A large problem many groups have with 4E D&D is that 4E combat takes a very long time. Various methods have been proposed to fix this, such as reducing monster hp, but after some discussion we realised the best way of doing it is simply to revive the Morale system, used in 1^st and 2^nd Edition, but thrown out in 3^rd. The problem with these systems is, like the whole editions themselves, they were overly complicated; I’ve seen an attempt at adding Morale to 4E that mostly just put the 2^nd Ed system in… and it looked terrible. So, we decided to do it from the ground up: a complete, effective, and simple Morale system for 4E D&D.

Continue reading Speeding up D&D 4E Combat: Morale

It’s reasonably well known that Fighters and Monks are the weakest classes in 3.5 D&D. Whilst this can be partially be fixed by extending to non-Core books, this doesn’t actually solve the problem, and for some, that simply isn’t an option, either due to DM restrictions or just unavailability of the books. However, it actually is possible to make decent Fighters and Monks in Core 3.5: you just have to be a little clever about it.

This article will start with stuff common to both Fighters and Monks (there’s a lot), and then splits off into separate parts. Some of the ideas in this article may be interesting for other characters, like Barbarians and Paladins.

Continue reading Powergaming: Making a Powerful Fighter or Monk in Core 3.5 D&D

Mike Pattee from Cordax Software has pinged us to let us know that his app i4e has been updated in the App Store to version 1.1.0 and is available now for download. The app allows you to store your D&D 4e character on your iPhone and we are quite fond of it around here. The new version adds character importation from D&D Insider Character Builder which satisfies one of the main requests we had for the app. The update also fixes a whole stack of other things as well.

Continue reading i4e Updated – Now you can import from D&D Insider Character Builder

Continuing on in our series of background music for role-playing games we look at the Norwegian Black Metal band turned increasingly electronica band Ulver.

Continue reading Music for role-playing games: Ulver

It is very likely that if you are an iPhone owner and a D&D player there is one app that you have been longing for ever since you picked up the device from the store – a native application to store your D&D character on that understood the game. There have been other ways to store your character – pdf’s, spreadsheets, word documents, google docs, etc – but to have an actual app that assisted in the game – that was the holy grail. And now it is here – i4e.

Continue reading Finally, an iPhone app for keeping your D&D characters on: i4e

Having music play in the background of a game is a fairly divisive issue – some love it, some hate it. However, I have found that if you pick the right music it can add a real ambiance to the game that players will enjoy. Over the years I have discovered a few bands that are not particularly well known, but are great for background music whilst gaming. This week I am going to write a series of articles highlighting musicians and bands that I have found to work well in a role-playing game environment.

Zoë Keating

I discovered Zoë Keating through a random tweet by @wilw (Wil Wheaton) describing how impressed he was with her music. I thought I would check it out, and I was quite stunned by it. Zoë Keating is a cello player who uses multiple tracks and loops to build up each song. The mood can be quite dark and haunting but always beautiful.

Continue reading Music for role-playing games: Zoë Keating

For those of you who love horror fiction and roleplaying, yet also don’t mind a bit of academic/philosophical speculation, let me introduce a wonderful resourse: Collapse volume IV. This is a special edition of an academic journal on philosophy, this time specialising in horror fiction. Those of you who have a particular weakness for Lovecraftian fiction (such as myself) may be interested in Graham Harman’s article, “On the Horror of Phenomenology: Lovecraft and Husserl”, which starts on page 333.

Continue reading The Philosophy of Horror

Remember those choose your own adventure books from your childhood? Well imagine that gameplay with some RPG character development, an inventory system, dice-based skill checks and an entire world to explore and quest throughout — awesome! Well I’ve just described Fabled Lands, an excellent gamebook series, that provides as good a solo adventure as I’ve found in a book.

Continue reading Fabled Lands: a great solo roleplaying adventure

With the release of the D&D 4E Players Handbook II the number of character classes has doubled to 16. Now that all the classes are spread over two books, we thought that it might be easier to see what is available if it were included in a table view showing you power source, character role and reference page in the respective manual. Once content gets spread over two books, it is often a lot harder to get a real picture of what is available and hopefully this table will help.

Continue reading Table of All D&D 4E Character Classes [Updated]

(Read our review of the Monster Manual II here…)

And about time, too.

This is a review of the 4E PHBII. For a review of the 3.5 PHBII: it’s arguably the best 3.5 book in existence. Anyway, on to the point.

4^th edition leads itself nicely into splat books, because the Power system limits what abilities are available. On the flip side, the core 4E books are balanced a lot better than the 3.5 ones. Either way, the PHBII is, mostly, pretty much in line with the core books, and shouldn’t endanger a campaign with some broken ability or some such.

One very nice side note about the PHBII: the back of the book has the revised Stealth rules, which were errata’d.

Continue reading D&D 4E Players Handbook 2 In Depth Review