DC Comics and "Wonder Woman: Earth One" part 2

            Yesterday, I gave some context as to why I was reading “Wonder Woman: Earth One”.  When and why “Wonder Woman: Earth One” was written, and today I am going to talk about who wrote it, who created Wonder Woman originally, and what I thought of the comic itself.

            If you want to get a broader perspective of what I think about Wonder Woman as a character in the grand scheme of things I wrote about the Justice League a while back and Wonder Woman got her own entry.  I also wrote another thing about her and Batman not too long ago.

This movie is gonna suuuuuuck!

A bit about the writer Grant Morrison: “I like almost everything he does”

            Let me give a brief introduction to Grant Morrison, whom I consider to be one of my favorite authors of graphic novels, and if I saw him branch out into other media (maybe by giving his blessing or taking a direct hand in an adaptation of his own work) then I would call him one of my favorite writers without qualification.

            I have read a lot of Grant’s work and have read a lot about his beliefs. I actually find a certain optimism in it that is deeply appealing.  The ideas of Flex Mentallo for instance, that some parallel universe of superheroes was destroyed by anti-life and the way they saved themselves was by living on as dreams in our universe.  That superheroes are “real” in a sense and our world is guided by their noble ideas via our dreams, and that heroism can shape reality.

Even seen somebody so buff they could bend reality?

            Or the metaphysics/metanarrative of comic books in "Final Crisis".  That the white spaces between comic panels is a sort of liquid time and that to control the white space would grant the villain control of the universe.  That Superman enters that time stream and it allows him to see in dimensions beyond the comic (he sees in 3-D) and reaches out toward the reader, sensing "A presence". The idea is that the act of reading causes time to move for characters in the DC universe and we the audience are gods/souls/animus to those characters.  That the story was told out of order, folding back on itself, because the villain was warping reality, and that warped the order in which the comic was read.

            Or how Arkham Asylum is a metaphor for Batman's broken mind and that the bad guys are all manifestations of his fevered imagination.

            Grant has a lot of dense themes.

            Morrison’s name is what drew me to “Wonder Woman: Earth One”.  I am a big fan of his work and not a fan of Wonder Woman.  Morrison himself has not been a fan of the character in the past, describing her as a strange mish-mash of different elements, which if you don’t know anything about Morrison that statement would be akin to hearing Donald Trump calling Vince McMahon a boisterous egomaniac.  Grant is not wrong in his assessment, but you are wondering what specific element is the tipping point that causes this particular person’s code of ethics to ring with disapproval.

Wonder Woman: “What in Hell was the creator thinking?”

            Wonder Woman is the warrior princes of the mythical island of Themyscira, ruled by her mother the stubborn but noble Queen Hippolyta.  Diana defies her mother’s wishes and joins a competition of strength and winning earns the title of Wonder Woman and takes on the role of ambassador to “Man’s World” and subsequently must use the divine powers granted by the Greek gods, her Amazonian warrior training, and magical technology to bring peace and freedom to the world.

            Wonder Woman was created by a polygamous man named William Moulton Marston who wanted to create for women a strong figure to serve as a counter point to the numerous male heroes that had cropped up in the genre.  He based Wonder Woman’s personality off his first wife, Elizabeth and Wonder Woman’s looks off his second wife, Olive.

            William also decided to throw in other elements of his life, Feminism being chief among them.  Utopian ideals based off of classical ideas of art and beauty.  William was the inventor of the polygraph, so he gave Wonder Woman a magic lasso that compelled people to tell the truth.  And, because he liked his kinks and thought they would help the book sell he threw in a lot of BDSM imagery and gave Wonder Woman the weakness that she had to obey anyone who bound her hands…. Morrison found Wonder Woman to be a collision of strange ideas and decided to explore all of that via Earth One.  It is a shame that the book kind of sucks.

I am not kidding.  If you google "Wonder Woman, Bondage" this kind of thing is everywhere.

Wonder Woman Earth One: “What Worked?”

            Let’s start with some things I liked.  I liked that the Amazonian culture was portrayed as being more complex than in previous iterations.  Too often they are portrayed as overly perfect and that (to me) takes away from their relatability.  Everyone having super powers, access to magical technology, and living in perpetual divine harmony sheltered from Earth and then blaming it all on men seems a bit… stupid.

            Humans are humans and any culture based on a warrior ideal will have drawbacks related to valuing competition and giving them aspects of arrogance.  Idealizing themselves and blaming on men any short comings they can see in our world via their myopic view is a smart way of portraying them as powerful and capable, but still flawed.

            Some might say that takes away from the feminist message of the story and setting, I disagree.  Feminism is about equality, not about women being perfect but for the interference of men.  What is more, the ideas of Feminism in the world/themes of Wonder Woman perhaps does not naturally gel with the feminism of today.  Themyscira (Wonder Woman’s home) is exclusive, based around conflict and domination, and in the context of even the oldest comics happens in reaction to a particularly vile man threatening their way of life.  Hash tag, “not all men” I suppose.

 

Call me crazy, but the best utopias tend to feel attainable, rather than impossible.

            The art is great, though there were some strange choices with the comic’s layout, frequently having only a few panels on a page and lots of dead space depicting bonds.  I suppose this is symbolic of the framing device of the story (more on that later) but it could have been done without making the pages so empty.  That lack of visuals has the side effect of making the story seem more “talking” rather than “doing” but that is also a side effect of the poor framing device for the story.

            I liked that they turned Steve Trevor into a black guy.  Giving him a racial component as to why he would not tell the government about the presence of the Amazons was a somewhat clever twist.  It also drives home the “not all men” aspect when he explains how his ancestors were exploited.

Wonder Woman Earth One: “What didn’t work for me?”

            The Framing of the story.  Rather than showing us the events of the story as they happen, that Diana (Wonder Woman) rescues Steve from Themyscira and returns him to “Man’s World” and then meets Etta Candy and is forced to return to answer for her violations of Amazonian Law… No, instead we are shown the trial of Wonder Woman and all of the events of the comic are told in flashback while magical truth is compelled from Diana and the witnesses.

