B is for Beholder

The beholder unlike many other monsters found in fantasy games is unique to D&D. The creature was first thought up by Terry Kuntz an early employee of TSR in the mid 70s.

Published Worlds - Forgotten Realms

Forgotten Realms is one of the most popular of the campaign settings published by Wizards of the Coast (and formerly TSR) Many of the most popular characters and places in D&D books and published works reside in the forgotten realms. Many of the computer games that wizards has published have come out under the forgotten realms label. Baldurs gate 1 &2, Icewind Dale, and neverwinter nights are all games published in the forgotten realms setting. 

Character Portraits

When Im designing a NPC that I want to use in a game sometimes a character portrait before hand helps me flesh out who this person is. Wizards keeps a large repository of character portraits from old issues of dragon magazine here. This list is useful to find just the right picture for your character or NPC. I've often seen a picture I liked and used it to come up with a new NPC just to fit the picture. Next time your having trouble thinking of interesting NPC's head over to the list and browse around I'm sure you will find something that interests you sooner or later

The Dresden Files

Beneath the “normal” surface of the world are things and people which most of us don’t want to know about, and will do our best to forget about if we ever come near them. People won’t see what they don’t want to see.

I've been reading "The Dresden files" books by Jim Butcher lately I'm about halfway through book 5 Death masks. I stumbled on something cool, there is a Dresden files RPG system by an independent game company called Evil Hat. Dresden's world would make a very interesting backdrop for a RPG game. Its familiar in that its the real world with one hitch. Fantasy stuff exists and is ignored or disbelieved by 99.9% of the people out there. werewolf mauling are seen as wild animal or rabid dog attacks, that sort of thing. The RPG is based on the FATE system which I've not looked at before but if realistic modern fantasy is your thing it might be worth it to give this system a try.

Woot

My brother Dave is a graphic artist who participates in the design contest over at woot.com. His designs are often D&D themed. He has a current offering up here. He's had several shirts printed mostly by jinx.com here and here (the last one was limited edition print and no longer available) Anyway his newest design at woot is pretty good and we would both appreciate the support of anyone who is able to vote (woot only allows past customers to vote)

Heroes of the feywild

wizards announced they are releasing heroes of the feywild on nov 15. The feywild is a term for anything like elves, pixies, or nature spirits. Heroes promises options to flesh out their fey characters.

Heroes of the Feywild

D&D Game Supplement, Player's Option

Rodney Thompson, Claudio Pozas, and Steve Townshend

Ready to explore your character's wild side?
Player’s Option: Heroes of the Feywild enables players to weave elements of the Feywild into their existing and future characters, in much the same way thatPlayer’s Option: Heroes of Shadow gave players reasons to explore their characters’ dark connections to the Shadowfell.
This book contains exciting new character builds and options that are thematically rooted to the Feywild, a wild and verdant plane of arcane splendor, full of dangerous and whimsical creatures. Characters who trace their origins or backgrounds to the Feywild gain access to unique feats, powers, and mechanics. The book explores what makes fey-themed characters so fun and distinct.

Item Details
Item Code: 317310000
Release Date: November 15, 2011
Series: Player's Option D&D Game Supplement
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 160
Price: $29.95 C$34.00 ISBN: 978-0-7869-5836-8 

Nearly $30 seems a bit high in my opinion for this kind of resource. Wizards needs to look at a soft cover marketing strategy to bring down the cost on interesting but non essential products like this one. I might shell out $15 for something like this but 30 is much too high a price point for me.

Mini confusion

One of the biggest problems I have as a dm is keeping track of which monsters are which during an encounter. Often you have 5 monsters with the same name and use similar minis for each of them. When these monsters move and throughout battle sometimes its easy to lose track of which one took 30 damage and which one took 25. The most elegant solution I've seen for this can be found at http://stuffershack.com/store/ they sell little counters with numbers on them that can be attached easily to minis with sticky putty (which you can find at any walmart or office supply store) these counters mean you can simply number your monsters easily and know which ones are which at a glance.

