Category Archives: DnD

High-value Skills

Rooftop chase

In Dungeons & Dragons, not all skills were created equal. Each is intended to be of moderately-equivalent value to a player character, so that there are no completely-wrong choices to be made at that phase of character creation. Sadly, this isn’t entirely true. Of the skills presented in the Player’s Handbook, some stand out simply by virtue of their availability:

Cleric Fighter Paladin Ranger Rogue Warlock Warlord Wizard
Acrobatics – – – ● ● – – –
Arcana ● – – – – ● – ●
Athletics – ● – ● ● – ● –
Bluff – – – – ● ● – –
Diplomacy ● – ● – – – ● ●
Dungeoneering – – – ● ● – – ●
Endurance – ● ● ● – – ● –
Heal ● ● ● ● – – ● –
History ● – ● – – ● ● ●
Insight ● – ● – ● ● – ●
Intimidate – ● ● – ● ● ● –
Nature – – – ● – – – ●
Perception – – – ● ● – – –
Religion ● – ● – – ● – ●
Stealth – – – ● ● – – –
Streetwise – ● – – ● ● – –
Thievery – – – – ● ● – –

Acrobatics, Bluff, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Thievery are all only available to two classes. For each of these (aside from Nature), the only classes that have the skill available fill the “striker” role in a party. In a typical four or five-character adventuring party, you probably won’t have more than one or two characters filling the same role, so failing to train one of these skills would leave your party short a potentially-valuable skill.

By contrast, Heal, History, Insight, and Intimidate are available to five classes each. It would be difficult to put together an effective multiple-role party without having every one of these skills available. These, then, would be good skills to just presume a party is going to be reasonably good at. E.g. out of five player characters three or four of them probably have Heal available, and one or two of them probably have it trained. This makes placing a somewhat difficult Heal DC into an adventure a pretty darned reasonable thing for a DM to do.

What should we take away from this? If you’re a player, kindly make sure you’re covering the skills your party needs you to be covering; you cannot expect your Wizard to be intimidating any more than you should expect your Paladin to be sneaky. If you’re a DM concocting a clever skill challenge, try to think of ways that the more commonly-available skills may come in handy, and whether you should set the bar high or low.
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Warmachine MkII

Tanks with swords. And legs.

The game developers over at Privateer Press have been busy. Not busy producing new IKRPG material, but busy juggling what was once a nicely streamlined skirmish game WARMACHINE. Every year since its launch, Privateer Press has released a major expansion to the product, from Prime to Escalation to Apotheosis, then Superiority, and most recently Legends. Each of the four original factions has grown into new niches and fortified early strengths. It’s quite a good game.

But after six rule books and the introduction of the HORDES product line, things have gotten unwieldy. Each of the several-dozen models available has its own special rules, often creating exceptions to a core set of rules that is quite streamlined and almost elegant. The reminds me of a beautiful woman putting on makeup and jewelry. She puts a little something on to draw attention to her eyes, maybe a pair of earings. That’s all nice, but taken a little too far she’ll look like a tramp or a clown. The interactions of special rules had crossed the line at some point. The Privateers had to put an online FAQ up to keep the errata and rules-interaction rulings straight.

So they’re hitting the reset button. In April, we’ll see previews of the rules revisions. Every model’s point cost has been adjusted, unit and warjack rules have been revised, power attacks are being overhauled, and all your stat-cards will be obsolete when the second edition hits the shelves. I eagerly anticipate not the new release (I haven’t played a game of WARMACHINE in over a year), but rather the fanbase reactions. The pro-skub and anti-skub enthusiasts will be pouring out of the woodwork on this subject.

Oh, and here’s to the Juggernaut getting an tune-up.

Forest Watch 21

Dang druids...

There’s an army platoon assigned to garrison Forest Watch 21, defend adjacent territory, and prepare for recapture of Forest Watch 20. A quick overview:

Lieutenant Of the 1st Order Pavel Borisenko Tiefling Warlord

Current commander of FW21, has two subordinate officers, each with his own crack team.

Lieutenant 2nd Donkey Dragonborn Paladin
Seargent Varis Elf Ranger
Lieutenant Kasim Whitecloth Human Fighter
Pvt 1st – kia Leucis Tiefling Rogue
Corporal Katori Halfling Rogue
Private 2nd Bailin Dwarf Fighter
Corporal Obyn Fudenbeard Dwarf Ranger

Lieutenant Donkey’s team is specialized in close engagements.

Lieutenant 2nd Richter Human
Lieutenant Orm Human Warlock
Private 2nd Tater Human
Private 1st NB Dragonborn
Private 1st Boont Human
Private Zajeck Tiefling Paladin
Private Galena Eladrin Ranger

Lieutenant Richter’s team Includes multiple ranged-attack specialists, allowing them to project force without needing, necessarily, to change positions to engage. As such they will frequently be called upon to hold positions such as the watchpost itself.

Please note that the rank system used only loosely follows those in use by contemporary militaries. That the second team consists entirely of non-player characters is totally coincidental and not a metagame ploy to keep the spotlight on the player characters at all. Really.

Shortly after the death of Pvt. Leucis, 48 reinforcements arrived, consisting of one Lieutenant, six sergeants, and forty-one privates. In total, this brings FW21 to four Lieutenants (including the commander), seven sergeants, and fifty privates.