Synergistic Effects and Contraindications in Herbal Magic

One of the things I wanted to do when I introduced a bunch of magical herbs in my 4e campaign was to eventually come up with some kind of mechanic to resolve the unintended consequences of mixing medicines.    I decided early on that I didn't want to try and make an exhaustive chart of every possible combination, because that would get ridiculous very quickly with the number of different magical herbs and elements we are talking about here.

This issue came to the fore again last session when Tilia was faced with a daunting magical challenge and she ate some vile smelling fungal growth and a wing of the staring moth to gain bonuses they would give to her arcana check (both items collected during the course of the campaign).

This is still tentative but I have a rough mechanic.  For each pair of herbs ingested, roll 1d20.  A result of 1 indicates a contraindication and a result of 20 indicates an unexpected beneficial effect.  When more than two herbs are ingested at once, roll for each individual pair and also once for the entire unique combination.

 I have a very rough start on contraindication and unexpected beneficial effect tables (these definitely need to be expanded to at least d20 tables - leave suggestions in the comments?):  EDIT:  Mike, player in my 4e campaign and sometimes poster on this blog, sent me an email with a bunch of great suggestions for this that I will be incorporating into these tables soon.

Contraindication Table: 1d12

Remember to tell your doctor about every magical herb you are currently taking when discussing a new prescription!

1. This combination of herbs severely strains the heart.  If strenuous physical activity is engaged in the next 2d6 hours there is a risk of heart attack (this could be a Fort attack in 4e with the potential to do enough damage to kill, or a Save vs. Death in earlier editions).

2.  This combination of herbs inhibits the body's ability to process alcohol for 1d4 days.  Not only will alcoholic beverages be dramatically more potent, the drunk will last for the entire duration and a number of drinks = 1/3 Constitution could result in death by alcohol poisoning. 

3. Combining these herbs interferes with the efficacy of magical healing.  -2 per die on all magical healing for 1d4 days.

4.  These herbs just don't work very well together.  1 (1-5 on d6) or both (6 on d6) of the herbs work at 1/2 normal effect (whatever that is) when combined.

5.  Severe light sensitivity results for 1d6 days, blinded in full daylight and -2 to hit in bright to moderately lit rooms.  If a 6 is rolled for duration, the light sensitivity continues for another 1d6 days.  If a 6 is rolled on 3 successive checks, the effect is permanent.

6.  A numbing of all physical sensations occurs, causing a -4 penalty to Dexterity and the inability to feel pain for 2d4 hours.  

7.  Do not combine these herbs when pregnant.  This could be as simple as a chance of miscarriage or as crazy as a chance of magical birth defects.  Alternatively this could pollute the semen of male characters for 3d10 days, either causing sterility or hyperfertility for the character and magical birth defects for any children conceived during that period.

8.  One of the herbs (randomly determined) does not function at all while the other functions at 150% normal efficacy.

9.  A severe drowsiness results, a fast and unavoidable sleep descending in 3d6 rounds and lasting 2d30 hours.  Although pain or sudden loud noise can wake the character, sleep will return in 3d6 rounds until the original duration has passed.

10.  A slow process of petrification starts.  This initially manifests as +2 to AC and -4 to REF.  Over the next 2d6 days, roll a save at -1 cumulative per day the petrification has progressed.  Each failed save results in an additional +2 to AC and -4 to REF.  Each successful save reverses one days effects (if the first save is made the petrification ceases).  When REF reaches 0, the body is turned completely into stone and can only be cured through magical means.
11.  Dehydration/nausea results (Thanks Mike!).  Rolling a 1 on any attack/skill check dazes you for 1d4 rounds. Rolling a 1 twice without stopping to rest and rehydrate causes dehydration to the point where you fall unconscious for 1d4 rounds and can not be roused by normal means. Falling unconscious twice in this manner causes you to fall into a coma for 1d4+1 days, where you must seek proper medical treatment via someone trained in the Heal skill. Failing to do so within 2 days means you make a Death saving throw, if successful you stabilize and remain in the coma for an additional 1d4+1 days (added on to the first roll) You may also suffer permanent Ability damage. After 2 more days without medical treatment you automatically perish. Receiving proper medical treatment within 2 days prevents the Death saving throw, but you will remain in your coma for the full duration of your total days rolled. (Min 4 - Max 10)
12.  Combining these herbs can be instantly fatal.  Saving throw or die in 4e (or savings throw vs. Death).

