Tag: Dungeon’s Master

Categories
DM Resources Editorial

Undead Make the Scariest Villains

Would you rather fight a beholder or a zombie? This is a much more complicated question than you might realize. Look at this through the eyes of your character and not through the eyes of a meta-gamer. In-character what is the scariest monster you can imagine? For me it’s undead more than any other.

Most monsters are, well, monstrous. They are clearly different than you and they must be destroyed. The beholder is an abomination. It’s scary, and a big party of what makes it scary is that it doesn’t conform to a physical shape you’re comfortable with. It’s a giant floating ball with eyestalks swirling about. Even if you’d never seen a beholder before and knew nothing about it, your initial instinct as an adventurer would be to attack and destroy something so awful.

Continue reading “Undead Make the Scariest Villains”
Categories
Player Resources

D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands Level 3 Characters

Beginning today all characters for D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands have advanced to level 3. Wizards of the Coast encourages everyone to create their own character using D&D Essentials. However, for those players who don’t have the time or resources (character builder) to create their own level 3 character, Wizards has provided six pre-gens.

What Wizards has not provided are guidelines for leveling up the pre-gens. So the Dungeon’s Master team has created level 3 versions of all six pre-gens for your convenience.

You can download the characters individually or all six together in one zip file. We’ve also made the character builder files available for download so that you can equip the pre-gens with any magical treasure they might have acquired during the previous 16 weeks of adventuring.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands Level 3 Characters”
Categories
DM Resources Player Resources

Running the Combat Part of Combat Blisteringly Fast

Running the mechanical part of combat blisteringly fast allows you to spend more time role-playing your character and describing the action in combat. You’re not trying to get through combat quickly because you dislike it; you’re instead trying to move past the computational elements of the game so that the story-telling can take the forefront.

By focusing on the story-telling your game can become so much more exciting. Instead of waiting for the Warlord to thumb through the PHB to look up his class features (again) you can describe how the Warlord leapt from the second story balcony, dodged a provoked opportunity attack by doing a shoulder roll, toppled the gnarled hag with a low cut to her thigh, then sprung to his feet to stare down into her rapidly dimming eyes.

Below is a list of suggestions that will help you get through the mechanical part of combat blisteringly fast. These instructions are not for the faint of heart, and though some tables may pick and choose from these suggestions to speed up some areas of a dragging combat, only the committed will achieve the supersonic pace described by this article.

Continue reading “Running the Combat Part of Combat Blisteringly Fast”
Categories
Technology

Manage Your Gaming Session with the DMTools iPad App

“Egad! An app review on Dungeon’s Master?!?” Yes, only because the geek in me sometimes needs to link the love for D&D with the love for gadgets and toys. After purchasing my new Apple iPad back in November, one of first apps I downloaded was the DMTools app as I was to DM a small side story arc for our regular game. In the beginning, DMTools was a bit cumbersome to use, but after a session or two it has become an essential tool for my use as a DM.

Continue reading “Manage Your Gaming Session with the DMTools iPad App”
Categories
DM Resources

How To Handle A Split Party In 5 Easy Steps

It happens in every campaign, one player decides to go off and pursue an agenda or lead that only they understand. The player is totally focused on their objective, nothing else seems to matter. No one else at the table understands it. The DM is at his wits end to contain and control the situation. The other players are slowing losing interest and the entire adventure is about to be waylaid.

If you’ve ever sat at a table where you weren’t the player things were focused on, you know the boredom that soon sets in. The frustration at wanting to move forward, but not being able to due to the indulgence or poor planning of the DM. If you haven’t lived through this eventuality you likely haven’t been playing D&D very long, but don’t worry I’m sure it will happen to you soon enough.

Continue reading “How To Handle A Split Party In 5 Easy Steps”
Categories
Editorial

D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands (Week 16)

The creatures guarding the entrance to the dragon’s lair were defeated, now it’s time to face the dragon herself. The party briefly debated how to proceed. The sneaky PCs could try to use Stealth to get the lay of the land undetected. The tanks could charge in and run full steam ahead towards any opponents that might be present. Or we could try Diplomacy and see if we could talk the dragon into not attacking the Keep.

