Leonine Roar

Curious about DMing D&D 4th edition for the first time?  New DM?  Veteran DM?

Here’s the big secret: it’s as easy as the right cheat sheet!

The most important “4e DM’s Cheat Sheet” you can have in front of you at all times is a large index card or half-sheet of paper that shows you, at a glance, the party’s:

* Names, race & class
* Defenses
* Languages known
* Vision type (normal, lowlight, etc.)
* Passive Perception, Insight and Knowledge scores
* Trained Skill names
* DCs by level and difficulty for the party’s level (the Easy, Moderate and Hard DCs for their level)

All that info in one efficient place means you’re familiar with the party’s strengths and ready for any kind of encounter or check, whether it’s combat-related, social or otherwise.

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Magic items are supposed to be the most exciting treasure you find.  But what happens when your characters out-level their wish list items?  Do they still want those “old” and lower level wish list items?  Are they still worth including as treasure?  Are there some classic and helpful magic items which should always be part of treasure, regardless of item level?

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Is cost really the deterrent for ritual use in games? 

Who should pay their component cost? 

Even if rituals were free to cast, how often would they really still get use?

I tend to think that ritual magic isn’t used in games much more because they’re not included enough in adventure design as potential problem-solving solutions.  I mean, they have their own separate, back-of-the-book section in the PHB for a reason.  They’re not an emphasis, despite the irony of their availability to every single character.  Remember, every character of every calling can cast from ritual scrolls – no feat or class feature required.  (more…)

Now that Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition has been out since the summer of 2008, I feel it’s turning the corner on its originally highly mechanical and gamey feel and presentation, now striving for the wise balance of game and roleplay or storytelling D&D truly is.  The game has matured, the products have matured, and between us all – from designers to players and DMs – we’ve now learned that this precious balance of D&D’s core aspects is its driving force, like it is for nearly every roleplaying game.

Product Evidence

Look at the layout in Monster Manual 3 or Monster Vault, where monster lore, fluff, history and ecology all get plenty of attention – by far the most inspiring amount of campaign, adventure and encounter-generating ideas in any monster book we’ve seen in 4e.  An emphasis on personality or instinctive traits, temperaments, motivations and relationships with other monsters is found in each creature’s entry. 

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My single greatest pet-peeve of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition is how gamey it can sound during play. 

That is, we tend to use gamespeak or metagame terms far too often during our favorite roleplaying game.  Want to stop?  Or at least cut back? 

Here’s a start – another Leonine 12 to the rescue! (more…)

What’s a Moment of Greatness?  Chances are you’ve already been the star of several!  They are often their own reward, but also consider reinforcing and encouraging awesome or otherwise memorable play and roleplay with a few simple rewards.

In D&D, we’ve all had those times during the game where the story leaps to life through epic dramatics or hilarious roleplay, problem-solving brilliance, or even a witty gut-busting pop reference to a movie, show, classic skit or fantastic actor.  Hey, it’s what we do, we’re gamers, right?

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Have you gotten away from using mounts and mounted combat?  Or just don’t understand the rules or find them a bit wordy?  Or think mounts are too expensive and don’t provide enough benefits?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, get on your horse and ride!

Like ritual magic, mounts and mounted combat may be a bit of an untapped resource for your playgroup in 4e.  They may not get enough play or stage time, for a variety of reasons.  Well, let’s change that, shall we? 

Where to start?  Skim over the Mounted Combat and Overland Travel rules and charts in the Essentials Rules Compendium, and you’re well on your way to riding mastery.  When you come back, just ride on through the rest of this article.

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So I’m on Facebook yesterday talking with a friend about how we all rocked last night’s D&D session like, well, rock stars in our now-paragon Nentir Vale campaign.  We start talking about other cool characters we’d like to play in case, Raven Queen forbid (and bring us back as revenants even!  Love revenants!), we bite it. 

We get to talking about controllers in the game, and we both simultaneously mention playing an Invoker would be really cool.  We enjoy the RP aspect of the game, and like Dungeon’s Master tells us in Divine Intervention, divine characters always seem a natural fit for great roleplaying right out of the gate for anyone.  My friend then mentions how the martial power source is the only one missing a controller right now. (more…)