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Greatest Hits 2011: Make Magical Item Identification Harder

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

We all like getting stuff, whether it’s in real life or in game. If it’s new, it’s exciting. In the case of magical items they have the added benefit of being powerful; likely more powerful than the items you currently possess. But being able to discover everything about an item over the course of a short rest, a mere 5 minutes in game, is a lot like receiving a gift without wrapping paper. Where’s the surprise? Where’s the suspense? And more importantly where’s the joy that comes from finally discovering what’s actually beneath that disguised exterior?

By making magical identification harder you take something that was once a thrilling part of the game, and add the excitement back into getting something new. When you don’t know what the magic sword actually does (beyond providing a plus or two) it’s like looking at all the wrapped presents underneath a Christmas tree with your name on them. You know that eventually you’ll get to open those presents, but until then there’s the anticipation of what they might be? Is that box a new video game or a pair of dress socks? Does that small packable contain a gift card to your favourite store or is it a last minute bauble from a discount store?

By making magical identification harder you bring back anticipation. You make the PCs and the players live with the suspense of not knowing what that item will be. And when they finally do discover the item’s full potential it’s just like being a kid on Christmas morning and finally getting to open all those presents that you could see but not open in the day days and weeks leading up to Christmas.

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Editorial

Merry Christmas

The Dungeon’s Master team wishes all of our readers a safe and happy holiday season.

We’re coming up on three years since we launched Dungeon’s Master and we’re still going strong. Thank you to all of our readers and to everyone who’s helped make Dungeon’s Master a success.

If you’re still looking for a great gift to give yourself or someone in your gaming group, we have a suggestion that’s in everyone’s price range. Give the gift of 4e D&D content directly into your inbox weekdays throughout 2011 by subscribing to the Dungeon’s Master RSS feed.

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Class Discussions Player Resources

Greatest Hits 2011: Band of Brothers: Adventuring Parties of the Same Race

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

Excluding monsters, there are 36 playable races in 4e D&D (so far). Each race brings something unique to the character creation equation. Although a character of any race can become any class, there are obviously some that are more suited than others based on racial bonuses. But even with the choices narrowed down, it’s still unusual to have any two PCs in a party be the same race or even the same class. That’s just the way D&D works. And I for one have absolutely no issues with it.

The challenge with this kind of multiculturalism is coming up with a plausible reason that explains how and why these characters ever came together in the first place. It’s easy to accept the foundations of the fantasy setting in the context of the game, but beyond the high level elements, players still expect a certain level of realism and want things to make sense even in a wondrous setting. Yet time after time we just accept (albeit begrudgingly) that this band of misfits we call a party found common purpose and have become fast friends.

One of the best ways to overcome the “why are we in the same adventuring party?” problem is to find some commonality. Making everyone play the same race is probably the easiest way to accomplish this. As much as I hate to restrict anyone’s options during character creation, a party of the same race does present some immediate benefits, the first and most obvious of which is finding motive to be together.

When the party is made up entirely of just one race there are plenty of ways to create a shared background between some of all of the characters. It also gives the players a chance to look at the racial powers and feats and see if there are ways to try something that they might not be able to if there weren’t other members of the same race in their party.

When Lair Assault offered Glory for a party of the same race that completed the adventure I expected to see a lot of same-race parties. Of the 15+ games I watched or played in, I never saw a single party where the PCs were all the same race. I saw a few parties with four Dwarves or four Genasi, but never the full five. I guess that no matter how appealing you make it, unless the DM puts his foot down, people will exercise their freedom of choice and make the character they want, race be damned. Oh well, their loss.

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Editorial

Greatest Hits 2011: The Importance of Trust and Honesty in D&D

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

Without honesty there is chaos. I used this as a heading in the original article and the more I think about that line the more I believe that it’s the absolute truth.

