Pelagius ran through the cave at top speed which was sadly still a lot slower than his companions.  This priest of Shar had given them the slip on more than one occasion and Pelagius would sooner see the depths of the Abyss than let that little snot get away from them again.  Quicker and quicker – the priest dodged through the tunnels under Cormyr, not even needing to see where he was going.  These catacombs were his home; he knew them like his own mother…  ”Well, assuming he hasn’t sacrificed his mother already..” Pelagius considered in short gasps, much like his breath.

His uncle Mircolis was hard to see darting through the labyrinth, shrouded in his warlock’s shadowstuff, so only the slowing of footsteps and a curse word in Elven clued Pelagius in that the first of them had given up the chase.  Another twenty paces or so and the normally unsettlingly calm Piotr suddenly gave a shout followed by a hard  thud.  Piotr tripped over a rock jutting out and hit his head on the ground hard.  ”Go!  Stop him!” Piotr commanded and Pelagius’ short legs redoubled their efforts, almost on their own.

Now it was just Pelagius and the wall of a man everyone simply called Staff chasing the priest.  Left, right, right, left, up..  how would Pelagius ever remember the directions to escaping this maze?  No matter.  The priest would lead them out whether he liked it or not – of that, Pelagius was sure.  His legs burned as he ran, with Staff and the priest slowly disappearing from sight.. but wait?  Is that a door?  Is that the only way out?  The cavern surrounding them offered no other exit.  A thought raced across Pelagius’ mind as Staff prepared for some kind of leap.  ”Wait!”  Pelagius called out.  He thought, “I may not be much of a fighter, and I can’t run very fast but Selune help me, THIS I can do!”  Lightning crackled around Pelagius’ ears as he spoke the words of arcane power, “Denshi hashera!” and with a rapid swipe of his arm a pillar of electricity broke free from clouds formed by the dankness and wetness of the cave.   The priest skidded to a halt, afraid to approach the localized storm and turned just in time to see Staff launch himself and then the world went black….

Later that night, the party sat around a slowly dying fire, mending their equipment and splitting the bounty of gold they earned for catching the priest.  Mircolis sat down next to Pelagius, who seemed very much in the middle of intense concentration despite not doing much besides gazing into the fire.  ”Good job back there, Gea.  Your mother would have been proud.”  Mircolis puts a hand on Pelagius’ shoulder.  ”Now, let’s get some rest.   And put that thing out already – you must have killed every mosquito in the kingdom by now.”    Pelagius looks past the fire to his Storm Pillar just outside the camp as it casually fries a decent-sized bat and smiles.  They will rest well, indeed.

The Storm Pillar occupies its own square and zaps anything adjacent to it.  When Pelagius dropped it in front of the doorway, the priest of Shar could no longer enter (or even get close!) and had to instead deal with one very angry monk.   Since it’s an At-Will, it can be ‘sustained’ indefinitely, also making it a very handy if somewhat primitive bug zapper for those times when you really need a good night’s sleep under the stars.

P.S.  Bonus points to the first person who can tell me what power Piotr just took Off the Grid as well!  Here’s a hint – Pelagius didn’t spend a healing surge.

Well, that was a short article. I suppose it might be helpful if I explained what the heck I’m talking about. It occurred to me that there are very specific rules for players to help them figure out what they know and what they don’t know about monsters. This solves the long standing problem of the following scenario:

Player: “The troll is down? Awesome, burn it.”

DM: “Why would you do that?”

Player: “Everyone knows that you have to burn a troll.”

DM: “Well you’ve never encountered a troll before, you don’t know that.”

Player: “Well then how the heck are we going to ever beat the thing?”

Having a monster knowledge check system in D&D means that you don’t have to have the debate. It can be a simple matter of make a skill check and the DM will tell you exactly how much you do and don’t know about the monster. Done. No discussion, no debate, problem solved.

That said, I have it on some authority that many of you out there aren’t making monster knowledge checks. Why wouldn’t you want to know what attacks, resistances, vulnerabilities, and keywords that a creature has. It’s going to make your chances of survival better, in some cases MUCH better. You know what attacks to use, what not to use, what resistances to set up, even which tactics to use. If a creature has a lot of blasts or bursts then don’t group together close. If not then feel free to rush in together. It makes perfect sense in a game mechanics level that one would make a monster knowledge check at the start of every single combat for every monster on the field.

