Quite the Pickle is a collection of four, linked one-hour adventures set in the town of Saltmarsh. All revolve around a local tavern, the Snapping Line, which employs two dwarven brothers with a secret. The adventures are for level 5 to 10 characters, and though optimised for a party of level 8 characters, containing scaling notes for other levels. The first two adventures feature tournaments … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Quite the Pickle
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is an adventure for level 1 characters set in the world of Eberron. It is derived from the well-known story by Washington Irving. The adventure proceeds like this: The adventurers arrive in the village of Sleepy Hollow, where they discover the local school master, one Ichabod ir’Crane, has disappeared. As they investigate his disappearance, they uncover several odd things in … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has a lot of interesting material in it. As I am far more likely to be the Dungeon Master rather than a player, I thought I might share with you a few thoughts about the new material in the “Dungeon Master’s Tools” chapter. Note that I am deliberately excluding both Group Patrons (Chapter 2) and the new magic items of Chapter … Continue reading A Quick Look at the Dungeon Master’s Tools of Tasha’s
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has landed! Hooray! I immediately turned to the DM section to see what it could offer me. The answer is rather mixed, but that is to be expected: I am an experienced DM who is rather set in his ways. Advice on Session Zero is not new to me, and I tend not to include puzzles in adventures I design. I … Continue reading Negotiating Desires
In the beginning: The original cleric class debuted in the first version of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. There were only three classes in those days: Fighting Man (Fighter), Cleric and Magic-User (Wizard). The Thief (Rogue) came along the next year with the Greyhawk supplement. The original cleric was good at fighting but initially could not cast spells. Instead, it gained that ability at level … Continue reading The Cleric in Dungeons & Dragons
In Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, the characters are looking for the Sword of Zariel. They learned in Chapter 2 that their holyphant companion, Lulu, abandoned the sword in an alabaster castle surrounded by a red scab. In the early stages of Chapter 3, the amnesiac Lulu remembers where it is. She is wrong. After that, she has divine inspiration and points the characters to … Continue reading Running Descent into Avernus part 11: Starting the Path of Devils
The skill system in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons says only a little about what each skill can do, certainly when compared to previous editions. 3.5E, for instance, was very detailed about what skills covered. However, with that lack of definition comes freedom – and confusion. Especially when one player moves to a different group and discovers that the skill does not do what they … Continue reading Thoughts about Skills in Dungeons & Dragons
Bigby’s Handbook of Creative Spell Use is a 76-page supplement that describes techniques of using and combining spells to get more out of them than might initially be apparent. The supplement uses the landscape format, to the joy of some of my friends, and presents 50 spell-casting combinations. They range from gloriously off-the-wall and brilliant, to mundane and obvious, and there are a few hopelessly … Continue reading 5E Supplement Review: Bigby’s Handbook of Creative Spell Use
I recently participated on a panel on boxed text in PAX Online. Before that, I asked some of my twitter followers questions that they had about the use of box text. We did not get to most of those questions, so I am using this article to answer them! A reminder: I am in favour of boxed text, when used well! “Would your approach to … Continue reading Boxed Text Q&A
My home Greyhawk campaign continued with the characters seeking the third part of the Rod of Seven Parts. The group teleported back to Brusinton, a small town in the west of Veluna, after slaying the dragon. This has been their home base for several months, but it was now under occupation by the Shadow Fey. Checking in at Home The Shadow Fey had concluded an … Continue reading Adventures in Greyhawk – The Company Goes South