            The panels I spoke about being overly spaced out come from this framing, the pages where the character is shown giving testimony show them standing surrounded by bonds of what are presumably truth.  It is a visual metaphor, but one that could have been done better in my mind.

            I dislike the lack of action.  Aside from one chase there isn’t a lot of warriors being warriors in this warrior-woman culture.  Things are dull and talk heavy.  I wouldn’t mind that either, but they tend to talk in an overly formal and declarative fashion (another aspect of Amazon culture which displays their arrogance) and that gets a bit boring to read.  Even the conversational dialogue of Etta Candy is dragged down because she talks near-exclusively about asinine nonsense.

 

Here is the thing, if the joke is, "I am saying the premise out loud" then there is no joke.  The story is just silly.

            Lastly, this is the origin story of not only Wonder Woman, but the story of her people’s self-imposed exile from Man’s World.  It involves rape and domination of the Amazonians by Hercules, mightiest of all men and his being overthrown by Queen Hippolyta who then left Man’s World forever.  This sets the ground work for a subversion of the traditional Wonder Woman origin story, and this was kind of beaten to the punch.

            Originally Wonder Woman was based on the Pygmalion myth.  Queen Hippolyta wanted a daughter and so she molded a baby from clay and the goddesses blessed the clay doll with life.  This clay child grew to be Wonder Woman.

            In the Justice League cartoon of the early 00’s, Wonder Woman was molded not just by Queen Hippolyta, but by Hades (god of the underworld) as well.  In the now dead “New 52” it was revealed she is actually the birth child of Queen Hippolyta and Zeus, changing the origin again.  On Earth One, Wonder Woman is the birth child of Queen Hippolyta… and the product of rape by Hercules.

            This is treated as a dramatic revelation, and had this comic come out in 1999 it would be.  That would be a big departure from the origin story that had existed for decades, and if it had come out then people would have lost their shit and Grant Morrison would never stop getting hate mail.  But, “Wonder Woman Earth One” didn’t come out in 1999, it came out in 2016.  The origin story has already been subverted multiple times.  So, this is kind of ‘meh’.

            Don’t get me wrong, the ‘meh’ is the revelation, not the rape.  Including that element (which had always been hovering in the background) as an explicit element in what motivated Queen Hippolyta and the Amazonians is a shift.  A bad one.  Maybe.

Again, rape and weird politics related to the idea have always been there.

            Truth is, the influence of elements such as rape in super hero comics can be a tone destroying, overly dark element, especially when it is not the focus of the series.  Making Wonder Woman a child of sexual assault whose mother lied to her about her origin and demonized the other gender because of this transgression (not just Hercules, but men in general) is iffy.  Hash tag, “Not all men”.

            So much so that I am just going to say that I dislike the revelation of rape in the origin.  I do not like how it was done in this story, and it actually feels like an out of character move for Morrison to include it because he has criticized the use of rape elsewhere in the industry.  If this revelation had happened in a Volume 2 or 3 of the series, it might have worked.  Here, the meta-narrative just doesn’t work.

In Conclusion

             I am apparently not alone in my feelings of disappointment.  The amazon (that is to say the website) reviews could boil down to, “Not Morrison’s best” and “A disappointment”.  That being said it is still not as bad as “Teen Titans: Earth One” and is really just another alternate world Wonder Woman, there have been plenty of those so it probably won’t be too ruinous to the character… At least, I thought that it would not hurt the character.

            Later this year a “Wonder Woman” movie is coming out in the DC cinematic universe.  I will ruffle no feathers in saying the trailer looks like shit and I am betting the movie will be awful even if it does make a bunch of money.  All that aside, I am going to make a prediction, Wonder Woman’s origin will involve rape, and the rapist/father will be the main villain of the movie, Ares the god of War.  It is going to suck, be a tonal blemish on the franchise, and it will almost certainly have some inspiration taken from this story as both Steve Trevor and Etta Candy are featured in the trailer.

            Maybe I will be wrong, but I doubt it.  PLACE YOUR BETS!

 

I hope this is the look they use for Ares.
The newer appearance looks too much like Bor from "Thor the Dark World".

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DC Comics and "Wonder Woman: Earth One", part 1

            I have recently been finishing out a degree, this has involved me taking an undergraduate course at my alma mater.  Often, as the drive to the school is pretty long, I will meander around the campus and into the library to kill some time before driving back home.  While there I was drawn to a hardcover collection of a comic series I knew of but had not yet read, “Wonder Woman: Earth One”.  It was kind of bad, and that is super disappointing.

            This thing went super long discussing the background to all of this that I didn’t even get into talking about the book until I had written 1800 words, so I decided to split this in two, and it is an unclean cut mostly done so that each part is easier on the reader.  Hopefully this is entertaining/informative.

Some Backstory: For Which I Cannot Cite Anything

            At the turn of the millennium, nearly 20 years ago now… I feel old… nearly 20 years ago Marvel comics created the “Ultimate” line of comics.  It was a fresh modern take on their classic characters to make things more accessible to new readers.  Spiderman was back in high school, the X-Men were late teens and early twenties, and everything had a more cynical tone informed by the decades of superhero comics that had preceded them to draw on some of the strongest elements and stories but writing them with an eye toward being more long form, taking 6 issues to tell a story rather than the traditional 1 or 2.

This is promo art from the "Ultimatum" event that was written by Jeph Loeb.
This is the event that started the slow death of the whole universe.

            The Ultimate line was a huge success and after a little over 15 years the line grew into its own massive continuity, and was nearly murdered by bad writing at several points (I have mostly forgiven Jeph Loeb for his part in it).  I have a real soft spot for all the Ultimate line, I felt that having a universe that was freer to explore new ideas with old story ideas led to some creative stuff.  The dialogue was punchy, the action was exciting, and the fresh takes worked.  Marvel, the House of Ideas, had proven they could be the House of Fresh Spins.

