I took the opportunity to head out to Markham, Ontario, and join the event happening at Heroes’ World. I brought along two characters, to cover my options: a minotaur barbarian, and a reworked version of Wil Sturm, one of my Characters of the Day. I ended up using Wil, whom I had morphed into a hybrid paladin/warlord, so there would be at least a little healing. And good thing, too. It seemed like everyone and their grandmother had made a melee character. My party of four consisted of a goliath warden (more on him later), a changeling assassin, a human ranger (our only ranged combatant), and my pally/warlord.

The adventure started out as all great adventures do, in a tavern. We were looking for work, and managed to overhear a woman talking to a dwarf and a tiefling about a potential job. They left to discuss it further, and being the awesome humans that we were, the ranger and I kept an eye on them from the door of the bar. Sure enough, it was trouble, as the dwarf and tiefling, as well as some buddies, started mugging the woman. We leapt into action!

And it all went downhill from there. This is what the encounter area looked like: http://twitpic.com/197ti1

And with three melee characters, that bridge was going to get pretty clogged. It is at this point that I want to discuss the goliath warden. Please bear with me as I go off on a bit of a tangent.

The warden was played by a thirteen year old boy, who apparently only played D&D once before, and that was months ago. I am all for teaching new players the game, don’t get me wrong. But it is players like this boy that make me hate “newbies”. He understood the mechanics well enough, but damn, was he disruptive. The DM would barely get to finish a sentence before this kid jumped in with some inane, bound-to-go-wrong idea that just hindered the flow of the game. He was bragging about how he set himself on fire in a previous game, and kept saying he wanted to buy matches and oil this time around. I was very tempted to gag him with my dice bag. If there are any children reading this, or people with children, and you are thinking about learning D&D, I must make one suggestion: keep your damn mouth shut when it’s not your turn.

ANYWAY. The encounter was bogged down by that one rickety bridge that the goliath fell off of, along with a bandit. The ranger pulled his weight by Twin Striking everything in sight. I blew a daily to revive him when he got knocked out by a halfling slinger. The assassin caught on fire a few times, and I had to use a Heal check to bring him back, since I was forced to use my only Inspiring Word on myself.

All in all, it was a relatively enjoyable experience. The DM was a solid, competent DM, though my one complaint is that instead of saying “roll an Athletics/Heal/Perception check”, he would say “roll a d20″, and then leave it to us to go “wait a minute, what am I adding to this? What skill do you want?” I will be going back next week, for sure, and praying to Kord that I don’t get stuck with the goliath child again.

In other news, I will be running a new campaign come April. A few players from my last campaign, and some new folk, will be delving into the city of Springswich. You can follow the action and read up on the world at our Obsidian Portal site. And, if you are interested in play-by-plays of both D&D Encounters, and the upcoming Springswich campaign, follow me on Twitter at @vectorman14.

Lucas fled the city, sure of the fact that the authorities would hunt him like a dog. He has taken to the forests once again, hoping to use his urban knowledge for good use in the wilds. He has hooked up with an adventuring party, hoping that the prevalence of such groups in the world would draw less attention to him until he could afford to seek out the one who put him in this miserable position.

The background’s a little weak, but I like the idea of a ranger with rogue-ish talents. I also have never seen a character with a repeating crossbow outside of Warhammer Fantasy.

I’m thinking my next go will be a warforged druid. “Beast Wars”, anyone?

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
Lucas Depthwalker, level 1
Elf, Ranger
Fighting Style: Archer Fighting Style

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 17, Con 10, Dex 18, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 8.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 17, Con 10, Dex 16, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 8.

