Baaz Draconian for D&D Next

So I want to run Dragonlance using D&D Next, and after Greg Bilsland suggested re-skinned Hobgoblins for Draconians I gave it a whirl. I looked at the old DL-1 Dragons of Despair and  the Dragonomicon Metallic Dragons for some other ideas.

The Stone Dead ability wording is strait from the DL1 adventure and I will probably tweek some of the other actions he has like the Leaping Attack. I wanted to incorporate that from the 4e version since the gliding aspect is mentioned in the original version of the monster. 

Increased the to-hit bonus for the melee attacks.

Baaz Draconian

Medium Humanoid (Draconian)

Armor Class 16 (Scalemail)

Hit Points 11 (2d8+2)

Speed 25 ft., Fly 35 ft (Must land at end of move or fall prone)

Senses darkvision 60 ft.

Str 12 (+1)     Dex 14 (+2)     Con 12 (+1)

Int 10 (+0)      Wis 10 (+0)     Cha 13 (+1)

Alignment lawful evil

Languages Common, Draconic

TRAITS

Steadfast: The Baaz Draconian cannot be frightened while it can see a friendly creature within 30 feet of it that also has this trait.

Stone Dead:  When a Baaz Draconian teaches 0 hit points, it turns into a stone statue. The person who struck the death blow must make a successful Dexterity Check with a -3 penalty or his weapon is stuck in the statue. The statue crumbles to dust within ld4 rounds, freeing the weapon. Its armor and weapons remain.

ACTIONS

Melee Attack—Longsword: +3 to hit (reach 5 ft.; one creature). Hit: 1d8+1 slashing damage.

Melee Attack—Claws: +3 to hit (reach 5 ft.; one creature). Hit: 1d4+1 slashing damage.

Multiattack: The Baaz Draconian makes two attacks with its claws.

Leaping Attack: —Longsword: +4 to hit (range 25 ft.; one creature). Hit: 1d8+1 slashing damage.

Disciplined: The Baaz Draconian chooses a creature within its reach. The next attack roll made against that target by a friendly creature that also has this trait has advantage.

Time in exile

So since April 1st post I have been pretty busy with work, during that month Best Buy (My Employer) announced they were going to be closing down 50 stores nationwide. I was selected by my team to travel to two of these stores and help them with the closedown process. It was 50+ hour work weeks and traveling between 80-100 miles a day but it got completed at the beginning of June.

I also got hurt while on the job getting tennis elbow from carrying all that heavy metal racking into the dumpsters. June had me back in the stores doing my usual work it was time to get back to playing games.

During this whole time gaming was at a minimum and it took a toll on me, playing games is my outlet for my depression and any other pent up frustrations I might have. I tried starting up a new D&D campaign with some new people and honestly I just was not feeling it, between work and the new people I was just not in the mood of acceptance. I did not want to start a new group.

So I tried to get the original store group together and honestly I feel I phoned that campaign in. I ran a decent adventure, March of the Phantom Brigade but it just did not feel right. That goodness the D&D Next open playtest started. I think this is what was dragging me down and making me feel like not running a D&D 4e game.

So far we have run two sessions of the game fighting the Kobold's and Cultists and the group is at 5 players: Dave, Rob, Jacob, Adam (Who played in my Star Wars short-lived campaign) and Dave's friend Keith. Everyone, including myself had fun this last session. I think we are looking forward to some more stuff to test. I am working on a session report and feedback from the group and will post it here probably.

Right now I am thinking about other games I would like to run.

Dusting off the Dice

After one year I have ended a campaign that I enjoyed a lot of at one time, slowly though I started to view it more as work than anything else. I enjoyed the players and their characters and the story could have been better but for me it was a learning experience.

I have never done a real good fantasy setting and this was the first campaign to last longer than four or five sessions without going kaput either by the players just not wanting to play or someone going out in a blaze of glory and taking the game with it.

I have started up a new campaign with some of the old and a little of the new and lets see how things progress.

A players recap for my new Star Wars game.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

The Republic and its legions of clone troopers brought the Separatists to the brink of defeat. Chancellor Palpatine accused the Jedi Order of committing grand treason in their supposed move to seize all control over the Republic government and its people. The Chancellor reformed the Republic into the Galactic Empire and named himself emperor after initiating Order 66. Troopers across the galaxy followed the order and apprehended or killed any Jedi in their midst. 

A Special Ops unit on the planet Mykeedo just finished its work in taking back the planet from opposing forces and was enroute to a planetside shipping outpost when Order 66 was delivered to the Troopers there. The shielded tram tunnels kept the unit in a communications blackout, and the Clone Troopers within the unit remained unaware of the Order's execution. The Troopers at the station realized there were force users with the arriving group and attempted to subdue them. The Special Ops Unit's Clone Troopers remained loyal and helped to defend against their brothers' assault.

The battle was quick and one-sided, but the loyal Troopers still lost one of their team despite the heroic actions of the unit. A non-Clone Trooper blasted off the tram with his jet pack and rained down blaster fire into the opposing squad at the same as the non-threatening repair droid subtly dropped a metal handful of stun grenades among the enemy's front line. The group's noble Bothan snuck onto the recessed tram track and under a retractable bridge before accessing a control panel in order to drop a crane's load onto an unsuspecting enemy trooper. 

