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DM Resources Eberron

Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 1)

Eberron is a world awash in intrigue and danger. The Last War is over but many of its secrets linger on. Armies continue to skirmish and raid across the borders. Royal Courts are awash with deception. Dragonmarked Houses vie for continued economic and political power.

The Day of Mourning may have brought the open conflict to an end, but the silent cold war continues. As the war waged on discoveries were made and secrets were kept. The House Sivis Repository and the Blood Fields of House Tharashk are two closely guarded secrets that came out of the war.

Discover more Secrets of Eberron Revealed in our latest installments of this ongoing series.

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DM Resources Player Resources

Your Coin is No Good Here

“That’ll be two gold for the drinks and the meal,” says the waitress as she clears your plates and refills your mugs.
“Here you go, darling” says Braddoc the Fighter as he slides a few coins across the table. “This should take care of the bill along with a few extra for you.”
“Um, thanks,” she says as she eyes the coins awkwardly.
“What’s the problem?” ask Braddoc.
“You have to pay in real money. I can’t take these strange coins.”

Many aspects of D&D are simplified in order to make the game run smoothly. Currency squarely falls into this category. Currency in D&D is typically the same regardless of where you are in the campaign world and what you’re trying to buy. What 1 gp buys in your home town is generally what 1 gp buys in the next town. But if you’re looking to add a little bit of flavour to your next campaign why not treat money in D&D a little bit more like it’s handled in real life?

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DM Resources

Your AC Is What?!?

The evenings gaming session is going great. So far you’ve had some great role playing, a unique skill challenge and now you’re entering the first encounter of the evening. The defender charges into combat. The NPC’s turn comes up and you decide to attack the defender by using one of the NPC’s encounter powers. You roll the dice and call out the attack score. This is going to hit you think, only to have the defender calmly announce that you’ve missed his AC by a long shot.

What do you do when session after session you can never hit the defender or when one player min/maxs their character to the point of absurdity?

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Back to School

There comes a time in every adventurer’s career when they need to do something that is beyond their skill-set. In most cases it’s probably something that they’ve never had any need to do before or never expect that they would have to do themselves. When this happens, the DM can simply say that you spend time training or he can make the training sessions a little bit more exciting and throw this skill challenge at you.

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Editorial

Does Character Builder Limit Creativity?

The character builder is great. I’d even go so far as to say that it’s the most important and valuable resource currently available for 4e D&D. It makes creating new character fast and easy. It incorporates all legal source materials from Wizards of the Coast and makes them available with the click of a button. From what I saw at GenCon it looks like the vast majority of gamers are using the character builder. The days of pen and paper character creation are gone. But is this acceptance by the masses of the character builder a good thing?

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Class Discussions

Playing In An Unbalanced Party

The PHB suggests that all adventuring parties should have at least one PC representing each of the four roles: controller, defender, leader and striker. Most parties, in my experience generally follow this guideline. But what happens when this balance is disrupted. What if your party make-up is missing some of the roles? How will that affect your game?

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DM Resources

Snakes On An Airship

Snakes on an AirshipThe Lyrander airship cleared the Endworld Mountains and cruised above the Blade Desert. The journey from Q’barra was pleasant and the captain expects to arrive at the Boneyard ahead of schedule. A cry from the crow’s nest signals trouble. Riders are seen in the distance. The number of hippogryph’s is astounding. Ridden by Halfling warriors they quickly form up and attack. Three of the hippogryph’s break off from the main force and pass over the deck of the ship. The riders release a crate that smashes on to the deck below, covering it in very angry snakes.

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DM Resources

Has Your Campaign Stalled? (Part 2)

Another week has passed and your players have packed up and left. You sit at the table and realize this session didn’t go any better than last week’s. You tried to change things up, but your players still left looking bored and you’re stressed.

You already tried the tips and suggestions we gave you the last time your campaign stalled and they just didn’t do the trick. You made sure you had tougher challenges and you changed the plot on your players. You even made your super-villain run away so he could live to fight another day. Still you can’t help but think that there was something more that you could have done.

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Eberron Editorial

An Open Letter to Wizards of the Coast on the D&D Championship

Dear Wizards,

At this year’s GenCon I participated in my very first D&D Championship. My team did remarkably well and we advanced to the final round. Unfortunately we did finish in the top three and did not win any prizes. Looking back on my experience with the 2009 D&D Championship I have some feedback for you, and for anyone thinking of participating in this kind of event at future cons.

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Book Reviews Player Resources

Wizards of the Coast: 2009-2010 Release Schedule

Wizards of the Coast shared some highlights of their upcoming release schedule through the next year. I’ve compiled the list for your easy access. Where possible I’ve provided a link to the Wizards of the Coast product description and a link to Amazon.com. If you want to see what the covers of these upcoming releases look like, click though. Some of the products releasing much later in the year do not have links available at this time. I’ll try to keep this page up to date and add the links in as I see that they’ve become available. So bookmark this page and keep coming back throughout the next year to find out what Wizards is releasing next.