I’ve finished reading the Essentials Player’s Book and DM’s Book. Others have taken pictures of the power cards and tokens, so you can get more complete spoilers there. I do have a couple of power-card powers that I’d like to call out.

Hypnotism is a very flavorful wizard at-will. On a hit, you force the target to make a basic attack against an adjacent creature with a +4 bonus. Even with the bonus, this attack requires two hit rolls before it does any damage, so it may be on the weak side. I think I might play a Hypnotism wizard anyway, because it feels like a different kind of character – like a Commander’s Strike warlord, someone who never personally makes attacks.

Backstab: Once again, the rogue preview differs from the Starter version. The preview version of Backstab gives +3 to an attack and +1d6 to damage. The Starter backstab just gives +3 to attack.

Slimy Transmutation is a hilarious wizard daily power. “A billowing cloud of greenish fog surrounds your foe. When the fog dissipates, your enemy is gone, and an ugly toad stands in its place.” Hit or miss, the “target turns into a Tiny toad.” You’ve been TOADED! It’s Save Ends, not permanent, but never before has Baleful Polymorph been available to a 1st level wizard.

I’d like to see Slimy Transmutation used as a utility spell. There could be occasions where you want to make yourself or an ally Tiny for a few turns.

I’m disappointed that there is no power card for the Prestidigitation cantrip. How will I clean up to 1 cubic foot of materials, WOTC? How will I make a smell? HOW??

More Red Box thoughts…

Of the three kobolds in the Essentials DM’s book, two (kobold tunneler, a level 1 minion and kobold quickblade, a level 1 skirmisher) are new. The Kobold Slinger is updated from the MM1.

The Kobold Slinger’s attacks have been made more accurate, and damage has been slightly fiddled with, but the big change is that Special Shot is now a random effect. Instead of the type being chosen by the DM, Special Shot now requires a d6 roll: on a 1-2 it’s a Stinkpot, 3-4 Firepot, 5-6 Gluepot.

Someone at Wizards is going back through old rules and adding random die rolls!

Do you think his name is Mike Mearls? I do! But maybe I’m wrong!

More Red Box thoughts…

According to the Essentials Red Box rules for leveling up, rogues get the Weapon Finesse class feature at level 2. That gives them +1 to attack and damage with light blades, light crossbows, short bows, and slings.

According to the Thief preview from the WOTC site, Weapon Finesse is granted at level 1. It’s not explained in the preview article. Not sure which source is right.

Also according to that article, a feature called “Improved Weapon Finesse” is granted at level 9. I have a theory about what that feature gives you, and my theory involves the modifier +2.

Go thou and play a level 9 thief!

Interesting! Dagger will probably take a backseat to short sword as the defacto rogue weapon for thieves! Though I suppose trading a range 5/10 weapon for a +1 to weapon damage is a legitimate dilemma.

If Improved Weapon Finesse does give an additional +1 to hit and damage, it will be pretty darn powerful (+2 attack and damage over most other classes!), and I’ll have a lot of respect for the thief class in terms of pure power. Should be interesting to see if that’s the case.

More Red Box thoughts…

In Encounter 6 in the Essentials Red Box adventure, we get the first random treasure generation table that I’ve seen in D&D 4th edition:

Each character who spends time searching through the [crate of] supplies for something useful or valuable can make a DC 12 Perception check. For each character that makes a successful check, roll a d8 to determine what the character found:

1 50 feet of rope
2 3 days of edible trail rations
3 a dozen candles
4 10 feet of chain
5 5 gallons of fresh water
6 3 pints of lamp oil
7 5 silver pieces (sp)
8 1 gold piece (gp)

Not only are these hilarious things to give treasure-hungry PCs, this entire chart could be sung to the tune of “The 12 Days of Christmas” with moderate success.

Also: D&D Essentials: Start to Crate: 67 pages.

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Encounter 2 of the Essentials Red Box adventure features 8 Kobold Tunnelers and a Fledgling White Dragon, a level 1 solo. As far as I know, Fledgling is a new category: Draconomicon introduces Wyrmlings, which are low-level Elites, but this Fledgling is a solo dragon.

