Tag: Player Resources

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Book Reviews DM Resources Player Resources

Playing Yourself as a D&D Character

Last week fantasy author Joel Rosenberg died. Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame series was my introduction to fantasy fiction. In book one, real world college students become the characters they created when they are transported into their fantasy role playing game. Once inside the game world they realize that in addition to possessing all of the powers and skills of their characters, they still also know everything they did in real life. These characters apply their modern beliefs and values along with rudimentary technology into the game world and become a powerful force striving to make an imperfect world better. As an avid gamer I thought this was the most brilliant premise I’d ever heard the first time I read these books.

The series capped at 10 books, but for many fans the essence of what made this series great ended with book five. Books six through 10 saw the real world character retire (or die) and their children become the focus of the adventures. I’ve read those first five books many times. And even though I’ve read hundreds of other fantasy novels since then I still think that the initial premise of the series holds up. I mean, really, who among us hasn’t imagined themselves as their character at one time or another?

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Chapter 1 Video Recaps

During the last season of D&D Encounters we recorded our weekly adventures and made them available as weekly podcasts. This season we’ve got something a little bit different, but no less exciting. In addition to the weekly recaps that we post every Thursday, we’re adding a video component.

The Dark Legacy of Evard video recaps provide a new and different way to be a part of D&D Encounters. Each episode is part session recap, part episodic story. They chronicle the weekly adventures of a large group of gamers playing Wednesday nights at Dueling Grounds in Toronto, Ontario. They also provide a glimpse into the tabletop gaming scene in Toronto.

These videos are intended to entertain as well as shed light on new D&D products and websites. They also offer some insight into why Dungeons & Dragons continues to be such a strong gaming force, still holding universal appeal after so many years.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: May 2011

May was another great month for us here at Dungeon’s Master. We continued our exploration of racial powers, shared our weekly experiences with D&D Encounters and took a detailed look at divine classes. We also covered monster variety, DM rehearsals, controller powers and a look back at fantasy movies from the 80s. If you missed any of the great articles from May this is your opportunity to get caught up.

And of course the Dungeon’s Master team would like to take this opportunity, as we always do in the Month in Review, to thank everyone who visited our site and commented in May.

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Class Discussions

Exploiting Racial and Class Powers: Warforged Resolve

Warforged are an unstoppable race. They wade into battle and keep fighting long past the normal limits of other their flesh and blood companions. Their durability bolstered by their racial power, lets them call on their deepest reserves to heal damage, gain temporary hit points and make saves to shrug off ongoing damage. Few other races are as all around tough as Warforged.

Warforged Resolve is a great racial power because it allows your PC to gain temporary hit points as a minor action. If you wait to use the power when you’re bloodied it also provides a way to get healing without expending a healing surge. The fact that it scales as your level increases. makes this power even more versatile. This alone may at first make Warforged Resolve seem like a poor cousin to Dwarven Resilience (which lets you use your second wind as a minor action and thereby spend a healing surge to regain a lot of hit points), but thre’s more. On top of the real and temporary hit points, you get to make a save against ongoing damage when you use Warforged Resolve.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Pre-Generated Characters (level 3)

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (season 5) is underway. If you’re looking for pre-generated characters, we’ve got them for you. There are the repeats from last season that Wizards of the Coast provided and then there are the four brand new pre-generated characters that we created using the new Players Option: Heroes of Shadow.

Since many DMs have opted to let their players continue using the same characters from last season of D&D Encounters, we decided to provide level 3 versions of our pre-gens.

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Player Resources

Exploiting Racial and Class Powers: Cloud of Darkness

Many D&D players have a love/hate relationship with the Drow’s Cloud of Darkness racial ability. On the one hand, it’s a convenient way to guarantee combat advantage, and in rare circumstances, can cover a retreat or provide a moment of respite for the party. On the other hand, it blocks line of sight and can generally get in the way. What’s a Drow to do? One of the great things about Cloud of Darkness is its great feat support. With a few feats and magic items, your Cloud of Darkness can go from inconvenient combat advantage to a force in its own right.

Today Dungeon’s Master welcomes guest writer Benoit. Benoit has been a DM and player for over 10 years. He’s editor-in-chief of the blog Roving Band of Misfits, where a variety of 4e D&D and Gamma World topics are covered. He also co-hosts the podcast Level Up, where 4e character building and magic item discussions feature prominently. If you enjoyed this article, you should definitely check out Level Up for more of the same.

Since the Drow racial stat bumps naturally encourage players to create Dexterity-based strikers, I’m going to start by focusing on two specific builds: one for Rogues and one for Rangers. Then, we’ll look at some feats and magic items that are useful for any class. Finally, I’ll touch on the Drow paragon paths to see what they can do to let you further exploit your Cloud of Darkness.

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Player Resources

Exploiting Racial and Class Powers: Elven Accuracy

Nothing sucks more than missing with an attack roll. The more powerful the attack and the more dangerous the opponent, the more missing stings. In most cases you miss, and the game continues – unless you’re an Elf. Elven Accuracy lets you reroll one attack every encounter. Not bad, especially if you hit with the second roll. But why settle for just a do over when you can turn that miss into something truly awesome.

The way to get the most out of Elven Accuracy is to make sure that when you’re rerolling a missed attack you significantly increase your likelihood of hitting and scoring a crit. The fact that you have a reroll up your sleeve increases your chances of critting by giving you a second kick at the can, but why not continue stacking the deck in your favour. After all that’s what this series of articles is all about.

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Player Resources Technology

Move Over Character Builder

Can you recall the first Dungeons & Dragons character you ever created? Mine, like many others, was a Fighter from the Red Box set. I remember running him through the adventure contained in the box. I was hooked. The process was so creative, so imaginative.

Through the evolution of editions character creation has changed. We’ve gone from one book to many. During 3.5e I remember having multiple books open in front of me as I created my character sheet in excel. With the release of 4e we were given the gift of the character builder. I was in heaven, this is how character creation should be in our day and age. Everything I needed was available at my fingertips.

However, as 4e has continued to evolve and grow I realize that character builder is not the ultimate tool for designing your character. That role now falls to the Compendium. You are still building the character in the character builder, but all the research is occurring ahead of time with the Compendium.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: April 2011

We began April with an obligatory April Fools article, but after a humourous look at magic items we were all business through the rest of the month. We took a long hard look at building monsters in our four-part series, began a new ongoing series exploring ways to truly optimize racial powers, continued our ongoing weekly coverage of D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade and provided an early peek at season 5, D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard. April was packed with a lot of great 4e D&D articles so if you missed anything this is your chance to get caught up.

Our goal here at Dungeon’s Master is always to provide you with the best 4e D&D articles and resources possible. Let us know how we’re doing and if you think we’re on the right track. We always welcome your feedback, good or bad. Thank you to everyone who visited and commented during April.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Pre-Generated Characters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (season 5) begins on Wednesday, May 11. Although the pre-generated characters provided are the same ones from last season, we’ve created a few of our own.

This is the first time since D&D Encounters began that Wizards of the Coast has not provided six new pre-generated characters. For season 5 we’ll be seeing a lot of familiar faces in the party, namely the six heroes that were introduced when March of the Phantom Brigade began 13 weeks ago. Belgos, Brandis, Fargrim, Jarren, Keira and Valenae all return for another season of D&D Encounters. Just to be clear, these aren’t leveled up versions of the pre-gens, these are the exact same level 1 versions.

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