AC: 17 Fort: 14 Reflex: 15 Will: 11
HP: 22 Surges: 6 Surge Value: 5

TRAINED SKILLS
Nature +8, Stealth +8, Endurance +4, Perception +8, Athletics +7, Thievery +8

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +3, Arcana, Bluff -1, Diplomacy -1, Dungeoneering +1, Heal +1, History, Insight +1, Intimidate -1, Religion, Streetwise -1

FEATS
Level 1: Sneak of Shadows

POWERS
Ranger at-will 1: Nimble Strike
Ranger at-will 1: Twin Strike
Ranger encounter 1: Singular Shot
Ranger daily 1: Hunt’s End

ITEMS
Repeating crossbow, Hide Armor, Adventurer’s Kit, Climber’s Kit, Handaxe
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======

Usually the character will be based upon a miniature, otherwise it will just be an awesome (in my mind) concept I thought of. To kick it off, meet Wil Sturm, human paladin of Kord, based on the Pentifex Monolith miniature.

Wil was born for battle. Born into a family fully devoted to Kord, god of  storms, he was trained from the moment he could walk to uphold the values of the lord of battle. His mentor, the eccentric dwarven cleric Morgran Stonecaller , filled Wil’s mind with the concepts of pride in battle and glory in victory. He gifted the family’s bastard sword to him upon his 18th birthday, and rigorously trained him in its use. Wil seemed ready to take on his duties as a protector of his town, when a strange occurance marked him for greater things.

On one of his regular sojourns into the wilderness with Morgran, Wil was gathering materials for setting up camp. With not a cloud in the sky, divine lightning struck the sword strapped to his back. The weapon was torn from its sheath and embedded into a nearby tree, while Wil himself was thrown to the ground. Amazingly, not a mark was left by the searing lightning. The sword, sparks dancing across the blade, seemed to have become more than just a sword, but upon Wil removing it from the tree, it reverted to its original appearance.

Leaving the town with Morgran and his family’s blessing, Wil now wanders the world on a pilgramage to awaken his blade once more, and determine what exactly Kord has planned for him.

And there you have it. I probably won’t ever use this character, as I am the only person seemingly willing to DM in my group. But I hope the concept inspires something, anything in you.

Stay tuned for my next character concept, what I’m thinking is going to be an elven or eladrin rogue.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
Wil Sturm, level 1
Human, Paladin

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 17, Con 11, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 16.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 17, Con 11, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 14.

AC: 10 Fort: 15 Reflex: 12 Will: 15
HP: 26 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 6

TRAINED SKILLS
Heal +6, Religion +5, Endurance +5, Intimidate +8, Insight +6

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics, Arcana, Bluff +3, Diplomacy +3, Dungeoneering +1, History, Nature +1, Perception +1, Stealth, Streetwise +3, Thievery, Athletics +3

FEATS
Human: Human Perseverance
Level 1: Weapon Proficiency (Bastard sword)

POWERS
Paladin at-will 1: Valiant Strike
Paladin at-will 1: Enfeebling Strike
Human: Holy Strike
Paladin encounter 1: Fearsome Smite
Paladin daily 1: Paladin’s Judgment

ITEMS
Bastard sword, Plate Armor, Heavy Shield, Pouch, Belt (empty), Sunrods (2), Waterskin, Flint and Steel, Flask (empty)
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======

I’m planning on a homemade adventure for the band’s next characters. Not sure what, yet. I’m probably going to start them at a higher level, to make it more interesting and give them more options.

About a week ago, the band (my brother and three friends of his) were over, and we were all having dinner. I was explaining the Penny Arcade/PvP podcast to my mom (if you haven’t listened to it, by the way, do so. You can find it in the Podcast section of http://www.wizards.com/dnd ), and jokingly suggested that the band do one. Well, that one innocent suggestion seems to have planted the D&D seed in their brains. We haven’t recorded anything, but they jumped all over creating characters. The bass player even found an old 3.5 name generator online.

