Month: April 2010

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Creating and Running Engaging Skill Challenges (Part 1)

The best skill challenges pose a very open-ended problem to the party. Open-ended problems allow for a diversity of possible approaches as well as interpretations of the actual nature of the problem. The other great virtue of open-ended problems is that they have the unique ability to develop in any number of directions allowing for a multitude of possible resolutions. Good skill challenges allow the party to overcome the problem presented to them in their own way while forcing them to interact with increasing complications. These challenges allow the party to exercise their wide range of skills as they see fit and interact with the results that they generate. Perhaps an example is in order.

The Dungeon’s Master team welcomes Bauxtehude, our newest contributor and author of today’s post. We’ve written a lot of article on skill challenges and thought Bauxtehude’s take on the subject provides new and exciting insights.

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Player Resources

Have You Retrained Today?

One of the great aspects of 4e is it officially recognized retraining. Finally, we had a formal rule for the process of substituting a power or a feat. In previous versions this aspect of the game was either forbidden or house ruled. Now, the concept itself isn’t a big stretch. The idea of swapping this power for that one isn’t new. What is new is the recognition of the game creator to enable this as an official rule.

I’m well aware that many other gaming systems have had such rules for a long time, but D&D has not. Now, you might be wondering what’s the big deal. If I’m not happy with my character I’ll simply change it or speak with my DM about the problem. Fair enough and in most instances a change is able to be made. What happens if you only play RPGA games though and you don’t have a real mechanism to make the changes you desire because a new source book has been released?

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters (Week 5)

D&D Encounters is a 12-part adventure from Wizards of the Coast and it’s played out one encounter each week over the next 12 weeks.

I was very happy when we were allowed to take an extended rest at the start of this week’s encounter. I learned afterward that the adventure is broken into three chapters and that week 5 was the beginning of chapter two (which explains the exciting cliffhanger-like ending last week).

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DM Resources

Adding Favours to Treasure Bundles

“Your reward for rescuing the Duke’s daughter is a magical weapon, a suit of enchanted armor and a favour.”

As D&D characters become more and more powerful they always seem to become filthy rich along the way. At first they reinvest their newly gotten gains in themselves, purchasing new weapons, armor and magical items. But after a few levels they have everything they need and they start accumulating wealth. Massive amounts of wealth.

I have numerous characters at or above level 10 and all of them have thousands of gold pieces recorded on their character sheet. And the money continues piling up as they continue adventuring. Now I can spend the cash for the sake of spending the cash, but honestly there’s nothing that these character want or need. They already have magic items in every item slot of their character sheet. Eventually these PCs hit a point where any monetary rewards become inconsequential. I mean what can you buy with 20,000 gp that you couldn’t buy with 15,000 gp?

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Player Resources

Character Creation: The Importance Of Planning Ahead

If you’re anything like me you spend a substantial amount of time planning your PC’s advancement ahead of time. You debate about feats, powers and item selection. You wonder what each new source book may bring. Will a new paragon path open up a better role-playing opportunity for you? Will a new feat allow you to further optimize your PC in combat? While you may ponder these questions, you realize that in planning ahead you need to work with what you have and make adjustments as new source books are released. Of course if you aren’t like me, then by the time you realize the shortcomings of your PC it’s far too late to do anything about it.

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Editorial

Fighting an Opponent You Can’t Beat

Dragon's Lair by Matt Stawicki

As PCs you think that you’re invincible. You assume that no matter what the DM puts in front of you, you can defeat it. After all, you’re the heroes. Sure some fights may be tougher than others, but if the DM’s read the DMG and set up the encounter according to the rules then every fight is beatable. But what if that’s not the case?

In a recent game my DM created a super-monster that was significantly tougher than the PCs. The intent was to give the PCs an opponent that they needed to work up to. The problem was that the party (me included) assumed that if and when we found the monster that we should fight it immediately, just like we would with any other combatant. When we finally found the creature we (predictably) ran headlong into battle.

After two grueling hours of combat we still had no clue that we were in way over our heads. In fact, we thought we were doing a pretty good job of killing the monster. And then one of my companions said to the DM, “Since we’re down to just our at-will powers, are you willing to call the fight, otherwise this could drag out for a long time?” to which the DM replied, “This monster is no where near dead. I’m not calling the fight.”

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Categories
Player Resources

The Shardmind

With the release of the PHB3 we have four new player character races to add to our available choices. Today I want to consider the Shardmind, beings of raw psionic energy barely contained in a body of gleaming crystalline shards.The Shardmind is built for the purpose of supporting the new psionic power source classes. Of course the Shardmind is also capable of doing much more than this as the player can select how they’d like their ability scores distributed. I’m of mixed minds about the Shardmind, part of me wants to love this race, another part isn’t too sure.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters (Weeks 3 & 4)

D&D Encounters is a 12-part adventure from Wizards of the Coast and it’s played out one encounter each week over the next 12 weeks.

What’s in store for seasons two and three of the D&D Encounters program? We have some rumours and some facts. But first, our ongoing coverage continues as we share our thought and feedback from D&D Encounters (weeks 3 & 4).

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DM Resources

Time in D&D

Raise your hand if you’ve ever created a level 1 PC, entered a dungeon, killed a bunch of monsters, gained a bunch of levels while still inside the dungeon and then realized that only a few weeks of actual in-game time passed when you emerge. I know I’m not the only one reading this that has his hand up.

Time in D&D is an aspect of the game I find is overlooked way too often. Tracking time in your game may not be that big a deal, but the longer you continue playing that same PC the more important time becomes.

So just how long does it take to go from level 1 to level 2? In 4e D&D it takes about 10-13 encounters or about four gaming sessions. But what I really want to know is how much time passes in-game between levels?

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DM Resources Editorial

I Want Individual Rewards in D&D

Is having a good time reward enough for playing D&D? Hell no! I want treasure and I want XP. I’ve earned it. Gimme, gimme, gimme. I’ll admit that as a player I fall pretty squarely into this camp. Having a good time and socializing with friends is a great part of playing D&D, but what I look forward to most at the end of the session is the reward. And thanks to the mechanics of 4e D&D I’m rarely disappointed.

The rules for rewarding players are so simple and streamlined that I know at the start of the night what I can expect by the end of the night. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing at all. By having some general foreknowledge of what I’m risking my PC’s life for, I’m more strongly motivated to rush headlong into a fight with a dragon or attempt to decipher the ancient glyphs protecting the entrance to the lost treasure trove.

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