Tag: Player Resources

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Class Discussions

Exploiting Racial and Class Features: Fey Step

Knowing you can teleport once per encounter as a move action is like having a get out of jail free card in your back pocket. No matter how bad things get, if you’re conscious on your turn you can get yourself out of a bad situation. It doesn’t matter if you’re prone, bound, marked, surrounded or immobilized – Fey Step will give you options other characters in the exact same situation just won’t have.

There are also amazing, non-combat and role-playing implications that accompany the ability to teleport. Regardless of your class, your Fey Step will often give you access to areas that other characters can’t get to as easily, if at all. All you need it a glimpse of where you want to end up and if it’s within your range you’re there instantaneously. This makes it exceptionally difficult to keep Eladrins anywhere against their will.

Fey Step may not have any offensive implication like other racial powers (take the Dragonborn’s Breath Weapon for example), but you can just as easily build a competent and interesting character around this power. Improving your Fey Step has the added bonus (in most cases) of improving any other teleportation your character makes. With that in mind there are a few classes that provide access to a lot of great teleportation powers and really let you exploit Fey Step.

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Player Resources

Character Catchphrases

“I’ll be back.” “D’oh!” “Go ahead, make my day.” A clever catchphrase is an easy way to make a run-of-the-mill character more memorable. As you play more and more characters over time they’ll likely start to blurring together in your memory. Distinguish you next character by giving him a catchphrase.

If you’re playing a public game at your FLGS or at a convention then you often end up at a table with six complete strangers. What better way to distinguish yourself and your character than with a clever catchphrase.

The Wizard that shouts in a funny voice “Heeeeeeeeeere comes my missile” may seem annoying at first, but I guarantee that when you tell your friends about your last D&D game you tell them all about that PC. Meanwhile the other characters all fade into the background.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Eberron Player Resources

Warforged – Creating an Identity for an Artificial Being

Warforged, and by extension constructs, are the most difficult races to play. But it’s this difficultly makes them extremely appealing to many gamers. The Warforged represents the best physical qualities that humanoids have to offer, yet they lack their fundamental weaknesses. They are, to put it bluntly, superior by design.

Today marks our 600th post. When we’ve hit significant milestones at Dungeon’s Master in the past we’ve tried to relate the number of that milestone into that article. Our 100th post was a list of 100 Great Things About D&D. For our 300th post Wimwick and I each created King Leonidas from the movie 300. Post 404 was all about Errors I’ve Made as a DM. With the 500th post looked at extreme wealth, the Fortune 500 of D&D.

Inspiration for 600 hit me when I was watching Terminator: Salvation on DVD. One of the Terminators they fought was the T-600 – an extremely powerful combat model. I’ve always believed that Keith Baker came up with his idea for Warforged after watching one of the Terminator movies. So with that in mind the 600th post seemed like the ideal time to take a closer look at Warforged in 4e D&D.

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Player Resources

LFR Magic Item Treasure Bundle List (March 2011)

We’ve updated our LFR Treasure Bundle List. We’ve added 53 new adventures to the list bringing the total to 177. Among the new entries are 23 paragon adventures and the very first LFR epic adventure.

The adventure code is highlighted for all new entries. The Excel file now has two additional tabs. One for epic entries and the other for the new adventures that cover the entire tier.

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Month in Review

Month in Review: February 2011

In February we celebrated our second anniversary. For the specifics on how we’re doing be sure to check out the State Of The Dungeon – Year 2. As we move into our third great year here at Dungeon’s Master we continue bringing you exciting 4e D&D articles every day.

Our weekly coverage of D&D Encounters continues as we see the program move from season three to season four. In February we provided more articles for DMs and players, with a special focus on role-playing. We also revisited Eberron in February, and looking at skill challenges we came up with a way to make them even more exciting. If you missed any of our great articles from February this is your chance to get caught up.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the readers who visited us throughout February. By visiting Dungeon’s Master every day, and leaving your feedback in the comments section, you’ve let us know that we’re doing a good job. Thank you.

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DM Resources Player Resources

You Broke What? – Describing Your Character’s Injuries

Rarely in D&D do we keep track of where our character is wounded. When he gets hit we just record damage and move on. In order for combat to run smoothly this is a compromise we’ve accepted from day one. Until you PC falls below 0 hit points you just assume he’s got full control over his entire body.

Last week I broke my arm and it got me thinking about how to introduce a system into 4e D&D that represented damage to specific areas of the body. The real trick was to do it in a way that actually added value to the game without just slowing things down or adding unnecessary new rules.

The way I see it, tracking specific damage can be handled in one of two ways: 1) strictly from a role-play perspective; or 2) as an actual mechanic that affects the numbers.

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Player Resources

Six Items Every Adventurer Should Have

As an adventurer you discover all kinds of interesting items. Some of the items are mundane and others magical. The most obvious items are your weapon and armour. As you advance, your helm, glove, boots and cloak are all replaced by magical items that you have discovered. Eventually a point of saturation is reached and the only way to increase your power level is by gaining the next version of your current item. Advancing your magic weapon from +1 to +2 and so forth.

As your character advances in level wealth continues to accumulate and there is the ability to find or purchase additional magic items. Many of these items are consumables, but are still worth obtaining. I am a fan of items that require healing surges to power them. Especially for those defenders who have more healing surges than they could ever likely spend during the normal course of adventuring.

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