Anyone who has used either of the official Character Builders has seen (and likely used) power cards.  The Red Box includes cards for the pre-gens, and the Character Record Sheets included blank cards. And anyone who picked-up a class’ boxes of pre-printed cards has certainly seen them. The designers even worry about card game elements such as “hand size”.

However, power cards can also be something of a crutch: instead of imaging all the things their character could do, players instead look down at the table and see what the game says their character can do. Power cards artificially impose mental limits on a character’s actions. When the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer every problem seems like a nail, and when every card on the table says “deal damage and impose a condition” every obstacle seems like an incentive to roll initiative.

While the mechanics of powers are limited for reasons of combat balance, with a little creativity – and some DM adjudication – they do not have to be.

Playing with Power

Here’s how it works: you take your At-Will and Encounter power cards and flip them over. (No, I’m not suggesting the don’t-look-at-your-cards approach; this is only Step #1.) On the backs of the flipped cards copy the name and flavour text of the powers. You now have power cards divorced from mechanic constraints, power cards that are limited only by the description provided.

The empty space below the flavour text is a good place to jot down some ideas of creative uses of the power, unbounded by the restrictions of combat balance or mechanics. Within reason and subject to DM adjudication of course.

This way, when you look down at the table in a role-playing or exploratory situation, instead of being confronted by cards pushing you into combat situations or limiting creativity, there are a series of cards offering starting points for imaginative, creative solutions.

I suggest limiting this to At-Will and Encounter powers because it’s easy to flip them all back over at the start of combat. If Daily powers were included players would have to remember which powers were and were not used at the start of each combat. There’s also the question of the expenditure of Daily powers outside of combat: does dropping a fireball to light a campfire expend the power? Logically it should, but doing so penalizes the player; it’s hard asking a player to improvise with a power they can only use once a day. And ignoring Daily powers also side-steps the question of if Daily powers should be more effective or useful than Encounter powers as they’re a limited resource.

It’s easier to just stick to Encounter powers that can be quickly recharged after “five-minutes and a sandwich.”

I also like writing down the name of the power in appropriately coloured ink, so I can easily tell if it’s an At-Will or Encounter power. Even outside of combat players shouldn’t be firing off Encounter powers in rapid succession without a break.

The DM should reserve the right to veto options, restrict them to far weaker opponents, or call for checks such as attack rolls or skill checks.

Example of Use

My current 4e character is a changeling psion with the telepath build. Telepath psions are a good example of what I’m doing because, despite being called telepaths, they have no powers that let them read and enemy’s thoughts or alter minds outside of a combat situation. For example, using the Memory Hole power my psion can make himself telepathically invisible, but only while dealing d6s of damage. He can remove himself from the minds of guards blocking a door, but in doing so he’ll likely kill them.

The power Memory Hole has the following flavour text: “You sift through your foe’s mind for the mental representation of yourself within it and brutally rip it out.”The “brutally” bit seems aimed at explaining the damage, but sometimes it’d be nice to have the option of finesse, a character who is a little more Professor X and a little less Scanners.

Flipping the card over, I copy the name and the fluff. Below that I write down a couple creative uses of the power, inspired by the fluff text (and a little by the mechanics on the front side).

• I make myself, an ally, or an object invisible
• I fuzzy someone’s recent memories of me, so they don’t recognise me
• I add myself to someone’s mind, creating a fake memory or a false image of myself

Suddenly the power becomes a lot more open to creative use. My psion could become virtually invisible while sneaking into the King’s bedchamber, erase the details of his appearance from the Queen when she suddenly awakens, make the magically sealed glassteel chest containing the crown jewels seem empty, and then add the false image of someone running away down the hall. This leaves the chamber empty long enough for the jewels to be liberated while the guards chase after a fading memory.

Or he could do something as mundane as walking up to a veteran at the bar and insisting they served together in “the war”. Because no one likes to drink alone.

The DM might allow me to freely alter the minds of weak flunkies or minions, but call for an attack roll to see if I penetrate a more formidable person’s mental defences. Alternatively, an Arcana skill check might be needed to see if I can unnoticeably alter the target’s perceptions or if my manipulation ends up looking like some obvious low-budget green screen trickery.

Sample Cards

Included below are a few power cards with a few simple examples of how to take powers and add some depth or variety of use. (Plus, it’s a lovely excuse to make some power cards for earlier blog posts by myself and others.)

I’ll start with the theme power from my adapted vampire theme, posted here, with the power revised to accommodate feedback. This is a little bit of a tricky one as tapping a vein tends to be a fairly overtly hostile act. Without a built-in vampiric seduction power or flavour it doesn’t fly in social situations. But I included a few ideas anyway.

Next we have the kwom, which is another hard power as it’s very mechanically and doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of flavour behind it. Kwom stop crits; that’s pretty much their entire mechanical shtick. They’re stubborn extra-planar dwarves who get really pissy when things go bad, which is a fun character hook but doesn’t lend itself to powers.

Lastly, we have the three shifter races. The inspiration for the creative use of the various shifting powers comes from the source animals. The descendant of a werebear, when shifting into a bear-like form, should probably gain some bear-like traits. I fought the urge to include “steal picnic baskets” and “poop in the woods” as options.

This is the Tuskhunt shifter race, one of the three by Jared Glenn of the now defunct Power Source podcast. That article can be found here.

Another race from the shifter series, this one can be found here.

And the last of the shifter races by Mr. Glenn. This one was originally posted here.

And that’s it for now. I hope to get something else written sooner rather than later, baring more illness and distractions like the last couple months.