They also sell little red counters for indicating bloodied enemies, a nice touch. Also horses with large bases so you can attach characters to the base of their horse. This makes mounted combat much easier.

Barston Interviews a Red Dragon

When legends, fairy tales, and fables speak of dragons, when they tell of kingdoms laid waste, virtuous maidens sacrificed, and valiant heroes sent home as charred corpses odds are that they speak of the mighty red dragons. Also called flame dragons, fire wyrms, and mountain dragons, these horrific beasts epitomize the iconic dragon traits. - Draconomicon

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Class Warfare - Rogues

Dungeons and dragons is in its fourth edition now and has been for several years. Through those years the basic classes that started the game Fighter, Magic User (now called Wizards) Cleric, Thief (rogue) have remained. Looking back how have these core ideas changed over nearly 40 years of product evolution? Lets take a look at the Sneaky Rogue.

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Play by Post

Yesterday I talked about message board gaming here are a few that I found around the internet.

5 tips for finding a gaming group

sometimes its hard to get a group to play D&D with. For one reason or another your current group might split up move away or whatever. Here's some tips for finding a new game.

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12 Steps to creating your own monster

Creating your own monsters in D&D can be a fun way to creating flavor for your game that is unique to it. The process I use for making a brand new creature is called templating.

I love the move tremors, lets say that you wanted a monster like the tremors monster for you game. Now you have two options. One see if there is a monster like it Two make your own. There actually is a monster very similar to the tremors creatures called the purple worm, but for the sake of this article lets assume there isn't.

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How Do I get into Dungeons and Dragons?

I've noticed from my comments there are some people who are interested in the game that have never played before. One question you might have is: "How do I get started playing?" Dungeons and dragons can be a daunting game to get started with, to a newcomer it seems like there are tons of rules and its hard to understand. For the ultra new player I would recommend the following product.

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Class Warfare - Wizards

Dungeons and dragons is in its fourth edition now and has been for several years. Through those years the basic classes that started the game Fighter, Magic User (now called Wizards) Cleric, Thief (rogue) have remained. Looking back how have these core ideas changed over nearly 40 years of product evolution? Lets take a look at the mighty Wizard

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pics from saturday's game

Tough spot

community answer

quick post today, for anyone who was curious the map in that community episode I posted about the other day was from.

Queen of the Demonweb Pits

The series of modules that introduced the Drow (or dark elves if your not familiar) to D&D. This was long before R.A. Salvator made them popular with Drizzt Do'Urden and the Icewind dale series of books. It also introduced the spider goddess Loth the final boss of the module. This was one of the most classic of the early D&D modules so much of D&D that came after started in this series with G1,2,3 known as the against the giants modules then followed by D1,2,3 known as the drow modules. I was really pleased that they threw in that little piece of real D&D history as an easter egg.

Roleplaying Cliches

I found this list a few years ago, I didn't write it but its been so long ago the forum I found it on is unknown to me. possibly the old 3rd edition forums at wizards. who knows. anyway on to the list. thanks to Michael Westside who found the source http://willforshire.forumakers.com/t34-dd-cliches

Avenging Wallflower. These players play characters with a vast amount of unheralded, unseen power and go out of their way to be meek and unassuming, at least until a dramatic confrontation occurs in their vicinity. Whenever active, outgoing characters do something interesting near them, they will feel an unholy compulsion to leap into action, screaming and blowing things up with their incredible
powers, simply to interfere in the process and thereby feel that they've done something. It's quite common in Anime, and I've seen about a thousand 'I'm a dragon ploymorphed into a halfling'.

Neverwinter

Cryptic Studios has announced an October 4th release date for their new dungeons and dragons game Neverwinter. If you've played D&D games on the computer at all that name should ring a bell as one of the most successful D&D themed franchises in history.

