Kobold "special shots" are clearly kobold eggs.

In my last post I briefly discussed the hypothesis that the "special shots" used by Kobold Slingers are, in fact, kobold eggs. After a few further conversations and scientific testing I think we can upgrade this from hypothesis to theory.

Just to clarify for those who are wondering what the heck I'm talking about, kobolds in Dungeons and Dragons are tiny lizard people. Along with goblins they are a typical threat to small villages that new adventurers somehow find themselves in service to.

In 4th edition, kobold slingers (along with a couple of other types of kobolds) can sometimes use a special shot for their slings. There are three varieties:
1. Glue pots - These special shots cover the kobold's opponent in a sticky goo that leaves the adventurer (the opponent) immobilized.
2. Stink pots - These special shots emit a smell so horrific that the kobold's opponents becomes distracted and inaccurate in their aim.
3. Fire pots - These special shots set the kobold's target on fire.

At first you may think that these are actual pots the kobolds are using, but keep in mind that the tiny lizard folk are not known for being remotely intelligent or civilized. The idea of a kobold working at its tiny potter's wheel is far fetched.

We do know, however, that kobolds are reptiles. Reptiles lay eggs. We also know that koblds are rather careless with their lives AFTER they have hatched, so we can only assume that they wouldn't have much of a qualm using their unborn progeny as ammunition.

Furthermore, the three varieties of "pots" follow a clear system correlating with egg freshness:

A few days after being laid a new kobold egg has a fresh and sticky yolk making it the perfect "glue pot."

Both immobilizing AND super-gross.

After a few days the once fresh yolk starts to go bad and smell putrid. The once mighty kobold shell may become cracked releasing an unholy smell.

While the kobolds may be accustomed to the stench, their foes are not.

Lastly, the rotting yolk eventually completely rots away leaving only an empty shell. These empty shells are strong enough to carry a rag and some flammable oil, but are still fragile enough to explode on impact sending deadly fuel everywhere.

It's a kobold-style Molotov cocktail. Also, still super-gross.

And there we have it. Proof that kobolds WILL throw their own flamming eggs at you and drench you in the gooey substance that might at one point have become their children.

Enter Xolok...

... the Terrible.

As I related in my last post, our group had emerged victorious against a young black dragon living in the sewers of the town. The battle, however, had cost the lives of both our bard (whom I think I forgot to mention actually) and my very first D&D character, Iannan Cluelacker, Cleric of the Raven Queen. Eventually the bard was stabilized. Iannan still could not save out of poison or death. It was a sad couple of minutes for everyone.

A lot of blame for both deaths could be pretty squarely placed at the feet of the kobolds who guarded the dragon. The creatures managed to keep me (and other party members) immobilized with "glue pots" thrown from their slings for most of the battle, which allowed the dragon to just engulf us in its horrible acidic breath repeatedly.

Following this battle, broken and disgusted, we had a little discussion with the DM:

Alan (Player): So these glue pots are like the best thing ever. Can we gather some for ourselves?

Loran (DM): No.

Alan: What do you mean? They all just happened to use their last glue pot?

Loran: Well, you can gather them. You can't use them though.

Alan: How can we not use them? They're pots with glue in them. How can a kobold figure out how to use them, but not people?

Loran: They are a special technology that only kobolds can use.

Me: What if I rolled a kobold?

Loran: Yeah, well maybe if you were playing a kobold.

Me: I'm bringing a kobold next week.

Loran: Fine, but he has no glue pots.

I didn't even know what stats or non-glue pot related advantages a kobold might have, but I went ahead and rolled a kobold rogue. Kobolds don't get any race-specific feats like the regular player races do, but they do get to shift as a minor action, which gives them a huge advantage as rogues. Mechanically I could already see myself enjoying this character over poor Iannan. Rogues with their bonuses to attacks with daggers, kobolds with the bonuses to being sneaky and thievy, shifting as a minor, bonuses to dexterity... this was going to be fun. 