One of my favorite apps in that list was called i4e, which was one of the best 4e character sheet apps out there by far. Well, it’s been through some updates and now it’s even better. The importing still isn’t perfect…but it’s pretty darn good. You still have to double check some of the math, but the mistakes are fewer and fewer…and just as seldom as any other service or app I’ve seen.

If you don’t have a DDI account it’s still hugely useful and I found that you can enter your PC through the import site pretty easily without having to type it all up on your iPod/Pad/Phone’s touchscreen keyboard. All in all, when I’m playing D&D…this is the app I use almost exclusively these days.

And here’s the best news, you can win a copy of i4e RIGHT NOW!

The creator of the app has offered up 4 download codes for Tracy Hurley and myself to give away via our various websites.

All you have to do is head over to Tracy’s site, Sarah Darkmagic and take the quiz, filling in your name and email and BAM, you’re entered to win.

Every day of the contest we will promote this in a different place and offer a hint towards one of the questions. Your hint here is that in case you’re not familiar with fantasy economics, it may be useful to know that the Darkmagic clan owns a Rainbow mine…they just love the taste!

Alright there’s your hint. Head over to Sarah Darkmagic and enter to win. If you want to find the other clues keep an eye out on Tracy’s twitter @SarahDarkmagic and mine @Squach

Enjoy!

Variant races are hardly something new: in First Edition AD&D there were already three different types of elves (plus sea elves), a couple different gnomes, a trio of halflings, and handful of dwarves. Sub-races have made an appearance in almost every edition to date.

In 4th Edition, sub-races were initially handled via feats in the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide, which made them difficult to implement at first level. It took some time for true sub-races to make their début for4th Edition, finally appearing in the Neverwinter campaign guide (excluding the dragonborn subrace that appeared in Dragon magazine) .

Here are a five new sub-races for your game, designed to add a dash of variety to existing races. For simplicity, each race only has their power swapped-out and replaced so little modification has to be done to printed character sheets. Power cards have also been provided, so the new options can be slipped into your game as seamlessly as possible.

Deva, Tasked

Unlike other mortal beings whose souls depart following death, the race of descended angels known as devas are locked into a cycle of reincarnation and rebirth. Devas who fall in battle return to the World, but only after a period of dormancy as their soul slowly creates a new vessel to host their consciousness.

Tasked deva are different, being chosen for a divine purpose and unable rest, which prevents a leisurely return life; instead, tasked deva return after a number of days, consuming some essence of past lives to either fuel their rebirth or sustain current incarnation. This is not done lightly: if a tasked deva resurrects itself too often they risk using all of their previous lives and destroying their own soul in the process, permanently dying with no chance of reincarnation.

The duty of a tasked deva is typically a holy mission assigned by their favoured deity. The deva is typically privy to the details of the quest, but some have only vague impression of their quest. Other devas became tasked after vowing to complete a deed or perform some service, and feel personally responsible to see it to completion. A rare few were tricked into an unbreakable oath or signed a magical contract and are now compelled to fulfil their end of the bargain.

Role-Playing a Tasked Deva

Bear the weight of several lifetimes. Deva are functionally immortal, never truly dying. However, most have only hazy memories of their pasts, which fade after reincarnation. You remember everything: if your quest takes generation you recall all of the intervening time.

Dedicated to the task. You are focused on your sworn duty, be it a simple yet lengthy mission or an impossible task. All tasked deva have a strong sense of obligation and responsibility or they would shirk their task or would let their oath lapse with death. How you handle the burden varies: you might drift into obsession with your duty or view the quest as a journey to be enjoyed.

Remember death and dying.  The difference between a deva on a quest and a tasked deva and is that a tasked deva has died and refused to stay dead. All deva have died and been reincarnated, but you remember your deaths, remember the agony of dying, and fear of the unknown.

Tasked Deva Benefits

When creating a tasked deva, you gain the following benefits. These benefits replace memory of a thousand lifetimes.

Refusal to Die: Tasked deva refuse to die easily, knowing the time it takes to regenerate and resurrect might add months or even years to their task. They use some of the accrued energy of past lifetimes to sustain themselves and recover from injury. Benefit: You die after four failed Death saving throws, instead of three.  Additionally, on a successful death saving throw, you can choose to use Second Wind as no action.

Self Resurrection: Instead of dying and then reincarnating on a distant holy site, tasked devas regenerate their injured bodies to continue their mission. This is a painful and unpleasant process that destroys some of the deva’s past lives, essentially consuming a part of its own soul. This does require the tasked deva’s body to be mostly intact and too much damage forces the deva to reincarnate normally and hope they remember enough to continue their quest. Benefit: Each day after dying you can make a death saving throw as if you were only dying and not dead. If the result a 20 or higher you a can spend a healing surge normally and return to life. You suffer penalties as if the Raise Dead ritual had been used. If in the intervening time, your companions instead perform the Raise Dead ritual, the ritual costs a quarter of the normal amount and the death penalty fades after only two milestones.

Dragonborn, Winged

The draconic heritage of dragonborn typically manifests in their breath weapon, suggesting the colour of their ancient progenitor. Some dragonborns inherent a different gift from their wyrm ancestors, and are born with wings.

Some suggested winged dragonborn are secretly the offspring of polymorphed dragons, the chosen of one of the dragon gods, or simple freaks of nature. Dragonborn themselves are split between believing their winged offspring are throwbacks to an earlier lineage or are fated for great things with their wings symbolizing their destiny.

Winged dragonborn do not always breed true. The children of winged dragonborn might also have wings, dragonbreath, or even the rarer ability to radiate dragonfear. There are small communities of dragonborn exclusively with wings, but even in these villages the occasional wingless dragonborn hatches.

