Author: Ameron (Derek Myers)

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 13)

This is it – the final week of D&D Encounter: Beyond the Crystal Cave. The heroes just defeated the devil Kalbon and ascend the watery staircase to the upper level of Soryth’s fortress. When they reached the top of the staircase they spotted a beautiful Fey woman before them wandering among the statues in the garden. To the left the PCs saw Juliana, unconscious on a mound in the nearby garden.

The woman, clearly the Hag Soryth, turned towards the party and spoke to them. “No longer have we cause for conflict. I have what I desire, and forgive your trespasses. Serve me, and I shall grant your fondest wishes.”

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Editorial

Individuality vs. Group Dynamics

Never split the party. It’s one of the 4e mantras. Experienced players know that splitting the party often leads to disastrous consequences. D&D is a team game and as such the objectives almost always require a team to accomplish them. But just because the game is designed to be inclusive and keep everyone equally engaged, does that mean that there shouldn’t be opportunities for some players to split from the party and play to their strengths?

Sometimes circumstances will slightly favour one or two characters in the party. The most common example is to use monsters with vulnerabilities to energy attacks that the party has in its repertoire or have monsters attack using an energy types the party has resistance to. This may seem like a little thing but when it’s your character wielding the cold empowered bastard sword against the fire-based, cold vulnerable creatures it feels pretty great to have an advantage no one else in the party has. Likewise when your poison resistance lets you all but ignore the ongoing poison damage and shrug off a good portion of each hit from the poisonous serpents.

These kind of individual heroics are easy for DMs to place into encounters without throwing things out of balance and without excluding anyone (unless of course the entire party has fire resistance except for one poor soul). More importantly it doesn’t take any play-time away from other players. Everyone still gets their full normal turn, but in this kind of circumstance one PC may find that his turn is a little bit more exciting than his companion’s turns.

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Humour Skill Challenges

The Valentine’s Day Skill Challenge

Today is Valentine’s Day so we decided to take a light-hearted look at the day most associate with love. All the members of the Dungeons’ Master team are happily married or in a long-term relationship, so we felt that we should do our part to help those looking for love. However, we are by no means experts on the subject so please take the advice provided below with the good humour in which it is indented.

It’s unfortunate that many envision the gamer stereotype as a lonely guy who’s awkward around girls. Although there are certainly a few gamers out there that fall into this category, in my experience many gamers are not really that much different that the rest of the non-gaming masses. Everyone is looking for someone and hopes to avoid painful rejection along the way. With that in mind we’ve put together some tips in the form of a skill challenge. By framing this advice in a familiar wrapper we hope that it will make it easier for all those gamers looking for love on Valentine’s Day.

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D&D Encounters Editorial

D&D Encounters: DM Compensation

With another season of D&D Encounters coming to an end this week we’ve been having some discussions at my FLGS about who’s going to take over the reigns as the DM for the next season. I continue to volunteer my services as the primary DM at two FLGS in my community, but in both cases we have sufficient numbers to need additional DMs pretty much every week. During the discussion about who will step up to DM more than one prospective DM asked about compensation. They wanted to know what they got if they agreeing to DM. At first I was a bit surprised that they’d even ask, but as I gave the question more consideration I realized that it’s not an altogether unreasonable question.

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Player Resources

SpellStorm 2012 – Toronto’s Gaming Convention Feb 24-26

In just two short weeks gamers from all around the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) will get together to participate in the 4th annual SpellStorm gaming convention.

D&D will be well represented with tables offering Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) and Lair Assault. However, there will also be plenty of tables running a wide assortment of other games including Pathfinder organized play, old school games, board games and collectible card games.

Some of the Friendly Local Gaming Shops (FLGS) in the GTA have generously donated prizes. All attendees will have a chance to win prizes and giveaways throughout the weekend.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 12)

At the very end of last week’s encounter the PCs managed to open the doors to Soryth’s Palace of Spires with the help of their reflections from the pool. This week we pick up at that exact spot. The PCs got the benefits of a short rest last week after the fight in the garden, but before solving the puzzle to open the doors. So fully recovered (or at least as much as possible given their dwindling healing surges) they proceeded.

