More playtesting of dndnext

Last night, we returned to the Caves of Chaos. We had decided to make the players level 2 this time around, but otherwise continued the story as if nothing had happened.

After rescuing the merchants and the guards, the four heroes with odd names spent a couple of days at the keep, before they returned to the caves in search for gold and glory. They had bought a donkey, so that they could carry more treasure.

As they arrived to the caves without encountering any resistance, they decided to check out the same cave as last time, to see if something had happened while they were gone.

Once again, Cupid (aptly named Stupid by now) took point, and went in, heading towards the first goblin guardroom. This time however, there was no surprising the goblins. Cupid noticed a simple alarm-system made of wires and bells had been set up at the entrance. After disarming it, he still went in alone. The goblins had restocked the room and were waiting, ready as ever. They had turned over a table on the side, and as soon as Cupid peaked around the corner, all six of them fired arrows at his face. Luckily for him, most struck the wall. Anyway, the fight was on, and the other 3 heroes quickly rushed up to join the fight. Meanwhile, the goblins called for reinforcements and were joined by an Ogre with a treetrunk for a club.

Thinking quickly, Tyrone the elven wizard cast grease on the club, making the ogre drop it to the ground(*). It could still hit fairly hard(*2), but it definitely helped. The fight was kinda nasty, this was definitely the toughest foe the heroes had been up against(*3).

After killing the Ogre, the heroes moved up the stairs to the hobgoblin room from last time. It was empty, except for some hay and some excrements, which, if size was anything to go by, meant that the Ogre had lived here for a couple of days. In the hay, they spotted a corpse with a plate armor. Kit the dwarf fighter was ecstatic, but unfortunately, it turned out not to fit him(*4).

After putting the plate armor in a sack and on the mule, which had been hidden near the entrance, they once again set out to explore. Moving past the torture chamber, they found an eating area which seemed to hold a lot of hobgoblins, and for once, they made the wise decision: to retreat and explore elsewhere. From there, they went back a while, until they ran into another guard room, manned by hobgoblins. Unfortunately, they had been making a lot of noise, so the hobgoblins were expecting them.

As soon as they entered the room, they were jumped by the hobgoblins. Bubba panicked and channeled the light of Pelor on the hobgoblins, but unfortunately, he also hit all of his friends(*5). So when Cupid was hit by two heavy X-bow bolts right after, he went straight down. Tyrone soon went down as well, so when one of the hobgoblin put his sword to Cupid's neck and said "yield" in very poor common, Kit and Bubba did not hesitate.

They were promptly tied up down in the torture chamber, with Kit and Bubba hanging in the chains on the wall and the unconscious Tyrone and Cupid in a steel cage.

After an hour or so, what seemed to be the hobgoblin boss arrived, and tortured Kit a bit with a hot poker. Satisfied with the answers the dwarf provided as to why they were in the caves, the hobgoblin in charge told them they were to be given to the bosses, to be sacrificed.

With the hobgoblin boss gone, they found themselves alone, although they could hear guards outside the room (there is no door). Kit tried a few times to break the chains holding him, but could not find the strength(*6). After 5 hours or so, Cupid and Tyrone woke up. Cupid quickly found that the hobgoblins had missed a thieves pick in one of his secret pockets when they stripped him of weapons, and he quickly got him and Tyrone out of the cage and the two others out of their chains.

With no weapons and only a little magic left (not to mention two members very wounded), they had to strike swiftly and effectively(*7). Kit picked up a bench made of hard wood and was ready to go. Bubba ran out, channeled the power of Pelor, killing one guard, at which point Kit followed suit, crushing the skull of the other guard with his improvised weapon(*8).

Kit grabbed the halberd of one of the guards, and the heroes headed out to find their stuff. They quickly found traces of blood, indicating that those they had fought had gone up into the area that the heroes had previously avoided.

With Cupid on point, they sneaked after them, and found a big area, sort of a combination of kitchen area and dining hall. There Cupid found their stuff, but it was close to the hobgoblins. Kit managed to sneak in, and get the items, but as he was sneaking back to the others, he was spotted. Luckily he had somewhat a head start, so he managed to get back to the others who were hiding a bit back, and together they were hunted out of the caves and into the woods, where the hobgoblins seemingly lost the trail....

