LikeSquare of Darkness
Aug 12th
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.
– “Riddles in the Dark”, JRR Tolkien
The answer, as any fan of The Hobbit will tell you, is “Dark”. The little riddle does a terrific job summarizing just how scary the absence of light can be. Darkness is insidious; it creeps between, devours whatever it touches and is always there in the corner of your eye, waiting.
And most Dungeon Masters forget all about it when the adventurers venture underground.
The rules for handling Illumination (and the lack thereof) should be tattooed in glowing ink on the inside of every DM’s eyelids. It’s one of their most potent tools when it comes to setting the atmosphere of the setting. A healthy fear and respect of the dark is a primal instinct we all share; tap into that, and you’ll have the players eating out of your hand in no time.
First, a recap of the rules as they apply to Fourth Edition D&D.
Light comes in three forms:
- Bright Light isn’t particularly bright or dazzling, but is rather what we’d call “normal” light with no penalties. Booooooring!
- Dim Light includes candlelight, moonlight, glowing fungi and any other kind of minimal illumination where you can just barely make out outlines and movement. It’s what I’d call “normal” in a dungeon environment if I’m feeling generous. Race which have Low-light vision (such as Elves, Half-Elves, Tieflings, Dwarves and Eladrin) can see normally in dim light. I guess it should have been called Dim-light vision instead. Folks with normal vision (which includes Humans, Halflings, Dragonborn) are at a disadvantage as their enemies gain Concealment, meaning they’re at –2 to hit.
- Darkness, AKA “You’re screwed”. On a moonless night or in a room without a light source, your heroes (yes, all of the standard races) are at –5 to hit as their foes have Total Concealment. Meanwhile, those monsters with Darkvision (such as Kobolds) can still see just fine, thanks.
Don’t underestimate these penalties! –5 is like your STR 16 hero with a Greataxe suddenly fighting like a STR 10 dude with a wooden plank. It’s the difference between an INT 20 Wizard hitting with an Acid Arrow, and an INT 10 Wizard…… not.
Or, to put it another way, it’s like cladding all of those Kobolds in Full Plate Armour to give them a +5 AC bonus. Scary, huh?
Except it’s not like cladding them in Full Plate Armour as what our Darkness lurking monsters gain is Total Concealment, and that’s a lot better than any amount of armour. When in Darkness, your monsters can use Stealth to hide, and remain hidden and move up to 2 squares without requiring another Stealth check, even in Dim Light. A hidden enemy is a deadly one. Just ask any Ninja.
In Darkness (or when hidden in Dim Light), your monsters have Combat Advantage against the hapless PCs (PHB p280) while the heroes don’t – even your Rogue has to be able to see their target to be able to hit them (PHB p279).
A small group of Kobolds in a nice Dark Dungeon would hear and see the clunky armour wearing heroes approaching a mile away, hit them once in the Surprise Round then move back before the PCs even knew what hit ‘em. Rinse and repeat.
Don’t forget that even in a relatively well-lit Dungeon where there’s Everburning Torches on the walls or a coat of phosphorescent fungi on the ceiling, there will still be pools of shadow, and any monster with more than INT 2 will use them effectively. And so, dear DM, should you.
What can your heroes do to Fight The Darkness?
The first thing is, obviously enough, Bring Light. A humble Torch illuminates a 25’ (5 square) radius while a Lantern doubles that (50’ radius, 10 squares) and lasts a lot longer. The Sunrod covers a massive 100’ (20 square) radius but each one only lasts half as long as a pint of oil in the Lantern. Even with Sunrods as part of the standard Adventurer’s Kit, I recommend every party including a Lantern, Oil and a few torches on their equipment list. A Lantern will burn for a full 8 hours, enough for a full Extended Rest, while a Sunrod is only half that. More importantly, Oil burns and can be thrown – perfect for those time when you’re up against flammable foes.
The downside is that all this illumination announces your presence. and only illuminates to a fixed radius. Beyond that, we’re back to total Darkness or Dim Light meaning monsters with ranged weapons (such as the Goblin Sharpshooter with a Hand Crossbow, Range 10/20) can shoot without fear of the heroes being able to return fire effectively. Only the truly foolish (or brave, which is another way of spelling foolish) monster will go toe-to-toe with the PCs in their circle of light.
