'I must get an item to stop me getting knocked prone', says Adran from the ground, 'because it is a pain in the arse.'
Of course, last time the most annoying condition was being 'dazed', but even that didn't make him crave a magical cure. And he only gets knocked prone once.
The profession of enchanting has never quite lived up to its name. From the early days of World of Warcraft, enchanters had to get half-way in to the drudge of a dungeon Uldaman simply to find the profession trainer and learn new enchanting formulae. Selling enchantments was not much easier. Rather than creating a bottled enchantment and placing it for sale on the auction house, as every other profession was able to do with its products, the enchanter had to stand around populous locations and hawk their wares over the trade channel.
Plenty of time was needed in order to sell to a fickle market, time that other professionals could instead spend adventuring, and comparative prices could not be easily gleaned from other sellers without close monitoring of other hapless enchanters trying to sell on the trade channel. If you were patient or motivated, enchanting could make some decent gold. But for most players it was a money sink, continually destroying magical items—which could be sold on the auction house—in order to get the materials enchantments require, before enchanting the same pair of boots ten times just to increase your enchanting skill. And then it was back to the looking-for-group channel to try to find people willing to get you back to the trainer.
The first new profession revealed the weakness of enchanting. Jewelcrafting allowed players to create gems that could be fitted in to sockets in equipment to provide buffs to certain abilities. It was essentially the same profession as enchanting, but with tangible products that could be sold and traded normally. And although jewelcrafting still required the destruction of items to provide materials for the profession, the items were obtained by a gathering profession instead of being random and valuable drops.
The one benefit of enchanting was that enchanting and disenchanting were combined in the one profession, allowing a second profession to be trained. But as tailoring was the only other profession that did not require a separate gathering skill, there really wasn't much choice. At least enchanters tended to have a good supply of bags, or could try to stave the loss of coin caused by enchantment by training an otherwise useless gathering skill and selling the collected materials.
The enchanting trainer eventually escaped from Uldaman, and selling enchantments was finally made a little easier with the introduction of the inscription profession. Inscriptors created scrolls, as an incidental skill, that could be imbued with magical power before being sold on the auction house. It is a neat solution, but still not good enough to fix the broken nature of enchanting. All it did was reveal that enchanters should have had the ability from the start to create something physical, like scrolls of enchantment, that could be sold on the auction house. When this is realised, the solution is merely applied to the new inscription profession and not used to actually fix enchanting. Instead, enchanters have to beg or buy scrolls from inscriptors to get a fair chance to sell their own wares the same way everyone else can. Enchanters need to spend even more gold for a chance to earn any back.
At some point, players start asking for the enchanter to grab the loot the player won from a boss, disenchant it, and let the player have the magical shard instead. Perhaps it was inevitable, given the abuses enchanters suffered up to that point, and the offer wasn't refused. After all, the player would only sell the bind-on-pickup item, and this way a useful shard could enter the economy. It's a shame, though, that enchanters didn't turn around to say 'yes, you may have that item disenchanted, if you take the bloody time and effort to level up the enchanting profession'. But the damage was done, and players everywhere started to expect enchanters to disenchant loot and then gracefully hand over the shards to non-enchanters.
But surely having more enchanting materials available is good. And perhaps it would be, if not for two problems. The shards would be sold on the auction house, which could offer a guide on how to price various enchantments, except that enchanters could not often afford to buy the shards, having to destroy their magical items rather than sell them on the auction house themselves. There also was little point in the enchanters buying shards off the auction house when other players would do so and then request specific enchantments to be added by enchanters. By providing their own materials, many players thought they didn't need to pay for the serice, or only gave a small gratuity to appease their conscience for treating enchanters like machines.
The second problem is that other gathered materials were never considered to be common gains in the same way enchanting materials were. Mined ore, skinned leather, and picked herbs were always assumed to be the sole property of the character with the profession, even if it took a party of adventurers to get far enough in to the instance in order to get to the materials. And woe betide any enchanter who dares to mention the possibility of rolling to see who gets the mined ore, skinned leather, or picked herbs. The other tradesmen quickly get defensive and protective of the fruits of their profession, claiming that the ore, leather, or herbs would not be up for grabs if they weren't present, so it stands to reason that they have full claim on it. Well, yes, that's rather the point. Yet few players, even enchanters, could see the parallel with not disenchanting bind-on-pickup items for players other than the enchanter herself.
