Executioner Assassin: Ultimate final edition.

For those who have got lost with the different versions and updates for the DDI-exclusive new build for the Assassin class, this is the story so far. The Executioner, an essential-styled assassin variant mixing martial exploits and minor shadow features, was released three months ago, as a work in progress, so that the community could playtest it and provide feedback. Which the community did (here is what we had to say about the class), and apparently it got put to good use: after a confusing false final release, where an intermediate build of questionable quality(many saw it as a step back from the original) got to the public by mistake, causing considerable uproar, we have finally seen the real, complete version of the class. And it’s a killer.

The basic framework of the class is mostly intact from the earlier versions: many situational at-will attacks for specific situations, basic attacks as a default option, a single concentrated encounter attack (Assassin´s Strike) taking the place of all encounter slots, and special poisons in the place of daily attacks. That was a solid foundation, and I’m glad they have chosen to keep it.

That said, many details about the class have changed, almost unanimously for the better. Most notably, the selection of at-will attacks has suffered a deep revision. Previously, too many at-wills were excessively situational, to the point that the temptation to just forget about them and stick to the simple yet reliable basic attacks became too strong. In fact, going back to my *critique of the playtest build*, we can see that most of my complaints were related to at-will implementation - and they have all been addressed.

Both the melee and ranged builds of the class (Red Scales and League of whispers, respectively) get three at-will powers at first level, with each covering some specific niche (mobility, control, poison application) but also having potential for more general use - some of them sacrifice damage or have special requirements, but you don’t have to look to hard for a power that deals any damage and can be used without being hidden in melee (!), as before. Also, they are pretty cool.Quick Lunge replaces the power known as Unarmed Throw in earlier builds, and allows you to shift, damage a target and knock it down, and shift back. Ranged executioners now have exceptional accuracy, with both Bola Takedown (a ranged proning attack) and Precision Dart (a power for delivering poisons) targeting Reflex instead of AC.

The greatest loss in the at-will department is the jaw-dropping Unseen Spearhead, which was a highly complicated, yet awesomely rewarded, maneuver. The ability to make a coup de grace every two turns if everything turned out right (which didn’t happen all that often, even in dedicated builds) was considered too strong by the developers, so it got removed. It is a shame, but probably a good decision nevertheless. While I don’t agree that it was overpowered (all things considered, too many things had to fall in place to pull it off), it can’t be argued that it was an excessively swingy mechanic, which could result in trivializing some encounters or just wasting actions, depending on too few dice rolls. Fortunately, every other thing that made the class special is still in place.

As for performance, various numbers have been adjusted all around in order to make the Executioner a pretty decent striker. Damage won’t be spectacular, but it won’t feel lackluster either, and there are a few niches (such as concentrated damage or finishing off wounded enemies) where the class will definitely shine. It’s also fitting that, while basic attacks will still be your main offensive tool, using them with unsubtle two-handed weapons is no longer the superior choice - your striker damage now depends on wielding appropriate, assassin-y weapons. Moreover, proficiency with the light shield, which was always a bit unwieldy and off-flavor for the class, is now optional, and a choice to use dual wielding for an equivalent bonus is provided.

My final verdict is extremely favorable. This is one of the most original classes in the game, yet it manages to include both at-will, encounter, and daily powers, have a well defined personality both in flavor and mechanics, and be potent and interesting. Also, it is one of the best examples of the design potential opened up by the Essentials philosophy of classes that don’t necessarily adhere to the rigid 4E power structure. This one has certainly taken it’s time, but it’s been well worth the wait: it is a must-have.

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Class Acts: Monk - Pushing the boundaries of Full Disciplines.

UPDATE: Darn, the errata bugbear hit this article hard! It turns out that movement techniques with immediate actions were deemed too confusing, after all, as they all got changed to minor action shifts in the compilation. Good news is, minor action movement techniques are still there, and the article is still full of awesome.

I haven’t been writing much about Dragon Magazine lately, due to the overall mediocrity of last month’s content. Only two of the articles in June's issue (#388) were of interest to me: an intriguing Winning Races for Dragonborn, featuring an alternate encounter power for the race (which you can take without any kind of feat cost, an idea I fully support, and which I’d like to see more of), and a Class Acts dedicated to fire Wizards that introduced some cool ideas, but irregular mechanics.

