At Will

At some point the focus of Dungeons and Dragons changed.  I can remember when I played with my friends over lunch with nothing in front of us except character sheets and a pencil.  No battle mat.  No dry-erase markers.  No one inch figurines.  We probably had some rulebooks lying around, but they were rarely consulted.  An optimized build was something we never even considered.  The most min-maxing we did was taking a bastard-sword instead of a regular long sword for its increase in damage (and its hilarious name).

Since the advent of 3E and now into 4E the game has changed for me in a fundamental way.  Instead of a role-playing game where the focus is on the characters and their actions, the game has become a tactical game – more reminiscent of a table-top war game.  Building your character can feel more like allocating your points for the greatest tactical advantage than developing a new person.  What happened?

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The heroes have retrieved the last MacGuffin and are just about to enter the lair of the Final Boss. They’re nervous. They have no idea as to the extent of their enemy’s power . Only glimpses and rumors from town and the corpses of the villain’s many victims hint at what this wizard/warrior/monster/scoundrel might have in store for them. Little do they know, neither do you.

One thing I’ve learned from prepping for the finale of an adventure is that stating out and planning tactics for the villain can the most complex and time consuming aspects of the work. How do you ensure this fight stands out in your players minds as an appropriate climax?

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The topic of RPG box sets and starter sets was raised on Twitter earlier today, which of course lead to discussion of the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Starter Set for fourth edition. (More information on Amazon.) The current 4e Starter set is a quality product, well worth the $17 cover price. But what if you were willing to spend a bit more on a Starter Set? What if you were willing to pay for a “Deluxe” version? Something around $50.

Here is what I would include in such a Deluxe Starter Set, and most of it comes from current Wizards of the Coast products.

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The goal of every DM is to make an encounter that leaps off the grid, gripping his/her players’ imaginations and being a topic of discussion years down the road.  4e makes encounter design much easier, but to get those memorable encounters, extra care must be taken. There are at least as many elements that can make a great encounter as there are DMs. One element remains constant through all of them:  Complexity.

Now, it doesn’t mean that your players have to solve differential equations every encounter.  When citing cmoplexity, I’m really citing that element of the encounter that makes it more than just laying blast templates and rolling for attack.  To capture your player’s mind, you have to put them into encounters more complex than using their abilities.  Added complexity creates “stretch”, how far players have to stretch beyond the normal range to beat the encounter.  Generate stretch and generate interest.  Generate interest and you stand a good shot at making a memorable encounter.

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The last of At-Will’s look into the PHB2 classes, but certainly not the least, we have the Warden. Protector of the natural world, the warden protects like there is no tomorrow.  If the invoker represents “pure” control, the Warden represents “pure” defender.  What this means in play is to put away all notions of damage.  Damage is completely unimportant to this class. What you trade for damage is the ability to be nigh-unstoppable.  You get two saves per round, massive hit points, great AC….and all you trade is some damage-dealing capability.

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