            DC smelled money.

Creative Crisis: “Let’s just blow the whole thing up”

            Typically, when DC thinks that their universe needs a fresh take they just blow up the whole universe and call “REDO!”  Most famously this was done with “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, a bloated mess of a book that existed to fulfill a mandate but is so unfocused and loaded down with cameos, minutia, and bombast I consider it nearly unreadable by modern standards.

This headache inducing image could be considered an adequate summation of the event.

            20 years after that universe explosion DC did it again with Final Crisis (kind of, the reboot was delayed till another event called “Flashpoint”).  “Final Crisis” was written by a literal wizard, Grant Morrison.  Remember that name, he will come back.

            Unfortunately, DC screwed the pooch on the whole thing and we ended up with the “New 52” which I consider a creative wasteland.  This “New 52” took previously interesting ideas and striped them down so far that they just didn’t work, and paradoxically it kept both too much and too little of the old continuity to be a fresh start.

            DC had previously been the book of legacies.  That the universe had a long history that is respected and revered.  In DC, there had been Flashes, Green Lanterns, and Hawkmen all the way back to WWII.  There was appeal to seeing those classic characters and concepts juxtaposed by Robin, Superboy, and Wonder Girl.  The contrast of young and old heroes showed how the idea of heroism had evolved over the decades and that old costumes could be looked at as cheesy and fun, but also as the source/inspiration of the modern stuff.

            In the “New 52” almost all of this legacy had washed away.  DC had forgotten what their fans (and people in general) wanted from them, a sense of longevity.  Superman is classic.  Batman is classic.  Wonder Woman is classic.  DC should have stuck to their original plan, which was to go classic.

This is a video about the death of the "New 52" made by Linkara. 

He is a well known comic reviewer.

The All-Star Line: “Please, stop letting Frank Miller do stuff”

            Before “Final Crisis” there was the All-Star Line, non-canon stories of the biggest characters in DC’s stable, written by the best/notorious writer’s in DC’s offices, drawn by the best artists in their art-jails (I assume all artists are kept chained or caged since the Image incident of the 90’s).  These were “All-Star” titles.  The line had one success and was then immediately killed by abject stupidity.

            The first book out of the gate was “All-Star Superman” which is in my all-time top 5 for comics.  It is a 12-issue series drawn by Frank Quitely written by Grant Morrison (Hey, there is that name again, he will show up again though, so keep looking out).  It is an absolute classic.

            Superman engages in his last heroic deeds for the ages, battling time eating monsters, answering the unanswerable question, and defeating the Tyrant Sun.  It is written in a style that showcases everything that is strange, fantastical, and sweet about Superman and by the end it drew a tear from my eye and the thought, “You did it Superman, you saved everybody.”

This image does a lot to sum up the tone of the work.

            This triumph of storytelling was followed up by “All-Star Batman and Robin” which is an unmitigated piece of shit.  Confusing, over written, misogynistic, dumb, repetitive, dumb, mean spirited, vile garbage.  It was written by Frank Miller, a man who produced some classic Batman stories in the brief window of sanity he experienced in the 80’s and has been riding that success ever since.

            Frank has subsequently written “Holy Terror”, a racist fan fiction piece that was considered such hot garbage that DC wouldn’t let the damn thing star Batman as Frank had originally intended and had to sand the identifying signifiers off of it.   “Holy Terror” could be considered the worst thing Frank ever wrote, but the thing is, “Holy Terror” is complete, “All-Star Batman and Robin” has yet to be finished, and if it is ever finished I will apologize to Frank Miller for thinking that he couldn’t bring himself the last muscle clench to force the final issues out of his ass.

Did I mention the misogyny?

            DC had plans for All-Star Supergirl, All-Star Batgirl, and All-Star Wonder Woman.  NOPE!  The whole line was shit canned as a failed experiment… Till kind of recently.

Welcome to Earth One: “Let’s give this a shot, nothing else is working”

            When it came to the attention of DC that the “New 52” was not really working, probably about the time they had canceled 52 titles (all had been replaced to keep the line 52 titles deep)  DC started flailing.  Killing as many books as you had launched with (I think) prompted them to do something kind of desperate.  They were going to do an All-Star product line and just call it something else.

            Welcome to “Earth One,” a series of stories written by prominent writers with gifted artists focusing on the most popular of properties.  They were set to do a very Ultimate-ish rendition of the DC line-up.

            Superman now has 3 volumes down written by JMS, creator of “Babylon 5” and writer in nearly every medium at this point.  I like his stuff.  He gave Superman a fresh new villain, a perspective on the world only Superman could have (when you can do anything what do you choose to do), and reintroduced the crystal look of Krypton in such a way that I actually liked the visual (usually I don’t, preferring the Kirby inspired Zeerust designs of Bruce Timm in the 90’s).

            Batman got a run by Geoff Johns, who I think of as our universe’s version of the DC character Chronos because he keeps undoing and re-writing continuity to suit his own fanboy vision of the DC universe.  All that aside, Geoff’s Batman book was a great fresh take on the character, with fun mythology construction, a new villain, and a dark take on Alfred of all people.

            The Teen Titans got Jeff Lemire, a writer I had never heard of, and judging by this book I don’t think I would like any of his stuff.  I didn’t care for the art either which is odd because Terry Dodson does good work.  The story was kind of shit.  The world felt claustrophobic as all hell.  The characters got their abilities from a single source rather than the diverse plethora of origin stories they had before (writing tip, that I covered with my multi-part discussion of the Justice League so long ago, when you make a team you want each character to bring in something new from their own little corner of the world, when everyone has the same origin it makes the world smaller and harder to expand on).

            And then came Wonder Woman.  They gave her to Grant Morrison (There he is again)…

Next Time

            I will review the actual “Wonder Woman: Earth One” comic instead of just giving context for why it exists.

