Tag: Forgotten Realms

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Storm Over Neverwinter – Preview

storm-over-neverwinter-coverD&D Encounters season 13, the spring 2013 season, begins on April 10 with week 0. The adventure itself – Storm Over Neverwinter – runs 8 weeks from April 17-June 5.

This is an adventure for characters level 3-6. It says levels 4-6 on the cover, but the text inside clearly trumps that and expects new PCs to begin at level 3. This is a first for D&D Encounters. It may make things a bit tougher for brand new players to just jump in with a character above level 1, but those of us who have played since season 1 will certainly appreciate an adventure with a bit more teeth.

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Book Reviews

Review: Elminster Ascending

Elminster Ascending
Ed Greenwood

A Forgotten Realms Novel

Ed Greenwood’s Elminster Ascending: The Sage of Shadowdale omnibus collects three novels – Elminster: The Making of a Mage, Elminster in Myth Drannor and The Temptation of Elminster – that tell the story of Elminster’s origin.

Dungeon’s Master again welcomes Soklemon, our Forgotten Realms book reviewer. He is a Dungeon Master, Forgotten Realms fan, aspiring writer and high school student (in that order). We welcome his latest contribution and hope you enjoy his review of the Ed Greenwood Omnibus: Elminster Ascending.

The first novel’s title, The Making of a Mage, is a misnomer in some ways. For most of the first novel, Elminster abhorred magic and all who used it, hunting and killing many of them. He ran into the Magister early on and was awed by the power that magic could bring, but his mind was yet to be changed. The later two novels deal with Elminster apprenticing himself to various other Mages and Sorcerers, and occasionally only being beholden to Mystra, the goddess of magic herself.

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Book Reviews

The Dungeon’s Master Book Report

Have you read any of the D&D novels? Hundreds have been written over the past 30 years if you look at all of the different campaign settings and worlds. With new books coming out every month it’s difficult to know which ones are worth reading and which ones you should pass on. Today at Dungeon’s Master we’ve launched a new page called The Book Report. This permanent new page will help you decide what to read next.

When I can’t play D&D I find that reading D&D fiction is a pretty good substitute. I read a lot anyway, so it only makes sense that I’d pick up the novels set in the Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Ravenloft and Eberron (sorry Dragonlance). It’s not exactly the same as playing D&D, but there are many similarities. I find that the novels often serve as a source of inspiration for my campaign (when I’m the DM) and for the type of characters I might want to play (when I’m a player).

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Book Reviews

Review: Avenger

Avenger
(Blades of the Moonsea, Book III)
Richard Baker

A Forgotten Realms novel

Avenger is the third adventure featuring Garen Hulmaster. The Blades of Moonsea trilogy comes to a thrilling conclusion in Avenger. The Hulmasters were usurped from their family stronghold and forced to flee Hulberg at the end of Corsair, the second novel. Avenger picks up a few months later as the Hulmasters are struggling to devise a plan to retake their home. But before any plans can be enacted, the family is struck upon by assassins.

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Book Reviews

Review: Corsair

corsair-01

Corsair
(Blades of the Moonsea, Book II)
Richard Baker

A Forgotten Realms novel

Corsair is the second adventure featuring Garen Hulmaster. The adventure begins only a few months after the events in the first Blades of the Moonsea novel, Swordmage. As with any series, it’s helpful to read the books in sequence but in this case that really doesn’t matter too much. The main characters – heroes and villains – are introduced in the first couple of chapters and everything you need to know from the first book is summarized nicely.

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Editorial

Poll Results

Ever since we launched Dungeon’s Master we’ve included a poll question on the right side of the page. (If you haven’t answered this week’s question, now would be a good time!) The number of respondents for each poll continues to grow along with the number of readers who visit our site regularly. Now that we’re a few months in and we’ve had the opportunity to ask a variety of questions of our readers, we decided to take a look at the results of a few polls.

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DM Resources Player Resources Skill Challenges

Skill Matrix by Class and Race

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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