Tag: Wizards of the Coast

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (Week 2)

Trapped in the Shadowfell, the adventures looked for answers. How did the entire town of Duponde end up here? More importantly how will they return home? And what happened to the Wizard and his Halfling companion? Could they have anything to do with this or were they dragged out of the Old Owl Inn while the heroes fought the Gargoyles last week?

My FLGS ran two super tables last week with eight players at each. We even had to turn players away after we began. Anticipating another strong showing we were prepared to run three tables in stead of just two. As it turned out we ended up with three DMs and 13 players. So we ran two tables with four players at each and a third table (mine) with five players.

The party at my table was made up of Jarren 1, Jarren 2, a Dragonborn Barbarian, Eladrin Warlock and Half-elf Druid. I’d say that the players ranged from moderate to almost no experience. Realizing that the group lacked any hard-core veterans I decided to take it easy on the party when it came time for combat. As it turned out they still had a lot of trouble, but well get to that shortly.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (Week 1)

This week marks the beginning of D&D Encounters season 5, Dark Legacy of Evard. After two weeks of discussion and speculation, the new season is finally here. Some DMs are starting at level 1, as the program intends, while others have decided to let players keep using characters developed during previous season of D&D Encounters. This season will no doubt be full of excitement, so let’s embark on the 13-week adventure together with our field report on week 1.

We expected a good turn out for the first night of the D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard but we had no idea just how good our turn out would be. By the time we were ready to begin we had two tables with seven players at each table. A few minutes later we had two more players show up bringing each table up to eight players. About half way through the encounter four more players showed up. Regrettably we had to turn them away. In part because the tables were already so full and in part because we were well into the combat by then. It looks like we’ll have to enlist another DM for next week. Hopefully our FLGS can get another copy of the adventure by then.

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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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D&D Encounters Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade – Report Card

Another season of D&D Encounter comes to an end and once again I feel it’s my responsibility to sum up the whole experience and provide some honest feedback.

The Characters

Of all the Pre-generated characters that Wizards of the Coast has provided since D&D Encounters began, these were by far the best. All six characters were fairly well-rounded and easy to play. None of the players felt that any one pre-gen was worse than the rest (Barcan, you know what we’re talking about).

This season more than any of the previous season we had a lot more players make their own characters. Although the character were all supposed to be created using D&D Essentials products, I wasn’t that restrictive. If you made a character in character builder I allowed him regardless of class or race.

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Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 13)

This is it, the grand finale. Would the heroes find the Arrow of Time? And if they did would they use it to slay the Dragon, Actherimos? The fate of Hammerfast, Salazar Vladistone and the PCs themselves would all be decided by the night’s end.

The week there were seven PCs in the party – Belgos, Jarren 1, Jarren 2, Valenae, a Dragonborn Fighter, a Dwarven Runepriest and a Human Wizard. After completing the rooms in the upper level of the Monastery over the previous few encounters, I allowed the party to take an extended rest before proceeding. They simply did not have the necessary resources to proceed otherwise. Everyone began this week’s adventure refreshed and at 100%. Full hit point, full healing surges, all daily powers and one action point a piece.

They proceeded down the staircase and into the caverns below. The cavern seemed to be in the midst of an earth quake, rocks and dust falling from the ceiling. However, the Time Trap they encounter on the upper level seemed to still be active on the lower levels as well. At least it was until the party began proceeding through it.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Preview

With the thrilling conclusion to March of the Phantom Brigade only days away, we’re looking ahead to the next season of D&D Encounters. The next adventure, Dark Legacy of Evard sets the bar even higher as D&D Encounters continues into its fifth season.

The Adventure

This article is spoiler free, even though I am sharing some exciting tidbits. I want to begin by thanking Wizards of the Coast for listening to feedback. Every season they’ve improved the quality of the adventure, often based on feedback from the field. This adventure is no exception.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Using Leveled Up PCs

Should players have to begin at level 1 again? I know that Wizards of the Coast wants all character to start on equal footing with 0 XP, but is this absolutely necessary? After all, some of the players have come out every Wednesday for over a year now. This is going to be the fourth time that they’ve worked a character up to level 2 or level 3 and once again they’ve being asked (forced) to start all over again.

What makes it even more insulting this time is that there are no new pre-generated characters. So if you’ve been using the PCs Wizards provided not only do you have to go back down to level 1 but you have to begin anew using a character you’ve already seen advance at your game table.

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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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Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 12)

March of the Phantom Brigade, encounters 11 and 12 could be played in any order. Of course, my table did encounter 12 first. So last week we only covered the events that took place during the encounter 11 parts, skipping over encounter 12 until this week. A bit confusing I’ll grant you, but it worked really well. Be sure to check out the D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade (Week 11) field report if you haven’t already. That should help clear up any confusion.

Last week at our FLGS we ran a double session covering encounters 11 and 12. The heroes had the opportunity to explore the two rooms that made up the main floor of the Dwarven Monastery before heading down to the caverns below. The adventure clearly indicated that the PCs could explore the rooms in whichever order they wanted to. In order to avoid any spoilers for groups that chose to run encounter 12 first, we simply ran both encounter back-to-back.

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DM Resources

Building Better Monsters Part 3: Making the Monster Fit the Bill

One thing that keeps coming up is the idea that monster design should be elegant, graceful, smooth and all these other flowery and juicy sounding words. What I mean to say in more direct terms is that your monster needs to realize its design goal with as little effort from you while DMing as possible. When your monster hits the grid and it’s time to throw initiative, the party is going to immediately do its best to murder your new creation. As a result your monster is going to have very little time to make a good impression.

In music one of the mistakes young musicians make all the time is not playing expressively. They practice a piece for ages before they perform it and come to know its subtleties and complexities very well, but their audience doesn’t. In order for people to understand the piece of music on first hearing the way that the musician has come to understand it over a period of weeks, the musician has to accentuate its good qualities so that they are readily apparent.

As the DM you have the very same problem with your monster. Any trimmings that don’t further your goal for the monster should be removed. Strip the monster down to what abilities it really need because it’s only going to get a few rounds of combat to use them.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

So you’ve got your idea for your monster and you know what you want it to do and how you want it to function in your game. It’s time to put those plans into action. There are a lot of considerations to be made and it can be daunting to figure out where to begin. My outlook is that the best place to start is anywhere. The following considerations are not placed in any special sequence. As you read each heading remember that you can never be too creative.

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