Sarah Darkmagic's blog

Kenku HideoutA few weeks ago, I ran Treed! for my players. The results of their endeavor were a number of dead enemies and a captured Kenku. They wanted to interrogate the Kenku in hopes of finding more information about the kidnapped Darkmagics and also to see if there was any loot around. As a result of their interrogations (a skill challenge), they found out that the Kenku hideout was nearby and that one of the guards liked to sleep on the job.

They waited patiently for their time to attack and, when it came, proceed to climb up to the first level of the hideout. Just as the captured Kenku said, the guard was asleep at his post. The rogue quickly took him out and the party started moving towards the nearest set of double doors. However, they were unable to approach the doors without rousing the suspicion of the remaining Kenku guards. They took the first guard out without issue, and were to the door before the rest could get in position.

The sword mage decided to open the door and he saw quite a sight. Right near the door, a number of Kenku were playing cards. In a corner to the left, two Kenkus were playing dice and to the rear, four of them were eating super. One of the Kenkus came right up to the doorway. This worried the adventurers quite a bit and they decided the best course of action was to close the door again.

In the mean time, some of the Kenku guards were now in position to attack. The wing mage guard had no issue coming out of the shadows and engaging the adventurers, while the sneaks waited until they could take advantage of the area and hide. Eventually, the inevitable happened and all were engaged in the fight.

This was a tough fight for my group, partly because currently we only have four level 6 players. I also adjusted the monster stats by subtracting 2 from each of their defenses and adding a 2 to each of their attacks. More about that can be found here. Besides the hide/stealth rules, the other thing I've found hard to keep track of during a game is light effects. I've found it really hard to keep track of light levels, light sources, types of sight, and the like. These things are particularly important when trying to use the hide/stealth rules, since the darkness can provide concealment, but I feel like trying to keep track of who can see what really slows down the game. What do you think?

Encounter Details

Players (Level 6)

• Anka - Shadar-Kai Swordmage
• Birkalis - Half-Elf Bard
• Finnan - Halfing Rogue
• Skamos - Tiefling Psion

Monsters

• 4 Kenku Sneak (Level 4 Lurker) [DDI]
• 8 Kenku Warrior (Level 7 Skirmisher Minion) Modified from [DDI]
• 4 Kenku Wing Mage (Level 5 Artillery) Modified from [DDI]

Notes

• Remember to take advantage of the Kenku sneaks ability to hide whenever it has cover from an ally. This could include moving your sneaks in such a way that gives each other advantage.
• Warriors do extra damage when they have combat advantage. Wing mages can help provide combat advantage by using Death Flock.
• Wing mages can also fly. This can help them get into combat easier, especially the ones acting as guards. It didn't happen in our game and one way to make it easier would be to decrease the space between the main hideout and the guard platforms.

At our last game, I decided to do something a bit different and did an across the board changing of monster stats. In this case, that meant giving the monsters a -2 to each of their defenses and a +2 to their attack rolls. The reason? The number of misses on both sides of the "screen" were just to high to be fun and seemed to drag out the game. My players now hit more, which made them happy, and were also hit a little more often, which lead to drama and tension. My husband even sent a tweet during the game when his halfling rogue went down for the count.

Once my players have made it through the entire little adventure, I'll post it here with more details. However, another point I would like to stress is the use of monster synergies. For instance, I used Kenku sneaks in this encounter, and they have the ability to become hidden if they have cover from another Kenku. This makes it very important for them to hang back in the crowd. In our case, they were behind a group of minions, which was great for them until the monk unleased an area attack that took out most of the minions.

Finally, I find the stealth and hide rules really confusing. I hope the new D&D rules compendium tries to make it much simpler. Either that, or someone should write an article that sums up all the information in one place with a section on frequently asked questions. I tried to look up most of the rules before the session but with the information spread across multiple books, I found it a bit difficult. Since the first part of the encounter involved them dealing with hidden guards, it meant a slow start to the encounter, especially since they found the rules a bit confusing as well.

During a recent gaming session, I tried something a little new. I decided it was time for my players to meet one of the dragons inhabiting Newham Shire. To play the role of the dragon who was to terrorize the small town of Lolling Green during a kidnapping, I chose Razecoreth, a young green dragon warlock [DDI]. All I did was adjust his level to be more in line with the level of my players.

However, I was concerned that since the player characters would not be in a confined area and the dragon is a solo monster, those PCs with ranged attacks would just hang out too far away from the dragon for it to be an effective menace. To make things more interesting, I added some Shadar-Kai minions into the mix, based off of the Shadar-Kai Gloomblades [DDI]. To set up the scene, I explained that the inn in the center of town was on fire and that they could see figures running around in the dark causing general mayhem. I introduced the Shadar-Kai after the first round and added more each round, rolling a d4 to determine the number to add. These minions were one level lower than the PCs and could easily come up behind PCs who were hanging out far from the main scene of action.

While I thought it worked out pretty well overall, it did bring up one big issue with using the minion game mechanic. My players treat minion characters differently than they do "regular" characters and try to translate the game mechanic of 1 hp into a role-playing tactic. For example, they tried to convince the last Shadar-Kai warrior to surrender because one hit would kill him. I feel it's a long-standing problem with D&D's hit point system and I'm not sure the best way to play around it. If I hadn't gotten thrown off by the obvious meta-game comment, I think I would have explained that these guys had already been through a heck of a fight (which they had) and that's why they were such easy kills. But such story solutions don't always present themselves. How do you deal with the issue when it comes up?

Going to PAX East? Looking to show off your adventure design prowess? If so, Wizards of the Coast is giving you a great opportunity to show the world just how much better than Christopher Perkins you really are. At 7 pm on the Saturday night of PAX, WoTC will be holding a DM tournament of sorts. Participating DMs are asked to create an adventure, using Underdark source material, for five 6th-level characters. The expectation is that the adventure will last for about 5 hours and encompass 3-5 combat encounters. However, DMs are encouraged to add other elements to their game to increase role play opportunities and to develop a mini story. In addition to bringing their adventure, DMs should bring everything they need to run the game, such as maps, tokens, minis, tiles, etc. Players and their characters will be provided. DMs will be rated by their players so keep that in mind when deciding whether or not to go for the TPK. People who would rather play than DM can show up 10 minutes before the scheduled time or sign up beforehand by emailing the organizer, Willi Burger at RPGAMarshal@aol.com.

I don't think I'm anywhere near the level I would need to be in order to enter this contest. I am tempted to write up an adventure anyway and pass it out to friends or submit it to NewbieDM's downloadable delves. However, I will definitely be there Saturday night, and would love to meet as many of you all as I can.

Wizards of the Coast released their D&D Character Name Generator. So far, it seems pretty neat, allowing the user to adjust the name guidelines on a wide variety of settings and providing not only first and last names, but also nicknames. When I first got to the page, I received the following name:

You can save the names generated as well as link to names created. Following the link appears to show you the criteria used to generate the name, although the drop-down menus for first letters of the first and last name are off by one. The tool also automatically saves the last 20 names it generates for you.

The number of options is pretty nice. Beyond specifying letters for the first and last names, you can choose gender, race, class, character's background, societal class and renown. The last is mostly tied to the level tiers. I can see this being useful to DMs and players alike.