My World of Greyhawk campaign has now reached the quest for the fifth segment of the Rod of Seven Parts. The characters recovered the fourth from the lost treasure vault of the Great Kingdom. For the fifth part, I decided to set it in the most northern City of the Gods, which lay somewhere within the land known as Blackmoor. For those unaware of the … Continue reading Adventures in Greyhawk – A City of Gods
In the early writings about running Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax and others suggested you create a base for the characters (the town) and a nearby dungeon (the dungeon) wherein the monsters guarded the treasure. Over the years, I have done a lot of play based on that idea. And it is rare I detail the town to any great extent. This the thing about … Continue reading The Town outside the Dungeon
Adventures from the Potbellied Kobold is a collection of 15 adventures for 5E, designed by people who have done a lot of work in the industry. Clocking in at 172 pages, it presents adventures from level 2 to 9. Usefully, each adventure has a suggested run-time. The shortest is 60 minutes, the longest 4 hours, with most sitting at about 2 hours about right for … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Adventures from the Potbellied Kobold (part 1)
Released as the first part of the Plague of Ancients series for the D&D Adventurers League, The Frozen North starts a group of new characters lost in the frozen wilderness after an avalanche and sends them on a desperate chase for survival. A four-hour adventure for level 1 or 2 characters, this is the second introductory adventure for Season 10, after Ice Road Trackers. As … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Frozen North
Ice Road Trackers is the first of the adventures for Season 10 of the D&D Adventurers League. Designed by Shawn Merwin, it consists of four one-hour adventures for level one or two characters. It occurs during the events of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden, but, as with most of the DDAL adventures, runs separately from the hardcover adventure. This adventure introduces characters to … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Ice Road Trackers
With Ballarat moving towards restarting public play of Dungeons & Dragons in our local store, Guf Ballarat, once again it has fallen to me to organise the events. More correctly, I volunteered to do it, because I much prefer organising an event to just participating in one. We are in an odd space where the store is still getting going again. Well, it always was … Continue reading D&D Adventurers League – A Look at the State of Play
Drums in the Marsh is a four-hour adventure for level 1-4 characters and part of the first season of the D&D Adventurers League. The adventure features an investigation into recent kidnappings and raids and then a trip into the Twilight Marsh to discover the perpetrators and rescue the victims. For a low-level adventure, this is very ambitious and gives many options for the players and … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Drums in the Marsh
Secrets of the Drowgar is a 28-page PDF supplement available on the DMs Guild that introduces a new playable race to the game: the Drowgar. What is a Drowgar? It is what you get when a Drow and a Duergar love each other very much. The trouble with introducing any new race into the Dungeons & Dragons game is that not only do you have … Continue reading 5E Supplement Review: Secrets of the Drowgar
I have been thinking about how combat works in Dungeons & Dragons 5e, and – as with many modern versions of the game – it is no longer a game of attrition. In the early editions of the game, healing magic was hard to come by. (A seventh-level cleric in AD&D with a 16 Wisdom can heal at most 7d8+1 hit points per day). And … Continue reading Combat, Vulnerability, and Hit Points
One of my worst experiences running Pathfinder came when we were playing the Council of Thieves adventure path. The adventurers enter a pocket dimension and have to fight their way out. Except that almost all foes have damage reduction 5; that is, they take 5 less damage unless struck by special weapons (I forget which type, likely silver or cold iron). The party didn’t have … Continue reading Foreshadowing, Research, and Retreating