*1: We weren't quite sure about grease. Does the ogre save immediately when the spell is cast? Or when it wants to use the club? If it drops the club, can it just pick it up again? Since picking up an item is not an action. I mean, by the rules this could happen. Wizard casts grease, ogre fails save and drops club. On it's turn, the ogre picks up the club, fails another save, then picks it up again, fails save, etc, etc, until it makes the save and can attack. Or did we miss something? Obviously I know it's not the intent, and I would have ruled one attempt only, however, I wasn't sure if it should still get an attack, say with it's fist or another weapon, if it had already tried to pick up the greased club and failed the save. Which is why I just decided that it would punch the hell out of the players.

*2: Changed damage from 2d4+6 to 1d6+4 (improvised weapon)

*3: Even though the ogre had 88 HPs, the fight didn't seem to drag out. It was noticeably tougher than other monsters, but it never felt artificial, like solos sometimes do.

*4: I decided to give the fighter a decent armor, but then at the last moment, incorporated that there was only 80% chance that he could fit it, at least only he could visit a blacksmith. He rolled 91.

*5: Bubba's player hadn't quite read the channel radiance ability his character had acquired. Since it was the first time the character had used the power, I didn't allow him to change his action and he hit all of the party. The rest of the night, he was counted as an enemy "Sure, there are only 6 hobgoblins and Bubba against the 3 of us..." when they were debating whether to engage a group of enemies or not. Fun.

*6: I only allowed him a couple of times. DC was very high, but he could arguably had tried as many times as he wanted. Just seems silly to allow it, though.

*7: The hobgoblins had taken the wizard's spellbook, and the cleric's holy symbol, but there was not really any components to take in order to stop them casting spells. I would have had to break their fingers or something. Not sure what to make of that.

*8: Kit's player rolled a critical hit with the bench and the hobgoblin took 14 points of damage from the hit, so the first use of an improvised weapon was fun.

After playing, we took the time to talk some more. In a completely random order.
- This game so needs at least a little bit of attack of opportunity. Maybe just something about moving within the reach of an enemy.
- The at-will spells are cool, the wizard and cleric are both very happy with those, "that way I don't have to run around for 3 hours throwing daggers or shooting x-bows". The cleric's player thinks it would be nice if there was another at-will, for variety.
- The cleric's player feels there is too little healing, he would like if there was something akin to Healing Word, once per encounter would do. Others thought it was fine, and we talked about there coming more spell-slots as people level up.
- A few of my players miss Healing Surges. I told them that I was not editing anything, so the fights were as they are in the playtest module, made for 5 players, which is turns means fewer combats.
- Aside from those points, they seem pretty happy with the game as it is. The rogue player, who can be a notorious whiner, didn't complain that he couldn't sneak attack every round anymore.

We will be playtesting next Tuesday again, then I am going on holiday, and we hope there is a new playtest document when we resume play towards the end of July, but we haven't decided what we are going to do with our 15th level 4e campaign. I must admit I am dreading going back to hour-long combats and such. We'll see.

The actual dndnext playtest

So, we finally got around doing our first playtest. I normally have 5 players, but one is MIA for some weeks due to the Euro2012 and one had a late meeting, so we started the playtest evening with 3 players, with the 4th joining in a bit later. We have been playing dnd together since the beginning of 2e, with 3 years spent playing 3.x and then 4e since 2008. We normally play once a week. In general, there is not one preferred edition. Some like the more freeform 2e, while some prefer the more balanced approach of 4e, with the clearly defined roles, and again, one prefers 3.x, mostly because of the multitude of possibilities regarding character creation.

Anyway, we got started. Considering it was a playtest, the players opted for silly names, so we had Kit, the dwarven fighter, Bubba the human cleric of Pelor, Tyrone, the elven wizard, and Cupid, the halfling rogue (who joined later).

Kit, Bubba and Tyrone had gone south in search of adventures and gold. Especially gold, because they needed that for a better armor for poor Kit. He was not happy about his armor. Anyway, they had arrived at a lone keep in the wilderness, where the lord had asked them to travel to a nearby valley and find out what was happening there. The lord had intelligence that suggested that several tribes of humanoids had set up camp there, and  he wanted to know how many and which kinds. Since it was sort of odd for so many different humanoids to live so closely together without waging war on each other, he also wanted to know if there was someone behind them. So, not the most engaging plot, but it was all they needed to get on the way to the Caves of Chaos.