It seems like issue #389 may be a different story, though, as we start the month with a great article for the Monk class, signed by Peter Schaefer. Subtitled "Fallen Needle Itinerants", the article features some amusing backstory on a monk master called Fat Aloisus, as well as really inspired mechanics. I already talked about my love for monks when we got to see one half of the class and, after reading the rest, I think they are easily the best thing to come out of Player’s Handbook 3, and one of the coolest strikers in the whole game. However, there is one thing that PHB3 didn’t get completely right but this article redeems: the use of Full Disciplines.

Don't let him deceive you, it's all muscle. Really.

For those not versed in the Way of the Monk, a full discipline is a special kind of attack that actually includes two powers in one: an attack technique, and a movement technique. The attack technique is pretty much your standard 4E attack power, but the other one is the cool part - a special mode of movement that can only be used on the same round you use the associated attack, typically granting effects such as increased movement speed or shifting, but also jumps, teleports, switches, and other tricks that you’d expect from utility powers.

The Full Discipline mechanic shows a lot of potential, as both parts of a power can be tied thematically or mechanically, having special synergies with one another and even resulting in powers with sub-standard attacks that are nevertheless worth taking due to a strong movement effect. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see too much of this in PHB3 - but this short article makes up for it in spades.

The greatest innovation of the new powers in this Class Acts (one At-Will and six Encounters) lies in breaking an unwritten rule of Movement Techniques: that they have to cost a Move Action. By using triggered free and immediate actions, and even minor actions, these disciplines add even more variety and dynamism to your monk, and can result in great frustration for monsters trying to engage in melee.

This kind of powers can be a little confusing, in that many players tended to assume that you could only activate a movement technique in the same round as the corresponding attack technique. However, looking closely at the rules text, we find that the limitation is actually to use them in the same round, so it’s perfectly possible to use the reaction moves as long as you made an appropriate attack during your turn. Also, you should be aware that the rules only prevent you from using different full disciplines, but nothing stops you from spending your standard action on a different kind of attack (like basic attacks or multiclass powers) and choosing any of your at-will movement techniques. This should prove particularly useful for hybrid characters.

Anyway, I hope we can see more DDI material of this quality in the future. Now I just need to get my hands on a monk PC, to try out the new stuff...

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Class Acts: Warlock. Charisma for Infernal Pact?

This month, in Dragon magazine, Warlocks get another amazing article. No, really. Again. It definitely looks like someone at Wizards is badly in love with Warlocks. Of the tiefling variety. And is Lead Designer of the game, and thus allowed to do silly things, like using Charisma for Infernal Pact powers, and get away with it.

It's cool to be with the charismatic boys!

Yes, intrepid reader! The days where Star Pact Warlocks sat lonely as the one class build with weird stats have come to an end, as the Infernal Pact joins the club. Of course, the devil is in the details, because this time the designers have not forgotten to provide an alternate at-will for charismatic characters. This power, called Gift to Avernus, is a very nice clone of Eldritch Blast which features a shiny new mechanic from hell: taking damage to reroll an attack.

Let us take a close look at this mechanic, because it is shared by all the powers introduced in this article. The base idea is simple: when you miss, take damage and make a new attack roll. The question that most sensible Warlocks should be making by now is not 'why would I use a spell that hurts me', but 'how much damage, did you say?'. We're talking about practical people, after all.

The cost is equal to your level in HP. This is a real bargain at the very first level, but don't be fooled by that anomaly - it soon stabilizes into something closer to 10-15% of your total health. Depending on your tier, this may or may not be more than a round's worth of monster damage. That's quite a lot! This makes focusing on these powers a risky proposition, unless you are just not being attacked, or you somehow have a bunch of extra HP lying around. Enter Dark One's Blessing.

Isn't it an amazing coincidence that the infernal warlock's pact boon grans them exactly the temporary hit points they'd need to pay for a reroll with these powers? The existence of this feature drastically changes our evaluation of these powers, from something dangerous and probably not worthwhile, to a good outlet for the absurd amounts of THP you naturally gained, and usually wasted. If you ever feel that you won't have enough temporaries to consistently support this, just add Bloodied Boon...

With that out of the way, what do the powers look like? The at-will, in my opinion, is a very good proposition, leaving the reroll as an option, and granting full effect if you hit the second time. As for the encounter powers (one for each level), they are a bit trickier, since they actually force you to take the damage, and then only repeat the attack against a different enemy, and with reduced damage. Nevertheless, I think they are well worth the pain.

