Adventure Tools updated, now with 100% less Monster Builder!

Those who have been following this blog for a while know that my attitude toward the D&D Insider service errs towards a cautious optimism. Today's news, however, offer me no bright side to look upon. A new version of the Monster Builder has been released, completely devoid of the most basic elements you would expect in such a tool - notably, the ability to Build Monsters. Thus, for the first time ever, I have sent Wizards of the Coast an Angry Letter (tm), which I reproduce here for your enjoyment and shared indignation.

To: Wizards of the Coast customer service

Re: Missing feature (Monster Building)

The newly released online tool for DDI has been wrongly announced as a Monster Builder. This is an unfortunate mistake, since its monster building capabilities are almost nil. The removal of this essential feature would have been a serious letdown to me, had it been properly communicated. However, there has been no official word on the matter, and I have only found out when browsing the tool, by clicking hopelessly in search of the most basic functionality. This makes things so much worse.

This is not a product ready for public release. I have been following its progress since the beta, and I can see the polishing effort that has taken place since then. However, its current feature set provides no value at all to me, being little more than an alternate interface for information that I could already access from the Compendium. I was excited to see this tool, because it didn't cross my mind that it would be released without editing functions.

I honestly wonder what led you to think this could be a good idea. If editing features are to be added at some point in the future, you should have waited until they were ready. If they are not, I guess this still has value exclusively as a component for the virtual table - so you should have released it whenever the VT came out. The importing feature could have been a redeeming point, if not for the fact that the original Monster Builder has been bugged into almost uselessness for months now, so I am unable to generate non-corrupt monster files. The only thing this tool has managed to do is annoy me.

Please, don't do this again. I can take delays and cancellations, and even a certain amount of bugs and instability on a release, but trying to pass off some hollow piece of software as the real deal is utterly pointless, and a waste of your time, as well as mine.

Edit (23/03/11): The following comment has been posted by WoTC_Trevor on the official forums, addressing many of the concerns expressed above. I'm not sold on their arguments, and it comes a bit late, but it's certainly better than nothing.

Now on to the topic of "why did you release something that wasn't feature complete?" questions/complaints. Main reasons, short and sweet - we wanted to give all the DDI members a chance to check out what we're working on, and we wanted to make sure that all DDI members had the chance to use the MB to import monsters into their VT games during the next step of the VT beta.

You still have access to the classic MB (you can download it right now). We won't be doing any more updates to it, but it's still there and still usable. Yes it has issues, but I'm hopefully most people understand that we won't be working on the old tools while adding features to the new tool. With the web-based MB, we have something that gives very basic functionality and is usable with the VT that we wanted to get into everybody hands, not just the small group of testers that we had before.

The VT point is a bit more tangible - Having the web-based MB out, even in this limited form, makes imputing monsters into the VT 1000% (statistic completely made up) better for DMs. So getting this out to DDI subscribers who will very soon be testing out the VT seemed a pretty important thing.

I am definitely sorry that I haven't given you more news on what to expect with this AT release these last few weeks. I'm also sorry if I led you to believe that the AT would be more robust than what the closed beta testers had access to. We did add a couple features, but the biggest changes are on their way. I will be back in the coming days with more information on the features we'll be implementing, focusing on whatever the next big thing is.

So at least we can expect the current state of affairs to be temporary - editing will be added, eventually.

Also, although I haven't seen it documented anywhere, there IS an upside to the latest update, as they have introduced a very cool feature that I could actually enjoy using. The Monster (sigh) Builder now has the ability to display pictures for each monster in the catalog. Currently, only a very limited selection of monsters features any art (try looking at Monster Vault or Monster Manual I creatures, for example), but they intend to add it for all of them.


The idea of having art in the MB was definitely a good one and we want to do that as well. For now we've implemented a lot of the art that was in the Monster Vault along with some additions, and we definitely want to get more art in there. I personally would love to have some contests for people to submit some art for those creatures that don't have any, and then use the winners as our official pieces of art in the MB. We'll see how things work out as we get more features/content.

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Broken Bits: Harpies

Last week we fough an encounter in Pyramid of Shadows that featured a couple of harpies. It was the first time I saw this level 6 controller monster in play: I had read their entry in the Monster Manual, and had a pretty good idea of what they did - but I was not prepared for what came after. It's not that we suffered a brutal defeat. In fact, we eventually beat the encounter without significant loss of healing surges or daily powers. However, it took long. Harpies don't have a particularly high damage output, but they more than make up for it with tremendously efficient control. A single harpy can keep a whole party immobilized for most of an encounter, and if you're facing multiples like we did... well, you'll be lucky if you get to move at all. I don't think that is anywhere near reasonable performance, for a non-elite controller - so let's take a look at its stat block, and try to change it into something more appropiate.

She loves to be in control.

