During my weekly game the person playing the Wizard made an interesting observation. D&D 4e is the first edition of the game not to offer the Wizard class the option of taking a familiar. I have yet to play a Wizard in 4e and even if I had I don’t know if I would have even noticed this omission. I’ve never liked familiars. They always felt like an afterthought to the spell casting classes. In my opinion we can say good riddance to bad rubbish. Good call, Wizards of the Coast!
Category: Player Resources
As I’ve said numerous times before, the addition of skill challenges to 4e D&D was a stroke of genius. It has provided us with the means to develop our characters in ways beyond excellence with a sword. We finally have a mechanism for using Acrobatics, Diplomacy and Thievery in a meaningful way that will yield XP.
Not all characters are strong in a variety of skills (Fighters, we’re looking at you), but thanks to the assist even the most unskilled PC can participate in a meaningful way during the skill challenge. My concern is that the assist mechanism is broken. So I’m going to share with you my ideas on how to fix it.
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Avoiding Death (Part 2)
In Avoiding Death, Part 1 we covered these five recommendations for how to avoid needless character death.
- Don’t chase monsters
- Know you character
- Check for traps every time
- Take a short break
- Pay attention
Now we’re going to add five more ideas to the list. Most of these tips rely on you keeping your cool and not doing anything stupid. Sometimes that can be harder than you think.
In previous editions of D&D Perception was broken out into separate skills for spot and listen. In 4e, Perception is just one skill, essentially a catch-all for five senses. I think this is a huge improvement and opens the door to possibilities. With that in mind, I’ve come up with some alternate uses for Perception.
This skill is not, and should not, be limited to just what you can see and hear. You may not have as many opportunities to use Perception to determine smells, tastes or tactile sensation, but it shouldn’t be ruled out if you come up with a creative use for the skill.
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Skill Training
Let’s face it some skills have more in-game applications than others. On any given night at my gaming table Perception checks are made at least once an hour. Stealth is also a very commonly used skill. And when it’s time for a skill challenge the skills most often relied on are tend to be Diplomacy, Insight and Streetwise.
So what if you’re a Fighter and your best skill is Endurance? How do you turn that skill training and that base roll of +10 into something useful and constructive to the story? More importantly how do you have fun as a player in the process? The answer is simple – use your imagination.
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Avoiding Death (Part 1)
I think it’s fair to say that everyone who plays D&D has experienced character death at some point. Hopefully your character has gone down swinging or sacrificed himself in such a way that people will be telling and retelling the story for years to come. But in reality I think we all know that more often than not character death is the result of someone (often the character himself) doing something stupid.
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Speeding Up Your Game
My gaming group meets once a week for four hours. Due to the longer and longer distances people have to travel, the game has to end promptly to allow people to get home at a reasonable time. Playing longer than our four hour allotment just isn’t an option. So we have to make the best use of the time we have. Here are some of the tips and tricks that we’ve come up with that have really made a big difference.
D&D has always been a combat-heavy game and adding skill challenges with 4e has brought much needed balance to the game. Players are encouraged to role play and can earn as much XP for a skill challenge as they can for defeating a monster. It’s created a good balance between roll-playing and role-playing. The skill challenge has quickly become an important and integral part of 4e D&D.