Of course, that’s also a great way to ruin the game. There’s no surprise, it all becomes very mechanical and mathematic and the combat loses a lot of it’s flavor, descriptions start to feel pointless. It can break the suspension of disbelief and discourage a person from using their imagination. I would rather hear about how “The savage creature leaps upon Vert, tear into him with it’s claws and leaving him bleeding on his back.” If I’ve made the check all I’m hearing is “Charge attack at +14 vs Fort for 2d6+4 damage and target is prone”. One of these is much more evocative than the other.

So what’s a person to do to keep their game full of awesome but not lose the tactical advantage that the game assumes when it has rules of this sort?

My first suggestion is for DMs and it’s a bit of a house rule, but I think it’s worth considering and can be applied on the fly. That is, adjust the check DCs. Use the normal rules as a baseline for the DCs but if a creature is rare in your game world add a +5 to those DCs and if it’s unique add a +10. Why should the PCs have an equal chance of knowing about an orc, of which there are countless hordes of on the world, as they would an otyugh, of which there might be 500 on the entire planet? And even more so if it’s Glargak the Dragon of Arcane Fire? They may have heard stories about Glargak, however, being unique means that such a being might have stories, legends, and the like told about them and some of that information might be useful.

Second, I would say that despite what the rules may say I would make taking a monster knowledge check take some time in the battle. I know it doesn’t always make a ton of sense. If you know it you know it, if you don’t you don’t and it doesn’t take time to figure these things out. However, I’m a teacher by day and I see students sit and stare at a single test question for 5 minute. So taking a fraction of a 6 second round of D&D to have to search your memory about what you know about a monster and then share that information in a way that makes sense to your party…well, I think you can justify a standard action for the roll, or at least a move action. If the players have to make a choice between doing a monster knowledge check or taking a move or making an attack then they’re going to do it when it matters. Research before a big fight can make a big difference in this regard as well.

My last suggestion is for players. Even if your DM doesn’t make you give up an action in the fight to make a check, think carefully if you want to go there in your game or not. If it’s a big battle that’s already dynamic and interesting and the climax of the story then go for the check. You might need it to survive. If it seems like it’s going to be a quick and easy battle then don’t bother taking the time. Reserve the monster knowledge checks for the fights that are really going to matter.

So to summarize, if you’re not using monster knowledge checks USE THEM. But don’t go too far and allow them to seep the imagination out of your fights. And DMs, make sure they matter and feel free to differentiate between the monsters. The rules are a great guideline, but go beyond that and make it make sense for your world, your game, and your story.

How do you handle monster knowledge checks? Do your players use them too little? Too much? Is it a problem for your game that you’ve even considered? What other ways could a person resolve monster knowledge checks? And what the heck is the difference between a monster knowledge check and a monster lore check (which I didn’t even talk about…maybe that will be for another article)?

In previous articles of this series I discussed ways to draw inspiration for your character based on one of the major mechanical factors of a D&D character, your class. This time, however, I’ll be looking at another aspect that could be just as important, but often takes a back seat when dealing with the major events of a PCs life. Race. Race can be not only a major factor, but THE major factor of a character’s personality and background. It can also guide other choices in character creation that are informed and changed because of these background choices and it can be done regardless of class. Even if the class is not one that you would think epitomizes your race. For this background I will give you Kzalit’ka’mara, a githzerai barbarian, who despite his class is flavored to fit right into the highly regimented martial lifestyle of the gith.

Kzalit’ka’mara was raised on the floating citadel of C’thariz, in the Astral Sea. He was surrounded by highly disciplined students of the mind and body. They practiced a style of martial arts that had been taught since their people first escaped from the illithids countless ages ago. Kzalit respected the traditions of his people, he lived for his people, he was loyal, and liked by his peers. He took his training very seriously and worked hard to master the fighting style his master’s taught.

He worked so hard at mastering these skills that he gained a level of control over his emotions that most githzerai only dream of achieving. He found himself able to maintain a calm, detached demeanor at all times until he needed his fury, at which point he could call on it to fuel his attacks.

Master Tharis De’kazo taught him the weapons common to the monks of the githzerai but Kzalit gravitated towards a weapon that would allow him to use his strength to pull his enemies in close. He chose to fight with claws forged of steel. He may not be as quick and agile as many of his compatriots he was better than nearly any other mortal and used it combined with his physical superiority to overcome his foes.