Unexpected Beneficial Side Effect Table: 1d10

1.  A random stat is increased by 1d4 for 1d6x10 minutes.  

2.  These herbs work great together.  1 (1-5 on d6) or both (6 on d6) work at 150% normal efficacy.

3.  This combination reduces fatigue and hunger.  No food or sleep needed for 24 hours.  No side effects.

4.  This combination of herbs restores 3d6 HP or grants 3d6 temporary HP that disappear if not used within 2d8 hours.

5.  Lucky combination: +1 to all rolls for 24 hours

6.  A metabolite of this combination is sweated out and is irresistible to a random species (25% chance of being the same species as the ingester), acting as a love potion upon first exposure and a charm person/monster for subsequent suggestions made by the ingester, for 1d4+1 hours.  Even species not affected will find the body odor of the ingester very appealing for the duration.

7.  Magically toughens the ingester, +2 to AC for 3d6 hours.

8.  Grants telepathy to 50'.  This requires concentration and can only be used on one subject at a time.  Does not require line of site.  All living minds within 50' can be detected and contacted with concentrated effort.

9. Moment of Zen.  Exact effect of this is up to the player and DM.  Suggestions of a mechanical nature would include temporary bonuses to Wisdom, initiative, diplomacy, reaction checks, perception; suggestions of a more flavorful nature would include giving the DM a blank card in the form a character "revelation" (the DM gets to either reveal a secret or make up some shit about the campaign world) or some kind of breakthrough on a personality or character flaw.  This effect can never be intentionally recreated, only occurring as a random side effect of different herbal mixtures.

10.  Restores youthful vigor - lose 1d4 years of age.  Each time this combination of herbs restores youth there is a 1% cumulative chance of developing an irrational and overriding fear of aging.

Standardizing Doses and Duplicating Results

Unless very exacting precautions were taken to both accurately measure the potency of each herbal specimen and the exact amount consumed, combining the same types of herbs will not necessarily yield the same result.  I think a good start would be to give a 25-75% chance of recreating a contraindication or beneficial side effect, with the care taken to measure dosage determining the exact chance.  This assumes the same batch of herbs was used - I would lower these chances if this was not the case.  The 25% chance of failure even given the same herbs and very careful measurement of dosage means that there was some other factor present the first time that is missing.  Perhaps a fly flew in the preparation, or it was a hotter or colder day and the reaction depends on a certain temperature, or it was mixed in a copper bowl the first time and a wooden bowl the second, etc.

Addiction 

Yes of course there should be addiction rules but I really haven't nailed that one down yet.  I am still kicking around what sort of mechanic I want to use for addiction.  I don't want it to be a record keeping game of tracking doses used per period of time, I know that much.

Alternate History Space Race

Sometimes being a DM in the age of the internet feels like cheating.  I'm rolling the dang d30 every time behind the screen and no one notices because everyone is doing it.  I posted a while back about how the internet is a megadungeon.  My new Mars 1990 campaign idea has led me down a tunnel into some interesting caverns lately, like this amazing series of posts at alternatehistory.com which will give me some good starting points for my alternate history space race.  A real life space historian runs a simulation game with five Russians and five Americans players modeling national civilian and military space programs; they have gotten through 1973.  I am certainly not going to go to that level of detail but I do want to do a little reading up on the subject.

Heck, just looking at Wikipedia's broad outline of Cold War events in the 80's gives me a million ideas for the campaign. I have to make some big decisions.  Is George H. W. Bush going to be the President in my game?  I am also very much considering running both US and USSR groups of players through the same campaign.  I have been wanting to finally jump into Google+ gaming and this will be the perfect excuse.  I am envisioning the two parties as ultimately becoming bitter rivals in the race to unlock the secrets of the Martian megadungeons.  I will track time for both parties so that I can tell who gets where first.

Google Mars

Holy crap!  I had no idea there was a Google Mars.  Google Earth was an incredibly useful resource for my Mutant Future campaign and if I end up running with my new alternate history Mars in 1990 campaign idea I know that Google Mars will be just as awesome.  The links to articles and stories on prominent Martian features are excellent starting points for more inspiration.

Google Moon is pretty cool too...

There is a tutorial video at googleplanets.com which explains what you can do with Google Mars, Google Moon, and Google Sky.  It does not mention using these free tools to help run a cold war sci-fi game, but it probably should.

