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Recent Posts Tagged With '4e'
3 Rolls, 1 Check
This is a common occurrence in my game, and it might be in yours too: DM: The Baron tells you, “I haven’t seen the Duke.” Player 1: I roll Insight to see if he’s lying. Crap, rolled low. Player 2: I roll then. Mine is pretty h...
D&D 4e One-Shots: Putting it into Action
As a result of playing four very different one-shot games at DC Game Day, I condensed my thoughts about one-shots into one simple rule: Everything important on the character sheet should come up during play. It’s an easy thing to say, but not s...
Convention Report: DC Game Day 2009
DC Game Day V was held October 24th and 25th, and Geek’s Dream Girl and I were there. It was a bit different than the game conventions I usually go to: it was held in a section of an office building in downtown DC, and it was 4 sessions of RPGs...
5 Tips For Running Dungeon Delves
I first encountered the “dungeon delve” at the exact same time I first encountered 4e. 3 linked encounters, designed to be played in a relatively short amount of time (45 minutes at the conventions). Dungeon Delve (the book) is full of th...
Preview: “Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons”
Through an unexpected source, we were able to get our hands on an early copy of the sequel to last year’s Draconomicon, this one focusing on the metallic dragons. In previous editions, metallic dragons were good aligned, meaning that a DM would...
Preview & Review: “Primal Power”
Late last week, with a copy of Primal Power in hand, I decided to give people a chance to preview the book by asking questions that I would answer on Twitter as well as at our page on Facebook. Below I'll share most of the questions and answers from...
Statement from Wizards of the Coast Regarding Fansite Toolkit
Months back, Wizards of the Coast released their "Fansite Toolkit", essentially a package of images that could be used for bloggers and similar in exchange for agreeing to, well, a lot of terms about citations, trademarks, and usage. The release rais...
Interview: Matt James, Co-Author of “Monument of the Ancients”
“Monument of the Ancients“ was published in Dungeon #170 and is an adventure set in the Forgotten Realms for 13th level characters. The capsule description is thus: If myth and legend are to be believed, the ......
Review: “Revenge of the Giants”
Revenge of the Giants is the first WotC "mega-adventure" for 4e. It's also the first adventure put out by them for 4e that comes in hardback book form (with a double-sided flip map attached in the back) instead of the double book folio style. The boo...
Inq. of the Week: Tiers of Play?
Dave and I both started running 4th Edition D&D campaigns when the system was released, now over a year later Dave's game is solidly into the paragon tier while mine looks to be entering paragon in the next few weeks....
I Am A Liberal Gamer
I'm a big proponent of change in game design. If something isn't working, don't just patch it, teardown and rebuild. This puts me in opposition to what I will respectfully call the "Conservative Gamer" contingent, who prefer that games preserve much ...
GenCon 2009: High Level D&D Seminar
While at GenCon this year there were many events and seminars which I wanted to attend, but one of the seminars that I really didn't want to miss was the High Level D&D one hosted by Bruce Cordell and Stephen Schubert from Wizards of the Coast....
Review: “Dragon Magazine Annual”
When WotC announced that the venerable Dragon and Dungeon magazines were becoming digital-only offerings, the reaction was controversial. The magazines are only available in PDF, and to subscribers of the D&D Insider service. There is still no w...
GenCon 2009: 4e Extravaganza (with Photos)
On Friday at GenCon, we attended the 4e Extravaganza, which was where the new setting was announced (which I'm sure everyone has heard by now is Dark Sun). However, there were a number of other products showcased, some new, some already known, and a ...
4th Edition D&D: Beyond Level 30
Character level is one of the core concepts behind most roleplaying games, and it has been at the core of D&D from the very beginning as an indication of a character's abilities, power, and influence in the world. Back in Original D&D they...
Inquisition of the Week: Your Steam is Punk
This past week saw the release of the Eberron Campaign Guide. While I've followed Eberron since its acceptance into the D&D campaign setting contest but I have yet to run or play in any kind of Eberron campaign. Some of the resistance to playing...
Inq. of the Week: Sources of Power?
Just before the Player's Handbook 2 was released back in March I wrote an inquisition asking which power source people most wanted to see in the PHB3, the source that won the poll was psionics so it seems the PHB3 is shaping up to meet a lot of expec...
Two Words to Convince You to Buy Kobold Quarterly #10
Gelantinous Cubes. We don’t have to tell you that Kobold Quarterly is great, or that it’s been nominated for 3 Ennies (though it’s going down in the Best Website category!), or that it includes tons of ......
Review: “Divine Power”
Divine Power is the latest sourcebook for the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons that includes new options for the Avenger, Cleric, Invoker, and Paladin classes. Each class gets a new build along with a ton of new powers, paragon paths, feats, a...
Origins 2009: D&D 4e Villains Seminar
At Origins 2009, Rodney Thompson and Robert Schwab hosted a seminar (courtesy of the RPGA) about designing villains for your 4e game. The seminar described the process of doing the villain design, from role in the campaign to touching on some of the ...
Origins 2009: Ultimate Dungeon Delve
A few weeks back, I spotted on Twitter a new D&D event that would be held at Origins. It was the Ultimate Dungeon Delve, a timed test of our ability to get through 6 combat encounters with a 6th level team of 5 adventurers that we bring to the t...
Inq. of the Week: Know Your Role
Only a short Inquisition this week, since I have lots more Origins goodness to send your way soon, including an epic recounting of our journey to victory over the Ultimate Dungeon Delve, another seminar by Monte Cook (this one about designing dungeon...
4e Lite
I think you could take 4e and remove the powers system for a "rules-lighter" experience. Here's roughly how it would go:...
Inq. of the Week: Challenging Skills
The dragon found them flying through the skies aboard a flying Dwarven pirate airship and threatened to destroy the ship if they didn't toss the heroes overboard. They found their powers mostly useless against the creature, and scrambled to improvise...
One Year Later for 4e Podcast
A whole pile of bloggers and podcasters, including the likes of At-Will, Dungeonmastering, ChattyDM, Gamer's Haven, Sly Flourish, and yours truly, got together to ask James Wyatt and Chris Perkins of Wizards of the Coast about various topics related ...
Inq. of the Week: One Year Later for 4e
Starting with the initial announcement at GenCon 2007, we polled reaction to the coming of a new system and found most to be cautiously optimistic. Then shortly after release, we polled about everyone's favorite edition of D&D, which at the time...
With Karate (And Psionics) I’ll Kick Your Ass
Monks are Psionic. (Yes, "Martial Striker" was half wrong). As per the Design & Development article that accompanied it, Ki is a dead power source (though some third party products have already tried to use it). Personally, I have no problem wit...
MM2 Worldwide D&D Game Day: Behind the Screen
Over a month ago, I discovered that Monster Manual 2 Game Day would fall smack dab in the middle of Balticon, so I decided I'd try to combine peanut butter and chocolate and sign up to run the game day at my Friendly Local Science Fiction Con. I hadn...
Lessons from the Heroic Tier
This March, I placed my game on hiatus so that I could graduate. At that time, some of the players were at 9th level and not too far from 10, so I decided to cheat a little and advance all the players to Paragon to begin the next chapter on the next ...
Review: Monster Manual 2
If there's one thing most DMs can agree on, it's that having more monsters to pick and choose from is better than more options for players, so the Monster Manual 2 comes as a welcome addition to 4E. The MM2 expands on many of the monsters we're alre...