When Kzalit was learning about the history of the gith, their escape from the illithids, and his particular bastion in the Astral Sea the Master took him to the portal that they use for travel when his people needed supplies or information from outside their little corner of the planes. It was just at that moment that a never before seen wave of chaotic magic swept through the bastion, activating the portal and pushing Kzalit through.

Kzalit now finds himself in a city he’s never heard of before, but one with many wizards. He desperately wants to return to his home to see what may have caused the wave of magic and to see if his kin survived, but none of the people in the city have been able to help him yet and no one knows the way for him to go home. It was in this state that the githzerai was slowly slipping into a state of despair when he found an odd collection of people approached him, and one of them seemed to have a wolf following along. The consciousness and spirits of animals always was a concept that he had meditated on. This wolf had his attention…and seemed to like him.

So there’s the barbarian githzerai. I describe his approach to being a barbarian in such a way that it make sense in a monk-ish society. He uses twin spiked gauntlets, which I describe as metal claws to compliment the whirling barbarian build concept that I think would be ideal for the character, since it has a secondary stat of dexterity, a stat the githzerai can get a bonus in.

Be sure to check the article later this week from Ethan to see more of the adventures of Kzalit and at least one interesting way that he uses his at-will powers. And if you would like to see a pdf of my build for Kzalit you can download that here.

What the alignments mean exactly always has been and probably always will be up for some debate.  For the sake of clarity, I will be using the following statements to define the alignments, condensed from the PHB:

Now “good” and “evil” are pretty broad terms.  How is a character good or evil specifically?  In what ways does it manifest?  Since we are talking about character personality, it might be useful to further focus each power using archetypes, in this case taken from the astrological signs.  Two alignments* have been assigned to each archetype – and yes, I of all people know this is a vast oversimplification so don’t take it personally.  In place of a skill or utility power, you may take one alignment power for an archetype to whom your alignment was assigned.  Here are the first six:

Virgo – Virgo concerns itself primarily with loyalty and perfection.  It can be Lawful Good, representing devotion to law, order and civilization or Unaligned, representing unerring focus on perfection of body, mind or skill.

Scorpio – Scorpio seeks out the most intense, transformational experiences it can with generally little regard for how others feel about it.  It occupies both extremes of the alignment spectrum, Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil.

Cancer – Cancer seeks to protect the weak and foster the young.  It is the only sign to whom only Good variants are assigned to represent its healing and enduring qualities.  (It also makes any PC a decent Leader in a pinch!)

Taurus – Taurus is a bastion of strength.  It enjoys planting itself wherever it pleases and creating comfort, daring anyone to try and move it.   It can be Good in its facet as bringer of security or Evil when it is obnoxious just for it’s own sake.

Leo – Leo loves being the center of attention and the head honcho.  Very few things make Leo happier than influencing others.  It is Good when that influence is to the recipient’s benefit, or Chaotic Evil when Leo holds its victims on a puppeteer’s string.

Gemini – Gemini is the epitome of speed.  Talk fast, think fast, run fast.  Gemini moves so fast, in fact, that it often ends up in two places at once, confusing those around it.  At its best, Unaligned Gemini outpaces its allies just so that it can show off the ace it’s kept up its sleeve.  At its worst, Chaotic Evil Gemini will trick its allies in a moment of need to further its own advantage.

*Design Note:  No sign has only Evil variants so that all powers could be accessed by a standard D&D party.

Alignment as forced behavior is a concept that has broken down over the years. In 4th edition, alignment is threadbare at best. Gone are the nuanced slices of goodness, evil and neutrality. Alignment in 4th edition as a backdrop, as a guide to where your character’s personality trends. I can’t honestly say I disagree with that stance. Alignment has traditionally been more of a stick and less of a carrot as it has existed in D&D’s iterations.

Could it be more? I’ll say yes. Going with the theory that power is personality, linking alignment and powers is a natural fit. Currently alignment provides basic information on your character’s morality. I am good, I am unaligned, I am evil. In the current state, is there even any reason not to be unaligned? You do some good, some bad, and you don’t have to feel guilty about it. Why have alignment at all if there is no true expression of it? My thought is that you can make alignment a true part of your story’s myth without forcing players into restrictive molds. Powers provide a method of expressing how you are good, neutral or evil. Are you cruel? Are you a conniver? Do you worship law and order? Or do you champion freedom? Powers extend and express your alignment.