To this day, ore, leather, or herbs are still claimed only by those who can gather the material, no questions are asked, but enchanters are still expected to quietly, without complaint, provide enchantment materials on request. In fact, this abuse has now been institutionalised with the new 'disenchant' feature. Adding the 'greed' button as a choice when rolling for loot solved many problems, as players can show they 'need' an item, or they roll 'greed' if they are only going to sell it. Now, players can also select 'disenchant', which performs the same task as the 'greed' button, but on winning the roll the item instead is disenchanted automatically and the player gets the resultant materials, skipping the need for the enchanter's involvement and time-consuming trade windows.
The new 'disenchant' option sounds rather efficient. But an important point of the new feature is that it only provides the disenchanted materials, instead of the item itself, if an enchanter is in the party, one skilled enough to be able to disenchant the item normally. Without an enchanter present, the 'disenchant' option reverts to the same function as 'greed'. Essentially, the skill of the enchanter, the time and effort invested, is being treated as little more than a convenience. There is no choice in being able to opt-out of having your enchanting skills being used in so cavalier a manner. As long as you are present and someone selects the 'disenchant' option you are effectively forced to provide a service that you may not be comfortable or agree with.
There is still no choice to let you choose to skin a corpse, to which you have looting rights, if a skinner is in the party. There is no choice to be able to mine an mineral node if there is a miner available. Herbs cannot be gathered by the character next in line to loot just because a herbalist is present. Yet the enchanting skill is abused and pillaged without consent. No one even bothers to ask any more if there is an enchanter in the party, as there is no need. Yet if one happens to be present and shards are casually dropped in to a character's bags there are no words of thanks to the anonymous benefactor, it is all entirely taken for granted. This is even a step backwards from when enchanters had to do more of the work.
Enchanting has always been difficult and unrewarding work, despite it being considered necessary for any top-level adventuring. Now, more than ever, it is a thankless task. Not only do bind-on-pickup items get turned in to shards, but any item not otherwise needed can be transparently disenchanted and silently awarded to a non-enchanter, the enchanter herself getting no reward for the investment in to the skill, or even a word of thanks. The question is not so much how we got in to such a state of affairs, as it feels like enchanters have never been respected, but why, after learning all of this with one character, did I create a second character to choose enchanting as a profession? I hate the new option to disenchant loot, I feel it paradoxically lessens the perceived worth of my character.
After a break of several months, Sapphire returns to Azeroth. A triumphant adventure in to the heroic version of the Halls of Lightning shows that I haven't lost my tanking skills, but thrill is sadly ephemeral as Sapphire is kidnapped the next day. A week-long investigation is carried out, happily ending with Sapphire being brought back to Dalaran. All my items are thankfully returned, albeit through the postal service. Needing to select my tanking and soloing gear, and leave any crafting and other items of value in the bank, leads to a minor clearing of inventory. Taking a fresh look at the world and my position naturally leads to considering my future.
Despite considering a dual-talent build for Sapphire almost six months ago, I don't get around to it. Being able to rely on death knight Gnomesblight for DPS duties and PvP, I am happy to keep Sapphire as a pure tank. But heading in to Halls of Lightning with another warrior from the guild and realising that I still don't know how to do anything but tank as a warrior makes me think about expanding my options again. Maybe I can call on the right character for the task, but learning more about being a warrior also holds its appeal. I pay a visit to the warrior trainer, pony up the 1,000 gold, and gain access to a second talent build.
As I am aiming to be a DPS warrior with my second build, having the protection tree thoroughly covered, I look to the fury tree. Although I understand that the arms talent tree can produce some good DPS builds, my desire is to be as removed from protection as possible. A little research helps with choosing most of my talents, as I don't need a particularly refined build, only one to get me started. I get some required abilities, heading down to the bottom of the fury tree to end with titan's grip, allowing me to wield a pair of two-handed weapons, and complete the build with a few arms talents to help with two-handed weapon damage. I have no idea how effective the build will be, or how different combat will work, but this is intended to be a learning experience. Now I need some weapons.
The auction house has no two-handed weapons that are either cheap or at an appropriate level. I ask Gnomesblight to craft a couple of weapons, being a blacksmith, but despite being able to make a decent weapon out of saronite it binds when acquired, making it useless to anyone but the smith. Gnomesblight can otherwise only make a relatively weak weapon from cobalt, or the expensive titansteel mace. The lack of any average, readily available weapons is bizarre, but luckily I have an alternative.
