Tag: D&D

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DM Resources Editorial

Keep PCs Grounded – A Look at Flying in D&D

The Pixies are invading D&D! With the release of Heroes of the Feywild it seems like everyone wants to play a Pixie. I don’t think that everyone finds the concept of being a Pixie all that appealing, rather I think a lot of players believe that being able to fly gives them a huge advantage over all other PCs races. And you know what, they could be right. However, after seeing a bunch of Pixies in action during numerous gaming sessions I feel the need to review some of the rules about flying. After all, until now flying was limited to monsters (with very few exceptions). This meant that players didn’t need to worry about how flying worked. But now that everyone and his mother are playing flying PCs it’s time to review the rules and clear up a few of the misconceptions abut flying in D&D.

I began by looking in the glossary at the back of my Monster Manuals. Upon reading the flying rules I realized that there are a few very important details that we’d overlooked. A quick double-check of the DMG confirmed it. At least I thought it confirmed it – until I looked up flying in the Rules Compendium. That’s when things really got confusing.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 2)

I don’t know what it is about the week 2 encounter but for the second season in a row it’s been exceptionally difficult and nearly resulted in TPKs across the board. Last season the PCs faced a White Dragon in week 2, this time around it was two elite monsters that hit hard. This was easily one of the toughest encounters I’ve ever run for D&D Encounters. It didn’t result in a TPK at my tables but it easily could have. Instead we have more than half the PCs down to two or fewer healing surges.

As I’ve mentioned before I run two different D&D Encounters sessions most weeks at two different FLGS in my community. In some cases the adventures play out pretty much the same way. In cases where they don’t I’m going to try and summarize the highlights of each to show how different the same encounter can be with different groups. I’ll also explain any change I might have made after running it once before.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: November 2011

November was another great moth at Dungeon’s Master. There was an unintentionally heavy focus on player resources and D&D public play this month, not that there’s anything wrong with the way that worked out. There were still articles for the DM including three articles featuring new adventure hooks.

Our readers really like getting to know the Dungeons’ Master team a little bit better in November when they got to see inside Ameron’s Game room and heard Ameron, Wimwick, Bauxtehude, Suddry and Skallawag take on Lair Assault: Forge of the Dawn Titan. And our newest ongoing series where we ask you to Make the Call and weigh in on the rules was a lot more popular and positive than we expected so watch for another installment in the near future.

We’d like to thank all of our readers for visiting Dungeon’s Master in November. We encourage everyone to leave us comments and let us know what you think about our material, good or bad. If you have ideas for future articles or are interested in writing a guest post for us, please email us or comment at the bottom of this article.

In case you missed any of the great articles we ran in November, this is your chance to get caught up. If your one of those loyal readers who visits every day it might be worth checking out some of the articles again to see what other people said in the comments.

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Class Discussions

Building a Better Avenger

In my local gaming circle, which operates out of a college gaming club, the autumn always brings with it a plethora of new games. With a very active player base, and a wide variety of different parties, I have the advantage of seeing several different parties and classes in action. It allows me to see trends, and not just those that are commented upon increasingly by the editorials released by Wizards of the Coast. While what I have seen at this gaming circle confirms most of what they have said, a recent observation has given an interesting conversation. Other than Clerics and Paladins, divine classes do not get played.

After interviewing most of my gaming circle as to why, I have been able to come up with the same reasons for Avengers, Invokers, and Runepriests. First, there is a lack of distinctive flavor for Runepriests and Invokers to separate them from Clerics and Wizards. Second, the powers and feats are generally lackluster. And third, especially in the case of the Avenger, they simply do not measure up to the other classes for their role in the party. The subject of the Avenger in specific has been discussed before on this blog, and how it fails to be a good striker class. As such, a few friends and I were inspired to take the Avenger back to the drawing board, and re-think the class to solve the issues of a lack of traction, a lack of support, and a lack of being a striker.

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DM Resources

How Observation Changes Characters’ Behaviour

How often has your character done something during the heat of combat that he would never do under normal circumstances? Usually these uncharacteristic actions revolve around killing the enemy. It could be something marginally questionable like attacking an unarmed opponent or it could be a lot more extreme like killing an opponent that has already surrendered.

We don’t often worry too much about the consequences of these actions because the only witnesses are the other members of your party, and let’s face it they’re probably just as guilty of the questionable behaviour as you are. But lately I’ve wondered if players would make different decisions for their characters if they knew that the PCs were being watched. Would PCs still act with impunity if there was a good chance of their actions being seen by others?

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Humour Skill Challenges

The Holiday Shopping Skill Challenge (Encore)

Today is Black Friday in the U.S. and while those of us in Canada and the other countries around the world suffer through another day of work, our American brethren get to experience this shopping extravaganza. To mark the occasion we decide to do something a little bit different. While looking through our extensive archive I came across this gem and thought it was a good time to run it again. Enjoy.