            There will also be more context.

To say one thing, they stayed true to all the bondage subtext.

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Dungeons and Dragons: "Defense" part 3

            I have played Dungeons and Dragons for more than 15 years.  Lately, I have not had access to any other players and so I have just been kicking around ideas that normally would be in a game and instead I am just going to post them on my blog.  This is going to be a reoccurring thing as I just keep hammering out things and not all of them can be turned into elements in my “random fantasy novel ideas” folder.

Last Time and This Week

            Last time I talked about ways you can manipulate the 8 layers of defense that exist in 3^rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons.  Be they a Shield, being tough enough to take a hit, or using the power of gods to mend your injuries.  There are a host of nooks and crannies that can be fingered open and explored with different modifications.  To remind everyone, here are those 8 things again.

1)     Defensive Spells

2)     Miss Chance

3)     Armor and Shields

4)     Damage Reduction

5)     Regeneration

6)     Hit Points

7)     Fast Healing

8)     All other forms of Healing

Layers of Defense.  Like walls within walls.

            This week I am going to propose two other alternatives to the basic system one of which is a big change that exists only in theory (I have already written 9,000+ words on this topic and Alternative 3 would require 10,000 by itself to be completely workable to say nothing of heavy beta testing, I can’t do it alone).

            Alternative 4 is a modification of existing rules to make defense oriented players just a bit more viable in the game without needing anymore rules.  These are Feats that slip right into regular play touched up or invented whole cloth to make the players’ nuts harder to crack.

Alternative 3: Points and Active Defense

            This is where all my talk of Defense “being a thing you have, not something you do” comes to a head.  I would like to suggest that Defense in the context of a roleplaying game can be more active.  I will point to two examples.

            In the “Mario & Luigi” series of roleplaying games combat allows a player to jump to avoid attacks of oncoming enemies.  This has the unfortunate side effect of allowing a skilled player (or someone who is not the target demographic of little children) to no sell even the more difficult opponents, but it is still an interactive feature that keeps people engaged even when they are not attacking.

            In “Tales of Symphonia” combat is in real time and allows for characters to block attacks when they lack the energy to continue attacking or are simply biding time.  I reviewed “Symphonia” last year as one of my personal favorite games and I would suggest picking it up to see how magi-tech can be used in a classic fantasy setting.  As “Symphonia” is a real-time combat game (though in the context of instances) it has the luxury of continuous input it doesn’t really reflect on the rules of a purely turn based tactical system like Dungeons and Dragons.

            OR DOES IT!?

 

The color theory that went into these character's designs is nearly flawless.

            Here is my suggestion: give players the ability to make decisions about their defense and to take “actions” to alter their strategies while they are being attacked.  Forcing a player to hold their action to wait for something that might not come or having them limit their own attacks and active play in favor of bracing themselves for something that might not happen is weak sauce.

            Playing defensively makes little sense in a game that has few if any ways to force an opponent to attack the person with the best Defensive statistics.  If an opponent sees that the fighter has just used his Combat Expertise (+5), Dodge (+1), is holding a tower shield (+4), and is shuffling around in Heavy armor (+8) … The foe will just jump the guy in robes who is waving his arms around and speaking in mystical base code.  The wizard is gonna get it.

            Here is a place I give 4^th edition credit, you can allow the Fighter to pin someone to an area, pull attacks, and have them be proactively holding someone in place for hits.  It has a lot in common with the Warriors of “World of Warcraft” (both good and bad).  4^th relied on abilities that could only be used a limited number of times each encounter or each day (an imperfect solution) but there might be a way to do something similar in the context of 3^rd Edition and other roleplaying games.

            Give players Defensive credits/chips/gems/tokens, this resource can be used to gain temporary bonuses of the players’ choice in response to attacks.  In exchange for this obvious buff to player’s flexibility you limit them slightly, Armor Class is no longer a base 10 + (other factors) it is now 8 + (other factors).  You might even make Armor less effective overall dropping the protection it provides or giving fewer classes access to heavy and medium armor types.

"Do you think this is enough?  I don't want to be under dressed for the movies."
"Just remember not to sit in front of anyone."

            How would this work?  The players have Defense Credits, a form of spendable action points that replenish either at the end of an encounter or following a short rest (again, needs beta testing).  A player can spend one of these credits for some temporary boost to their stats and defensive capabilities allowing them to choose when to use their defenses and in what ways.

            “What stats/abilities?” you are asking.  Pick from the 8 that I talked about in the last blog, “I spend a Defensive point to create shadow clones of myself” or “I spend a defensive point to grant myself a miss chance of 15%” or “I use a defensive point to grant myself Damage Reduction of 4/-”.  Each of these alterations could last for 1d4 rounds, maybe more with certain feats, and less if the player wanted them to have a stronger impact, “I want to increase the miss chance to 50% even if it means for only 1 round, because 1 round is all I need to finish this!” (again, beta testing needed).

1)     Defensive Spells

2)     Miss Chance

3)     Armor and Shields

4)     Damage Reduction

5)     Regeneration

6)     Hit Points

7)     Fast Healing

8)     All other forms of Healing

 

Layers of Defense can also come in the form of overlapping areas of covering fire.

            Have it that the players chose to use these as an attack against them is declared, “Do you want to take any sort of evasive action?” and they get to decide whether to use any of the effects.  The effects (as I mentioned last week) can be fitted to different classes based on the feel of the mechanic, Paladins gaining fast healing makes plenty of sense, just as gaining Damage Reduction boosts make sense to the Barbarian, and Shadow Clones (Mirror Image) make sense for the Rouge (Ninja).

            It could also be used for pressing an attack, rather than use it to make yourself harder to hit.  Fighters could spend them to more easily hit back, spending a point to immediately gain an attack of opportunity.