Eventually the dim-witted Eldeth got restless and decided that a frontal assault was the way to proceed. Before anyone could change her mind she was already going down the ladder and into the hole, ready to fight the dragon or die trying. The rest of the party reluctantly followed. Fortunately level heads prevailed and we convinced Eldeth to hold her killer instinct in check until while we tried to parley.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands (Week 16)”
Categories
Class Discussions Editorial

Make D&D Better, Remove Fighters From the Game

Defenders suck. Well, maybe not ALL defenders. There are those rare exceptions where a player has come up with a particularly imaginative build like a Warden/Druid hybrid that turns into a swarm of bees and embraces the primal forces of nature. The defenders I’ve got a real beef with are Fighters, specifically any Fighter built like our good friend Conscore McSwordy.

Today we let Bauxtehude off the reigns. He’s got some very strong opinions about defenders. After listening to his ranting at the game table for the past year I buckled and let him have his say on Dungeon’s Master. I may not agree with everything he says in this article but I wanted to give him a chance to rant about it. I leave it to you, the readers, to put him in his place and let him know just how wrong he is about his stance on Fighters. – Ameron

I think we all have a Conscore McSwordy at our gaming table. You’ll recognize him by his heavy armor and shield (giving him an incredibly high AC), a starting Constitution score of 20 or higher and very little going on upstairs. Fighters built like Conscore McSwordy are simply annoying. I particularly hate that they can lock down combat with abilities like “if you attack anyone but me, I get to stop your attack, stop your movement and then pound you for 1W damage” and “I have the highest defenses and hit points, smash my skull all day, Int was my dump stat so I wont even notice.” Fighters are ruining D&D. I say we just get rid of them all together.

Continue reading “Make D&D Better, Remove Fighters From the Game”
Categories
DM Resources

The Little Details Make a Big Difference

One thing I learned from reading the works of the late, great Gary Gygax is that memorable encounters often include a lot of little details. These details aren’t necessarily important to the greater adventure, but are important to the scene. If you’ve ever read any of Gygax’s now-classic adventures like the Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors or the Temple of Elemental Evil you know exactly what I’m talking about.

The danger of including these little details is that the players may place more importance and significance on them then you ever intended. How you choose to deal with that eventuality can make a huge difference to your game. In a game I recently DMed, adding a little detail almost changed the course of the entire adventure.

Continue reading “The Little Details Make a Big Difference”
Categories
Month in Review

Month in Review: December 2010

During the first half of December we brought you new 4e D&D articles every day. During the second half of December the Dungeon’s Master team took some time off for the holidays and during that time we ran our 2010 greatest hits. With a mixture of new and old articles, readers visiting Dungeon’s Master in December were treated to a lot of great 4e D&D.

On or around the first of each month we collect everything we’ve published in the previous month and make it easily available for all of our readers. This lets you revisit your favourite article from the month before or if you’ve just discovered Dungeon’s Master it’s an easy way to get caught up on anything you might have missed.

Thanks to everyone who visited us throughout December. We welcome your feedback and appreciate it when you leave your comments.

Continue reading “Month in Review: December 2010”
Categories
DM Resources Skill Challenges

Greatest Hits 2010: The 5-Minute Rest as a Skill Challenge

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 2010. 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.

Between my home games, LFR and D&D Encounters I’ve easily DMed over 100 hours of D&D during the past year. Of all the ideas I had as the DM during 2010, this was one of the ideas that stands out in my mind as a solid bull’s-eye.

Turning a 5-minute rest into a skill challenge seemed like such a simple concept. I wasn’t sure how well it would be executed in a real game scenario, but it turned out better than I’d hoped. It was one of those times when I didn’t feel bound or restricted by the rules. I used the existing materials as a guideline and adapted them to the situation at my gaming table. The result was an extremely memorable encounter.

Everything clicked. The players realized the importance and necessity of taking the rest at that point in the adventure and they were willing to role-play the scenario. Even though they’d typically just say they were taking the rest, this time they wanted to play it out. They understood the objective (to rest without being attacked) and knew the limitations they faced as “resting” character.

As one of the players commented in the original article, he felt the skill challenge part of the 5-minute rest was worked into the encounter so gracefully that he didn’t even realize a skill challenge was going on. When running a skill challenge, this is the highest compliment I think any DM can get from his players.

On the surface, I encourage you to use this idea in your next game and have the 5-minute rest become a skill challenge in itself. However, the more important lesson I hope you take away from this article is that the rules are there to provide direction. Ultimately it’s you – the DM – that drives the game. Feel free to bend and even break the rules from time-to-time if doing so will make the game better.

Continue reading “Greatest Hits 2010: The 5-Minute Rest as a Skill Challenge”