Role-Playing a Winged Dragonborn

The burden of greatness. Winged dragonborn are seldom seen as insignificant; even when viewed as dangerous abominations they are noteworthy. You have never been ignored and are used to standing out in a crowd. Your whole life you have been told you were special or had a destiny. You might grow arrogant under the attention or just long to be normal.

Feel the wind beneath your wings. Other races and peoples run, but you soar. Nothing else is the same and you long to be in the air, with the ground far below. As such, you are used to observing the world from the sky, seeing a little farther than others, and always wondering what’s just over the next ridge.

Live with a different perspective.You might view yourself as superior to your land-locked brethren. This might be because you believe the rumours your are more in touch with your draconic heritage or graced by the blood of Io. Or this might be because you often literally look down upon you neighbours.

Winged Dragonborn Benefit

Flight: A winged dragonborn seldom has the energy or strength to carry themselves over long distances. Flying is exhausting, especially in a tactical situation. Benefit: Once per encounter, you gain a fly speed equal to your land speed that lasts until the end of your turn. If you are not on solid ground at the end of your turn, you glide to the ground and do not take damage. Outside of combat, this power can be sustained with a standard action. This benefit replaces dragon breath.

Gnomes, Crazed

All gnomes are a little off, either originating from a magical fey world or living in a realm that is not their own. However, normal gnomes seem grounded and boring compared to crazed gnomes. Crazed gnomes prefer terms such as “focused” or “dedicated”, but they are best described as obsessive. The natural gnomish curiosity is much more dominant among crazed gnomes, and they feel a pressing urge to solve mysteries, explain events, and fix problems. Crazed gnomes are logical but often manic, with too many thoughts going on in their head: they often skip ahead in conversations, assume esoteric facts are common knowledge, and mutter to themselves.

It’s often assumed crazed gnomes are innately less magical than standard gnomes, which isn’t always true. Many crazed gnomes are deeply interested in magic, fervently exploring the mystical arts and seeking arcane mysteries and discoveries.  However, unlike other gnomes, crazed gnomes are fascinated by science and technology; some abandon magic to focus on science while others try to fuse magic and technology inventing improbable creations.

In some lands crazed gnomes outnumber other gnomes. In these unfortunate places, standard gnomes are labelled as “mad gnomes” because, to a gnome, sanity is statistical.

Role-playing a Crazed Gnome

Puzzles must be solved. Mysteries keep you awake at night and unanswered question, both large and small, nibble at your mind. You know, deep in your being, that every problem has a perfect solution, every lock has a key, and every riddle has an answer.

Seek knowledge for its own sake. You dislike the unknown; gaps in knowledge irritate you like a stone in your boot. You seek out information not necessarily to be used or because it is needed, but out of the sole desire to learn and expand your worldview.

There is elegance in complexity.You know that simple minds create simple things. Complexity is to be admired and strived for, or added if something is not complex enough. You plan with multiple redundancies and back-up plans, and like to add extra features or options to equipment and weaponry.

Crazed Gnome Benefit

Gnomish Device: Crazed gnomes like their toys and gizmos, and most have some useful device on their purpose. It might be a magical item you have not finished enchanting, a mechanical device still being perfected, or some combination of the two. The gnomish device has two powers, one intended and one a misfire. You decide which purpose is the intended function of the device. Benefit: You gain the gnomish device power. This power replaces fade away.

Minotaurs, the Seareavers

Hailing from northern coastal lands and islands, seareaver minotaurs are so named for their piracy and their nautical lifestyle. Like most races, the majority of seareaver minotaurs are labourers and farmers, but most folk only encounter the savage raiders.

Common minotaurs hail from inland mountains and have smaller horns that curve upward and away from the head, but there are a multitude of different breeds of minotaurs. The honourable minotaurs of the far east have heads resembling water buffalo, while the shamanistic minotaurs of the northern tundra and plains have heads similar to bison. The seareaver resemble longhorn cattle, with horns that curve down over the face.

A common expression in coastal settlements is “only death stops a minotaur.” Seareavers gained their feared reputation because of their resolve: they are unrelenting and merciless. They give victims one chance to surrender peaceful and escape with their lives, but if anyone resists they do not hesitate to wipe-out entire villages. Seareaver offer no second chances and do not change their minds. The sole exception is the elderly; seareavers respect those who have survived to old age and will not harm them… unless they resist.

Role-Playing a Seareaver Minotaur

Respect elders. You were raised to respect the old ways and traditions, which have kept your people alive. The world is also a harsh places, so anyone who has survived to their senior years is worthy of respect.

The sea has no mercy. You were raised on the sea, and it provides for you and your people. But it is unforgiving and does not accept weakness or tolerate mistakes, so neither should you.

Stand your ground.You are not merely stubborn, but unyielding. Only the weak cannot stand by their ideals or uphold their morals. However, you can admit your mistakes, as only a fool does not make way for the tide.

Seareaver Minotaur Benefits

Bull Headed: Your race has inspired the term “bull-headed” and refuse to do anything against their will. Even when magically compelled, they fight to maintain their free will. Benefit: Once per encounter, at the start of your turn you can roll saving throws against the dominate, daze, or stun conditions, and against any effects with the fear or enchantment keyword. This benefit replaces goring charge.

Tieflings, Abyssal

Spawned from humans interbreeding with demons, abyssal tieflings are notably different from their infernal kin. Most tieflings have ties with devils, either devil worshipers or those who made pacts with factions from the Nine Hells for power or influence. Abyssal tieflings are different, as chaotic demons do not typically mate or parlay with mortal beings.