            This also opens the box on dozens of potential feats for giving more defensive credits each encounter, dipping toes into other classes’ defensive abilities, tying those bonuses to the level of the class you have, and magic items that further augment these factors for the players and the monsters they fight.  For instance, Blink Dogs currently Blink, what if they had defensive powers that allowed for better uses of that power when it came to avoiding certain types of harm and allowed for counter attacks?  This would allow for more flexible monster encounters, which if you haven’t noticed can make up a big part of Dungeons and Dragons.

 

"It can be so hard to make friends around here."

            This sort of mechanic change could fill an entire chapter of a “Complete (Thing)” book because it offers so many different ways to play what is already there.  To say nothing of how these things could be applied to resisting magic, or the incredibly nebulous mechanic of counter spelling.

Alternative 4: The Easiest Method Which is Not at all Game Changing

            You might be wondering why I did not just talk about this rather than banging on about those others which I called weaker, it is called context, I give it.  Also, I just created an entirely new way to look at Defense in Roleplaying games and how it might be utilized, for fucks sake give me some credit that all that was maybe interesting.

            Anyway, on with this.

            The easiest way to address defense as a concept in 3^rd edition is to beef up the few feats that give bonuses that (while useful) are too complicated to justify bothering with under normal circumstances.  Emphasize movement, cover, flanking, and the removal of your opponents’ options when attacking you.  Make things more interesting, but keep them easy to understand, people play Fighters because they do not want all the spell book keeping so don’t go crazy.  The complexity of previously simple classes like Fighters and Rogues is almost certainly a detriment to 4^th Edition.

            Here are 6 feats from the player’s handbook that I have slightly modified, and 4 new feats.  If you think these are good/bad, please say so in the comments.  If you have your own suggestions, please say so in the comments.

            Dodge is currently a boring feat that pretty much everyone eventually takes if they are a Fighter or they are a Rogue who doesn’t care about skill bonuses.  It grants +1 to defense against 1 opponent.  That is all.  I want to change this and was inspired a bit by “Dark Souls”.  Mobility is a Feat that follows in the same tree of character development and is even more boring and situational so I changed it significantly to compel action from its user.

Dodge

Prerequisite: Dexterity 13

Benefit: You gain +1 to Reflex saves.  In combat select an opponent, whenever that opponent attacks you, you may choose to take a 5ft step.

Special: If you have the Mobility feat you receive +4 to your Armor class to avoid the attack your selected opponent made against you.

Mobility

Prerequisite: Dexterity 13, Dodge

Benefit: Your speed is increased by +5ft.  You receive +2 to your Armor Class whenever you move more than 10ft during the round.  You do not receive the -2 to your Armor Class whenever you make a charge against an opponent.

            Combat Expertise is one of those feats that is for a very specific type of Fighter build as it has very little benefit except as a stepping stone to Whirlwind Attack.  The ability to lower your ability to hit the opponent in 3^rd edition (which I previously pointed out is a very attack oriented game system) to gain a slight bonus to not being hit is not fun.  Giving people attack bonuses that make the use of this safer fighting style worthwhile makes this a more desirable chain of feats to people who don’t own spiked chains.

Combat Expertise

Prerequisite: Intelligence 13

Benefit: You may subtract a number (1 to 5) from your attack rolls and add that number to your Armor Class.  If an opponent misses an attack against you while you are using this feat, they become flat footed against your next attack.

            Continuing the chain of Feats that build off of Expertise I wanted to make some slight alterations to Feats that provide interesting defensive maneuvers.  Especially Improved Feint, which I think is (at minimum) how feinting in combat should work now, it needs a little more juice because, obviously, the damn thing depends upon the Bluff skill, something Fighters do not have, and thus would be shit at.

            Improved Disarm and Improved Trip needed to be given just a little more juice.  Their mechanics are difficult to use without a flow chart to follow and so making them more powerful might overcome the complexity that makes people shy away from them (yes, veteran players, I know you have all of this memorized, this is not all about your ability to play what you know, but also seeing how things might be a barrier to a new player using a strange mechanic).

Improved Disarm

Prerequisite: Combat Expertise

Benefit: You do not provoke attacks of opportunity for disarm attempts, you receive a +4 to disarm attempts, and your opponent cannot attempt to disarm you during such an action.

            If you confirm a critical hit, rather than having your damage multiplied you may instead deal damage normally and automatically disarm the opponent choosing a square within 10ft of their current position for the object to land in.

 

"Are you making fun of my tiny hands?"

Improved Feint

Prerequisite: Combat Expertise

Benefit: Bluff is now considered a class skill for you if it wasn’t before.

            You may make a Bluff check to Feint in combat as a move action.  You cannot be deceived by Feints unless your opponent has this Feat.

Improved Trip

Prerequisite: Combat Expertise

Benefit: Balance is now considered a class skill for you if it wasn’t before.

            You do not provoke attacks of opportunity for trip attempts, you receive a +4 to trip attempts, if you succeed on a trip attempt against a melee opponent you may make an immediate attack against the downed opponent.

            If you confirm a critical hit, rather than having your damage multiplied you may instead deal damage normally and automatically trip the opponent choosing a square adjacent to their current position for them to land in.

            There is also the issue that the “tanks” of Dungeons and Dragons can’t do something that is the staple of tanks in other games (say for instance: WoW) in that they can’t pull attacks to them.  The best they can do is stand in the way and hope they get fixated on.  The issue being that any intelligent opponent would ignore the guy in full plate, do their best to take out the enemy spellcaster, and hope that they can do that before getting snuck attack in the back (rhyming, that was an accident).

            To help with the creation of a tank that can actually contribute to the survival of his party instead of being a momentary distraction (or more often the guy who gets mind controlled and sent to murder the rest of them) I present two feats that make them… actually able to do something.

Hey! You! With the Ugly Face! (New; Name needs work)

Prerequisite: Charisma 13

Benefit: You are able to issue a challenge or insult that leaves an opponent so incensed they attack you even if it means jeopardizing their safety by ignoring the surroundings and your allies.

