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Into the Nentir Vale: Part 3

The Nentir Vale is a campaign setting provided to new players of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. It’s present in the Red Box and most of the starting materials. For a party almost all completely new to D&D and a DM re-familiarizing himself with the latest edition, it’s a great place to start a campaign. This will be an ongoing recollection of what happens to the party as they make their way through the Nentir Vale. Enjoy.

Previously: A dwarf “fortress”, the town of Fallcrest and a sparkly cleric.

I seem to have misplaced the quotes I scribbled down from our last session. Which means this recap will likely be somewhat dull. – DM

They called it Kobold Hall, or Kobold Keep. Some of the more disgruntled denizens of Fallcrest called it Kobold Hole. It was a known nexus of activity for the reptilian raiders, but no individual or group had stepped forward to deal with the threat. Until now.

The band of sellswords from Fallcrest made their way into the old ruin. At the base of what was once a guard tower, they found a trapdoor with rusty hinges. Tugging on the ring revealed stairs leading underground. At the base of the long stair was a dank room dominated by a pit of sludge and patrolled by kobolds. The guards bore spears and slings, while Andrasian hefted his Lifedrinker Battleaxe, Lyria drew her daggers, Melanie began casting spells and Krillorien hewed into the kobolds with longsword and holy words.

Beyond the sludge pit was an ancient tomb converted into a shrine for the kobolds’ twisted rituals. Krillorien bristled at the sight of such graven imagery as the party moved into the room. However, more than reptilians occupied it. The suits of armor situated in alcoves along the walls spat darts on anyone large enough to trigger the connected pressure plates. Lyria, being small and light, breezed over the plates on her way to deliver a series of stabbings to her foes. After the kobolds had fallen, they found the shrine in the corner was to Tiamat, the dire dragon goddess of greed and envy.

The next tomb had been converted into a kobold playground. A large stone, covered in sludge, hung from the ceiling on the end of a long rope. Small animal skulls were arranged on the coffins in the room. The object of the game, it seemed, was to smash the skulls on the coffin – or those of any intruders. Avoiding the stone as it swung through the room was problematic for most of the party, as Lyria’s size again gave her an advantage. However, Andrasian and Krillorien immediately took it upon themselves to spoil the game by severing the rope. Melanie’s spells took care of the players as they made for the doors at the far end of the room. Lyria ran up and across a wall to reach one of the platforms from which the players had cast their ball, only to find a fearsome guard drake waiting for her. The fight that followed was pitched, but in the end the party survived.

Awaiting in the adjoining chamber was a wyrmpriest of Tiamat and his cohort. As the sellswords rushed into the room, a giant boulder crashed out of the side of the room and began rolling towards them. A slightly depressed portion of the floor by an inner chamber kept the boulder rolling around, making positioning difficult. The wyrmpriest was a bit too eager to exercise his ability to breathe ice, and Melanie proved herself a superior spellcaster. For her effort, she found a staff of the war mage on the kobold’s corpse. But the question as to why the kobold’s ability involved cold breath was a somewhat disconcerting one…

Next: Who’s in charge of these kobolds, anyway?

All locations, NPCs, spells and equipment copyright Wizards of the Coast unless otherwise noted.

The Hunter in Cataclysm: Survival

October 25, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

I didn’t have the good fortune to make it into the beta for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm but with the release of the latest Patch, I can now make some educated guesses as to how the different talents of my primary class, the Hunter, are going to fall together. I plan on using my secondary specialization to try out the other talents and offer some thoughts, as I’ve been playing the class and struggling to play it well since Burning Crusade, especially since I met my wife.

So here’s the first in a series of guides to the Hunter talent trees. There may be a video once I’ve covered all three. Even if I don’t have the swank accent of TotalBiscuit. I’m also going to take it in turns to talk about the new abilities coming, in order: Cobra Shot, Aspect of the Fox and Camouflage.