Reliability with damaging attacks is important for a striker, and most of these powers deal more than enough damage by themselves (in addition to granting extra chances for your curse damage). But it is probably even better when you are inflicting significant control effects. And we are also getting a good score in that regard! You have immobilizations, automatic self-attacks (triggering defender marks), enemies trapped in zones, sliding enemies in an area... most of them both interesting and strong. My personal favourite is a level 7 power called Pain to Pleasure, which heals you if you hit, then hurts you on a miss only to heal you again, if you hit the second time. Wicked!

The power selection is barely enough to support a Charisma-based infernal warlock throughout his career, provided he takes generic or off-pact dailies (since they are not included). This doesn't allow for much variety, but since every power presented is quite decent, if not actively good, you should be able to pull it off. Also, many of the new options are tempting enough to expect a Fey or Dark warlock occasionally picking one. And the at-will should become an instant classic among charismatic human warlocks.

To round off the package, we are also given two flavorful and very potent magic items for warlocks. The Rod of Avernus allows for mass sliding of cursed enemies when you use your Pact Boon, an effect that already has me salivating (and has earned a quick spot in some of my friends' wishlists). As for the Armor of Dark Majesty, it confers a huge defensive bonus against cursed enemies, which honestly looks overpowered to me. We'll have to see if it survives the compilation errata.

Speaking of errata, there is one major bug in the article's mechanics that, well bugs me. Using damage type - changing weapons, you could potentially turn the HP cost of rerolling the new powers into resistable damage, most notably fire damage for tieflings with fire weapons, allowing you to essentially ignore the drawback. This really should be addressed. Apart from that, the article is quite a good read and very useful in play, so I can't help but recommend it.

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All about Shields: A Fighter Class Acts article

Continuing with the ongoing trend of goodness in march DDI content, today's feature is a very niche article that happens to fit MY personal niche: that of Fighters with shields. The article, signed by Daniel Jones (who is getting D&D material published for the first, and hopefully not the last time), fills 5 pages with a wide assortment of options for the defensive-oriented warrior. This is good stuff, with many fresh ideas supported by solid mechanics. Here is an overview of what you'll find:

- Shield powers for each slot up to level 16, including a new at-will, so you can now realistically make a Paragon Fighter fully committed to shield attacks. And a moderately effective one at that, thanks to the next point...

- Proper attack bonus scaling on shield powers! Yep, these have +3 at heroic, +6 at paragon, and +9 at epic (rather than the +2/+4/+6 of previous iterations), to account for the loss of Weapon Expertise (since they lack the weapon keyword). Powers on the later half of a tier even have an extra point thrown in there to ease the progression. I may still miss the extra point from Fighter Weapon Talent, but this is a very positive progress, nonetheless. Now, if only shield powers from other sources could be updated to work like this...

- A strong, shield-based at-will attack that is even offensively oriented! I had been missing something like this for a while. I loved the original shield at-will, Tide of Iron, as much as anyone (aside from its mechanic usefulness, it still has one of the best power names in the game), but the more recent addition, Resolute Shield, had turned out to be a poor man's version of Crushing Surge. The one presented here, called Shield Feint, has the intriguing effect of Righteous Brand'ing (post-errata) yourself. Most useful in sustained assaults, this can also serve to set up potent encounter or daily powers. Interestingly, the attack bonus can be applied (and spent) if you make opportunity or combat challenge attacks, making you even more sticky, but also being a potential waste if you are already auto-hitting with Combat Superiority.

- A Paragon Path with an amazing concept. Called Snapping Testudo (in honor of the famous Roman defensive formation, and Latin turtles in general), it rewards players for wearing two shields at once! Needless to say, this turns you into a defensive powerhouse, apart from being downright cool.

- New magic shields that can be used as off-hand weapons, opening up many cool options. These make a very solid alternative to Spiked Shields because they don't take up a feat, tend to have better stats, and can be heavy shields. Apart from being very useful for those whishing to enter the Testudo path from the previous point, these open up Dual Strike for shield fighters. So now my character is retraining not one but two at-will attacks (goodbye, Cleave!). And, of course, adding shiny new loot to my wishlist!

- Finally, there are a few new feats to further customize your shield user, including one that I consider a must-have: Hindering Shield (for Paragon fighters) makes all your forced movement slow enemies! I wonder if this couldn't have been written in a more restricted way - as is, it allows a wizard multiclassing into fighter to turn Thunderwave into a real powerhouse. On the other hand, I'd like it to work with melee basic attacks, and fighter and paragon path powers with or without the weapon keyword - which is not easy to template.