When you play D&D at home it’s usually with a group of very close-knit buddies. This dynamic usually means that there are no problems or issues regarding trust and honesty. There are no strangers at this gaming table and it’s unlikely you’d want to cheat your friends. But when it comes to public play, some gamers (a few bad apples, as it were) will try to take advantage of the situation for their own personal gain, possibly at the expense of playing honestly.

I want to be clear that the overwhelming majority of my public-play experiences have been very positive. I’ve only ever had a couple of instances where players were caught, or even suspected of, cheating or intentionally being dishonest. However, I think that in some public-play situations, especially when there are newer players at the table, the desire to push the boundaries of trust are more prevalent.

During some D&D Encounters sessions players will try to gain an advantage by intentionally bending or breaking the rules. Where this is most problematic is among newer players that don’t have character builder and make PCs the old fashioned way. The carelessness with which some players throw together a character infuriates me. They add modifiers across the board because they don’t know or don’t understand when they apply or not. They’ll take more powers than they’re supposed to or use encounter or daily powers even after they’re expended. Even after I’ve politely given them the benefit of the doubt, explained that they’ve made an error somewhere and that they should correct it before the next game, they still use the flawed sheets.

I’ve finally had to crack down on bad character creation. I implemented a new rule that if you make your character without character builder you have to leave it with me between sessions so I can review it. In most cases I just recreate the PC in character builder to validate the numbers are right. At first I found lots of problems on every character sheet, but now that the group knows I’m checking they’ve become more diligent about accuracy.

What bothers me most is that some players (again, a very select few) didn’t feel that honesty was required until they realized they were less likely to get away with it. You always want to believe that people will do the right thing. In a gaming situation, especially with new players, you hope that they’re honest and will follow the rules of the game and of the unwritten social contract. All it takes is one or two bad instances to sully everyone’s view of D&D. So let’s all do our part to play honestly and encourage fair play in our games moving forward; because without honesty there is chaos.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Beyond the Crystal Cave (Week 5)

It was only yesterday that this adventuring party met for the first time in Count Varis’s palace. Since then they fought and bled together. They met with Lady Tamora, ruler of Crystalrook, and they met with Lord Carric, ruler of the Sildane Forest. They followed the trail of the two young lovers, Juliana and Orlando, and crossed into the Feywild to find them. They battled an Echo Spirit, an Ochre Jelly, Mud Men, and a Hag along the way. It was a very eventful day that ended with a much needed and well earned rest. But now the party is awake and new challenges await them Beyond the Crystal Cave.

This week I was only able to play at one location. The other group ran into some scheduling conflicts and we’ll likely need a few make up sessions during the holidays to get back on track. At the FLGS where I did play I was the only DM able to make it out this week. I’ve run large groups before but I didn’t want to do so again this week. So when I arrived at my FLGS I asked one of the players if he’d be willing to go behind the screen this week.

Although he’d never run a game before I know he was eager to try. I also knew that every week he lugged every D&D book he owned, including the red box, to and from the game. He reluctantly agreed. We ended up with two DMs and eight players, so four per table. I took the younger players, leaving the veterans to play with the new DM. In the end things worked out pretty well for both tables.

The party at my table consisted of the following PCs: a Hamadryad Ranger (Scout), a Tiefling Paladin (Caviler), a Satyr Bard (Master Skald) [Fey Beast Tamer] and Belgos the Drow Ranger (Hunter). After last week’s massacre one of the more experienced players decided to swap out a striker for a leader. Good call.

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DM Resources Editorial

Greatest Hits 2011: My Love Affair With Minions

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

I love minions.

It has been almost a year since the original article was published and my love affair with minions has not decreased. If anything the infatuation has only increased. Since this article on minions was published I’ve taken the DM hat off and returned to the other side of the screen. Yet, even as a player I love minions. 

I take great joy in watching how my DM deploy’s his minions, how he frustrates me and other players with their tactical usage. It’s most obscene, but I take a perverse joy when all the minions gang up on the controller. I attack something else for a round just to see what will happen. 