Before my break, I participate in the Argent Tournament extensively. I quickly get the hang of jousting, enjoying the daily quests to become champion of each of the home factions. In doing so, I earn plenty of champion's marks. At the time, I don't find the items for sale from the quartermasters to be particularly worth spending dozens of marks on, but now the two-handed sword looks attractive. With my options being to use underpowered weapons, enter dungeons as a tank to try to get two-handed weapons drops from bosses, or buy superior weapons straight from a quartermaster, I am glad I enjoyed jousting for long enough to afford two excellent swords.
I still can't defend the silly weapon skill mechanic, but at least the time spent getting my two-handed sword skill up from nothing is mitigated by wielding two swords at once, doubling the number of swings and skill increases, and by needing to become familiar with my new fury warrior abilities. Relying on bloodthirst and whirlwind for my primary attacks, amongst the automatic weapon swings, gives some big weapon damage, and seems to be the basis of combat for me. Being DPS looks to be rather simpler than tanking, and relies on more passive abilities. Once my weapon skill is improved, even 80th level mobs fall to my twin two-handed swords within a few seconds.
I return to the Argent Tournament to recover some of my spent marks and to get involved in a pastime I enjoyed previously. I may have become exalted champion of the Alliance, made much simpler to achieve by already being an ambassador of the Alliance, but the title of 'crusader' eluded me. I didn't realise I also needed to be exalted with the Argent Crusade for the achievement and had not worked on that reputation whilst questing in Northrend. I refocussed me efforts to increase my reputation with the Argent Crusade before my break, but got bored before reaching the goal. Now that I am back, the jousting and quests seem a little fresher, and I start helping the Crusade once more.
Within only a few days of jousting, along with the run through the Halls of Lightning whilst wearing my Argent Crusade tabard, I realise my goal of months ago. I finally have done enough to become exalted with the faction, earning me the title of 'Crusader'. Although it is several months later than I would have liked, and the title is probably a little passé these days, I am proud at last to be Crusader Sapphire.
There still seems to be a curious tendency to make fun of the 'taunt' ability found in World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs. It is absurd, some people still complain, that a character can get a mob's attention merely by insulting the legitimacy of its parentage. And yet there is no mention of being able to stomp on the ground to cause an electrical charge to surge through opponents, slowing them down. Or throwing your melee weapon at a target, yet have it remain wielded. Or to send a shockwave of energy that damages and stuns all targets up to 20 yards in front of you.
Azeroth is a magical land. Frostbolts, shadow bolts, and fireballs fly all over the place, yet none of this is pointed out as absurd by people who boggle over the taunt ability. I am not sure why there is this disconnect between accepting magic as commonplace but failing to rationalise it for a more mundane class. Although the warrior isn't a magical class as such, there is no reason why one cannot have vestiges of magical ability available to use. A warrior taunting can easily be explained as causing a mind compulsion effect on the target, forcing it to view only the warrior as a threat for a limited time.
Yes, it is absurd to think that insulting a 200 year old dragon by farting in its general direction would cause it to attack you instead of an obviously bigger threat to its existence. But it is just as absurd to think that pointing your finger and shouting 'frostbolt!' will cause a frozen bolt of magic to fly towards an oversized, sentient cow. It's time to stop the silly one-sided observations. Let's believe in taunt in the same way we believe in the rest of the magic.
Zombies, dragons, and ninjas, oh my! What else could there be for us to fight in this adventure? 'You see she is no longer a drow, but... a vampire.'
'Oh, nice', says Adran, missing one of the most repeated call-backs heard around the table in our D&D history, when Adran's player was somehow astonished and surprised to find a vampire waiting for us in a coffin in a tomb. Now whenever someone expresses some surprise about monsters, loot, or what cheese dip someone has brought, it is echoed back as... 'Of course, right. <ahem> A vampire?!' That's better.
The vampire drow gives a speech about death and decay and how flesh is weak, probably. To be honest I drifted off, but vampires tend to have similar themes, including tempting adventurers to join them, which this vampire also does. 'I'll join you', says Adran, somewhat out of character.
'Come. Drink from the goblet of blood.' Ooh, a goblet of blood, this should be interesting.
The GM wants to know who is trying to pull Adran back from his dubious path, but we're all kind of keen to see what will happen. 'No no, please, drink.' But our dwarf stands true to his duty and steps forwards to halt the ranger. The vampire's domination over Adran means that he resists violently any attempt to hold him back, and he and Gruknal roll initiative to start combat.
