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Class Discussions

Necromancer: Heroic Tier (Revised)

Necromancer
Necromancer

Today we revisit the Necromancer and powers for the Heroic Tier. One of the things I miss most from 3e are specialist Wizards. I’m honestly surprised that this hasn’t been addressed by Wizards of the Coast. Though I suppose they have decided to go in a different direction with the Wizard class in 4e. A big thanks to Wyatt of Spirits of Eden who provided a critique on our original post of Necromancer Heroic Powers.

On a day to day basis I’m amazed at the amount of people who are finding Dungeon’s Master by searching the key word ‘Necromancer’. These posts, which are amongst our first, continue to get a lot of traffic. This revision of our original Necromancer Heroic Tier postcleans up some of the language and also adjusts the power level of the powers. With 4e having been out for a year and a half we’ve had the opportunity to play through heroic tier, and that combined with Wyatt’s observations bring this post back to the forefront, just in time for Hallowe’en.

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Humour Player Resources

Survive a Zombie Attack by Using the Zombie Survival Flowchart

Are you prepared for a zombie attack? Would you be one of the poor schlubs who gets eaten in the first hours of the zombie apocalypse or are you one of those fanatics who is ready for this unlikely, worst-case-scenario? If you’re anything like the team at Dungeon’s Master then you’re probably not going to survive very long if zombies ever rise up and attack humanity.

In case of a zombie attack, be it in your next D&D adventure or in real life, we want you to survive. To ensure that the human race stands strong when the undead rise, we’ve created a flowchart outlining what you can do to survive a zombie attack. Things will no doubt be chaotic when the zombies come for you, so the flow chart only covers the absolute essentials. Good luck!

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Unlock the Phylactery

The Lich
The Lich

In our earlier skill challenge, the PCs defeated a Lich and managed to find its phylactery. Liches are wily combatants and they plan for all contingencies, including having their phylactery found. If the PCs thought vanquishing a Lich was based on pure combat, then they didn’t do their research properly.

This is the second of two skill challenges that deals with Liches and their phylacteries. In part 1 the PCs must Find The Phylactery and in part 2 the PCs must Unlock The Phylactery.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Find the Phylactery

phylacteryDefeating a Lich is not a simple as overcoming it in combat. Liches tie their life force to objects known as phylacteries. The phylactery can range from mundane to mystical. Each Lich has their own preference on what constitutes an acceptable phylactery. What Liches have in common is that their Phylactery is to be well hidden and well protected.

This is the first of two skill challenges that deals with Liches and their phylacteries. In part 1 the PCs must Find The Phylactery and in part 2 the PCs must Unlock The Phylactery.

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Player Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Focus: Religion

The most common use for knowledge skills is to identify monsters and perform rituals. The knowledge skills tend to take a back seat to social and physical skills during most skill challenges. The knowledge skills are so tightly focused that most players assume these skills have a limited scope. But this doesn’t mean that they have limited uses. It’s up to players to be imaginative and creative.

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DM Resources Editorial

Using Fear: Scare the Player, Not the Character

How do you scare a PC? It’s not as simple as you think. With any role-playing situation, the emotions of the PC need to be separated from the emotions of the player running the PC. So just because something scares Delian the Paladin doesn’t mean it’s going to scare me the player. It’s up to me to role-play my PC’s actions and emotions accordingly. The more I’m willing to get into character the more effective this kind of situation will be.

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DM Resources

Using Undead Intelligently

Hallowe’en is just around the corner and in the spirit of the occasion we wanted to look at undead and how to use them in your campaign. Of particular interest are intelligent undead and how you as a DM can use those interests to your advantage.

Vampires and lichs hold a special place in D&D lore. Some of the greatest villains have been drawn from their ranks. This is due to their longevity, access to resources and single minded desire to complete their objectives.

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Editorial

Changes are Coming to the RPG Bloggers Network, Update Your Blogroll

Following up on Wimwick’s thoughts On the RPG Bloggers Network from this morning, I wanted to add a few additional things to the discussion. To the guys behind the scenes, thank you. Your hard work did not go unnoticed. The RPG Bloggers Network has been very good to Dungeon’s Master, and we’d like to think that we’ve returned the favour by driving readers back to the Network. I credit our involvement in the Network as one of the big keys to our early success.

The RPG blogging community is a fantastic fraternity of enthusiastic gamers who feel so passionately about RPGs that they use their free time to write article, create resources, and share their ideas and experiences with other gamers. We may not all see eye-to-eye on every topic, but debates that stem from these disagreement often give all of us a better understanding of a given situation.

Categories
Editorial

On The RPG Bloggers Network

This past week has been a momentous one for the RPG Bloggers Network. The founding members have decided to step aside and hand the reins over to someone new. Of course this decision didn’t necessarily come about through a desire to move onto new projects, rather it was born out of conflict.

First, I must tip my hat to the founding member of the Network. Thank you for your work and your passion. Your desire to foster a community of like-minded bloggers has benefited us all.

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Player Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Focus: Diplomacy

After Perception, Diplomacy seems to be the skill used most often in my games. Any time your PC finds himself in a social situation you know that you’re going to end up making a Diplomacy check. But Diplomacy is more that just talking the talk. It’s usually about knowing what to say and how to say it. Your PC’s body language can also have as much of an impact as the words coming out of his mouth.