As previously related, early forms of D&D had trouble clearly describing an initiative system. Original D&D used the Chainmail initiative system, and other versions or clarifications were proposed in Eldritch Wizardry, The Strategic Review and The Dragon. As the Eldritch Wizardry system seems to be missing some key information, Eric Holmes had something of a problem when he was designing the initiative system for the … Continue reading Initiative in Basic D&D
On Equipment: Playing Cards are now an item instead of the more generic Gaming Set. Potions of Healing are described as being red. Spellbook is not described as a magic focus, but this might just be a difference between the full game and the basic game. Tinderbox now specifies that lighting more challenging fires takes 1 minute, instead of at least as long as a … Continue reading More on what has changed since the Dungeons & Dragons playtest
We had a new record for participants this week: 22 people were playing in our Dead in Thay session – 18 people playing at tables, 3 DMs, and one co-ordinator (me). It was nice to get back to co-ordinating between the tables, especially because, as the season progresses, I’m enabling more and more interaction between the groups. This was quite apparent in this scenario, as … Continue reading D&D Encounters: Dead in Thay, session 7
Mike Mearls has posted on twitter the full character sheet of one of the Starter Set fighters. So, what has changed from the playtest? Here’s a list… Proficiency Bonus: In the playtest it went from +1 to +6. In the full game, it starts at +2 (and presumably goes to +6). The change to +3 happens at level 5. (Previously levels 1-2 were +1, levels … Continue reading Changes from the D&D Playtest: The Starter Set Fighter
One of the thornier issues in AD&D is on when a spell resolves in the round. There are – in general – two schools of thought on the subject. The first believes that spell-casting starts at the very beginning of the round and concludes in the segment described in its casting time. Thus, Magic Missile always resolves in the first segment of the round, and … Continue reading The Casting Time of Spells in D&D
A recent conversation made me interested in why AD&D initiative works as it does. Or at least, why the description is so darn complicated. In doing so, I went back to Chainmail, which has two initiative systems. The first is for regular mass battles. They work like this: Both sides make an initiative roll on d6, with the winner of the die-roll choosing to move … Continue reading The Development of AD&D Initiative
Yesterday, Mike Mearls previewed the map that is in the upcoming D&D Starter Set. For those who bought the Neverwinter Campaign Setting book – surely one of the best campaign supplements ever published – the map should be strangely familiar… Although the artwork, by Mike Schley, is unchanged, the labels on the map have changed. Here are a summary of the changes: Labels that have … Continue reading Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set Wilderness Map notes
This is a repost of a review I wrote back in 2011, but didn’t post on my blog. A long time ago, I was a Forgotten Realms fan. The release of the original Grey Box set was a revelation, and the ongoing series of FR supplements which added detail (and maps) to the setting were fabulous. Admittedly, looking back at them now, the quality could … Continue reading Neverwinter Campaign Setting (4E D&D) review
Last Thursday, we finished our game of Merchants and Marauders pretty quickly, so John and Glen were up for another game. Glen had been wanting to play more Talisman, so I brought it out. Due to table space, we couldn’t use any of the extra boards, but I did have shuffled into the Adventure Deck all the cards from The Reaper, The Frostmarch, The Sacred … Continue reading Talisman Fun
The D&D Encounters seasons Dead in Thay has now been running for six sessions at Goodgames Ballarat. It’s been a wildly successful season for us, with numbers consistently around 20. The last session saw one of our DMs ill and unable to make it, so I had to step in and run the game instead of co-ordinating, but we still had 21 people participating: three … Continue reading D&D Encounters: Dead in Thay – Half-Time update
