Dungeons and Dragons Blog

Well this is kind of a kick in the you know what, and it means I probably won’t be buying much stuff from here on out.  Fourth edition is coming.  And it’s coming in May 2008.

Dungeon and Dragon Magazine will now be online and Dungeon starts out like a bang with a converted Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, which is one of my favorite adventures from way back on first edition.  It mixes some outdoor adventure then a terrific dungeon crawl.  For now it looks like things will be free but eventually there will be a charge.

Alright, I might not have too much time to spend on this over the next few weeks but for me, the hardest part about any task is starting it so I’m going to at least try to push forward.  For several years, I’ve had a very cool campaign idea.  I’ve tried starting to write it up, made some progress then I wouldn’t pick it up for six months or even a year.  And when I started it, I was still using 2E (yes, it’s been that long) so what I did, I would have to convert.  On top of that, it’s on an old laptop so I’m just going to start over. 

So what I’m going to do first is roll up some sample players, work on the campaign, and play it out to see how it works.  Yes, it’s time consuming, but since I’ve never ran a 3.5 campaign, it’ll allow me to get used to the rules.  I do have one friend who wants to play, but we’re both in our mid-30s, have kids, and we’re an hour away from each other so it makes getting together tough, much less creating a three hour block of time to play.

Just some things about my style.  I love creating the story behind a campaign, but I’m not as into the artistic things.  So what I usually end up doing is taking maps that have already been created and bending them to be what I want them to be.  Same goes for campaign settings.  I used Faerun for a couple of reasons.  First off, there’s a lot of information out there to where if I need background on a city or nation, it’s there.  Second, the maps are already there (and I have the old Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas) which comes in handy.  So while I play in Faerun, I don’t neccesarily follow everything that’s in all of the Forgotten Realms products.  So things start in Cormyr, but I won’t be following everything to the letter.  In fact I drop my own cities and keeps where I want them.

The story starts in Tyrluk, which is northwest of the King’s Forest in Cormyr.  It centers around a group of five orphans who know little about their past and they’re raised in an orphanage run by a Dwarf who goes by Puck.  He’s cared for the boys as long as they remember and none of them have any recollection of their parents.  Now they’re all reaching adulthood (age 17-19) and all have pretty much chosen their path.  They’re life long friends and while they have their sibling squabbles, they generally get along.

The first character I rolled up was my fighter, Rothgar.  The plan was have to have a solid frontline attacker and I think I ended up getting one.  I rolled the old way (4d6, ignoring the lowest number and then shifting the numbers around how I like) and my limits were I could have only one 18, one 16, and then nothing higher then 14 for other 4 abilities.  I hit gold on my first roll and got 6,6,6,1 so I got a quick 18 which went right to strength.  After that, it went downhill though.  I did get a 16 which went to constituion and the rest of my rolls were 13, 10, 7, 7.  I pushed the ten down to nine and gave him a 14 dexterity.  I then gave him a nine wisdom, seven intellegence and a seven charisma.

As I put the abilities down, Rothgar’s story began to shape.  He’s slightly disfigured, doesn’t talk well but he was always the bigger then the other kids so he wasn’t made fun of (and he also had his four friends to back him up).  Rothgar turned out being huge.  He’s now 6′7″, 245 lbs of muscle and he’s probably the strongest person in the city.  Puck began working with him at an early age with a variety of weapons but Rothgar seemed to take a liking to the longsword so once Puck taught him everything he knew, he sent him to the local academy to learn more swordplay with the seargant of the town’s militia.  He’s now a reserve member of the town militia and helps out wherever he can.

Because of Rothgar’s low intellegence, he doesn’t get many skill points.  The eight he got (four for his class and four bonus for being a human) went all to climbing and jumping.  His three feats went to weapon focus – longsword, athletic (to help with his climbing) and improved intiative.  I equipped him with scale mail, a large metal shild and a longsword in addition to some typical trail equipment (rope, backpack, bedroll, that kind of stuff).

One down, four to go.  Next up will probably be the ranger, Calix.  He’s sort of the parties leader and jack of all trades.

UPDATE ONE

I forgot to mention this, but Rothgar’s alignment is chaotic good.  So his standing in the town militia is as a reserve not because he can’t fight, but it’s because he’s poor at taking orders.  Also because of his low charisma, he’s not a real leader.  The party is going to be a mix of chaotic good (Rothgar, the rogue and the wizard) and neutral good (Calix the Ranger and the cleric).

A lot of people cut their teeth on module B2, The Keep on the Borderlands.  My first D&D sitting was a homebrew adventure called the Orc’s something (can’t remember).  But the first D&D product I ever purchased was the Expert Set, which contained X1, the Isle of Dread.  So while it wasn’t my first, for quite some time it was my only module and it got plenty of play and it’s also the main setting for Dungeon Magazine’s latest campaign path.

In a lot of ways, the Isle of Dread was one of the first open ended adventure.  I know the Keep on the Borderlands is close (you can pick your cave), but the Isle of Dread presented one of the first open AND outside settings.

The first thing I notice about this adventure are all of the maps.  You have an overall map of the Isle of Dread but then you also get several maps that provide much more detail on the appropriate sections.  You also get a map that’s simply called “the continent” because it provides a setting for you to start the party’s sea travel to the Isle of Dread.  The adventure starts when the party discovers an old scroll that details a ship log that talks about the Isle of Dread and after the party does some research, they decide to set sail for adventure.

