4E MOD: Player's Handbook 2

Ha! Thought I wouldn't get back to this series, now didja? Well, I'll admit, I spent some time oggling Burning Wheel, but I've still got a series to put out and I will, gorramit.

Player's Handbook 2 had significantly less issues than Player's Handbook 1. The V-class structure was nowhere to be seen, and the Striker mechanics were different. But the defender in the book, the Warden, left a bit to desired, and the Barbarian was a bit lackluster...

Avenger

This is a nit picky change, but Avengers in my version get a free bonus Domain feat from Divine Power that matches one of their deity's domains. It's just a nice way to further customize the divine classes, and isn't strictly necessary. But it's fun. Oh, and Avengers us their Wisdom to make Melee Basic Attacks.

Barbarian

Barbarians' defenses are... well, too low seems redundant, but it's true. Giving them higher HP doesn't help the fact that nearly every shot that gets thrown at them hits, and hard at that. There are two ideas that I have to help with that: up the Barbarian's AC and punish people for hitting the Barbarian.

Presence of the Savage
If you're wearing light armor or no armor (cloth) you may use either your Constitution or Charisma modifier instead of Dexterity or Intelligence to AC.

Punisher
Whenever you are hit by a melee attack the attacker is dealt damage equal to either your Constitution or your Charisma modifier+3. At level 11 this damage becomes 6+Constitution or Charisma, at level 21 it becomes 9+Constitution or Charisma modifier damage.  This rule has not been playtested. I'm pretty certain it'll work out pretty well, given that it's just the melee attacks and that'll make people dance away from the barbarian and, given that the Barbarian can get places pretty easily that means you give him another charge!

Horrific Charge
Whenever you charge you add either your Constitution, Dexterity, or Charisma modifier to your damage roll. This increases to mod+3 at 11th level, mod+6 at 21st level. You may also use any At-Will, Encounter, or Daily powers on a charge.

God, that looks terrifying. The barbarian is now a charging engine of destruction that'll mow down anything in his path. Again, this stuff isn't playtested, so please try it out and let me know what happens. I look forward to it!

Druid

Druids' only real problem lies in their inability to deal damage while in Beast form, so augment all their damage a step as done in the Player's Handbook 1.

Invoker

As a matter of fact, I think the Invoker's powers should be Charisma-based, not Wisdom-based. A mouthpiece of the gods that isn't Charisma-based? Riiiiiiight...

Warden

Wardens are so... there's so much potential there, and it's all in their marking powers, which are held back. They really shouldn't be Immediate reaction, because that means you can only use them once a round, which is very limiting. Move it to an Opportunity Action for both of them, and things will become more interesting on the battlefield. Promise.

These are the basic modifications I'd make to each of the classes. They make the classes more effective and flavorful, and give relevance to the tactical situations you'll run into in play.

4eMOD: The oAssassin

I can't remember exactly what my initial reaction was when I originally saw the Assassin come out on DnD Insider. I know it involved a lot of staring, shouting, and eventually screaming in joy. I do remember the lasting peace that spread through everywhere and warmed the cockles of my overjoyed heart, though. That was pretty distinctive.

So was my letdown upon seeing the boards. Apparently the Assassin sucks.

Now, this was news to me. My friend Sunohara had played an assassin awhile back in one of my games, and he had a blast. He played the class as it should have been: someone who hides in the shadows, destroys one target with a well-placed blow, and moves on. Granted, in that game I had cut the HP in half and doubled the damage of the monsters, but that's moot, right? Wrong. Turns out when you mess with the math like that it pretty severely skews things in the assassin's favor. I looked at charts and graphs and arguments, and concluded the naysayers were right. Had I not modified the math as I did, Sunohara's assassin (named Blackstar after an anime character who I just now had the... pleasure... of meeting... *twitches*) wouldn't have been nearly as effective. "Well, I thought, we'll just have to fix that." So I did.

The assassin is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and well-designed classes in the game, even if its not one of the most effective. It sets up a style of play extremely effectively, to the point to where I try to push that in all my 4eMOD classes. But, it does need a few tweaks for effectiveness. Here are a few things I would add:

Weapon Finesse: This lets the assassin use Dexterity for his melee basic attack and damage rolls. That little change alone lets the assassin play so much more offensively it's almost ridiculous. Seriously, an assassin can charge now! Laugh if you will, but sometimes that extra movement can make all the difference, especially because of...

Death Attack: If any attack of yours would reduce a target to 10 HP or less you may kill the target as a free action. At level 21 you may kill  a target when you reduce it to 15 HP instead. So what if I stole this from the Essentials assassin, and then made it better? It's a pretty flavorable (and powerful) ability. And really, who wants Essentials to be better?

Poison Adept: An assassin has sold his soul to the Shadowfell, and has gained power from it. His soul itself is death, and your body now oozes a black fluid that's deadly to whomever touches it. As a minor action you may make your next attack gain the poison keyword. If the attack used has the poison keyword already you get a +2 power bonus to the damage roll of the next attack. At level 11 increase this damage to +4, and at level 21 increase this damage to +6. Why have this? It makes the Venom Hand feat tree actually worthwhile now! The assassin should be a poisoner, it's built right into the idea of an assassin. So let's push that as far as possible. This makes the DPS the assassin deals without shrouds more potent, and allows us to get to the Death Attack that much quicker!

Assassin's Shroud: Finally, the ability that got the most tweaks. The Shroud is an awesome idea in theory, but in practice it could have done much much better. So I changed the flavor. Instead of putting "invisible shrouds" on your foe, you make your own shadow a creature of death.

Basically, Noob Saibot from MK9

So all the time spent "building up shrouds"? You're making your own shadow solid, so it can leap out and deal a huge attack when least expected! This is the essence of the Shroud ability, to catch someone so completely unawares you destroy them.

Change the range on Assassin's Shroud to Personal, and the target yourself. And then, change the first line of the second paragraph to this instead:

Before you make an attack roll against any target, you may choose to invoke either all of your shrouds or none of them. 

Add the following special:

Special:  When you invoke your shrouds and have all four of them your shroud dice become d10's instead of d6's and deals normal damage even on a miss. This includes minions.

All powers talking about the target of your shrouds must now be changed to any target. The assassin's only reason for not attacking from round to round is only that he has so few hit points that getting hit once will almost certainly bloody him (especially if he's been an annoyance before).

And we're still not done. More insult must be given to injury. Two of the At-Wills have to be modified, because they're essentially worthless. Make sure Inescapable Blade adds the assassin's dexterity modifier to the damage roll, and leaping shade does 2 extra damage for each shroud you've invoked, not 1 (and 4 extra damage per shroud at 21st level), and the assassin is mostly fixed. And by mostly fixed I mean some of the other powers aren't as great as they could be, but with those baseline fixes to the class the assassin is now a huge threat. I mean, huge. This is a guy who will be pinballing between all available targets to kill them with a deadly mix of poison, well-placed attacks, and his own shadow! The fact that he has such low HP is more of a thrill now, if you ask me! One good hit and you're dead. But the same is true of your target.