Before I start tearing the Harpy apart, I should make a confession: we didn't use the monster as written in the book, but a house ruled version. There is a pretty good reason for this, though: harpies are utterly unplayable, out of the box. Consider the following power, which is a harpy's main attack:

Alluring Song (standard; sustain minor, at-will) Charm

Close burst 10; deafened creatures are immune; +12 vs Will; the target is pulled 3 squares and immobilized (save ends). When the harpy sustains the power, any target that has not yet saved against the effect is pulled 3 squares and immobilized (save ends).

There are many things that are so wrong about the power, but for now, we'll just discuss the one that forced us to houserule it:

Close burst 10

This is an attack that affects everything in a 10 square radius. Yes, including allies. You could conceivably prepare an encounter where all the creatures were deaf, or could teleport at-will, or otherwise ignore the immobilization. Maybe you could make a team of purely ranged creatures where this wasn't such an annoyance for yourself, but most of the time, this cripples your team as much as the opposing one. Since the fight in our game was primarily composed of melee monsters, we agreed to treat the attack as "enemies only", for sanity's sake.

For reference, this is how powers in huge bursts are usually templated in order not to affect alies (taken from a White Dragon):

Frightful Presence (standard, encounter) Fear

Close burst 5; targets enemies; +4 vs Will; the target is stunned until the end of the dragon’s next turn. Aftereffect: The target takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls (save ends).

Once we have addressed the friendly fire issue, we are left with a power with a ridiculously large area that all but guarantees that the PCs will be immobilized for the whole encounter. On top of that, we find that the hit bonuses are way too high, 3 points above the average value of (3+lvl.) for attacks vs. NADs, which only exacerbates the problem. The free pulling, handy for the classic Harpy+Cliff combo, is just gravy. And, in case you are wondering, yes, the power is as devastating in play as it reads.

Declawing the Harpy

There are several things that need to be changed before we have a monster fit for balanced and fun play. First and foremost, the area needs to be removed. Not reduced, nor tweaked, but just done away with. Immobilization (save ends) is a strong enough effect when applied to a single target. Another important point would be to reduce the attack bonus to a level appropiate +9 vs Will. Likewise, the bonus for the harpy's third power, Deadly Screech, should be lowered to +9 vs Fortitude. This would be, for me, the bare minimum.

There are other, lesser concerns, such as the sustain effect having a slightly strange wording (it doesn't make any sense to reapply the immobilization), and the fact that harpies have a really hard time dealing damage. Other than the Deadly Screech rechargable power, their only offensive ability is their puny claw - but it makes little sense for the monster to have to engage their enemies to deal pitiful damage, after taking so much effort in getting them immobilized. Even in their original, absurdly overpowered version, an encounter composed of 5 harpies would take forever to bring down an adventurer.

With that in mind, this is how I'd rewrite the Harpy's Song and Screech powers:

Alluring Song (standard, at-will) Charm

Close burst 10; targets one enemy; deafened creatures are immune; +9 vs Will; The target takes ongoing 5 psychic damage and is immobilized (save ends both). All immobilized enemies in burst are pulled 3 squares.

Deadly Screech (standard, recharge ) Thunder

Close burst 4; targets enemies; +9 vs Fortitude; 1d6+4 thunder damage, and the target is dazed (save ends)

This leaves the harpy as a well rounded controller, capable of locking down one or two enemies at once, and with a potent, limited use area attack. It also gets a decent damage output, so it now gets a credible shot at killing a PC without the help of a convenient pit. Finally, its abilities shouldn't be so redundant when in multiples, so an encounter made up entirely of harpies could actually be playable, if not fun.

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Player's Handbook 3 Debut: the Ardent

A warlord with power points. December's preview class from PHB3 is called the Ardent, and consists in a psionic leader based on a great concept: emotion manipulation to boost allies. Also, it is mechanically innovative in that, like all psionic classes except the monk, it features an alternate resource system based on power points, replacing encounter powers. However, despite these interesting premises, Ardents have only managed to instill one emotion on me so far: disappointment.

Despite their other flaws, they do look good in picture.

More than any other class in D&D 4E, Ardents give me the impression that they have nothing new to bring to the game, other than a cross in the intersection of a power source and a role. The unfortunate comparison with the Warlord ("The Ardent is a psionic Warlord") appeared in the first developer commentary, and I couldn't take it off my head as I read the class description, because it's true.

In play, Ardents closely mimic the Warlord style of play, as heavily armored leaders focusing on melee weapon attacks. Their primary ability score is Charisma, but other than that, there's little to set them apart from their martial counterparts: In their case, psionic power manifests in a very mundane way, so most of their powers consist in weapon strikes that grant a boost here or a penalty there - just like a warlord. Oh, there is the occasional teleportation or zone and a couple of attacks even deal psychic damage. But most of the effects could have been done by a Warlord or a melee Cleric. And, what is worse, many of them have.

