Tag: DM Resources

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DM Resources

Eenie, Meennie, Mini

I wasn’t a fan of minis until 4e came along. The introduction of very tactical combat made the conversion easy. I enjoy the different perspective that a large mini represents on the battlefield, how lines of sight might be affected and how the battle in general unfolds. Of course it has also led to several members of the Dungeon’s Master team to develop rather large collections of minis. Which is all to my benefit as a player and DM.

One of the questions I’m constantly debating is whether to use a mini that matches the monster they player’s are fighting. Now let me clear up that last statement. If the players are fighting a dragon, a beholder or a giant I use the appropriate mini. The dragon might not be the right colour, thought that’s usually not a problem, but the mini at least represents the monster.

Where I’m less specific is with humanoid combatants. My half-orc’s might look like humans, and my minotaurs might look like elves. As long as I have a mini on the table I’m usually satisfied.

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DM Resources Editorial

5 Reasons to Say No

I believe that players should play the characters they want to play. I’m a total 4e, say yes convert. It took me awhile to come around but when I’m the DM I encourage creativity and I say yes… a lot. However, I’ve realized that as much as I want to always say yes, there are times when I probably should not. In a few of these cases it’s actually caused me more grief in the long run.

Players make choices during character creation and between levels during character improvement. Normally I’m very hands off as a DM and let the players do whatever they want as long as it’s legal. But it’s this absolute freedom of choice that often ends up causing the most problems. If I’d only stepped in earlier and said no, a lot of the problems I’ve experienced wouldn’t have been problems at all.

It’s taken me a while but I’ve learned the hard way that just because a choice is legal in character builder doesn’t mean that the DM has to automatically say yes to every choice that the players make. In fact the more I’ve thought about it the more I’ve realized that sometimes the DM should step in and say no; especially during character creation. Here are five examples.

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DM Resources Player Resources

What are the Best Feats? Round 1, Vote Now!

As we so often do, Wimwick and I were recently talking about our characters. It began as a discussion on the ones we are running, but quickly encompassed the other characters we’ve run in the past as well as those run by the other members of our gaming group. We realized that almost all of the characters we looked at shared about half of the same feats. It didn’t matter what class or race they were, some feats kept appearing over and over again on everyone’s character sheet.

Our only explanation for this phenomenon was that some feats are clearly superior. Not just better, but far better. The result being that everyone chooses these feats. In fact, characters that don’t have these feats seemed considerably less powerful than those that do. It lead us to conclude that if there are some feats that are practically required for all character why do we have to waste a feat slot choosing them? Why aren’t these feats free to all character?

So we decided that moving forward for our home game we were going to allow all characters to take a few of these “superior” feats for free during character creation and see how things worked out. The challenge now was to narrow down the list and determine which feats should be included in the list of the best feats.

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DM Resources

Two-Hit Minions

The two-hit minion isn’t new. We first suggested the idea over two years ago in one of our very first articles, More Than Just Minions. It was a reaction to DMs who felt that the normal minions were lacking something. I’ve felt that way for a while now and a few months ago I decided it was time to start using two-hit minions on a regular basis. The results were fantastic.

During this season of D&D Encounters we’ve been running tables with very large parties. The more heroes there are in the party, the more monsters I’ve placed on the map. However, week after week of just adding more monsters was starting to get a little bit boring, not to mention that it led to combat encounters that were taking a very long time to complete. I knew that I needed to shake things up and my solution was two-hit minions.

When I was using regular minions I found that the players, upon learning which opponents had only 1 hit point, treated the minions differently than other monsters. A lot of the PCs ignored them. The PCs with powers that could target multiple creatures (usually the controllers) would often eliminate all the minions in one round. It was very unsatisfying for the players and for me as the DM. Enter two-hit minions.

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DM Resources

What Do You Mean All My Magic Items Are Gone!

The fastest way a DM can unite all the players into wanting to do him unspeakable harm is to even suggest taking away all of their magical items. The more items they have and the more powerful each item is, the more likely that the DM would face real bodily harm for going through with this suggestion. Nothing angers players more than taking away items that they earned.

Over the many years in which I’ve played D&D one common problem I’ve faced in every edition is power creep. Nothing has changed the balance of power in my games more than magic items. As soon as one player gets something that’s a little bit better than the rest of the party, everybody else wants one too. No, want isn’t a strong enough descriptor. The rest of the players feel entitled to something just as grand. So the DM eventually gives everyone else something to bring them in line with that first player. The cycle repeats and before you know it the power level of the party is exponentially higher than it has any right being at their current level.

Better item means better attack scores, higher output and higher defenses, which means that the DM needs to throw tougher monsters at the PCs in order to challenge them. When the PCs defeat these creatures (which under normal circumstances they’d have no business fighting in the first place and would normally not have a prayer of defeating) they expect treasure commensurate with the monster’s increased level. And the cycle continues.

