Included in the D&D Encounters season 4: March of the Phantom Brigade DMs kit was information about the new D&D Fortune Cards. Here’s what Wizards of the Coast provided along with instructions on how to distribute the free cards earned when players accumulate enough Renown Points.
Tag: D&D
D&D Encounters Season 4: March of the Phantom Brigade begins on February 9. Today we’re sharing copies of the pre-generated characters. When comparing these characters with the ones provided over the past three season I have to say that these are by far the best yet.
Not only are the characters built better, but the character sheet layout is fantastic. Finally we’ve got all of the skills actually listed on the character sheet. I was also impressed by the fact that on each character sheet some tactics are provided. This will be a tremendous help for newer players and should speed things up considerably.
Each character also has a difficulty rating from 1-3 stars indicating how much experience is required to easily run each PC. Again, I think this is a fantastic improvement.
One thing that is missing is alignment. I guess Wizards figured that it’s up to the player to determine their own alignment and run the character accordingly.
As the PCs become more powerful and earn a reputation they’re going to become better known across the land. However, there are going to be times when this fame and notoriety will actually be a hindrance. So when one of those situations arises why not throw a skill challenge into the background of the story in order to remind the PCs that if they want to keep their identities a secret it’s going to require a little bit of work.
I want to stress that this kind of skill challenge should be going on in the background and not be a full-on skill challenge in the traditional sense. By the time the PCs have earned enough experience to be recognized, a skill challenge to hide their true identities will seem beneath their level. When I say recognized, I mean to the extent that they can no longer walk among the common folk without drawing crowds and onlookers.
However, by making this a skill challenge with real consequences and XP, the players will realize that it needs to be taken seriously. It also gives the players additional motivation to really get into the role-playing.
The Keep continued to be overrun by Liazrdfolk. As the PCs ran towards the Inner Keep to fortify their defensive position they caught glimpses of the Black Dragon, Yulbraxis breathing acid on Lord Drysdale’s men in the square. They immediately rushed to aid these brave men. These heroes had already slain one Black Dragon, it was time to kill another one.
For the first time in weeks our party was down to only six players and what a difference it made. I’m not suggesting that anyone get turned away from a D&D game, especially D&D Encounters, but with the numbers back to normal the game ran a lot smoother and a lot faster. I think it’s fair to say that this was also at least in part because after 19 weeks most of us have come to know our characters so well we could run them with our eyes closed.
For week 19 our party consisted of Berrian, Quinn, Sola, a Cavalier, a Rogue and a Runepriest. No new players and no new characters this week. Just six PCs that we’d come to know and love.
Mr. Pink: Hey, why am I Mr. Pink?
Joe: Because…
Mr. Pink: Why can’t we pick our own colors?
Joe: No way, no way. Tried it once, doesn’t work. You got four guys all fighting over who’s gonna be Mr. Black, but they don’t know each other, so nobody wants to back down. No way. I pick. You’re Mr. Pink. Be thankful you’re not Mr. Yellow.
Mr. Pink: Mr. Pink sounds kinda wimpy. How ’bout if I’m Mr. Purple? That sounds good to me. I’ll be Mr. Purple.
Joe: You’re not Mr. Purple. Some guy on some other job is Mr. Purple. Your Mr. PINK.
Mr. White: Who cares what your name is?
Mr. Pink: Yeah, that’s easy for your to say, you’re Mr. White. You have a cool-sounding name. Alright look, if it’s no big deal to be Mr. Pink, you wanna trade?
Joe:Hey! NOBODY’S trading with ANYBODY. This ain’t a city council meeting, you know. Now listen up, Mr. Pink. There’s two ways you can go on this job: my way or the highway. Now what’s it gonna be, Mr. Pink?
Mr. Pink: Alright, I’m Mr. Pink. Let’s move on.
Joe:I’ll move on when I feel like it… All you guys got the message?… I’m so mad, hollering at you guys I can hardly talk. Pssh. Let’s go to work.
– Reservoir Dogs
Ever have one of those nights? Two of your players keep butting heads, constantly arguing about what the party should do. Perhaps one of your players is trying to play someone else’s character, constantly telling them what to do. The player thinks they are being helpful, but really the player has become The Gaming Jerk. You can see the writing on the wall and things aren’t going to end well. What do you do?
Maybe you have another problem. A player constantly disagrees with your rulings. Sometimes they are right, sometimes wrong but you’re trying to keep the game moving. You’re following the Eight Rules That Will Make You A Better DM, but you aren’t having any luck with this particular player. It seems they are taking more delight in slowing down and ruining the gaming experience for everyone at the table than just moving on. How do you handle them?
