11.28.2011

E5M1: 2FORT4THCORE


Stuck somewhere between the dimension we know and love, and a realm of Lovecraftian disorder and horror, we find teams of gladiators. They fight over mystical flags, through a red and blue haze of constant reincarnation.


Scoring

The team with the most captures wins. In case of a tie, the team with the least deaths wins. In case of a tie, a sudden death round starts, and the first death or capture determines the winner.

Humiliation

A creature rolling a natural 1 on an attack roll is knocked prone immediately after the attack. Being knocked prone in this way cannot be negated in any way.

High Ground

Creatures on the sniper towers and goal room have Combat Advantage and do maximum damage with Ranged attacks against targets in the courtyard. The sniper towers and goal platform are 20' above the courtyard and fort floor.

Rickety Stairs

The ramps inside the forts are difficult terrain. Creatures with a fly or climb speed treat them as normal terrain.

Walls, Ceilings, and Sky

All gray walls go from floor to ceiling, blocking line of sight and line of effect. All corners are hard corners. The ceiling inside the forts is 30' high (relative to the fort floor - therefore the ceiling in the goal room is 10' high). The courtyard and sniper towers are open to the sky. Due to the Lovecraftian universe this takes place in, there is no direct sunlight.

Moldy Canal

The canal is 10' deep and the Athletics DC for climbing the walls is 25.

Bridge

The sides of the bridge give a +5 to saves against falling.

Respawn (terrain power)

At-Will Trigger: You start your turn dead, dying or begin your first turn of the encounter. Effect (no action): If you are dying, you die. You regain all hit points and healing surges, remove all failed death saves, and conditions that don't last through the encounter, refresh all encounter powers and power points, and teleport to a starting square of your choice in your team's base. If the destination starting square is occupied, that creature dies.

Killing Spree (terrain power)

At-Will (once per turn) Trigger: You reduce 2 or more non-minion enemies with at least 1 hit point to 0 hitpoints or fewer during the same turn. Effect (Free Action): Gain an action point. You may spend more than one action point per encounter, but only one action point per round.

Underwater Passage (terrain power)

Move Action • At-Will • Personal Requirement: You must be standing on a passage square. Effect: You teleport to the corresponding passage square. If the square is occupied, you take 5 damage, and you slide the creature 1 square before teleporting. Endurance: If you are trained in Endurance, this power is a minor action.

Jump Pads (terrain power)

At-Will (once per turn) Trigger: You enter a Jump Pad square. Effect: You fly to the corresponding target square. If the square is occupied, you take 5 damage and you push the occupying creature 1 square. Special: Falling on a Jump Pad does no falling damage, and activates this power.


Flag (terrain item)

If you enter (either movement or forced movement) the square of an unattended enemy flag, you acquire it. If you enter the square of an unattended friendly flag, it returns to your base. If you enter your goal square while in possession of a flag, your team gains a capture and the flag returns to its base. The goal squares are in F-6 and O-6. If you are knocked prone while in possession of a flag, it gets dropped in an adjacent square of your choice. While in possession of a flag, you grant Combat Advantage, and you cannot run.

Throw

At-Will • Minor Action • Close Burst 3 Target: one ally or unoccupied square inside the burst. Effect: You lose possession of the flag, and either your ally gains possession, or it appears unattended in the target square.

Backpack

Once per turn, a dungeoneer moving into a square containing a backpack rolls a d4 on the chart below. The dungeoneer immediately gains the benefit rolled. While a benefit is active, a dungeoneer cannot pick up another backpack.
1: +5 to next attack 2: +10 to next damage roll 3: +5 defense against next attack 4: +3 move speed for your next move action

7 comments:

  1. What program are people using to create these? I have some photo editing stuff that I've played with, but it doesn't work super well.

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  2. Both MapTool and PyMapper are free, and work reasonably well for making this style of map. I think all of CSR's original maps are made in PyMapper (cite?). I made this image in MapTool in about 5 minutes. It helps if you have a decent library of mapping images/textures/objects.

    I use Photoshop, and luckily I get a free license through work. But the Gimp should be almost as good - you might want to try GimpShop, which makes it quite a bit more user-friendly. Every time I try to use Gimp on my netbook, I get frustrated and just wait until I'm back on my desktop.

    With what it sounds like you have available, I would probably suggest MapTool, scour the cartographer boards for images, and then clean up in Gimp.

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  3. Awesome, thanks for the input. I'm currently working on one I stole with a little gis and now I'm reworking it to give some personality and lots of death.

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  4. @Angille: Great map! I love the capture the flag element, and just the whole base concept itself (something we haven't seen in a FTDM map yet).

    @Bohrdumb: I used photoshop for Court of the Storm Lord. I have a library of mapping images from various cartography forums that I use.

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  5. @everyone: Thanks for all the help and comments - this process is exactly what I needed! I'm (ever so slowly) working on reformatting the code for the powers, etc. I exported directly from Evernote, which evidently has abysmal HTML output. CSS FTW!

    Anyway, changes coming. Any critique on the map itself, or just the powers/items?

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  6. I just want to add that I LOVE the bonus effects of the items with skill training. Its such a clever way to make skill choices relevant without burdening the map with skill checks.

    I'll be stealing this idea in the future.

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  7. @Rwaluchow - it's an idea I got from listening to... I think it was either a Critical Hit or Sly Flourish podcast. They were talking about how to make Solo battles better, and having special attacks or whatnot based on skill training rather than rolls.

    And yeah, it seems to fit pretty well with FTDM.

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