Demonic tieflings are often the descendants of mortals corrupted by the Abyss, either through Abyssal energies or too much time spent on that plane, or who foolishly tried to use the power of the Abyss. Some former adventurers have found their offspring altered by their adventuring career. A rare few tieflings are the result of violence against an ancestor, typically instances where the victim was rescued before the demon could finish its murder.

Abyssal tieflings are less human, owing to the more unnatural appearance of demons. Likewise, abyssal tieflings are prone to rage and erratic behaviour, being influenced and touched by chaos, but are more resilient than other mortals. The appearance of abyssal tieflings is much less consistant. Some have the typical horns and tail, but others have cloven feet, forked tongues, pointed teeth, clawed hands, glowing eyes, sulphurous breath, or other unusual traits. Because of the influence of chaos, no two abyssal tieflings look exactly alike.

Role-Playing an Abyssal Tiefling

Born from chaos and flame. You are innately passionate yet mercurial, chaotic and temperamental. Your emotions burn hot and are hard to control but change quickly and without warning. You are a being of extremes, always having a strong opinion and seldom seeing any middle ground.

Watch the world burn. Demons are driven to destroy and kill until their inevitable messy ends. Likewise, a part of you enjoys ruin and death. You might be able to channel this in productive ways, focusing on killing those who deserve it, but you will always enjoy it a little more than is good for you.

Hold your beliefs true. While your impulses are wild, you do not change your values or what is truly important. You are just as likely to be moral as other mortals. What matters to you will always matter even when your mood shifts.

Abyssal Tiefling Benefits

Reactive Resistance: You have inherited some of the unnatural resilience of demons, which augments your natural resistance to fire, but cannot Benefit:  Once per encounter, when you are hit by an attack that deals acid, cold, lightning, or thunder damage, you gain resistance to that energy type equal to your fire resistance until the next time you take hit point damage from that energy type or until the end of the encounter. This benefit replaces infernal wrath.

Until next time readers, likely in a month or so, when I’ll see if I’ll write about designing some role-playing powers for 4e. Kinda. You’ll have to wait and see.

I like how the cards turned out on the website (but they need some fine tuning). I might have to revisit the vampire theme with cards some day.

At its most basic level, D&D is a resource management game. Each round is broken up into three actions to be spent, while players balance the expenditure of powers and health in each encounter to gain the maximum number of encounters per day. Players also determine which encounter to spend their Daily power(s), when in each encounter they use their Encounter powers, how many Healing Surges to use, and when to spend that ever important Action Point. But there are no resources to manage in a Skill Challenge; there’s no opportunity for pyrrhic victories or partially successes: Skill Challenges are either absolute victory or complete defeat. Sometimes, the penalty for failure might be the loss of Healing Surges but lost surges occur after the Challenge, and thus are not a resource being managed. Likewise, the few (very few) powers grant bonuses to skills all but grant automatic successes. During a Skill Challenge, you cannot spend Healing Surges or Action Points or use most Magic Items. A long drawn-out day of multiple skill-based encounters (as long as they’re successful) will not leave a party exhausted and spent, and they’d be just as ready for combat if they’d spent the entire day at a spa having a hot stone massages and facial.

Disclaimer: this article, while focused on rule options for Player Characters, does require a little extra DM buy-in. Run this by your Dungeon Master first and make sure she’s okay with everything. I’ll also throw-in some extra DM advice for no additional charge.

Using Healing Surges

Healing Surges are an abstract representation for physical health—much like hit points—but denoting overall energy and health. Healing Surges are a good gauge of how tired a PC is and how much longer they can adventure. They’re the 4e equivalent of the standard video game fatigue bar.

Players can spend a healing surge to “unlock” an alternative skill, one not part of the base skill list of the Challenge or unsuited for the particular type Challenge.

For example, the fighter can use Athletics to strike a pose an impress the king, but in doing so he has to really exert himself and loses a healing surge. The wizard can use her command of the magical arts to use Arcana in a travel-based Skill Challenge, but it’s physically and mentally exhausting. The difficulty of using this unlocked skill should be a Hard DC, but the chances of success might still be higher than using an un-optimized skill.

Whether or not a skill can be unlocked via a Healing Surge is up the DM. And at the DM’s discretion, a skill might require two Healing Surges to unlock if using the skill is very implausible. Each character can only spend a single Healing Surge per encounter. Player should still try and “sell” the skill, justifying its use for that situation.

Design Background

Not every skill is automatically useful in every Skill Challenge, and it’s awkward using skills unsuited for a certain type of encounter. However, some characters just do not have appropriate skills for every type of Skill Challenge: the fighter might have amazing Athletics, Endurance, and Perception but no social skills sidelining them during an important negotiation. The typical response is just to allow them to use any skill without penalty, just so the player doesn’t feel bored.

Current design recommends two types of skills for a Skill Challenge, primary skills that tend to be Moderate DCs and grant successes and secondary skills that are Hard DCs are might cancel a failure, confer a bonus, or grant a limited number of successes. This subsystem adds a third type of skill, a tertiary skill that confers a potential success at a cost.

DM Advice

One of the design tenants for Skill Challenges is to add a variety of skills, and DMs are encouraged to design Challenges to match their party. One advantage of allowing alternate skills to be used at the cost of a surge, is that Challenges can be designed with fewer built-in skill options and DMs can restrict themselves to the most obvious and logical skill options, during which players can either remain passive or choose to participate at a cost. And players are encouraged to build characters with a range of skills, rather than trusting the DM to build Challenges to accommodate their narrow focus.

Using Action Points

Action Points are used to “break” the action economy of the game, allowing a character to do more in a single turn. There are a couple ways Actions Points could be used in a Skill Challenge while sticking with the concept of breaking of the action economy.