With a Wizard on your team, things improve dramatically. The Light cantrip is one of the best under-used spells in 4e; it’s a Minor Action and can be cast on any object or unoccupied square within 25’ (5 squares) and illuminates a 20’ (4square) radius area. Lob that in the first round of combat where the monsters lurk (or you suspect they lurk) and the advantages of the Darkness is gone. If you need a little illumination further than 25’ away (to spot a hidden sniper pinning you down, for example) cast Light on the Ranger’s arrow and let him take a shot – doesn’t matter if it misses, it’s the illumination it provides that counts.
Finally, have a Race with Darkvision on your team. So far, that’s just the Drow or Duergar. I’m disappointed that the Kobold racial write-up lists them with Normal Vision when the monster entry gives them Darkvision (another Update needed?). An all Drow party could operate in total Darkness without penalty and totally kick ass!
What I like most about the 4e D&D illumination rules is this quote (PHB p281):
Squares of darkness are totally obscured.
Hope I’ve shed a little more light on them!
Reboot Destroys Starbase
Aug 12th
Oh, poo. Here I am partway through putting together one epic scene. It’s getting late so I hit Render just so I’ve got a work-in-progress shot and walk away, leaving my little netbook chugging to itself.
Of course, I forget to save the scene. After all, I’m coming back to it in the morning, and nothing’s going to happen to it before that, right?
Wrong. Windows &^*()*&ing goes & runs an Update overnight and reboots without warning. The least it could have done is stopped and waited ’till I woke up, gawdammit! There’s a setting in there somewhere to fix that. I’ll find it.
Hey, at least DAZ Studio had the common decency to auto-save the render for me so I’ve still got the work-in-progress shot I wanted, even though the scene itself has been lost. Ah well. I may well remake it. I’d planned to add about another 40 or so characters in there from different films and TV series. So far I’ve got a few robots, aliens and vehicles in from Doctor Who, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Aliens, Babylon 5 (Cyclon kneeling to a Vorlon ftw!) & Black Hole and have barely begun to stratch the surface. I’d just started adding the spaceships before moving onto the characters – I was going to put Luke hanging from one of the base’s antenae while the Doctor (Tom Baker incarnation) was passing down his scarf. Something like that, anyhow.
See what Windows Update has done? Damn you!
Ah well. Back to the drawing board.
Lazy building Icon City
Aug 10th
There’s a fine art to being a LazyGM. It takes hard work & dedication – and throws them out the window. The true LazyGM instead uses that most limitless and potent of resources: the players. Our ICONS beer ‘n’ pretzels game has reached a point where it needs a place to call home. It needs a city through which our heroes can fly, web-sling and drive their rocket cars. And the players are going to build it.
But first, we need a ten second pitch. Shamelessly stealing from ideas and plot points I’ve used before, we get this:
Earth’s greatest (indeed, only true) superhero was dead. UltraMegaMan’s body was blasted into a myriad atoms, consumed by the explosion which also destroyed his arch-foe Captain Nemesis. The world was safe at last, yet it mourned.
On the site of his demise they built a statue in his honour, a modern Colossus thousands of feet tall. It stood as a beacon of hope in a world with no more super-powered heroes. To many it was a symbol, the Icon for the modern age. People came to gaze at it, and people stayed. The camp around the statue’s base became a town, and in time that town became a city.
Welcome to Icon City, where hope is born and dreams might truly fly.
Icon City is situated someplace central in the US. As the Greatest New City in America ™, none of the buildings are more than 40 years old, and the hippie culture that gave it life has ever quite left. The overall attitude is closer to San Francisco that New York in that a total stranger is more likely to give you a flower than a punch in the face. Of course, there are exceptions….
Icon City is unusual because of the high number of superheroes (and villains) it has produced. Some theorize this is due to the death of UltraMegaMan – perhaps his atoms have affected the land in some way. (I’ll let you into a secret. They’re partly right.)
That’s it. My work as GM is done.
Now, it’s over to my players. I’m going to give each hero a district they can flesh out however they want, in as much detail as they care to give. I know Brickbat will take Dirtside, Icon City’s slum district, while his partner Gunfire has claimed the as-yet-unnamed Entertainment (bars, clubs, movies and musicals) zone. Vince Cable’s player has the Science Block. The other heroes will pick up districts as the game develops. My own new character, Toxic, will likely pick one of the industrial zones. In the best tradition of story-writing, nothing exists until it exists.
By handing development of the city to the players, I’m letting them inject something of their hero’s personality into the game. Just like Gotham is Batman and Metropolis is Superman drawn in stone, the districts of Icon City are a reflection of our superheroes. The area they choose may be where they were born, grew up, currently live or work. Above all, these are the places they care about.
