For those of you awaiting the ability to destroy their enemies with merely a single thought, you’re going to enjoy the Players Handbook 3.  Introduced in this volume are several new psionic classes: Ardent, Battlemind, Monk, and Psion.

Finally, the Monk Returns

The Monk returns as a Striker with a Psionic keyword.  Monks spend years training and studying, and they have learned how to use their psionic powers and their fists to defeat their foes.  As you mind expect, many of their powers have monk-like names, such as Whirling Mantis Step and Fist of Indomitable Iron.

I have to say, at first glance, my favorite aspect of the monk is the Initiate of the Dragon Paragon path.  Here, you’ve learned the ancient skills that were once taught by dragons to particularly gifted humans and have pass through the ages.  Once you’ve mastered this Paragon Path at 20th level, you have fully developed the ability to polymorph into a dragon.

What About the Rest?

Each of the other psionic classes has its interesting features, as well as the more mundane powers related to keeping oneself alive.  But here’s what I thought was neat about the Ardent, Battlemind & Psion.

They don’t have Encounter powers.  Instead, they gain At-Will powers when everyone else gets Encounter Powers.  These At-Will Powers are fairly useful in their own right, but there’s an extra little kick to make them truly unique for the psionics.

These three classes gain Power Points at Encounter-Power Levels.  Power Points can be used with “Augmentable” At-Will Psion powers.  Based on the number of Power Points expended to augment a power, the At-Will gains extra strength.  It’s an interesting concept of psionics’ control over their mental abilities; by training and focusing their mental powers, they can alter their attacks as needed.  Power Points reset after a short or extended rest, giving them the same basic utility as Encounter powers.

Now, I am personally more of a “give me a sword or a fireball, I want to see the damage I’m about to inflict” class preference.  But after reviewing these new psionic classes, I’m impressed with the width and breadth of their abilities.  I think they would be fun to play!

Well, the weather in Denver has been pretty nice these first couple of days of March.  It’s been “in like a lamb” here.  And that describes our gaming schedule too.  Nothin’ much happening right now.  February and March seem to be busy months on everyone’s calendar, creating a drought of ideas from the SR crew.

What’s On the Table

Since our dice haven’t been clattering on the table, what’s going on here?  At SR-West, Dante & I have been throwing back and forth ideas on possibilities to play with a smaller group.  And I’ve been continuing my game play in Dragon Age: Origins after surviving the two weeks of no X-Box while it was out for repairs.

We’ve also gathered a small stack of books for evaluation.  Without active gaming, it’s been harder to really review some of these, but we’re looking forward to preliminary reviews as we work through our scheduling difficulties.  I’m really looking forward to the DA rpg, which I have acquired but haven’t finished reading.  And Dante, of course, is looking forward to throwing evils at us from the Underdark.

So stay tuned, and we promise we’ll have something more to share with you soon!

I was sitting at work today, instant messaging Vanir about some post ideas for the site.  I continued to lament the same stuff I wrote about last time, complaining about how coming up with original ideas and the time to play lately has been difficult.  I needed inspiration, and I found some inside a FedEx box from Seattle, WA.

Tasty, tasty inspiration

As if someone was monitoring my blog watching for me to desperately cry out, we got a review copy of both Martial Power 2 and the Underdark supplement.  Without even a breath, Stupid Ranger ripped right in to the Martial Power 2 book looking for new goodies for our Warlord and Ranger to use.  I was on my way out to karate practice at the time, but I did grab the Underdark book and look inside quickly.  A scan of the Table of Contents provided the required keywords I was looking for “Denizens of…” and “New Monsters”.

And that’s only the start.  Since my campaign has just entered the Underdark, this book was tailormade for me to drop all sorts of terrible stuff on my players the next time we get together.  I started reading the “Geography of the Underdark” section to decide how much retrofitting I would need to do to make this campaign guide sing in my current game (not much, hooray!) and I was happy to see that there are several new Terrain Features, including a section on the emotional effects of adventuring in the Underdark.

I am excited about this book.  Expect to see much more from this supplement as I unleash it upon my unwitting players.  Mwhahaha!

We’ve been having a significant problem in our group lately getting a regularly scheduled game together.  This is largely due to Real Life getting in the way, but it has put a damper in the amount of material for this site lately!  Honestly, I’ve been feeling a little bad about the distinct lack of regular content lately so I’m considering starting up a pickup game or two for several reasons.

First, Stupid Ranger’s been bothering me to play a Swordmage.  Our D&D discussions lately consist of the following: “Let me play a Swordmage.  Can I play a Swordmage now?  Can I repurpose Character X to a Swordmage in our campaign?  PLEASE?” So I’m thinking about getting together a side campaign to make this happen.  In addition, thanks to some kind people at Wizards of the Coast we’ve gotten a few review copies that I’ve not made it to yet and I think having a sandbox will help me in doing a proper review of these books.

