Creating a Curse of Strahd Character

It’s time for the fourth season of the D&D Adventurers League to begin. It’s title? Curse of Strahd. As in previous seasons, this is my article about the guidelines for creating a legal character to play in official D&D Adventurers League adventures. The naming conventions for those adventures has changed a little bit, but the same types of adventures are still available: Big multi-table Epics at conventions, … Continue reading Creating a Curse of Strahd Character

5E Adventure Review: The Vault of Iptiz

The Vault of Iptiz is an adventure designed for 5th-level characters; the adventure is intended to be played in 4-6 hours, and consists of a 10-room dungeon with a new monster and four new magic items. The Vault is a lost dungeon – part treasure chamber, part death trap – that lies near the occupied city of Sulindal. An army of yuan-ti conquered the city … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: The Vault of Iptiz

Entering the Death House

The newest season of D&D is upon us! Curse of Strahd, the first 5E adventure set in the land of Ravenloft, a dark gothic horror setting, will be released in select game stores on March 4th and more widely on March 15th. Many stores around the world will be running the Launch Event Death House, an introduction to the full adventure, which provides an adventure … Continue reading Entering the Death House

5E Adventure Review: Depths of Felk Mor

Rod “Sacrosanct” Waibel’s Depths of Felk Mor is an ambitious product. 236 pages of adventure takes a lot of devotion to create. The adventure describes the caverns around Felk Mor, a subterranean settlement inhabited by several clans of humanoids. Nearby is the temple of Remahotep, an ancient god of evil. About half of the page count is the adventure text, the rest of the book … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: Depths of Felk Mor

Princes of the Apocalypse, sessions 24-27

Seeking revenge for the destruction of Westbridge, the adventurers returned to the Sacred Stone Monastery and made their way through the mines beneath into the Earth Temple. They were hampered by several attacks by Earth Cultists and gargoyles as they crossed the Great Bridge. The broken doors to the Temple were well-defended, with a porticullus preventing them from progressing further while with cultists used missiles … Continue reading Princes of the Apocalypse, sessions 24-27

5E Supplement Review: Traps

For some reason, DMs love putting traps in their adventures. I’m unsure exactly what that reason is. It probably differs from person to person. Some DMs like challenging their players; forcing them to think rather than just hack’n’slash their way through monsters. Some just want to give something for the thief of the party to do. (Remember, the Thief wasn’t included in the original D&D … Continue reading 5E Supplement Review: Traps

5E Supplement Review: 15 New Backgrounds

One of the best additions to 5th Edition D&D is the concept of Backgrounds. Designed to aid you in the creation of your characters’ personalities, the original Player’s Handbook presents a number of iconic backgrounds. Most people would agree that they’re not enough, as they by no means cover all of the potential concepts. James Introcaso, best known by me for his hosting of The … Continue reading 5E Supplement Review: 15 New Backgrounds

D&D 5E Supplement review – Player Cheat Sheet

I occasionally need to remind myself that not everyone studies the rules to D&D in the manner in which I do. (Indeed, most people haven’t been playing the game over thirty years!) Rules summaries and clarifications are very useful for people who don’t want to immerse themselves in the minutiae of several hundred pages of rules. And it is for those people that Sean Wicket … Continue reading D&D 5E Supplement review – Player Cheat Sheet

5E Adventure Review – DDEX1-05: The Courting of Fire

The fifth adventure of the D&D Expeditions releases, The Courting of Fire, brings the Cult of the Dragon to centre stage, as the party investigates the theft of several papers and tomes from Mantor’s Library. One of the ongoing flaws of the DDAL adventures is their introductions: many are vague and don’t really give the party a good reason to enter the adventure. Some of … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review – DDEX1-05: The Courting of Fire

5E Adventure Review: DDEX1-04 Dues for the Dead

Dues for the Dead is the fourth adventure released by the D&D Adventurers League and the closest to a traditional dungeon crawl. Designed by Steve Winter, who has written and edited more adventures than more people (including Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat), it sees the player characters asked to investigate the catacombs beneath Valhingen Graveyard in Phlan. The characters are … Continue reading 5E Adventure Review: DDEX1-04 Dues for the Dead