I’ll take this further: You can express alignment as an in-game element. Make alignment concrete by tying it to your world’s in-game philosophies or symbol system. A symbol system you use could be the Zodiac system, or anything that represents iconic archetypes for nature and personality. Characters then are no longer good or evil or unaligned; they are an incarnation of Ares, or Pisces, or Leo. The related powers express your character’s connection to this symbol.

Because we like to show and not just tell, Ryven has developed the Zodiac alignment system to illustrate; expect the first half on Friday.

In the meantime, how have you used alignment in your 4e game? Share with us.

What is your job?

Defenders have one primary job within any group, to get into the face of the enemy and to taunt them into attacking you. To help them accomplish this job, the defender needs to be able to do a couple of things. First, they must be able to withstand those attacks. Secondly, they need to be able to punish anyone that ignores them.

While most defenders can do both of these things to some degree, I decided to go with the Fighter class since it can work well in any situation regardless of what players brought to the table. Further, I decided to go with the classic sword-and-board Fighter to boost his defenses. Mechanically, this means a Fighter with the One-handed Weapon Talent.

Optimization on multiple levels

Once I had decided which class I was going to play, it was time to figure out which race to use. I ended up picking the new PHB3 version of the Minotaur for several reasons. First, the Minotaur has the optimal ability score bonuses for a Fighter. They get +2 Strength, and they can choose between +2 Constitution or +2 Wisdom. For my shield fighter I will be using the bonus to Wisdom.

Minotaurs get an additional healing surge; they get a +2 AC bonus against opportunity attacks when they charge; and if they are reduced to 0 hit points, they get to make a free melee basic attack. Minotaurs have the racial power, Goring Charge. This allows them to gore their opponents with their horns and knock them prone. (Str + 4 vs AC: 1d6 + Strength modifier damage and knocks the target prone.) The Str + 4 attack makes it just as accurate as weapon attacks with a +3 proficiency bonus weapon and the One-handed Weapon Talent. (+8 at level 1) Additionally, there is a feat that allows Minotaurs to use Goring Charge as an Opportunity Attacks. This makes Minotaur excellent defenders.

Finally, the Encounters program has reward system called Renown Points. By picking a race or a class from PHB3 you earn 5 Renown Points.

How can your background make you a better defender?

This first season of Encounters takes place in the Forgotten Realms, inside of and under Waterdeep to be exact. The Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide introduced the concept of backgrounds to 4e, and many of the best backgrounds are still specific to the Forgotten Realms.
There are backgrounds that you allow access to new skills, and they usually give you a +2 to that skill as well. The new Windrise Ports background from Dragon #376 is very nice, allowing any character to multiclass into two different classes. For this character, I went with the Akanul background, which grants resist 2 cold, resist 2 fire, and resist 2 thunder.

Optimization Law #1: Thou shalt take an 18 in thine primary ability score!

I am a firm believer that all characters, let me say that again, ALL CHARACTERS should have at least an 18 in their primary ability score. (The Primary ability score is the one that your attacks use.) If possible, you should also have at least a 16 in your secondary ability score. (Your secondary ability score is the one that gives kickers to your abilities. In the case of this Fighter, Combat Superiority gives a bonus to any Opportunity Attacks that you make equal to your Wisdom modifier.) Since the Minotaur gets +2 to Strength and Wisdom, you can get 18 in both of those abilities.

When I originally built this character I only took 12 Constitution. This resulted in my character having only 27 hit points and a surge value of 6. Because of the way bloodied values and surge values are calculated, 27 hit points ended up being a very inefficient amount, leading to my character needing more healing that he should have.

To maximize your surge value, you want your hit point total to be a multiple of 4. I recommend a Constitution score of 13.

STR: 16 + 2 (racial bonus) = 18
CON: 13
DEX: 10
INT: 9
WIS: 16 + 2 (racial bonus) = 18
CHA: 10

Fighters get hosed when it comes to skills

By default they can train 3 skills, and there are only 5 skills on their class skill list. This is the least amount that any class gets.

I tend to group skills into 3 different categories.

