Jeffs Phrase of the Day

This is a response to Jeff Rients phrase of the day on Jeffs Gameblog on August 6. Here are some "supplementary amounts of wild ass"...
- ChaoticBlackSheep

A Real Life "Dungeon"

Last week I happened to take a trip to an old lead mine an hour south of St. Louis. I've been in a few natural tourist caverns and used them for D&D inspiration, but the mine was a whole different ballgame. I would encourage any midwestern DMs to find the time to take a trip to the Bonne Terre Mine. At least take the walking tour. If you're planning on running any adventures involving aboleths, kuo-toa or other underground aquatic horrors, take the boat tour (which includes the walking tour). Picture a giant aquatic monstrosity bursting out of the waters at the bottom of this deep, dark, dank pit and get a feeling for just how doomed you'd be.

This was the closest thing I've ever seen to a standard D&D dungeon. Granted, there were no 10' x 10' rooms with red dragons in them, but what surprised me was the opposite extreme. All the rooms were huge, and there were no natural caverns. Everything had been dug out over nearly a century by men, mules and machines. The tour guide said this was a "room and pillar" style mine dug completely from solid rock. It was astounding how much space had been carved out. Any dragon would have felt right at home in this place. It even had distinct levels (five of 'em). They have a slide show. The second image will give you a sense of the scale.

According to the guides, the mine extends out over about a 3 mile by 3 mile area. Suddenly the huge cities of the D&D underdark don't seem so far fetched. And the whole structure of the place, with gigantic stone pillars holding up the ceilings of these gargantuan rooms, reminded me of the mines of Moria in the Fellowship of the Ring movie. I'd always thought that place looked way too big to be true, but there I was standing somewhere that looked awfully similar.

Highly recommended as a field trip. Take your whole group and let them get a feel for crawling the underdark in real life. If you and/or your group are exceedingly crazy, you can sign up to go scuba diving in the mine.

Hair Nymph

Hi everyone,
I know I don't usually post here, but I had to share this wonderful hair nymph who was there to greet me when I took a shower today. Note: I didn't create this - she was just there staring at me from behind her cascade of hair.
- Jennifer

The Curious (R)Evolution of the Drider

While working on this week's What the Heck*, the "sprites' answer to the drider", I was doing a little research into the drider and I noticed something odd.

3e MM: Driders are bloodthirsty creatures that lurk in the depths of the earth, seeking warm-blooded prey of any kind.
4e MM: Bloodthirsty creatures that lurk in the depths of the world, driders are servants of Lolth gifted with a semblance of their god’s grotesque form.

OK, pretty much the same, but...

3e MM: When a dark elf of above-average ability reaches 6th level, the goddess may put him or her through a special test. Failures become driders. Because they have failed their goddess's test, driders are outcasts from their own communities. Drow and driders hate one another passionately.
4e MM: In drow society, the strongest and bravest can take the Test of Lolth. Those who succeed become driders, members of a privileged caste. Those who fail usually die.

Wow, that's quite a turnaround for the outcast driders of old. In fact, it reverses fluff that dates back to the very first appearance of the creature, which according to Wikipedia is Q1, Queen of the Demonweb Pits (1980), a module I happen to own...

Q1: When Drow of promising ability reach 6th level or slightly higher, Lolth will summon them and put them through a specially-devised test. The Drow that fail become driders. ... Driders are outcasts from Drow communities, and thus bear them no great love.

I must admit, the part about those who fail the test becoming driders never made the slightest bit of sense to me. "Ah, my spider-worshiping child," Lolth says. "You have failed me, and so I must transform half your body into that which you revere, leave all your existing magical powers intact, and give you a few new goodies like a poison bite. Don't you feel like a loser?" Personally, I think the change the 4e designers made was long overdue.