Situational Blindness Season 1, Part 1: Meeting Everyone

WARNING: This game is not... age appropriate. It includes instances of manipulation, rape, devils, contracts gone wrong, murder, child abuse, and all sorts of unpleasant things. The world is a dark place But it also includes people who want to go above all that. There are heroes. Please keep that in mind as you read through.Otherwise you might get depressed and/or offended. For those of you who want the list of characters before-hand, click here.

When I first started this game, it did not start as a 4th edition game, but as a playtest for the Journey System, a game system that Carpe and I were working on at the time. I pitched this game as story-intensive dark fantasy at the RRPG club, where about 30 gamers had gathered. Given that I was completely new at Benedictine I mostly got blank looks, and most people avoided the game in favor of DMs they knew. But four brave souls signed up after some prodding from Kurlacker, who had played with me before and gave me some high compliments. One of them couldn't play for a few weeks, and one dropped out almost immediately due to illness. So that left two people. I had them draw up characters, Vladmir and Char.

The two of them woke up in a dungeon, without any knowledge of how they got there. Vladmir couldn't remember anything at all, whereas Char remembered exactly who he was: a prophet of the god Bane, who would conquer the world. While Vladmir had some intuitive idea that this wasn't someone who he didn't spend his time around, the two agreed to a truce until they could figure out what was going on. They traveled the dungeon, fighting goblins they encountered. The place was dank and overgrown with vines. They found some vines thickly growing out of an alcove and, climbing up Zelda-fashion, they entered the tunnel. That's when the vines moved, and they realized the vines were actually hair for a monster! They set fire to the vines, and ran like hell. The place shook, and the vines attacked them. They didn't stop for anything, especially not the puny little goblins who were trying to get out as well. They found a spiral staircase and ran up it, exiting out of an old and run down castle.

They didn't look back.

After a few weeks we had another session, but we switched over to 4th edition at this point, because Andy and I didn't have the time to devote to a Monster Manual, which was sorta necessary for me to run the game. I hadn't thought about just winging it, but oh well.

As Vladmir and Char traveled the lands, they encountered a group of goblins. After a stiff fight (as I attempted to teach them 4th edition), they killed the vast majority of the goblins.

Aaaaand.... right about here my player base sorta exploded. Not only did the player who couldn't play immediately show up, but so did three more people! The group jumped from two to six overnight.

Vladmir and Char traveled to the nearest city, the goblin town of Billi. On the way there, they found a bunch of elves attacking goblin women and children. Even though Char didn't particularly care, he wished to have the option to exploit the women and children and later, so he joined in with Vladmir to fight the elves. A group of 4 adventurers who were also traveling to Billi stopped and helped. They were Gant, Talnor, Poultrin, and another character I just cannot remember the name of right now. She dropped out within a few sessions. Anyway, the fight was really on. Gant only joined in because it was quite obvious the elves were in the wrong, and he didn't want to be pinned as an elven supremacist.

Anyway, after a fight on the bridge the elves were killed. The goblin women and children thanked their saviors, commenting that they were waiting for their husbands, who had left the day before in the same general direction that Vladmir and Char had come from! With horror, Vladmir realized he had slaughtered the husbands and fathers of this group!

At this point, it was made pretty clear in out of game talk that Gant was a sick character. The player joked about how Gant heard dark voices in his head. All of a sudden I got a text from Gant's player:

"What do the voices say?"

I paused a moment. I thought through the full ramifications, and figured that if I was gonna go dark, I was gonna go dark. My text read as such:

"Impregnate an elvish woman."

He laughed. I realized I had someone who may have some issues. Oh well, it would make for an interesting game, if nothing else! (For the record, the guy who plays Gant is a really nice guy who sometimes has a sick sense of humor. I don't have an actual sociopath in my game, so don't worry...)

The party had left one elf alive, whom they "convinced" to give up the location of their hideout: an abandoned keep to the south (NOT in the direction of the falling apart castle) Gant, being the only one with stealth, snuck in before all them and lit up their kerosene barrels and, with a little bit of improvisation, killed everyone in the tower.

Except for one particularly beautiful elf, whom he teleported into the flames to save her. He covered her mouth, and told her that he was a servant of the Raven Queen, and that she had a destiny bound to his. She was to serve him for the rest of her days. The elf nodded, eyes wide with panic. Gant took out his knife and carved the letter "A" into her shoulder. She didn't whimper. He covered up the mark with her shirt, and told her to tell no one of it.

The rest of the party came running in just a minute later, having heard the explosion. They asked who the girl was, and Gant replied he had saved her from being despoiled by the bastards, hence the explosion. They asked the girl, who could only reply "A". Poultrin fell head-over-heels in love with the girl from the moment he saw her, and (since he had the Heal skill), attempted to check for injuries.

Yeah, he rolled a nat 1.

Instead of fixing her up, Poultrin unwittingly deeply scratched the "A" in the elf's arm. She screamed, and ran away. The party followed, and found the A marked into her arm. They tried to apply some herbs so it wouldn't scar, but the elf refused, and even rubbed dirt into the wound, pointing at herself and saying "A" the entire time. Vladmir looked suspiciously at Gant, but kept his mouth shut for the moment.

Until the next day, when they woke up and found Gant and A missing.

Situational Blindness: Players

Situational Blindness is many things, but it's not simple. This is a game that's gone on to it's 3rd semester, and has been filled to bursting with people who all wanted to cause trouble. They all got their wish. Even the ones who didn't wish it got it. But, before I can start, I need to outline all the characters who are in this dark tale. Things change so quickly from time to time that I think a general guideline is absolutely necessary, so I have provided it.

 I have plans to either end Situational Blindness this semester or next semester. It's my longest running (and thus far, most successful) game, and I've had a blast with it. Fortunately, so have they (for the most part). And it honestly wouldn't have worked without  any of the following crazy bastards.

Vladmir: (Season 1-2.5) Vladmir is a human paladin. Eleven years ago, Vladmir was a famer, married to an eladrin lady who wanted to run away from the bureaucracy and depraved religion of the elves. One day Vladmir found a dying man in his fields, who gave him an incredible gift: a shard of the god Bahamut.The shard was not meant to be given to an untrained initiate, however, and Vladmir lost his memory.

Char: (Season 1) Char is an invoker of Bane. His actual name is forgotten. The name indicates he's of the Char race from Guild Wars.

Poultrin: (Season 1) Poultrin was an elf warlord who became an elf invoker later on in the story. Little is known of his backstory other than that, but all you need to know at the moment is he is the most influential person in this story. There are lots of "almost's" (Gant, Didier, and Thade come to mind), but pound for pound no one has influenced the game like Poultrin has. Why? Stay tuned ;)

Gant Arro: Shift the name around, and you'll get the essence of the character ;) Gant is a sociopathic eladrin rogue who wants to destroy all the goblins he can find, but only because he wants his own race, the already-powerful-and-in-control-of-an-empire elves, to become stronger. Ba

Thade: (Season 1-2) Thade is a drow bard who later became a seeker MC'ed into Beastmaster Ranger. Thade was a slave (the drow are slaves to the other elven races in this world) who fell in love with Ila Merinbourne, the daughter of his master. They decided to run away and get married, and have been hunted by the Merinbourne's ever since.

