Archive for December, 2011

Faster Combat: Holiday Discount for 3 More Days Only!

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

Miss a friend or GM on your holiday shopping list?  Still hoping the combats in your gaming group speed up sometime this century? 

Don’t worry, there’s still time to subscribe to Faster Combat!  Our current holiday discount subscription, including gift subscriptions, lasts just a little bit longer: 3 more days till year-end.

So if you or someone you know would love to speed up and amp up their DMing or GMing game through 52 deep-dive GMing lessons complete with weekly interactive activities, tell them about Faster Combat or head right on over and grab yourself a heavily discounted subscription today – before the clock strikes 2012! 

Watch our free Sneak Peak Video into the Member Area to see how Faster Combat will help you and your playgroup.

Thanks and Happy Holidays from Faster Combat and Leonine Roar!

-Kilsek (Tony)

P.S. Got questions?  Ask me here in the comments, send me your question, or ask me on Twitter – I will get right back to you with all the Faster Combat info you seek!

Posted in Design, Mechanics & Efficiencies, News, Previews & Reviews | No Comments »

True Holiday Treasures

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

I wasn’t sure what to write today except that I knew it had to include a few things that D&D and gaming have always brought us: joy, laughter, thanks and appreciation.  The stories and characters, our fellow players and our DMs – we create and share a unique and inspiring hobby together, and in that I know I am not alone in feeling so fortunate and thankful.

Passion and Poetry

While I love to write, and have always loved spelling, language and etymology, prose was always my strength.  Poetry never came as easily to me, however.  It was so different from prose.  Sometimes its bizarre look and rhythm was crazy beautiful, and sometimes it was simply nothing more than crazy! 

Yet with a new and exciting year upon us, here is a poetic gem I found to remind us about what really matters when we play – in D&D, in any game we play and in life:

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Posted in Creative Writing, Media & Technology, Storytelling & Roleplaying | No Comments »

+17 Group Initiative Feats

Friday, December 16th, 2011

So you’ve tried group initiative, or are thinking about it giving it a shot for a night.  All in the name of turn efficiency and faster combat, right? 

And yet… still not going fast enough, are you?  And all those shiny initiative feats – not shiny enough anymore, are they?

Don’t worry – let’s fix that!  One of the two major drawbacks of using group or side initiative I last talked about with you was our poor initiative-focused characters.  Here’s the relevant snippet of their plight:

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Posted in Design, Mechanics & Efficiencies | 1 Comment »

Group Initiative in D&D 4e: What We Learned

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

It started with the mention of group or “side” initiative versus the current D&D 4e standard of cyclical individual initiative in a recent Rule of Three.

That awakened my Faster Combat senses – combats average a long and all too often painful 60 minutes in D&D 4e and there’s an opportunity to improve combat pacing and speed with group initiative in 4e. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to a group initiative approach and they showed up with great clarity.  In our last Primal Frostfell session, a now-epic tier campaign I’m DMing, my playgroup talked about what we might expect out of group initiative and then simply rolled with it the entire night.  Here’s what we discovered:

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Posted in Design, Mechanics & Efficiencies | 6 Comments »

Bind Your Prisoners!

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Binding the hands and feet of prisoners is a classic way to end a combat early or without having to kill everyone in sight.  It’s an especially heady (if not civil) decision when you need to interrogate prisoners, keep them safe (or out of your way) somewhere until you come back, or turn them in to the local authorities for a reward. 

And don’t forget – your enemies have their own nefarious reasons to bind you, too!

Yet the rules and options aren’t all clear or in one place when it comes to this simple and effective way to deal with the scoundrels you capture on your adventure.  Here’s a quick review of your options, from skills to mundane gear and finally, a few magical tools. 

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Posted in Design, Mechanics & Efficiencies, Storytelling & Roleplaying | 1 Comment »