Action Points can be used to enable a character to potentially negate a failure. A character can spend an Action Point (as an immediate interrupt, triggered by a failed check) to re-roll a skill check. Alternatively, after a character has earned a failure, a different character can spend an Action Point (as an immediate reaction, triggered by a failed check) to make a new skill check to cancel the triggering failure.

Design Background

Using the base rules, Action Points are a little useless in a Skill Challenge because Challenges seldom rely on initiative or a strict turn structure. There’s no advantage to spending an Action Point because it’s easy for the rest of the party to pass, delay, or use the Aid action, allowing a single character to roll away repeatedly.

Maintaining stricter turn tracking for some or all Skill Challenges (not returning to a character until the rest of the table has had their turn) has a few advantages, and one is making Action Points interesting for Skill Challenges. The character suited for the Challenge is encouraged to spend an Action Point to stack an extra success, because the Challenge could conceivable fail before their turn comes again.

Adding a player-based method of cancelling failures also adds a lovely “safety net” mechanic to the Skill Challenge system. There’s no pressing need for players to rely on their best skill for every roll, because if they try something else and fumble there are ways to recover.

DM Advice

The catch with allowing Action Points to grant an opportunity to cancel a failure is that Action Points reset every day, so if a Skill Challenge is not followed by a combat encounter, the expenditure of the Action Point has little sting. There’s some balance as players do not know there’s no planned combat, as long as they’re not forewarned. If the design of the Challenge suggests it is very unlikely for a combat to follow, it’s permissible to make the Challenge a little bit harder and not “pull any punches”.

This optional rule also takes some pressure off the DM to include “baked-in” methods of cancelling a failure in a Skill Challenge. The players can respond to a series of bad rolls and failures with their own response, deciding if success is worth spending resources on or not. It also allows DMs to present harder and longer Skill Challenges knowing players can marshal resources to succeed if they wish.

Final Thoughts

So that’s how I add a little flair to the Skill Challenge system.

I’d have loved to have thought of a way to use Magic Items in Skill Challenges. Too often wonderous magic items are reduced to just providing a brief tactical bonus in combat. But there was no satisfying solution that didn’t negate the existence of items that already work with Skill Challenges, and there’s so much variety in items for a single large fix.

Regardless, I hope this offers some options and new ways of thinking about Skill Challenges. They’re a great system but are entirely the purview of the DM and very little has been aimed at players. It was about time for a change…

The Dragonlance novels were partially responsible for my introduction to D&D and RPGs. If there’s one memorable part of the Dragonlance saga it’s the epic battle of good versus evil and love versus hate. But if there’s two memorable parts, the second would be knights on dragons fighting other dragons. Dragon rider combat was featured prominently on the cover of the Third Edition campaign setting and novels such as Legend of Huma. Dragon mounts are a perfect example of something that just belongs in the Paragon Tier: riding your very own dragon is beyond a Heroic Tier party yet lacks the planar or divine hook of the Epic Tier. It’s perfect for the game, but can be a little tricky to pull off in 4e.

As solo monsters, dragons are formidable foes for an entire party. Even young low-level dragons are sizable beasts, with fair number of hit points and numerous abilities. It would be inappropriate to use an existing dragon’s statistics for a mount. But the flexible nature of 4th Edition monsters means a level 5 solo monster can be adapted and altered into a level 15 standard monster. As mounts should be simple to run, it’s mostly a matter of reducing powers and tweaking the remaining abilities to be slightly less powerful.

There are two dragon mounts already in the game: a githyanki red dragon from Dragonomicon I and a summoned paladin mount from Class Acts: Cavalier (Dragon #393). Sadly, the latter is an Epic Tier mount (but having a celestial silver dragon at your beck and call is rather epic). There are also the drakkensteeds from Draconomicon II, which are a work-around using a true dragon as a mount, but not quite as satisfying.

Sample Dragon Mounts

Below are a five examples of possible draconic mounts, one for each of the traditional metallic dragons. If requested, I might write-up adamantine and iron another day.

Game Considerations

The big hurdle with dragon mounts is that they either lead to aerial combat or half their fun is lost. Not every combat needs to be on dragons, but a token draconic dogfight is fun: every Paragon or Epic campaign should include at least one battle in the sky.

Three Dimensional combat is not always as easy in 4th Edition, given its emphasis on tactical tabletop battles. A 3D fight can be made a little easier with props and game aides. There are a number of companies offering flying stands, but it’s possible to make do with elevation recording dice beside the minis or clear plastic dice boxes.

Dragon on Dragon Violence

Aerial fights in 4e have the added bonus that effects which stun or prone also cause a flying creature to fall. This makes for a lovely way to speed-up combat. At high altitudes, a flying creature can fall 500 feet (100 squares) before stopping, effectively taking them out of the combat. This makes a multi-dragon aerial battle very possible without a long slog against multiple beasts with high hit point totals.

It’s also fun to face multiple opponents, also on dragons. Knocking the mount prone is still a viable tactic in this instance, but forced movement is also useful. At a DM’s discretion, forced movement can  violently dismount a rider. This makes for a very cinematic combat, with enemy dragon riders knocked from their saddles hundreds of feet above the ground.

IF building a character for a little aerial dragon combat, remember to take powers that can prone or push. But also look for utilities that can negate forced movement. As fun as it is to unsaddle an opponent, you don’t want to follow them down. Magical items that can slow a fall are also desirable.

And what is Dragonlance without lances? Thankfully for this article, lances were recently reintroduced to the game in Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium. So buy a copy of MME, grab a lance (with the dragonslayer enchantment of course), saddle-up your copper dragon and take to the sky!

