Tag: D&D

Categories
Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 10)

“Salazar Vladistone is a hero.” At least he was during his lifetime, according to Faldyra. After last week’s battle against the ghosts of Hammerfast, this week’s encounter began with a quick breather in the library. The PCs found Faldyra pouring through old dusty tomes in the library’s basement archives. She’d discovered information about the leader of the Phantom Brigade as well as a possible way to defeat him once and for all.

This week at our FLGS we were running with a skeleton crew. My table had only three players, but one of the veterans was willing and able to run both Belgos and Valenae. The other two players were running Jarren and a new addition to the party, a Dragonborn Fighter. The other table at our FLGS had five players, all of them still sore from the TPK they suffered last week and looking to get back into the game.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 10)”
Categories
Player Resources

Exploiting Racial and Class Powers: Dragon Breath

Be All You Can Be. This was the recruiting slogan for the U.S. Army for over twenty years. When you create your D&D character do you design them to be the best they can be?

Of course, the term ‘best’ is subjective. Everyone has their own idea of what the best really is. It is also situational, what is best for one situation may not be the best for another. However, there are undeniably certain power builds that exist within D&D. Some are certainly better than others, but all are worth examining.

The Dragonborn’s dragon breath is an interesting power. At first glance it’s a useful and intriguing encounter power that only requires a minor action to use. It gives these characters an extra option during combat and if we’re honest the idea of breathing fire or acid is pretty cool. It lets us get our geek on.

Continue reading “Exploiting Racial and Class Powers: Dragon Breath”
Categories
DM Resources

Foregoing a Short Rest

How important is resting in D&D? The rules allow for characters to rest between encounter in order to heal and regain the use of encounter powers, but just because the rules state that characters can rest does that mean that character should rest?

At low levels DMs always try to find ways to keep the party moving forward. Without a compelling motive, many games end up suffering from a bad case of the 5-minute work day. The players don’t want their characters to die so they’re always looking for an excuse to rest and regain the use of their best powers.

However, I’ve realized from my own recent gaming experiences that as characters get tougher the players are a lot more willing to keep their PC’s adventuring without resting between every single encounter.

Continue reading “Foregoing a Short Rest”
Categories
DM Resources

Designing Social Encounters

Creating combat encounters is a lot easier than creating social encounters in D&D. When it comes to combat most DMs have a really clear idea of what they need to do to prepare. Social encounters by their very nature tend to be less predictable, catching many DMs woefully unprepared for the decisions and actions the party chooses. Although there are guidelines on how to set up and run skill challenges, more complex social encounters that rely on role-playing and interaction with NPCs can become more complicated than fighting Orcus himself.

Most social encounters are played out as skill challenges, if the DM even feels that there is a significant challenge involved. If the goal is merely to meet an important NPC or find out a particular piece of information while hanging out at a bar, than a little bit of role-playing may be all that’s required. However, if the goal is more complex and if there are consequences for failing, then a skill challenges is likely the best way to adjudicate the encounter.

The amount of work required by the DM to create these encounters is really dependent upon the group’s play style. If they’d rather just bash monsters with their weapons and spells, then social encounters will be looked upon as the filler between fights. But for groups that enjoy the role-playing side of things, a social encounter presents an opportunity for them to really develop their PC and use skills more heavily then they usually do during combat. Once you know which type of group you’re designing the encounter for then you can decide if you want to do it the fast way or take the detailed approach.

Continue reading “Designing Social Encounters”
Categories
Player Resources

Character Catchphrases

“I’ll be back.” “D’oh!” “Go ahead, make my day.” A clever catchphrase is an easy way to make a run-of-the-mill character more memorable. As you play more and more characters over time they’ll likely start to blurring together in your memory. Distinguish you next character by giving him a catchphrase.

If you’re playing a public game at your FLGS or at a convention then you often end up at a table with six complete strangers. What better way to distinguish yourself and your character than with a clever catchphrase.

The Wizard that shouts in a funny voice “Heeeeeeeeeere comes my missile” may seem annoying at first, but I guarantee that when you tell your friends about your last D&D game you tell them all about that PC. Meanwhile the other characters all fade into the background.

