Tag: D&D

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Editorial

300th Post: Creating King Leonidas

Today marks our 300th post. To mark the occasion I challenged Wimwick to a contest. Create King Leonidas as depicted in the movie 300. We chose level 16 and used the RPGA character creation guidelines. We have to use character builder and he has to be legal. Let the best man win. – Ameron

The challenge was simple: recreate Leonidas as represented in the movie 300. Sounded like a great idea to use for our 300th post. Of course the challenge was to create a better version of Leonidas than Ameron. Below I’ve outlined the thinking behind my major decisions. I’ll also say for the record that I love this character and look forward to playing him in a Dungeon Delve soon. – Wimwick

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Editorial

Ritual Casting – Opening Up The System

Rituals are “complex ceremonies that create magic effects” according to the description in the Player’s Handbook. It makes sense then that only classes who receive in-depth training should have access to rituals. The concept behind rituals is that they are used outside of combat, perhaps during skill challenges, and represent powerful magic that requires concentration and time. Effects such as raise dead and magic item creation are not events to be taken lightly, they are game altering. A Rogue from the streets of Waterdeep or a Fighter who is a refugee from Cyre should not have automatic access to these rituals. Or should they?

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DM Resources

Traps & Hazards: The Open Portal

During the coming weeks we’ll be looking at traps and hazards in 4e D&D. I’m not going to waste time taking about pit traps or exploding doors, there’s plenty of that stuff in the DMG. What I’m going to focus on are traps and hazards that are much more elaborate and interesting.

These are things that make up a significant part of an encounter that is not the monsters. It’s usually going to take the form of a skill challenge or at the very least some skill checks. My intention is to provide examples of traps and hazards I’ve used in my campaign, describe how and why they were created, and give suggestions for using them in your campaign.

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Editorial

State Of The Dungeon – 1 Year Later

What a year it’s been. When Ameron and I launched Dungeon’s Master a year ago, we did so with humble expectations. While we anticipated that others would find our corner of the Internet, we weren’t sure how far our reach would extend. Our goal was to post articles about 4e D&D 5 days a week . We’d cover a wide range of topics that we found interesting, specifically articles about skill challenges and DDI’s impact on the game. As I look back at the posts from the past year I can see that we’ve done that and much more.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: January 2010

January was the month that Dungeon’s Master truly made its mark on the gaming map. On January 27, Wizards of the Coast featured us in their Spotlight Interview. If you haven’t read it, we encourage you to check it out. Since the interview we’ve had an unbelievable spike in our numbers. So for everyone who’s discovered Dungeon’s Master through the links from our interview, we hope you stick around and keep visiting. And to all of our readers, new and returning, we want to thank you for visiting Dungeon’s Master again and again. Without your support and your feedback we wouldn’t have reached this level of success.

Each month we run a month in review article. This gives readers a second chance to discover some hidden gem that they might have missed throughout the previous month. Normally we run the month is review on the 1st, but February 1 is the Dungeon’s Master 1-year anniversary and we already have something else in mind to mark the occasion.

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Editorial

PHB3 First Look: Hybrid Characters

Hybrid characters, the newest Player’s Handbook 3 debut content, were released as part of Dragon Magazine #383 (DDI subscription required). The concept of a dual classes and how the game designers were going to differentiate multi-classing from hybrids is something I’ve wanted to see for some time. I was very excited to see this update and to get my hands on the debut rules. Based on my first impression with the hybrid system I’m very impressed.

In short, the hybrid system opens up a wealth of new character options for players. While not every option will make sense or be optimized, the hybrid system allows players to tinker with various character concepts and build something unique.

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Editorial

Dungeon’s Master Spotlight Interview on Wizards of the Coast

About a month ago Bart Carroll from Wizards of the Coast asked the Dungeon’s Master team if we’d be interesting in doing an interview. Needless to say we were flattered to receive the offer and ecstatic about the possibility of getting some props from Wizards.

Well, today they published the interview. If you visit the Wizards of the Coast website you’ll find a little article called Dungeon’s Master — Spotlight Interview.

The Dungeon’s Master team wants to thank Bart Carroll and Wizards of the Coast for giving us the opportunity to talk a little bit about our site and to share a little bit more about the team behind the scenes.

We’d also like to thank all or our reader who continue to visit every day. It’s because of your continued support that Dungeon’s Master has been so successful and so much fun.

For those just discovering Dungeon’s Master (thanks to Wizards) we encourage you to visit regularly and comment often. We welcome your feedback and your ideas.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

The Skill Challenge Backdoor

In order to make skill challenges a little bit more interesting I like to try and build in a skill challenge backdoor. This is a very specific set of conditions which, if met, provide a significant advantage not normally available.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Reusing Skills in Skill Challenges

Does this sound familiar? The PCs begin a skill challenge. A couple of PCs have creative ideas and they go at it. They explain what they want to do, use a bit of role-playing and then make their rolls. Right off the bat you’ve got a couple of successes. But as you look around the table at the rest of the players you get blank stares. They either don’t know what to do or don’t want to risk getting a failure since their skill numbers are so awful. So they essentially repeat what the last PCs did.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenges and Rewarding XP

One aspect of skill challenges that doesn’t get a lot of mention is the reward that comes from achieving the objective. Since skill challenges are supposed to be as difficult and rewarding as fighting monsters, the expectation is to be rewarded with XP just like you would for a combat encounter. But in many cases the amount of XP awarded for a successful skill challenge shouldn’t be that cut and dry. There are situations when two parties might earn a different amount of XP for successfully completing the same skill challenge. I’ve reviewed the skill challenge reward system and have some suggestions for improvement.

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