Let’s frame up some context to facilitate easier discussion. We’ll even give the DM a placeholder name: Wilfred. Wilfred has been your DM for a little bit, and you think you know him pretty well. The campaign has been running for a few sessions, and there’s been some fun had by all.

Warning Signs

Things started out great: compelling NPCs, interesting plots, exciting combats. Now things have changed, and not for the better. It wasn’t a big change at first. Wilfred didn’t do a funny voice for that new NPC. Instead of the usual ridiculous name, that halfling merchant has a devastatingly boring name. Plot has either almost disappeared or skyrocketed to an incomprehensible level.

If Wilfred was prone to planning before, his planning is minimal now. If he didn’t plan all that much before, his planning is non-existent now.[1] Note that I’m not talking about a willful change in technique in order to be a better DM here. It might be unintentional or intentional, but it’s happening all the same.

It might be that Wilfred’s DM toolbox seems to have developed a hole large enough to walk through. He’s forgotten useful techniques that he’s used in the past. Conflict that he had no problem adjudicating now seems difficult.

Maybe it’s none of these; maybe it’s even more subtle than these. Maybe Wilfred’s attitude at the table is different. “Man, Wilfred doesn’t seem to have that fire in him anymore when we get into a rules discussion!” If your table is a more collaborative one, does he seem to be quieter than he used to be? Is he getting more irritated over minor things?

I’m Only a Player

Someone might ask, “What can I do about this, I’m just a player?” I’m glad you asked. Some of what I’m about to say next you’ve probably already heard. It’s good advice in general for players. However, when your DM is losing his mojo for the campaign, these become even more important.

First up, be a pig, not a chicken. By that, I mean, be all-in on the campaign. Be on time (maybe even early) to show that you’re committed. Try and be organized. Have your character sheet out and ready to go when it’s time to play. Get into your character and help the other players do the same. Endeavor to try something awesome at the next play session with your character, even if it’s not the typical thing. Take a minute and describe what you’re doing. For example, instead of just attacking, take a higher risk move and describe the action. The oft-quoted swinging-on-the-chandelier situation is an excellent example.

Show some interest for the campaign when you’re not at the table (if possible). Talk to Wilfred about your character and how things in the story are affecting him. Let him know what your character is thinking or feeling. We now have unprecedented ways to keep in touch with our DMs, and a quick email or tweet can go a long way.

If Wilfred does something cool (new monster, deadly trap, etc.) tell him it was cool.  If you’re into that whole social media scene, tweet it, update your Facebook status (not during the game obviously, because no one does that).

The gist of all of this is to keep the lines of communication open. Talk with your DM regularly. Ask him whether he’s having fun. How does he think the campaign is going? Maybe he needs a break. Watch a movie or some television shows to try and inspire him with ideas (Dr. Who is a good series, but I might be biased). You might even have to step up and DM for a while and let him be a player. It might be just the break he needs to come back with a vengeance.

Wrapping Up

I’m not saying that if you do these things, Wilfred will re-gain interest. It’s possible that what’s happening at the table has nothing to do with the campaign itself. But these are ways to help your DM if it IS the campaign. I can say that if you take my advice, at least the campaign has a fighting chance. And that’s what you want, right? A chance for your DM and his campaign to be all he and it can be…

Have you ever been the DM and felt this way? Have you (as a player) seen your DM’s will flagging? Leave a comment below. Also feel free to ask questions about these or other suggestions. Heck, you could even tell us about your campaign and how we might help in particular.

[1] I know some DMs come to embrace a more improvisational approach once they become more comfortable with the system, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about a change without a lot of thought behind it.

Jeff here! Before you get a new awesome article from Jeremy tomorrow I wanted to let you know about something non-D&D, but important none-the-less.

I just wanted to send some information that I am participating in HoNoToGroABeMo again this year. That stands for How Not to Grow A Beard Month. A bunch of geeks from around the internet shave on November 1st and then don’t shave again until December. Then we regularly (daily in my case) post thoughts and pictures of our manly face-manes and ask people to sponsor our beards (because it’s proven that money makes beards grow). All the money goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. I’d love it if you’d all check it out and consider sponsoring my beard, even if just for a couple of bucks.

You can visit HoNoToGroABeMo here, and here you can see all of my posts exclusively…and naturally, this link will take you to the page where you can sponsor me!

Thanks for your support, and for helping women everywhere!

In the vampire’s Design & Development article, the designers said that they made vampire a class because they felt it needed more options than a race would provide and because a class let players make vampires of multiple races. This is good, because a vampire eladrin should feel different than a dwarf vampire. But this completely overlooks the third option: a vampire theme.

In honour of the Halloween season, below is the vampire class from Heroes of Shadow adapted into a theme. This theme follows the revised theme design, as seen in Dragon magazine and the Neverwinter Campaign Setting.

Vampire

You are a creature of the night, an undead monster that continues to live by feasting on the blood of the living. The grave has given you unnatural powers, fueled by blood and the shadowy energies of the underworld. Some vampires fight against their predatory natures or seek to redeem their souls through good deeds, while others embrace their new life as hunters and revel in death.

You might be an innocent victim, accidently turned after a vicious vampire attack. Or you might have willingly submitted, offering your life to your dark master. A few rare vampires were evil mortals who were so wicked that the afterlife rejected them, returning them to the mortal world as the undead.

Starting Features

As a vampire you are not truly mortal, You gain the benefits and weaknesses listed under the children of the night feature.

In addition, you can drain your opponent’s vital fluids to gain renewed strength. You gain drink blood as an encounter power.