Arriving at the valley during the day, they encountered no patrols. They decided to check out cave B, one of the orc caves. They entered the caves, missing the orc posing as a fake head, and then went east, to deal with the end that created the least noise. They snuck up on the guard room, but decided to leave them be and scout some more, before making any moves. Unfortunately, the orc who had posed as a fake head had gotten his friends, and arrived from behind. The heroes were now stuck between two groups of 4 orcs.

That was pretty rough for 3 characters. They managed to kill 7 of the orcs, and only Tyrone the wizard was dying when the 8th and last orc bolted for the room where there was a lot more orcs. Kit the fighter and Bubba the cleric tried to stop him, but he dodged their attacks and managed to warn the others. Bubba quickly got Tyrone back on his feet, and then they all high-tailed out of the caves, with about 20 orcs after them. Luckily they managed to escape the orcs. The heroes badly needed a rest, and after chilling out a bit in the forest, they decided to return to the keep and get a bed at an inn. They were simply worn out.

The return to the keep went without encountering anything dangerous, but unfortunately, our heroes were broke, and thus had to sleep in the stables. But sleep they got, and then they returned to the caves.

On the way to the caves, they ran into 5  goblins. Or rather, they heard the goblins and ambushed them. Tyrone shone and showed off his magical arts, sleeping all 5 goblins who were then summarily executed.

Arriving at the valley, they chose another cave entrance this time around. They summoned an extra companion (Cupid the halfling), who immediately went into the cave on his own, and found 6 goblins in a guardroom. Cupid shot one goblin dead in the head, then ran as quickly as he could towards the exit. The goblins chased him, and were ambushed by the awaiting companions. Tyrone burned most to crisp with his burning hands spell, and the rest were quickly taken care off.

They all went into the guardroom, taking all they could find of value, then continued up some staircase they had found. There, behind a big oak door, they found a room with 6 hobgoblins. Once again, the heroes had the element of surprise.

Kit the fighter blocked the doorway, and the rest of the party snipped away while he held his ground against the hobgoblins. Soon they were all dead, which was a mistake. They had wanted to "interview" one, but forgot.

After taking a break in the hobgoblin room, Cupid the rogue once again was sent out scouting. Quite a bit away, he found a torture-room, where some hobgoblins were torturing some humans, an orc and a gnoll. He quickly went back and fetched the rest of the party, and the hobgoblins were quickly dealt with.

The gnoll, which had a bit of an attitude, was killed by Tyrone the wizard (zap-zap), while the humans and the orc were interrogated. As it turns out, the humans (Finn the merchant, his wife Arna and their two guards) would pay for a safe return to the keep, and although Tyrone briefly considered selling them to an orc chieftain in order to gain an alliance, it was decided to help them back, against the proper payment, of course. Meanwhile, the orc, called Iskar, told he was part of the tribe of the Broken Skulls, and going by his description, it was precisely said tribe that the heroes had "visited" the day before. Iskar talked of Arsk, the chieftain, and Urk, the shaman, who had driven the tribe here, and told them not to attack the other tribes. Apparently the hobgoblins had not gotten that memo.

The party returned to the keep with the 4 prisoners they had liberated and Isktar...

Normally, we play 5 hours (from 6-11), but today, we took our time eating and talking about the new rules (none of the players had really done anything but glance over the rules and pick a character) and we also ended early to talk a bit about how things had been, so we only played for about 3 hours.

After playing the game, I can conclude that many of the things I thought after reading the rules turned out to be true. There is indeed something off with the armor of the fighter, his AC is just too low. But on the other hand, he is a beast in combat, although against low HP critters such as goblins, orcs and hobgoblins, most of his damage is actually wasted. The freedom of movement due to the lack of attacks of opportunity was also something that came up. While we did all greatly enjoy the move-attack-move possibilities, all agreed that there needs to be something to avoid monsters dancing around without impunity.

The rogue on the other hand was absolutely awesome. The skill mastery made him a very safe scout, and the combination of advantage and sneak attack enabled him to pump out a good deal of damage. This was of course based on our interpretation of the hiding rules, so that if you ended your turn with full cover, you had hiding. We weren't 100% if he still had to use an action to hide or not, but went with not for the time being.

The difference between divine and arcane spellcasting made the two feel different, and each got to shine in different encounters. The wizard clearly dominated encounters where he could use his spells, as opposed to those where he could only use cantrips.