A few questions, if I may…

How many of you regularly play pick-up games?  Do you go for quick-gen characters?  A shifting campaign setting to encompass a bunch of different ideas?  Dovetailing these campaigns into your main storyline?  I’m interested in hearing how to overcome some of the logistics of having a secondary gaming group and how to make the campaign stay coherent with an irregular schedule.  Help a Dante out!  If you give me a good enough idea, I’m sure I’ll write an article about it so now’s your chance for minor Internet Fame!

Have you ever been playing in a game where there was one member of the group always got a little extra treasure or a bit of circumstantial luck that kept them out of harms way?  Perhaps this person was a significant other or spouse of the DM, or maybe they were a long-present player in the group… but any way you shake it you may be looking at The Pet Player.

Perception or Reality?

Does this actually happen?  Yes.  Does it happen in my campaigns?  Not on purpose.

I usually structure any significant damage dealing encounter in a fashion where player actions will determine who gets the brunt of the badness, but in the case of a battle with ignorant opponents I tend to let proximity to the bad guys or randomization (i.e. a die roll) to determine who gets hurt.

That is fair, isn’t it?

Only if you’re making it obvious to your players that you’re using a die roll to determine who gets the reaction.  The trouble with this mechanic is that patterns emerge, especially in small groups like most D&D adventuring parties.  This may be perceived by your players as favoritism or picking on a player, depending on if the die roll is awarding good fortune or bad.

One way that I cope with this problem is to use a cheat sheet to keep track of who the dice have chosen for good or bad results.  This way I can selectively skip someone if they’ve been randomly selected too many times.  Does this eliminate the value of using dice in the first place?  Some people may say yes, but I’d rather use a mostly fair 90% random, 10% fudged process than have a discussion why the same person got attacked 4 out of the 5 last rounds by the bad guys until they were a bloody pulp.  When real life feelings get hurt, then you’ll wish you had fudged something, I promise!

What happens if there really is favoritism going on?

Well, its hard for me to answer this question.  I’ve had the good fortune of not experiencing this problem personally, although I did participate in a few campaigns where certain characters were made much more significant in the plotline than others, which tends to erode party dynamics in a very “un-fun” way.  When this occurs, you can either choose to talk about it to the DM or just go with it if it doesn’t bother you that much.  I tended for the latter approach and it turned out to be a very fun game to participate in despite the extra-special treatment for certain characters.

Has this happened to you?  Have you been a pet player or been in a campaign with one?  What was it like, and how did it resolve?  Inquiring minds want to know!

I had one of those fantastic moments in our last gaming session.  The stars aligned, the powers hadn’t been exhausted yet, and the dice rolled in my favor.  And the rest of my party stood back in amazement that I managed a nearly-impossible feat.

The Story

Previously in our adventure, we encountered John, who has been working for the Drow because they took his wife hostage.  We entered a deal with John that we would rescue his wife from the Underdark if he told the drow that he had a way to infiltrate the restricted section of the library (we needed more info about the Drow and their plans for items from the library).  So after much wandering around in dark tunnels, taking those roads less traveled to avoid wandering parties of Drow, we found ourselves at a dead end: two Drow guarding the wife, Silvia.

For those of you who haven’t been following along, I’m currently playing Eaerenel, an Eladrin Wizard who specializes in fire spells.  And if you’re not familiar with the fire spells, they usually affect everyone in the area of effect, not just the bad guys.  So if Eaerenel cast a fire spell to affect the guards, she was going to be making life a little extra toasty for poor Silvia.  To make matters more urgent, the Drow decided to kill her instead of letting us try to rescue her and had cast a spell that enveloped her in web of spiders.

Things were looking desperate, and this is where I got creative.  With the DM’s permission, I invoked my ability to Twist the Arcane Fabric to move Silvia to safety before casting one of my fiery spells.  Twist the Arcane Fabric is a feat from Arcane Power (p 130), that allows an Eladrin to use her fey step ability to move an ally out of the way before casting an area or close arcane power.  Dante allowed that since “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Silvia could be counted as an ally.  It was a spectacular moment that made my whole night; I got to save the day!

Be Creative!

Creativity during game play is one of the cornerstones of roleplaying.  Without a touch of creativity, the game becomes mechanical.  To keep that spark of creativity burning,  you have to know your character’s capabilities; how can you plan an awesome course of action if you don’t know what you can do?

This Sunday, January 24, Black & Read is hosting Z-Force Colorado, who will be running  a demo of Pandemic & On the Brink (Z-Man Games).  So if you have some free time Sunday, stop by Black & Read between 2pm and 5pm.