Less than an hour later and four trips through the Character Builder, and the Brighter Brightest D&D party was formed. Davian Laughshield, gnome bard, was played by my brother, Derek. Alex, the bass player, took on the role of Adotumal Tarmikos, bugbear warden. The drummer, Ryan, became Riclamin Joysword, eladrin avenger (quite a similar character to Wil Wheaton’s character in the second series of PA/PvP podcasts). Last but not least, the tiefling invoker, Krisrath Trenspatience, is the newest band member, Kyle.

I thrust them into the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure in much the same way as the podcast. Having beaten up on goblins and kobolds for a while on behalf of the people of Winterhaven, the group comes across the keep. Upon entering, a lovely tradition of my groups is upheld. Alex, being the defender, confidently strode into the center of the seemingly empty entrance room… and promptly fell into the pit trap concealed there. I assured him he was not the first, as Thorfin Boatmurdered, dwarven fighter (from my regular Sunday group), and Ragnarok, minotaur fighter (my littlest brother who plays with two friends of his every now and again; I DM, of course) have both fallen victim of that pit.

The rats and goblins were made short work of, and the group carried on into a room being excavated by goblins. After a few falls off of planks and bites from a guard drake, the group found the handy holy symbol (appropriately given to the avenger) and moved on to the secret door they had noticed beforehand.

Successfully sneaking up on Irontooth (in Balgron’s place), the avenger attempted to end his life quickly, but the guards were alerted. A battle followed, and the group narrowly defeated the warriors garrisoned around Irontooth’s quarters. The bard appropriated himself of the magic wand in the locked chest (after smashing it open; the key was on Irontooth’s body), and the group took to the woods to rest for the night.

We’ll be playing again Thursday night, and I’ll hopefully remember to take better notes. If you want to check out the band, go to http://myspace.com/brighterbrightest. They’ll be releasing a new video blog episode tomorrow, with a little bit of D&D thrown in.

Hey, it’s better than more Halo jokes.

The builder allows a player or DM to create a complete character, without having to do all the math involved with a pen-and-paper sheet. It then displays all the info in a standard character sheet format, with power cards automatically created and calculated. At first glance, the system works flawlessly. You simply tell it what you want, and it does it. But that’s where the major usefulness ends.

Having played with it a bit, and read others’ thoughts on the D&D message boards, I’ve begun to like it less and less. While the build process is fine, the character sheet and power cards leave a lot to be desired. There is, simply put, too much information.

For example: I recently created a Dragonborn Swordmage, level 1. At the beginning of the build, it asks you to pick what you want to base your Dragon Breath power on (Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution). Fine, I pick Strength, making sure to assign that ability a decent score at the appropriate stage. I work my way through the process, and finally display the completed character sheet. Looking at the power card for Dragon Breath, I see the big problem. The power is copied nearly verbatim from the Player’s Handbook. This includes the options for the related abilities that I DIDN’T pick. It even includes the Special text, stating that when I create a Dragonborn character, I need to choose one.

Yes, I knew that. Why aren’t you using the ability I picked at the beginning to calculate the attack bonus? It’s flaws like this that make some power cards nearly unreadable. And do we really need a Second Wind and Action Point power card? Either we’ve used them or we haven’t.

Overall, I now greatly prefer a pencil-and-paper sheet. Not only can I include the information I most often use, but I can edit it at my leisure. With the Character Builder, if anything changes, you have to print out a new sheet.

Here are the pros and cons that I have found with the Character Builder:

PROS:

- Does all the calculations for you

- Includes ALL the rules. No need to jump from book to book, just to make that Bugbear Dark Pact Warlock with magic items from the Adventurer’s Vault

- All things considered, the sheets DO look nice

CONS:

- Too much info in too little space

- Unnecessary info, or  superfluous text

- The sheets use way too much ink if you’re printing

- During the build process, when picking powers, the bonuses and penalties are spelled out for you. Once the sheet is displayed, they aren’t.