It's not that the power selection isn't solid, but I failed to find a single at-will or "encounter" (augmented, really) effect that the class could claim as its own. Likewise, the class features are decent yet unexciting: a bonus to defense against opportunity attacks, an encounter attack that grants free movement to your group and a healing word tweaked to grant bonus to either attack or defense, depending on build.

Maybe I am spoiled by the fact that almost every class design since PHB has been nothing short of amazing. To be fair, the class probably plays better than it reads, and it seems to be perfectly capable of fulfilling its role. The addition of psionic power points to a familiar archetype may be just a gimmick, but it does change the way a character is played.

Is that change for the better, though? The psionic resource system uses three augmentable powers for all your at-will and encounter slots. In the best-case scenario, this gives a player up to three at-wills and three encounter-equivalent powers to choose from, which is a net gain of one at-will power above a standard class, and three lesser augments on top of that. On the other hand, the ability to mix and match different styles of attacks is greatly diminished, since each "encounter power" is a stronger-but-similar version of an at-will. Furthermore, the lesser augments for this class are decidedly on the mediocre side, and I can easily see many players ignoring them altogether.

Another problem with the psionic system that I have found for Ardents lies in power progression. Starting at 7th level, whenever you would gain a new encounter power you replace an augmentable at-will with a new one. Psions handled this well, but in the case of Ardents, it is not always clear that each new level offers something you want to upgrade to! Oddly, one of the reasons fo this is the high quality of the 1st level powers.

Of the three level 1 at-wills available to ardents, two have very strong and interesting effects. Energizing Strike and Focusing Strike can be disregarded on first sight due to the fact that they are, essentially, a cleric's Sacred Flame power split into two different weapon attacks. On the other hand, Sacred Flame is one of the best, and more versatile powers in the game, and each one of these Ardent powers has improvements over the corresponding half. Aside from the fact that a [W] attack will typically do much more damage than Sacred Flame's measly 1d6, the temporary hit point power is based on a primary ability (netting 2-3 THP more) and augments into Healing Strike, whereas the saving throw one can also be used on oneself.

You really want to have these powers available throughout the character's career but, unlike Psions, Ardents don't seem to have strictly superior versions of lower level powers. So, when you get to 7th level, the level 3 at-will is actually the most likely to get replaced. And at level 13th, you might not even want to trade any of them...

We will have to see how psionics work in actual play, and how much the class improves when we see the remaining, unpublished half. For now, it leaves a bit to be desired.

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D&D class overview (V): The less-than-awesome

On the final issue of these series, I'll comment on the Warlock and its huge issues, and the Ranger, which is plain terrible.

The poor warlock doesn't really deserve to be left alone with a ranger. In fact, nobody does. That's why they are given animal companions.

Disclaimer: since writing this piece, I have played a bit more with warlocks and changed slightly my opinion on them. Despite their flaws, warlocks work really well in play. Better, in fact, than some classes I haven't judged so harshly. Nevertheless, they remain the most frustrating characters in the game to build and level up, each pact build feeling like a premade character, so much of what I said below stands.

These couple are, in my opinion, the most broken classes in the game. By broken here I don't mean power level (since Rangers are right there at the top), but design. Both the Warlock and Ranger suffer multiple, serious flaws that, in my opinion, detract from a fun play experience. The Warlock annoys me the most, since it actually has a lot going for it. Its set of class features is the best one in the game, being both fun and flavorful: the pact boons provide a nice minigame of cursing as many enemies as possible and collecting their death bonuses, while shadow walk cleverly compensates the low defenses and, together with prime shot, makes movement very relevant.

If only moving other ranged characters was half as interesting as the warlock! Sadly, several important flaws spoil what would otherwise be an amazing class. To begin with, there is the absolute lack of choice concerning at-will powers. This is most aggravating because all pact powers are awesome, yet you are forced to take the completely uninteresting Eldritch Blast. But it would be an issue even if the Blast wasn't as boring. The ability to actually choose an at-will power would make Humans the most appealing race for warlocks... if it weren't for the Multiple Ability Score issue, which negates that choice.

For a class that already has a reduced range of options, the split between Charisma powers and Constitution powers is devastating. Warlocks of a given pact look more similar to one another than any other class build in the game. Only Star Pact characters achieve some degree of diversity, but that's only because they are (unsuccesfully) struggling to have a playable power selection. This, added to the lack of variety in feats and equipment inherent to non weapon-based characters, makes building and levelling Warlocks a real pain. To be fair, playing them is still pretty amusing.

