Assisting with skill checks needs to be something more than just a quick roll or an afterthought. I like the concept of assisting and I think there’s a lot of room to build on this mechanic. In Skill Focus: Assisting (Part 1) I was complained about what I think is a broken mechanic and shared my ideas on how to improve it. This time I’m only going to focus on the positives. I’m going to explore what actions constitute assists and expand on them.
Tag: Dungeons and Dragons
Throughout the life-cycle of Dungeons & Dragons, dungeons have been evolving. Recent discussion around the RPG Bloggers Network has revolved around the Mega-Dungeon. The nostalgia brought up from this discussion is fantastic and brings to mind memories of exploring vast labyrinths. For that matter, it reminds me of playing The Bard’s Tale on my Commodore, but I digress.
Recently, Ameron has written about dungeons. He’s covered the topic through a skill challenge and as a DM aide on pacing the adventure. His articles got me thinking about dungeons and the place they hold in the game. First and foremost I’m not advocating that dungeons be removed from our great game and that we rename it Dragons. I do think there is a case to be made towards handling dungeons in a different manner and the mechanics of 4e lend themselves to it.
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Reputation (Part 1)
The Dungeon’s Master team is happy to announce that we’ve guest authored an article on The Core Mechanic today. Our article on Reputation is the first of three posts examining character reputation in D&D.
Reputation (part 1), which appears on The Core Mechanic, is aimed at the DM and provides direction for using reputation to its fullest potential. Reputation (part 2) and Reputation (part 3) will appear here at Dungeon’s Master in the next few days. They are aimed at the players and provide insight on how the PCs can shape their own reputation and gain the most benefit from doing so.
Please check out our contribution to The Core Mechanic and while you’re there spend some time browsing the site. It’s full of great D&D articles that many DMs and players will find useful.
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Campaign Design: Geography
All the world is a stage and you get to design it. Creating the geography for your gaming world is more than just placing mountains, streams and forest. Every decision you make during this stage of the game will effect future gaming sessions and expansions to your campaign setting. The geographic elements you work into your game world form the natural boundaries that are used to define the kingdoms and territories of your world. It’s important to get it right from the start.
Mastering the Intimidate skill is difficult, probably more so than any other skill in the PHB. Intimidate is availabe to 12 classes (as shown in our Skill Matrix by Class) making it the most widely available skill (along with Athletics and Endurance). If you’re playing a class like the Fighter where you have very few skills to choose from, Intimidate is a very popular choice.
Despite the large number of PCs who take training in Intimidate, it’s a skill that has very limited uses. Using Intimidate during a skill challenge often counts as an automatic failure. If not, then you usually get only one try with Intimidate. In a perfect scenario a successful Intimidate check brings you one step closer to accomplishing the objective of the skill challenge. If you fail it can make future checks more difficult and count as one more strike. So it’s important to know when to use Intimidate and when to rely on a different skill.
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Month in Review: March 2009
March was a good month for D&D and a great month for Dungeon’s Master. We hit our two month milestone and are gaining a strong and loyal readership. Our thanks to everyone who visits regularly and comments often. In March we published 26 new articles on a wide variety of topics. Here are the highlights just in case you missed anything.
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Don’t Skip the Slow Parts
Does this sound familiar?
We’re going to skip the next three rooms of the dungeon. There are no traps, no monsters and no treasure. I want to speed things along so we can get to the good part.
I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve uttered these lines a few times when I was the DM and it was repeated just this week at my gaming table by our current DM. It got me thinking: if we’re going to blow past a few rooms or a minor encounter because it’s not deemed important or exciting, then why is it in the module in the first place?
The core classes and races now span three books: PHB, PHB2, and FR Player’s Guide. I’ve created two skill aides: one lists skill offerings by class, the other lists bonuses to skills and attributes by race.
I developed these to make things easier when creating skill challenges. They provide quick snapshots of all the skills by class and race, and eliminates the need for me to keep flipping between books.
As an added bonus I’ve found these aides incredibly useful when creating characters. They provide side-by-side comparisons of racial bonuses to attributes and skills.
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Module: The Spy In Our Midst
The Spy In Our Midst is the second module offering from the team at Dungeon’s Master. This module continues the adventure path started in our first module, The Magistrate’s Daughter. It is designed for first level characters. Playing both modules should provide PCs with enough experience to advance to second level. We hope that you enjoy the module and would appreciate your feedback.
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The Spoils of War
When the fighting ends and the dust settles, it’s time to look at the spoils of war. How will your PC claim his fare share of the reward when the war ends? Your character’s motives for fighting will be the best guide for the DM when he decides how to reward the players.