Spoiler

The Survival Tree

Explosive Shot is the ‘signature ability’ of this tree. With most of our damage over time (dot) effects being Nature-based, a little Fire changes things up even if it’s only a 2-second dot effect. The further you go down the tree, the more benefit you’ll see from using this shot whenever it’s off cooldown and you have the focus to fire it. Into the Wilderness increases your Agility, the statistic you’ll want the most of as you move down the tree. Not only does it translate into ranged attack power, it also increases crit chance and dodge, which is handy for both PvE and PvP. Finally, Essence of the Viper increases all of the Hunter’s elemental damage. That’s Nature, Fire, Shadow, etc. So the more Mastery you have, the more danage your Serpent Sting, Explosive Shot and Black Arrow will do. Can you say Reforging? I thought you could.

Let’s get into the talents.

Hunter vs. Wild

Carrying over from pre-patch days, this is a straight boost to Stamina. A good place for the first three points in a PvP build. For raiding, you may be better suited putting those points in…

Pathing

Gone are the days of needing to switch your tracking to match whatever unfortunate mob you’re filling with tiny shards of metal, be they arrows or bullets. Pathing replaces that micromanagment talent with a no-nonsense increase of ranged haste. Since Steady Shot now has a straight cast time of 1.5 seconds, I believe this has our regular attacks woven into our rotations more frequently rather than reducing that cast time. I’ll test more to confirm this. Anyway, a PvE build would do well to fill this one out. PvP may benefit from this as well, but you may want to circle back to this after grabbing some other talents.

Improved Serpent Sting

Basically, when you hit a mob with Serpent Sting it’ll do instant damage on top of its dot effect. Keep in mind that this doesn’t apply to Chimera Shot over on the Marksmanship tree, only to the initial application of Serpent Sting. Chimera Shot refreshes the dot only. Now, Multi-Shot is another story but I’m getting ahead of myself. Either way, grab this talent.

Survival Tactics

While you’re not going to be fooling most real players with Feign Death, mobs are another story. Reducing trap resistance is handy and being able to Disengage more often means more clever ways to get yourself out of a fix. To me, this is more of a solo PvE or PvP talent. Farming or grinding mobs is easier with crowd control they can’t resist, and locking a player in place with an Ice Trap (see Entrapment) can make a big difference in arena situations. I say pick this up if you’re levelling or heading into the arena, pairing it with…

Entrapment

Turning what is normally an annoyance, either a slowing of movement or a lot of little poison effects, into a root is essential for arenas. The more crowd control you can subject your opponents to, the better. With crowd control making a comeback in Cataclysm, this may also become necessary for raiding if you want to spec your Hunter as something beyond a pew-pew-pewing DPS class. I’d say this is pretty much a must-have for top-level PvP, and a ‘maybe’ for raiding.

Trap Mastery

This, on the other hand, is good for all builds. Your ice-based traps last longer, your fire traps and Black Arrow do more damage and Snake Trap produces more snakes. Instill Indiana Jones’ biggest fear on folks with this. This is one of those talents that provides a good immediate benefit and gets even better with talent synergy further down the tree.

Point of No Escape

Keeping with the theme of crowd control’s comeback, this little talent increases the chance of critical strikes on targets affected by our Ice or Freezing Traps. Again, this hasn’t come up as much in the pre-expansion content, due in part to Wrath’s raids being so focused on area-of-effect pulls instead of complex ones requiring crowd control, but looking to the future a raiding Survival Hunter is going to want this talent.

Thrill of the Hunt

This talent helps with our focus management. Arcane Shot, Explosive Shot and Black Arrow having a chance to replenish 40% of their focus costs to me can be very helpful in a fight. More focus means you’re using something other than auto shot or Steady Shot more often which means more damage. Good for any build.

Counterattack

If you’re unfortunate enough to get into melee, this can save you. When it activates, hit it and then Disengage. It’s highly situational, though. With Trap Launcher you can CC an opponent before they close to melee range in arenas, and if you’re quick enough you won’t have to trade blows with an angry Death Knight. We’re just not a melee class. For PvP specs, you may again want to circle back to this after you fill out the other, more universal talents.

Lock and Load

This may be my favorite old talent in Survival. I can’t recall if it included Arcane Shot pre-patch, because Arcane Shot used up too much mana. However, with the advent of Focus and situations in which your pet may be marginalized, weaving Arcane Shot into the old Explosive-Steady-Explosive dance when Lock and Load procs may increase your damage without clipping Explosive Shot’s dot effect. Pick it up and save some points for T.N.T. to get the most out of it.

