Month in Review: March 2011

A controversial stance on the Avenger class, an in-depth look at the Warforged, as well as our unique take on divination, summoning, and trust issues in D&D all contributed to our best month yet here at Dungeon’s Master. These were just a few of the many topics we covered throughout March.

Although we generally run our Month in Review on the 1st, we decided to wait given that Friday was April Fool’s Day. Hopefully you enjoyed our April Fools Day article, Magical Items That Aren’t Magical. Now it’s on to the Month in Review where we recap all of the great articles we ran over the past month and give you a chance to get caught up on anything you might have missed.

We’d like to again thank everyone who visited Dungeon’s Master during March and we hope that you keep visiting us in the months to come. We welcome your feedback and look forward to reading your comments throughout April.

Highlights

DM Resources

• Designing Encounters That Can’t Be Beat (Part 1) | (Part 2) – If you’re a DM looking to really challenge your players then these articles are a must read.
• How To Make Your Players Feel Heroic – Your objective as the DM shouldn’t be to kill the PCs (all the time). Make sure you build encounters that let the PCs shine like the heroes they are, and we’ve got the tips to help you do it.
• How Much Input Should Players Have On The Campaign? – Although the DM is the storyteller, it’s important to get some input from your players in order to help them develop their characters. Exactly how much input is up to you.
• Using Player Behaviour To Influence Your Encounter Design – The better you know the players, and how they’ll react in certain situations, the more you can take advantage of that… for better or worse.
• Divine Intervention – We provide DMs with ideas for how to acknowledge and reward particularly devote characters with a little assistance from their deity.
• Divinations – Is Some Magic Just Too Powerful for PCs? – Just because predicting the future is difficult and unreliable once PCs are thrown into the mix, does that warrant removing divination from 4e D&D all together?
• How To Use Prophecy And Divination To Tell The Story – Sometimes a cryptic prophecy is all the justification PCs need to venture forward. In this article we provide guidelines for keeping prophecies under control.

RPG Blog Carnival

This month the RPG Blog Carnival is hosted by Campaign Mastery and the focus is on Life and Death in RPGs. Below are the two Dungeon’s Master submissions.

• RPG Blog Carnival: Casting Raise Dead – Just because Raise Dead is listed among the rest of the rituals doesn’t mean that it’s use should be commonplace in all games.
• RPG Blog Carnival: Negotiating For Souls – Bring back a deceased character isn’t always as easy as casting the Raise Dead ritual; sometimes you have to convince a deity or even the character that the resurrection is a good thing.

Player Resources

• Avenger – Worst Striker Ever – When you make a claim that a class is the worst ever you know that you’re going to get a lot of comments. We were at 32 the last time I checked. I still stand by my claim that Avengers are the worst strikers, but many readers have provided their reasons for loving the class. Be sure to check out the podcast Level Up — Episode #7 from Roving Band of Misfits in which they continue the the discussson we started in this article.
• 11 Articles Everyone Should Read – Wimwick combed our archives and composed a list of articles he felt that everyone should read. Some of these gems go all the way back to our first few months in the blogsphere.
• Summoning and Banishment – These powers may be rare but when you use them there are some important details to establish that could make using them a lot more exciting or a lot more dangerous.
• The Importance of Trust and Honesty in D&D – After a bizarre happenstance at an LFR game I thought it was worth looking at the importance of trust and honesty in D&D.
• LFR Magic Item Treasure Bundle List (March 2011) – With the help of our reader Mike P. we’ve once again update this list. It now includes 53 new adventures bringing the total to 177 including the very first LFR epic adventure.

Eberron

The Eberron tab at the top of the page provides easy access to all of our Eberron resources.

• Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 10) – The Thronehold Tournament is an exclusive and lucrative card game held in secret by House Deneith every year in Thronehold Castle.
• Warforged – Creating an Identity for an Artificial Being – In honour of our 600th post at Dungeon’s Master we explored different ways to play Warforged characters given their artificiality and unique perception on the world compared to their living, breathing companions.

D&D Encounters

Be sure to visit the D&D Encounters Archive, a repository of all our D&D Encounters articles including the weekly recaps and the pre-generated characters.

• D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 4)
• D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 5)
• D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 6)
• D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 7)
• D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 8.)

A Look Ahead

At the end of every Month in Review we try to entice you with a quick rundown of what we think we’ll write about in the upcoming month. In April we’ll be looking at encounters that rely more heavily on role-playing and skill challenges, intentionally splitting the party, and unusual weapon selection. We’re also planning to provide new traps & hazards, new skill challenges, more Eberron articles and of course our ongoing weekly coverage of D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade. Be sure to visit Dungeon’s master every day throughout April for more great 4e D&D articles.

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