Wizards of the Coast have made the decision to no longer offer PDFs of their game books. So, if you enjoyed having electronic copies of the latest rulebooks, or were getting some of the great old classics like the Temple of Elemental Evil, you no longer have that option. It really is a sad day. Why have they done this? Piracy. Piracy just gets worse … Continue reading No more D&D pdfs?
What is D&D? According to some people on the ‘net, it’s their favourite edition, and anything that comes after it is no longer D&D. I like 4e, so every edition of D&D is D&D to me. However, there’s a couple of basic core concepts that I believe that D&D has to have to remain D&D: Attacking in melee: You roll a d20, higher is better. … Continue reading The core of D&D
Today was a good session of Pyramid of Shadows. This was a combination of good DMing, great players, and better encounters. We had three major encounters. The PCs met the bandits and talked to them; human foes are always interesting as they have at least some areas in common between them and the PCs. This led to the “room of the demon bitch”, which saw everyone … Continue reading Pyramid of Shadows joys
I’m currently running Pyramid of Shadows, the third of the Wizards 4e adventures. It has a nice set-up, interesting locations, a great hook, and, despite all that, is falling rather flat. Why is this? Well, in this writer’s opinion, it’s due to the incessant combat encounters with little chance for a change of pace. Now, I’m not against combat in D&D. Most of my campaigns … Continue reading Pyramid of Shadows woes
My attention has just been drawn to the “Scales of War” backgrounds in Dragon #366, and I think they’re pretty neat and they would work for our campaign – they’re quite generic. So, every PC in the Friday campaign can choose one background. This is one of the free issues of Dragon, so you can download the file from here: http://www.wizards.com/files/366_Characters_of_War.pdf My suggestions for the … Continue reading D&D character backgrounds
Rodney Thompson wrote a really good post on non-combat challenges in 4e on EN World today which has mostly been ignored by everyone else, so I wanted to point it to anyone who reads my blog. I know you’re out there, I can hear you breathing! 🙂 Skill challenges are the big innovation of 4e, and I don’t think they work yet. Yeah, the idea is … Continue reading D&D and non-combat stuff
My Sunday campaign has just started through H3: Pyramid of Shadows. In some ways, I think it will be the most successful of the heroic tier adventures. Partly this is because I think the encounters should amuse this particular group of players, but mainly it’s because I’m getting more of a handle on how to run 4e adventures. During the 3e era, I ran a … Continue reading Running published 4e adventures
Of interest… Wall of Fog [Revision] Player’s Handbook, page 162 On the Effect line, replace the fourth sentence with “The fog’s area is heavily obscured and blocks line of sight.” from “The fog grants concealment to creatures in its space and blocks line of sight.” Obscured Terrain [Revision] Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 61–62 Replace the text in the shaded box with the following text: ✦ Lightly … Continue reading Latest 4e errata
Our last session of the Friday Greyhawk campaign was not one of my better efforts. It didn’t help that I had a couple of players missing (pulling out at the last moment), nor that I was dreadfully tired. It was also a transition session, where we changed between one style of campaign plot to another. Urgh. We had four short (and quite boring) combats, plus … Continue reading Greyhawk Campaigning
January Open Grave – this is a book about the undead. February Dungeon Delve – short dungeon adventures playable in a session March P3 Assault on Nightworm Fortress – the third Paragon adventurePlayer’s Handbook II – This is the first book my players will probably want to get; new races, 8 new classes (including Barbarian, Bard, Druid, and Invoker), and other cool stuff. April E1 Death’s … Continue reading 2009 D&D Rulebook & Adventure releases