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Editorial

June RPG Blog Carnival Round Up

The June RPG Blog Carnival has concluded and the Dungeon’s Master team would like to thank all the participants. This month we asked you to create a memorable character inspired from real life. The participating posts were all very engaging and creative. While reading each of them I found myself thinking, now why didn’t I think of that?

I hope you enjoyed this month’s carnival and the submissions that it brought. Be sure to read each submission and surprise your table with a character inspired from real life.

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Editorial Player Resources

Are You Willing to Provoke an Opportunity Attack?

One of the more difficult things that new players have trouble remembering is that moving away from an opponent will draw an opportunity attack. As soon as players hear that moving their character more than one square away from an adjacent creature will result in that creature getting a free attack, all tactics that involve moving are thrown out the window. It’s almost as if they believe that drawing an attack and possibly taking the hit is the absolute worst thing that they can do on their turn.

As an experienced DM I’m going to tell you that you need to be willing to take an opportunity attack once and a while. From a mechanics point of view all opponents know as well as you do under what circumstances they’ll get to make a free attack on you. If you move away they’ll attack you as soon as your back is turned. If you try to use a ranged attack while standing next to them, they’ll see the hole in your defenses and attack you. And if you try to crawl away while prone you bet that you enemy will kick you as you scurry away.

But so what if they do? In most cases a monster’s basic attack is just that – basic. It usually is a straight up weapon attack, be it a sword or claw. Yes, it has the potential to hurt you but you need to weigh that against the value of taking the action that draws the attack in the first place.

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DM Resources

RPG Blog Carnival: Eldrick Tont – Defender of the Tiger Woods

Today Dungeon’s Master presents our contribution to this month’s RPG Blog Carnival: Memorable Characters Inspired From Real Life. The real life person, upon which my memorable character was inspired, is golf icon Tiger Woods.

Encounter Setup

The PCs seek the fabled Green Jacket. This enchanted cloth armor is awarded to the most deserving champion annually each spring. Combatants must travel to the Tiger Woods and defeat the reigning champion, Eldrick Tont. Tont accepts all challengers and is ruthless in defense of a prize he believes he rightly deserves.

The competition always takes place in the same clearing deep within the Tiger Woods. The terrain changes during each new encounter. Some areas are only covered in fine grass, while other areas have more dense foliage preventing movement and even line of sight. Some areas are completely devoid of plants, creating sandy traps and hazards. Pools of varying sizes and depths are also common obstacles that combatants must face.

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DM Resources

The DM’s PC – Something Between a PC and an NPC

The distinction between PC and NPC is pretty simple. You, the players, are the PCs (Player Characters) and everyone else you meet in the game controlled by the DM is an NPC (Non-Player Character). But the more I thought about it, the more I’m realized that there was a lot to be gained by introducing a kind of character that fell somewhere between these two absolutes.

One of the most common D&D axioms is “Never split the party.” As many players have learned over the years this is sound advice. In most cases when the party divides into smaller groups or one character goes off on his own, they make themselves vulnerable and often end up dead. But I believe that the real reason to never split the party is because it divides the game. The DM has to jump back and forth between both groups. Each group has to have enough to do during their session to still enjoy the gaming experience, but the DM has to be conscious of how much time the group out of the spotlight spends doing nothing.

The type of story-telling that D&D creates and encourages, focuses on a party of adventurers who, for the most part, are always together. Strength in numbers and all entails; nothing new here. However, in fantasy literature that focuses on an adventuring party, including classics like The Lord of the Rings upon which D&D was heavily based, the story is constantly shifting between the characters as they do different things simultaneously.

This is something that doesn’t work well with the way D&D mechanics were created, and in some cases it’s really too bad. Many DMs, myself included, often feel that their hands are tied when they’re trying to come up with a really excellent story for their next campaign.

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DM Resources Editorial

Should Monsters Employ Smart Tactics?

As the DM it’s my job to control all of the monsters during a fight. Each player runs his own character but everyone else involved in the battle is my responsibility. In some cases the Monster Manual provides tactics (albeit very basic tactics), but in the vast majority of situations it’s completely up to me to decide which monster attacks which PC and what power they use.

As the DM I have to decide if the monsters are going to do what’s most tacitly sound (basically, what’s best for the monsters), or are they going to do what seems most fair to the players at my gaming table? For a long time I’ve been doing what’s fair and paid little attention to tactics. But the more I’ve been thinking about this approach the more I think that it’s hurting my game.

D&D isn’t (or shouldn’t be) the DM vs. the players. It’s a cooperative, story-telling experience with a lot of thrilling combat thrown in. Although we often joke about winning D&D when the PCs defeat all the monsters during an encounter, this is obviously not the case. Yet if a PC dies during combat the player certainly feels like he’s lost the game. For this reason I generally try not to pick on one PC and have the monsters gang up on him. After all, no one like it when their PC dies. But am I really doing the players any favours by not having the monsters employ sound tactics?

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