Drink Blood                  Vampire Feature

Encounter * Healing, Shadow

Minor Action                  Melee touch

Target: One stunned, dazed, or grabbed creature

Attack: Primary ability score +2 vs. Reflex

Hit: 1d6 damage and you gain temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt.

Level 11: Increases to Primary ability score +4 vs. Reflex

Level 21: Increases to Primary ability score +6 vs. Reflex and 2d6 damage.

Additional Features

Level 5 Feature

Your vampiric power greatly increases your physical might, enabling feats of supernatural strength.

Benefit: You gain the strength of blood class feature.

Level 10 Feature

Through a combination of unnatural strength and magic you can cling to sheer surfaces.

Benefit: You gain the night crawler class feature.

Optional Powers

At higher levels, you can take additional vampire powers. These can be taken in place of a power gained at that level or lower.

Lvl 2: charming gaze

Lvl 5: unfettered hunger

Lvl 6: form of the bat

Lvl 9: domineering gaze

Lvl 10: gaseous form

Design & Development

The tricky element of the vampire class is that many of their Encounter powers are boosted by spending a healing surge. These should be unviable to the theme, as the character would have a full complement of surges. Thankfully, the attack powers are the least interesting aspect of being a vampire: there’s little that’s truly iconic and vampiric about most of the attacks.

So I dumped the attacks. Instead, the character’s class determines what they can do each round when attacking, while the vampire theme adds options for Utility powers. This is in line with the newer design of themes.

The signature blood drinker power was incredibly problematic. Its damage was too high for a theme feature (which are as powerful as an At-Will power) and it limited the theme to melee classes. Furthermore, gaining an additional healing surge isn’t that interesting for classes with the vampire theme, who have the normal number of surges. So I had to redesign that entire power.

There’s precious little variety in powers for vampires, so few choices were needed when limiting them to the theme. I opted for powers that fit the classical abilities of vampires of myth, such as charming with a glance and controlling victims. Thankfully, most of the iconic vampire abilities (turning into a bat or mist, and the gaze attacks) were in the first ten levels.

I scoured the internet for iOS D&D app developers and managed to get my hands on review copies of some apps, free versions of others, and I may have even bought a few so that I could try them all out and let you know what the app market looks for for D&D players looking to.

I am making my assessments on the following criteria. First, I am looking at these apps solely from the perspective of being a player of D&D, not a DM. Some of these apps are intended to be used by DMs and include some stuff for players as well. I did not test and I am not evaluating any of these apps on their DMly functions.

Second, I am judging the following things:

• Functionality at the table – How useful is it when it’s actually time to find my powers, roll my dice, look up my magic items, etc. at the table. Does it help me do all the stuff I want to do when I’m running a PC.
• Appearance – Does it look pretty.
• Ease of Getting Started – How much work is it to go from downloading the app to sitting at the table to play.
• Updating/Customizing – So I’ve played the PC and now it’s time to add a new magic item, install a DM-created feat, or update the PC to a new level. How well does this app let me do that?
• Overall – this is my averaged assessment of how much I like the app with all other categories considered. This indicates how likely I would be to use this app at the table now that I’m done testing them.

It’s also worth noting that all of the following information is based on my assessment from the start of October. None of these apps have been updated as of me writing this on October 12th, 2011, but these things are always changing. You have been warned.

iPlay4e (Free)

Okay, I’m cheating just a little bit. iPlay4e isn’t an app, it’s a website that happens to work beautifully on the iPad…but there was several weeks that I used this website and a laptop at the table and it worked well there as well (if you can handle the distractions of having a laptop sitting at the table). There’s another caveat, in order to really use the site, you must have a D&D Insider account, but on the other hand, the site is actually free. Sure it’s ad supported, but you can get rid of the ads with a PayPal donation of minimal amount. For testing I had them removed with a donation of $2…and the ads were gone (although I hardly noticed).

With that DDI account you can import your character, in it’s entirety and you can look up anything that appears on your character just by clicking it (like class features, feats, powers, etc.) and logging into your account. What’s more you can play your PC from the site without using a single other thing at the table. You can mark off what powers you’ve used and you can roll your attacks and damage simultaneously with a click (which I found greatly sped up my time-consumption at the table). It even reminds you about generic actions that any PC can take (squeeze, draw a weapon, etc.).

All that said, as much as I love iPlay4e, it has it’s drawbacks. The biggest of which is that you must have a stable internet connection for it to really do it’s thing. I did find once that I loaded the site then lost the internet connection and it continued to work just fine (although looking things up in DDI stopped working). I was shocked and impressed. It also doesn’t allow for any customization at all. If you want to update something about your character, you have to open up the DDI Character Builder, update it there, export the file, and upload it to iPlay4e (essentially creating a new character). I also found it doesn’t handle twice/encounter powers very well (i.e. majestic word, healing word, etc.).

All in all, though, if I’m not in a game that has a lot of custom created stuff (feats, items, etc.) and I’m playing in a situation with a good internet connection this is my character sheet of choice.

Functionality at the Table – A

Appearance – B

Ease of getting started – A

Updating/Customizing – D

Overall – B+

i4e ($4.99)

If you can’t get a good stable internet connection at your gaming table of choice i4e is a great app for you to track your PC with. Like iPlay4e it will import your character from DDI to get your character started. However, it does seem to make more mistakes in the process so once you’ve imported you then need to double check everything to make sure the math is right. It also doesn’t import descriptions of items and powers entirely or accurately all the time. As such it takes quite a little bit of time fixing, adding, and filling out all the details of your PC before you can actually play the character. It took me over an hour, in total to get the character in the app ready to go.