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Dragon 385, Class Acts: Wizard.

This march is turning out a month of awesome content in DDI. As a consequence of this, I haven't really been able to keep up with the rhythm in the blog - I like to write a review post for each outstanding article, but they kept piling up. So, a bit late, here is my first DDI review for the month... expect more in the following days!

Class Acts: Wizard is a brilliant article signed by Daniel Marthaler that manages the impossible: to make summoning attractive for wizard players. The formula? Some clever mechanical innovations that allow your summons to provide more tangible benefits (at a cost), and an extremelly compelling selection of summoned minions.

First, the new mechanics. The wizard summons originally introduced in Arcane Power were usually limited to more or less bland attacks that cost an standard action, and opportunity attacks that added a semblance of control. Not only were they rather weak, compared to the typical wizard daily (which is, by definition, excellent), but they also turned out pretty boring to play. To counter this, the new spells in this article eschew opportunity attacks for two new abilities: Symbiosis and Intrinsic Nature.

Symbiosis grants the wizard a continuous effect for as long as the summoned creature is present in the battlefield, meaning that even if a minion that stands back without making an attack, you get some bang for your buck. Symbiosis effects usually confer the wizard some of the qualities of the summoned monster, either improving is defenses, movement, or at-will attacks.

Then again, if your plan was to just let your minions stand back, you're up for a surprise. Intrinsic Nature is the wizard's answer to the Instinctive Effect of druidic summons - with a dangerous edge. A druid's pets would just attack their enemies while unattended. These arcane summons do this, too, but adding some nasty backlash for their careless master, who will take damage or suffer negative conditions each turn he forgets to give them some commands. This creates a very interesting tension, in that making your own attacks while letting the minion loose is the strongest offensive option, but takes a toll on the mage.

But all this might be for nothing, if the catalogue of extraplanar creatures was as bland as the one in Arcane Power. Forget about Fire Warriors and similarly bland creatures, though - this is the real deal. The new powers bring iconic and downright cool monsters, including Imps, Hell Hounds, Succubi, Marilith, and even a freaking Balor! Talk about spectacular...

The article has some balance issues, since a few spells (and the Succubus in particular) are probably too strong. But the designers have a good track record of fixing this kind of things at the monthly compilation, lately, so I have confidence that they will be addressed. Otherwise, this is a must read, and an excellent addition if your party includes a wizard, or someone who intends to multiclass into one.

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Encounter Gallery: Pyramid of Shadows

My gaming group is currently playing the Pyramid of Shadows module, and we are having some truly spectacular encounters, thanks to our DM's love for scenery and assorted gadgets. The last one was so awesome that I was left with no option but to show it here. So, without further ado... Behold the Temple of Verdant Rage!

This was the initial battlefield setup. The forest tiles and 3D trees are sold in PDF by Fat Dragon Games. It took our DM a bit of work to print and assemble them, but the result is stunning (save ends). There are also some 3D walls, also from FDG. Finally, the miniatures are some of the latest aditions to our WoW mini collection.

A closeup on the monster miniatures. The big green thing is one of my favourites, a Bog Elemental- in the role of an Arborean Plant Terror, which would bring us a world of pain later in the encounter. Behind, you can see an Arborean Speaker and a Dire Bear.

The Arborean Speaker in its place of power. The altar was scavenged from a Hero Quest box.

A closer view on the trees. Properly assembled, they are sturdy as well as pretty. The Drow Sorcerer is posing on the treetop to show how they can support minis over them, though we didn't use that in this game.

This is one of the weirdest things our DM has come up with. Some kind of coconut cute head, to impersonate the Head of Vyrellis, the remains of an ancient eladrin. If you haven't worked it out yet, we love a bit of humour in our games - or was it a bit of game in our humour?

It's an ambush! Those innocent-looking cardboard bushes were actually hiding a couple of deadly Arborean Watchers. Our beloved drow Sorcerer would kiss the ground a couple of Sneak Attacks later.

Here you can see the climax of the battle. At the front, the Sorcerer has just been healed, only to find hersef hand-to-hand with a bear! Behind her, my Human Fighter (cloaked, armored mini) is trying to catch up with the enemy heavy hitters after being dazed, while a Dwarven Avenger and a Half-Orc Valorous Bard hold the line. An elven ranger sits comfortably on the background while she peppers her quarry with arrows.