Spy in a Backpack

I have gone many different directions when explaining character absences in RPGs.

Inspired by this post at the Temple of Demogorgon (all bow down to its name)

We had the classic "they were in the bag of holding" routine, as I had long since ruled that if you stuck a tube or straw out of the entrance you could draw oxygen from outside of the pocket dimension. My old 3e campaign took this to another level as two ninjas in that campaign would tie a twine around the bag of holding and attach it to an arrow they would launch from inside the mostly drawn bag, shooting themselves around like little magical fucks.  And I let them do it in the name of cool.

We had the "we don't give a fuck this if fucking Mutant Future and shit is all kinds of crazy anyway" approach.  (sorry totally unrelated link)

In my 4e game a player has been unable to attend for several months but luckily his goblin tinkerer had made an enclosed gunner's turret inside the chest cavity of Hammer the war-forged Barbarian and at the end of the last session he played he was in a trance, his consciousness exploring the dark crystal heart that Hammer's essence had been fused with.  So that dude can come back any time and literally just step out of another player character.

But in this campaign I am talking about starting up, I want players to drop in and out because of espionage.

Secret missions.  Everybody is working for one government or the other (or both) and no one is surprised if someone gets yanked from one mission to do something else for a bit.  Nor is it surprising when spies drop back in unexpectedly.  There is a home base to get back to before you run out of oxygen.

Spies in a backpack, y'all.

Campaign Idea - Alternate History Mars in 1990

Received some transmissions from the blogosphere today.  This fascinating post on an alternate U.S. space exploration history that could have been really makes me want to start a campaign on Mars.  It is the story of a proposed re-usable single stage booster which would have led to a lunar colony by 1978 and manned missions to Mars by 1986.

 I have been itching to run a Mars campaign since I read the Barsoom books a few years back in my quest to learn more about D&D's literary roots, and I have been wanting to run a Traveller campaign for some time.  I am loving the idea of a campaign set in an alternate 1990 or so, 4 years after the first manned Mars mission revealed vast underground complexes left behind (apparently) by an ancient Martian civilization.  I want to hork Travellers character generation mini-game (modified for alternate history 1980's, obviously) but use modded B/X D&D for the ruleset.  Setting it in 1990 would mean that the Soviet Union was still there, and I would propose that the alternate history would provide a new space race that would keep the Soviet Union together.  Gawd I am getting excited about this!  Megadungeon meets Mars meets Traveller meets Cold War!

I love this level of tech for a sci-fi space game.  I could use our real life tech levels of the campaign years, with the internet being a rich and never ending resource in that regard.  

I am not 100% sure if I am going to abandon the sci-fi fantasy Polynesian Islander-analog campaign that I have been working on or possibly try to do both, but I am definitely going to be putting some more thought into this idea. 

Blood Tattoo Magic

Blood tattoo magic is practiced by the seven city-states of the Zamonas delta in my 4e campaign.  It was first encountered by the party when the royal tax collector from Siss-Anor showed up at the village of the song people far upstream in the jungle to collect the annual tribute in slaves.  The party had been meeting with the local big man Kore (the song people, like most of the jungle peoples, do not have an organized government per se but each village has a big man, the man able to marshal the most resources through calling in favors, threats, marrying off daughters, providing the most food for feasts, etc.) when the news of the tax collector's arrival spread through the village.  Accompanying Kore to the river's edge, the party marveled at the paddle-wheeler with the scorpion tail that had carried the tax collector and his men upstream.

The tax collector (also the sheriff, basically the lone extension of the laws of the city state this far upriver) and his two deputies  were both heavily tattooed, but the tax collector in particular was almost completely covered in large, colorful designs.  As he strode forward he raised his right hand and displayed a prominent eye tattoo on his palm.  Beautiful Bob's player did not skip a beat, and Beautiful Bob raised his hand up as well and caused an eye to manifest on his palm (Beautiful Bob fused his body with a gibbering mouther a while back in a dark ritual and can manifest eyes and mouths now).  The eye tattoo happened to be a mark of the sheriff's office and he took this as an insult at the least and a treasonous crime punishable by death more likely, and strode forward.  Blood flowed from a sack hanging at his waist up into a series of blotchy dark tattoos that covered his torso and he transformed into a giant jaguar.

