Month: March 2012

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Month in Review

Month in Review: March 2012

We might not have published articles every day in March, but the days we hit were chalked full of great 4e D&D content. If you missed any of our articles over the past month then this is your chance to get caught up.

It finally happened; our Iron Man streak ended in March. For the first time since we launched Dungeon’s Master we took a few days off during the March break (see March Broken). However, even with a few days off our numbers continued to climb.

Strong articles that covered topics like how to keep players involved in the game when dice go cold, including a blind player at your table, methods for dividing treasure, a humorous look at what your weapons says about your character, and new pre-gens for D&D Encounters all contributed to another great month at Dungeon’s Master.

We want to thank everyone who visited our site over the past month and encourage you to continue reading. We invite you to comment on articles that you like, hate, or have questions about. And if there’s something you want us to write about send us an email or comment below and we’ll see what we can do to accommodate.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 5)

After defeating the elemental guardians last week, the party descended the staircase where they disarmed the trap and opened the door to the Sunset Shrine. Before them was a long, downward sloping corridor. On either side of the hallway were statues. The statues nearest the door looked somewhat humanoid, but as the party proceeded downward they noticed the statues became more aberrant.

As the party continued down the hallway they could see light flickering and smell smoke from burning fire in the room ahead. When the slopped passage finally leveled out the PCs stood before a vast room. In the centre were two huge rolling fires, and in-between them stood a Dwarf with fiery red hair wearing yellow robes.

Throughout the room was rubble from collapsed pillars. The party also noted several doors leading out of the chamber, all of which were closed. At the far end of the chamber two scaffolds provide Dwarven crossbow men with clear shots at the party. Between the platforms was an iron portcullis that bared passage to another long hallway beyond. Behind the gate was a Dwarf in Purple Robes who said “Your arrival has been foretold.”

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DM Resources Editorial

The Oil of D&D – Residuum as a Natural Resource

Oil. In the real world it is one of the most precious resources on the plant. Those who have it are rich for possessing it. Those who don’t have it are willing to buy it and kill for it. In an industrial world run on oil there’s nothing more valuable. But in D&D oil isn’t important. After all, very few game worlds are mechanized and those with any industry use a more abundant resource: magic.

In fantasy role-playing is there an equivalent to oil? Something so precious and integral to society’s prosperity and advancement as oil is in the real world? Again the most likely answer is magic. But magic isn’t a limited resource. After all, magic is, well, magic. It doesn’t have any real tangibility and certainly doesn’t have to follow any rules or logic. It can be whatever the game needs it to be. But that’s not to say that a campaign world couldn’t be made more interesting if magic was a finite resource.

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DM Resources Player Resources

Dividing Treasure

DM – You’ve defeated the skeletons. As you search the bodies you realize that one of them was carrying a +1 frost weapon.

Ethan the Rogue – As the striker I should get the magic weapon. The more often I hit the faster I can drop monsters.

Barrack the Fighter – Now hold on a second. I may not be a striker, but as a defender it’s important that I hit monsters ignoring my mark. I think I should get the magic weapon.

Delian the Paladin – Excuse me, guys; this was an item from my wish list. I’m working on a whole cold-theme and already the feats Wintertouched and Student of Moil. Using a frost weapon will give me bonuses when I make cold-based attacks.

Sterling the Warlord – You’re all forgetting that it’s my turn to get the next magic item so I believe the frost weapon is mine.

How often does this happen in your game? As soon as it comes time to divide the treasure everyone tries to lay claim to the best stuff. This is usually a bigger issue when a party is lower levels and there aren’t as many items to go around, but even when the group advances into the paragon tier there can still be some bickering about the division of items.

Over the years I’ve seen many groups handle the division of loot in many different ways. There are certainly pros and cons to all methods and it’s really up to the groups themselves to figure out which method works best for them.

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DM Resources Player Resources

How To Solve the Cold Dice Problem

It will happen to you one day and when it does don’t be embarrassed, it happens to all gamers. I’m talking about cold dice. Eventually the dice run cold for all of us. Maybe the d6 keeps coming up 1, the d12 won’t roll higher than 3 or the d20 isn’t cooperating at all and you haven’t hit a monster all fight. Eventually the dice gods will correct the problems and balance the scales, but until then a streak of poor rolls can crush even the most experienced player.