Resourcefulness

Must-have for all Survival builds. Even if you don’t use traps that often, reducing Black Arrow’s cooldown means more elemental damage, more Lock and Load procs with T.N.T. and higher overall DPS.

Mirrored Blades

Deterrence is our “OH CRAP!” button, and Mirrored Blades just makes it better. Not only are you essentially immune to damage, but you can reflect spells back at your attacker. Definitely a PvP talent especially for arenas. You’ll need the points elsewhere for PvE builds because, frankly, if you’re getting hit with spells often enough that you need to hit Deterrence, somebody’s doing something wrong.

T.N.T.

“I’m DY-NO-MITE!” Crank up the AC/DC and do tons more damage. With this talent, you don’t need to drop a trap for Lock and Load to proc. It’s not the guaranteed proc of the Freezing and Ice traps, but it happens often enough to boost your DPS. And in PvP situations it increases the tools at your disposal to put out more than enough hurt to put down the warrior frothing at the mouth to put an axe in your face.

Toxicology

I’m not a statistician, so I don’t know the numbers as to how often our dots deal critical damage. When it happens, it’s good if they hurt more. Still, there are other talents requiring our attention, and with the other talents on this level you may find yourself only putting one point in here as you progress down the tree. If you’re speccing for PvP, this is a good time to pick up Counterattack instead. PvP is more about burst damage than damage over time, after all.

Wyvern Sting

An additional method of crowd control not bound to a trap. This will probably see more use in Cataclysm’s raids than it does in Wrath’s, and for PvP putting a healer to sleep can really mess up the other team’s day. Not to mention it unlocks Black Arrow. Get it.

Noxious Stings

Makes your Serpent Sting more damaging and Wyvern Sting more annoying. It almost makes Wyvern into a miniature Unstable Affliction, which Affliction Warlocks can tell you piss people off to no end. Definitely worth its points.

Hunting Party

Reduced in cost to 1 talent point, this now gives a raid-wide buff to attack speed as well as giving you even more Agility. Are you really going to pass up that big a bargain? No? Didn’t think so.

Sniper Training

In most raid situations, you’re likely to be standing in one place. Some fights do have you moving around, which I’ll talk about more when I discuss Aspect of the Fox. But doing more damage when your Kill Shot crits and more overall with Steady & Cobra Shot is definitely a benefit to the party in PvE situations. When it comes to PvP, though, this talent is a bit more questionable. Points normally reserved for here could go in Mirrored Blades, Toxicology or even up in Pathing or Point of No Escape if you haven’t gotten them already. In battlegrounds you may find yourself occasionally standing still, but in arenas if you stand still too long you end up dead.

Serpent Spread

My favorite new talent. I call it the Oprah talent. “You get a Serpent Sting! YOU get a Serpent Sting! EVERY BODY GETS A SERPENT STING!!”

Note that with Improved Serpent Sting, your Multi-Shot will now be doing its damage, Serpent Sting’s improved damage and also applies the dot effect. TO EVERYTHING IT HITS. You shouldn’t need a math degree to see this translates into big numbers. I’d say this is a must-have for PvE builds. Battleground builds may also benefit from this especially when the other faction rushes your control point. Finally, arena builds aiming for the 5v5 bracket can use this well when the other team comes out of the gate, but this counts on them staying close enough for Multi-Shot to hit everybody. I’ve yet to test it in that situation, but I’ll keep you posted.

Black Arrow

The pinnacle of Survival. Without this shot, quite frankly, half of these talents aren’t worth taking. It applies shadow damage, enhanced by Essence of the Viper and other talents, as well as giving a change for Lock and Load to proc. Worth both the talent point and its focus cost.

So, those are the Survival talents in a nutshell and based on my personal experience and opinions. Now for some speculation!