We had a lot of ambushing, so we really got to test surprise. I must admit, I am still not a fan. Just as mentioned, it creates combats where all the players (or monsters) go together, then the others. It wasn't as horrible as I might have thought, but I still think it's a bad way of doing things.

Overall, the pace was quick, and the rules were easy to get into. There were lot of things that didn't come up in this playtest, but that will have to wait until the next time. Overall people were positive to very positive, with half of my players talking about ditching 4e now and switching to dndnext.

It definitely felt like dnd. A lean and trimmed dnd, as one of my players said, with less rules and more room for roleplaying, more room for going off the books.

We will be playing more next week, maybe the week after that again. The we will re-evaluate and see if there is a new playtest on the way.

Musings on dndnext monster design

So today came the day I have been eagerly awaiting - A Legend & Lore article about monster design. Unfortunately, I was quite underwhelmed when I read it. I think it lacked a lot of info that could/should have been in there,

Link for article at wotc.com

Now, I really like that Mearls use the 2e MM as a point of reference. While I was never a huge fan of the binder format, I still think that 2e had the superior monster manuals, with the hardcover 2e MM being the best. I do prefer some aspects of the 4e monsters, though, but more on that later.

I also like that he explains about the choice for stats, "level" and so on, but I think he skips a lot of steps, ignoring a lot of explanations that would be relevant. I mean, we do not get the full monster, only some thoughts about the story and story elements, and the stat-block. So one must assume the stat-block is the important part, the part that we are supposed to talk about.

• If the Hook Horror is roughly the same "level" as the troll from the playtest, why does it have 72 hit points less?
• How does he arrive at an AC of 17?
• What is the math behind the +5 to hit? 
• Is the 1d10+4 damage per hook attack arbitrary? Does he follow some sort of equation?
• Speaking of the hook damage, it might be smart to explain just exactly when the auto-damage is dealt. Because it could be on the players or on the monster's turn.
• Why is it a STR check DC12 to get out of the hook. The Hook Horror has an 18 STR, so shouldn't it be a DC14 check?
• How about the automatic 2d6+4 from the beak attack? 
• How is the damage derived?
• Would it have been different if the attack wasn't an automatic hit?
• Will this be the standard for monsters? As in, will monsters who grab have automatic hits? 
• If not, why was this a special case?

Now, had the questions above been answered, I feel it would have been a much more relevant article. Something in which we could have sunk our teeth.

Elves, Dark Elves and Drow

The History of the Elves

After seeing the work Moradin had done on the dwarves, Corellon just had to "have" his own race. Designed to live in the forests Corellon had already created, the elves were very much made in his image, or rather as he saw himself. Slender and elegant yet powerful, wise yet carefree, the elves were perfect creatures to inhabit the forests of Era. 

Corellon's passions were nature and magic. He wanted to instill the same passions into his creations, but something went wrong. Instead of all elves having both equally, some became very in tune with nature while having a slight interest in magic, while the others became intrinsically linked with magic while having next to no interest in nature. While the two kind of elves still to this day cohabit, the difference between the two types of elves have become more pronounced as time has passed, and today, many of them live separately.

When Corellon created the elves, he inadvertently set in motion the events that would create the Sibling Wars and thus influencing the entire history of Era. The elves were so perfect that his twin brother Asmodeus could not help love them just as much. At least at first. That love soon changed to hatred, to jealousy for not being the one who had created such magnificent beings. After all, Asmodeus was the god when it came to magic, hell, he had even taught Corellon how to make the creatures. Luckily, Asmodeus also saw that the elves could be improved upon. After all, they did resemble his weaker and younger brother a bit too much. They should have been made more focused, more ambitious, more powerful, just like Asmodeus.

So Asmodeus created the dark elves. Just as he and Corellon were alike, it made sense that their creatures would be alike. At least on the outside. For where the elves were carefree and easy-going, the dark elves were ambitious and ruthless. While the elves were perfect hunters, the dark elves were the perfect predators. And just as Asmodeus had certain issues with Corellon, the dark elves certainly had some issues with the elves. In order to gain the upper hand, Asmodeus made sure that the dark elf females were just as capable as the males. That way, the race would have more potential, more power. Little did the god realize that his decision would prove the downfall of the race.

