Categories
DM Resources

Campaign Design: Prevalence of Magic & Cosmology

What would a fantasy setting be without magic and divine beings fighting their celestial wars? At this point you have decided which historical and fictional elements to use in defining your campaign world. You are now ready to start fleshing the world out in greater detail.

Categories
Book Reviews Eberron

Review: When Night Falls

when-night-falls

When Night Falls
(The Lanternlight Files, Book 2)
Parker Dewolf

An Eberron Novel

Plot Summary

Sharn, City of Towers. The rich and affluent live in the highest peaks and have views of blue sky by day and the stars by night. The poor live in the furthest reaches at the base of the towers and possess little. They live in squalor and struggle for survival. Even hope is a rare commodity in the lower levels of Sharn. The lines between classes are clearly drawn as you look up and down the towers. Few cross these lines freely. Evil does not recognize such arbitrary lines.

Categories
Class Discussions Player Resources

Familiars Have Arrived

Yesterday, Ameron congratulated Wizards of the Coast for removing familiars from 4e D&D. While many of you may agree that familiars were an unnecessary game mechanic that added little value, others may miss the little critters. We’ve since learned that Wizards is bringing back familiars later this year in Arcane Power. But for those of you who don’t want to wait that long, we present our take on familiars.

Why would someone miss familiars you might ask? Let’s take a look why this might be the case. Familiars are cool. That’s right, having a hawk circling the battlefield or a snake wrapped around your staff is just a cool statement about your Wizard. It adds to your PC’s personality and can provide for some interesting role playing. Is that a Ferret in your pocket or…?

Categories
Class Discussions Player Resources

Where Are The Familiars?

During my weekly game the person playing the Wizard made an interesting observation. D&D 4e is the first edition of the game not to offer the Wizard class the option of taking a familiar. I have yet to play a Wizard in 4e and even if I had I don’t know if I would have even noticed this omission. I’ve never liked familiars. They always felt like an afterthought to the spell casting classes. In my opinion we can say good riddance to bad rubbish. Good call, Wizards of the Coast!

Categories
DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Travelling Underground

The PCs travel through a particularity hazardous section of underground passages.

Setup

  • The PCs are searching for a long lost treasure or artifact. Their search has led them deep underground.
  • Miners from a nearby community discover a preexisting passage that leads deep underground. The PCs are hired to explore the cavern and see where it leads.
  • An escaped criminal flees through a cavernous mountain passage. The PCs are hired to capture him.

This skill challenge is broken into five encounters. In order to overcome the skill challenge the PCs must complete all five encounters. The DM can present the encounters in any order he sees fit. Each encounter will indicate the maximum number of successes that can be earned during that encounter. Failures are cumulative and carry forward through the entire skill challenge.

Categories
Month in Review

Month in Review: February 2009

We’ve reached our first significant milestone: Dungeon’s Master has been live for one month. As we promised in our first post, we published one new article every day during February. Thank you to all the readers who have checked us out and kept coming back. We welcome your comments and feedback, so please let us know what you think.