Ila Merinbourne: (Season 1-2) Ila Merinbourne is an eladrin cleric, and a damned good one. I can't remember a single session where spending one healing surge due to her Healing Word didn't recover at least half health. Granted, she's a pacifist. But still. Anyway, she fell in love with Thade and the two ran off, trying to find a place where the two of them could live together in peace.

Talnor: (Season 1, shows up as a guest from time to time in other seasons) Talnor is a monk who left who left his monastery to see the world. Meeting up with this group is about the last thing anyone would expect (or want).

Didier: (Seasons 1-3) Dider is an elven ranger with a starting Constitution of 9. The fact that he survived so long was... a mystery. You'll see why when we get there. Anyway, Didier was originally put into the party to kill Vladmir. Just be a bit patient.

Nicell: (Seasons 2.5-present) Shardmind battlemind, who became a runepriest later. Nicell is yet another amnesiac who is looking for something I can't talk about in this post right now.

Garrett (Seasons 2.5-present) Halfling Rogue. Garrett was an orphan, who was hired by the Royal Guard for his skills at stealth and sniping. More than that I cannot say.

Gore: (Season 3-present) Child drow who heard dark voices and gained the ability to blow things up. All you need to know at this point.

Eela: (Season 3-present) A hammadryad Bard, who was just introduced, so we don't have much beyond that at the moment.

Valanae: (Season 2-present) An eladrin Psion. She was friends with Vladmir's wife (and was one of Vladmir's babysitters when he was younger!), and also fell in love with a human, who died due to circumstances you'll find out about later.

Grarg: (Season 1) A half-orc barbarian who was in it for shits and giggles.

I think that's it. If not, I'll add more later.

4EMOD: Monster Damage.

It didn't take me very long to notice just how low the damage in the first two Monster Manuals are. It's not a very big secret, and the designers don't contest it. Well, before the days of MM3 I'd made my own damage table. This is only the second tweaking I've ever done to the damage. There's nothing to stop you from using the MM3 damage, but I prefer the older style, and I already wrote in my books, so I figured I'd share what I had come up with. Here are the tables:

Normal Monster Damage Expressions

1-3: 1d6+4, 1d10+4, 2d8+4
4-6: 1d6+7, 1d10+7, 2d8+7
7-9: 1d8+7, 1d10+7, 2d10+7
10-12: 1d8+10, 2d6+10, 2d10+10
13-15: 1d10+10, 2d8+10, 3d10+10
16-18: 1d10+14, 2d8+14, 3d10+14
19-21: 1d12+14, 2d10+14, 3d12+14
22-24: 1d12+17, 2d10+17, 3d12+17
25-27: 2d6+17, 2d12+17, 6d6+17
28-30: 2d6+20, 2d12+20, 6d6+20

Add +2 damage per level beyond 30

I haven't done a ton of fact-checking, but I believe this is comparable to MM3's damage values.

Limited Monster Damage Expressions

1-3: 2d6+7, 2d10+7, 3d8+7
4-6: 3d6+10, 3d8+10, 3d10+10
7-9: 3d8+10, 3d10+10, 4d8+10
10-12: 3d8+13, 4d8+13, 4d10+13
13-15: 3d10+16, 4d8+16, 4d10+16
16-18: 3d10+16, 4d10+16, 4d12+16
19-21: 4d8+19, 4d10+19, 4d12+19
22-24: 4d8+22, 4d10+22, 5d12+22
25-27: 4d10+22, 5d10+22, 6d12+22
28-30: 4d10+25, 5d10+25, 6d12+25

Add +4 damage per level beyond 30

Having tested most of these numbers, I can attest to how deadly combat gets. Be careful with these damage values: people will learn to fear combat. But since that's how I prefer combat to begin, I think that's a good thing.  Test them out, and (most importantly) have fun!

On the New Edition of Dungeons and Dragons (A Rant and Trolling)

Well, to those of you who aren't under a rock in the RPG world, you know by now: Dungeons and Dragons is moving to a fifth edition. All things considered, that may be a good thing (especially since WoTC's hooked up to Hasbro). D&D looks to become a very modular game, with expansions to fit almost any type of game. In theory. That looks pretty good. I like the concept. Don't get me wrong, I love 4th edition: I play it twice a week, after all, including my 4eMOD. But if Wizards needs to do it to keep their heads above water, so be it. This is an economy, after all, and if 4th isn't making the money it needs to keep from being shut down then so be it. 

But I'll bet you're wondering why I have a double facepalm on here, don't you?

It's for those frickin' news articles. Y'know, the ones that are covering this? They're some of the most one-sided things I've read in my life. And that comes from someone who reads Jack Chick tracts so he can see the inner workings of a madman (especially Catholicism! You want a good read? Google Jack Chick and Catholicism, and be prepared to be taught everything Catholicism is not). Reading these things you'd think that 3rd edition and Monte Cook were gods of the industry, and that 4th edition brought about the apocalypse, with it's heavy focus on combat and balance and actually good design. I guess I should be clear where I stand on those first two points:

3rd edition was a broken game, and Monte Cook is not a god.

3rd scaled horribly, and each supplement broke the game in ways that I can't even begin to vent my frustration about. Go ahead, run any of those supplements you want! It just depends on how you want the game to be broken. Unless of course you were a wizard or a cleric, cause then you were always broken. The game barely works at higher levels, and by barely I mean the DM has to bend over backwards while drinking acid and yodeling without letting any of that flesh-eating acid touch the ground. Beyond 6th level the game doesn't even truly feel like a fantasy game anymore, what with the mass invisibility and mass fly spells. And that's before we start mentioning that there's not a single 1st party 3rd edition supplement I know of that's actually character centric. All of it is combat. All of it . And past 10th level it all falls apart. There's a reason E6 exists, people!

All of this designed by the guy all the people who hate 4th are hailing as the salvation of Dungeons and Dragons. Mr. Cook is going to sweep in and save them from the hack and slash horror MMO that is 4th edition. And while he's at it he's going to bring Jesus Christ back from the dead, end world hunger, and, most impressive, he'll end the Edition Wars!

Right.

Now please don't misunderstand my vitriol. I know Monte Cook's intelligent. Hell, I've agreed with a lot of his articles in Legends and Lore! But Mr. Cook's a human being, like the rest of us, and his mistakes are many and downright painful, just like the rest of humanity. If people wanted a "story-centric" game, Dungeons and Dragons is not their game! It can be done (and I am doing it), but the game has always been a combat and dungeon-crawl heavy game (As Carpe pounded into my thick skull a few weeks back. OUCH!). Don't believe me?

Go read Burning Wheel, and then come back to me. That's a story-centric game. The rules are centered around advancing a character, first and foremost. Dungeons and Dragons has never been like that. Even at it's most "story-centric", it's never done that. 4th edition took the one thing that Dungeons and Dragons had going for it and brought it to the forefront, and that was as a combat-driven RPG. Yes, role-playing is in there, just like there's a good story in the movie Fearless, or the awesomness that is Zombieland. But Fearless is still a martial arts film, and Zombieland is still a zombie film. Good characterization is there so that way your action and horror is that much better. But notice the emphasis.  Action first. 4th edition did that. If you don't like the way 4th did that, fine, whatever. But realize what Dungeons and Dragons is, and if you don't want that, move on!