Also, Genghiscon is coming February 11-14.  Check out the Denver Gamers Association website for more details!

Hello, my name is Dante and I have a problem.

Today I admit an uncomfortable truth: I have never read any of the Drizzt novels or pretty much any other Forgotten Realms related novelizations.

Before I hear the “door slamming”  sound of the rest of my readership leaving the premises, allow me to explain:

I have spent most of my D&D career learning at the feet of masters.  My original DM, Chuck, was exceedingly well versed in Salvatore-lore and all other manner of Forgotten Realms storylines.  He painted so many vivid and disturbing examples of Drow culture that it held me over for quite some time, and since my first real campaign was a continuation of his storyline I didn’t have to know much more than I already did.  My other campaigns have predominately revolved around non-Forgotten Realms themes and topics I haven’t had to revisit the setting, so my interest wasn’t focused there.

And now I’m screwed.

Well, maybe not screwed… but I do have a situation.  I have worked up a plot that involves the dark elves, and strategically timed it such that I had all holiday break to do some reading to prepare me to subject my characters to a proper representation of Drow society.  The trouble is that I didn’t do my homework and now I need some crib notes for how to whip up a Drow society and make it believable.  I’m going to crack open my 4e Forgotten Realms campaign guide and see what I can glean in a few sessions prior to this weekend, but I’m open to any suggestions on how to bone up fast.

Also, I would like to extend my apologies to everyone who has written in the Forgotten Realms universe.  I consider this one of the most grievous gaps in my D&D education, one that I fully intend to rectify.  Just not this week!  I fully expect to suffer the barbs of my fellow roleplaying bloggers on this one, so the comment thread should be fun!

Recently, we received a comment from a user of some concern to us here at Stupid Ranger. This user, known only as “Frank”, asks, “What The F*ck” is a bullywug?”.

Yes, I know, I was as shocked as you. Especially with the recent upswing in Bullywug Awareness throughout our culture, it is difficult to look on such ignorance. I don’t know whether to be sad or angry. Did this poor soul simply not have access to a proper education? Or is this simply a willful choice to disbelieve that anything so magnificent and deadly could exist?

Regardless, I feel that it is my duty to enlighten this poor soul, and to give the rest of us a refresher. Let us start with the basics.

Bullywugs were discovered in the year 1852 by a sociologist by the name of Eberhard Anheuser. While on a nature hike through the virgin woodlands of what would later be known as Belgium, he happened upon a tribe of what appeared to be frog-people sacrificing one of their own upon a large sacrificial altar. This was accomplished by rolling a large boulder over the sacrifice, which caused a veritable tidal wave of bullywug-humors to cascade all over everyone in a 10′ radius. (This, also, was the origin of the little known Abjuration classic, “Eberhard’s Protection From Humors, 10′ Radius”.) These humors, as it happened, turned out to be both incredibly delicious and addictive, a fact that Mr. Anheuser quickly capitalized on. In 1854, he mobilized a small army of men to build a factory and to hunt and breed bullywugs in captivity for the sole purpose of  the later harvesting and bottling of their tasty bodily fluids. This beverage was known to the locals as “Wugweiser”.

The bullywugs did not take this lying down, of course, and within the year had developed a strong (and amphibious) resistance. Under the leadership of one Frederick Wuglass, known both for his oratory skill and fantastic hairbeard, the bullwugs brought production of Wugweiser to a standstill. It was not long after that Mr. Anheuser began to act very strangely, retreating from friends and family, and spending most of his time sunning himself on a rock. When he eventually did return to the office, he ordered a complete shutdown and retooling of the plant to make a much more uninteresting beverage with a far more uninteresting brand name using fermented grain. The locals believe Mr. Anheuser was secretly kidnapped and replaced by one of the bullywugs, but that is complete nonsense. Everyone knows that bullwug magic is only for making rainbows and powering the Great Engine that fulfills dreams for the Make A Wish Foundation.

The bullywugs had hoped to recede back into obscurity after this incident, but unfortunately a man named Gary Gygax invented a game called Dungeons and Dragons and, using a book of forbidden knowledge he accidentally checked out from the Lake Geneva Public Library, included many of their secrets in the game. The last straw came when the D&D cartoon was released in the United States in 1983. Though largely unnoticed by the general public, it prominently featured brutal, racist caricatures of many key members of the Bullywug Parliament. Outraged and insulted for the last time, the bullywugs vowed blood-revenge on humanity. That is how hip-hop music came to be.

And that, Frank, is what the f*ck a bullywug is.

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season.  The SR crew briefly reunited for some Christmas cheer this week, then went about the business of enjoying family at the holiday.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas (or a great Friday if you don’t celebrate Christmas).  Happy New Year to everyone!