Physical skills: Acrobatics, Athletics and Endurance.

Social skills: Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate.

Knowledge skills: Arcana, Dungeoneering, Heal, History, Nature, Religion and Streetwise.

I believe that each character should have 1 skill in each of these 3 categories. This should allow each character to be able to do something in most skill challenges that they may face.

For our Minotaur Fighter I choose: Athletics, Heal and Intimidate.

You may have noticed that I left 4 skills out of the above categories: Insight, Perception, Stealth and Thievery. These are all great skills, and most likely you will want to have at least one person in each group trained in all of them. They are however, more specialized skills, ones that many classes do not gain access to.

Where’s the beef?

Now we get to the real meat of the character. After race and class, feats are one of the key ways to optimize a character, allowing you to add new abilities or to make your character better at their role.

Feats are often the part of character creation that takes me the longest. My process for choosing feats is rather simple, but it can be time consuming. I’ll sit down with the Character Builder open on my laptop and a pad of paper. I’ll look through the list of feats in the Character Builder, noting down any that look interesting to be on the pad of paper.

After that I may also open the Compendium up in my browser and look for any feats that I do not currently qualify for. These usually are feats that have ability score requirements that the character does not currently meet. If the feat is good enough, it can often be worth it to tweak your ability scores to get the feat.

Once I have my list of interesting feats complete, I’ll start going through the list sorting them into categories and I’ll begin to rank them. When I rank them its usually as simple as crossing off feats which are not as good as others, and putting stars next to the better ones. I’ll often end up with 2 or 3 stars next to the best feats. I will then decide the order that I plan on taking the feats. Most characters get feats at levels 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. I won’t be going past the heroic tier for this article, but it never hurts to look forward.

Here are the feats that I decided upon.

Level 1: Opportunity Gore: allows you to use Goring Charge as an Opportunity Attack. This is the feat that makes Minotaurs truly dangerous as defenders. If the enemy tries to move around you, or use a ranged attack adjacent to you, you get to attempt to knock them prone.

Level 2: Distracting Shield: if you hit with Combat Challenge, the enemy takes a -2 to attacks. This stacks with the -2 from your mark, meaning if they try to attack someone other than you they are at -4 to that attack.

Level 4: Encouraging Shield: Add your shield bonus to Will. With a heavy shield this adds +2 to Will, and will help you withstand all those attacks your mark will bring onto you.

Level 6: Stout Shield: Add your shield bonus to Fortitude.

Level 8: Weapon Expertise (Heavy Blade): +1 to attacks with heavy blades. Eventually almost every character needs to take an Expertise feat. As you go up in level, enemy defenses increase at a faster rate than your attack bonus. The Expertise feats were added to PHB2 to offset this difference.

Level 10: Weapon Focus (Heavy Blade): + 1 damage per tier with heavy blades. At level 10, this will be +1 damage. At level 11, it will increase to +2 damage.

Here are some of the other feats that I had written down on my list, but didn’t end up making it into the final build.

Shield Push
Mobile Challenge
Forceful Opportunist
Unbalancing Shield
Focused Superiority

Improved Initiative
Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword)
Fighter Weapon Specialization

Wary Fighter
Bloodhound Style
Greathorn
Shield Defense
Battering Shield

I have the Powers!

Powers are another key aspect of any character. They define what you can normally do in combat. An optimized character will have powers that help them fulfill their role.

For this character I will be looking for the following types of powers:

• Mark multiple foes
• Move enemies around with push, pull or slides
• Increasing defenses
• Give temporary hit points
• Heal

Level 1 At-Will: Threatening Rush: Threatening Rush is a great defender power. It allows you to attack one creature and mark all adjacent enemies. Threatening Rush can be even better if you are using a reach weapon, which would allow you to attack, and mark via Combat Challenge, an enemy one square away from you and additionally mark all enemies next to you. Threatening Rush can also be used when you are charging. The only down side to Threatening Rush is that it only deals 1[W] damage, no Strength modifier.

Level 1 At-Will: Tide of Iron: allows you to push the target 1 square and then shift into the space they occupied. The ability to control where you enemy is on the battlefield is great. It allows you to do fun stuff like pushing them into pits, or over ledges to their doom.

