Tag: character class

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2009: The Necromancer

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2009. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

The Necromancer
The Necromancer

The sixth post at Dungeon’s Master was the Necromancer: Heroic Tier, published way back on February 4, 2009. When you consider that two of the preceding posts were launching soon and our official launch post, the Necromancer series was the fourth content post on the site. As a result the series of articles on the Necromancer have a long history. They have also been one of the most surprising series of posts we’ve written.

The articles were originally written to address the lack of specialist Wizards. The release of 4e and the creation of power sources altered the way several classes worked in previous editions and I felt that the Wizard class was most deeply effected. I always enjoyed the idea of specialists and felt that the Necromancer series was a way to address that. I honestly expected to see more about specialist Wizards in Arcane Power, but that was not to be.

As I mentioned, the Necromancer series has been with us since the beginning and has been one of the biggest surprises about the site. The keyword “Necromancer” is one of the most used terms that drives traffic to our site from search engines. Ameron and I were genuinely surprised when we consistently saw that the Necromancer articles were getting multiple pages views a day, months after being published. This trend has not slowed down. What really surprises us is if you just search necromancer through Google, which is how the majority of people find these articles, I’m not sure if we are ranked in the first ten pages. If you add 4e D&D to the search, we come up a bit higher but those keywords are used less frequently.

As a result of the frequency the original articles were being found through Google we decided to write a follow-up piece on the Necromancer. This article, found below, is our take on the Necromancer from a role playing perspective. Resulting from that article were some comments and criticism on the powers for the original series which prompted a revision. You’ll find the links to the original series and the updated powers contained within the article below.

We hope you enjoy our take on the Necromancer. We’ve been enjoying the traffic it has generated and we plan to do more with the class in the future. We also haven’t forgotten about specialist Wizards, they are still an issue that I think have a lot of potential to explore in 4e D&D to push the power system even further.

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Class Discussions

Why You Want A Controller In Your Party

Combat in 4e Dungeons & Dragons is a tactical affair. The effective use of conditions and the importance of movement demand that an effective party do more than just attack. The party needs to attack as an efficient cohesive unit, where every resource is used to best advantage.

This requires that someone call the shots. A default assumption might be for the leader in the party to be that person, after all leaders lead. But is that really the best decision? Is the leader dazing, stunning, slowing, moving or immobilizing their opponents?

Didn’t think so, no that duty rest primarily with the party’s controller.

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Class Discussions

Necromancer: Epic Tier (Revised)

female necromancerThis is the third and final part of our revised Necromancer powers. Although few players seem to be playing the Epic Tier regularily, there are opportunities for one-off adventures where you can use these powers to try something different. Our goal is to provide options for those who enjoy the Wizard class and want to add a Necromantic feel.

Once again a big thanks to Wyatt from Spirits of Eden for his feedback and providing the motivation to update these articles. If you would like to see more powers and options for the Necromancer visit some of our previous articles on the subject.

Revised Articles

Original Articles

If you’ve enjoyed these articles on the Necromancer and are looking for more then return to Dungeon’s Master in December when we’ll present new and original takes on the Necromancer.

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Class Discussions Player Resources

Necromancer: Paragon Path (revised)

We continue our reimaging of the Necromancer with this update of a Paragon Path for wizards. Perhaps I’m the only one, but I miss the old specialist wizards of previous editions. This revision results from reader feedback and a desire to provide the community with a more workable version of the Necromancer.

Once again I’d like to thank Wyatt of Spirits of Eden for his suggestions to provide more balance to this paragon path. You can read more on our thoughts on the Necromancer and our previous versions of the class. We hope to have a revised version of the Epic Tier in the next few weeks.

Revised Articles

Original Articles

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Class Discussions Player Resources

The Necromancer

The Necromancer
The Necromancer

Necromancy, the study of the Black Arts.

Necromancers study death in a way that few other mortals would contemplate. Motivated by power, knowledge, greed or life eternal, these individuals will stop at nothing in their search for the understanding of life and the secrets it holds.

Our exploration of the Necromancer in 4e D&D continues at Dungeon’s Master. We’re expanding on our initial Necromancer articles and focusing on the motivation behind this often misunderstood class. In our previous examination of the Necromancer we provided powers and resources that you could use in your regular games.

Revised

We’ve recently undertaken the process of updating these articles to balance the powers.

Over the past few weeks we’ve noticed increased activity on these pages and as we enter into October and Halloween draws nearer, this article on the Necromancer is the first of several articles that will discuss the undead and their place in Dungeons & Dragons.

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Player Resources

Riding Off Into the Sunset: How to Retire a PC

There comes a time in every campaign when a player is ready to retire his character. Whether because of boredom, the release of a new Player’s Handbook or character death sooner or later every character retires.

There are many different ways to retire a PC. The method that works best for you is determined by the campaign you’re playing in and the conversation you have with your DM. In a 3.5e campaign I played, my character was a Fighter who specialized with the Spiked Chain. He was designed to disarm and trip his opponents. As the campaign unfolded I learned that 90% of our opponents had multiple legs and attacked with natural weapons. All my feat selections and expertise was wasted. I retired the character and brought a new one to life that fit the campaign much better.

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why you might retire your PC.

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Editorial

Poll Results

Ever since we launched Dungeon’s Master we’ve included a poll question on the right side of the page. (If you haven’t answered this week’s question, now would be a good time!) The number of respondents for each poll continues to grow along with the number of readers who visit our site regularly. Now that we’re a few months in and we’ve had the opportunity to ask a variety of questions of our readers, we decided to take a look at the results of a few polls.

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Class Discussions

Role vs Roll: Why I Play A Rogue

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend during my last few gaming sessions. The Fighter consistently deals more damage than my Rogue. We’re 9th level, almost at paragon, and I’m struggling to deal more damage than the Fighter. Fundamentally, something seems wrong when the defender can dish out more damage than the striker. My numbers should be consistently higher on a round for round basis, instead my jaw drops as I hear how much damage he’s dealing.

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Class Discussions Player Resources

Deal The Most Damage

I’ve discovered the best possible combination of race, class and equipment to ensure that your character will deal more damage every round than any other character. These builds are 100% legal and by the book. I’ve followed all the rules and used only core books published by Wizards. I didn’t make the rules, but I’m sure as hell going to exploit them for my benefit. Keep reading to find out how.

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Class Discussions

You’re a Striker, He’s a Defender… Big Deal: Looking at Roles

Do you define your character by his class or his role? We continue to look at roles in 4e and their defining characteristics. We’ve already explored the idea of how to make the Fighter a striker and we pondered whether the roles could be redefined. But this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to looking at roles. Since this is a new element in 4e perhaps it can be done better. We think there is room to introduce some new house rules around roles, but before we start developing them we thought it prudent to take a deeper look at how the existing presentation of roles affect the game.

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