The first issues we needed to resolve, of course, was the introduction of Xolok, why he would join the party, and, of course, what to do about the glue pot situation.

Xolok first encountered his party making their way back to town through the sewer. He had slept through the commotion of the rest of his tribe rushing out to meet he intruders and dying in defense of their beloved dragon. He awoke to find the quarters empty and hearing the sound of his fellow kobolds perishing in the distance. Gathering up all of the various shiny things he could find in the room, he took the off down one of the sewer hoping to get in on the action.

With a loud crash, Xolok dove out of the sewer pipe with what he considered amazing and cat-like agility wielding two very shiny (and therefore good or magical in Xolok's mind) butter knives.

He was confronted by a very battle-weary band of adventurers covered in kobold blood and carrying one of their own back to town. Rather than being upset that the adventurers had wiped out his entire tribe, Xolok seemed mostly upset that he has slept through the entire battle. Crestfallen, Xolok offered to help the adventurers find the quickest way to the surface in exchange for being permitted to accompany them on their journeys and to collect any shiny objects he might find along the way.

It was never quite clear why the adventurers accepted this little kobold into their group. Maybe they thought his tiny size and skill with locks would come in handy... or more likely they were just tired and bored of battle and wanted to reach town quickly for a well-deserved rest.

The topic of glue pots soon came up though. The dragonborn paladin, perhaps the least anxious to let the little pest into the group, asked if Xolok was carrying any glue pots and if Xolok was adept at using them.

Xolok reacted as if he was disgusted and surprised by the paladin's ignorance of glue pots...

I'm a male kobold, buddy. I can't lay those.

Thus the mystery of the kobold-only glue pot technology was solved. Next time: Xolok and the Paladin of Bahamut discuss religion.

Our First D&D Sessions: The Death of Iannan

My first few sessions were focused on the basics: What is a turn? What are my powers good for? I have to admit that I had some problems role playing Iannan. He was healing cleric who worshiped the Raven Queen. At first I thought it would be a hilarious irony to be healer who worshiped the goddess of death, but it was much harder to role playing than I thought it would be.

I guess healers worshiping the Raven Queen or Kelemvor would have an easier time explaining away their own ineptitude. "Yea, for the Lord of the Dead hath decreed that I not heal ye in time and thus join him this day."

Cassandra got to learn about the classic bane of level 1 D&D characters: kobolds. And we both got to learn a new feature of the 4th Edition of D&D: Kobolds can actually be quite vexing! One the biggest advances of 4th edition was making a lot of low level creatures complex, but still appropriate for beginners. In ye olden days a lot of low level monsters and opponents felt more or less the same mechanically. In some cases lower level monsters would simply level, have their defenses, saves, and attack bonuses increase and be new monsters. Goblins basically graduated to being orcs, which in turn would graduate into being hobgoblins, etc. 

Of course, many good DMs just worked through this monster progression. With a good story you could easily forget that the orcs you were fighting were basically enlarged versions of the goblins you fought last level. A good DM will still do this, of course, but what 4th edition brought to the table were some game mechanics that match the story flavor of each monster. Monsters in 4e have a unique character and that uniqueness is backed up mechanically.

Kobolds, for example, have always been the skittery ambush and trap laying weaklings of the D&D world. In 4e they all come with a movement mechanic called "Shifty" that fits their flavor wonderfully. Not only does the name of the ability hilariously match what we all thought about kobolds anyway, the mechanic allows all kobolds to shift as a minor action. This means that kobolds can zip around the battlefield more nimbly than the average player character. They can surround PCs and gain combat advantage quite easily thanks to their mobility.

In addition to their increased mobility certain 4e kobolds have a certain horrible ability called "Gluepot." Gluepot is a ability that apparently most of the kobolds we ran into had plenty of. It imposes a immobilization (save ends) effect on the players.

Our adventure had taken us deep into the sewer system of our beloved city. Apparently D&D cities are often infested with both bandits and kobolds. If only they had made those tunnels a little less roomy, right? This town apparently was particularly poorly planned as the sewer system connected to a series of caves. 