Cryptic is known for MMO type games (City of Heroes / Villians, Star Trek Online, and Champions Online) Neverwinter will be their first foray into non online games. That fact makes me very nervous about this property. Its no secret that in the 3 years since 4th edition was released no D&D themed game has done the system justice. I find this odd since one of the most common criticisms people have about 4th edition is it feels like a video game more then a role playing pen and paper game.

This dragon looks scary enough

One thing that is a point in favor for cryptic they are introducing a feature called "the foundry"

" Players can create and share their own adventures using The Foundry creation toolset, " http://crypticstudios.com/

The addition of a creation toolkit may help this game last many years after it stops selling copies at Walmart. The same way the creation tools in Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 did.

Dont jump!

The last D&D game was a big disappointment. Daggerdale felt more like a torchlight clone (which is itself a clone I know) than and true D&D game. It was pretty bad even for downloadable console content. Its probably no mistake that wizards released the Neverwinter campaign source book a few months before this game came out. they are probably hoping if its a success it will boost the source book sales as well.

Character Generator

I always hated making 3rd edition characters. Seemed like there were a million and one things to remember to do. If your like me and hate all the tasks this site http://dnd3rd.sourceforge.net/ will help. Its a fully integrated character generator. Of course that wont help you if your group has moved on to 4th edition or is still stuck in the 90's with 2nd or 1st.

Class Warfare - Fighters

Dungeons and dragons is in its fourth edition now and has been for several years. Through those years the basic classes that started the game Fighter, Magic User (now called Wizards) Cleric, Thief (rogue) have remained. Looking back how have these core ideas changed over nearly 40 years of product evolution? Lets take a look at the lowly fighter.

Fighters

1st edition - The most basic class, best at swinging a sword and had the most hit points, was one of two classes that could use plate armor
2nd edition - Still very basic, had the best Thac0 and could wear plate most fighters stood around and hit stuff a lot.
3rd edition - Fighters were the go to class for getting tons of feats. Still got plate armor still got the best hit bonuses still got the most HP. 3rd did give them more options than "Hit the monster with my sword" but not by much.
4th edition - Fighters now have tons of options just like everyone else. They can choose to be offensive or defensive depending on how they choose their stats and skills and they get some really nice knockdowns and conditional abilities. One thing they lost from all the previous editions was the ability to wear plate. They get up to scale now and can easily upgrade to plate with a single feat.

Fighters have always been the core learners class in dungeons and dragons. Whenever you got a new players who didn't want a bunch of complicated rules when they started the fighter was a safe bet. True they were a bit under-powered at higher levels but at first with that high AC and higher hit points they were great to have around especially when the wizard shot his one magic missile and hid behind a tree :)

With the advent of fourth edition fighters don't seem to be getting the same respect they used to. True there are a lot of shiny choices to choose from (especially if you add in PH2 and PH3 and various other sources)

The four at wills for fighters are Cleave, Reaping Strike, Sure Strike, and Tide of Iron.

Cleave - Hits two adjacent foes, second damage is low. Attacks AC Rating ***/5

Reaping Strike - Standard attack roll but if you miss you still get some damage. Attacks AC. You have to use a two hander to get the miss damage so no good for sword and board types. Rating: **/5 (very situational)

Sure Strike - An attack that gives you +2 to hit. Attacks AC. To me this is the gem of the warriors at wills. It makes the warrior attack as though he were four levels higher than he actually is. Add in a flanking bonus and your going to be hitting alot with this one. Sure the damage is low but constant damage is better then adding that strength mod every third attack. Rating: ****/5

Tide of iron - Lets you push an enemy and slide into his spot, if your a player that likes to set up flanks and advantages for your friends this at will is your best friend. not only do you get to push them but you get to stay base to base to help with the flank. rating ****/5

Fighters are a solid choice for players that like to protect their friends from monsters and generally irritate the DM with trips and pushes.