A fun combat ensued, the paddlewheeler had a metal edged prow and keel and clawed hands on the wheels that allowed it churn away on dry land, and the fight ended when Beautiful Bob steered the ship's wheels over the sheriff as he was engaged in combat with Hammer.  The sheriff took several forms, the blood flowing from the tattoos back into the bag, and then out again into new tattoos as the fight progressed.  He was in the form of a giant scorpion when he was finally minced up by the magically powered paddle-wheeler.

This of course led to a lengthy investigation by the players into how this tattoo magic worked.  Here I present the fruits of their labor.

The blood that fuels the tattoos is the condensed essence of sacrificed humans.  One human sacrifice = 1 dose of tattoo blood = 100 drops of tattoo blood.  Even the most minor blood tattoo magic requires 1 dose to activate.  No tattoo has any magical properties unless activated by blood.  The jaguar form that the sheriff first took was a 2 dose form, while the scorpion was a 3 dose form.  Activating a tattoo does not consume the blood, so the number of doses of tattoo blood possessed determines the level of magic able to be activated rather than the number of times the magic could be used.

Tattoo blood can be ingested orally as a powerful stimulant and mood enhancer.  Small amounts (a "normal" dose, about 1 drop of blood or .01 dose per 100lbs body weight) grant a temporary magical bonus of +4 to all stats and the ability to "take 15" on any skill check.  Tattoo blood is highly addictive and those who succumb to its temptation are known as "juicers" (of course).  They soon waste away and become hollow shells of themselves unless they consume an ever increasing amount of tattoo blood each day to achieve normalcy.

Moving blood from the sack to a tattoo is a minor action, and moving blood from a tattoo back to the sack is a minor action.  Blood cannot be directly exchanged between tattoos.

Minor tattoos are the equivalent of at will, encounter or utility powers in D&D 4e and usually take 1 dose to activate.  When activated by blood, they give access to extra powers normally not available to a character.  I will give examples of minor blood tattoos later in the post.

Tattoo forms take 2 or more doses to activate and are beasts of another feather altogether.  Each tattoo form has HP and defenses that do not change relative to the character.  When the character takes a full rest, the HP of all her tattoo forms refresh.  Each tattoo form is basically a new monster, with its own movement and assortment of attacks and special abilities.  If reduced to 0 HP or fewer while in tattoo form, the blood flows back into the bag and the character is dazed until the end of her next turn.  Some tattoos are daily forms, which can only be activated once between extended rests.

Blood tattoo magic is highly regulated, and only specialized ritual priests have the tools needed to make the tattoos and the knowledge to prepare the sack that holds the precious blood.  The sack is made from the hide of the Ura-Tur (a swamp bogeyman that specializes in snatching victims and draining their fear from them while hiding them from nearby comrades), a leather as transparent as the clearest plastic and much stronger.  The needles used are ura-tur spines and the ink is the color-shifting blood of the ura-tur.  Certain tattoos denote royal lineage and every named house has a distinctive tattoo as well.  Some of the wealthier unnamed houses have donated handsomely to the temple coffers to procure their own tattoos for house members to sport (only 7 houses denoted by the pre-fix "al" before the house name are considered to be actual named houses.  3 of those seven are royal houses that trace lineage to the earliest kings of Siss-Anor.  There are several unnamed houses that command more actual power and wealth than any of the named houses, but they do not have the official prestige nor access to many proscribed tattoos).  Many occupational guilds also have their own tattoos that mark entrance into their membership.

Common soldiers, guildsmen, house members and the like never have more than 1 dose of blood.  The number of doses of blood in a person's bag is a direct correlation to status and influence.  It is considered an embarrassment of the worst sort to be unable to activate a tattoo because of excessive juicing.  Sul al-Tuz, the royal tax collector who got waxed by the party, was a well known juicer.  He could not even transform into the 5 dose phoenix form of the royal house of Tuz, his birthright, and died ingloriously in scorpion form as a result.  Nobody much liked Sul al-Tuz and his assignment of upstream tax-collector was a punishment, but he was still of noble blood and the party had to scramble to cover up their role in his death.

Here are a few examples of minor tattoos and tattoo forms:  I have made up quite a few more, which I hope to post barring my usual laziness.  These have worked really well in combat, giving me a lot of fun tactical options. Starting with several minor tattoos activated and then switching to different forms as the fight progresses makes a tattooed adversary very memorable.