Personally? I'll always play Dungeons and Dragons, 4th edition in particular. I have all the books, I've modded them to my liking, so I don't know if I'll pick up the new edition. More on that in my review of Burning Wheel, which you can expect sometime this weekend!

Situational Blindness: Races

I'll be posting my campaign notes online, but to do that, I have to set up the races and cultures first. These are the race sand cultures that are a prominent part of the world and the storyline so far.

Char: Use the stats of a gnoll, but add fire damage to the encounter power. Char are a war-like race that count Bane, the god of Conquest, as their chief. They're highly competitive and simple.

Eladrin, Elf, and Drow: All three of these races form the Elvish Empire, known for their vast naval fleet. The empire is divided into four castes: eladrin, elf, other races, and slaves (drow). There is a state religion dedicated to Sehanine and Corellon, one involving ritual sex and indulgence in the finer things of life. Drow are entirely reviled as the dirty lower class.

Human: Humans are in fierce competition with the Char, and are currently at a draw with them. Humans are not necessarily all spread out, and are in their own empire.


Vampire: The scourge of the known world and the elves, vampires are the singular most important race on the entire continent. Immortal and impossibly powerful, the vampires have been held in check by the elves for centuries, despite massive victories for the vampires (including taking over the former capital of the Elven Empire, Paris, which they used as a massive slaughtering house).

Wyrms: Also known as dragonborn, wyrms are humanoid-ish draconic humanoids that can transform into drake form. They're known for their combat prowess, and are responsible for the much lower population of dragons that exist in this realm.

There are other races in this world: avians (shapeshifting flyers) mutants (kalashtar), dwarves (who are mostly underground), and halflings. But the above are the power players on the continent, which has no name as of yet.

4EMOD: Improvising and Page 42

4th edition is the most imaginative and awesome game I've played so far. Yeah, you heard me right. 4th edition, for all the flaws that I'm pointing out and fixing, has the best structure for making imaginative and fair game play I've seen. Page 42 of the DM's guide, along with the rule of "always say yes", grants people the ability to make up their own powers on the fly. The DM's Guide leaves how to adjudicate this amazing ability wide open.

That's a mistake. If there's anything people need guidelines for, it's how to improv. Without structure most people are paralyzed by choice gloat, and since 4th edition has a very good structure, people feel paralyzed without it. This is a truly amazing aspect of 4th edition that is so underutilized that it's a bit unfair to have even an opinion on 4th edition without trying it.

So here's the guidelines that my group and I have started to throw together. They're not perfect, but they'll work. All final decisions are to be made by the DM, appeals should be few and far between.

1. Determine the type of action it is. Is it standard, move, minor, free, or any of the interrupts? The action can combine up to two of these types. Any more and it starts getting ridiculous.

2. Determine if the action should use up an Encounter, Daily, or Utility (Encounter or Daily) power. Sometimes your players want to use an ability that's truly over the top. Instead of trying to tone it down, ask them if they're willing to give up an encounter or a daily power to use their idea. Discuss this with the players, and most important of all listen to them!  All it takes is screwing this up once for people to get the idea that you're inflexible, and they won't want to try again. If the player is out of encounter or daily powers then do not allow them to use their action. This is where things stay balanced, because a character is only able to be that awesome so often.

This is where the structure of 4th edition is extremely helpful, because as the characters get more powerful they get more powers, and thus have more slots to mess around with. The players will actually feel their power increasing because of their ability to make up more stuff more often, with their established powers as fall backs in case they can't think of anything.

3. Work out the details. What defense will the power target, if it's an attack power? What should the exact effects be? DM's, I suggest you base whatever scale you're using be off of the following:

For At-Wills

• No more than a +2 bonus or a -2 penalty to attack rolls, regardless of who the beneficiary/target is.
• If they're looking for a damage boost do not grant anymore than their second most powerful modifier at heroic, secondary+3 at paragon, and secondary+6 at epic.

• Do not allow for stun as an at-will, ever. Just don't.People will abuse the hell out of it, and the fight will drag on and on.

For Encounters

• These are the most troublesome to make up, because they're right in the middle. When it comes to assigning increased damage, look at the character and his encounters. Consider his class. If you have a Warden, he probably shouldn't be getting too many 2[W]+highest ability powers, should he? If that's something they're trying for ("I don't want any effects, just give me damage!") that's a bit different. Give them  a 3[W]+highest ability that targets AC, and move on.
• I would still hesitate to give anyone a stun move at this point. If they insist, reduce the damage to 1[W] and only have it last til the end of their next turn, and even then it's only a single target. Never give a multi-target stun, no matter what tier you're playing at. 

Dailies

• This is, by far, the easiest thing to make up stuff for. Go for a minimum of 2[W]+highest modifier damage for any Daily. Anything lower and the effect had better damn well be AWESOME. 

For those who aren't using weapon powers us the damage tables in the DMG.

These are rough guidlines, and, with the exception of the multi-target stun admonishment, treat them as such. Making up powers is more of an art than a science, and more haggling than any of the two. Be prepared to make mistakes at first, and make sure to inform your players of that. They'll understand and, if not, they probably shouldn't be in your game anyway. Give this a spin, experiment, and give me some comments on what you find! I'm very interested in feedback.

4EMOD: Player's Handbook 1 Fiddly Bits

Random Powers and Feat Scaling
Some At-Will powers and feats don't scale with level, such as the Paladin's Bolstering Strike and some feats, making them useless at higher tiers. There are too many of these powers and feats to list individually, so the general rule if an at-will or feat doesn't scale, give it a +3 bonus at 11th tier and a +6 bonus at epic tier. Do not ever make feats that grant a bonus to attack rolls or defenses scale.

Feats: Weapon and Element Feats
Remove all stat requirements for all weapon-related feats. Yes, all of them. Hammer feats no longer require a high Constitution, blades don't require a high Dexterity, polearms a high Wisdom, and so on. This also includes the critical hit feats in epic tier. Wizards didn't have stat requirements for further weapon feats, so why should these feats? Why can't a paladin or a swordmage be good with the very blades that iconic to those classes? Also, improve the damage bonus from Weapon Focus to +2 at heroic, +3 at paragon, and +4 at epic.

This also applies to all the element-styled feats in the first Player's Handbook, such as Burning Radiance. Those stat mods just make what's already a questionable feat worse. Improve the damage of all those feats to +2 at heroic, +3 at paragon, and +4 at epic. Those bonuses will make people actually want to take the feats and change their style to fit using one (or two) elements, not the pitiful +1's, 2's and 3's of the old feats! Players need to feel iconic with their specialties, and a +1 to damage does not do that.

For those of you who are looking at these changes and ask "But what about game balance, Spyder?" Please remember these are feat bonuses, so you can't have the bonus from Weapon Focus and the bonus from Burning Radiance apply to the same power.

Multiclass Feats
Multi-classing is... tricky... in 4th edition. Most people don't attempt it because of the huge feat investment that it takes to only swap out powers. The solution?

Take away all the power swap feats. But just having one feat for something that powerful is too much, however. There should be one more power that allows you to swap out one encounter, one daily, and one utility power from your multi-class class. But all things come at a price to stay balanced, and this houserule has that too. You'll need to remove the bonus trained skill from the multiclass feats. Those feats are now good and do exactly what they're supposed to do without overshadowing the Skill Training feats.