Originally published on December 11, 2009, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: The Holiday Shopping Skill Challenge.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 1)

This week we began season 7 of D&D Encounters and started out journey Beyond the Crystal Cave. Although technically season 7 began last week with a slot 0 session, we opted to just take the week off. When we began this week everyone was refreshed after having a week off and came prepared with a brand new level 1 character. Most players were excited to try the new racers, classes and themes from the Heroes of the Feywild and I’m pleased to say that more than one player had his very own copy of the book. The DMs were the only ones who purchased the Neverwinter Campaign Guide last season, much to the disappointment of our hosts.

Our numbers still continue to hover between 7-10 people. This week we had too many for one table and not enough for two so I ran a party with seven PCs. The issue we’re facing at our FLGS is that even if we had enough players to run two tables we don’t have a secondary DM. Our previous back-up DMs are no longer coming out for D&D Encounters and the players that are coming out don’t have enough experience to feel comfortable being the DM. We may have to throw someone to the wolves and let a rookie run a second table if out number increase significantly.

Meanwhile at the other FLGS where I play we had three full tables with six players at each, so I guess geography and scheduling has a lot to do with it too.

The seven player party consisted of a Pixie Bard (Master Skald) [Unseelie Agent], Human Seeker [Unseelie Agent], Hamadryad Paladin (Cavalier), Wilden Monk [Sidhe Lord], Satyr Warlock (Hexblede) [Unseelie Agent], Pixie Rogue (Thief) [Fey Beast Tamer], and Elf Monk/Ranger Hybrid.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave – Pre-Generated Characters

For the past four seasons of D&D Encounters, Wizards of the Coast has provided us with the same six pre-generated characters. There’s nothing wrong with theses pre-gens but they’re getting a little bit too familar. Not only that, but they don’t feature any of the new optioins from Heroes of the Feywild.

Realizing that a lot of people are looking for new pre-gens, our friend Kiel Chenier took it upon himself create a slew of new characters for use with D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave. He’s created nine new characters to choose from. The four pre-gens that highlight new classes and races from the Heroes of the Feywild are presented below. The rest of the new pre-gens are available on Kiel’s website Dungeons & Donuts.

During this season of D&D Encoutners all the PCs must choose a background establishing them from either Crystalbrook, Sildaine Forest or the city of Sybar. Each of the new pre-gens is from one of these locations. You’ll likely recognize the heroes from Sybar – three members of the famous adventuring company Acquisitions Incorporated.

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Adventure Hooks DM Resources

10 Adventure Hooks Found in the Library

If your character is only good at killing monsters you likely dread when the adventure leads the PCs to a library so they can perform research. That’s something best left for the smart PCs. After all, what can you possibly contribute to this situation except mayhem and grief? A creative DM can find plenty of ways to get the whole party excited the next time they find themselves dealing with books instead of monsters, and today we’ve got 10 adventure hooks to make the job even easier.

I’m actually surprised how often my own adventuring party has found themselves wading through books looking for some lost kernel of wisdom. Many DMs prefer to rely on an interesting social interaction with a wise sage or local expect to convey the information the PCs need, but leaving the heroes alone with a whole lot of books can be more fun than you might think.

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Adventure Hooks DM Resources

Time Travel in D&D

If you’re looking for a way to pump some new life into a long-running or stagnant campaign why not make a radical change like thrusting the PCs into the past. I can already hear some of you scoffing at the idea, but in a world with magic is time travel really that unlikely?

Players get bored when they’re not challenged. Sure you can throw more powerful monsters at them but even that gets repetitive. What I’ve found is that anything that takes them out of their comfort zone is good for the game. Players don’t realize how much the success of their characters relies on the familiar. High level PCs usually have a reputation and their deeds are well-known by the community. Taking all of that away from them can have a greater effect that you might think.

Although I’ve played multiple characters in multiple campaigns over the years every camping took place in more or less the same time period. In established worlds like Forgotten Realms or Eberron, keeping the action in line with cannon allowed us to interact with well-known NPCs and work elements from new releases into our games. Even though I played in numerous campaigns set in the Realms during my high school years they all happened simultaneously.

Now fast forward your campaign setting 50 years. Assuming there wasn’t a cataclysmic disaster (like the Spell Plague) and things progressed without any significant interference, what changes do you think happened to the world and the people in it during that time. Just think of how much things have change in the last 50 years in real life and imagine the kinds of change that will come in the next 50.

So in a world with magic what do you think their future will look like? How technologically or magically advanced to you think your campaign world will become in the next 50 years? A more important question is how much has your campaign world advanced over the last 50 years? While contemplating that brain teaser think about how your PCs would react if they found themselves thrust back into that time.

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