Cobra Shot

With the same casting time as Steady Shot but applying Nature damage and increasing Serpent Sting duration, Cobra Shot looks to be an interesting alternative to our old standby. I imagine this shot will crop up more in Beast Mastery and Survival rotations than Marksmanship. Beast Masters won’t have to worry about refreshing Serpent Sting and can reserve their focus for Kill Command. Marksmen will be using Steady Shot as Chimera Shot will do more damage than Cobra and fill the “refresh the Sting” role. Survivalists, with their increased elemental damage, will want Serpent Sting to last on their targets as much as possible.

Next: Marksmanship and Aspect of the Fox.

Games as Storytellers

October 21, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 1 Comment

After finishing off A Game of Thrones, the review of which I intend to write up some time this weekend, I started taking my DS on the train instead of a book. I fired up the updated Chrono Trigger. It’s amazing how quickly the game sucked me right back into its story.

It’s made me think. With all of the rendering software, high-definition platforms and cutting-edge AI technology out there, this game, first released back in the early 90s, still captivates me. It’s got 16-bit sprites, music based on the SNES chip and only a few buttons to speak of. Why does this game grab and hold my attention the way bigass mainstream games can’t?

It tells a great story.

Not every game sets out to do this. In fact, most of them get their start due to a new technology, a game mechanic or one of those pithy memos from the marketing department. And this isn’t a bad thing. A game should be seamless in its integration between mechanics, narrative and design. The experience that results makes games as different as night and day. Halo is a big-budget Michael Bay movie. Mass Effect 2 is a season of a science fiction TV series like Battlestar Galactica or Stargate. Chrono Trigger‘s a well-worn novel. These are subjective comparisons, but you get the idea.

As I continue to edit Citizen in the Wilds, get feedback on its query and struggle to conserve enough energy to work on either of those, I find myself looking at games in terms of potential for telling stories just as much as they are diverting little distractions from activities that earn money. World of Warcraft can even be used to tell stories, and not just through the quest log text and boss fight quotes. Especially if one is on a role-playing server, typed dialog, emotes and even the occasional spell can help tell a story that isn’t just interesting to the player but to those around them. Unless your name is Rostal Korobrats.

Of course, these things have to remain on the conceptual level for now. I simply have too many other concerns. The day job, the novel, maintaining an apartment, following up on paperwork for a variety of things while keeping the lights on and food in the pantry… all that typical life stuff that comes with being a responsible adult. However, once I get Citizen more reasonably poised for release to someone who can get it to print and things become less stressful in terms of budget and time constraints, maybe I can explore some of the tools at my disposal.

It’s all conjecture at this point, but it centers around the idea that a game that is equal parts design, mechanics and narrative can be an immersive and memorable storytelling experience even if the technology isn’t bleeding-edge and the budget isn’t in the millions of dollars. It’s the idea behind a lot of the indie games out there. Braid tells an intricate story while being a platformer with an interesting time-manipulation gimmick. Minecraft might not tell much of a story but it does allow its players to build, create, be anything they want, and that in and of itself has the potential for storytelling.

We get inspiration from all sorts of places. Games inspire me. The day may even come when I’m inspired to make a game of my own.

I just can’t do it now. Or any time soon. I like being sane. Relatively speaking.

Surviving The Patch

October 20, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 3 Comments

He’s back, and he’s pissed.

Most of the people I know who play World of Warcraft are looking forward to the latest expansion, Cataclysm. Those of us who’ve played the previous games remember Deathwing, and are pretty pleased with both his place as this expansions ‘Big Bad’ and his upgraded appearance. Because if you want to communicate how hardcore you are, grafting dark iron armor to your freakin’ skin is a good way to do it. Anyway, Deathwing’s pretty pissed off at Azeroth. But not quite as pissed, I think, as some of the game’s players since the patch that introduced the class changes and altered some of the mechanics and strategies in a pretty radical fashion.

Since my only max-level character is a hunter, I can only speak to how the changes have really affected gameplay for him, so I’m going to do that. I do have a warlock and a death knight to level, but there’s Hallow’s End to take care of first. Meantime, here’s my pontifications on being a survival hunter post 4.0.1 and why everybody needs to calm the hell down.

It’s a hard truth but it’s something that needs to be said.

Our DPS sucks right now.

