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Editorial Player Resources

I’m Your Cleric, Not Your Bitch!

“I am a defender of the faith, a holy warrior and a vassal of my deity. I am not in the party simply to heal your wounds!”

An interesting debate occurred within our gaming group recently. One of our healers, in this case the Cleric, decided that he will not use his Healing Word or any other power that allows others to use healing surges unless a) they are bloodied and b) they have already used their second wind. He is so adamant about following this guideline that he would rather take no minor action instead of healing the other PCs.

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Player Resources

Reputation (Part 3)

Your deeds define your reputation. Basking in your success is the easy part, but what happens when things don’t go quite as expected? Your reputation is easily tarnished by a few bad outings, and now you’ve got to live with the consequences.

This is the third of three articles examining reputation. Reputation (part 1) appeared on The Core Mechanic a few days ago. It was aimed at the DM and provided him with direction for using reputation as a campaign tool. Reputation (part 2) and Reputation (part 3) are aimed at the players and provides insight on how PCs can shape their own reputation and gain the most benefit from doing so.

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Humour

Funny Feats

You don’t have to be 6-years-old to find something funny, but it helps. In fact some of the best humour comes from those innocent little children. So with child-like sensibility in mind I’ve created Funny Feats as my contribution to this month’s RPG Blog Carnival: Humour and Gaming hosted by A Butterfly Dreaming.

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Player Resources

Reputation (Part 2)

As a PC, your reputation is in your own hands. The choices you make during your adventuring career will have a direct impact on your PC’s reputation. The jobs you accept, the method you employ and even the company you keep all factor in to the bigger picture, which defines your reputation.

This is the second of three articles examining reputation. Reputation (part 1) appeared on The Core Mechanic a few days ago. It was aimed at the DM and provided him with direction for using reputation as a campaign tool. Reputation (part 2) and Reputation (part 3) are aimed at the players and provides insight on how PCs can shape their own reputation and gain the most benefit from doing so.

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DM Resources Player Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Focus: Assisting (Part 2)

Assisting with skill checks needs to be something more than just a quick roll or an afterthought. I like the concept of assisting and I think there’s a lot of room to build on this mechanic. In Skill Focus: Assisting (Part 1) I was complained about what I think is a broken mechanic and shared my ideas on how to improve it. This time I’m only going to focus on the positives. I’m going to explore what actions constitute assists and expand on them.

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Editorial

Taking the Dungeon Out of Dungeons and Dragons

Throughout the life-cycle of Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons have been evolving. Recent discussion around the RPG Bloggers Network has revolved around the Mega-Dungeon. The nostalgia brought up from this discussion is fantastic and brings to mind memories of exploring vast labyrinths. For that matter, it reminds me of playing The Bard’s Tale on my Commodore, but I digress.

Recently, Ameron has written about dungeons. He’s covered the topic through a skill challenge and as a DM aide on pacing the adventure. His articles got me thinking about dungeons and the place they hold in the game. First and foremost I’m not advocating that dungeons be removed from our great game and that we rename it Dragons. I do think there is a case to be made towards handling dungeons in a different manner and the mechanics of 4e lend themselves to it.

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DM Resources Player Resources

Reputation (Part 1)

The Dungeon’s Master team is happy to announce that we’ve guest authored an article on The Core Mechanic today. Our article on Reputation is the first of three posts examining character reputation in D&D.

Reputation (part 1), which appears on The Core Mechanic, is aimed at the DM and provides direction for using reputation to its fullest potential. Reputation (part 2) and Reputation (part 3) will appear here at Dungeon’s Master in the next few days. They are aimed at the players and provide insight on how the PCs can shape their own reputation and gain the most benefit from doing so.

Please check out our contribution to The Core Mechanic and while you’re there spend some time browsing the site. It’s full of great D&D articles that many DMs and players will find useful.


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Categories
DM Resources

Campaign Design: Geography

All the world is a stage and you get to design it. Creating the geography for your gaming world is more than just placing mountains, streams and forest. Every decision you make during this stage of the game will effect future gaming sessions and expansions to your campaign setting. The geographic elements you work into your game world form the natural boundaries that are used to define the kingdoms and territories of your world. It’s important to get it right from the start.

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Player Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Focus: Intimidate

Mastering the Intimidate skill is difficult, probably more so than any other skill in the PHB. Intimidate is availabe to 12 classes (as shown in our Skill Matrix by Class) making it the most widely available skill (along with Athletics and Endurance). If you’re playing a class like the Fighter where you have very few skills to choose from, Intimidate is a very popular choice.

Despite the large number of PCs who take training in Intimidate, it’s a skill that has very limited uses. Using Intimidate during a skill challenge often counts as an automatic failure. If not, then you usually get only one try with Intimidate. In a perfect scenario a successful Intimidate check brings you one step closer to accomplishing the objective of the skill challenge. If you fail it can make future checks more difficult and count as one more strike. So it’s important to know when to use Intimidate and when to rely on a different skill.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: March 2009

March was a good month for D&D and a great month for Dungeon’s Master. We hit our two month milestone and are gaining a strong and loyal readership. Our thanks to everyone who visits regularly and comments often. In March we published 26 new articles on a wide variety of topics. Here are the highlights just in case you missed anything.

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