Continue reading “Character Catchphrases”
Categories
Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 9)

Salazar Vladistone and the Phantom Brigade burned the village of Inverness to the ground. Two months later Vladistone and his Ghost army have returned and are now attacking Hammerfast. The third and final chapter of March of the Phantom Brigade begans by throwing the PCs right into the thick of things.

After fleeing Inverness, the PCs, Malgram, Faldyra and the rest of the survivors managed to make it all the way back to Hammerfast where they were welcomed and provided with food and shelter. In order to help repay the townsfolk’s kindness, the PCs were asked to join the city guard as reserve members. The grateful PCs couldn’t refuse. It sounded like a fair trade. After all, who would be dumb enough to attack a walled city full of battle-ready dwarves? Salazar Vladistone, apparently.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 9)”
Categories
Adventure Hooks DM Resources

Television Scripts As D&D Adventures

Week in and week out the DMs of the nation are writing phenomenal adventures for the players who gather around the gaming table. The work is endless and occasionally we DMs run out of time and energy. Game day is approaching and we haven’t even started writing out the adventure. We have what is more commonly referred to as writer’s block. We just don’t know what to do with the game this week and a blank page is staring back at us.

Normally, when this happens I put away my D&D supplies and I switch on the television. It doesn’t matter what I watch, I just need to let me mind wander allowing ideas to come to me freely. It’s at the end of several hours of mindless television watching that it hits me, the adventure I’ve been looking for has been literally staring me in the face for the past several hours.

Television and the endless and often mindless content that it produces is the DMs best friend.

Continue reading “Television Scripts As D&D Adventures”
Categories
Editorial

Quitting the Party Mid-Adventure

It’s not often that something happens during a D&D game that I haven’t experienced before, but just a few weeks ago that’s exactly what happened. The circumstances of the adventure terrified my PC so much that he quit. I knew that removing this character from the adventure was the right decisions. Walking away was the only choice he’d make given his detailed and well established background.

In our home game we use a character tree. Every player has a repertoire of PCs that they can choose from at the beginning of each adventure. The adventures run about six weeks and when they’re done everyone levels up. This time around I choose to play my Rogue Daggermaster. He’d been a major NPC in my campaign for years and this was going to be my first chance to play him as a PC. Even though my character wasn’t technically party of the party, he’d been an important part of their lives for 17 levels. This was a character that we all knew as well as any of the PCs.

A major part of the new adventure had the PCs investigating a series of strange occurrences. Without knowing very many details at first we began our investigation. Upon learning what was really going on, I realized that my character couldn’t complete the adventure. Based on his back-story and knowing how I’d played the character through all of those levels as an NPC, the strange happenings would absolutely terrify him.

Continue reading “Quitting the Party Mid-Adventure”
Categories
Month in Review

Month in Review: March 2011

A controversial stance on the Avenger class, an in-depth look at the Warforged, as well as our unique take on divination, summoning, and trust issues in D&D all contributed to our best month yet here at Dungeon’s Master. These were just a few of the many topics we covered throughout March.

Although we generally run our Month in Review on the 1st, we decided to wait given that Friday was April Fool’s Day. Hopefully you enjoyed our April Fools Day article, Magical Items That Aren’t Magical. Now it’s on to the Month in Review where we recap all of the great articles we ran over the past month and give you a chance to get caught up on anything you might have missed.

We’d like to again thank everyone who visited Dungeon’s Master during March and we hope that you keep visiting us in the months to come. We welcome your feedback and look forward to reading your comments throughout April.

Continue reading “Month in Review: March 2011”
Categories
Humour

Magic Items That Aren’t Magical – April Fools!

Too often we take D&D too seriously. That’s not to say that funny things don’t happen during the course of an adventure, but when it comes to the rules and the mechanics of the game it’s usually all business.

Today, in honour of April Fool’s Day we’re taking a step back and adding a little bit of humour to one of the more serious aspects of the game – magic treasure.

As we’ve discussed before, the way the players describe their magical items is certainly not the way that their characters describe their items (see What’s a +1 Sword?). With that in mind, every now and then the DM should have some fun at the player’s expense. This isn’t intended to be mean spirited; it’s merely a way for the DM to inject some hilarity into the game by exploiting player greed.

Continue reading “Magic Items That Aren’t Magical – April Fools!”