I know this is an unpopular viewpoint, but I’m not a huge fan of killing babies. I don’t feel like a Real Man killing a dragon until it is at least an adult. Still, kudos to WOTC for managing to pack a dragon into the Dungeons and Dragons starter set. It’s in the name. It’s on the cover art. It’s nice to have one in the Red Box.

Dragons weren’t in the Mentzer Red Box solo adventure, but they were in the bestiary, and they were TOUGH. Too tough, I’m sure, for a level-3 party.

This encounter, too, is billed as a difficult one: “By itself, without any help from the kobolds, the dragon would be a tough opponent. […] If there’s any question, feel free to tell the players that their characters should be afraid of this deadly creature.” If the PCs are smart, they’ll talk to the dragon; that will lead to a skill challenge on the next page. Hopefully they’re not smart, because then they’ll get to FIGHT A DRAGON. Badass. If they win, they’ll pick up some money and a set of +1 darkleaf leather armor.

The white dragon fledgling looks like a pretty standard white dragon, except that it has a cool ability, Savage Blood: “While the dragon is bloodied, it scores a critical hit on a roll of 17-20.” The kobold tunnelers are standard kobold minions, with an immediate interrupt that gives them a saving throw to avoid close and area attacks.

On, by the way: best detail that will never make its way into actual play: “Each altar has two magical candles burning atop it, despite the kobolds’ continual efforts to extinguish them.” Hijinx!

More Red Box thoughts…

Encounter 1 in the Essentials Starter adventure (two goblins; one runs away to get help) is reminiscent of an encounter in the Mentzer Red Box solo adventure (two goblins; one runs away to get help), except that the Mentzer goblins are friendlier:

(Essentials Red Box) Two goblins, clutching short spears, glare at you with bloodshot eyes.
“You’re not welcome here,” the nearest one snarls.
“Intruders!” the other screeches.

(Mentzer Red Box) You greet the goblins in your own language, the Common Tongue. They look up, startled, and one growls something in its own language. The other smiles at you, and says “Why, hello there! What can we do for you?”

Of course, the 1983 goblin’s pleasant facade is all a trick to stall while goblin reinforcements arrive. 4e goblins can learn a thing or two from older editions: you catch more adventurers with honey.

That’s it for today! Tomorrow I’ll wrap up my thoughts on the DM’s Book and Red Box.

More Red Box thoughts…

When they decide to take an extended rest, encourage them to think about where might be a safe place to hole up for several hours. They can barricade themselves in an enclosed room or retreat from the dungeon to camp outdoors. Either way, they’ll have a restful night – but they don’t have to know that ahead of time. You might want to briefly narrate some strange noises and disturbing shadows they notice during the night just to keep them on their toes, but let them complete their rest safely.

I love that the starter adventure is encouraging players to plan in non-game terms: not by rolling Dungeoneering checks, but by coming up with reasonable schemes to stay safe overnight.

Of course, it’s all a travesty: the players’ precautions are wasted because there will be no overnight attack. But players’ precautions are always a travesty anyway. Most of the time, players plan elaborate contingencies against eventualities that hadn’t even occurred to the DM. But, as beginner DMs learn from this paragraph, a) it’s all about the ILLUUUUSION and b) players are stupid suckers.

Oh, players! What lovable fools!

I’m always torn about tricks like this one. On one hand, I hate the idea of the DM trying to preserve an illusion of danger when it’s never there. In this case, for example, if the PCs are never going to be attacked while sleeping, it’s annoying to heavily hint that they might be. Because then when they don’t take preparations for whatever reason, they’ll find out it’s all a big sham! Also, as a DM I don’t enjoy pulling tricks like this because I know the danger isn’t real; it feels less like a game and more like a performance I’m putting on for everyone. Of course, it’s okay to drop these hints if you plan to attack the players while they’re sleeping some time in the future but not in this specific instance. That maintains consistency for future encounters so it doesn’t seem weird when you suddenly bring up that the players might want to be careful where they sleep!