For a while though, the two elven races managed to get along. Never very amicable towards each other, there was still some sort of respect. After all, both races excelled at hunting and magic. Just like the twins were very competitive with one another, so became the two races. And for a while, it worked well for them both. Many magical breakthroughs came because of the rivalry between the two races, many legendary feats were performed due to the competition.

But at some point, the contests turned sour, both races would do anything to win, to perform better, and thus the rivalry grew bitter and brutal.

For years it went on like that, but in the year 937, The First Elven War broke out. Prince D'rak of the Dark Elves was brutally murdered while visiting King Elas Moonshadow. The elves claimed innocence and ignorance, but the Dark Elves to it as an act of war, and marshaled their forces. For 4 years, the two elven races waged war on each other, filling the forests of Ular and Nala with blood. This was not a battle for territory or for borders. This was a battle of races, to exterminate the other. After 4 years, right after losing their king in the Battle of Sharks, the dark elves sued for peace, and the elves were only happy to give it to them. The war had taken a told on both sides, and with their very low birthrate, there was no way they could keep up, had they continued.

For more than 45 years, the dark elves worked very hard to make up for their part in the attempted genocide. They had accepted that the elves had nothing to do with Prince D'rak's death, and their new king, Prince D'rak brother, spearheaded a new era of brotherhood between the races.

But it was all a lie.

In 987, Prince D'rak had convinced the Moonshadows to let him host King Elas' 400th year birthday. But, just as the charade that had been ongoing for the last 40 years, it was all part of an elaborate ploy for revenge and retribution. In one swift stroke, the dark elves eliminated the entire elven royal family that had been ruling over the elves since the race was created.

War began anew, and since the dark elves had known this was coming for many years, they were much better prepared. The elves died in great numbers, and many elven cities were completely razed, leaving only scorched earth behind.

For seven years, the elves fought just to survive, and had the war gone on for long, it would surely have been the doom of them. Both Corellon and Asmodeus had taken a very active part in the war, and the devastation to the forests was enormous. However, Corellon alone could not turn the tide of the war.

But Moradin could...

The All-Father simply ordered both of his sons to stop the madness, threatening to rally the other gods and make war on both them and their elven races. That stopped the war, and a peace, also known as The Last Truce, was brokered in 994.

After the war, there was no longer any relations between the two races. Gone was the competition, gone the rivalry. Left was only a desire to expunge the other race from Era.

For years, both elven races nursed that feeling, making alliances with the other races. Then after the Divine Pact was created and the gods had retreated from Era and the dwarves had removed themselves underground, tensions grew and grew, until the inevitable happened.

In 1157, the dark elves, now allied with the humans worshiping Bane, began a much larger campaign, this time not only to eradicate the elves, but to control and rule all of Era. For almost 150 years, the entire Era was at war. There was no place to hide, and no one that could stay out of the war, perhaps except the halflings. Unimaginable horrors were created, and more people than one can imagine died to sword or magic.

At the end, the humans of Bane and the dark elves won and the Ebon Empire was born. The Banites and the dark elves assumed dominion of most of Ular and Nala. All elves were placed in gigantic work-camps or became slaves.

After about 150 years, there was no longer any doubt who had control of the Ebon Empire - the Banites. While a lot of dark elves were perfectly happy with being left alone in their dark woods, there was a significant fraction that believed that they should rule everything, not some mere humans. These dissenters were also extremely disappointed with Asmodeus. He had after all told them to exterminate the elves, but then changed his mind when the war was won. For them, having those that was once their brothers in work-camps was not enough. They wanted them gone. Amongst those of that pushed the hardest for such a radical solution was Tierna K'ral and her sisters. Powerful priests from a noble bloodline, the three sisters finally got enough of trying to get things their way.

In 1443, they led a large fraction of dark elves away from their homes in the dark forests of Era, and below ground. They renounced Asmodeus for being too weak, claimed that the male leadership of the dark elves had failed, that only females could be decisive enough and fled underground, where they founded a matriarchy based on the worship of the Raven Queen, around death.

They are now called drows, an ancient elven word for death.

Playing an Elf

While the average elf doesn't mind most of the other civilized races, he absolutely loathes both the dark elves and the drow. They are to be killed on sight, no questions asked. The horrors inflicted upon his race by those go far beyond any kind of possible redemption. Even mention of those two races can make any normally balanced and merry-going elf turn into a somber and brooding shadow of his former self. The scars left upon the elven race have not yet healed. Far from it. Elves are likewise not fond of worshipers of Bane but the biggest part of the hatred is aimed at the dark elves and the drow.

