Leonine Roar

Wish lists can be a hot button topic: some of us love ’em or hate ’em, for various reasons. 

They help DMs in filling out treasure piles, but they risk breaking immersion since they’re an out-of-character aid.  They help give both players and DMs a better sense of a character’s and player’s style, but they also risk taking a long time to complete since there’s literally thousands of magic items in D&D to pour through for ideas, fit and inspiration. 

Without wish lists, you might risk discovering too much low-use or flat-out useless magic treasure.  With them, players might feel entitled to all of them, like they’re order lists.

Still, now that we’ve toyed with wish lists for the first time ever in 4e, there has to be a faster, better way, right?

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Did you know there are 24 figurines of wondrous power in the D&D game right now?  Ever wanted to play with them but found their benefits unclear and activation or control a bit wanting?  How about a new way to use figurines altogether: as full DMG2-style party companion characters?  You’ve come to the right place!

Figurines of wondrous power have been classic and exciting magical D&D treasures for years.  Yet these enchanted animal and beast statuettes feel a little more clunky in their execution in 4e.  Here are some ideas to better appreciate, include and improve figurines of wondrous power in your game.

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It’s not just about the mechanics!  

In this week’s Legends and Lore article, Mike Mearls talks about and even lists out the Core of D&D, and it inspired an immediate thought in me, which I promptly posted as feedback in the comments section:

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The encounter status check between combat rounds is more than just a great place to see if parlay or retreat is a smart option for either side, it’s also an excellent place to include all of an encounter’s story and environmental triggers, all in one convenient, easier-to-remember and more smoothly executable place.

Running and resolving global components between rounds is more advantageous than forcing all those rules per turn, which tends to slow all turns down.  

Instead, have everyone make an acrobatics check on their turn to avoid falling down and go sliding ten feet across a storm-tossed ship deck on their turn.  Otherwise, resolving this effect on each turn means further complicating and extending turns and all the decisions a player already has to make.  Handle that event globally instead, as if the storm had its own initiative, at the start of each round. 

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Poison – a classic debilitator and killer, found throughout all editions of Dungeons & Dragons.  Seventeen colorful and insidious poisons dot the D&D 4e landscape, with all but one – the truly vicious Pit Toxin – found throughout heroic and paragon level play. 

However, in 4e, the there are only brief rules and advice in the DMG on how to best include poisons in your games, whether actively as a player or as part of encounters or adventures as the DM. 

Looking for some ideas?  Here are some considerations for poison use in your very next game – from attacks and encounters to entire adventures.

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In reading and eating up Popcorn, I’ve done what D&D ‘DM to the Stars’ Chris Perkins does on the fly before, to make an encounter more challenging and “cool,” though I also knew it wasn’t “by-the-book” either at the time.  I have to say, I often feel a bit conflicted when I do this, even though the encounter definitely becomes more engaging for everyone, DM included.

Thing is, especially with the overlong 60 minute combat encounter average time in D&D, you may end up having little room for multiple combats –  never mind anything else core to D&D like exploration and roleplay opportunities – in a fairly typical 3-4 hour D&D session.  And so it’s usually a good idea to get in at least one engaging and challenging combat in the session at some point. 

So if a fight starts going south fast into “Easy and Boring Land” – for both players and the DM – why shouldn’t the DM make a few tweaks on the fly?

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