What would a fantasy setting be without magic and divine beings fighting their celestial wars? At this point you have decided which historical and fictional elements to use in defining your campaign world. You are now ready to start fleshing the world out in greater detail.
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Review: When Night Falls
When Night Falls
(The Lanternlight Files, Book 2)
Parker Dewolf
An Eberron Novel
Plot Summary
Sharn, City of Towers. The rich and affluent live in the highest peaks and have views of blue sky by day and the stars by night. The poor live in the furthest reaches at the base of the towers and possess little. They live in squalor and struggle for survival. Even hope is a rare commodity in the lower levels of Sharn. The lines between classes are clearly drawn as you look up and down the towers. Few cross these lines freely. Evil does not recognize such arbitrary lines.
Yesterday, Ameron congratulated Wizards of the Coast for removing familiars from 4e D&D. While many of you may agree that familiars were an unnecessary game mechanic that added little value, others may miss the little critters. We’ve since learned that Wizards is bringing back familiars later this year in Arcane Power. But for those of you who don’t want to wait that long, we present our take on familiars.
Why would someone miss familiars you might ask? Let’s take a look why this might be the case. Familiars are cool. That’s right, having a hawk circling the battlefield or a snake wrapped around your staff is just a cool statement about your Wizard. It adds to your PC’s personality and can provide for some interesting role playing. Is that a Ferret in your pocket or…?
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!
The PCs travel through a particularity hazardous section of underground passages.
Setup
- The PCs are searching for a long lost treasure or artifact. Their search has led them deep underground.
- Miners from a nearby community discover a preexisting passage that leads deep underground. The PCs are hired to explore the cavern and see where it leads.
- An escaped criminal flees through a cavernous mountain passage. The PCs are hired to capture him.
This skill challenge is broken into five encounters. In order to overcome the skill challenge the PCs must complete all five encounters. The DM can present the encounters in any order he sees fit. Each encounter will indicate the maximum number of successes that can be earned during that encounter. Failures are cumulative and carry forward through the entire skill challenge.
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Month in Review: February 2009
We’ve reached our first significant milestone: Dungeon’s Master has been live for one month. As we promised in our first post, we published one new article every day during February. Thank you to all the readers who have checked us out and kept coming back. We welcome your comments and feedback, so please let us know what you think.
In the last article we dealt with the Next Steps in campaign design, today we’ll discuss various campaign settings, historical periods, novels and talk about the themes that exist within the fantasy genre. This is my favourite part of design as it’s where you get to really dream about the different possibilities. Make sure you have your notebook handy and any of the Resources that you’ve collected to help you along the way. You’re bound to have more than a few flash insights at moments that you aren’t actively working on your campaign world and you’ll want to jot them down for future use.
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.
The lord of the land is ill and dying. The man next in the line of succession is a tyrant. There are rumours that the lord has an illegitimate son who could challenge for the throne.
Setup
- The reputation of the PCs honesty and fairness has reached the ear of the lord’s loyal aide. Since the PCs are neutral and have no stake in the outcome, he hires them to find the rightful heir if he exists.
- The PCs have had run-ins with the tyrant before. His rise to power would be the beginning of huge long-term problems for the PCs. A different heir would make their lives easier.
- A letter from a close friend or family member arrives explaining the situation, pleading for the PCs to help in any way they can.
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Necromancer Paragon Path
With the launch of Open Grave, Wizards of the Coast have begun to release powers and rituals geared towards Necromancers. They have also announced that the Arcane Powers source book will have a Necromancer Paragon Path. While I’m glad that this is upcoming, I still believe they provided a disservice by not having any specialists in the first PHB.
Building on the Necromancer: Heroic Tier we published a few weeks ago, we now present the Necromancer: Paragon Path, an option for you to play until the official version is released. If you are interested in the Necromancer at the Epic Tier, visit our article about that.
We see the Necromancer as an individual who fights for good but is often mistaken as evil. Just like the early practitioners of medicine in our own world, who dug up graves to study anatomy. A practice that was deemed unethical and morally wrong at the time. The Necromancer is an individual who walks the dividing line of ethical behaviour.