It’s not because we’re doing anything wrong post-patch, nor is it due to Blizzard nerfing the class. The problem is that 80 is no longer the highest level. The gear, the stats, the abilities and synergies are no longer tweaked for us to produce maximum DPS at level 80. In the meantime, we’re left trying to pump out as much damage as possible, when it is impossible to legitimately optimize since we’re no longer truly at level cap. The level cap won’t actually exist until December, so what should be a minor obstacle in our path to optimization is instead a hard barrier that makes a lot of people very upset.

It’s like driving down a highway in a car stuck in fourth gear. The engine wants to produce the speed we’re demanding when we stomp on the gas, but the transmission just can’t convey the right amount of energy to the wheels, so the engine makes a lot of noise while the wheels struggle to move more quickly. Fifth gear exists, we just can’t shift into it. That link between the gearshift and the transmission simply doesn’t work yet.

As a survival hunter, I definitely feel like something is missing. The priority of shots is slightly different, I’m still getting used to the focus mechanics (and I really like them, don’t get me wrong) and I only figured out how this new Call Pet functionality works this morning. But you know what? It’s not the end of the world. I’m not hurt or disillusioned over this. In fact, I’m kind of excited.

Lock and Load still works just as well as it did before the patch. And I love the hell out of Lock and Load. Now that Steady Shot’s cast time is based on 1.5 seconds, which is the exact duration of the tiny dot effect of Explosive Shot, weaving Steady Shot into the free Explosives proc’d by Lock and Load doesn’t require extensive haste gearing. Sure, it’s nice to shoot more quickly, but you don’t need to stack haste specifically to get there. There’s also the fact that we will be working Cobra Shot into that mini-rotation as well. Which brings me to my point and the reason I’m not complaining.

Our skills, gear and damage output will no longer appear “optimized” at our current level. They never will again. Our goal will now be to get to 85 and begin optimizing there. And along the way there will be other abilities to pick up, play with and work into our rotations. For hunters, that’s Cobra Shot. It does nature damage and extends the duration of Serpent Sting, and with Survival’s Mastery and Noxious Sting talent, that’s going to increase our damage output significantly. The problem is we’re not going to see Cobra Shot until December. So until then, we’re going to seem ‘nerfed’ even though we aren’t.

Basically what we should be doing now, instead of complaining, is figuring out how the trees have changed and if our old favorites are still up our alley. Again, using the specific example of being a survival hunter, I find I need to think about what I’m doing a bit more often when I’m shooting. Focus conservation seems to be the watchword and I’m still sorting out the best way to maintain it for delivering special shots when they’re off cooldown. If I ever get annoyed at my lack of Focus, I can try out Beast Mastery since I hear they have Focus coming out of their ears. I’ve never really liked the idea of having the bulk of my damage done by the pet, though. That’s just me. Your mileage may vary.

I guess what I’m trying to say, in general, is we need to calm down. You can’t wander into the kitchen, look at the cake as it sits in the pan before it’s put in the oven and judge it like a finished product. You have to wait until it’s done baking, the frosting’s been added and appropriate extra bits applied. Then you can say for certain if it’s good or bad.

Right now we’ve got a lot of batter to work with. It’s not going to taste as good as it will in December. Once we accept that and work with what we’ve got, the next month and a half won’t seem quite so long.

Just my opinion.

Into The Nentir Vale, Part 2

October 12, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

Previously: Meet the sellswords.

When Andrasian, Melanie and Lyria finally made it to Fallcrest, the wagon master greeted Sergeant Murgeddin heartily. After a brief conversation, the dwarven sergeant instructed the party to take their item to Marla of the Great Church, an institution dedicated to the worship of Pelor. Given the nature of the box’s contents, the trio agreed that it was best to put it in someone else’s hands as quickly as possible, and a holy priestess of the sun god seemed like as good a choice as any.

They made their way through Fallcrest’s winding streets to Moonstone Keep and found quite a few people waiting to see Lord Warden Faren Markelhay, from peasants to local lords. They politely waited in the queue… for about two minutes. They then moved to the front and asked the officious bureaucrat about the wait and attempted to convey the importance of their mission. The bureaucrat refused to grant them entry, unwilling to even consider it unless he knew what was in the box. After one blow-off after another, Andrasian finally showed the bureaucrat the ghastly contents. Turning white as a sheet and uttering nervous prayers, the bureaucrat let them pass and promptly found the nearest latrine.