However, it’s worth noting that you CAN do all that stuff. You can edit anything and everything. You can add your own custom items, powers, feats, etc. You can level your character directly in the app if you’d like using your books as a reference.

The web address to import your character isn’t intuitive or easy to find, either. I had to do a quick Google search, and it was at the top of the list, but from within the app itself it wasn’t clear how to upload my character in order to get it into the app.

It doesn’t incorporate with the DDI Compendium for quickly looking things up (although the author of the app does make another app called Compendium which accesses the Compendium very well…in some cases better than WotC does, and it’s free) and doesn’t include other options like dice-rolling to save time/table space.

The attention to detail is fantastic (starting words when you put in titles automatically capitalize for example) and it looks beautiful.

In play I did run into a few problems, but that’s probably also because I tested it the most since it was the best app for using offline that I found and after testing I kept coming back to using i4e, which should say something about how much I liked it.

Functionality – B

Appearance – A

Ease of getting started – C-

Updating/Customizing – A

Overall – B+

Drums of War ($1.99)

This app seems to be built for the D&D player on both sides of the screen, but as a character tool it’s not too shabby considering the price. You can import your character from multiple places. I found importing from iPlay4e.com to be an easy way to start, but there was an awful lot of information that didn’t import at all or correctly (including details and keywords for powers and a lot of hit point-based data) to the point that you end up having to input most of the character data manually. But again, being able to change all that in the app does give you ultimate flexibility for customization.

It does have a dice-roller, but not one that’s build into powers/skill/etc. So it’s not quite as good as iPlay4e’s dice roller, but if you want to play without real dice you do have the option. It does also include links to DDI Compendium entries for most things, so while it may not import the details, if you have an internet connection you can still look them up without killing too much extra time if you have to (it’s not nearly as nice as having everything there for easy flip through as you decide which power or whatever to use). And the navigation is a bit clunky (one long endless sheet instead of having things in windows or tabbed).

Lastly, as I mentioned, this product has a lot of DM tools, like the ability to input monsters/NPCs, track encounters, etc. If this was a general review or a DM-focused review I might have a very different opinion about this program, but for the players, it seems that there are better options out there if you don’t mind inputting a few extra things or spending a couple more dollars.

Functionality – C

Appearance – B

Ease of getting started – D

Updating/Customizing – A

Overall – C

iCharacter Sheet (Free, $3.99)

This is a very basic sheet. It’s essentially a digital version of a paper character sheet. It doesn’t do any math. It doesn’t mark things off for you. It doesn’t roll dice. It is exceptionally easy to use.

There’s a free version if you want to try it out, but I don’t recommend actually taking the time to put a a whole character into the free version because you’ll end up losing your character and since everything has to be typed in manually that’s a lengthy process to waste your time on. I’m gonna spend hours entering the PC into the sheet and then lose it all because it won’t save…no thanks. The paid version, however, eliminates that issue and the free version does give you a good idea of what you’re working with.

And inputting all that data can be a bit painful due to a lack of attention to detail, especially in the keyboard defaults. For example, if I want to enter a number into the box for one of my defenses it should automatically open to the numbers keyboard. If I click on the box for the name of a power it should auto-capitalize (at least the first word if not all of them). Where i4e does this brilliantly iCharacter Sheet makes the already painful process of inputting everything manually (a process that takes longer digitally than with pencil and paper) even harder to do with something that you would think would be a simple fix and something that, if it was well tested, should have been easily noticeable.

Functionality – C

Appearance – C+

Ease of Getting Started – C

Updating/Customizing – A

Overall – C+

Gamer’s Toolkit (Free)

Gamer’s Toolkit is probably the most ambitious of the apps that I tested. It really wants to do a lot of cool things in innovative ways that no one else is doing. Plus it has some DM functionality built in as well, specifically for mapping. I’m not sure how I’d do a map with my iPad, maybe with a connection to a monitor or TV…but I’m not sure it’d be worth the time. And that’s really indicative of it’s problems for players as well.

This is an app that tries to do a lot of things…and from what I saw failed at them all too often.

It has an import function that is extra cool because you can import your DDI character from a variety of sources. I tried three of them, personally, and that’s where it fell flat. It imported the easiest things to input. Basic stats, names, etc. but it didn’t include any information about powers, which is the most important thing to import for ease of use. It also doesn’t look up things in the Compendium for reference.

When I gave feedback to the company about importing I did get a quick response, but the response was essentially that it should work fine (when in fact it didn’t). Whereas I found some of the other programmers quick to respond, eager for feedback, and willing to take the time to look into issues and try to personally fix them (specifically iPlay4e and i4e).

It also has a dice roller, but it’s built as a separate function in the device so you can’t see your power and roll dice at the same time, making it faster to just use real dice.

This is the app that feels like it has the most potential but is the least mature. As applications I’d be likely to regularly use at my table, this one is probably my least favorite right now. Sometimes you get what you pay for…and this app is free.

Functionality – D

Appearance – C

Ease of Getting Started – D

Updating/Customizing – B

Overall – D

Whatever it is you’re looking for there the iOS app options for D&D are growing. Right now I’d argue that it’s not a mature market with most of the offerings feeling like they still need work to truly be considered done. That said, there are a few general recommendations I can make.

If I have a good internet connection I’d use iPlay4e.com as often as possible. It works for my game (don’t need a lot of customization and regular updates) and if I need to make note of a handful of customized options on a paper somewhere, so be it (at least until the Character Builder lets us customize). If I lack a good internet connection when I’m gaming then i4e is easily my favorite choice, and the one that I’ve used most often lately. When it came to functionality for running a character, nothing else really came close to these two options.