Leonine Roar

The core rules and DM’s Book both tell us most monsters do not finish off fallen, dying heroes in the middle of the chaos of battle.   

Ah, so some monsters do?  Who are these truly wicked, vile or reckless monstrosities of the D&D world?  What are their cruel and merciless motivations?  You’ll find some of these unsettling answers here – and bring back the reality, fear and horror of character death to your game! 

We’ve all been there, on either side of the table in 4e.  A character, a hero or even antihero (thanks, Heroes of Shadow!) goes down, hits the dirt, cries out, sprays or vomits up blood, and starts bleeding out.  His or her dreams and soul about to fade – to the Shadowfell, and if they’re lucky, beyond. 

It’s a scary time.  Or is it? 

(more…)

Classic random encounters don’t work very well in 4e.  With average combat length so long (60 minutes per the core rules), it’s usually not worth the time to include them.  Why focus an entire hour of a session in a pointless fight that does not advance the adventure, the player’s quests or their motivations at all?

Previous editions of D&D included many opportunities for random encounters, both in the dungeon and the wild.  However, average combat length was significantly shorter, allowing for, if not encouraging a smattering of random encounters in every D&D session and adventure. 

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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?

(more…)

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…)