One of the biggest criticisms I’ve heard about 4e D&D is that the combat takes too long. Sometimes it’s necessary to stop combat, assume the PCs will emerge victorious and keep things moving. When DMs find themselves in a situation where dragging out a combat encounter is just an exercise in rolling dice then it’s time to call the fight. We’ve already shared some of our methods for speeding up your game and as PCs move into the Paragon and Epic tiers of play DMs will find this latest tip more and more useful.
Tag: 4e
In Find and Repair the Warforged Scout (Part 1) the PCs undertook a mission to scour a battlefield in search of the components of Obsidian, a Warforged scout thought destroyed during the war. Newly discovered information led some to believe that Obsidian was not completely destroyed and that with the right ritual he could be reactivated. If this happens information the scout possesses will be incredibly valuable and potentially damaging to very important people in many different nations.
Setup
Part 2 of the skill challenge begins after the PC recover the missing Warforged components. Now that they have the components they can attempt to put Obsidian back together and try to reactivate him. But this is delicate work that requires a coordinated effort from the entire party.
When a Warforged dies it isn’t always dead. This was especially true during the last war. Just because a Warforged was damaged and fell to the ground during combat didn’t necessarily mean that he was gone forever. It took time for living, breathing commanders to get used to the concept that some of their soldiers were constructs. When retreat was necessary and bodies were left behind on the battlefield, inactive Warforged were often abandoned along with the soon-to-be-rotting corpses. But in some cases the fallen Warforged could still be repaired, if only someone with the appropriate skills made the attempt.
Dungeons & Dragons 4e has been out for over a year now and I finally pulled my Dungeon’s Master Guide off the shelf and put it to use. As our regular DM was out of town, I stepped up to the plate and ran a Dungeon Delve.
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How to Get Your Eberron Fix
Everyone wants more Eberron. Today marks the official release of the Eberron Campaign Guide. If you haven’t yet checked out Eberron in 4e then today is a great time to start. We’ve got reviews of the two core books as well as materials to get a new DM ready for an Eberron campaign. Here are five suggested ways to get your Eberron fix.
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Staff Picks
We’ve added a new feature to Dungeon’s Master, the Staff Pick. These are older posts from our archives that Ameron and I wanted to highlight. Look for our Staff Picks in the left navigation below our five most popular posts. We’ll update our Staff Picks regularly with articles we think new readers might find interesting and that long-time readers may benefit from discovering again.
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ENnie Award Nominations
On Monday the 2009 ENnie Award nominees were announced. Even though our fledgling site didn’t earn a nomination this year, the team at Dungeon’s Master wants to congratulate the five finalists in the Best Website category.
Best Website
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Review: Divine Power
Oh my god Divine Power is a very cool book. Although not officially released until next week, I have a copy of Divine Power now. It provides new powers, feats, paragon paths and epic destinies for divine classes as well as introducing new rules for divine domains. If you play a divine PC you need to get this book.
The first four chapters are dedicated to the four divine classes. Contained within each is exactly what you expect: new builds, new powers and new paragon paths. Here are the highlights.
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Keeping Promises: PHB3 First Look
Last week Wizards of the Coast updated the Character Builder with the first release from the Player’s Handbook 3 and what an update it was. I really believe that WotC delivered on the promise they made back in June. What we as DDI subscribers are receiving is full content well ahead of its publication date. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the new classes, races and feats from the PHB3 over the next nine months.
I’ve got the Eberron Campaign Guide. Get an advanced preview of each and every chapter including information about The Lord of Blades, King Kaius III and the brand new Dragonmarked House: House Tarkanan.
Before I get into the chapter by chapter review I wanted to comment on a few of the overall elements. The art in this book is fantastic. You’ll be blown away when you see Wayne Reynolds’ cover painting of The Lord of Blades, Ralph Horsley’s adventurers battling a huge Warforged, Chippy’s Warforged hanging off the side of the airship and (my personal favourite) Chippy’s dragon emerging from the water grasping a swordfish. Almost all the art is new (I only recognized two pictures from previous books).