"Checking the Competition"

So for the last 3 weeks, we spent our class period playing the rival teams game mod. Overall, it was supremely average. Most of the ready  made character was some sort of vampire, and the big twist in design was that everyone was evil...... ish. The thing is, it couldn't even be a full on evil campaign which is can be a very imaginative game!

I played the swarthy half angel ranger, Michael Silvermane.  But the thing is I didn't even know, or couldn't know the half angel stuff as it was basically a ranger with all the names changed. After informing the designer, he immediately spruced up the character and added more angelic powers, even revealing a good twist to the characters overall play with a built in morality code that determines what powers you can use at which time.

Overall it was a decent campaign  especially the level and trap design, but the tone of the game was so standard and done before that it was easy to get bored. I hope they enjoyed our game though!

"The Masks"

As you (the imaginary reader) must be aware of by now, one of my favorite parts of this project has been the class of VeilBinder. One of my duties for this class was to come up with class specific items, mainly the masks themselves.

I spent hours doodling on graph paper to get a good plethora of choices to dazzle the PC's. Sadly I just came up with a handful.

The bulwark mask, mask of defense. 

Mask of sight, a dexterity users best friend. 

Mask of shadow, same dealies, but now for stealth checks. 

Mask of the mind, not a natural psionic? Jelous of Mage hand? Not anymore!

Also, as this was a class that used a patron diety, namely Shazek, I also came up with a ritual to use the faces of slain enemies to harness their gory powers!

So, the ritual requires the following

-Chalk (to draw summoning circle)

- Ceremonial Knife to cut off face (or equivalent)

-A healthy dab of the foes blood

-3 pieces of Elder Tree Bark (To be burnt in the summoning circle)

-Silence for Shazek to whisper his instructions. 

-One Mask of the Vielbinder

The Vielbidner must cut off the foes Face, or the closest one can make from the face, and place it in the circle on top of an older mask. The pieces of Elder Tree Bark must be burnt to help summon Shazek, and the area of summoning must be as silent as possible so Shazek may whipser his blessings into the mask. 

If Shazek finds the offering worthy, the Binder will be gifted with a new mask with new powers, if the ritual is ruined, or botched in any way, shazek may not appear, appear and create havoc, or steal the face of a compatriot. 

But how does one make the mask to be useable in game? It can be done in 4 easy steps.

1. Find the foe in your monster manual or equivalent literature.

2. Select one power of encounter or below ( no dailys) that the creature uses. 

3. Quickly think of a name for the mask, this can be as easy as naming it The Mask of Foe! ( Mask of The Kraken, Mask of the Goblin) or you can be creative as you can be!

4. Add one more aspect to give the mask some flavor, just look the foes info over and add something to give the mask more flavor (for example, +5 dark vision for Mask of the Vampyre)

- NOTE! You cannot create a mask on an astral creature, another diety, or spiritual creatures as they lack flesh to cut. 

With a creative DM, this creates a rich tapestry of options, for the groups veilbinder!

"A sailing we will go!"

As the team has settled to weaving our world together, it was decided to have the start of the adventure on a ship!

My first instinct was to make it large enough to accomodate the turmoil the PC's would inflict, however during the playtest, it only kept the players from attacking the solo boss, so shrinking the playing space became the first hurdle.

I used old schematics of 18th century corvettes and schooners as a basis for the overall design, even adding a lower deck option including life boats should the players imaginations take them down below. As a game designer, it is our job to facilitate the players growth and excitement through the world. Included are pictures of the final result.

Playtesting a new mod.

So as we slowly but surely got our races and classes fleshed out, we took to playtesting them this week. Using a gamemastery battle mat, we started in the future players shoes, aboard the splintery vessel heading through the bay of stars torwards the dale lands. Here, our players would fight a large kraken, and how they fared against it would dictate the rest of of their adventure.

The kraken itself was a gargantuan creature, and being able to summon semi autonomous tentacles to harry the players makes it a ridiculously fun solo fight for the characters.

Over the course of the 8 turns of combat, we discovered that.

-The kraken was far to strong for the beginning of the adventure, and we couldn't risk burnout for the players right off the bat

-While the tentacles where a great idea, there needed to be more of them to accommodate the large amount of players

-apparently, the ship I designed was nightmarishly big!


So with these thoughts in mind, we head towards the next week, fine tuning as we go.

"God Damn!"

One of the tasks assigned to each of us, was to come up with a god that could plug into the pantheon of our chosen setting. Since we chose The Forgotten Realms, I decided to make a lower god in the pantheon and tie them into the setting by having them serve an established Deity.

