Month: January 2012

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DM Resources Player Resources

Fixed Maximum Hit Points for PCs

What if you never got more hit points that what you began with at level 1? Think about it. As 4e is set up now most PCs begin with around 20 hit points. This is enough to take a couple of hits but you are by no means invulnerable. As you get more XP and level up you start to improve and one thing that comes with each level bump is more hit points. But lately I’ve been wondering how things would change if your maximum hit points were fixed. How would this change D&D?

In previous editions of D&D PCs could begin with as few as 1 hit point. Some PCs were extremely fragile and a single hit from anything could, and often did, kill them. Knowing that PCs were this vulnerable forced players to play smarter. If your PC was likely to die from a single hit you didn’t run blindly into a group of monsters, even if they were only Kobolds or Goblins. Tactics were important because they often made the difference between living and dying.

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DM Resources Editorial

Dungeon Master – The Little Guy in Red Robes

Remember the old D&D Cartoon from the 80s? Six kids are magically transported into the world of Dungeons & Dragons where they fight the forces of evil while trying to find a way home. (See the cartoon intro below). In the cartoon the Dungeons Master was an actual character. He would appear at the beginning of each episode and provide the heroes with a quest; in much the same way the DM does during an actual game of D&D. The DM served as the guide for the characters in the show and the viewers at home. He’d also step in from time to time and give the characters advice or help them out of a really tight jam.

In 4e D&D the DM is not one NPC, rather the DM takes on the roles of every NPC. But wouldn’t it make things easier if Dungeon Master actually was an NPC in your game?

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DM Resources Eberron

Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 13)

The lightning rail changed the way people and good were transported across the Five Nations. It’s become such an important and integral means of cheap and reliable transportation across Khorvaire that it would be hard to image life without it.

House Orien takes great steps to ensure that the trains run on time. They work with House Cannith engineers to keep the mechanics and magic in check, and they employ House Deneith Marshals to maintain order onboard the vehicles. All aspects of running the lighting rail happen so efficiently that most people forget all the work that goes into keeping the train running on time – and that’s just the way House Orien wants it.

The last thing House Orien wants is negative publicity. Although the lightning rail is one of the safest means of travel there are occasional problems. However, when issues arise they are dealt with quickly and quietly.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 8.)

This week we had enough players for two solid tables. I took the under-13 crowd and had five players. The other table took the adult gamers and ran a party of six. We had three bran new players among the groups, none of them having any previous D&D experience. The younger player joined my table, the older players joined the other.

My table ended up with the following compliment: a Bullywug Assassin [Fey Beast Tamer], Deva Cleric, Revenant (Elf) Sorcerer, Fargrim the Dwarf Fighter (Slayer) (pre-gen), Beliel the Drow Warlock (pre-gen). This gave us four strikers and one leader which actually worked out great.

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Player Resources

Take a Break From D&D, Play a Board Game

The announcement that Wizards is working on the next iteration of D&D has created a lot of churn in the gaming community, the online forums and the blogosphere. In light of this flourish of activity we’ve decided to take a step back and look at something a completely different toady – board games.

In addition to being a huge D&D nerd I’m also an avid board game enthusiast. Where my RPG circle tends to include “just the guys,” board games have a much broader appeal. I’ve never been able to get my wife or brother into RPGs, but they love board games. Likewise, I’d never dream of asking my parents to play D&D, but they’ll make a trip to my house for board game night. Board games are generally very easy to learn and don’t have the nerd stigma that a lot of people associate with D&D. It makes them appealing to everyone.

A lot of FLGS in my neighbourhood actually have a slew of board games that you can play in the store. This is a great way to try some new games before you buy them. Purchasing board games from your FLGS (as opposed to a toy store) is yet another way you can support them after you’ve purchased the PHB and DMG.

The next time your gaming group doesn’t have enough people to play D&D, or a critical member of the group is absent (the DM, perhaps), resist the urge to cancel. Get together with your friends and have a good time playing board games. There are a lot of great games on the market today so don’t limit yourself to just Monopoly or Risk. For something different, check out five of my favourite board games below. They’re all easy to learn, fun to play, and well worth the investment.