'My attack may hurt you, but it will also stop you in your tracks. Anvil of Doom!' Gruknal misses Adran.
'You will not stop me from obeying my new mistress. I attack!' Adran misses Gruknal. This could be a long fight of the incompetent, so it's lucky that Adran makes his saving throw against the domination effect, despite only having a greater than 50% chance of success, and ending it prematurely. Now we can fight the real enemy.
We exit the darkness of the drow cathedral to be greeted by the similar darkness of the underground drow city. The matron is defeated, now we must face, um, some other drow. The plot is all kind of bleeding together at this point, a bit like our party after the first round of combat. Getting to our new destination requires descending to a lower pillar of rock, on which another building sits. The pillar and building is only 30' away, as the badger jumps, with an accompanying 50' drop to make it less of a straight long jump. The jump check of 150 seems tricky, but once we work out that the mechanics now work with 5' squares and not feet directly, so that we only need a jump check of 30, I'm quite happy to take a leap at it.
'I'm game', agress Krafft, after taking a peek over the ledge of our position. A charging jump off the top of the altar in the cathedral has got his juices flowing. Of course, I have my magic boots that grant me permanent slow-fall, so that I always land softly from any height. Krafft's just a nutter, albeit an athletic nutter. He takes a run up, launches himself off the ledge, and lands heavily but undamaged on his feet on the lower pillar. Wheee! I drift down gently after him. We look up and back at our three bewildered companions, beckoning them to follow.
'What the hell?', Adran objects, 'can't we just walk around?' Well, yes, there is the path and bridge about 90' to the north that takes you to the same place, with addtional travelling time of about a minute. 'So why on earth are people jumping?!' Some people have no sense of adventure. Krafft and I start a picnic as the slow-coaches catch up, nibbling on some ham sandwiches whilst we wait. I bet jumping doesn't seem so silly now.
The three stragglers reach their intermediate goal, where they then have a more manageable jump down to the ground, after which they can climb the stairs to our position. But just as they approach the ledge, the doors of a nearby builing burst open. Drow ninjas attack!
The ninjas fly out of the building, their keen training and senses causing them to act first, legs kicking, arms punching, shouting chi-focussing screams! 'Kiai!' One of the ninjas backflips in to position before blurring the very light that surrounds him, making his outline indistinct, throwing stars flying from what may be his hands. 'Kiai!' The two other ninjas somersault to positions either side of the first, whereupon they disappear in to blackness, out of which more throwing stars fly, richeting off armour and a couple piercing the flesh of the party. 'Kiai!'
'Huh, ninjas.' Already only a few feet from the ledge, the party chooses to jump down and amble over to my and Krafft's picnic. To their credit, rather than admitting defeat, the ninjas follow us, leaving their aura of blackness behind and opting to fight more conventionally. The five of us deal with the three of them fairly easily, with Krafft chasing one of the ninjas around until the ninja falls over, the others successfully overwhelmed by numbers. Time to finish our picnic before finding out what waits for us inside.
Her protective giant spider is killed, the companion priests are ripped to shreds, and the smaller spiders caught in cups and put outside. With only the arch-priestess left to defeat, our combined might quickly overwhelms her. In a final bid to escape, the priestess risks a ranged burst attack whilst surrounded, an attack that will leave us all less able to pursue her, but also one that provokes opportunity attacks.
As the priestess begins her invocation, swords, claws and hammers try their best to interrupt the casting. And it is just enough. The priestess collapses. All is quiet in the temple, save for heavy breathing and the wiping and stowing of weapons.
After a short while, General Xerxes appears, entering the hall to survey our victory over the priestess. He looks injured, but alive. 'That's a relief. I would be quite concerned if our major ally in the drow city came back from his battle a lich.'
''Dazed' is the most annoying status effect in the game', spits Adran, as he stumbles after the priestess, bearing the brunt of her psychic attacks.
But for 'dazed', read 'whatever status effect is current affecting Adran' for a more accurate critique.
I have knocked the giant spider prone during the climatic battle in the Temple of Lolth. Most of us are atop a tall altar, looking down on the pews below where Gruknal is fighting a couple of smaller spiders, and Grimstorm is keeping out of harm's way. Grimstorm's spirit companion and Adran flank me. Krafft is nearby, ready to strike the arch-priestess and our main foe.
