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.
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.
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.
Presented below are three possible reasons for the PCs to be engaged in this skill challenge.
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.
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.
The PCs need to travel cross county as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence.
Presented below are three possible reasons for the PCs to be engaged in this skill challenge.
The PCs are at the scene of a crime (robbery, accident involving injury, bar brawl, etc). When the Watch arrives the PCs need to think quick of they may be implicated in the crime.
Presented below are three possible reasons for the PCs to be engaged in this skill challenge.
For all the above scenarios, should you flee or choose not to cooperate you may be seen as guilty and thrown in prison.
D&D has always been a combat-heavy game and adding skill challenges with 4e has brought much needed balance to the game. Players are encouraged to role play and can earn as much XP for a skill challenge as they can for defeating a monster. It’s created a good balance between roll-playing and role-playing. The skill challenge has quickly become an important and integral part of 4e D&D.
Welcome, we’re glad you made it. Dungeon’s Master is the newest blog on all things related to 4e Dungeons & Dragons. We want you to have as much fun as possible when you play D&D, and we’re going to offer resources dedicated to assisting DMs and players accomplish this goal.
The team here at Dungeon’s Master has been playing D&D together for over 20 years. During that time we’ve often engaged in heated discussions about the game and shared ideas on how to improve it. We realized that if we’ve got questions about D&D that other gamers probably have similar questions. So we’ve decided to take our discussions, opinions and ideas public and share them with you. We hope that you find our ideas helpful and that you’ll share some of your own with us and the community at large.
What exactly can you expect from Dungeon’s Master?
We will be publishing a lot of new original content. In fact we’re going to bring you new content every single day for the next month. I know we picked the shortest month of the year to launch, but 28 days of great content is nothing to laugh at. It’s a virtual dragon’s horde of new ideas.
We hope you enjoy the content we’ll be bringing you and that you’ll share in the journey with us.
The Dungeon’s Master team,
Ameron, Suddry and Wimwick.
The team at Dungeon’s Master is proud to release their first module, The Magistrate’s Daughter. This module is designed for first level PCs and starts an adventure path that will see the PCs through to level 30.
The module is in zip format, the contents of the zip are the module pdf and 6 maps. The maps are differentiated as DM and non-DM maps. The DM maps show NPC placement. The maps can be re-printed for your use.
We look forward to releasing future modules and would enjoy your feedback.
Dungeon’s Master will be launching on Feb 1, 2009.
When we launch you will have access to a variety of Dungeons & Dragons tools and resources for both DMs and Players.
At launch we will be providing articles on Skill Challenges, World Crafting, and Class Diversification. Additionally, it’s our intention to provide a new original module every 4 – 6 weeks. Toss in product reviews and other articles relevant to the state of the game and you’ll quickly realize that Dungeon’s Master is a premier D&D destination.
Please bookmark the site and return back on Feb 1, 2009. Also subscribe to the RSS feed.