Level 1 Encounter: Passing Attack: allows you to hit one target, shift a square then hit another target. The second attack even has a +2 bonus. As with Threatening Rush, this is all about the ability to mark multiple opponents. Any time a fighter is are making themselves the target of the enemies, they are doing their job.

Level 1 Daily: Driving Attack: you attack an enemy for 2[W] + Str mod damage, push them a square and shift to follow them. Then you get to attack them again, pushing them another 2 squares and knocking them prone. Driving Attack is Tide of Iron’s big brother.

Level 2 Utility: Shielded Sides: Once per encounter, as a minor action you gain +2 AC and Reflex, and you don’t grant combat advantage due to flanking. You know that turn where you charge out in front of everyone else and mark all of the enemies with Threatening Rush? Use Shielded Sides first.

Level 3 Encounter: Shield Edge Block: As an Immediate Interrupt, you block an attack with your shield. As an effect, the attack takes a -4 penalty. Then you get to bash the target with your shield for 2d6 damage.

Optimization Law #2: Dealing damage on thine enemy’s turn is awesome!

Level 5 Daily: Unexpected Shield Bash: This is an attack that you make with your shield. The +4 to attack is there to offset the loose of your weapons proficiency bonus and enhancement bonus. The attack does excellent damage, and allows you to mark all enemies within 5 squares of you. Now that’s being a defender.

Level 6 Utility: Daring Shot: I almost picked Bodyguard’s Stance here, but decided against because it could be very dangerous and my allies are rarely adjacent to me. I’d rather be flanking with them. So, I went with Daring Shot instead. This is a nice little power that allows you to mark everyone adjacent to you as a minor action one per encounter. You also gain some temporary hit points.

Level 7 Encounter: Come and Get It: This is one of the best defender powers in the game. First you get to pull enemies adjacent to you from 3 squares away, and then you attack them all.

Level 9 Daily: Victorious Surge: There are many good options to choose from at level 9, but I went with Victorious Surge because at least once per day you are going to want/need a free heal.

Level 10 Utility: Fighter’s Grit: You may have noticed that all of the utility powers I have chosen so far have been encounter powers. This is for the simple fact that the more often that you can use a power, the more likely you are to benefit from it. That trend continues at level 10 with Fighter’s Grit. This power allows you to ignore the effects of the Dazed, Immobilized, Slowed and Weakened conditions for 2 turns.

Think of the archetype of your class…and go another way.

Like I discussed in my previous article, D&D is full or archetypes. They exist for good reasons and can drive characters in interesting ways, but another way to go is to think of how you can break that archetype and still make a character that makes sense. In this example I will present to you an artificer who is not the studied tinkerer, trained in the arcane arts, but instead is a haphazard user of magic who taps into a natural talent in times of need, but openly believes herself to be a holy woman.

Moradin, the Dwarf Forger, had always been an important deity to Nihial. She grew up around the temple and often liked going there in her free time as she grew. It gave her a quiet place to reflect on her life. She was sure that one day she would join the clergy and dreamed of becoming a powerful cleric in the service of her creator god, spreading the faith and fighting against the evils of the world. As she grew older she even started volunteering at the temple, running errands and making deliveries.

It was on one of these delivery runs that Nihial first discovered her god-given talents. This task was a big deal to her, especially in her youth, because she was being asked to make a delivery outside of the tunnels where she was raised. She was leaving the mountain to bring a package to Artorus, a strange half-elf who used an odd mental magic, who lived not too far from the mountain halls in the wilderness. The region was safe in those days and so the young girl was sent without escort and arrived safely. Inside the wizard’s cabin, however, the safety came to an abrupt end.

She entered the cabin when she was called and laid the package down on the table like Artorus called to her to to do while he as working in the back room when a loud crash preluded the trouble that was to come. A monstrous beast, covered in fur and claws came bursting through from the back. She was instantly on her heels and scrambling to stay out of the thing’s way and found herself grabbing a handful of wands on the cluttered worktable nearby. Fumbling with them she managed to point one at the creature and blast it with magical energy that she was completely unprepared for. This was just enough of a distraction that the beast hesitated long enough for Artorus to come through the broken doorway and finish the creature off.