4EMOD: V-Classes

For those of you who don't know what V-Classes are, I'll explain. Most classes have one attack stat, with two (possibly three) secondary stats its based off. These are called A-Classes (one attack, two secondary). Most classes in 4th edition use this set up, especially the most successful: fighter, rogue, etc. And it's considered good design, for good reason! It works. But there are four classes with a different class set-up: Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, and Warlock. These classes are known as V-Classes because they have two attack stats and one secondary stat. And I have to ask why. I really must. Why the designers thought this was a good idea I don't know, but it made these classes some of the hardest to play in the game effectively. If you want to make your attack powers more effective, you have to upgrade both stats. But if you want your effects to be better you have to ignore one of these two attack stats and upgrade your secondary stat.

Part of the problem has to do with stat generation in standard 4th edition. You can only really get one 18 in a "main stat", on average, and that's assuming that you only play race to match with class, or if you decide you'll take the hit on overall effectiveness later on and go with 16's. As At-Will and several other char-op boards have noted, having an 18 in your main stat is vital. These were my reasons for modifying the classes in the first place, but something changed after I made these house rules.

I removed ascending math from my game, and these classes became more effective at their jobs, because they're not having to keep up with the ridiculous moving-but-not pace of standard 4th. These classes can breathe and relax, and be themselves. That should solve everything, right? Wrong. There's one last problem. These classes have a split in them thanks to the V formation. While further books have cut down on the problem, the fact is that each of these classes is essentially two halves of a class. None of the other classes have this joyful burden. I see no point in continuing this love fest. 

Cleric
This is one of those classes that works really well before you modify it, and it becomes so much better after, because you're able to mix and match tactics as you wish. You can stay out of battle and buff your allies, and then switch it up and wade into battle to kick ass righteously and hand out buffs and debuffs as you wish. You don't have to do that, of course. You can play a straight ranged or straight melee cleric. But with this mod it becomes a choice, not a restriction.

Rules: Powers
All powers are now Wisdom powers. Change all Strength attack and damage lines to Wisdom. All abilities that rely upon a secondary stat in Strength powers become Constitution to bring it more into line with Essentials and to deal with the fact that clerics don't have the absolute best armor. Leave the secondary stat of Wisdom powers at Charisma.

Rules: Divine Domains
Give yourself a domain feat from Divine Power for your deity as a bonus feat. You should have this anyway, you're a cleric! 

Paladin

It's no secret that paladin is my favorite class in the game. I like paladin because I get to zealously play out a religious person and be a tough-as-nail warrior, someone who genuinely believes, a symbol  of incorruptibility. Changing this class allows you to mix and match the more defender-y and striker-like aspects of this class freely. I'm also going to put in a few rules that better reflect the flavor of the paladin, without (hopefully) changing game balance that much.

Rules: Powers
All powers become Strength powers. Change the Strength power's secondary stat from Wisdom to Charisma. Leave the Charisma powers alone. 

Rules: Divine Challenge
This is probably the biggest rules change for the paladin, honestly. Change the punishment damage in Divine Challenge from Charisma+3(+6/+9) to Strength+Charisma or Wisdom+3(+6/+9). Ban Mighty Challenge in Divine Power. Change all references in all paladin powers from "marked" or "divine sanction" to "Divine Challenge". This unifies all the Paladin's marking mechanics, and makes sure that if you want to maintain those marks you make you can.

 Rules: Channel Divinity
Give yourself your Deity's Channel Divinity as a bonus feat.

Rules: Fearless
You get a +2 bonus to all defenses and saving throws against fear and charm effects.

Rules: Weapon of Faith
You may use your weapon as your holy symbol. Use all the normal rules for using a weapon as an implement.
 

This makes the paladin a truly formidable warrior, free to smite the enemies of his god with an abandon that should make fighters shake in their boots. To those of you who are looking at the changes and think that they're broken, please remember that most of the work done on this blog post is correcting mistakes that the game designers tried to fix in Essentials. This paladin looks broken in comparison to the old paladin, sure. But is it broken? Not really, no. When you make the comparison to the Fighter, the unabashed best defender in the game, you'll see that the paladin still doesn't do what the fighter does.

And that's the point. If a fighter gets next to you there's no escape, period. A paladin will make you wish you were next to him. There is no other class in the game that is designed to take on large groups like the paladin and walk out alive. Is a fighter better at its job then a paladin? Hell yeah. But a paladin does its job better than a fighter. You'll find in all these posts where I "fix" things that I'm not plugging holes as much as pushing the class to do what its designed to do. The paladin is the best multi-marker there is. Let's remove all the crap that keeps it from doing that.

Ranger
Most people don't think of ranger as a "problem class". It's one of the most effective strikers in the game, after all. But the V-Class formation, like all the others, has to go. Besides, dual weapon rangers have the issue of being constantly stretched between Strength and Dexterity. Archers have a natural advantage over dual-wielders in that regard. Time to get rid of that.

But what stat do we go with?  Strength is very important to a dual-wielding ranger, but we're not looking for what's important. We're looking for what's iconic. And the plain fact of the matter is rangers are known for their dexterity, even good ole Drizzt do Urden, a dual-wielder. Other dual-wielders in every single piece of fiction I've read or watched are more acrobatic than strong. So Dexterity is the main stat.

Rules: Powers
Change all powers to Dexterity. In Strength powers change the secondary modifier from Wisdom to Strength. Now comes the tricky part, the Utility Powers. I would suggest changing most of these powers to say Wisdom or Strength. Use your best judgment, and if your player can make a good argument for why they should be able to use Strength instead of Wisdom for a modifier I suggest giving it to them. I mean, why not? You're changing the rules either way.

Rules: Inner Compass
I know this sounds silly, but I like giving my rangers the ability to find true north. For free. While there's a slight increase to their overall effectiveness it just feels right to me, so I added it in. Feel free to ignore this rule as you see fit.

You'll notice that, as with the Cleric, the Ranger becomes less about filling a specified role than being a versatile player that can do high amounts of damage in close and ranged combat, depending on what the player wants at that point. Does it make the ranger better? Yup, it does. But I have difficulty seeing as to how that's a problem. Rangers have always had a versatility that other classes simply are not supposed to have. This fix allows for that.

Warlock
Warlock is my second favorite class, and narrowly behind the paladin at that. It's easily the most flavorful of the Player's Handbook 1 classes, with a story that practically screams "Play me!" It's also the worst class of the first handbook. It barely fulfills its striker role, being more of a controller than the bloody wizard of the same book. Oy, what a mess. Well, fear not, there's a way to fix it!

Rules: Powers
All powers become Charisma powers. The following pacts use Intelligence as their secondary stat: fey, dark, and star. The following pacts use Constitution as their secondary stat: infernal, sorcerer-king, and vestige. Increase all damage dice by one step, as outlined in the equipment section of the Player's Handbook. This should do more than enough to make any warlock a competitive striker, on par with the sorcerer! It doesn't look like much, but those little bumps in damage will make the warlock a force to be reckoned with. 