What lives in caves? Harmless bats, salamanders, and maybe creepy looking fish? Oh no. Not alone anyways. Not in the D&D universe. All caves everywhere are infested with some sort of level appropriate clan of monsters. Through the series of caves we met stiff resistance from the resident kobolds. They were no match for us though. After all we had a great minotaur absorbing damage for us, a druid controlling the field of battle, a half-orc barbarian rending our foes in twain, a half-elf cleric casting sacred flame to free us from hail of gluepots we met, and a lovable gnomish bard (AKA the competent healer.)

We had a good rhythm going and Loran probably planned it that way. Eventually we met the wrench thrown into our well oiled machine... the black dragon and his five or so kobold adherents. I assumed that the tactics we had used up to this point would be enough to handle this new threat just fine... how wrong I was.

See, if you people keep flushing your dragon whelp pets down the toilet when they start to get too big this is what you're going to get in your sewers.

The kobolds promptly glued us in place with their wretched pots. Then came the acid breath... oh yes. 

See, a dragon's breath weapon is kind of its signature, but one thing they all have in common is that they typically bathe an entire area in a lovely rain of death. A usual strategy is to keep spread out, but this is difficult when you are entering in from a small doorway and are immediately glued in place. 

Sacred Flame did actually manage free up most of my companions from the glue pots, but I also had ongoing damage to help people to save out of. Saves are much more forgiving in 4th edition. After all, all I had a 50/50 chance to save out of each effect, so I focused on liberating our melee combatants first. 

Luck was not with us that night. I knew it wasn't with us because I knew whom exactly it was with: the black dragon. That dragon recharged its breath weapon (a 1 in 3 chance) nearly every round. Meanwhile. I never, NEVER saved out of that first gluepot or the pool of acid that eventually took poor Iannan's life.

It was a tragic death for poor Iannan as he could have possible saved himself if he were not so obsessed with Sacred Flaming others out of harm. It would have been indeed sad if he had died with healing powers left to give out, or a great deal of gold on his person, or an engaging personality, but he had none of those. In the end, his sacrifice was quite worth it. His friends survived and his death led to the creation of a far greater character that would become the namesake of this blog. The subject of many a song and story and the first great herald of Tiamat, Xolok the Terrible.

Next post: The Introduction of Xolok the Terrible.

 

Our First D&D Session: Creating Our First Characters

Keep in mind that at this point we still had no clue how this game was played. My tiny shreds of knowledge came only from playing Neverwinter Nights which is a third edition based PC game.

One thing I did know though was that people love clerics, but people didn't necessarily enjoy playing a cleric. I figured I would endear myself to the group by taking on that role and have a nice simple time of casting "Cure Light/Moderate/Critical Wounds" over and over again while learning to play more complicated parts of the game.

My wife decided to go for the barbarian figuring that it would also be simple to be the person in charge of running up and hitting things. The classic barbarian has the lowest Intellect score, so it makes sense that it should be the easiest to play, right?

Loran, my first DM, was a great person to introduce us to the game. He and his wife continued to be part of our D&D adventures in Houston up until we left.

Here's specifically why Loran was a great DM, especially for newbies like us:

He's a friendly person for one. Unfriendly people do not make good DMs. When your job at the game table is to thwart and confound your friends, it helps to be completely unlike the villains you are portraying. Otherwise it becomes far too easy for people to assume you really hate them. For example, DMs should try their best to not cackle maniacally at their players' misfortune. At the end of the day, even after characters have been melted, ignited, perforated, sliced and diced... your DM should still be your friend.

For two, Loran seemed excited to share the hobby with new people, and he had a good sense of humor about it. For some players, character creation is a fine craft that must be approached with the utmost reverence and seriousness. These players should not be the first ones to volunteer to help you make your new character.

I know. I know you can help them make their first character super awesome and amazing and perfect... but, just remember that it's a game and some people - and most first timers I assume - have fun just finding their character in a process of thinking about the person they want to create.