Since then Nihial was convinced that she was a priest right and true. Moradin had blessed her. He was a god of crafting and making and so he would naturally bless her with the power to work with the items of magic and manipulate them. The temple, however, was confused by her abilities as none of the other priests knew of a divine magic manifesting in such a way. Eventually Nihial met back up with Artorus and asked his help since he was much more worldly than her. Artorus told her of a placed called “The Forge” that had many users of magic of all sorts that could help her and he even agreed to join her in the trip and so Nihial’s journey of discovery and adventure began where she might someday learn why Moradin had infused her with a divine magic unlike any that she had seen before.

So what do MMOs have that we want?

• State changes.  MMO bosses often have several ways to change the nature of the fight. Sometimes the boss will summon minions, other times it will dissapear and perform some grand attack.  It slugs it out with the players, but that is not all that it does.  In the state changes the monster highlights its personality and powers in a visually and mechanically forceful manner.
• Unstoppable.  MMO bosses never stay stun-locked or permanently immobilized (or whatever madness your players seek to inflict on it).  They can be effected by status effects, but when it’s time they cannot be stopped.  MMO bosses always force players to react to their actions when they need to.
• Environment and monster are one.  Bosses always have the home-field advantage, and are able to use and create favorable terrain effects for themselves.

I promised Limit Break monsters some time ago, buut the journey had been much longer than I anticipated. But now I present worldbreakers and lawbreakers.  Both types of solos can be used in any campaign to make a solo that jumps off of the battlemat and engages the players in new ways.

Worldbreakers are creatures of such physical or supernatural power that they are capable of transforming and altering the environment with their powers.  With one action, the worldbreaker solo can change the whole map or cause a massive status effect to all opponents.  Worldbreakers typically represent solos that are Large or bigger, capturing their presence and raw power.

Lawbreakers have incredible talents and unique abilities that allow them to transform reality and game ‘physics’ around them.  Lawbreakers maintain an aura around them that changes the rules of the game.  Lawbreakers are meant for standard humanoids  of Large or less side, highlighting talents or abilities taken to an extreme.

In this article we will deal with worldbreaker solos.

The Worldbreaker

A WorldBreaker Solo has powers with the keyword worldbreaker.

Whenever a power with that Keyword is used, all negative status effects and conditions that require a save are removed.

All Worldbreaker powers have a number after the keyword (“worldbreaker 2″, “worldbreaker 3″, etc) . This is the breaker timer, which decrements at the beginning of the creature’s turn. When the counter has reached 0, the power can be used again.  So worldbreaker 4 can be used every fourth round. Worldbreaker powers effect every creature on the map unless stated otherwise.

Building a Worldbreaker Power

A worldbreaker power will cause either a change to terrain, a status effect to be temporarily applied to some or all players, or a mix of both.  Worldbreaker effects should last 1d4 turns at the most.

Each worldbreaker power also has one to two powers that can be used only while the worldbreaker power is in effect.  These powers are followup special attacks that represents what the monster does once it changes the world.

When creating the initial world breaker power, you want to do one of the following:

• Apply a status effect to all players
• Create traps or hazards on the board
• create difficult terrain or terrain effects

NOTE:The worldbreaker power does not roll to hit!  This power applies its effects automatically.  It is crucial to limit damage output if there is any.  The initial power changes the battlefield and sets up the followup powers that can do damage.

You’ll want to pick themes that represent what the monster does best.  A monster that is based on cold damage might slow or temporarily petrify foes, while a fire monster may create several fire hazards on the board.

Follow up powers

Next we create powers that can be used only during the duration of the worldbreaker.  Such powers can and should get rreally creative.  Suggestions for the attack are:

• Opposed check between PCs and Solo, with the Solo damaging any creature he beats
• Skill Challenges to avoid a major effect
• Summon minions
• Inflict escalating ongoing damage

Follow up powers should never apply effects automatically, requiring a test of some sort whether it is an attack roll from the solo or a skill check from players.

Examples of Worldbreaker Design

Bilfaaz

Bilfaaz the White Dragon has the worldbreaker power “Winter’s Fury”.  He uses this power to create a brief but intense snowstorm that lasts for 1d4 turns, blinding and slowing all characters on the battlemap.  Bilfaaz is removed from the map, and now has access to two new powers:  Snowblind Pounce and FrostDread. Snowblind Pounce forces an opposed check between the PC’s Perception and tthe Dragon’s Stealth.  Every PC that rolls lower than Bilfaaz’s Stealth is hit by the dragon and takes extra damage.  FrostDread creates snow tendrils that attempt to attack the PCs and strangle them.  This is represented by a short skill challenge.