There’s not a ton of detail on what happens when the party travels to the Isle of Dread.  It discusses the party getting lost or getting lost in a storm, but there’s no overseas encounters.

Then at that point, it’s all about the Isle of Dread.  You get a description of all of the appropriate places worth nothing but there’s no detailed path the party is supposed to take.  You’ve got a ton of dinosaurs, some dragons and even some zombies on the wandering monster table.  There’s a pirates lair and a lizard men lair but the ultimate destination is the the central plateau (which has a gold vein and a small village) along with Taboo Island, who’s temple provides a neat little dungeon crawl.

There’s an appendix that provides some extra goodies and adventure paths and then you get the low down on all of the dinosaurs.  This is definitely a classic though and I thought Dungeon made a great choice for their campaign adventure path when they chose the Isle of Dread.

I’m a huge fan of Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics.  They’re old school style modules that are fun to play with plenty of action and not as much talking and role playing.  It’s the D&D I remember as a kid and while I now like a more complete game, these modules make for a great night of gaming.  I did a review of Idylss of the Rat King so I encourage you to check that out to see what you get.

For a while, the Dungeon Crawl Classics all kind of stood on their own.  Now Goodman Games is introducing the Gazetteer of the Known Realms, which is basically a campaign setting formed around the 30+ Dungeon Crawl Classic modules that the company’s produced over the years.  I was very interested despite the fact that I’ve ran my campaigns in Faerun since it’s inception (I have the original boxed set still) and the only thing that’s probably stopped me from picking this up has been it’s price tag ($70).

Now Goodman Games is giving you sneak peak at the campaign setting.  You can download an excerpt from the GM’s guide and they now recently released an excerpt of the Gazetteer that discusses the North Reaches of Aerth.

I caught on to Wolfgang Baur’s work when he began publishing his Adventure Builder series on the main D&D website.  At the bottom of the first one I noticed a link to a website called Open Design, where Baur was  soliciting donations to be a patron of a custom made openly designed adventure.  Patrons would be able to follow the construction of the adventure and would even have input along the way.  I found out about it late and decided to just follow it in passing.

Now, the project is finished and for a $25 donation you can get a copy, but it’s only for a limited time.  September 30th is the last day to make a donation and I ponied up to check it out.  I might take on a more active role in the next project to help with my own campaign design.

I like to call this one “Return to the Isle of Dread” because that’s how they hooked me into this one.  I completely missed the Shackled City adventure path and got in late on Age of Worms so I’m interested to see how this plays out from the beginning.

My first D&D purchase was the Expert Rules, which contained the original Isle of Dread and once baseball season ends, I’m going to do a Blast From the Past on this one.  I know that’s a month away, but I’m really limited time wise, both playing and writing, during baseball season but come winter, I’ll be getting back to a more regular writing schedule here.

Anyway, Savage Tide takes you to Sasserine, a very interesting port city.  There you help out a noble and take down an evil guild in your first step towards the Isle of Dread.  The magazine comes with a cool fold out map of the city and an adventure that should take you through about third level.

There’s also a high level adventure that continues the Maure Castle line.  I don’t have the older Dungeon Magazines which have the other two installments so I really didn’t get into this one too deeply.

More then 20 years ago, I bought my first D&D module.  That module was Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, probably the most unusual D&D module ever created.  Now, 30 years after it’s release, Wizards.com is taking another look at this classic adventure.

Goodman Games is allowing people to download their fifth Dungeon Crawl Classic, Aerie of the Crow God, for free.  It’s just for a limited time, but if you wanted to get a taste of these very cool adventures, I highly recommend you download it and check it out.  I reviewed their first Dungeon Crawl Classic, Idylss of the Rat King, last month.  I plan on adding to my collection of these at a later date since they appeal to a group of my players.

I know I promised you the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook, but I have a personal reason for changing gears.  Instead, we’re going to look at a quality product from Goodman Games called Idylls of the Rat King.  This is the first in a series of adventures called Dungeon Crawl Classics.

When I was a kid, we never really role played well.  We didn’t know what it was called it at the time, but we dungeon crawled.  We went from room to room, clearing things out.  Several of the old Greyhawk modules catered to this and while most had a plot behind the module, we ignored it.  Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics do the same thing.  They’re heavy on combat with less emphasis on NPC interaction and things always end up going down in a dungeon.

Not there isn’t a plot because there’s a good one.  The characters start up in a mining town (Silverton) where the silver caravans have been held up due to goblin raids.  Some aren’t your standard goblins because they’ve been infected by a wererat.  The goblins have taken up residence in an old abandoned silver mine.  Seems the leader has a grudge against the town, which adds an extra dimension to the whole thing. 

The module offers a few different hooks to get things started and you even get a solid history of the town.  The silver mine has four solid levels full of monsters and a handful of some interesting traps.  There’s also a ton of my favorite, secret doors.  And then of course at the end, you square off against the main bad guy.

All in all, this is a great adventure for both seasoned players and new players.  New players will like it because they’ll be able to get their tactics down without having to role play too much and seasoned players will recognize the old schoolness of the module and have pleasant flashbacks of their early days of Dungeons and Dragons.

Great stuff.

The creators of the upcoming supermodule, Red Hand of Doom, sat down for an interview.  This is some really good reading and it got me excited about the product.  Dragons are “always” prevalent in my campaign, even at a lower level (usually it’s just a fly by to send shivers down the party’s spines) so I can set the stage.

So while I probably won’t put this into my campaign, it’ll be something I can pick up if I get lazy and want to take my players through something that’s canned.