Constitution-Secondary Warlocks
All pacts that use Constitution as their secondary stat may use their Constitution modifier in place of their Dexterity or Intelligence when calculating AC. This is because these warlocks are so proficient at channeling raw power that could destroy a less being through their bodies they can ignore hits that could kill a normal being. A Constitution Warlock does with his bare skin what a paladin or fighter does with heavy armor. He's that badass.

Implements
Give warlocks the dagger as an implement. Use the "normal" rules for weapons as implements.

Rules: Warlock At-Wills
You get your pact's at-will, eldritch blast, and one other at-will of your liking in the warlock class. For those of you who have the Eldritch Strike, limit it to the dagger, and add 1d8 to the damage.

So, give these rules a try, and let me know what you think. These rules are tested a bit, but I won't pretend that they're exhaustive. Comment below.

Next week I'll cover other random fixes in Player's Handbook 1. For now, Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States!

4EMOD: Races, Ability Scores, and Playing

I apologize for being late this week. I didn't sleep well Thursday, and spent most of Friday recovering and playing DnD. Here's the post!

When I first started to play 4th Edition I was DMng and playing (a state of affairs I used to find myself in often), and so I needed to make a character.Oh, I knew what I wanted to play. We were re-creating our first campaign, and so I was going to re-envision my first DnD character: Xenith Amakiir, the paladin of Bahamut. I knew exactly how I wanted to do it this time around, too. I wanted Xenith to be an eladrin, because elves and teleportation together was just too cool for me to not mix. I also wanted to multiclass into warlock with a fey pact, because Xenith's former job had involved... pleasantries... with a fey that could have been called the Summer Queen from the Manual of the Planes.  Xenith was going to keep paying visits to this fey for his usual jollies, while being a faithful follower of Bahamut, right? Right.

But as I read through my Player's Handbook in my first two days of getting it I noticed something that was a bitter disappointment: the character wasn't going to work. For those of you who aren't familiar with 4th edition, here's why:

1. Both classes are multi-stat, splitting the class powers cleanly between two main attack stats, and rely upon a tertiary stat for the classes abilities
2. While eladrin do have a bonus to Intelligence, they don't have a boost to Charisma (they do now thanks to errata, but they didn't then).

In other words, a corner case. On the first try. Wasn't I excited? I took a look, and knew that I had a powergamer in my group. Now, not to rag on the guy or anything, but he was a bit.. competitive. This guy (we'll call him James) would turn anything that was cooperative into a competition to see who could contribute more. If James contributed more he would gloat, and if he didn't he'd try to prove that he was important to the team. After four years of playing with James I'd enough.  I knew I wanted to be optimized, so that way I didn't have to hear how much more awesome his character was than mine. But I truly wanted to make something cool and unique, and 4th edition as written can be a bit...restrictive. Now while you may be thinking that I'm too personally involved, I could recount all the tales of people picking a race that benefits the class and who don't think any further about it. The great majority are players let the race's stat bonuses pigeonhole each race into certain classes.

Examples: When's the last time you saw an eladrin swordmage, a class that they're practically made for? Or a dwarf bard? Or a dragonborn spellsword?

The fact that these race-class combos can be made to work is besides the point. People want to take advantage of the good math that's associated with the racial stats. It's rare to see someone work against those stat boosts. And while it does happen the fact remains: people are loathe to go against those all-important stat bonuses. Even though adding more options in Essentials was a nice gesture, it still puts the players in an imaginary straightjacket. What I want to do is remove the straightjacket and let the nuts run loose in the nut-house.

Rules
Remove all ability modifiers from all races; no races get a +2 to any stat. Ignore all stat generation rules in the rulebooks. Use these stat generation rules instead.

Stat Generation
Balanced: When generating stats you get an 18, 16, and a 10 to put where you wish. Then roll 2d6+6 "straight down the line" for the rest (see example).

Split Stats: You get two 18's  and two 10's to put where you wish. After that roll 2d6+6 and apply them wherever you like. (see example).

Example of Balanced Stats:  I decide to make a dragonborn fighter that uses hammers. I give my fighter a Strength of 18 and a Constitution of 16. I put my 10 in my Intelligence. I roll 2d6+6 three times: 13, 16, 10. The remaining stats (in order from top to bottom) are Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma. I apply them "straight down the line".  My stats are Strength 18, Constitution 16, Dexterity 13, Wisdom 16, and Charisma 10.

Example of Split Stats: I decide to pick an eladrin paladin multiclassed into warlock. A paladin's main stat is Strength (in my houserules), so I give it an 18, and a warlock's is Charisma (in my houserules) so I give it an 18 as well. I decide to put a 10 in my Intelligence, and the other 10 in my Wisdom.  I roll two more times: 14 and 13. Looking at  my character sheet, I see the rest of the stats, and they (in order of top-to-bottom): Constitution, Dexterity, and Wisdom. I apply them wherever I like: Constitution 14 and Dexterity 13. These are the final stats: Strength 18, Constitution 13, Dexterity 14, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 10, and Charisma 18.

These rules will allow any class to be combined with any race for story reasons, as opposed to game reasons. There is almost reason to not use this houserule, period. The benefits of doing this are just too good. I mean, I have a shardmind battlemind who has just as good of stats as the halfling rogue who's also in the same group. These people both picked races and classes they thought were cool, and didn't have to finagle with the character to give them something that worked well. They could both have fun. And that's what's important.

EDIT: I forgot to mention what I was covering next week. Next week will be the first installment of Player's Handbook 1: Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, and Warlock, the V-Classes!

4EMOD: Ascending Math

Familiar much?

A few weeks ago I helped my friend, Raphael (mentioned in an earlier post), start a Star Wars campaign. This meant that a lot of people were interested in playing, and most had never done RP in their lives. Fortunately Raphael and I were up to the task, and we started teaching 6 of the 9 people who showed up that day how to make a character. One of them got flustered after a few minutes of working, so I asked what was wrong. She pointed at the level bonuses to everything, and said:

"This is more complicated than doing my taxes."

I was astounded, and quickly shut my jaw and moved on with teaching her how to fill out her tax form. I wasn't astounded by the dumbness of the girl in question, mind you. She had shown herself to be quite intelligent. I was astounded because someone had actually said something that I'd thought for a long time.

Why have ascending attack, defense, and skill bonuses? What's the point? It's so much work, and for what? Nothing! Spyder, have you lost your mind? It's because people get better at attacking and defending themselves!

I am quite sane, thank you. And we already have something for that. It's called damage and hit points. Let me explain. Hit points in Dungeons and Dragons have never been strictly health. They are a stat measuring the luck and health (physical and mental) of the character. Hit points represent the ability of an adventurer to turn a lethal strike into a graze or even a narrow miss. The only time that a real physical hit's talked about in Dungeons and Dragons is when a character is bloodied and when they drop to zero. That's it. The rest of it's narrow escapes scrapes. Damage, then is actually the measurement of not only how "damaging" the blow is, but how good the attack is to begin with. The actual attack roll only determines if you whiff so badly it's not worth notice.

But what about the whiff? Well, that's something that does change, if you keep it at that. See the houserules below on what you can do to fix that. Epic tier is epic tier for a reason, people who have achieved that level of awesomeness shouldn't be bothered by a bunch of kobolds! Hold your horses, I agree. Read the actual house-rules first.