I told Loran that I wanted to play the cleric - obviously assuming that every group still needed one in this edition. I then picked out half-elf for my character's race. The reason I picked half-elf was two-fold. In all previous editions of D&D half-elves were just awful. They pretty much had the weakest bonuses of both humans and elves, so I was excited to see that in 4th they became more of a unique player race.

The second reason I chose half-elf was because I thought charisma was still a handy stat to have as a cleric. In 3rd edition charisma determined everything about the cleric's Turn Undead ability, and I remembered that being a really awesome power in Neverwinter Nights. I remember I actually caused a server to crash because I had gathered up an innumerable amount of skeletons around me before unleashing Turn Undead to destroy them all.

In 4th edition, charisma is still a secondary stat for clerics, but the Turn Undead ability is much less a cornerstone power for them.

At any rate, in those days there were two potential builds for clerics: Devoted, and Battle... or as Loran put the question to me, "Would you rather be a standing in the back guy or more of a battle-pope?" While I found the idea of playing a D&D version of Pope Julius II intriguing and hilarious, I figured that the standing in the back guy was standing back there casting Cure Light Wounds, etc.

I decided to go for the more healing sounding one rather than the self-buffing warrior type. As it turns out, every cleric in 4th edition gets to do other things in addition to healing - that's were the real dichotomy between devoted and battle-popes come in. Iannan would get to heal whether he was in the front lines doing it or in the back. 

I should also mention that I was a cleric of the Raven Queen. I wanted to be a cleric of Ilmater, but this is what a newbie I was: I had no idea that the Forgotten Realms (which Ilmater is from) was a specific setting for D&D. I thought all D&D was set in the Forgotten Realms. This was just as the Forgotten Realms materials were being released so Loran had no sources for clerics of Ilmater.

Cassandra created a rageblood half-orc barbarian. Interestingly enough her newbie assumptions about her class and play style were closer to the truth than mine were. Her build really was a good way to learn the game as it mostly involved running up to things and bisecting them with an axe. It was very direct and she had the luxury of not having to worry about taking care of other people.

In my next post: How My First Character, Iannan the Characterless Cleric of the Raven Queen, Died.

Our First D&D Session: Who Actually Works Here?

This post has taken me a while to write, because of two things: Firstly, the holidays happened, secondly, I really wanted to figure out what exactly the people in our first D&D did so well that we got so hooked on this game.

As I have mentioned before, we set up this first session through Asgard Game's forums. Aside from the treatises that we should play X, Y, Z other game, the initial forum posts we read were very encouraging. First of all, one of the posters stated that she was the girlfriend of the original poster. 

I knew that women played this game. Heck, it was Cassandra's idea that we look into playing in the first place. It was extra reassuring though to know that the people we were meeting were actually able to have and maintain a personal relationship with another person though. It's not that everyone who has a significant other is instantly awesome or has social skills, nor is it that everyone who doesn't have a significant other doesn't have those qualities. It's just that these folks had already shattered the stereotypical basement-dwelling nerd that we have all grown up to know, love, and shun.

It was decided that we would all meet on a Tuesday night at the gaming shop. The shop was fairly deserted when we last visited, so we weren't expecting the festival of nerds we encountered on a weeknight. I feel like there must have been several tournaments of various games going on at once or we just hit one of those moments when everyone decided to show up to the shop and stay.

The reader might be thinking, "Why didn't you ask the clerk at the front for direction?" This would be a great idea. At least a good place to start, right? Maybe the people running D&D had told the clerk to expect some people looking for a D&D game. This would be a great idea except that it was (and probably still is) really difficult to tell who actually works at Asgard Games. Seriously, I felt that perhaps the owner of the store had left the store for a while and just had everyone on the honor code. Maybe there's a sacred rule that nerds are bound to not steal from other nerds upon penalty of having nobody to game with.

Eventually we found a person who at least was standing at a table where everyone else was sitting. People who are standing tend to be charge, right? We asked and eventually found our group.

