March of the Phantom Brigade: Session 8

...Salazar Vladistone and his cronies!  This week's table had five players; we were missing the dwarf fighter Bolash.  We had Jarren, Valenae, Brandis, Keira, and Belgos.  The five PC's frantically searched for Faldyra and found her in the clutches of Salazar Vladistone hovering over his wife's grave.  Faldyra looks injured.  As the party approaches the graveyard they hear Salazar say the following in his cold raspy voice: "Why won't she appear? What vile spell keeps my wife from me? Answer, wizard!".  Faldyra looks scared with the dagger against her throat.

Without reliquishing his grip, Salazar turns his head towards the party and grins maliciously obviously aware of their presence. The ghostly soldiers drift forward to protect Salazar, weapons at the ready, but do not immediately attack. 

"What chance do the living have against an army of the dead?", speaks Salazar, "Your struggles will accomplish but one thing: your deaths."

The Problem with Wizards of the Coast (Part 3)

Nothing is wrong with Wizards of the Coast!!

I have a little beef to pick with all the players out there who have nothing to do but complain and gripe about Wizards of the Coast.  This is not a hate post to all those people, but an post on how to go about venting their frustrations without sounding like babies while doing it.

I will showcase 3 parts on the following topics: 1. The bad, 2. The Good, and 3. My thoughts.

In the first installment I pointed out some of the extreme negativity towards DDI and Wizards of the Coast. The second article showcased the benefits of being a member of DDI and how there is nothing wrong with how the company is going about its business.

This last installment are my personal thoughts on WotC about the points talked about in the previous articles.

Tactics 101: Flying Creatures

I love 4th Edition for the simplicity it has to offer.  The rules are easy to follow and learn, play time is simpler (you do not have to reference all the books with the online compendium handy), and roleplaying is encouraged and necessary to differentiate yourself from other characters.

There is one thing that bothers me and continues to bother me about 4th edition.  Flying creatures!  I personally find them annoying in combat situations. There are no real tactics to deal with them.  For example, your party will normally be faced with land bound creatures such as orcs, gnolls, kobolds, and within a few rounds your party can eliminate the opposition one by one.

However, you add a flying creature into the fray and all tactics of focusing fire are gone to hell and combat continues endlessly between ranged strikers and controllers (mostly).

March of the Phantom Brigade: Session 7

This week we had all the pregens present at the table. Everyone was excited to see what happened when the shield went down and we got to playing without too much chatter and disruption.

Session 7 begins this week shortly after the death of Brother Aldus Splintershield. The party has seen a flash in the sky and within minutes the notice an orange glow coming from the direction of Inverness. The party decides to leave Splintershield's body comfortably positioned and start making for the town fearing the worst.  Jarren decides to relieve Splintershield of his holy symbol temporarily to show Malgram once they return.

The party made haste and upon reaching the outskirts of the forest near Inverness, the party is met with a horrifying sight.  Inverness is burning!  Fire rises from several buildings and you see through various breaks in the wall, the same spectral soldiers the party fought in the woods skirmishing with the settlers of the town.

20ft Radius has gone mobile!!

I am please to announce that 20ft Radius has gone mobile. 

We believe that our readers should be able to access us wherever they go.  Being the technological genius that I am (NOT!)  I have been slow in adding this feature to our blog. 

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade Level 2 Pregens

March of the Phantom Brigade is proving to be the most exciting season of D&D Encounters yet.  What more could we add.  Unfortunately we were not given the level ups of the pregens so today I present the level e versions of pregens.

Here are the level 2 versions of the pre-generated characters for those who have reached this milestone in the campaign.  Even though WotC have not given us any guidelines for the levelling of the pre-generated characters, I have chosen what I thought were good powers for the characters.

The next session all my players will be level two characters and thought I would share them with the rest of the players out there. Don't forget to manually add any magic items you have received.  You can do this by downloading the CB files and modifying them with the Character Builder if you have a DDI subscription, or you can even ask a friend who has a subscription to do it for you.

Continue to read to get the files.

Defenders are the Best Role to Play!

Do you enjoy jumping into the thick of battle? Do you enjoy being a masochist? Do you love to show and tell your battle scars while sitting around the hearth drinking with the rest of your party? Do you love the praise which comes at the end of the battle from the rest of your squishy party members?  Do you like the attention the monsters give you in battle? Do you like to kill things?  Then the defender is the best role to play.

Coming down to the final installment of the description of the roles, we showcase one of the most misunderstood roles in 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Radical Change

Radical change is necessary once and awhile.  Working with Google blogger does have its limitations for a guy like myself.  I am not very creative; well at least not creative enough to draw anything spectacular for a background image for my website that is original and new.

The Problem with Wizards of the Coast (Part 2)

Nothing is wrong with Wizards of the Coast!!

I have a little beef to pick with all the players out there who have nothing to do but complain and gripe about Wizards of the Coast.  This is not a hate post to all those people, but an post on how to go about venting their frustrations without sounding like babies while doing it.

I will showcase 3 parts on the following topics: 1. The bad, 2. The Good, and 3. My thoughts.