Which means when I, as GM, send a Giant Rampaging Alien Robot through the Dirtside, Brickbat is going to be really pissed. Likewise, when I announce that Mister Media, uber-showman (and egomaniac mega-villain) is hosting a show in the Entertainment zone, you can guarantee that Gunfire will be on the scene.
See, that’s how this works. I give them control, and in turn that gives me control. Only one area is off-limits to the players’ imagination: The Icon itself. I’m saving that for something special down the line.
I’ll let you know how we get on.
A great big pile of coming soon
Aug 6th
I’m basking in the glow of All Those GenCon posts; you folks are doing sterling work keeping we mere mortals StuckAtHomeCon in the gamer convention loop and I thank & salute you for that. It’s like being there, only without the crush and better hygiene. While y’all saturate the blogosphere (and I mean that in the best possible way) with all things GenConnery, I’m resisting the temptation to throw more posts into the wind.
When the dust settles, here’s what I have planned here at Greywulf Towers:
- Square of Darkness – using and abusing illumination (and the lack of it) in 4e D&D
- Shadowlands, part 2 – plotting the next part of my next mini-campaign
- An Introduction to Icon City – our ICONS superhero beer’n'pretzels game needs a setting. This is it!
- The Power of N – Take control of your 4e encounter building to match your players’ abilities
And that’s just for starters. I’ve also got half-written posts about laws that restrict the casting of spells, more DAZ Studio tutorials and (of course) yet more renders.
If any of these grab your attention more than others, let me know in the comments and I’ll push them to the top of the pile, ‘kay?
Watch this space!
A Totally Rad unboxing
Aug 4th
The Lazy Sunday Caption Contest
Aug 1st
I think it’s time for a caption contest, don’t you? To celebrate the release of the frankly awesome Dystopian Console Station for free, I’ve thrown together this render.
All you have to do is add a caption to it. Because that’s how caption contests work, right?
Winner gets a fabulous one of a kind unsigned no-prize. Trust me on this one; the unsigned ones are much rarer.
Have at it!
UPDATE: Jim from Carjacked Seraphim wins with this:
What do you mean? Skynet was supposed to be HERE! Not there! Now you’re telling me we have to go to the RED dot… If only I’d followed the Cylon. They never frak THAT up…
Congratulations!
Down and Out in Old Dungeon Town
Jul 31st
Picture, if you will, a small village. Just like any other village there are streets and alleyways, shops and homes, open spaces and meeting places. People live here from all walks of life – the poor & lowly and the rich & powerful alike. There are the butchers, farmers, priests and leaders all tossed into the melting pot of village life.
Now put a lid on it and site it underground.
Next time you’re designing a dungeon think of it like any other town or village. The dungeon corridors are your streets with each room a home or communal space shared by the residents. When your players ask why a group of Orcs is in a room next to an Ankheg’s lair, just explain “because they’re neighbours”. We don’t question why a vicar might live next to a car salesman, and the same applies here.
Thinking of a dungeon as a small community has a major impact when it comes to designing the layout. Rooms are less likely to be used as thoroughfares with exits on all walls but instead have a front door and (possibly secret) back door. Larger rooms will either be occupied by the more powerful and influential monsters or be shared spaces where dungeon occupants will come together.
Your Dungeon Town will need much the same amenities as any small community – waste disposal, food, education and trade. The limited resources of the Underdark mean than even the lowliest Kobold will have better green credentials than your average surface dweller. Any waste produced will most likely become compost to aid the mushroom harvest. Either that or it explains why there are so many covered holes in the ground – that’s no pit trap; it’s a toilet!
A Goblin Cult Lair, for example, would most likely consist of many small living-caves with the three larger caves serving as nursery, worship area and Goblin Boss’s Cave. The sound of battle in the worship area or nursery will almost certainly bring Goblins from the surrounding area into the fray (add 1d4 more Goblins each round) whereas the noise of battle in the Goblin Boss’s Cave won’t. He might just be having a Bad Day, and it’s best to avoid those.
Beyond their usefulness when defending their lair, each monster will serve a role in the community. That role might be nothing more than “Bert’s friend” or “Dungeon Idiot”, or it could be something vital. That Goblin Cutter could be the resident cobbler (hence his lack of skill in combat) or a mushroom harvester while the Ghoul in the next room be the Dungeon’s medic. If nothing else, giving the monsters roles raises them beyond just being “4 Goblin Cutters” in an encounter and gives you something more to work with at the table. The other monsters could fly into a frenzy when your heroes kill the Orc Guard who happens to be the only eligible female in the Dungeon, or give a snicker when the local bully finally gets his comeuppance.
Food for thought, anyhow.
