Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

Categories
Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 9)

Salazar Vladistone and the Phantom Brigade burned the village of Inverness to the ground. Two months later Vladistone and his Ghost army have returned and are now attacking Hammerfast. The third and final chapter of March of the Phantom Brigade begans by throwing the PCs right into the thick of things.

After fleeing Inverness, the PCs, Malgram, Faldyra and the rest of the survivors managed to make it all the way back to Hammerfast where they were welcomed and provided with food and shelter. In order to help repay the townsfolk’s kindness, the PCs were asked to join the city guard as reserve members. The grateful PCs couldn’t refuse. It sounded like a fair trade. After all, who would be dumb enough to attack a walled city full of battle-ready dwarves? Salazar Vladistone, apparently.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 9)”
Categories
Adventure Hooks DM Resources

Television Scripts As D&D Adventures

Week in and week out the DMs of the nation are writing phenomenal adventures for the players who gather around the gaming table. The work is endless and occasionally we DMs run out of time and energy. Game day is approaching and we haven’t even started writing out the adventure. We have what is more commonly referred to as writer’s block. We just don’t know what to do with the game this week and a blank page is staring back at us.

Normally, when this happens I put away my D&D supplies and I switch on the television. It doesn’t matter what I watch, I just need to let me mind wander allowing ideas to come to me freely. It’s at the end of several hours of mindless television watching that it hits me, the adventure I’ve been looking for has been literally staring me in the face for the past several hours.

Television and the endless and often mindless content that it produces is the DMs best friend.

Continue reading “Television Scripts As D&D Adventures”
Categories
Editorial

Quitting the Party Mid-Adventure

It’s not often that something happens during a D&D game that I haven’t experienced before, but just a few weeks ago that’s exactly what happened. The circumstances of the adventure terrified my PC so much that he quit. I knew that removing this character from the adventure was the right decisions. Walking away was the only choice he’d make given his detailed and well established background.

In our home game we use a character tree. Every player has a repertoire of PCs that they can choose from at the beginning of each adventure. The adventures run about six weeks and when they’re done everyone levels up. This time around I choose to play my Rogue Daggermaster. He’d been a major NPC in my campaign for years and this was going to be my first chance to play him as a PC. Even though my character wasn’t technically party of the party, he’d been an important part of their lives for 17 levels. This was a character that we all knew as well as any of the PCs.

A major part of the new adventure had the PCs investigating a series of strange occurrences. Without knowing very many details at first we began our investigation. Upon learning what was really going on, I realized that my character couldn’t complete the adventure. Based on his back-story and knowing how I’d played the character through all of those levels as an NPC, the strange happenings would absolutely terrify him.

Continue reading “Quitting the Party Mid-Adventure”
Categories
Month in Review

Month in Review: March 2011

A controversial stance on the Avenger class, an in-depth look at the Warforged, as well as our unique take on divination, summoning, and trust issues in D&D all contributed to our best month yet here at Dungeon’s Master. These were just a few of the many topics we covered throughout March.

Although we generally run our Month in Review on the 1st, we decided to wait given that Friday was April Fool’s Day. Hopefully you enjoyed our April Fools Day article, Magical Items That Aren’t Magical. Now it’s on to the Month in Review where we recap all of the great articles we ran over the past month and give you a chance to get caught up on anything you might have missed.

We’d like to again thank everyone who visited Dungeon’s Master during March and we hope that you keep visiting us in the months to come. We welcome your feedback and look forward to reading your comments throughout April.

Continue reading “Month in Review: March 2011”
Categories
Humour

Magic Items That Aren’t Magical – April Fools!

Too often we take D&D too seriously. That’s not to say that funny things don’t happen during the course of an adventure, but when it comes to the rules and the mechanics of the game it’s usually all business.

Today, in honour of April Fool’s Day we’re taking a step back and adding a little bit of humour to one of the more serious aspects of the game – magic treasure.

As we’ve discussed before, the way the players describe their magical items is certainly not the way that their characters describe their items (see What’s a +1 Sword?). With that in mind, every now and then the DM should have some fun at the player’s expense. This isn’t intended to be mean spirited; it’s merely a way for the DM to inject some hilarity into the game by exploiting player greed.

Continue reading “Magic Items That Aren’t Magical – April Fools!”
Categories
Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 8.)