But what about skills? Shouldn't those  go up? Yes, but not all of them at the level that 4th edition says they should. A friend of mine (we'll call him Spawn of Satan, he loves that nickname) rightfully pointed out that if a wizard's never seen water before how is he supposed to know how to swim? If he doesn't know how he just doesn't know how, and it shouldn't be a breeze for him to swim, no matter how high in level he gets. Also, the fact is this: the skill DCs increase with you at the same right as you level, meaning that nothing really changes. Can you jump farther? Oh yes! But convincing the guard that he should let you sleep with his mom still has the same chances. While most people will argue that the DC should stay the same, we all know that the numbers don't mean anything because all they do is change. Just because I've become a world class hammer swinger doesn't mean that my flexibility's increased enough to go beneath that stupid limbo pole. I'll probably still throw my back out for trying, knowing my luck (This isn't from personal experience of mine or anything, just from... a friend. Yeah. Actually a friend of a friend. On the limbo thing, not the hammer thing.).

Anyway, here's what you need to do to implement these ideas, in case you agree with me!

On the Player's Side
Take out  the half level modifier for all things that require it. Do not apply enhancement bonuses from weapons, armor, and magical items to attack and defense. To simulate that skills still develop over time, give the character a +2 to two skills every time you upgrade your stats. The skills improved in this way do not need to be trained. This means you get a +2 to two skills at  levels 4, 8, 11, 14, 18, 21, 24, and 28. Simple, right? Oh, but if you're the DM, just wait...

The DM's Side
This is where things get... painful. The DM has to remove all the ascending math so the players don't have to put up with it. While this doesn't affect the players all that much beyond their initial buy-in the workload for the DM is enormous, and really shouldn't be attempted unless you want your rule-books to be entirely written-over. Apply a half-level penalty to the monster's initiative and skill checks. But removing the half-level modifier doesn't actually make the defenses hittable, because the internal math of 4th edition doesn't operate on half-level for attacks and defenses, but on level; you have to try a different approach.

At heroic tier, apply a penalty of Monster's Level-1 to all of a monster's defenses and attacks.

At paragon tier apply a penalty of Monster's Level-2 to all of a monster's defenses and attacks.

At epic tier apply a penalty of Monster's Level-3 to all of a monster's defense and attacks.

You'll find that all the numbers you arrive at do not go higher than 25 at the very most. Most of the time a monster won't even have a defense higher than 20, which puts you at having to roll a 16 to hit a monster's defense at the very most. Crunch the numbers, see if they work. A lot of my monsters have been converted over, and honestly, it works out really well.

The last bit, to deal with fighting monsters ten levels higher?? Give the target of the attack Damage Resist 10 All for each ten levels it's above the attacker. If that attacker deals zero damage to the target then it counts as a miss. Effect lines in powers still happen as normal, as do miss lines (do NOT apply the Damage Resistance to damage from the Miss line.)

Example 1: Colin is a level 5 warlord fighting a level 11 drow. The drow is in paragon tier, so it gains Resist 10 All against all of Colin's attacks, since he's one tier higher than Colin. He rolls his damage dice and gets 12 damage. That damage is 2, instead. Whatever effects Colin wanted to happen go off, because he dealt damage.

Example 2: Martha's level 6 psion is fighting the Tarrasque, a level 30 solo. Martha shouldn't be in this fight, her character doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell. The Tarrasque receives an additional Resist 20 All (And since he has Resist 10 All already, which puts it up to a 30!), since he's two tiers above her character. She rolls 11 damage, which is reduced below zero. Normally any additional effects wouldn't happen either, but Martha used a power that has an Effect line. No damage is dealt, but the effect happens anyway.

However, if the target of an attack is 10 levels below the attacker then the target gains vulnerable 10 against that attack per every 10 levels they're below the target..

Example: Colin has advanced his warlord to level 11. Yay for Colin, he survived fighting the drow! He's attacking a kobold. Kobolds are dumb, they need to be squashed. Since the kobold's level 1, it gains vulnerable 10 to Colin's attack. Colin rolls 12 damage, which becomes 22 because of the vulnerable 10. Holy crap, if the kobold's not dead already it better run!

Example 2: Remember Martha, and how she was fighting the Tarrasque? Yeah, she's still fighting that thing. Martha goes to her happy place as the Tarrasque rolls his attack roll and hits. The Tarrasque rolls his damage. 36 damage, right? Wrong, it's 56 because Martha has vulnerable 20 to all its attacks! Martha needs to start rolling death saving throws. 

One thing that you must do is use the Monster Manual 3 damage figures for all monsters; it's the only way make them a legitimate threat. I've gone through and started writing the new figures into my MM and MM2 books, and man do they look nasty.

Other Changes
Another part that has to be changed are feats that give attack and defense bonuses that scale with level. Personally I'd get rid of all the Expertise feats; they're a pain in the butt and an unnecessary feat tax. The same is true of the defense feats pre-Essentials, and can be removed without much trouble. Scaling damage however? I'd actually encourage improving those feats by a +1 at heroic tier, a +2 at paragon, and +3 at epic tier. Speeding up combat is a good thing, particularly in 4th, and you'd be surprised how useful that +1 to damage is with every single hit. Especially if someone can tell you "Hey, fire's my specialty! See how much more damage I do with it!"

Skill DCs
Skill DC's are pretty easy to fix, actually. Keep them static. Here's the DC's I use.

Easy: 8
Medium: 12
Moderate: 19
Hard: 23
Master: 30
Heroic: 34
Epic:41

You may not benefit from Aid Another at Master DC and up, since that level of difficulty is so balls-hard that it's almost sheer dumb luck to achieve it, even for a god.

Since the players are only going to be truly good at one or two skills they'll have bragging rights on the ones they're good at, with holes that the rest of the team can cover, all without having to edit that damn sheet every two or three sessions. The numbers will actually mean something, since they change so little! There's an actual sense of scale and growth as characters slowly increase their abilities and get gradually better at their skills.

The last session I DMed for my level 11 rogue was proud of rolling a 34 (+12 I believe, rolled a nat 18 and was aided twice) and convincing a Pit Fiend they hadn't roughed up the criminal whose soul the thing had come to collect: the nice angels who were trying to kill him had done it instead. The rogue then excused himself as the pit fiend tore into the angels instead of him.

This is the most easily ignored part of 4EMOD, although I think it's an incredible little fix. Unlike the rest of the system, which depends on balancing the classes against each other, the ascending math house rule is modular and doesn't need to be implemented to get the effects of 4EMOD. I included it first, however, because I'm working from general to specific.This is a pretty good indication of what's to come, folks. Hope you enjoy it!

Next Thursday we'll cover races, ability scores, and how to improve role-play opportunities with both.

EDIT 1: Modified the DC's a bit, added in an additional level of difficulty. Tweaked the Aid Another Rules
EDIT 2: Changed things from tier to 10 level increments as suggested by Little J. Thanks for the input!