The Wood Elf is in his mind completely in tune with nature and it's beasts. He feels that nature is one of the, if not the most important thing there is, and he will thus go to great lengths to protect nature, should it be threatened. Most wood elves live in the forests of Era, but some, mostly those who have been rejected or forced out due to circumstances, live their lives amongst the humans, working as scouts and trackers.

The Wood Elves are a fairly recluse people. After being almost totally decimated by the dark elves and later the work-camps of the Ebon Empire, most elven communities exist deep in the woods, far away from the humans and the other races that they do not trust. Those few that for some reason are a part of that world, still feel that distrust, at least to some degree. They most certainly feel sorry for the hardship their race has endured. 

The High Elf's focus is usually magic. While he does have a certain affinity with nature, he is much more likely to live in villages, towns and cities. The High Elves have even fewer communities than the Wood Elves, and they are all closely kept secrets. No non-elf has been allowed to enter a High Elf community for at least 500 years. At least not let to tell about it afterwards. Maybe there are none?

The High Elves suffered the same fate as the Wood Elves, but where the Wood Elves talk about it a lot and feel very sorry for their race, the High Elves have taken another approach. The Sibling War and it's aftermath is simply not mentioned, at least to outsiders. But make no mistake, their hatred for dark elves and drow know no bounds, and in their own circles, the leaders are surely still plotting revenge against their dark-skinned brothers.

Musings on dndnext surprise

"The same way, I am not a fan of the surprise system. Just going last seems a tad lame if you are ambushed, and it also creates combats where you have 7 monsters going together every round, something which I have worked hard to avoid since 2e, since that usually leads to a higher number of TPK’s in my games. And as my players will tell you, even if not asked, there are more than enough TPK’s in my campaigns."

After thinking about it for a couple of days, I figured I wanted to expand on my thoughts about surprise.

As I see it, the problem with dndnext surprise is two-fold. As mentioned earlier, the -20 penalty to those surprised will cause PCs and monsters to act in bundles. While is is certainly easy to track and speeds up combat somewhat, it also risks creating static combats with some nasty focus fire. Don't get me wrong, I am all for intelligent monsters using focus fire on PC's, but I also firmly believe that the PC's should be able to do something about it. I also don't find it realistic (always a dangerous word to use when talking about D&D rules) that we have a lot of combats where you have one side acting, then the other. There should be greater variety. And having monsters act in bundles does have a tendency to create TPKs, simply because if 4 smart monsters can act without any PC being able to interfere, chances are that they can do some very, very nasty things a PC. At least that's how it's been for a long time in my campaigns.

Another issue I have with the new surprise is that it creates weaker ambushes.

Lets make an example. 4 PCs and 4 monsters. The monsters are ambushing the PCs. For the sake of the examples, everyone has the same modifier.

Assuming all 4 PCs are surprised. Monsters roll 12, 14, 16 and 18, PC's roll 13, 15, 17 and 19.
In 4e:
1st round (Surprise): All monsters act once
2nd round: PCs and monsters alternate their turns

In Next:
1st round: All monsters act once, then all PC's act
2nd round: All monsters act once, then all PC's act

So, in the first example, the monsters will have one round of focus fire, then one of them get to act before a PC gets to re-act, and presumably do something that changes the course of battle. In the second example, the monsters will act once, then all the PC's can re-act and change the battle. Clearly, the 4e surprise round is more unforgiving, especially if the monsters roll higher initiative than the PCs, you could easily have a situation where the monsters get to act twice before any PC's get to act.

In my book, that is a good thing. Ambush should lethal. It should be an option to put pressure on players, so that when they are ambushed by goblins they are in for a fight, and when they are ambushed by a dragon, they shit their pants. Ambush in dndnext seems a bit meh. I mean, being surprised is no different than rolling lower than your opponents. Imagine a fight where the PCs turn a corner and run into a dragon.

Dragon rolls a 20
PCs roll 8, 12, 13 and 17

And the situation is exactly the same as if the dragon had been hiding and sprung an ambush on them. I definitely do not like that.

Summing up:
Pro's:

• Very easy to understand and use
• Speeds up combat

Con's:

• Makes for a weak ambush
• Makes groups go in bundles, creating static combats
• Makes it hard to re-act to what happens, especially considering that dndnext seems to remove out-of-turn actions.