After the battle, the Special Ops Unit searched the facility for the Jedi Master assigned to them, but found him dead along with an entire squad of Clone Troopers in what must have been a frantic fight for his life. With troop carriers landing all around the facility, and their status as enemies of the Empire, the Unit took possession of a ship at fled the planet with little more than their lives and questions as to what just happened, and what to do next.

The Man in Red is... not who they thought it was

Geoffrey is Dead... 

'Long live the Man in Red!', or so say his followers. A small group gathered at the table the other morning for our campaign. Max (monk) Throm (Sentinel) and Luusi (Bard) were in attendance. I had some fun, I tested a new monster build based on the Baaz Draconian from the Draconamicon, (see a few posts back) but this time he was not a minion and he worked really well as the main bad guy for this group.

I followed some good advice from some of the well known bloggers out there saying give smaller encounters. So I set about using a Level 3 budget for my players. They are level 5 and I think it went very well, while they Kobold's I used were mostly minions the Dragonshield's and the Wyrm Priest were no pushovers and it did turn into a good fight. More importantly Throm once again shined as the best dang Sentinel (Druid) I have seen. Critical Hits and rolling for close to max damage for almost every other attack made it fun even for me. I also spread the combat out and made the battlefield even larger than usual.

The kids loved it. We then went into some roleplaying, Throm's player kept wanting me to put them on a map but I told him there were no fights. Heh he is still 10 years old, he will learn yet that there is more to D&D than just combat.

To put the adventure on hold I want to talk about what we discussed before we started playing. Throm asked me, "why do we kill all the creatures we fight?" So I asked him back, "well why do you?" and his answer was pretty black and white. "Because they are evil.." So I smiled and asked "Are they?" and so I knew today I was going to reveal to them that Geoffrey, the once porter turned paladin was working for the Man in Red.

Geoffrey made up some story to the party that while in town he killed some guards who blamed them for a Dragons attack on Fallcrest. The group reacted in the fashion I thought they would they would rush to town and try to sort things out and correct any misunderstandings. During a break the group decided that Throm would stay with Geoffrey near the Inn where this incident supposedly took place. Once alone Geoffrey started talking about all the fun they have had together. Throm dove right in and they reminisced about the recent good times.

That is when Geoffrey told Throm about the Iron Circle trying to bring Tiamat into the world, and that he is doing the bidding of his brother. A war of words erupts and eventually Max and Luusi show up to make sure Throm is ok, that is when Throm pulled a dagger out and stabbed Geoffrey.

At some point during these past few weeks I decided someone in the group had a sword taken from one of the party who had died. It was an artifact weapon that can take your life essence (Healing Surges and give it to the wielder of the weapon.) It could also mimic other bladed weapons. It chose to hide itself as a simple dagger and fell into the hands of the one mostly likely to try and use it, the Sentinel, Throm.

So when the dagger struck Geoffrey, the Sword had chosen wisely. It took his life much to the surprise of the party. I really had fun yesterday because I got to run a lot of roleplaying with the part of the group that does not get much attention other than bits and pieces here or there. There were lots of talking and questioning about the choices I make as a DM and how it relates to my store, like how will the story work from this point on. Spoilers I smile and say.

I think what surprised Throm the most was that I winged most of yesterday, that it was not written down in some book, and that I had decided right then when he stabbed him Geoffrey to kill him, why not? He has a twin brother now. :)

We are taking a D&D break and will be doing Star Wars for the next few weeks while I recharge my D&D mojo.

Look at what I scored at the used book store: Mekton II

Mekton is go!

I kept getting this thought in my head, 'hit the used book store as long as you are going this direction', So I went and I saw these two gems. Now I am certain I own them, that they are somewhere buried deep in my storage unit so easy access is impossible at the moment.

But what makes it great is that now I can decide if I am going to run Jovian Chronicles powered by Mekton II or not. The fact that I got a Mekton Techbook means I can run the green edition game unhindered and steer clear of the Mekton Zeta MTS system, there is nothing wrong with that system other than I can use the designs straight from the game book and not need to do any other modifications.

I still remember when I picked this game up at Gencon in Milwaukee so many years ago. I probably will not catch the same lightning I did when I first ran several campaigns of this but we will see if my players like it or not.

Gaming life is going to start getting real interesting now.

Monster Tome: Baaz Draconian Foot Soldier

I decided the other night I wanted to make the draconians from Dragonlance a little bit better than they have been so far presented in 4th Edition so far. The baaz draconian on the top was the original entry.

He did not seem to "pop" to me, his Stone Dead trigger is nice and it has always been great even way back in 1st edition, but in the builder you get to see the flavor text and it states this:

Baaz draconians rely on strength in numbers. A group pins down a single opponent, usually a striker, to allow more mobility for the baaz draconians’ allies. Baaz draconians do not hesitate to attack enemies that have been disarmed.


So I looked at the original and I wondered how this was represented in the stats. Goblins and Kobolds are seen to have Combat Advantage sometimes and these guys are the grunts and love to gang up so Strength in Numbers was created to give that beat down aspect of them.


At some point in my campaign I will test this out and see how well it works out.