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Editorial

The Next Iteration of D&D

By now everyone in the D&D gaming community has heard the big news: Wizards is developing the next iteration of D&D, and is looking to the legions of D&D fans to help shape the future of the game along with them. I don’t think this really came as a surprise to anyone, especially those who follow the weekly Legends & Lore column. I think the big news was the level to which Wizards is asking for player input.

In December Wizard flew me out to Seattle to visit their head office and participate in a D&D conference. One of the things discussed was the development of this new iteration of D&D. However, I have been (and still am) bound by an NDA and sworn to secrecy. There are a few things that I can now comment on because Wizards has made some details public; however, there are a lot of other things I cannot talk about. This makes things tricky when it comes to writing about any changes that might be forthcoming, but here’s what I can say.

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DM Resources Editorial

You Make the Call – Questions About Rules (Part 2)

One of the DM’s Most important jobs is to keep the game moving. When we find ourselves in a situation where we don’t know the correct rule, we trust the DM to make the call on the fly based on his experience to ensure the game continues. Afterwards we look up the correct ruling in the usual places: PHB, DMG, Rules Compendium, online compendium and online forums. Yet from time-to-time we just can’t find a satisfactory answer to our rules questions. In these circumstances we’ve decided to turn to you, the people who read our blog and play D&D to help us make the call.

In You Make The Call (Part 1) we asked you to provide you thoughts and insights on strange situations that occur when you’re prone, and the ability to adjust the size and damage of area attacks. In this installment we want you to make the call on being dazed. These situations don’t necessarily come up often, but they can have a significant impact on the encounter so we want to get it right.

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Categories
Class Discussions Player Resources

Utility Powers – The New Face of Customization

As 4e D&D has matured, the sheer number of powers to choose from has grown significantly. At its inception, a character made from the Player’s Handbook would choose two or three at-will powers from a total of four listed, one encounter power from four listed and one daily power form four listed. The occasional utility power sometimes provided three or four choices for a character, which served primarily to enhance either their primary role or their secondary role in the party.

With the advent of non-AEDU (at-will, encounter, daily, utility) character classes, such as the psionic classes, as well as the Essentials classes, the one aspect of the power selection that was not changed was the choice of utility powers at level 2, 6, and so on. The introduction of skill powers in the Player’s Handbook 3 began to finally expand the utility power into more than simply a way to enhance your existing class features and powers. In the last year and a half of development, 4e has introduced themes for heroic tier character characters, as well as several articles on the subject of new racial utility powers. Utility powers have shifted away from their original role in a character, and have taken on a new importance as the new true form of character customization.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

Announcing the Pre-Generated Character Library

Today Dungeon’s Master launched a new permanent resource page on our blog, the Pre-Generated Character Library. We’ve collected all the pre-gens that Wizards put together for the first four seasons of D&D Encounters along with the home made PCs created by the blogging community. Now all the pre-gens are available in one easy to find place and each season’s pre-gens are available for download in PDF format.

Although 6 pre-generated characters are provided with every D&D Encounters kit, Wizards has confirmed that they have no intention of providing new pre-gens moving forward. They want players to create their own characters and not just keep reusing the pre-gens season after season. However, there are always new players who will need a pre-generated character so it’s always a good idea to have a few on hand. Our library gives you more than the stock six that we’ve come to love and hate.

The characters in the Pre-Generated Character Library can be used for D&D Encounters or at any home game. They provide DMs with complete, ready-made stock characters that they can easily use as PCs or NPCs in low level adventures.

The Pre-Generated Character Library will be permanently accessible in our left navigation below the Staff Picks. We’ll continue to add new pre-generated characters to the library as we acquire or create them.

Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.

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Categories
D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 7)

Last week the party met with Uma in hope of enlisting her aid in the search for Orlando and Juliana. Uma informed the party that they were not the only ones looking for Orlando. Ragnar sent his cousin (a Verbeeg named Basil) to kill the boy, a permanent way of keep the Hag Soryth from gaining control of the island. Although Uma also sought Orlando, she believed her magic capable of freeing Propherio from Orlando and likewise keeping the Hag from her ultimate prize.

Uma told the heroes that they could find Orlando if they found the Nymph he followed into the forest, and the heroes ventured into the forest to find him. As the they moved through the forests they had a nearly fatal encounter with Barkburrs, Bloodthorn Vines and a nasty Vine Horror. After taking a short rest they continued with their search.

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