Next Post: Creating our first characters.

A Run-in with Pathfinder and Gamer Etiquette

What is Pathfinder? Pathfinder is a game published by Paizo Publishers that is basically a minor revision of Dungeons and Dragons 3.5th Edition. Originally they worked with Wizards of the Coast publishing 3rd party support materials for the D&D game under the Open Game License. The OGL was something that Wizards used to sort of open-source parts of Dungeons and Dragons. 4th Edition has a much more limited licensing policy and apparently this caused a disagreement with Paizo. Wizards was more restrictive about what material Paizo could use for their 3rd party products and thus Paizo panned the new 4th Edition. Pathfinder was a way for Paizo to maintain a profit by continuing to publish 3.5 Edition-compatible materials for gamers that preferred that system.

Let me preface this post by saying that I have nothing against Pathfinder players per se. I know a lot of people grew up on the 3rd Edition of D&D and I understand that 4th Edition brought huge changes to a game that players felt close to. I'm glad that there are people who still play earlier versions of D&D. I'm glad that earlier versions of this game made such an impact on players that they feel so passionately about how they prefer to play it.

There are certain Pathfinder players though...

I mentioned before that Cass and I visited our local gaming shop a couple of weeks before we really started playing D&D.  We looked through their selection of D&D books unsure what we really needed to pick-up. We had just pulled down the 4th Edition player's handbook when, suddenly, out of nowhere this guy appeared.

Immediately he starts talking about how 4th Edition isn't very good and how Pathfinder is a better game. Wait, that makes it sound like he was cordial and informative. It was more like he told us that 4th Edition "sucked" and that Pathfinder was a better game because 4th Edition "sucks and isn't real D&D any more." I had no clue what Pathfinder was. I had never heard of it, so I just kind of eased away and said we were just interested in the hobby and didn't really know what we wanted. The guy then hunched down and scampered up the wall snarling and frothing at the mouth like a gremlin until we put the 4th Edition book down... well that's stretching the truth, but not by much.

Later on the forums while we were setting up our first game we experienced something similar. We were discussing starting a 4th Edition game when this poster started writing about how we should be playing Pathfinder instead. I thought it might be this one person, and I'm sure that the majority of Pathfinder players aren't this abrasive and pushy. I keep hearing similar stories from other friends though, and I keep seeing Pathfinder posts on other forums. The modus operandi of the more zealot-like Pathfinder players is always the same: The smallest mention of 4th Edition brings out some commentary on how Wizards of the Coast has ruined everything with 4th Edition. There usually some word or two about how WotC is too focused on money, and how Paizo is keeping it real and making products at lower cost. (The aim of both companies I assume is profit, but what do I know?)

I can understand wanting 3rd Edition to live on, and I even understand enthusiastically (to the point of being over-bearing) proselytizing on your preferred game's behalf. Why would knock someone else's fun though? Why would you heckle or bully someone over this?

To be fair, I can see where some of these complaints come from. It's hard, if not impossible, to play 4th Edition without miniatures and battle-mat. Moving from 3.5 to 4th does involve new books. 4th edition is very simplified and the new format meant that the game had to start again from the basics. For a veteran player of 3.5, the old format probably feels richer simply because of the wealth of material already published.

Other common complaints make no sense to me though. Some people complained that Wizards of the Coast was just trying to make money. This is particularly ironic considering that Pathfinder exists because Paizo ALSO wanted to make a profit. The constant refrain from a lot of Pathfinder zealots are that WotC made them throw out their whole D&D library with 4th Edition. As far as I know though, no orcs were sent out from Renton to pillage anyone's 3.5 books or modules. I have often heard that 4th edition "ruined" D&D because it was no longer complex and "just aimed to bring over MMO players." To each, his or her own opinion, but I often say that 4th edition "revived" D&D because it was no longer complex and aimed to bring over MMO players... Just a reminder: TSR, the company that originally published D&D, had to dissolve because it was no longer profitable. It was no longer profitable because they never learned how to open up the hobby to new audiences.