Minor Tattoos:  

Open Eye of Justice 1 dose tattoo, official mark of an officer in the military who can act as judge in representation of the city state outside of the city proper.
Recharge 6
Close Blast 5
+15 vs. Will vs. all enemies in blast.  Those hit are blinded and slowed for 1d 4 rounds.  All allies in blast gain +2 to attack and damage for the same duration.

Soaring Hawk 1 dose tattoo, a military tattoo
at will power
minor: close burst 20, 1 target in burst.  +12 vs. Will, the target is slowed (save ends).  Effect: the target is marked until the end of your next turn.  If the target violates the mark they are knocked prone.

Shifting Panther 1 dose tattoo, a military tattoo
at will power
minor: shift 3 squares and gain combat advantage against one adjacent enemy until the end of your next turn.

Tattoo Forms:

Jaguar 2 dose tattoo form, special mark of the honor guard (military tattoo)

HP:250/

AC:22

REF:25

FORT:22

WILL: as tattoo wearer +5

Movement: 8  Swim: 4 Climb: 6 Jump:6

Basic Attacks:

Claw (+17 vs. AC, 2d8+4), bite (+17 vs. FORT, 3d8+8)

Standard:
Claw/Claw/Bite

Pounce: Jump 6 and make the following attack, +17 vs. REF, 6d8+36, must be at least 1 square away at the beginning of the action

Recharge 5,6: roar, close blast 3, +17 vs. FORT, push 3 squares and knock prone

Special:  If an enemy grants combat advantage, standard attack: Skull Bite, +17 vs. FORT, 6d8+36

I might come back to this post later and add the 3 dose giant scorpion form used by sheriff Sul al-Tuz.

The Fractured Deity

The players in my 4e campaign have returned from exploring an alien planet to the rainy season in the jungle. One of their first orders of business was checking up on various local friends and informants to see what had happened in their absence.  One of the interesting bits of news was that several new religious cults had sprung up along the banks of the Zamonas worshiping the river god.  This was not particularly surprising to the party as they had long known of the prophecy that a specially prepared temple maiden was going to give birth to a new river god at the time of the eclipse.  In fact, the party had even traveled back in time/journeyed to an alternate reality in order to prevent the temple maiden Akili from abandoning her post and committing sacrilege with Old Man Gooty after encountering Akili and Gooty's ungodly child Slotek, so they were pleased to hear that the river god was making a comeback and assumed that their interference with the natural order of things had resulted in the prophecy being fulfilled.  The PCs had also left some precious living spirit beetles (this post explains a little about the spirit beetles) with Akili when they dropped her off back in time thousands of years ago and hoped that they would spend the intervening eons feeding off the magical energies of the temple chamber and multiply.  Tilia had set up some magical circuitry to keep the environment inside the temple perfect for optimal spirit beetle breeding and the party was really looking forward to collecting a handsome harvest of spirit beetle.

Luckily, the world does what I say it does because I play the DM so everything did not go as planned...  When the temple magics were activated by the eclipse and the spirit of the river was invited into the sacred chamber, the mating ritual was augmented by the incredible stored energy of all those spirit beetles.   The temple circuitry was overloaded and Akili and the river spirit, rather than giving birth to a new god, were fused together in a burst of psychic energy that washed out over the flooded landscape and inspired visions in a legion of receptive dreaming minds.  The cultists of the river god awoke with a new purpose in life.

The party learned that the river god had been manifesting in many different physical forms and had been taking a very active interest in affairs along the river.  One terrifying aspect of the new god was an insubstantial waterfall of energy that "fell" horizontally and washed away anything in its path.  This was the form the river took when it broke the magical bonds that had held its main channel from meandering away from the coastal city of Siss-Anor, and the form that destroyed the great navy of that city state.  More benevolently, the river had taken on giant (25' tall) human forms, a comely man or woman, depending on the manifestation, and assisted travelers and riverbank communities in various fashions.  An androgynous humanoid form, even taller (50') had been seen but its activities remained mysterious.  An awesome water dragon was the other most commonly reported form that the party heard about.

When the song people told the party that there was a well established camp of cultists not far up stream, the party jumped in their new hovercraft (created from alien materials with an artificial gas cloud intelligence over the last few sessions on the alien planet) and paid the cultists a visit.