Thrune

Thrune the Gorgon has the worldbreaker power “Thundering Earth”.  Thrune stomps his hooves and sets up termors underneath the earth, placing three tremor hazards around the board.  And player affected by the trap gets pushed and knocked prone.  While Thundering Earth is in effect, Thrune can use “Gorgon’s Legion” or “GoreStorm Trample”.  ”Gorgon’s Legion” creates several minions based of Thrunes petrifying gas.  Each minion  is immune to the tremors of Thundering Earth and can deliver the effect of the petrifying gaze on hit.  Gorestorm Trample allows the gorgon to perform a trample attack for increased damage to one PC in range of a tremor hazard.

I’ve had the opportunity to play most of the classes in 4e for an afternoon or an evening, but there’s only a few that I’ve played in-depth across several levels during the course of a campaign. The Swordmage is one of them.

Out of all the Swordmage’s at-will powers, I think I whipped out Lightning lure the most often.

Lightning lure

“You ‘ear that?” Brighton asked. He pushed a barrel against the wall to get a better view through the arrow slit. The gatehouse hadn’t been made for halflings.

“I’m surprised you can hear anything in this storm.” Cecil leaned against the large crank that operated the portcullis. There was a hole in the floor where the chain had snaked down to the top of the gate.

The chain was broken months ago when it was suspected someone was letting the enemy into the besieged city at night. It seemed foolish posting two guards to stand watch over a broken gatehouse, but it kept drunks like Cecil and Brighton out of the storehouse and out of trouble.

Cecil’s eyes hunted the darkness for the spot where the chain had hooked the gate. Occasionally a bolt of lightning illuminated the fortress as if it were noon and Cecil used these moments to confirm his target.

“I’ve got better ears ‘an an elf!” Brighton exclaimed. “I swears I ‘ear a thrush calling out there.”

“Can’t be,” Cecil replied. “No bird would fly in this rain.”

“at’s why I’m so surprised. What’s a bitty feather doin’ out there?”

“Maybe it’s on important business,” Cecil continued to peer down the hole.

“Don’t talk rubbish. What business does a feather got?” Brighton got down and wiped the rain off his face. “What you lookin’ at down there so serious for?”  Brighton noticed Cecil’s concentration. The halfling rarely saw his fellow show interest in anything.

Cecil looked up a bit startled. “I think I see your thrush,” he lied and pointed at the window.

“Where’s?” Brighton turned around and mounted the barrel once more. Cecil could hear the bird call now, but it wasn’t coming from beyond the wall. It was right below him, coming up through the hole in the floor.

Nobody had thought a thrush call would be conspicuous, but it didn’t make a lot of sense to be using it in a thunderstorm, and a thunderstorm was now the only time anyone could get into the besieged city undetected.

Cecil waited patiently for the next bolt of lightning and prayed Brighton didn’t turn around at the wrong moment. He was rather found of the halfling. The less he knew, the better.

The bolt came and Cecil aimed down the hole. A bluish arc of electricity traveled down his arm and into the air. It struck the top of the gate and with all the force his mind could muster, Cecil pulled the energy back. The gate lifted until it collided with the floor at his feet and slammed back down. A dozen or so cloaked figures were briefly illuminated as they slipped through.

“AYE!” Brighton yelped and rolled off the barrel. “Did you ‘ear that! What a clap o’ thunder ‘at was. Shook the floor ‘neath my very feet!”

“Just because you’re the size of a child doesn’t mean you have to run away from a storm like one.” Cecil walked over and helped the halfling up.

“I’m not scared. Jus’ a little startled is all.” Brighton turned round and peered up. “I sure hope ‘at feather is fine. Whatever business it got, it sure aint a good night for it.”

“I hope it’s fine, too,” Cecil replied. It might have been the first honest thing he said all night.

Just bending the rules ever-so-slightly, Cecil is using Lightning lure to quickly lift the gate for enemy soldiers to infiltrate the city. The gate is less than 3 squares away and the floor is arguably thin enough that the space right below it is considered adjacent to the undercover Swordmage. Performing this maneuver in a storm helps cover up the light and noise caused by lightning luring a big iron portcullis and letting it fall back into place.