In my mind minions truly are the best tool in the DM tool box that 4e introduced. The ability to add swarms of easy to kill, easy to use enemies is fantastic. Minions can quickly change the dynamic of any combat. Player’s are often left guessing on which monster is the minion during the initial rounds of an encounter. Where minions really stack up is when their synergies mesh with the other monsters in the encounter. 

As a player I feel truly heroic when I dispatch multiple foes with a burst or blast attack. Sure, they only have 1 hit point, but that isn’t the point. The point is what minions truly represent in the game. The fodder. My characters are supposed to be powerful, there are opponents that I am supposed to be able to vanquish with impunity. Minions fill that role. 

I hope you enjoy another read of this article. Since it was first published it has become one of our most searched articles and whether you are a DM or a player I’m sure you’ll find the value, joy and satisfaction that minions inject into combat. As I’ve said, my love affair with minions stands. I don’t see us breaking up anytime soon.

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DM Resources

Greatest Hits 2011: The Little Details Make a Big Difference

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

I’m a big fan of adding in little details to my adventures and encounters as often as possible. In my home game my players know that I do this (at least they do now, almost a year after I wrote the original article) and enjoy the decision making and in-game rationalizing that often accompanies their discovery. They have to decide – Is this something important or not? Should we spend time and resources making this detail into something significant?

One other thing my players are learning is that as the little details become more common in my encounters, some of these details are actually quite significant to the adventure. Adding the little details for flavour is fine, but if that’s all you ever do then the players will get bored and start ignoring them. But, if you make a little detail important every once and a while you remind the players not to take any of them for granted.

The idea of using little details to really flesh out a scene is usually a very good idea. However it can backfire, especially if these little details are uncommon in your game. As soon as you do add something a little bit quirky the players will immediately latch on to it as they did in the example I used in the original article. They know how D&D works and if you’re describing it there has to be a reason.

I’ve actually found this is a real problem with D&D Encounters. In order to keep each week’s encounter tight and succinct the authors and editors often trim the fat and provide just what you need to know. This makes any little detail stand out. What I’ve been doing (or trying to do) is to add a little bit of flavour every week. That way when a little detail is highlighted in the adventure, alarm bells won’t immediately go off for all the players at the table. Since they don’t know if the detail is important or not they spend time investigating, and the result is usually some pretty good role-playing. When done right, these little extras will often make an encounter that much more memorable.

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Humour Top 10

Greatest Hits 2011: 7 Appalling Things I Witnessed at the Gaming Table

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

No matter where you play D&D – at conventions like GenCon, at your FLGS or even at home – there are certain expectations regarding behaviour that all players are expected to follow. We take for granted that most of these things fall into the “common sense” category and assume everyone understands what’s expected of them. However, experience has taught me differently.

I’ve learned the hard way that when people participate in public-play D&D they tend to do things they’d never do during a home game. It’s as if they believe that public-play games give them a free pass with regards to a lot of very obvious objectionable acts. After seeing many of these violations in full force at GenCon this summer I had to write down some of the most egregious and appalling ones. My hope was (and still is) that gamers will read this list, realize they’re guilty of doing some of these things, and make a point of never doing them again.

During D&D Encounters over the past year I’ve witnessed a lot of these things with unfortunate regularity. As the DM I try to “correct” some of these poor practices, but it’s tough, especially because I don’t know a lot of these people very well. And I don’t think that it should always fall to the DM to be the bad guy.

I think that we all need to share the responsibility for letting other gamers know when they violate the social contract. Whenever any of us spots the things on this list happening we should do our part and inform the violator of the inappropriate actions they’ve undertaken. By working together we can make public-play D&D better and eliminate the 7 appalling things I witnessed at GenCon.

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DM Resources

Greatest Hits 2011: Let Monsters Use the Treasure

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

In our home games the monsters will often use magical items against us (treasure bundles we’ll earn if we defeat the monsters). Where this has become a bit of an issue is when the monster is using a magic weapon and the person who claims it wants to drastically change the weapon type.