            You issue your challenge as a move action, you opponent must make a Will save (DC 10 + ½ your level + your charisma modifier) if they fail they immediately and single mindedly attack you.  If they have no ranged attacks they will charge to close ground, if they have the Power Attack feat they will always use it to the maximum amount, if they are a Barbarian they will enter a Rage, and they will use all other methods to increase their attempts to kill you.

            They are considered to be flat footed to everyone but you, they will not seek healing, and they will not collapse until reaching negative 10 hit points, their anger keeping them up and fighting as if they had the Die Hard Feat.

Special: If you have the Deceitful, Negotiator, or Deceitful Feats each increases the DC of this ability by 2.

 

"I said some things I now regret..."

I Have Your Back (New; This name also needs work, less work, but still)

Prerequisite: Endurance, Diehard, Proficiency with Shield being used

Benefit: Anyone you wish to protect within 5ft of you receives a bonus to their armor class equal to the shield you are using and they cannot be flanked unless both of you are.  You can only protect one other person this way.

Special: If you have the Shield Parry Feat (discussed below) it works when protecting your ally as well as yourself.

            Inspired by “Dark Souls” (again) I have decided to include something that gives shield users a bonus in a small situation, but a situation that happens often enough for this to be useful.

Shield Parry (New)

Prerequisite: Dexterity 13, Strength 13, Endurance, Proficiency with Shield being used

Benefit: When an attacker misses an attack against you and you have a shield there is a chance you may counter attack against them.

            If the attacker rolls a 1 (if you have a small shield or buckler) or 2 or lower (for a large shield) then their attack automatically misses and you are allowed a free attack of opportunity against them.  (The number is equal to the bonus the shield provides, if you have a magic shield that provides a +7 bonus, 2 from being a shield and 5 from magic then an attacker can be parried if they roll a 7 or below).

Special: You cannot parry with a tower shield unless you have the Feat, Tower Shield Mastery (discussed below).

            If you were using the Expertise Feat then they are considered flat footed for purposes of the attack of opportunity, if you have the Dodge Feat then you may move 5ft before or after attacking (so as to take advantage of favorable positioning).  If you have either the Improved Trip or Improved Disarm Feats, you may attempt to use them in place of taking an attack of opportunity.

"I don't know about all this.  Actually fighting might result in my stuff getting dirty.
"I don't want to put up with all that."

            Lastly I just wanted to give some love to the often ignored most defense oriented bit of non-magical equipment out there, the Tower Shield.  Which is basically a chunk of wall that gets carried around.  Keep in mind this thing might be barely used in DnD but it was an indispensable staple of Rome’s army for centuries and remained a valid tactical decision for any military that could afford enough of them to equip their army.

Tower Shield Mastery (New)

Prerequisite: Strength 15, Intelligence 13, Proficiency with Tower Shields

Benefit: You do not suffer from a penalty to attacks with a tower shield if attacking with a light weapon.  You may bash with a tower shield.  Your tower shield now provides a +5 AC bonus rather than a +4.

            You may utilize your tower shield as total cover from spells targeted on you but doing so causes you to drop the shield and you must retrieve it after the spell has struck it.  This causes the Shield to be the target of the spell and it make take damage or be destroyed by the effect.

Special: If you have the Shield Parry feat you may now parry blows with a Tower Shield.

Next Time and the Beg for Attention

            I know that this is just a small section of what could have been written on this topic.  The whole point of this small series of blogs was to illustrate how underutilized defensive mechanics are in the game.  But, I am just one guy and as I continue to write these blogs they are going to gradually turn into something I wasn’t sure they would be when I started them: a eulogy for 3^rd Edition.

            I have a vast library of 3^rd Edition material and have hung with it not because I get lots of opportunities to play, but because I first learned to play DnD on that system and my brain has very wide paths carved in it by the D20 system.  I keep these books for the same reason I have Traveler, Star Wars, and Call of C’Thulhu, not because I get to play them all the time, but because I like to learn about the thought that went into them in hopes of cracking the eternal riddle of, “What makes a game fun?”

            You know what does?  “Easy to Learn and Hard to Master” might be the best answer but really the most fun of games like Dungeons and Dragons and other cooperative table top stuff is the fun you have playing with other people.  While I could side step to Pathfinder they have a lot of the same issues that I have with 3^rd.  And while I did give 4^th Edition a fair shake (I played and DM’d complete multi-month campaigns) that Edition is even deader.  No, I think in the coming weeks I am going to be looking for a group to play 5^th edition because I have seen some aspects of it I like and want to dive in again.  I have that creative itch that needs to be scratched, I think all players get such things from time to time.

It's a little sad.

           I am going to keep writing these blogs, I still have thoughts about this game I have been playing and would still like to point to instances in which I think it has been done better, but if you suddenly see a lot more “in 5^th Edition” you will know why.  I hope this discussion of Defensive mechanics was informative or even entertaining.

            Just remember to have fun.

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Dungeons and Dragons: "Defense" part 2

            I have played Dungeons and Dragons for more than 15 years.  Lately, I have not had access to any other players and so I have just been kicking around ideas that normally would be in a game and instead I am just going to post them on my blog.  This is going to be a reoccurring thing as I just keep hammering out things and not all of them can be turned into elements in my “random fantasy novel ideas” folder.

Last Time and This Week

            Last week we talked about the basics of Defensive mechanics as they exist in 3^rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons.  After exploring some of the ideas from “Unearthed Arcana” the official compendium of popular rule variations published by Wizards of the Coast.

            I pushed the “Unearthed” suggestions aside as too basic and uninteresting to make up for the added drag they put on the game’s action I moved on to defining in greater detail the 8 subcategories of Defense in Dungeons and Dragons (and kind of all games when you get down to it, there might be something else somewhere but DnD is such a kitchen-sink approach to gaming that they have to be hitting on nearly everything).