The same can't be said of the Ranger, which is without a doubt the most flawed profession in the Player's Handbook. The features are terrible, and the different builds laughable. Hunter's Quarry does its striking job, and the ability to wield large off-hand weapons is rather cool, but the rest is almost worthless. Melee rangers somehow gain Prime Shot, which isn't that useful for archers to begin with. And fighting styles are a joke: the only reason for an archer to ever pick Archery Style is to gain access to paragon paths.

I really, really hate ranger at-wills. It boils down to this: you have Twin Strike, and filler for the rare cases where TS isn't the best possible attack, such as having only one arrow left or losing your off-hand weapon. The problem is not that TS makes rangers overpowered (which it probably does, in some cases), but that it greatly reduces design space for at-wills, as it's almost impossible to make a damage-focused attack that is competitive with TS but not really overpowered. Come on, Careful Attack, the power that sacrifices strength for precision, is less accurate than TS, and would still be if its bonus was raised to +4. It doesn't help that all non-TS powers except sometimes Nimble Strike are useless.

The gameplay is as repetitive as it gets: spend encounter powers, use Twin Strike over and over. Positioning is more or less pointless, since getting a quarry is easy, and requires no upkeep. Archers could make an effort to use Prime Shot, but most of the time the best idea is to lock on a Quarry, then run away as far as possible, since bow range is virtually infinite on.

Still, there are some good things, such as the Beast Mastery build from Martial Power, which adds some very needed coolness without increasing power even more. I think the pet is a great idea, even if the implementation is a bit too complex for my tastes. At first sight, beast powers look slightly weak, but I'd have to see them in play to be certain. Another interesting contribution is the concept of hybrid powers that work on different ability scores depending on the build. While they have clunky wordings, they might be used to fix other classes that have different abilities for each build.

Next: The fixes start!
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D&D class overview (II): What's wrong with current classes?

In the first installment of this series I gave a list of good attributes to look for in a class. Today we'll explore the opposite end of the spectrum, as I go over the most important, common problems I have found in Player's Handbook classes (plus Swordmage).

As I will prove below, the ranger stands for all that is evil

The following patterns stood out to me:

- At-will attack powers are more sensitive to lack of variety than any other area. Most of a character's adventuring life will be spent using these powers. A pool of four at-wills is the bare minimum to allow for any character customization at all. When one of those fails to do its duty (careful attack/sure strike, I'm looking at you), characters of that class start to look the same. When they split the four in two halves, usually by using different main ability scores, members of each build will actually be the same, barring some clever ability engineering. And don't get me started on the Warlock.

The release of power books, and the subsequent increase in available at-wills, should definitely help in this regard. Unfortunately, Martial Power was very inconsistent in the number of at-wills featured for each class. I hope future books in this series err more towards the four powers given to the fighter than the couple that other classes had. Rangers in particular were a blatant failure, since they had a dire need of new options, yet both new at-wills can only be picked by the Beast Master build.

- Having two main ability scores is terrible. When both builds of a class use different key abilities, there is a sharp divide between them, to the point that they can be considered mini-classes that happen to share a common name and a few features. But there is no overlap in power selection, no common denominator. As much as I have advocated variety, there must be some degree of similarity among class builds, or you'd be better off turning them into different classes altogether. Besides, each half-class is, in itself, terribly monotonous, rare allowing for more than two powers at each level.

As with the previous point, with more published supplements the playability of these classes will improve. Still, they will remain at a disadvantage compared to more focused classes, limiting the freedom for character customization to a fraction of what it could be.

- Implement users don't have as many choices as weapon wielders. This is true at many levels. The most basic one is that weapons have stats that directly affect powers. Implement selection becomes relevant only through magic item powers and some class features. But those factors apply for weapons, too. Worse still, implement feats, or energy type ones, for that matter, are few and far between, and the ones available in Heroic Tier are utterly disappointing. The cycle of damage enhancing energy feats with annoying prerequisites is particularly depressing, when a character with a sword can just take Weapon Focus.

- No class should have less than three combat-related features. This is the average number, and it works fairly well: one feature defined by the role, and a couple others that set the class apart from its analogues. It gets even better if some of them vary depending of a build, or are powered off a secondary ability. But when you don't reach that minimum, it shows.

The two current cases of featurelessness are the wizard and the ranger. The wizard, at first sight, doesn't actually look bad, having several nice, flavorful features. However, only one of them, implement mastery, has any relevance in combat, and neither one has any relationship with the controler function. The class is only defined by its powers, which feels like a waste, and has unfortunate implications with power theft through multiclass.

The ranger, on the other hand, lacks even the cool yet useless features. Other than hunter's quarry and the ability to wield normal weapons in the off-hand, the offer is disappointing: feats disguised as features, and a prime shot that is useless to the melee build and merely marginal for the archer.This, at least, is somewhat solved in Martial Power with the Beast Master. I may still doubt the efectiveness of the pet, but you can't deny its coolness.

Next: An actual (gasp) class overview!
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