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Warlock Basics - Lots of feats and a damage boost for Warlocks!

Despite the great support, both in amount and quality, that has been devoted to the Warlock class (of which I spoke recently), there were two areas where the class was lacking, compared to other strikers: offense-boosting feats, and raw damage output. As of today, this is no longer a problem, because this month's Warlock Basics article in DDI does an amazing job at fixing it.

"I suddenly feel... powerful!"

Previously, a Warlock looking for feats to improve his attacks didn't have many obvious choices, apart from Implement Expertise (if his DM hadn't got rid of it) and Dual Implement Spellcaster, which annoyingly requires 13 Dex in a class that has no other use for that ability. After that, you might want a White Lotus feat for your at-wills... and that's about it. It is telling that the mediocre-until-it-becomes-unplayable Empowering Shadows was the best the class had to offer in the offense-enhancing department, outside of race-specific stuff. Warlock players have been crying for something as simple as a feat increasing Curse dice ever since PHB. There is one of those in Warlock Basics.

Then you have the damage issue. Warlocks compensate their low damage in multiple ways (great survivability, utility and fun via Pact Boons, and many ways to inflict nasty conditions), but it's still sad to hit for significantly less than every other striker, and even a bit less than some non-strikers (say, a defender or leader with a two-handed weapon). There are some ways to tweak the punishing at-wills for a more or less reliable extra damage, but only for Constitution builds. Or you can turn to the Dark Side, take Eldritch Strike and use your single melee power to make a melee character specialized in charging. Which is quite effective, but hardly matches the concept of the class.

So, what does the article do, exactly, to solve these long-standing problems? There are twenty class-specific feats, most of them interesting and playable, and three that are downright awesome, one for each tier of play. Once it is compiled and added to Character Builder, Warlock players will find themselves hard pressed to find slots for all the feats they want to try - which is quite a turn of events. And it will only get worse (or better, depending on your point of view) next month, when Superior Implements turn up...

The Big Three feats are, in my opinion, well above the power curve, in order to close the power gap between most warlock builds and the average striker. They improve the character's accuracy, control, and damage - accentuating two of the class' strengths, and mitigating its greatest weakness. More importantly, they are tighly coupled with the class features so that borrowing them through multiclassing or hybridizing is hard enough. The heroic one, Primed Curse, is the most likely to get skipped of the three, due to the fact that the boost to Prime Shot won't help melee or area attacks. But any traditional ranged Warlock will become one of the most accurate characters in the game, just below the rogue, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The great paragon feat, Protective Hex, inflicts a pseudo-mark penalty on every enemy hurt by your curse. This has an amazing synergy with the Warlock's resilience and abundance of riposte attacks and, in combination with your party's defender, can make life very complicated for your target. I can't imagine building a paragon warlock without it. Finally, the epic one is even more of a must - called Cursed Spells, it adds your Intelligence to curse damage, which is a great, but safe way to fix the class' damage, since it can't be exploited through multi-attacks or areas.

Only these three feats would justify an article, and a good one at that... but the rest are far from bad! To name a few things, there's the mentioned damage dice increase for your Curse, a feat that grants an improved version of Bloodcurse Rod, a way to ease the restrictions to apply Prime Shot, something to ignore cover and concealments on your cursed targets, ways to trade curse damage for the blind or dazed condition on encounter powers, options to boost daily powers to deal ongoing damage or make opponents slowed or immobilized, and feats that change the type of Eldritch Blast and curse damage. Among other things. If you play a Warlock, you will be retraining after this article. If you don't, maybe you'll want to try one as your next character.

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The Art of Binding: Warlock Vestiges

Of all the classes in 4E, the Warlock is probably among the best supported ones (second only to the Fighter, in my opinion). With a new class build in a campaign setting (the Dark Warlock from Forgotten Realms Player's Guide) and an impressive selection of Dragon articles, both in quantity and quality, it would be easy for any new material to fall in repetition and familiar ideas. Thankfully, this is not the case with "The Art of Binding", an awesome piece featured in this month's Dragon magazine.

Signed by Russell Jones and Jeramy Pappas, two debuting authors I'd really like to read again, this short article expands on Arcane Power's Vestige Pact by adding seven build-specific daily powers and two paragon paths. I think the result is a complete success, both from a mechanical and a flavor standpoint. There are many fresh and interesting ideas in power concepts, as well as game effects.