1)     Defensive Spells

2)     Miss Chance

3)     Armor and Shields

4)     Damage Reduction

5)     Regeneration

6)     Hit Points

7)     Fast Healing

8)     All other forms of Healing

Alternative 2: Classes and Manipulating the Basics

            Each of the above 8 listed defense systems can be manipulated in some regard to produce characters that have different ways of dealing with danger.  By giving the classes access to something that manipulates one or more of the above (or in the case of spell casters… All of them) you can serve to distinguish the classes from one another not just in how they attack (Rage, Sneak Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, etc.) but you can also differentiate them by how they avoid harm (which mostly amounts to how high you can push their AC).

"Must be swift as the coursing river... Be a Man,
"With all the Force of a Great Typhoooon...Be a Man,
"All the Strength of a Raging Fire... Be a Man,
"Mysterious as the Dark Side of the Moon."

            Monks are the only third edition class that gets a bonus to their armor class as they increase in level, this increase reflects their ability to dodge or block attacks using advanced martial arts.  In 4^th edition all of the classes get such increases, uniformly… or as it should be called, “fucking boring”.

            Let me talk about 4^th edition and the single best complaint against it: all of the bonuses to hit and all of the bonuses to defense cancel each other out, it is boring and insures the only variation is based on level.  That is stupid and removes one more thing that could have been used to differentiate the classes (or races) from one another.  It is the biggest contributor to why the game felt so same-is-same the more you played it.  Much like their bland take on alignment this was a bland take on attack and defense… IT CAN BE DONE BETTER!

            It would take a tremendous amount of work to point out the numerous variations that could be done to make each of the classes in 3^rd edition play to have a unique and varied ability to act defensively but let me throw a few out there.

Category 1: Defensive Spells

            Since we already have a lot of goofy spells this is an area that is ripe for exploration, but to keep this from being another 4,000+ word blog I am just going to point out the two I used last week, Sanctuary and Mirror Image.

            How about we let the Bard have a Sanctuary song that he can play?  So long as he is playing it everyone has a Sanctuary effect, so that he can effectively call a time out on the whole conflict allowing other players to heal up, negotiate, cast some non-lethal buffs, or just retreat.  It seems like a natural extension of the existing Bardic Music effect of “Fascinate”.

            Want a Mirror Image effect?  I want to give this to the Rogue, but that would require everybody being okay with the Shadow Clone Jutsu from “Naruto” being a part of the Rouge class abilities.  I am cool with giving spell like tricks and traps to the Rogue class to make them less of a well guided knife, but others might be rather resistant to giving magical tricks to a class that is traditionally non-magical.  A more enterprising blogger might go ahead and create a Rouge alternate class that takes this all into consideration and share that in the comments… Maybe… Probably not.

Category 2: Miss Chance

            This seems like a perfect place for a bonus to the Ranger Class.  A steadily increasing nature magic that allows them to cloak themselves in mist and shadow couples great with the camouflage abilities they already have.  Let’s give them a basic bonus of 2% per level (so a 1^st level Ranger would have a 2% miss chance and a 10^th level Ranger would have a 20% miss chance).

            Give the Ranger an additional bonus to the ability based on their Dexterity score of +5% per Dexterity modifier (so a Dexterity of 12 will grant +5% and a Dexterity of 16 will grant +15%).  Add some feats that emphasize the ability based on what terrain they are in, whether they have partial cover, based on whether they are flanking.  You could grant additional bonuses with alchemy items, smoke bombs, flash grenades, or weapons that cause limited or temporary blindness.

            You could have a level 10 ranger with an 18 Dexterity that has a 40% of any attack against them missing completely.  To help balance this out have the bonus disappear if the character is flat footed, in much the way sneak attack doesn’t work on a target unless they are flat footed.

            This ability could clearly be added to different classes or even all of them with a different ratio for each.  Rogues, Bards, Monks, and Rangers having a +2% per level, while Fighters and Barbarians only get +1% per level, and guys like Clerics and Wizards would only get such effects via spells (or have it be such a small number that it could be a joke, “Hey, I am a level 10 Wizard I will remind you, that means he has a 1% chance of missing me entirely, roll for that first”).

 

"I am so glad I am not obligated to wear so much armor."
"Susan, put some pants on."
"Make Me!"

            Miss Chance is also the best system to play with if you want a game that is more about Swashbuckling.  As armor is just not going to be much of a thing on the high seas, walking thru a desert, or even in a steam punk palace.  Armor is heavy, hard to maintain, and was utilized in history less than what it is in the game of DnD.

            Having a system that is more about people without armor doing their best to not get hit at all is a good idea from a theatrical standpoint.  I am kind of surprised there was never a supplement “Dashing Heroes” or “Merry Men” that would adapt the D20 system to account for these kinds of settings.

Category 3: Armor and Shields

            Armor and Shields are already the biggest aspect of this so I would suggest just giving more thought to each classes ability to access shields and armor.  I don’t think Clerics should have access to heavy armor or shields, the class is already potent, they should be less flexible with what armor they can have, and since they are primarily a spell caster they should have a hand free for a holy symbol to cast those spells.

Or a torch.
Did anyone else get the vibe that Bethesda did not care for the Vigilants of Stendar?
They seem to be the butt-monkeys of Skyrim.

            Conversely I think Paladins should have more powers related to deflection bonus, a divine aura that helps to protect them and maybe grants bonuses to those around them with an even greater bonus against attacks by “Evil” characters.  Paladins are supposed to be the defenders of the innocent and yet have no substantive ability to protect those around them aside from a very minor collection of healing abilities and the ability to protect against fear (not useless, but certainly not something that comes up too often).

            Fighters need more fighter specific feats that give stronger bonuses (or even combat maneuvers) to them for using shields or taking defensive moves.  Characters whose primary defense is supposed to be their ability to use armor and shields need rules to take advantage of those things.  If a wizard can cast a spell then the fighter needs to be able to do martial arts that amount to more than just, “Hit harder, but less accurately”.