Within the keep’s throne room, Markelhay looked over maps, scrolls and laws. The thone’s dias was unoccupied, the Lord Warden occupying a simple chair behind his cluttered desk. To one side, Marla spoke with another priest of Pelor, a young eladrin who had come to the Lord Warden to validate the deed for his manor. It was a stout, dwarven building a few miles south of Fallcrest which the cleric’s father had won in a game of Three-Dragon Ante with a dwarven companion. Dwarves kept the grounds and halls clean and safe, and after spending the night there, the cleric had come to ensure no other lord or well-to-do businessman could claim it. He introduced himself to the trio as Krillorien.

“In the words of Sookie Stackhouse, ‘I’m a fucking fairy!'” – Ben, introducing himself to the group.

When Marla was presented with the box, she thanked the trio and conveyed some of her concerns, which were not unrelated. Rumors of a death cult had compelled her to look into the whereabouts of a demented priest calling himself Kalarel. Unholy rituals within the land of the Nentir Vale unnerved the priestess, and she had discussed it with Krillorien prior to their arrival. The group agreed to investigate, and Krillorien volunteered to join them.

Before departing, the group decided to look around Fallcrest for new equipment and armor. The Halfmoon Trading House and Sandercot Provisions yielded nothing of note save some energetic haggling, but Naerumar’s Imports was another story. Operated by the gentlemanly tiefling Orest Naerumar, he assured the incoming patrons that magic was all around them.

“I don’t know about this guy. That line sounds pretty gay.” – Danielle

Lyria’s attention was caught by a nondescript bag hanging in the corner. Orest told her it could hold far more than it seemed, and he was willing to trade her a favor for it. An associate of his in Winterhaven by the name of Valthrun the Prescient was corresponding with him on the subject of alchemy, and the last letter indicated the sage had broken one too many of his flasks. Orest asked Lyria if she would kindly deliver a masterwork alchemy set to Valthrun, and in exchange she could keep the bag of holding. The halfling agreed.

Meanwhile, Andrasian looked into new equipment at the smithy. Jovial Teldorthan Ironhews was happy to see a warrior come into his shop and asked if the lad had ever used a hammer. Andrasian showed the smith his axe and inquired about fresh armor. Teldorthan related that he had come into some dragon hide he intended to craft into a suit of scale, but kobold raiders had made off with the prize. He’d last heard they were using a ruined manor called Kobold Hall as their hideout. Andrasian told the smith he’d recover the hide if the smith would, in turn, craft armor for him. Ironhews was delighted to accept.

Dressing Melanie was a more straightforward task. On recommendation from Orest, she and Lyria went to House Azaer, Fallcrest’s premier importer and finest clothier. Upon seeing the two and being told that Melanie was in need of clothing, tiefling and landlady Amara Azaer called for her tailor, Rodney Grant, who appeared from behind counter, gasped at the sight of Melanie’s near-nakedness, took her by the hand and pulled her into his workshop for an immediate fitting.

Equipped and fully stocked, the party set out for Winterhaven. On the way, however, they were ambushed by several kobolds. Krillorien proved himself immediately, his lances of light paring down the enemy numbers.

“Sparkles!” – Ben’s method of invoking Lance of Faith.

They made short work of the lizardlings. Among the ruined bodies they discovered a half-soaked map with directions marked and notes made in Draconic. Adjusting her glasses, Lyria made out the scrawls and revealed the map showed the way to Kobold Hall. Considering how close they were and with the sun nearing its apex, the party decided to head for the kobold hideout with all due speed…

Next: Kobolds play in old tombs.

All locations, NPCs, spells and equipment copyright Wizards of the Coast unless otherwise noted.

Tag: Gaming (page 20 of 41)

Into the Nentir Vale: Part 3

The Hunter in Cataclysm: Survival

The Survival Tree

Cobra Shot

Games as Storytellers

Surviving The Patch

Into The Nentir Vale, Part 2

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