On the other hand, I do like some mechanism for limiting how many extended rests people are willing to take, and the risk of danger, even illusory danger, is one of the few tools the DM has to make people careful about resting too much. I like players to be making decisions like “can we make it to through another encounter without dying?”, “Will the mission fail is we don’t proceed immediately?”, and “Will they rally into a stronger force if we give up the initiative?”. If that mechanism is rooted in deceit and trickery, then I guess it might be a necessary evil!

More Red Box thoughts…

Pages 20-38 of the Essentials Starter DM’s book describe a pretty big dungeoncrawl adventure, similar in scope, perhaps, to the group dungeoncrawl in the 1983 Mentzer Red Box DM’s Book. (By the way, the Mentzer adventure, like the modern one, also starts on page 4.)

So I have a question: let’s say that my friends and I create characters by using the Essentials choose-your-own-adventure. Which of us was really on the wagon with the dwarf, and which are just lackeys hired in town?

If only one character in the group completed the solo adventure and gained these quests, that’s all right: That character sought other adventurers to help complete the quests, and they all get to share in the reward. If all the characters went through the solo adventure, explain to the players that they were all on Traevus’s wagon, fighting the goblins separately, but they’ve come together to brave the goblin lair as a team.

Nicely done. I was thinking that it strained credibility that a team of adventurers came together in Nentir Vale, all driven in wagons by separate dwarves named Traevus, and all were attacked by goblins. In fact, though, the adventurers were all on the same wagon and just didn’t notice each other. PCs are notoriously self-centered.

If that still seems implausible to you, consider this: Aren’t you, in some ways, on Traevus’s wagon yourself, thinking you’re on a solo adventure but really surrounded by allies? Aren’t we all?

What? Is my Essentials commentary TOO PROFOUND for you?

More Red Box thoughts…

Pages 6 through 19 of the Essentials DM’s book contain the indigestible rules lump that no D&D manual can really get away from. I don’t have much to say about it, since it’s largely reprinted from the PHB, except that it would have been really handy if there were a table of contents or index in the DM’s book.

One of the few touches of Starter Set flavor is on page 16, which describes conditions: each condition lists a Starter Set character or monster who can impose that condition. For instance, under Blinded, “The goblin hex hurler’s blinding hex attack causes creatures to be blinded.”

I read on a message board someone’s theory, based on a preview of the Essentials Knight fighter not using a mark mechanic, that Essentials was eliminating the Marked condition. In fact, Mark is in the condition list, and the condition’s description even lists a creature in the Starter bestiary that Marks opponents: “The skeleton’s longsword attack marks a target.”

More Red Box thoughts…

With Essentials, the skill-check DCs have been rejiggered yet again. For first-level characters, they’re now 8 for Easy checks, 12 for Moderate, and 19 for Hard.

This is about halfway between their initial DMG1 values of 10-15-20 and their first errata to 5-10-15. Notable is that instead of a 5-point difference between each level, there’s now 4 points from Easy to Moderate and 7 points from Moderate to Hard.

A leaked photo from the Essentials DM screen confirms that the gap between a Moderate and a Hard check continues to widen at high levels. Sad: I prefer a system that doesn’t require a giant chart to run with. I’ve been using the rule of thumb of 10-15-20 plus half level, but because of issues with 4e skills, my system does give trained PCs a lot of gimmes at high levels. I guess I’ll give the new DC numbers a try.

New numbers? AWESOME! The old ones didn’t really work. They were way too easy!

Weird that the gap widens between moderate and hard, but then again, I can kind of understand it. If you look at a moderate check as something someone untrained in the skill or trained without a primary stat and other bonuses would have some difficulty accomplishing but something that would be pretty easy for a character who really focused on that skill, it makes sense that it would increase at a fairly normal rate, say about 1 point every other level (to match the normal increase of skills).

On the other hand, hard checks need to increase more rapidly to keep up with all the ability increases, item bonuses, and feats people can pick up! If that’s the logic, I applaud it. When I max out my diplomacy so that I’m rolling in the mid 50s in paragon tier, I want to be rewarded by being able to make appropriately difficult DC consistently!

Based on the fact that the level 30 Hard check is DC 42, Rory, I’d say that your Diplomacy monkey will remain effective.

More Red Box thoughts…