For example, in a recent encounter we were fighting Githyanki. They were armed with Silver Swords, a character-defining item for this race. When we defeated them we discovered that one of them was using a +3 silver Greatsword sword against us. The PC who claimed the treasure (because he badly needed a weapon upgrade) was a Rogue who used a dagger. Normally the DM is supposed to just wave his magic DM wand and say “the item is now a dagger because that’s what you, the PC, need it to be,” but in this case the DM decided to do the more sensible thing and said no.

He was willing to change it from one big sword to another, but he felt that going from the biggest blade in the game to the smallest was too much of a stretch. The player was ok with this ruling and we actually though the DM made the right call.

In a another recent game we fought Salamander archers and one was using a Great Bow +3. Again, when the PCs defeated the monsters and claimed the weapon the DM would not allow the bow to become anything other than another kind of bow. And again we were ok with this ruling even though the rules say otherwise.

This is the only real drawback we’ve had when letting the monsters use magic items against the party. You either have to equip the creatures with the exact weapon-type that one of the PCs can use or you have to suspend disbelief and say that the treasure bundle says “+3 weapon” so the PC can make it whatever weapon he needs it to be. In our games we’ve opted to go the former route. In those rare circumstances where we can’t use the form of the item we find we have to expend time and resources to transfer the enchantment or we just sell it. More often than not we sell it because that is easier.

So DMs, before you give the monsters items to use against the party give some thought to how you’re going to handle the inevitable transfer of the item from monster to PCs. Will you let them change the weapon to a more suitable type or will you break the rules and insist that if it was a Great Axe when the monster used it against the party it has to be a Great Axe if anyone claims it as their own?

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Player Resources

Greatest Hits 2011: Exploiting Racial and Class Powers: Dragon Breath

While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.

My very first LFR character was a Dragonborn Warlord. For years I played this character with no clear direction of how I wanted him to develop. I only thought of him as a Warlord and a leader. Then he reached level 11 and I discovered the Honor Blade paragon path. After that everything fell into place. Instead of focusing on a paragon path that was tied to his class, I decided instead to focus on a paragon path that focused on his racial abilities, in this case the dragon breath. It didn’t take long for this character to get a reputation as a Dragonborn first and a Warlord second. It was the first time in 4e that I’d seen a character with such intense specialization in his racial powers or abilities.

The first time any of the Dungeon’s Master gaming group saw my LFR Dragonborn in action was at GenCon last summer. It was Wimwick’s first GenCon and his first LFR experience. He was so impressed by the power my Dragonborn PC possessed that he started playing with character builder that night to see if there was a way to refine the build and maximize the powers even more. It didn’t take long before he had a Dragonborn Warden that could deal more damage more often with his dragon breath than my Warlord. Even though we promised ourselves that we’d never run an article that was nothing more than “let me tell you about my character” he felt he had to share our builds with our readers. From there, this series on exploiting racial and class powers was born.

What was supposed to be a clever insight into one racially superior build became a series that featured some of the most popular races in 4e D&D. In a very short time we had an article on the Dragonborn, Eladrin, Dwarf, Elf, Drow, Tiefling and Warforged. They were extremely popular and people had a lot of additional suggestions on how to really take advantage of a racial powers to make a truly unique (and often unstoppable) character.

Since we ran these articles we’ve discovered the immense role-playing satisfaction that comes from playing a PC that focuses on his race before focusing on his class. In my regular group three of six PC have taken paragon paths that only have a racial prerequisite. This campaign is certainly one of our best and it’s due in no small part to the excellent role-playing and character development that’s come from a really focused examination of the most unique aspects of those races. These paragon paths may not always be the most powerful in terms of numbers, but the character development that this choice has encouraged makes up for any shortcomings in the combat mechanics. – Ameron

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