy, hyper-mobile striker that uses positioning to deal a hideous amount of damage and retains the Sneak Attack class feature of his cunning brethren. However, he also foregoes the use of encounter, daily and at-will attacks.

The Thief depends instead on Backstab to make an intensely precise, seriously wounding attack once per encounter (on top of his Sneak Attack damage) while employing various Rogue’s Tricks to gain unique move options such as an expanded shift or increased speed while enhancing his next attack, all at the cost of a move action. These make the Thief a much more complex character to play than either the Knight or the Slayer.

Sure, he can take a normal move action, but his Tricks allow for more versatile movement modes, and the subsequent kickers to his attack require thoughtful positioning. But for some players, there’s a risk of being swamped with options. Still, on a purely technical level, the Thief is a potentially exciting build to play.

SLAYER: An offensive powerhouse designed to dish out pain, the Slayer breaks tradition by bucking the pattern of having party roles locked into a class. By making use of a two-handed weapon to take damage out into the front line, the Slayer is the first ‘striker’ Fighter.

Whereas the Knight makes use of Defender Aura and Battle Guardian to shield his allies, the Slayer gains a passive bonus to her weapon damage through the Heroic Slayer class feature. This bonus scales with her Dexterity and makes her a Fighter whose damage output competes with other strikers.

As the Slayer grows in levels, not only does her damage output grow, but she, like the Knight, can add more stances like Berserker’s Charge and Duelist’s Assault to her tactical ensemble, allowing to her customize her mobility and damage at any given turn, allowing her to become a damage dealing juggernaut.

Illustration by Ben Wootten.

COMPATIBILITY: Because the Knight, the Thief and the Slayer make use of very different class features and power structures, they won’t be able to use most of the pre-existing material currently available to Fighters and Rogues. The only exception is that since they still use the same utility power slots, they can take utility powers from previous books and issues of Dragon.

Conversely, old-school Fighters and Rogues can’t poach these stances and tricks. This could be a problem further down the road, as designers will have to cater to very different systems for Fighters and Rogues in future published material. Still, that doesn’t mean that these class builds are excluded from playing along with their PHB cohorts.

Because these class builds don’t introduce any wild changes to the fundamental aspects of 4th Edition’s rules engine, it is perfectly possible for Knights, Slayers and Thieves to pal around with a Tempest Fighter, a Rageblood Barbarian and a Brutal Scoundrel. Heck, a classic Fighter might appreciate the company of a Slayer since he won’t have to compete for marks.

Sure, these are very different ways of building the classes, but they’re still recognizably Fighters and Rogues, and shouldn’t unbalance the system at all. Tune in next time for our final installment, where I will take a peek at the miscellaneous remainders such as skills, the new feats and the changes made to magic items.