There more I think about it, the more I do not like the new surprise. I am however looking forward actually playtesting it (in 1 week!), to see if I was right or not.

Dwarves

The History of Dwarves
Created at the Dawn of Rebirth by Moradin, the dwarves were then very different from what they are today. Tall, strong and beautiful, the dwarves were perhaps the most perfect race of mortals ever created, almost rivaling the gods in beauty. Of course, back then, they were not called "dwarves", but something else.

Moradin gave them the gifts of building and creation, and they soon set upon building and creating. At first it was walled villages, but as the years passed, they started to build towns and cities as well. They lived in harmony with the other races, and taught them freely most of their secrets.

As time passed and racial tensions grew, the dwarves moved deep underground, ordered so by Moradin. They hid deep beneath the earth, and there, during their exile, they perfected the art of building and built the first of six dwarven wonders, the ancient city of Tor Hal.

Unfortunately for the dwarves, they dug too deep, too far below in their search of the perfect stones for Tor Hal. They dug too close to a place of mystical energies and those energies were unleashed, or freed, as some sages speculate. No one knows for sure the nature of the energies that were unleashed, but they weren't brutal nor quick. The foul energies slowly infected and changed the dwarves. For a while, it was not noticeable, but as soon as the dwarves realized that something was wrong, it was too late. They prayed and prayed to Moradin, but to no avail. There was nothing he could do, or nothing that he would do. The became smaller, stockier and surlier, just as most dwarves are today. Their love of beards, ale and gold grew, almost to the point of it being a problem. Dwarven sages have named it The Curse of the Deep, or just The Curse for short.

Years later, after the Sibling War had ended and after coming to terms with their new appearance, the dwarves wanted to rejoin the other races once again, so they moved closer to the surface, closing up all their cities deep underground and started building new ones near the surface.

Once they got started on the building, they could almost not stop. A couple of hundred years after returning to the rest of Era, the dwarves celebrated 2000 years since their creation. King Torak III set a plan to reestablish the dwarven race as the dominant one in motion. The dwarves were going to demonstrate the superiority of their craft. All the five other Dwarven Wonders are from this period. First Tor Keep, an exact replica of Tor Hal and then Ker Moradin. Some years later, the dwarves continued their quest to put permanent and spectacular marks upon Era, when they first built the Pillars of Fire, then the Great Bridge and finished by perhaps the most spectacular of all, Tor Durnek.

At this point, the dwarves were at their peak. Maybe they were individually less than what they were before the corruption of their bodies and souls, but together, they had achieve more than all other races combined. They dominated the lands of Era from their castle-cities in the mountains, trading with those that would and waging war with those that would.

Now, a bit more than two thousands years later, the dwarven kingdoms and empires are no more. In fact, most of their once so great cities are in ruins, only inhabited by the dead and the undead.

The race is now splintered. Not every dwarf prays to Moradin. Most notably two factions of the race have struck out on their own, finding new gods. The Deep Dwarves who were the first to leave the fold of the All-Father now worship The Raven Queen and obsess about death and dying while the Iron Dwarves have turned to Bane and seek dwarven rule over all lands. Actually, the splintering of the dwarven race started much earlier, after Tor Hal was finished, but the divide has become more obvious in the later years, as both Deep and Iron Dwarves have gained significantly more power.

Playing a Dwarf
If you are playing a (regular) dwarf, you probably love your ale and your gold, although probably not in that order. You worship Moradin, and regularly thank him for sticking with you, even though you now are just a stunted version of what he conceived. You most assuredly mourn the days when the dwarven race was dominant and built the greatest cities Era has ever seen, often commenting on how the humans (or any other race for that matter) produce shoddy workmanship. You might dream of making a pilgrimage to one of the six Dwarven Wonders or discover one of the many lost underground dwarven cities.

If you are playing an Iron Dwarf, you still love your gold, but instead of loving ale, you despise it. You see it as a weakness, a coping mechanism that dwarves use in order to get through their miserable lives. Instead, you live for power, for war. You hate Moradin with a passion, having renounced him countless of times since you were born. You thank Bane for saving you from Moradin and his weakness who allowed the dwarven race to fall from it's former heights. You dream of the days to come, when the dwarves will once again rule the other races.