            If I were being REALLY AGGRESSIVE to making Armor and Shields more potent I would do what they did in 5^th Edition (or the little I have had the chance to look over) and flatten the Attack bonus curve.  Rather than the fighter types getting a “1 level = +1 to Attack” they instead get a proficiency bonus from +2 to +6 along with other bonuses from feat selection (and fighters get a host of maneuvers and styles to make them not painfully boring).

            I get the feeling the more I learn about 5^th that a lot of the things I had problems with were ironed out (they might have added some new issues and kept plenty that I previously would not have noticed but now do).  This is especially necessary because of the low magic setting.  Without significantly powerful equipment in 3^rd Edition you will constantly be hit when in melee with a fighter type of your level from 10 onward.

Category 4: Damage Reduction (and some Problems with Barbarians)

            I am going to go ahead and talk about the only class that has this defensive layer as a class ability, The Barbarian.

            Damage Reduction is already a Barbarian class ability, make it better.  At higher levels knocking 5 damage off of attacks that can deal 30 points of damage is pretty meaningless.  The fact is the game is not set up to have a Barbarian fight lots and lots of smaller bad guys where his damage reduction would be effective, and even if it were the number of attacks he gets would not allow him to fight lots and lots of little guys as they chip away at him.  In fact, his rage power is all about fewer and bigger hits.  So, Barbarians have a tension in which their defense stops little things, and his attacks hit big things.

"As strong as I am, I am going to throw my back out swinging this ax."

            Barbarians need either a rage that allows for more attacks (or even a kind of area attack sweeping out in front of them) so that they can juggernaut into a horde, or beef up his defenses so that he can shrug off powerful attacks from bigger opponents (how about making his damage reduction spike up while raging?  Or give him the ability to hit so hard that an opponent loses their attack altogether?  Or-or, have his attacks give a status effect against his opponent that makes their attacks weaker so that his damage reduction will be more meaningful?)

            I also think Monks should be getting damage reduction as well, heck Monks should be getting more in all of these categories the class is goofy as hell and once you start accepting “Kung Fu Powers” you can justify giving it anything.  Body Hardening is a thing in many martial arts and one of the Monk’s existing abilities is the ability to bypass certain types of Damage Reduction.

Category 5: Regeneration

            Regeneration is almost exclusively a monster power.  It is one of the few things I will shove off to the side except in the form of Transmutation spells.  This ability can get busted and should be kept as a tool of making monsters stronger.  While I consider Trolls an iconic and menacing melee opponent, the number of times they have killed more than 1 member of the party (even at levels above their CR) has made me wary to ever use them.

Category 6: Hit Points

            Here is a pretty easy thing to fix: More god damn hit points for characters who are supposed to be the tanks.

            4^th edition kind of addressed this one, there was no more rolling for hit points because you could easily end up with a fighter that had fewer hit points than the rouge by level 8 via bad luck, but maybe push this further.

            Giving the Barbarians a static 10 hit points each level, Fighters and Paladins 8, Clerics and Rangers 6, Bards and Rouges 5, and other Arcane Casters 4 I think would make the game a lot less lethal and that is kind of what I am going for (if you haven’t noticed from how I am offering free buffs and defensive abilities to everyone in all of the instances I have so far mentioned).

            (I am also aware that 5^th Edition has some things on this too… My vast library of 3^rd Edition books seems so lonely these days).

 

"What do you mean 'she survived the hit'?"
"I am a 70 ton dragon, she is a 180 lb human.  She should have been vaporized!"

Category 7: Fast Healing (and some Problems with Druids)

            Fast Healing should be a class ability of Paladins because having a constant flow of positive energy allowing them to recover and continue their divine mission makes a lot of sense.  Maybe not constantly, as that would be the brick shit house that would not die, but certainly making it an ability they could burn some kind of divine favor to get makes sense.

            This also feels at home among the class abilities of the already broken Druid.  It is totally in flavor for a magic tree person to be able to heal themselves (though that might be my love of Magic the Gathering coloring my view point).

"Do you think my hat looks silly?
"I wasn't going to buy it but the nice young woman selling them was so complimentary."

            Druids are the 3^rd edition class most in need of careful deconstruction, they have shapeshifting, spellcasting, class abilities, and an animal companion.  They area book keeping nightmare/dream and with the right gamer can be broken.  Maybe 5^th Edition fixed them too.

Category 8: All Other Healing

            I wrote an entire blog on the topic of healing in 3^rd edition, 4^th edition, and several other fantasy games.  That pretty much explains some issues and proposes some solutions.

The Issue with all the Category Variations

            My biggest issue with Defense in Dungeons and Dragons is this, “It is something you have, not something you do”.  None of these variations on the categories I identified are about “Doing” they are just a more eclectic mix of things you might “Have”.

            That being said I do not think that this was wasted effort as far as exploring what is in flavor with the classes, what are ways to pull the various taffies of game mechanics to make something new, and I did get to see some of the newer changes present in 5^th Edition in the context of comparing them favorably to 3^rd Edition.

            So, productive-ish.

Next Time and the Beg for Attention

            I am going to talk about at least one more entry in Defense and it will be Alternatives 3 and 4, 3 is the one that is a much larger change 4 is the one that is hardly any change at all.  (I realize that this is more than what was promised last week, that happens as an idea grows beyond the pot it was originally planted in).

Growth.  Dryad.  Kind of makes sense.

            I know that I missed the boat in a lot of ways by talking so much about 3^rd Edition in this blog.  That while Pathfinder and 5^th Edition borrow heavily from the D20 system and there is still so much material floating around out there (because printed material hangs around, for instance 3^rd Edition was the last edition to get support from the Magazines Dragon and Dungeon, of which I own many copies that have been re-read to the point of falling apart).

            I present my experiences with this system almost as catharsis for the numerous little issues I have had over the years and in hopes that it can serve to teach others from my observations and mistakes.  Hopefully these are entertaining to read and they provide you, dear reader, with some useful ideas for your own game.

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            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.