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DM Resources

Divine Organizations (Part One)

Divine characters provide some of the best built in role playing motivations. Much of this can be attributed to the various divine organizations that the character might be associated with. At the very least this is the local church where the character was trained or came to understand their faith.

Faiths are more than just a collection of churches. Behind the public facade the church is highly organized. There are various splinter groups or sects that exist within the faith. These groups often provide great role playing motivation, whether they are being portrayed as the heroes or the villains in your story.

Presented here are two divine organizations that you can drop easily into your game. They are campaign neutral and no mention of a particular deity is contained in the entries, allowing you as the DM to simply use them as you wish.

Categories
Class Discussions

Divine Connections

Dwarf InvokerThe divine power source more than any other carries with it great connections between its various classes. This is due to the link that the various deities provide between the classes. Due to this link, a campaign that features only divine characters is easier to manage than a campaign that features only one other power source. Divine campaigns can be a lot of fun to participate in and they provide plenty of opportunities for interesting role-playing.

While divine classes share a common element in their deity, they all approach how to serve that deity in a different manner. In many cases there is a striking contrast in acceptable behaviour from one class to another. This post will briefly discuss the various classes that comprise the divine power source and how they relate to their other divine peers.

Categories
Book Reviews

Player’s Handbook 3 (PHB3) Review (Part 3)

Psionics. I’ll admit that over the years I’ve never been a huge fan of psionics in D&D. I cringed when Wizards announced that PHB3 would introduce psionic powered character classes to 4e D&D. My initial (and completely uninformed) opinion on the matter was that psionics suck. However, over the past few months as preview material was released through DDI, I got a chance to see some of these new psionic classes first hand. I’ll admit that the preview content started bringing me around on psionics. Now that I’ve actually got a PHB3 with the full builds for each of the new psionic classes I find myself completely turned around on psionics.

In our Player’s Handbook 3 Review (Part 1) we covered the new races and the new divine leader class, the Runepriest. In Player’s Handbook 3 Review (Part 2) we covered skill powers, feats and new magic items. In today’s article we’ll look at psionics.

Categories
Book Reviews

Player’s Handbook 3 (PHB3) Review (Part 2)

In our Player’s Handbook 3 Review (Part 1) we looked at the new Shardmind race and one of the new classes, the Runepriest. Today in our PHB3 Review (Part 2) we’re looking at skill powers, feats, superior implements and new magic items. In our PHB3 Review (Part 3) we’ll delve into a detailed look at the psionic classes.

Here’s a quick recap of the new races and classes available in the PHB3.

New Races

  • Githzerai
  • Minotaur
  • Shardmind
  • Wilden

New Classes

There are also complete rules for building Hybrid characters of all classes (including all six new classes introduced in the PHB3).

Categories
Book Reviews

Player’s Handbook 3 (PHB3) Review (Part 1)

You may think that you know what the Player’s Handbook 3 is all about if you’ve got a DDI subscription, but the preview content was just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re a DDI subscribers who’s considering passing on the PHB3, think again. This is one of the coolest 4e D&D books that’s come out so far.

The PHB3 comes out next week on Tuesday, March 16, but for those of us living in the Greater Toronto Area it came out this past Friday. I visited three gaming stores and a major book selling chain and they all had it proudly displayed for sale. I don’t know if this complete disregard for the street date is limited to my area or if this is the case across the board. All I know is that I was fortunate enough to get my copy of the PHB3 Friday and I haven’t put it down since.

I took some flack for my Martial Power 2 review last month. Some readers didn’t think I spent enough time giving my opinion. With my review of the PHB3 I’m going to listen to the readers and do more than just tell you what’s in the book. But given the amount of material in the PHB3 it’s going to take more than one article to cover everything. So as seems fitting, I’m going to break my review of the PHB 3 into three parts. Today we’ll look at the new races and one of the new classes – the Runepriest.