When a player goes through a bought of bad dice karma it can actually have a detrimental effect on the entire group. Even though everyone else rolls as expected and has fun doing so, one player’s poor rolls can effect the overall mood of the entire table. I’ve learned over the years that when this happens (and it will, if it hasn’t already) players and DMs can actually do a lot of things to turn the tide.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 4)

This week marks the beginning of chapter 2. We decided to have all character advance to level 2 whether or not they’d actually played all of the previous encounters. We realized after tracking XP over the previous few seasons that when some of the party lags behind in the XP department it just weakens the party as a whole. It makes the encounter unnecessarily more difficult and people don’t have as much fun. Moving forward everyone will level simultaneously at my FLGS.

We continue to have good numbers for this season, with brand new people joining us every week since we began this adventure. At the FLGS where I played the adventure you’re going to read about below we’re holding steady with two DMs and 12 players. At my other FLGS we’ve gone from 8 players last season to over 20 this season. This week we had three DMs all running tables of six. Our fourth DM can’t play every week so we’ve begun actively recruiting another person to DM. I have no idea why this season has attracted so many new players and frankly I don’t care. I’m just glad we continue to have strong attendance. It wasn’t that long ago we could barely put together one table.

With the addition of a new player last week, our all-Genasi party became 1/6 Halfling. The new player came up with an interesting reason for why the Halfling joined this elemental-based group – he believes that they’re deities. He professed his devotion to them and literally worships the ground they walk on. He’s so humbled to be in their presence that he does whatever they ask him to do. It’s already made for some great role-playing moments and the Genasi PCs are certainly letting the admiration go to their flaming heads.

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Editorial Humour

What Your Weapon Says About Your Character

“The clothes make the man.” It’s a pretty common expression. It quite literally means that you can draw a conclusion, and usually a fairly accurate conclusion, about a person’s personality just based on what they’re wearing. In D&D, the type of clothes (or armor) a person wears will usually indicate with great accuracy what class he is but it’s less likely to accurately indicate what kind of a man he is – for that you have to look at his weapon.

During character creation most players I’ve gamed with will equip their character before they determine his personality. I know that’s how I usually do it. But I’ve noticed over the years that the personality of a PC is very often directly related to the type of weapon he carries. It’s like the weapon imprints a specific personality type on the characters wielding them.

So I’ve put together a list of my observations. This is simply my first-hand account of how I see things. It’s not based on any scientific method or precise sampling, it’s just what I’ve seen over and over again in the many years that I’ve played D&D. I think that despite my rather loose methodology the results are surprisingly accurate.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye – Pre-Generated Characters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (season 8.) began a few weeks ago. As usual Wizard only provided the standard six pre-gens that we all know backwards and forward by now. Today we’ve added six new PCs to the Dungeon’s Master Pre-Generated Character Library.

These new characters were created by Brad Bound at Hit on Crit. All of the new additions were built using the new Heroes of the Elemental Chaos. Although these are all level 1 characters, Brad has provided character builder files for download. Now you can level them up as you see fit taking them from generic pre-gen to a character that is truly your own.

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DM Resources Editorial

How a Blind Player Improved Our Game

I’ve heard a lot of people say that 4e is really just a video game turned into a table-top role-playing game. The game is too tactical and relies too much on the visual aid of a battle mat and minis. These criticisms always talk about the limitations and restrictions of 4e. I admit that the visual component is certainly important, but the game is certainly not limiting. D&D is so much more than what’s on the table.

When I recently ran an adventure at my FLGS a new player sat down next to me, introduced himself and told me he was blind. I wasn’t sure how to handle this news. I was concerned that I’d have to make significant adjustments to my game in order to meet the needs of the blind player. He was really good about it and just told me to do what I’d normally do but to be sure to describe things (like the map) so that he could accurately picture it in his mind.

This seemed like a reasonable request. After all, everything in the game is described in the adventure, right? Nope.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye (Week 3)

During last week’s encounter the party was ambushed by Dwarves. After defeating them, the party continued though the Badlands south of Easting in search of The Sunset Shrine where they hoped to find a cure for the Abyssal Plague.

The terrain ahead was treacherous and would require perseverance in the form of a series of skill checks if they were to avoid any serious hardships and still make the Sunset Shrine before nightfall. Fortunately two new adventurers arrived on the scene to assist them in their endeavour.

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