Surrounded by 20 Phantom Brigade soldiers, the party of seven decided to attack Salazar Vladistone and fight their way out of the burning town of Inverness. What looked like the making of a TPK ended up being one of the most exciting weeks of D&D Encounters I’ve played so far.

When running last week’s encounter I decided to give the players a compelling motivate to fight the Phantom Brigade soldiers rather than avoid them or flee. The PCs found Faldyra passed out in her home choking on smoke and about to be consumed by fire. They rescued her, but that meant that this week’s encounter needed some tweaking.

As written, last week’s encounter was supposed to be nothing more than a hack and slash battle with some ghosts. Faldyra wasn’t supposed to be rescued until this week. Since they already rescued her I had to make a few adjustments.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 8.)”
Categories
DM Resources Eberron

Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 10)

The Thronehold Tournament is the most mysterious and lucrative gambling tournament in Eberron. It happens every year in the very castle that once housed the Five Nations’ one true king. Today we reveal the history of the card tournament that according to the castles’ guardians, House Deneith, doesn’t exist. Are you ready to learn about the fastest way to earn a fortune in Eberron?

Click on the Eberron tab above the Dungeon’s Master banner to find the previous installments in this ongoing series as well as many other great Eberron articles and resources.

Continue reading “Secrets of Eberron Revealed (Part 10)”
Categories
Player Resources

11 Articles Everyone Should Read

After a long and busy week, Friday is finally here. What better way to relax than putting together a D&D list. It started simply enough, just a list of tips for players. That’s when I realized that buried within the 600+ articles we have at Dungeon’s Master are more than enough tips for any D&D player.

Presented below are 11 articles that I enjoyed re-reading and think you will too. When I put together this list together my only criteria was to find interesting article that would appeal to a wide gaming audience. I wasn’t looking for our greatest hits (although a couple included below have already earned that distinction). These articles are a great place to begin a conversation about various aspects of the great game we call Dungeons & Dragons.

Continue reading “11 Articles Everyone Should Read”
Categories
Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 7)

Inverness was burning! After Brother Splintershield’s unfortunate death last week, the ritual that protected the town disappeared. As soon as that happened a coordinated attack immediately struck the town. The heroes could see signs of the blazing town, most notably the smoke clouds, off in the distance. If the heroes had any hope of helping their friends and saving the town from whatever plight it now faced they had to act quickly.

Unwilling to leave Splintershield’s body unburied, the PCs quickly made a crude sled with which they could easily bring his remains along with them. A few Nature checks later and they were off. After an hour of swift travel through the brush they arrived at the forest edge and got their first look at the devastation happening in the town.

Ghost soldiers were ransacking and bringing Inverness. Most buildings were ablaze already. Ghostly archers shot flaming arrows at all structures. It was clear that their purpose was destruction. Salazar Vladistone was true to his word. He returned with the Phantom Brigade and they were reclaiming Inverness as their own.

Continue reading “D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 7)”
Categories
Class Discussions

Avenger – Worst Striker Ever

Strikers are without a doubt my favourite role in 4e D&D. In a balanced party someone needs to be responsible for excessive damage output and that’s usually me. I’ve played the Rogue, Ranger, Warlock, Sorcerer, Monk and Barbarian classes and enjoyed all of them. Although I’ve never played an Assassin, one of the players at my gaming table ran one for months the last time I was the DM so I’m well aware of their prowess (and look forward to playing one soon). Each striker class has its own pros and cons, and every one of them is rewarding and a lot of fun to play. Except the Avenger.

I’ve played the Avenger during dungeon delves and more recently I’ve been playing one in Living Forgotten Realms (LFR). After giving the Avenger a thorough shake-down I’ve come to realize that Avengers suck. They are the worst, most underpowered class in the striker family. I’d go so far as to say that the Avenger is quite possibly the worst classes in 4e D&D.

The striker’s purpose is to dish out damage. What makes the striker special is that when he hits it should hurt… a lot. All strikers get a little something extra to enhance their damage output. Admittedly in many cases the extra damage is circumstantial and if the appropriate criterion isn’t met then they don’t get the extra damage. The Avenger is the only Striker class that gets nothing extra.

Continue reading “Avenger – Worst Striker Ever”