Looking through the now opened doorway the PCs could see a great hall beyond. Bright light shone through skylights illuminating the room. At the end of the hall was a fountain in which two jets of water spiraled upward through the air as if the water was alive. To one side of the hall was a table with four chairs and set with a crystal decanter and four glasses. On the right and left side of the hallways were two doors, squawking sounds emanating from the one on the left.

Before the PCs could pass through the now open doors, statues on either side of the door, carved to look like Elvin maidens with scimitars again intoned in unison “Enter in peace,” the same phrase they uttered after the PCs opened the doors at the end of last week’s session.

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Editorial

RPG Blog Carnival: Things to Love and Things to Hate About Healing Surges

This month’s RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted by Nevermeet Press. The topic is Things to Love, Things to Hate.

The Cleric has always been my favourite class in D&D. I’m not a spiritual person in real life but there’s something I’ve always found appealing when it comes to playing divine characters. I think a big part of it is knowing that my character has to very power of life and death in his hands. With just a thought he can call forth his deity’s power and heal wounds. Having this power, a power until 4e that was limited to divine character, is like having insurance that the rest of the characters don’t. No matter how bad things get I know that I can use my class powers to heal wounds and stay on my feet. This is not to say that I’m a selfish Cleric, but if I go down no one else gets healed which certainly makes a compelling argument for serving my own needs first.

In my opinion, the most significant improvements to the Cleric class in 4e was making the ability to heal a minor action, thereby allowing the Cleric to still participate in combat. Until 4e Clerics often did nothing but heal the wounded while all the other classes did amazing things. Not so with 4e. The combination of the healing surge mechanic and Healing Word as a minor action made Clerics a lot more powerful because they could be a lot more involved. This is a big reason why I still find Clerics among the best classes in 4e D&D. It’s also the reason that I choose healing surges as the focus for this article, my contribution to this month’s RPG Blog Carnival.

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DM Resources Humour

Would Giants Beat Patriots in D&D? – Making Sports Teams More Suitable for D&D

This weekend the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI (46). As one of the only people in North America that doesn’t follow pro-football I had no idea who was favoured to win this game, nor did I care. However, in the weeks leading up to the game I kept hearing people talk about the Giants vs. the Patriots. In my mind I kept thinking “If this was D&D, the Giants would crush the Patriots (assuming they were Human Patriots).” And that got me thinking, what would this type of confrontation be like in D&D if the members of each teams were the literal embodiment of their team name?

I’m not suggesting that it would be a team of Storm Giants playing football against a group of radical Patriots; I’m suggesting we actually take the sports out of it and just turn it into a straight up D&D-style fight. In this kind of confrontation you’d see a lot more support for teams with mean, vicious and powerful names. In a fight to the death I’d rather cheer for Titans, Giants or Bears over Ravens, Eagles or Dolphins.

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Adventure Hooks

8 Adventure Hooks: The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Sometimes the easiest way for the DM to get the PCs to bite on an adventure hook is to just have them be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Events unfold whether the PCs choose to get involved or not, but simply being there puts them in the heart of the situation. Through their own actions (or inactions) they become part of the encounter. Clever PCs may decide that getting involved isn’t their problem, but experience teaches most players that if they don’t step in early, things can quickly get out of hand.

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DM Resources

Running A Game With New Players

Over the past couple seasons of D&D Encounters I’ve had the opportunity to play with a lot of new players. Many of these players (usually the younger ones) were completely new to D&D or any RPG for that matter. While some of the DMs have found it frustrating to run tables with so many inexperienced players, I’ve found it to be quite rewarding.

During this time I’ve come up some guidelines for running games with new players. Although I put these together to help me manage tables of newbies, many of these points are still good to keep in mind when running any table, no matter how much experience your players have.

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