Tag: 4e

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Player Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Focus: Nature

Nature, like all the knowledge skills in 4e D&D, encompasses a great amount of information. Its scope is quite broad and its use is often limited only by the PC’s imagination. Here are 10 new and creative ways to use Nature.

Knowledge skills can be used for more than just monster knowledge checks. This is certainly a very useful feature of the skill, but its use shouldn’t end there. During skill challenges, Nature can often be used to assist other skills depending on the circumstance.

The Druid, Ranger, Shaman and Warden all receive automatically training in Nature. The Barbarian, Bard, Sorcerer and Wizard have it as an optional choice. Nature may not be the most common skill, but there’s a pretty good chance that someone in the party will have a good Nature check.

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Editorial

Weekend in the Realms 2009

the-icy-queens-crossing-cover

On Saturday I participated in the 2009 Weekend in the Realms. “The Icy Queen’s Crossing” is an Living Forgotten Realms adventure for character of 1st to 4th level. Although pre-generated characters were provided, players were free to bring their own LFR character as long as they weren’t above level 4.

One of the things that made this event unique is that the “adventure takes place in the aftermath of the events depicted in the new Forgotten Realms novel The Fall of Highwatch, which was released on November 4.” Previous events have been tied to the release of gaming products like the PHB 2, the Monster Manual 2 and the DMG 2, but this is the first time a 4e adventure has been tied to a novel.

The purpose of these “event” games is to bring new players into the fold. These games are played in public settings, usually game stores and public libraries. Experienced players can meet new people and new players can get an introduction to D&D. It’s win-win. The adventure is straight forward and doesn’t require any background or familiarity with the game. With that in mind, here are the ups and downs of my experience playing in the 2009 Weekend in the Realms.

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Editorial

The Art of D&D (Part 1)

Do you recognize these names: Caldwell, Elmore, Easley, Fields, and Parkinson? If not, I’ll bet you’d recognize their work. These were arguably the most prolific and popular artists in D&D during the 1980s and 90s. Most of the D&D manuals, source books, adventures, novels and magazines of the 80s and early 90s featured the works of one of these five artists on their covers.

Each edition of D&D had a different type of art that was unique to that version of the game. Art of the original D&D consisted of a lot of line drawings. They were two dimensional and simple. With AD&D, the art was taken to a whole new level. It took on a realism that was, until then, uncharacteristic in role-playing games. Artists working to illustrate AD&D understood that just because dragons don’t really exist doesn’t mean they can’t be depicted as if they do.

This realistic approach was applied to more than the monsters. The heroes of various races and classes were shown battling these monsters of fantasy. You believed that this scene could really exist. The details were exquisite. The weapons and armor were authentic and accurate. With these works gracing the covers for D&D rule books, modules, magazines and novels it made you want to buy these books.

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DM Resources

Engaging Your Players

You’ve laboured over your new campaign for months, meticulously going over the various details of the world. You’ve planned out the campaign’s major points and can’t wait until the PCs are required to rescue the Twilight Princess from her prison in the Nine Hells.

As you reach that pinnacle in the campaign you realize something disheartening, your PCs don’t really care. All the work you’ve done, all the creativity and detail you’ve put into this grand moment is going unnoticed by your PCs.

They haven’t bought into the campaign.

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Book Reviews Eberron Editorial

An Interview With Eberron Author Don Bassingthwaite (Part 1)

don-bassingthwaite-aWhen I was reading the excellent Eberron novel The Word of Traitors I discovered that the book’s author, Don Bassingthwaite, lives in my hometown of Toronto. I sent Don an email and asked him if he’d like to do an interview for Dungeon’s Master and he said yes. A couple of weeks later I had the pleasure of sitting down with Don at a local Starbucks where we discussed his road to success as a writer for Wizards of the Coast.

Although the interview will be presented in print and in multiple parts, when we’re finished we’ll make the complete interview available as an audio download.

Before we get started I think it’s only fair to give a shout out to Don himself. You can read all about Don and follow him at his own website DBassingthwaite.com. You can also visit the Don Bassingthwaite page at Wizards of the Coast. It has a mini bio as wells as a list of the Forgotten Realms and Eberron books he’s written. They also provide sample chapters of his recent works for download.

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Class Discussions

PHB3 First Look: The Seeker

seekerThe Seeker, the most recent Player’s Handbook 3 preview content, was released a few weeks ago. This past week my regular gaming group began a new mini-campaign, which gave me the perfect opportunity to play test the Seeker.

I was actually rather excited about playing this new primal controller, due in part to my growing appreciation of the controller role.

In reading the Seeker class in Dragon #380 it became clear to me that the designers enjoyed creating this class. Many of the powers were developed and tested during earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons, however from a mechanics standpoint they didn’t fit those earlier visions. Enter 4e and those idea’s have a new format to find life.

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Player Resources

Get a Real Job

What’s your PC’s profession? I don’t mean what’s his class; I want to know what your PC does for a living. Have you even given any thought to this question before I just brought it up? Probably not. They’re looking to hit it rich by plundering lost dungeon hordes or by slaying monsters and claiming their loot. In short, PCs don’t have real jobs.

Very few classes are in and of themselves professions. I assume you could argue that Clerics and other divine classes generally work for a church, but I don’t think your PC should show up and demand a pay cheque for spreading the good word.

When D&D campaigns begin they usually start after the PCs have chosen to “go adventuring.” But have you ever wondered what all the adventurers did before they threw caution to the wind and sought out this new calling? Has that adventurer always wanted to be an dungeon-delving Sorcerer or an undead-battling Paladin all his life?

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Month in Review

Month in Review: October 2009

October saw some significant changes throughout the RPG blogging community with the announcement that the guys currently running the RPG Bloggers Network are stepping down and handing over the reigns to someone else. The Dungeon’s Master team followed the posts and emails that ensued and decided to see where the dust settles. Until then, we’re going to just keep on doing what we do best, post great articles about 4e D&D.

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Class Discussions

Necromancer: Heroic Tier (Revised)

Necromancer
Necromancer

Today we revisit the Necromancer and powers for the Heroic Tier. One of the things I miss most from 3e are specialist Wizards. I’m honestly surprised that this hasn’t been addressed by Wizards of the Coast. Though I suppose they have decided to go in a different direction with the Wizard class in 4e. A big thanks to Wyatt of Spirits of Eden who provided a critique on our original post of Necromancer Heroic Powers.

On a day to day basis I’m amazed at the amount of people who are finding Dungeon’s Master by searching the key word ‘Necromancer’. These posts, which are amongst our first, continue to get a lot of traffic. This revision of our original Necromancer Heroic Tier postcleans up some of the language and also adjusts the power level of the powers. With 4e having been out for a year and a half we’ve had the opportunity to play through heroic tier, and that combined with Wyatt’s observations bring this post back to the forefront, just in time for Hallowe’en.

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Humour Player Resources

Survive a Zombie Attack by Using the Zombie Survival Flowchart

Are you prepared for a zombie attack? Would you be one of the poor schlubs who gets eaten in the first hours of the zombie apocalypse or are you one of those fanatics who is ready for this unlikely, worst-case-scenario? If you’re anything like the team at Dungeon’s Master then you’re probably not going to survive very long if zombies ever rise up and attack humanity.

In case of a zombie attack, be it in your next D&D adventure or in real life, we want you to survive. To ensure that the human race stands strong when the undead rise, we’ve created a flowchart outlining what you can do to survive a zombie attack. Things will no doubt be chaotic when the zombies come for you, so the flow chart only covers the absolute essentials. Good luck!

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