The god itself is called Shazek, and he serves Cyric, the god of death and destruction. My lesser deity is actually based a little on the Cthulhu mythos's Nyarlathotep, a trickster god that shifts form.

So the god is based on deceit and masks, its followers gives it their identities and in return gain powers of shifting, control over shadow, and significant increases to bluff checks.

Now the player characters can become significantly involved with the god by choosing to walk the path of the veilbinder, a class that gains their powers from an agreement with Shazek. Or by running into its particularly large and invasive cult the god controls.

So now we get to see how not only mine, but the other gods fit into the campaigns story!

"Getting Classy"

The key to a successful D&D supplement has always been 3 things.

New Races
New Monsters
New Classes.

The first two are in the bag as of right now, so this past week we focused on classes! Once again, we ran into the same problem we encountered while brainstorming new races and monsters, everything is covered! This meant that we had to expand into professions and dynamics that not even eberron could touch. A daunting task indeed.

But over the course of a week and a half we broached, argued over, and eventually settled  on a few classes, including one of my own tweaking!

"The Veil Binder"

The veilbinder is a class that in many ways resembles a blank slate, the class is similar to both a bard and warlock as it excels at not one skill (using masks to augment his abilities) and his powers come from a pact with an external force (Shazek, messenger of Cyric, and god of deceit and faces).

When it comes to the character, the backround could be anyone who desired power, enough to sacrifice their own identity, so they summon and make a pact with the god Shazek, who is the source of their powers and feats.

And of course, after the character makes their pact with shazek, they are granted 3 masks, which could be removed or added to augment the players abilities in game. 

Overall, I am glad with how the lore and backround turned out, all that is left is playtesting. Stay tuned for further veil binder build updates!

"Expanding the Bestiary"

One of the hardest parts of this class so far, has been brainstorming for new races and monsters. The biggest problem is that the official supplements are brimming with both classic and new monsters, so once we get an enemy idea, name, and nature going, we realize it was in a dark sun supplement 8 years previous.

So we fell too reversing established fantasy tropes, as we turned our territories elves into musclebound, brutal savages, or mixed animals into a humanoid shape with the rest of our races. These include a Phoenix born, mushroom man, spider man. While we have since written plenty of filler and racial modifiers to make these races quite fun, the overall development process was basically a big game of "simpsons did it".

However, even with these pitfalls, we came up with quite a few good ideas, and hopefully these ideas will bear fruit!

Running Large Groups

As of this post, I have run two games in my current campaign. The characters are great, the setting is standard enough to be accessible to both veterans and newcomers, and there are plenty of surmountable challenges to keep the players on their toes.

However the current adventuring party is made of 12 player characters. This has made problems arise at an alarming rate.

• Combat takes longer (especially when factoring 12 players and then 4-8 monsters)
• The dense collection of characters don't give the players time to explore properly
• It is easy to lose focus while waiting for your turn in combat
• The game can get a bit loud as many players vie for attention from the DM

And while all of these problems can seem daunting, there are things you can do to alleviate these headaches. 

• Get rid of initiativerolls, just go clockwise around the table to speed up combat encounters
• use random rolls on specific party members too keep them in the action.
• Do not spend too long on any one object and keep the story going. 

Importance of Perception.

Now, in the past I always played my characters with a fairly devil may care attitude. Knowing my permissive DM's would role with my choices and let my hero reach the end and get the treasure I hardly ever used perception checks besides to look for loot or puzzle pieces . You need to know your DM however, as the newest I have played under is much more tough on adventurers who never look before they leap.

Our group had gotten split up, and the small group I was partitioned with found themselves navigating labyrinthian tunnels. No monsters or combat, just us trying to move in a tight environment, and we ended up with more wounded than the other group who ran into more monsters than they could handle!

Not only did I fall into a deadfall trap I purposely walked into, but so did the warlock who tried to get me out, much too the amusement of the DM and other group! The whole experience has taught me a few things.

1. As a DM, if your characters are not appreciating the scenery or  taking the environment into consideration, using traps and movement modifiers too make them can enrich the experience and give them a new appreciation of the dungeon.

2. As a player, if the DM is not telling you something you need to ask them. Wether asking for a description of the current room, or rolling perception, dungeoneering, or nature checks to know what is safe and what isn't.

So it is safe too say that the next few characters I will roll up will put a bit more into their INT and Perception skill. However right now I just started writing my own campaign, and will start the daunting process of making a world map.

Until next time!

Welcome to the Blog!

This is just a quick welcome to those of you who have found this blog. My name is paul, and I am currently working on becoming a Game Designer. To help me along my path I am taking a course on that very subject using D&D 4th edition. 

This blog will follow my experiences, projects, and hopefully adventures I create while I take this class, and even beyond. So lets get started!