Here are 10 new and alternative ways to use Athletics. Athletics and Acrobatics are not interchangeable. Too many PCs assume that if they’ve got a high Strength they can use Athletics and if they’ve got a high Dexterity they can use Acrobatics. Well I disagree. If these skills were intended to be interchangeable then they would only be one skill. When I’m the DM, I make a point to set up challenges that can only be overcome with Athletics or Acrobatics.
Tag: 4e
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Monster Manual 2: An Early Review
I have the Monster Manual 2.
I know it’s not supposed to be out for another week, but I’ve got one. And I feel it’s my duty to share some of the greatness inside with my fellow gamers. Since many of you will have the book by this time next week, I’ll try to give you just enough to keep you salivating and not enough to ruin all of the surprises.
Fire is fascinating. Dancing flames look almost lifelike. Fire is both beautiful and dangerous. The sound of a voice that cries out “Fire!” instills fear in all who hear it, especially if that cry awakens you from a deep night’s sleep.
One of our loyal readers requested that we build a skill challenge about fire. It’s an interesting concept that can be handled in many different ways. A great skill challenge called City Ablaze is already available from At-will, in which the PCs start from a position of safety and rush to save people and property as they work to put out the fire.
We at Dungeon’s Master decided to approach this scenario from a different perspective. What if the PCs begin the skill challenge inside a building that is already on fire? Do they bolt for the nearest exit? Do they try to search for others trapped in the fire? Do they try to save valuables? What if they can’t get out? Checks for handling all of these scenarios are presented below in our latest skill challenge: Playing With Fire.
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Desktop Killed The Tabletop Game
On August 1, 1981, MTV played their very first music video, Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles. What does a song from the 80s have to do with Dungeons & Dragons? Perhaps more than we know. This month’s blog carnival, hosted by Role Playing Pro, is about the future of RPGs. As our contribution, the Dungeon’s Master team wants to focus on technology and what it means for the future of RPGs and D&D in particular. Much has already been written on this topic and our intent is not to repeat or regurgitate old arguments. In stead, I intend to add to the conversation and provide our particular point of view.
Video killed the radio star
In my mind and in my car
We can’t rewind we’ve gone to farVideo Killed the Radio Star, The Buggles
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The Fighter as a Striker
You’ve decided that your next character will be an archer and your primary weapon will be the longbow. But you’re not interested in playing a tree-hugging, one-with-nature Ranger. You want to play a tough as nails Fighter in plate armor who is a longbow master. Interesting character concept, but can you make this character using the 4e mechanics?
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Redefining Character Roles
The advent of class roles to 4e D&D changed our perception of character classes. All classes now fit into one of four predefined roles within the party: controller, defender, leader and striker. Even though we’ve only had these four roles since the release of 4e last summer, they have become engrained in the discussion of gaming groups.
These four classifications are quickly becoming more than just roles. You could argue that they have become the new default character classes and that the current classes as we know them are just archetypes of the controller, defender, leader and striker. What I’m seeing more often are players deciding to play the striker and select whether they’d like to try the arcane, divine, martial or primal archetype of that class.
As we continue to explore how to run and design skill challenges we’ll look at the importance of creativity, the consequences of failing and new, advanced ideas for skill challenges. This builds on the basics of skill challenge design we covered yesterday in Running Memorable Skill Challenges (Part 1) including what is a skill challenge, how to introduce them and the basics of designing skill challenges.
Reward Creativity
Skill challenges are about creativity. They challenge the DM to think creatively when designing the challenge in order to give the PCs something new to experience. They also force PCs to look at their skill selection in new ways. The Fighter who is all thumbs in social encounters might consider training in Intimidate or even Diplomacy to increase his level of participation.
What is a skill challenge? These two words redefined encounters in Dungeons & Dragons. Since the release of 4e almost a year ago, skill challenges have been a thorn in the DM’s side, and a challenge for players to participate in. Much has been written about them in the blogosphere and this article certainly won’t be the last. The fundamental question I want to answer is “How to run and design skill challenges?”. The paradox here is that as I write this article I know I don’t have one solid answer. Rather, there are a myriad of ways to run skill challenges. All of them have merit, all of them have negatives and no one answer is right for all gaming groups. Further, what worked in the design of one challenge may fail in another.
How do you motivate the PCs to begin a new adventure? Meeting a guy in a tavern is old and overused. You want the PCs to go down the road you’ve paved with all your hard work. You’ve designed the campaign, chosen the adventure, drawn the maps, populated the dungeons, given stats to the important NPCs, balanced the encounters and planned your tactics. All you need now is a hook.
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Month in Review: April 2009
April was our best month yet. If you missed any of the great material we posted, here’s your chance to get caught up. We’ve only been around for three months, but in that time we’ve covered a lot of ground. Our readership has continued to grow and again we thank the loyal readers who visit us every day and comment regularly. Here are the highlights just in case you missed anything.