4EMOD: Introduction

I played 4th edition D&D before it was released. I loved the At-Will, Encounter, Daily, and Utility power set up from the beginning, and tried making it work in 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons, with varying levels of success. I pre-ordered all the core 4th edition books, and played a campaign jumping between all the different spread of levels. So when I tell you that I love 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons I want you to get my full meaning. I truly love 4th edition. So when I say that I've designed a series of house rules for 4th edition, I want you to understand three few things:

1. I do not think standard 4th edition is a bad game. As a matter of fact, I played 4th edition "by the books" for three years before I even started to imagine house-ruling it. 4th edition is a very well designed game, and playing it "straight" is extremely enjoyable.
2. Most of my house-rules are inspired by the errata published by Wizards of the Coast, as well as Essentials and later design stuff that they did. Anyone looking at this stuff should know that this isn't me going "WTF WY DIS GAME NO WORK???? WERE'S MAI GOD-WIZARD??" I played the game for awhile, read what Wizards said about their own game in the errata, the interviews... I did my homework first. For a long time. And when the designers of a game themselves say the game isn't perfect it certainly makes me feel less arrogant for thinking I can make a set of good house-rules. 
3. That being said, some of my house rules are not mentioned in errata, and even go against the notion of the game itself. 
4. These are not entirely tested house-rules. The fact that they're based on the official errata doesn't mean they're perfect.

I'd like to dedicate this series of house-rules to the folks of the former At-Will, the people who gave me the courage to work on what I'm going to start posting. We'll miss your presence in the 4th edition field, guys. You were amazing.

I'll start posting my house-rules this Thursday, starting at one of the basic assumptions of the game: ascending math. Tune in on Thursday!

Aw Damnit!

At-Will's done. This is beyond sad. You will be missed, sir. Good luck on all your endeavors.

Hell's Gambit

This is an incident that occurred in my Dungeons and Dragons game last Friday. It's a dark fantasy/horror game with an empahsis on the supernatural and the influences of Hell. Here's a bit of back story into my game, which is called Hell's Gambit. Hell's Gambit is a continuation of last semester's game, Hell Child, in which the succubus Alianna managed to to seduce, be impregnated by, and get the soul of Gant Arrow, a sociopath high elf who has a strong superiority complex. Besides Gant Arrow, here's the list of characters:

Vladmir Dostoevsky: a male paladin for Bahamut, the god of justice and metallic dragons. Has amnesia. Alianna had been trying to corrupt him, but gave up and went after Gant Arrow as a break from trying to break him. Vladmir's usually been a very reactionary person. Vladmir had an artifact called the Deck of Many Things, an artifact of sheer chaos and power. He had been recently kidnapped, and as of the beginning of this particular D&D session has only returned to the group just now. He remembers a fellow paladin, Sir Sampson, was capture also. Sir Sampson was brought into a room with Alianna, and after a blue light flashed in the room, Sir Sampson vanished. Vladmir escaped in the confusion, without the Deck of Many Things.

Didier: A male elf who is the sniper of the group. His village had been wiped by Alianna just for fun. He's very quiet but extremely good at his job, so everyone lets him be.

Poultrin: Deceased, but a former vessel of the Goddess of Love, who had descended to Hell to steal Alianna's child from her. He named the half devil baby he retrieved Celeste. He died later in a fight with two dragons, dying as a result of Gant Arrow not knowing how to heal him.

Thade and Ila: A dark and high elf married couple who were on the run from Ila's parents, the Merinbornes, who were not happy with her marriage. They had stumbled acrost the rest of the characters, and had been offered a fortune by Alianna to get Celeste back. They told her to "piss off", and that they would raise Celeste to be good and grow beyond her hellish origins. Alianna swore revenge upon these two. Thade has a bear named Ubin, a loyal and much-loved animal companion.

Valenae: A high elf psion. Her husband, who was a powerful mage, and new-born son had been killed by a medusa, whom the other characters killed. She was brought in to the group to be the wetnurse of Celeste. She randomly developed  a vast amount of psionic power, which she learned to control almost immediately. The current theory is that because of her exposure to magic and its intellectual control she is able to control her vast amount of power so well.

Collectively, these heroes are known as the BB Squad. 

The Story
The BB Squad had decided to take down the goblin town Billi, which had slaughtered every elf that lived in a ghetto in the slums of the town. The elves were besieging the town, but had lost 2/3's of their army (10,000!) to the town because Billi's seer was so proficient at his job. Since the BB Squad had locks of a medusa's head they found that  they weren't included in the seer's visions, so they decided they would destroy the town. They grabbed three ingredients: kerosene, bee's wax, and sawdust. All three of these ingredients are the basic make up of medieval napalm. Through a stunning display of tactics and stealth the Squad managed to lace the entire town of Billi with over 600 pounds of napalm. Vladmir brought several catapults within range of the city, and had them ready to go and light the town on fire. It was an almost perfect display of stealth and teamwork.

Almost.

Thade was captured during the operation, and was dragged into the main town hall, where the goblins were celebrating. Gant and Didier followed, hoping to rescue their comrade.

It turns out that the seer had foreseen danger to himself, and so he was gotten out of the city several hours ago. The goblins were celebrating because they had managed to keep their greatest weapon safe. Standing in the middle of them was Alianna, who was holding a dagger to Ila's throat and had Celeste strapped to her back. Alianna grinned at Thade, and said "Watch this".

Ila's blood went all over the goblins, who cheered at the death of another elf.

Right about this moment Thade lost his mind, and he burst out of his ropes. Gant and Didier broke in some of the windows and started sniping into the crowd, aiding to the confusion. Thade charged Alianna, grabbing her and biting into her neck savagely, ripping out a good chunk of her throat, barely missing her jugular vein. As he ripped through Alianna's neck the goblins began to unload countless crossbow bolts into Thade, mortally wounding him.

Valanae, who had been lacing the outside walls with napalm, was finished with her job and lit the walls up as the signal. Vladmir launched the catapults, and the city began to burn in earnest.

Alianna escaped from Thade's grip and started stumbling through the crowd, trying to get away before she lost too much blood. Seizing the moment Didier cocked an arrow, and Alianna fell to the ground. The Squad's primary antagonist was dead.  Thade whistled for Ubin, and started killing goblins with his bare hands. Ubin busted through the doors five minutes later with Valanae in tow. Valanae grabbed Celeste and headed for the exit, barely escaping with Didier and Gant as the fire reached raised temperatures easily 150+ degrees.

But Thade didn't follow. He stayed behind, if only to rip apart and destroy Alianna's body to ensure that nothing could resurrect the succubus.
As he ripped open her stomach a bright blue light blinded him and everyone within miles for a few minutes. When the light died down Alianna's remains were gone, a burn spot being all that remained.

Thade shrugged, and started slaughtering as many goblins as possible with his beloved bear. After killing approximately 40 goblins Thade made a pile, and put his wife's corpse on it. He called his bear over, and talked to his softly one last time, scratching it behind the ears.

Thade slit Ubin's throat.

As the flames built up around him Thade raised his knife and screamed to the Goddess of Death, the Raven Queen. He cried that Alianna had taken the only thing he had ever truly cared for, and that he was finished living. Offering his beloved bear's blood as a sacrifice he swore an oath. Until Alianna and all her kind was extinguished he would forever hunt them, and he asked for the Raven Queen's permission to let him live on as a spirit of vengeance and death in her service. He raised his knife to the heavens and begged the Raven Queen to honor his demand. Lightning lanced down and struck his knife, causing it to burn a fire dark and horrid. Satisfied, Thade laid upon the pile and was consumed.