- I seem to be unable to toggle the editing portion of the character sheet that allows me to tweak what attacks/powers are displayed in the first page attack workspace

All in all, I am rather disappointed with the builder. I understand, though, that it is a work in progress, and I really hope that WotC takes the time to perfect it, in order to make it the right program for all users. I recommend giving it a try, even if you don’t have the D&DI subscription.

12 Fire Warriors + Devilfish – Done

3 Stealth Suits – Done (but could use a little highlighting on the black areas)

Crisis suit with fusion blaster and flamer – 1/2 done

Picture!

I picked up some more stuff at the Gameshop: another box of Stealth Suits, the Crisis Commander box, a box of Fire Warriors for my pulse carbine-armed squad, a blister of Pathfinders and one of Pathfinders with rail rifles.

Progress is pretty good so far, if I do say so myself.

And for something different, here are a few shots of my Inquisitor models. There are some interesting stories to go with these guys, which I’ll share in a later post.

Inquisitor Vectrus – This is the guy I usually used. Made from the Arbite judge figure, with a really bad mullet sculpted on. I don’t know how to sculpt.

Preacher Arthur. Straight up Preacher Josef figure with an Ork gun added as a pistol.

Arco-flagellant Osma. Simple Damien 1427 figure.

A Kroot Mercenary that I bought at the GW auction at the Eaton Centre in Toronto a while back.

Rogue Trader. If I recall correctly, his name was Bobbin Threadbare, so named by my buddy who was using him.

Another figure I got at the auction, Tim the Mutant was named after a particularly annoying classmate of mine. He has the distinction of being probably the only character to not know that when you throw a demo-charge, you run after.

I will share more detailed stories in the near future. Back to the painting table!

HQ

- Commander with cyclic ion blaster, burst cannon, shield generator and hard-wired multi-tracker

Troops

- 12 Fire Warriors, mounted in a Devilfish with sensor spines

- 12 Fire Warriors with pulse carbines

Elites

- 6 Stealth Suits, led by a Shas’vre with bonding knife and marker light

- 3 Crisis suits, 1 with flamer, missile pod and multi-tracker, 1 with flamer, missile pod and targeting array, and 1 with flamer, fusion blaster and target lock

Fast Attack

- 2 Piranhas, 1 with a fusion blaster and target lock

- 6 Pathfinders, 3 with rail rifles, mounted in a Devilfish

Heavy Support

- 2 Broadsides, 1 with a multi-tracker

- Hammerhead tank with railgun and burstcannons

- Sniper Drone team

So there it is. A lot of guns, all at 1493 points. Now that I think about it, I can probably throw in another multi-tracker on the second Broadside, so both suits can fire all their guns in one turn.

Stay tuned for more painting updates. I also plan on posting pictures of my Inquisitor models, and stories to go with them. Some good times with those figures.

Everything, save the Kroot I mentioned last post, is put together and primed, using Armory’s Black Primer. Armory’s primer being infinitely better than GW’s spray paint that they call primer.

I’m working out a paint scheme, and I think I’ve made a decent decision: armour will be Mechrite Red, clothes will be black/dark grey. Simple, and easy to get done and on the table.

Pictures to come, along with hopefully more progress. I’ll also post that army list some time soon.

I will design, collect, build, paint, and COMPLETE a Warhammer 40,000 army, by the time summer gets here in July.

This will be the first army I’ve completed, ever, if you don’t count my Space Marines that I could make a complete army list out of, but it wasn’t a finished collected army. For this one, I’ve chosen Tau. I have been playing WAY too much Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, particularly the Tau campaign. I beat it recently, and now want to do a real Tau army.

Thanks to my ever-so-wonderful employee discount at The Gameshop in my hometown of Aurora (link over on the side), I get my minis at a slightly more barable price. I’ve started with the Tau battleforce, even though I won’t be using Kroot in the army I have planned. I’ve got the Stealth suits put together and will be starting on the Devilfish next. I’ll post the full army list in a later post.

I’ll try to keep up to date with posting my progress. Really, I will try. I swear.