In the first installment I pointed out some of the extreme negativity towards DDI and Wizards of the Coast.  This article now goes over the benefits of being a member of DDI and how there is nothing wrong with the way the company is going about their business.

March of the Phantom Brigade: Session 6

A great time was had by all this week.  I had traveled down to Toronto for the week due to school March Break and treated myself to a night of playing with a couple of the crew from Dungeons Master down at Dueling Grounds.

Tysylio joined me in this debauchery of dice rolling.  I was a little nervous.  I cannot describe the feeling of conversing with people through a blog site versus meeting them face to face:  I did not know what to expect.

The Problem with Wizards of the Coast (Part 1)

Nothing is wrong with Wizards of the Coast!!

I have a little beef to pick with all the players out there who have nothing to do but complain and gripe about Wizards of the Coast.  This is not a hate post to all those people, but an post on how to go about venting their frustrations without sounding like babies while doing it.

I will showcase 3 parts on the following topics: 1. The bad, 2. The Good, and 3. My thoughts.

DMing Styles

"I would like to introduce Tysylio, a good friend of mine who has agreed to submit some of his work over the course of time to 20ft Radius.  Read a little more about Tysylio in the About section.  I hope you enjoy his work and I look forward to working with him in the future. He is a great guy, so read well..."

-Alton 

The group I play in currently enjoys a Dynamic style of DM rotation. That is, we rotate the DM responsibilities every module. Whereas other groups don't do this; they have one DM, and that's it; a Static style. Another way could be a Static/Dynamic DM, where one person DM's players from 1st to 30th, and then passes the torch.

There are obviously pro's and con's to each method.  Here is a little brain storm of how I see the pro's and con's of each:

March of the Phantom Brigade: Session 5

This week's session started with the introduction of Salazar Vladistone.  After the cleansing ritual was completed, the sense of dread around the castle has disappeared and the characters and all the settlers can rest with ease.  Brother Splintershield and Malgram once again thank the party for their efforts in protecting the alcolytes ang giving the settlers this chance to finally start the rebuilding of the town of Inverness.  Brother Splintershield promises them a new beginning and riches to come.

Suddenly a cry goes up from one of Malgram's scouts at the main gate:

"Malgram! Brother Splintershield! Come forward to the gates. Hurry! Hurry!"The two settlers and the party rush to the gate and the scout points out to the following sight:

Rrrrolling up the Dice on Interaction Skills!

Here are two scenarios:

Scenario One

Jester: 'I am going to try to bluff the monarch that the task presented to us is much too difficult for the amount of gold he is offering us.  I want him to give us more!'

DM: 'OK, roll your bluff check.'

Jester:  I got a total of 29. THAT SHOULD GET ME SOMETHING.

DM:  (rolling insight of 30).  The monarch sees what you are doing and does not appreciate you trying to take advantage of his generosity.

Jester:  C'mon man! I rolled a 19 plus my bonus.  The DC cannot be that high.  You just want me to fail.

DM: I just told you you failed.

Jester:  That sucks!  What a waste of a good roll!

Scenario Two

Jester: 'I am going to try to bluff the monarch that the task presented to us is much too difficult for the amount of gold he is offering us.  I want him to give us more!'

DM:  Ok!  One sec..(rolls Jester's bluff check 20 vs monarch insight 21).  Unfortunately, the monarch sees what you are doing and does not appreciate you trying to take advantage of his generosity.

Jester: Shucks!  Allright, I apologize to the monarch and we will take his mission.

March of the Phantom Brigade: Session 4

Starting this week's session, we had all six pregenerated character spots filled at the table: Fargrim, Valenae, Keira, Belgos, Jerren, and Brandis. 

Following Brother Splintershield and the caravan into the castle grounds. The settlers are a little rattled with the feeling of dread upon crossing the threashold of the castle. The party approched the cleric of Moradin and asked what the next step was going to be.   He replies that in a few moments, he and his alcolytes will begin performing the cleansing ritual that will hopefully remove the fear of dread upon entering the grounds and protect the area against incursion of the undead.  Malgram, meanwhile is nervously pacing the compound, setting his archers on the walls as guards against any kind of surprise.

It's All About the Dice...Or is it? (Part 2)

If you have read part one of the article, you will see that I have compiled data for my four sets of dice.  The process I took was to roll every single die in my bag 100 times and compile how many numbers I get for each die.  I have listed this data on the tables in the previous article: It's All About the Dice...Or is it? (Part 1).

It's All About the Dice...Or is it? (Part 1)

"Alright!!! Here go my lucky dice (roll, roll, roll)! Crap! I rolled a one!"

The most important tool gamers need are dice.  How many of you have more than one set?  I have four; my previous seven sets were stolen from my vehicle last year.  Everyone has their favourite set and use them regularly during gaming sessions.  Some players even change up their dice when they are having a cold streak (that is why we have more than one set).  How many of you have more than thirty six-sided dice in their bag?  I do.  This is because of having played sorcerer's for years in the 3.5 edition. 

No matter what you have in your bag, you still have your favourite dice.  Are they really lucky? Do you just like the way they look?  Do they really roll better than your other dice?