Tag: D&D

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Player Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Training

Let’s face it some skills have more in-game applications than others. On any given night at my gaming table Perception checks are made at least once an hour. Stealth is also a very commonly used skill. And when it’s time for a skill challenge the skills most often relied on are tend to be Diplomacy, Insight and Streetwise.

So what if you’re a Fighter and your best skill is Endurance? How do you turn that skill training and that base roll of +10 into something useful and constructive to the story? More importantly how do you have fun as a player in the process? The answer is simple – use your imagination.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Ditch the Tail

This skill challenge can be run in both urban and rural settings. They are similar but in some circumstances make use of different skills. Both variations are presented below.

Ditch the Tail (Urban)

Setup

The PCs are being chased through city streets and need to loose their pursuers. This can be accomplished by outrunning or outsmarting those giving chase.

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Top 10

Top 5 Fantasy Characters

Edmund Blair-Leighton: The Accolade
Creative Commons License photo credit: freeparking

There are a lot of great characters in fantasy literature. From powerful mages to dashing knights, fantasy has it all. The genre has inspired many cliches and archetypes that have been reused by countless authors and DMs. The question the staff at Dungeon’s Master asked was who are the greatest figures in fantasy literature? Who are the giants that the rest are only pale shadows of?

We pulled countless ancient tomes from our dusty library and consulted sages near and far. We narrowed the field and complied below are the top 5 fantasy characters as selected by the team at Dungeon’s Master.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: Border Crossing

Hostility between two neighbouring countries is still fresh in everyone’s mind despite the conflict’s recent resolution. The border guards often take out their pent up frustration on foreigners with legitimate reasons for crossing the border.

Setup

The PCs need to move through the check-point without delay and without arousing any unwarranted attention. Each PC needs to identify himself to the border guard, show appropriate travel papers, and state his reason for crossing.

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DM Resources

Campaign Design: Resources

Ethan the rogue worked patiently on the lock. Never before had he experienced a lock of this complexity. Adjusting his thieves tools slightly he disabled one of the magical wards. With sweat dripped from his brow he was aware of Braddoc standing over his shoulder ready to break the door down with brute force. “Back off Braddoc” the rogue said, “if this wizard has half the treasure we’ve been told of we can’t risk you setting off an explosion!” With that said Ethan made a few final adjustments and click. Turning the door handle Ethan opened the door of the chamber. Inside stacked on shelves were the wizard’s tomes, countless millennia of knowledge.

Before you begin the quest of designing your own campaign world it would be wise to equip yourself with the appropriate resources. Just as your Fighter wouldn’t go into battle without his armour and trusty sword, neither should you wade into the task of campaign design without an arsenal of tools to assist you.

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Book Reviews

Review: Adventurer’s Vault

Adventurer's VaultThe Adventurer’s Vault has been out for some time now. However, that isn’t going to stop me from giving it a solid review.

The first thing you need to realize about the Adventurer’s Vault is that it is a much needed addition. By including magic items into the PHB, Wizards of the Coast handicapped themselves with the amount of space they could dedicate to each subject. A few area’s got the short end of the stick, one of them was the amount of magic items available for players to drool about.

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Humour Player Resources Top 10

Avoiding Death (Part 1)

I think it’s fair to say that everyone who plays D&D has experienced character death at some point. Hopefully your character has gone down swinging or sacrificed himself in such a way that people will be telling and retelling the story for years to come. But in reality I think we all know that more often than not character death is the result of someone (often the character himself) doing something stupid.

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DM Resources Player Resources

Speeding Up Your Game

My gaming group meets once a week for four hours. Due to the longer and longer distances people have to travel, the game has to end promptly to allow people to get home at a reasonable time. Playing longer than our four hour allotment just isn’t an option. So we have to make the best use of the time we have. Here are some of the tips and tricks that we’ve come up with that have really made a big difference.

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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: “X” Marks the Spot

The PCs acquire an old treasure map. They are determined to find the lost treasure. However, the map is really old and it’s quit difficult to read.

Setup

Presented below are three possible reasons for the PCs to be engaged in this skill challenge.

  • A retired adventurer, unable to leave home due to age or injury, hires the PCs to recover a buried item depicted on his old treasure map.
  • The PCs find a treasure map and uncover enough information to believe it’s the real deal.
  • The PCs are competing with another group of adventures to locate a lost artifact. The PCs have acquired a treasure map which they believe will lead them to the item first.
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DM Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Challenge: The Waiting Game

The PCs are to rendezvous with an escaped prisoner and get him safely across the boarder.

This Skill Challenge can easily be adapted for any scenario where the PCs need to wait in hostile territory for the delivery of any item, person, hostage, etc.

Setup

The lord’s nephew was arrested on trumped up charges and imprisoned while visiting the neighboring country. He is to be executed as a political statement. The PCs are part of a coordinated escape plan. Their job is to meet the prisoner in a remote location and transport him safely and secretly across the nearby boarder.

The prison break is supposed to happen at sundown. The PCs have been instructed to get back across the boarder undetected by sunrise with or without out the prisoner.

At sundown, the DM should roll 2d4 to determine how many hours the PCs wait before the prisoner shows up. If the result is 8 then the escape attempt was unsuccessful. Do not inform the PCs if this happens. Let them decide what course of action to take at sunrise.

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