To name a few, there's the vestige of a Water Archon that can drown enemies, leaving them unconscious (save ends) after failing a saving throw. This is just a level 5 daily, and I can bet it will become a favourite of many Warlock players, even those without access to the vestige pact. The same can be said of the medusa queen vestige, which petrifies (save ends) enemies within a blast. I didn't even know you could do that! Again, at level 9, this is a complete bargain, vestige or no.

The great options for controlling warlocks don't end there, though. The vestige of the Unknown Arcanist vanishes foes, and one from a volcano god turns your pact boon into a area damage machine. There are a few leader powers, too, perhaps less impressive, but definitely solid.

As for the new paragon paths, they are extremely well-rounded packages. Lacking continuous bonus to damage, they will probably not be at the top of an optimizer's list, but every single power and feature is useful, and a few are really tempting. The path of the Umbral Cabalist tells the story of a group of demon binders, allowing you to restrain with action points (!), stun with an encounter attack, and gain a demons's variable resistance, among other nifty things. The Astral Ascendant is slightly less flashy, but it has a remarkable amount of healing effects, and lets you turn into a flying angel once a day!

A must read, and a boon to any Warlock character with a good Constitution score.

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Fun with Dragons

This week's play session brought something totally unexpected: a fun encounter with a solo monster, a dragon from the first Monster Manual. It's one of the last fights in Thunderspire Labyrinth, and I am going to spoil a good deal of it, so you should probably stop reading if you intend to play that module. Which, by the way, I recommend. It has a slow start, and the first half could do with some heavy revisions or be skipped altogether, but the last part is one of the best dungeon crawls I have had the pleasure of exploring, packed with memorable fights. Enough with the reviews, let's talk dragons.

(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD)

Solo monsters in 4E are flawed. That is not to say that it's impossible to have a climatic, exciting and strategically deep fight with one of them, but there are many things that can go wrong. Too often, the encounter with the Big Bad Boss ends up consisting in a dozen turns where the baddy sits there hitting someone, while the PCs surround him, unload most of their dailies and eventually repeat at-will attacks until he goes down. Alternately, if you play in a group prone to optimization, you can see the beast locked down for several (if not all) turns through stunning powers, being easily defeated without ever feeling like much of a threat. This happens, and it happens frequently. An unfortunate side effect of this tendency is that dragons, the undisputed most iconic monsters in D&D, are almost always Solos and, more often than not, they suck.

The recipe for a successful Solo battle is not a simple one. It involves a careful selection of terrain, with enough cover and interactive elements. There has to be some incentive for moving around, both for the players and the monster - traps are a great way to achieve this. Your worst enemy is monotony, as even the most well-designed monster is prone to repetition, when alone.

More recent books, like Monster Manual 2, introduce some new ideas to make Solos interesting, such as lowering their defenses and HP, but making them deadlier. But Thunderspire Labyrinth is one of the very first adventure modules published for 4E, and its monsters know nothing of such sophistications. So it has a lot of merit that the fight with the Young Green Dragon in the Wall of Demons works as well as it does.

The fight takes place in one of the poster maps included with the adventure, which is always a good signal. You have a long central room with a pit and a couple of altars, and one door on each extreme. This room is surrounded by a circular corridor, and around the corridor there are four rooms that are also interconected between them: a room with pools, a jail, a chapel, and a statue chamber. Overall, it's a huge and complex scenario, with few large open spaces, and lots of corners and obstacles that break line of sight.

Prior to the start of the encounter, the adventurers have collected four special items, and need to solve a puzzle with them in order to summon the dragon. The puzzle itself isn't particularly challenging, but it does contribute to the feeling of a climatic battle and, more importantly, requires the PCs to be spread all over the map. Once it is solved, two things happen simultaneously: the dragon arrives, and a series of traps activates throughout the map. Each chamber contains some kind of hazard that damages PCs and hinders their movement. In the corridor, a Sphere of Annihilation (!) appears that moves around, blocking movement and line of sight, and threatening to annihilate characters staying there for too long. Only the central room looks moderately safe, providing the players stay at a safe distance from the huge pit in its center, just in case. Problem is, each turn, one of the two doors leading out of that chamber is blocked by the Sphere.