* A little secret - I often do most of the WWTH writeup on Friday evening and schedule it for the usual 7PM Saturday. Since I've never had input to a WWTH later than Friday evening this hasn't been a problem. Even if I get late input I have all day Saturday to tweak it to include any new ideas. I'm not sure why I felt the need to include such a meta-note as this, but there it is. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

The Ruff is Tuff!

I discovered yesterday that the makers of Soul Calibur 4 get what I was talking about two weeks ago.

How badass would the iconic male dragonborn paladin look, charging out of the page at you, with his freaking frills flared out past his shoulders?

Apparently, pretty damn badass. Image from here.

Reasoning vs. RAW in 4e

MikeLemmer's comment here spurred a thought. In D&D 4th edition, how necessary is it to have reasoning for a 4e power? Does flavor text mean anything?

My own answer is typically "no." I have the RAW and the rules run the game. However, my day job is in computer programming, so this attitude should surprise no one. The computer does exactly what software tells it to, no matter how nonsensical, and that's the world I live in.

Still, I was surprised to find out a few days later that the Player's Handbook apparently backs up my answer right on page 54. "You can alter this description as you like" and "When you need to know the exact effect, look at the rules text that follows."

I can't help but think that the intense arguments over Commander's Strike that I referenced in my previous post would never have taken place if the flavor text had been altered or ignored. In fact, let me take a stab at rewriting the flavor so it matches the mechanics more closely. The rule referenced above explicitly says I can do this.

Warlord Attack 1

Commander’s Strike

With a deft feint, you force an enemy off balance, leaving him open to an attack by an ally.

At-Will * Martial, Weapon
Standard ActionMelee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: An ally of your choice makes a melee basic attack against the target

Hit: Ally’s basic attack damage + your Intelligence modifier.

Done and done. No more arguments about using this power by yelling from across the battlefield. The new flavor makes the RAW usage clear (not that it matters, since page 54 effectively says the flavor text is meaningless as an interpretation or explanation of the RAW anyway). This version simply clearly states in the flavor what the RAW already told us.

More Laser Clerics!

I should probably be working instead of blogging, but I dig this and I wanna play too. Plus I have a laser cleric of the Raven Queen in one campaign who'll probably want to use Chatty's flavor, so I'd better at least do her other at-will...

Cleric Attack 1

Fire of Fate

A shaft of cold, white flame lances down from above, stealing a single enemy's luck and life force while at the same time transferring that luck or life force to an ally.

At-Will * Divine, Implement, Radiant
Standard ActionRanged 5
Target: One creature
Attack: Wisdom vs. Fortitude

Hit: 1d6 + Wisdom modifier radiant damage, and one ally you can see chooses either to gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + one-half your level or to make a saving throw.

Increase damage to 2d6 + Wisdom modifier at 21st level.

Go go gadget laser clerics!

Dragonborn Bewbs

This is an old topic that started some serious flamewars a few months ago, so it's probably best that I'm posting it automagically while I'm out of town. I have no desire to revisit the madness, but I want to offer up a single thought about it.

I suspect that the reason dragonborn females in the 4e core books have breasts is simply because:

1. The art director told the artist(s) that we had to be able to tell the genders apart.
2. The artists followed that directive in the simplest way possible - by differentiating the genders of dragonborn the same way they do every other race.
   

And that's too bad. I think someone seriously dropped the ball on this one. I don't think the dragonborn breasts, the way they're depicted, do their job of differentiation all that well. A couple of images in the PHB I dunno what gender the subject is. I also think that with ten seconds of thought they could
have come up with something that would have done the job better and caused a lot less geek controversy. That's about how long it took Jen and I to come up with the suggestion below when the subject came up between us.

I think female dragonborn should look just like the males we have in the books (maybe with smoother heads - that seems to be another subtle differentiating feature) and the males should have frills.

How cool would that be? How badass would the iconic male dragonborn paladin look, charging out of the page at you, with his freaking frills flared out past his shoulders? While we're at it we can give them to the male dragons to flare when they use their breath weapons (and court female dragons).