Despite being dazed and blinded from the spider's venom, I have a good idea where the giant, prone beast lies. I lash out again with my badger claws, striking the spider so hard it is forcefully moved across the altar a few feet. Grimstorm's spirit companion's aura boosts my vigour, increasing the damage I deal to the bloodied spider.
The spider's forced movement opens up an avenue of attack for Krafft also to take advantage of the spirit companion's aura, Krafft charging in to deal the killing blow. 'You do 10 extra damage from being adjacent to my spirit companion.'
'10? Why did I get 11?'
'I made a mistake before.'
'Okay. GM, knock one point of damage off my last attack. Is the spider still alive?' Strangely enough, gaining a hit point doesn't kill it, but the strength of Krafft's hit does. The spider tumbles down the side of the altar to the ground. Unfortunately, my state of being blind and dazed lasts until the end of the spider's next turn, and it is now not getting a next turn. I'd better find myself a sturdy, white stick.
A funny change happens to the way we play Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (4e). Actually, the change is not funny, but rather that no one seems to notice. At least, no one mentions the change explicitly. When we first start playing, we keep track of the warrior's mark, warlock's curse, bloodied characters and all other manner of status effects with a bunch of coloured tokens. Personally, I find the use of the tokens a distracting overhead. Even though red tokens are easily seen as marking bloodied characters, a yellow or blue token is essentially meaningless without context, and we certainly do not have enough colours to cover all status effects. I feel I am playing a tabletop miniatures game far more than an RPG, which, although not a bad experience in itself, is not what I want from RPG night.
It strikes me one night that, after more than a year of playing 4e, there are no tokens on characters or monsters, yet we are still tracking all the various status effects without fuss or forgetting anything. At some point since we start playing 4e, we make the transition from using tokens to abandoning them. To me, this indicates we have become more comfortable with and more understanding of the system. From no one mentioning or perhaps even noticing the change, I get the impression that maybe 4e is a fairly decent game after all. I am, for the first time, feeling positive about continuing to play 4e. It's a shame, then, that my optimism is harshly shattered only a few weeks later.
We engage a major enemy in a climatic battle, where both opponents and environment need to be overcome with ingenuity and cunning in order to be victorious. It will not be easy, but with some co-operation and clever use of powers it looks like we can quickly gain an advantage in the encounter, and we put the plans in to action. For my own part, I use a daily item power to get me close to the boss and then use an encounter power in an effort to negate some of the environmental factors and get the boss closer to everyone in the party.
As I start my attack, the boss uses a power of her own that interrupts mine, sending me fleeing. I question what actually is the effect, check my character sheet several times to see if I can negate it, and ask for further clarifications about whether I can save from the effect or not, before finally resigning to the fact that there is nothing I can do. My encounter power, usable only once per combat, is lost. It is not that I miss with the attack, the power is simply gone for no effect.
My character sits lonely far away from the action after fleeing uncontrollably, and I honestly sit there wondering if there is any point in coming back to the fight if my most powerful attacks can simply be robbed from me. I feel ineffectual, as far from being heroic a supposedly mighty adventurer can be. My powers are not powerful when they are unavailable at the whim of someone else's imagination. And it's not just because the situation works against my favour that I am feeling disillusioned.
I charge back in to the fight, by which point a giant spider has turned back from the newt I polymorphed it in to and moved to help protect its master. Rather than face losing another power against the boss, and risk tearing up my character sheet, I attack the spider with a daily power. I wild shape in to a wolf and move to rip at my target's tedons, where a successful attack will knock my target prone. I hit with the attack, and the giant spider, as eight-legged as normal-sized spiders, drops to the floor. Apparently it doesn't matter that the target has more than two legs, or that it is ten feet in diameter and probably quite stable, a quick nibble on a leg sends it falling to the ground.
Of course, I am supposed to feel powerful at having knocked a monster prone, with no save or modifiers to the attack for any increased stability it may have, exactly countering my emasculation from ten minutes ago. But I don't feel powerful, I feel silly, comic, contrived. The effect may be working in my favour but it's only renewing and reinforcing my impression of 4e as being a heavily simplified RPG and little more than a stylised board game. We end the evening only half-way through the fight, so I'll be returning knowing what I am facing, both in terms of the character combat and expectations of what type of game 4e is trying to be. I hope I can avoid getting quite as frustrated as this evening, but 4e looks like it has the potential of confounding me still.