Neitherworld Stories

April 11, 2008

The Gnoble Gnoll?

I’ve always had a soft spot for gnolls. I’m fairly certain that it is the visual of a hyena-person that I appreciate, since I don’t actually like most of what D&D has done to them over the years. I’m not a fan of their demonic associations. I don’t like the characterization of them as shiftless and overly-lazy. I don’t really...

April 9, 2008

Interesting observation…

I was checking my blog stats, and it appears that the Culture-Making Checklist that I posted a bit over a year ago has been getting a lot of hits lately. I wonder if a disproportionately large number of people are engaging in campaign design at the moment… prepping for the imminent release of 4e.

April 8, 2008

Roleplaying in your own backyard

It seems like most of the modern rpgs that I end up playing in are set in the area I live in… Currently, I’m playing in a Mage campaign set in Champaign-Urbana and a post-apocalyptic game set in Illinois (we haven’t actually been to C-U yet, but we’ll end up there at some point). I have mixed feelings about this...

April 2, 2008

Cooking with Magic I

Basic: MendingThe kitchen uses of the Mending cantrip are innumerable. The spell does not have an effect upon creatures, but dead things are considered objects rather than creatures. Want to check the doneness of your meat? Slice it open as far as you want… and then cast this simple spell to mend the tear. Mending can also be used for...

March 28, 2008

Tactical Combat Musings: Reach

Preliminary thoughts: Reach is normally ranked from 1-100. Anything over 100 requires ranged weapons (for a normal-sized person). Weapons have an effective range of reach. A long pike, for instance, might be useful at 95-100. A longsword might be useful at 45-55. Some natural weapons (including fists and things) would have no minimum reach. Some weapons may have a semi-effective...

March 27, 2008

Rethinking Tactical Combat in RPGs

Two months ago, I posted about my frustrations with how big monsters are handled in D&D. This is part of a larger frustration I have with tactical combat in RPGs. How to define this larger frustrations? Well, there are a number of things that RPGs tend to model poorly: size differences between combatants, positional advantages, the importance of mobility in...

March 24, 2008

Against my better judgment…

I give you a giant, flying, cave dolphin. …a special bonus monster overhaul on the Yrthak. This one can keep all the stats the same, I think. Here’s the flavor text: Ages ago, the aboleth began cultivating blind cave dolphins as slaves, food, and subjects for their bizarre experiments. The yrthak is the product of one such experiment: a breeding...

March 21, 2008

Krenshar: the less stupid version?

The Krenshar. Along with the Yrthak (which I won’t even link to), it embodies the worst in 3e monster design: “We need a CR [X] [creature type Y] with an attack of [type Z].” In the case of the KrensharX=1Y-magical beastZ=fear It is a big-ish cat-like monster that can pull its skin off of its face to scare you. Lame.Jeff...

March 21, 2008

Three Links

(because five is too ambitious for me this morning) This could be a great campaign organizing tool. I don’t know. Everyone loves random generators. The dragon generator is particularly nice. (d20 tools) For Pat: Cast Fireball at home!

March 19, 2008

How should PCs be special?

I haven’t been writing a lot about 4e, but I’ve been keeping up on the released information (official and unofficial). One thing that got me thinking was Keith Baker’s recent LJ post, in which he talked about how the PCs in an Eberron game are presumed to be special and use different rules from most NPCs. Now, I’ve long been...