So here's a running tally of commandments for gamer etiquette:


1. Promote your game, but don't knock someone else's - especially while they are playing it.
Not once, ever, has there been a group of people who have gotten up from an RPG game table and started a different RPG based on the force of some rude nerd-bully telling them that the game they were currently playing "sucked." Yes, they may have gotten up from the table, but that was out of disgust and annoyance rather than from being convinced.

2. Don't touch things that aren't yours - especially while violating rule #1 above. 
Maybe it was just the odd bad apple in the group of nerds that I've been around, but more than once I've experienced people who saunter over, fiddle with dice, cell phones, pencils, books, did I mention cell phones, all while telling us how much they hated the game we were playing.

3. People like a person who is always friendly more than a person who is always right.
If you disagree on a topic with a friend, from politics to a game move, remember that long term success comes from remaining the person's friend rather than "winning" an argument. If the only person convinced at the end of the night is you and you've lost a friend or potential friend, it's a net loss for you.


I'm sure more will come up later, but that's enough philosophy for one D&D blog post. Next, we'll finally get to our first gaming session. 

The D&D 4e Starter Kit

Before our first session of playing D&D, my wife and I felt it necessary to read all sorts of books about D&D. No, these weren't D&D handbooks. These were tangential books like the previously mentioned 30 Years of Adventure, the Waterdeep novel series, and D&D for Dummies. We didn't want to be the bozos with no clue about what was going on, right? I mean, heaven save us if we appear foolish in the presence of our nerdly brethren!

After a while we finally made the plunge and got the D&D Starter Set. To us, this was "buying the game." We knew it was a trimmed down version, but we figured that it would give us somewhere to start. This product has since been replaced by the much better "New Red Box," but the original 4th edition starter set prompted from us the same reaction we had been getting all along as we read about his game: This game sounds awesome. I wish I knew what it was about.

I had gotten the starter set, unpacked it, and studied it for an hour or two before picking up Cassandra from work. This is what the subsequent conversation sounded like:

Me: "Hey! So I finally picked up a D&D Starter Set. It's simple and geared towards new players. We can finally give this game a shot."

Cass: "Oh cool! So you have an idea of how to play now?"

Me: "I have no earthly clue how to play, but it looks awesome! It involves these funky dice and everything. Just as the books promised!"

When we got home we stared at the pretty dice and the monster tokens and chits and things... they were colorful and my wife and I enjoy colors.

But teach us to play Dungeons and Dragons? Well... no. I'm not going to fault Wizards of the Coast on this one though. From what I've heard from other folks and Wizard's own D&D Podcast, this reaction is pretty typical.

I'm not going to do too serious of a review of this product, because it has been since replaced by the Red Box. Nevertheless, I'm going to point out that it is probably a great starter set for people starting 4th Edition, but not necessarily starting D&D. I get the feeling that, although Wizards gave us everything we needed, we had no clue on how to absorb this material. Someone who was familiar with tabletop RPGs would probably have an easier time of it. While trying to learn this game on our own, I felt that explanations were either very technical or very fluffy without the in-between that I really wanted. It was the switches between these two extremes that frustrated me.

One moment I would be reading how D&D was a game of adventure and whimsy, and the next I would be told all the technical details of the hunter's quarry feature (when I had no clue what a "class feature" even was.) For me, things only really came together in my head after bumbling through a few sessions with experienced players and after being able to hear/see how the game is played.

If you're a new player, I would very seriously suggest listening to the PvP and Penny Arcade Podcasts to get an idea of what play is like. For me, the ideal starter set would not only include what is included in the Red Box, but also a tiny DVD or a link to a youtube video or podcast of someone actually doing it with you while you followed along.

As for Cass and me, we eventually found some people on the forums of our local game shop. Thus we set up our first gaming session with excitement for the future, and fear of making complete fools of ourselves in front of people who casually discuss their "1000 point space ork armies."