Meanwhile, the dragon in question is moving through the scenery at lightning speed, picking any isolated PC and running away before the group can react. It is a Young Green Dragon, with an impressive array of methods for hitting and running, and many safeguards to prevent the players from locking him down. Planning a proper assault against it is far from easy, as it moves twice as fast as the adventurers, and the main corridor keeps getting blocked by the Sphere. It lacks the firepower to quickly destroy the PCs, so it tries to wear them down, using the convoluted scenario as both a shield and a weapon.

In our session, it worked out perfectly. The four players (I was playing a human fighter) tried to avoid the traps and join in the central room, to engage the dragon together. From there on, we had to move as fast as possible, with many turns of double run actions, and as many of moving and charging. Even the rogue had a good share of charges, which she managed remarkably well, given the fact that she neither had a good strength or Melee Training. Flanking the wretched creature was out of the question, as we barely managed to get within range - nevertheless, the rogue still managed to outdamage the rest of us out of sheer persistence and accuracy. My fighter prouds himself on his ability to block enemy movement, but in this case I couldn't achieve achieve this, as the Dragon used its powers to move while ignoring my Opportunity attacks.

The warlord also struggled to keep the pace, and was slowed several times, but eventually he got close enough to connect with Lead the Attack. This power is typicaly Game Over against a Solo, but in this case we found out that it only works while within 5 squares of the leader, which wasn't exactly a trivial task. Finally, the wizard (a gnome) kept moving in confusion from one extreme of the central room to the other, unable to get a clear shot to the beast. When she eventually got close enough, her Icy Rays and Ray of Frost proved invaluable to temporarily slow down the foe, but as soon as she missed an attack, it all started over again. She only connected with a couple of powers, but somehow managed to deal the killing blow. It had been a long battle, and we had triggered lots of traps, dealt several critical hits, and not suffered a great deal of damage. But it had been an awesome experience! The encounter was one of the high points in our campaign so far (we are at level 7), and I'll keep it as a reference for building homemade encounters against dragons, in the future. A complete success.

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November errata: Adventurer's Vault, Avengers, and a lot more!

It had been a while since the last rules update (the brief, but excellent july errata), and some of us were starting to think that issuing errata was no longer considered a priority for Wizards. Nothing farther from the truth! Last week, and coinciding with the monthly DDI update, they released a truly massive errata changing well over a hundred rules issues for almost every book between Player's Handbook and Divine Power.

Some of these were merely typos or minor stuff such as missing keywords, but there is also a whole lot of very significant concerns that have been fixed, including some of the most broken magic items in the game, and fundamental changes in the gameplay of classes such as Avengers, Barbarians, Swordmages and Warlocks. It's impossible to comment on all of it - the whole errata document, including previous updates, now covers a whopping 58 pages, but I'll talk about the highlights. Also, I have compiled a list of changes for each book, which I provide at the end of the article.

1- Adventurer's Vault.

AV is the book that is changed the most, both in number and significance of the changes. The most striking one is probably the complete overhaul to the rules of double weapons, which were way too good, particularly in the hands of Tempest Fighters and Rogues. The new ruling now treats each end as a separate weapon with different keywords - among other things, not all of them count as off-hand anymore. Also, a new keyword 'Stout', has been defined to allow some of them to count as two-handed (which is no longer the default assumption). Finally, the weapons themselves have been adjusted - For example, the infamous Double Sword has a reduced damage die and loses the Heavy Blade keyword, whereas the Double Axe is no longer Defensive.

Apart from that, there are lots of revised magic items, including well-known offenders such as Reckless and Bloodclaw weapons. Most items causing saving throw penalties have been weakened, too, though a few are still missing. Other notable changes include preventing Ritualist Ring from granting discounts to item creation, and stopping reagents from working with at-will powers.

2- Avenger

This is a change that will affect almost every Avenger character out there, as Armor Proficiency (Leather) is no longer a valid feat choice. The Armor of Faith class feature has been changed to work only in Cloth Armor, removing the potential for ridiculously high AC scores (well above those of any Defender class) at Epic Tier. A well deserved fix, in my opinion, since the class' defenses and HP are quite good even without Leather.

3- Barbarian

The first of the Barbarian fixes is a small one: Halflings and Gnomes can now be Barbarians! These races' inability to wield two-handed weapons ruled out most PHB2 at-will powers from that class, but these have been modified so that versatile weapons wielded two-handed are a valid option. Not that they will make particularly powerful builds, but at least they will be possible.