Beautiful Bob did his usual psychic detective work and soon the party learned that the charismatic leader of this group of cultists, Satalio, was actually a clay golem animated with a spark of the divine essence of the river.  Satalio, in short, was a tiny fragment of the river god, although he did not seem to be aware of this fact.  Bob and Tilia soon learned (with a bunch of mucking around in other people's minds and peering through the shadow world and some very fortuitous rolls) that in the moment of conjugal union between Akili and the river spirit, the tremendous energy explosion fueled by the spirit beetles actually resulted in the river god fusing with many of the stronger and more receptive minds within a rather large area.  This resulted in a fractured or fragmented deity, with many different aspects that seemingly operated independently of each other.  Indeed, slavers from another river cult raided Satalio's encampment during a feast that night, and Tilia was deeply repulsed to learn that these slavers utilized the blood tattoo magic of the city state but had a river dragon tattoo form.  For some reason this combination of human sacrificial magic (the blood tattoos) and natural river magic really repulsed Tilia.  

Despite this, Bob managed to convince Tilia that it was in the party's best interest to NOT make an enemy of the blood tattoo river cult without at least meeting with them first to learn more about their goals.  After thwarting the slaver's mission (they seemed to be after several of Satalio's young cultists that came from royal families back in Siss-Anor, probably for ransom), the party allowed the tattooed river cultists to escape and secured a guarantee of safe passage into their camp for the purpose of parlaying with their leader (Ruskus, a former captain of the royal guard who led many of his men in revolt after receiving visions from the river).

The next several sessions are setting up to be mostly investigative, which I like, as the party tries to learn more about the different forms of the fractured deity, the cults that worship each form, and what the goals of these various factions are.  I am hoping to make a post about the blood tattoo cultists soon, if the party follows through and actually meets with them.

Logical Magic and Components

(this post grew out of comments I made on this post about material components over at The Lands of Ara blog)

I love the concept of spell components but in D&D they mostly seem to be limiters on magic casting; if you want to cast this spell, you must first invest X amount of GP in the component cost (or quest to find the components, which seems cool but hardly ever seems to happen).

In other words, the components don't do anything cool and all they do is suck from the perspective of a caster.

I have actually spent a lot of time tinkering around with different component based magic systems and I use a lot of this in my 4e game. Components become fun when they have magical properties in and of themselves. I like to use them like a combination of a spell scroll/potion (the component can be consumed, either ingested or consumed by magic in casting, to cause a certain effect) and a spell building block (combining different components to create new effects).

I like magic to be "logical", inasmuch as that is possible, so a creature that has a magical ability usually either has some kind of organ or gland that relates to that ability and which could be harvested as a material component for a similar magical effect, or the creature feeds on a magical plant or mineral which could be found in the area which also could be used as a component for a magical effect. 

This has the awesome effect of turning random encounters into explorations of how the magical ecosystem of the game works, and often results in all kinds of unexpected plot hooks emerging from play. My campaign maps are covered with marks notating where various plant or mineral components were first discovered in play (most of them emerging from improvised responses to player investigation into the source of a magical ability used against them by a creature), and many of these areas have become destinations in and of themselves for the party as they return to harvest more of the component.

I usually just detail the primary effect/use of the component and then adjudicate on the fly when players start combining components. It is amazing how much more engaged with their environment players become when they realize that plants and animal organs might very well be magical items...

Of course, 4e has abandoned Vancian Fire and Forget style magic, so it fits much better with a component based system of magic. But I am sure you could incorporate similar ideas into traditional D&D style casting. The easiest way would probably be to make components an optional part of the spell, but one that increases the potency of the spell if used. If you actually have some red dragon scale or whatever and use it when you are casting Fireball, maybe it does 1 more damage per die. That way components do something cool, they don't interfere with or limit casting, and you might actually see casters motivated to quest for specific components!

D&D Next survey

I just filled out the online survey about the first playtest materials I got for D&D Next.  I manage an office that conducts market research, so I have a lot of experience with surveys.  This one was nicely executed, not too long, and with enough open ended questions to allow me to feel like I had communicated everything I wanted to about my reactions to the materials.

One thing the D&D Next material has done is make me want to get out the materials from my long defunct 3e campaign and maybe run a one off session or two in the orcish lowlands with the characters from the playtest.  I always statted up my 3e creatures in a stripped down format basically identical to the monster format in the playtest.  I have a ton of low level material that would be perfect to throw against the pregen party.  Maybe this will even inspire me to finally get on the Google+ gaming wagon.