A common belief among many D&D players is that if the party is balanced and the DM is doing his job properly, every encounter is beatable. This kind of thinking among players instills within them with a sense of invulnerability – an invulnerability that they do not in fact possess. However, with the way that the 4e D&D mechanics work, more often than not players should have a pretty reasonable chance of overcoming a balanced encounter. Thus players continue believing that they’re capable of defeating everything they face. It never even occurs to them that in some instances they’ll face an opponent they can’t beat.
Sometime, however, you’re fortunate enough to play with a group that doesn’t mistakenly believe that they can overcome every encounter put before them. When this kind of party senses that they’re in over their head they will consider retreat as a viable option. It’s not something that will come up very often, but when it does it can have a really dramatic effect on the game.
Twice in the past week I’ve had parties toy with the idea of retreat; once during a level 1 game and the other during a level 16 game. I have to admit that I was very surprised at how differently the two groups rationalized the situation and made their choices.
As both a DM and a player I draw my inspiration from four different sources: fantasy literature, movies, my daily walk and art. It is amazing how a single phrase, scene, tree or image can inspire a character’s history or indeed an entire campaign. I walk my dog daily and on the path I take through a forest there was a dead tree that was covered in vines. This image inspired the idea for an entire campaign where the natural world was being threatened by rot and corruption. Not the most original idea, I’ll admit, but as the dead tree was surrounded by life I decided to represent this by an antagonist that the party trusted. Over time his duplicitous nature would be revealed. Not bad for an idea inspired by a tree.
I find that simple images and stills can often provide great ideas for campaigns and character concepts. Fantasy art has inspired me in more ways than I can count. The idea of taking an image and providing a history for that image is an enjoyable and rewarding experience.
Art clearly is a popular subject and I’m obviously not the only one inspired by it. Two of our most popular articles here at Dungeon’s Master are The Art of D&D (Part 1 | Part 2). My purpose here isn’t to go back as Ameron did and talk about artists who have shaped our thoughts of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead I want to look at some select images and create things from them. Today’s post is a workshop and I’m interested in the stories we will create.
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Henchmen in 4e D&D
As your character earns enough XP and gains sufficient level doesn’t it make sense that he’d start to attract some followers? Your character is a role-model for aspiring heroes. Tales of his exploits and successes will eventually reach the ears of impressionable youngsters. Inevitably some of them will take steps to seek out your character and bask in his greatness. Whether they seek to learn from him directly or they just want to be close by the next time something awesome happens, your PC has made a name for himself and gaining henchmen is one of the consequences of his fame.
Your character’s ever-developing reputation is a big part of what defines the PC and is just as big a part of how other people will interact with him. But we’ve already written about Reputation (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3) so we won’t bother retreading over that ground again. Instead I want to look at the idea of PCs attracting henchmen of their own.
The siege on Restwell Keep continued. The PCs managed to stop the lizardman army from breaching the front gates long enough for reinforcements to arrive and shore up the defenses. Now the heroes moved through the inner courtyard towards Fountain Square to meet up with Lord Drysdale. When they arrive at Fountain Square they see a dozen lizardfolk overwhelming Drysdale’s soldiers. “They’re coming from Benwick’s house,” cries one of the solders. “They must have a tunnel.”
This week we were a party of eight: Berrian, Hagen, Quinn, Sola, a Cavalier, a Rogue, a Runepriest and a Sorcerer. Just like last week’s encounter, the players each got to command one of the soldiers in addition to their own PC on their turn. The soldiers were minions who could attack using their swords or crossbows.
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The Best LFR Adventure Ever
What happens when you slam LFR and then are challenged to work with a game designer to come up with the best LFR experiences ever? You end up interviewing the author in question and working with him to understand the adventure’s potential. You get an exciting session of LFR available as an actual play podcast. And finally you get honest and critical afterthoughts from the DM who ran the adventure and the players who ultimately judged the success of this project.
In September I wrote the article 7 Reasons I Hate Living Forgotten Realms and it generated a lot of discussion about LFR. The article received many great comments in support of my criticisms and just as many well-reasoned arguments contrary to my own.
Three months later, after the discussion on this topic had cooled considerably, I received an email from Ben McFarland. He’d sent me an LFR adventure. I didn’t know him at the time, but you might recognize the name from his work with the Kobold Quarterly, Rite Publishing or the Ars Magica Fanzine. Most importantly for this discussion, he wrote the LFR adventure DRAG2-1: Discomfort which was published by Wizards of the Coast.