Category: Player Resources

Categories
DM Resources Player Resources

Avoiding The Total Party Kill

The party is in the middle of combat and the plan of attack quickly falls apart. Within rounds the party finds themselves with several PCs making death saves. Things have gone from bad to worse and a total party kill is looking imminent. Options begin running through your head, do you go down swinging? Is it still possible to defeat the encounter? Is retreat the best option? If you do retreat what about your already fallen companions?

No matter the cause of a total party kill, it can have devastating consequences on your campaign or adventure session. From derailed campaigns, frustrated players and torn up character sheets every TPK is going to have it’s own ramifications. The key to avoiding these difficult situations is to avoid the total party kill in the first place.

Continue reading “Avoiding The Total Party Kill”
Categories
Player Resources

Class And Race Combinations That Break The Mold

Certain class and race combinations in D&D just seem to make sense. They are the old favourites and the stereotypes that define the genre. We know them all, the sturdy Dwarven Fighter, the nimble Elven archer, the cunning Halfling Rogue and so on. These combinations are fun to play because they work and they are safe. Occasionally, a new wrinkle will be added to give these old classics some new flavour.

One of our original articles discussed Overplayed Characters, today I want to look at combinations that aren’t typical. I’m sure there are many other combinations beyond the ones I present here. The options listed below are ones where the racial attribute modifiers play towards the particular class or where engaging role playing opportunities are presented.

Continue reading “Class And Race Combinations That Break The Mold”

Categories
D&D Encounters Dark Sun Player Resources

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Character Builder Files

D&D Encounters: Dark Sun – Fury of the Wastewalker begins Wednesday, June 9. Wizards of the Coast has provided six pre-generated characters – all of them highlighting unique aspects to the upcoming Dark Sun setting for 4e D&D. Over the past week there has been a great deal of discussion about the character sheets provided. More than a few errors have been pointed out as well. Below are four of the six characters available in character builder format for download along with the cards provided by Wizards of the Coast.

In rebuilding the characters there are obviously certain aspects that can’t be reproduced. Namely the theme’s and the new weapons. In the case of weapons I’ve selected the closest item available through Character Builder. For theme’s player’s will need to manually add the appropriate power onto the character sheet. All the characters are as accurate as I can make them based upon the information available. If you plan to use a character builder version of one of the characters I would advise you to check with the DM who is running your encounters session and to double check that no errors were made in rebuilding the characters.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters Dark Sun Character Builder Files”
Categories
Dark Sun Player Resources

Dark Sun: A Quick Player’s Primer

A couple of weeks ago we ran the Player’s Primer for the upcoming D&D Encouners: Dark Sun. As a part of our Dark Sun week here at Dungeon’s Master we felt we should post this again for anyone who might have missed the original article.

Continue reading “Dark Sun: A Quick Player’s Primer”
Categories
D&D Encounters Dark Sun Player Resources

D&D Encounters: A Dark Sun Preview

Tonight we play the final session of D&D Encounters season one. We’ll finally get the payoff of our 12-week commitment. But rather than look back on the previous 11 weeks, we’re looking forward to the next 15. Without any delay or interruption, beginning next Wednesday, June 9, we jump right into the second season of D&D Encounters. You can wait until next week to find out all about it you can read on as we share a high level overview of the next season of D&D Encounters.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: A Dark Sun Preview”
Categories
Dark Sun DM Resources Player Resources

Dark Sun: New Rules

The Dark Sun Campaign Guide won’t be out for another two months. But you can get your Dark Sun fix starting on June 9 when the the second season of D&D Encounters begins. The adventure – Dark Sun: Fury of the Wastewalker – gives players and DMs their first taste of Athas, the world of Dark Sun. Yesterday we posted the pre-generated characters Wizards of the Coast provided with the D&D Encounters kit. Each character has some flavour unique to the Dark Sun setting, including character themes. What are character themes you ask? Good question. Here is the sidebar from the page 8 of the adventure.

Continue reading “Dark Sun: New Rules”
Categories
D&D Encounters Dark Sun Player Resources

Dark Sun Characters for D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Dark Sun begins on June 9. Wizards of the Coast has provided six pre-generated characters – all of them highlighting unique aspects to the upcoming Dark Sun setting for 4e D&D. Today we’ve provided copies of all six characters for your review. They’ll be available from Wizards next week, but we’re giving you a first look.

Now available: The pre-generated characters for D&D Encounters Season 3: Keep on the Borderlands.

Continue reading “Dark Sun Characters for D&D Encounters”
Categories
Player Resources

Your Best Resource: Healing Surges

One of your most important, yet overlooked resources as a PC, are your healing surges. Healing surges in 4e D&D are the difference between life and death. Effective use of those healing surges can mean the life or death of you and your companions.

Healing surges are a new mechanic to D&D that were introduced with 4e. No longer do you heal a certain amount of hit points by resting or from relying on the Cleric to have enough healing spells or the right combination of healing potions. Now every PC is equipped with the ability to heal themselves during and after battle.

Continue reading “Your Best Resource: Healing Surges”
Categories
DM Resources Humour Player Resources

The D&D Teen Comedy

Lately I’ve been watching a lot of 80s teen comedies. Revenge of the Nerds, Real Genius, Summer School and of course the greats by John Hughes – Weird Science, the Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (to name just a few of my personal favourites). While watching these again recently, I started thinking about how the formula for a teen comedy could be used to create an interesting D&D campaign. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have kids in their mid to late teens get into all kinds of fun and frivolity when they are left unsupervised.

In the world of D&D most adventures begin their career in their late teens or early twenties. Other fantasy races are older, but their social, physical and mental maturity is roughly in the same place as a human reaching the age of majority. But what if we looked at heroes who were even younger? A bit less refined and a lot more naive. Level 1 adventurers already look at the world through rose-coloured glasses, but if they were a few years younger how much more would this outlook change?

Continue reading “The D&D Teen Comedy”
Categories
DM Resources Player Resources

The Pitfalls of a Specialized Paragon Path

Choosing a paragon path is one of the most decisive ways that two characters of the same class and race can differentiate themselves from each other. It also lets you better define your character as an individual. Your paragon path lets you better specialize within your class. But some paragon paths offer a much narrower focus of specialization than others. And in recently choosing one of these paragon paths, I realized that they can lead to more problems than players and DMs may realize.

Continue reading “The Pitfalls of a Specialized Paragon Path”