The second fix is balance-related, as it consists on weakening the two strongest encounter powers of the class (and, it could be argued, the whole game). Storm of Blades and Hurricane of Blades were multiattack powers capable of dealing absurd amounts of damage. This change leaves Hurricane of Blades as a bit too good to my taste, but tolerably so. Storm of Blades, on the other hand, seems very reasonable to me now.

4- Swordmage

The silly rule about losing your Swordmage Warding when you were knocked out has been removed, which makes a lot of sense. Although it didn't come up too often, that was an annoying drawback for a class that didn't really deserve it. As another minor boost, the Ensnaring Aegis feature from Arcane Power (as well as any other Aegis that may appear in the future) is now compatible with the feats Double Aegis and Total Aegis, which is a good thing because they are almost essential for high level Swordmages.

5- Warlock

If there is a thing I always hated about the Warlock class, it was its complete inflexibility regarding your selection of at-wills, once you had chosen your pact. There is a change in this rule update that is a small step in the right direction, in this regard: the power Eldritch Strike, which was published as a power card handed out with the Player's Handbook Heroes minis, has been errata-ed so that it can now be taken instead of Eldritch Blast. The power itself is a bit weird, in that it is a melee weapon attack (and a basic one, to boot) on an otherwise completely ranged, implement class. But anything that gets rid of Eldritch Blast is good, in my book.

With this, I have barely scratched the surface of the update, but you can probably have an idea of the most relevant modifications. I strongly recommend to take a look at the whole thing, but you should be warned that it is not a light reading by any means. I don't know how useful it will be, but below you can see a list of all the changes made, for each book.

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Primal Power preview: The Swarm Druid

With the release of Primal Power not so far off, the first previews of the book are coming out, with some very promising material. Today I'll talk one of the most innovative concepts I've seen in a while - the Swarm Druid.

Swarm Druids are one of the two new builds for Druid PCs featured in Primal Power (the other being Summoner Druids, shown in a playtest article long ago), and they are based on a bizarre idea that, somehow, fits the flavor of the class perfectly. When most druids can shapeshift into a beast form, resembling some kind of ferocius animal, the Swarm guys turn into dozens, or hundreds, of tiny creatures. The picture below should give you an idea of what it looks like.

The swarm in action.

This, to me, is one of the most awesome character concepts I've ever seen. Perhaps the most obvious use is to become a bug swarm (flies, roaches, worms), but it's far from the only possibility. Upgrading to vertebrates, we can find several other horror classics: rats, snakes and even bats. But why stop there? Particularly cruel druids could explore the 'adorable' route - imagine their enemies being swallowed by a horde of kittens, puppies, and the like.

Regarding the mechanics, the swarmers come with an interesting twist, both in their defenses and offensively. These druids have Constitution as their secondary stat, but instead of adding this modifier to their AC (as their Guardian Druid counterparts), they use it to gain resistance to damage. This comes with several limitations (it doesn't work against area attacks, nor if you're wearing heavy armor, and you have to be in beast form), but it is undoubtedly a very strong mechanic. At lower levels, the Swarm will be able to almost ignore minions, and stand toe to toe with many types of monsters - as long as they keep away from brutes. The combination of abysmal Druid AC and huge brute damage means these monsters are a natural counter to the Swarm.

Though I haven't seen it in play yet, I'm liking this way of defending, at least at lower levels. However, I'm concerned that it won't work that well at Paragon Tier and beyond, when the loss of AC becomes more pronounced, and the damage resisted is a much lower percentage of what your enemies will be dealing. I expect some feat enhancing the feature for characters above 11th level will fix this problem. At any rate, it will be interesting to see a Druid type that is very resilient in beast form, but quite vulnerable as a humanoid.

The article shows four new attack powers associated with the new build. All of them are either close burst or blast, so we can expect close attacks to be a major theme for swarms, which isn't surprising. There also seems to be an emphasis in attacks that temporarily boost the Druid's defenses, also a natural fit from a flavor point of view. The new at-will is called Swarming Locusts, and will easily become a favourite among Druids of all kinds. It is a close blast attack that works in beast form and creates a zone of insects that distract your enemies for a turn, and it fills a very needed niche - beast form attacks with areas or controller effects. I always liked the original array of beast attacks, but all of them targeted a single melee enemy, feeling more like a defender's powers to me. With this new power, you can now build druids with both close and ranged area attacks, plus a strong melee basic attack, all of them at-will.

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