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.

In this installment I’m going to tell you about how I tossed Alain aside and became an innocent world-saving hero. 

Let me remind you that this campaign is taking place in Dark Sun, which is supposed to be extra deadly (I say “supposed to” because our DM has yet to kill any PCs yet…sucker). One of the things we were warned to have was a back-up character ready to go. This was something I turned into a source of inspiration. I knew from the get-go that I wanted to make a character that would leave later in the game.

In some stories I like to play a character and develop that character over time and maintain that consistency. But lately as I’ve come to think about the unique story types in D&D, I’ve come to realize that characters change over the course of a campaign. Either they die and you have to replace them or bring them back to life (which can sometimes be a bit false and contrived, but also an issue for another time/place) and sometimes you just see the new shiny as books come out and you want to try something else.

So the point is this, I’ve been trying to embrace the idea of having characters leave the campaign on my terms and in a way that enhances the story. I actually first attempted this several years ago with a deva that I ran named Verat. He was supposed to nobly sacrifice himself to save the party and then, several levels later, come back (as devas sometimes do) to help save the day at the climax of the story. Problem was it didn’t seem to really fit into the tale the DM was telling. 

So this time I worked it out and talked to the DM ahead of time about my concept. That helped. What’s more, I’m helping this DM with what I’m doing and we’re both trying to use it to help further the story of the campaign. His story is a lot less firm and he seems to be eager to modify it to the stories that we players want to tell as well. Maybe he’s just less prepared…that’s possible too.

So anyway, this concept of making my back-up PC ahead of time, and developing stories surrounding their exit, is the bit of inspiration I wanted to tell because in both cases it has really helped me better understand and create memorable characters when I know how they exit the game and what happens to them after that. 

DMs often construct stories with the end in mind and it helps guide what they do and how they do it…it turns out that players can do the same thing with equally positive results.

Let me tell you about my characters and you’ll see what I mean.

I started the game trying to see if I could play a leader-roled PC that interested me and I also embraced the ideals of Dark Sun. So, you know, a self-important jerk who thought of everyone else as his underlings. For the record it worked…REALLY well. And he was a blast to play…but I knew that the story that the DM wanted to tell with the larger arch of the campaign involved fighting back against the destruction of Athas (the world of Dark Sun). Well Alain, as conceived, wasn’t going to fit that story and I knew it. But I also didn’t want to compromise his concept. He’s a jerk and was going to be one forever or die trying. 

Enter, the back up character. The DM had mentioned that the title of the campaign is Dreams of the Avaignon, which (upon questioning) we learned were arcane preservers of incredible power (sort of the opposite of the Dragon of Tyr or the Sorcerer-Kings). He also mentioned that he wanted there to be some arcane-based story elements and if there were some PCs that fit into that it would be helpful. So my back up PC fits right into that. At the end of Paragon tier Alain has joined up with the new king of Tyr and exiled the rest of the party. Welcome to becoming the NPC villain of the story. This was all planned from the beginning and pulled off quite nicely.

Enter…Hvard. Okay, it’s a longer name than that, but that’s how I’ll likely shorten it…we’ll see. In any case, he’s a Bard from the Forest Ridge, one of the few green places left in the world. So he knows there’s a better way and he wants to see Athas returned to life. He’s also a Kalashtar, which we’re interpreting as humans with some psionic inclination, although I’m taking it a step further (and adding it via my background and other elements…I’ll have to do an article about how I made him if you’d like) and came up with the idea that he’s been guided by some sort of spirit. That some other creature is guiding him in his mind. At the DMs prompting that is the Sage of Athas, a character I’m personally not familiar with, but the DM assures me is someone of high importance in previous Dark Sun canon.

But what happens if he dies? He’s supposed to be someone important to the end of the campaign, what will we do? And it does seem likely that he’ll die…I’ve built him to be a front line leader…and bards are a bit squishy anyway. So yeah, I needed a back up plan. So here’s the story I came up with…and, it’s worth noting, that this article will likely be the first time that the DM has seen my back up plan, so it’s subject to change. 

I decided that there must be a reason that Hvard was chosen by the Sage of Athas to try and restore the world. There’s something about him, I’ve decided, that makes him important. Important enough that the Sage wouldn’t just let him die. No, he’ll be duty-bound to return…and be more magical than ever. So the back up to Hvard the Kalashtar is Hvard the Revenant. Only now he’s not just someone able to tap into arcane magic, he’s become a living form of preserver magic…a wild magic sorcerer. An uncontrolled conduit of the arcane. His death not only doesn’t end his role in the campaign, his death could, in fact, further the story of the campaign (and I get to try out a class build that I’ve wanted to play anyway). And what’s more, by making this back up character, it actually told me more about the current PC and helps me better develop him.

It turns out that if you plan accordingly for your characters exit from a game and work with the DM to do it on your terms you can actually enhance a game with turn-over rather than stifle it with a less and less cohesive storyline due to an ever rotating roster of PCs. 

Have you ever had a back up character that helped further the story? How does your group handle it when someone changes character mid-story? Leave a comment!

My answer was, huh…no where that I know of, but there should be something like that. The DM has the tables on the inside of the DM screen and some great resources and sheets from Sly Flourish…there should be something for players too!

So we put some things together!

The idea is to provide a single page to summarize rules and minimize the amount of time you might have to spend at the table looking things up in books or on the online Compendium. Sometimes they might also help you better understand your options as well, which is good for everyone.

Here we are giving you the first two sheets, which I call “General” and “Skills”. Which we suspect are the most useful of any cheat sheets we could provide.

That said, the plan for the future is to give you cheat sheets for specific classes/builds. Some need it more than others and we certainly can’t have played every class to know which ones need a cheat sheet more than others.

So here’s the short of it! Enjoy the first two sheets. We have a class sheet in the works to give an example of how it can work. But we want you to tell us which classes/builds need cheat sheets the most. Also, let us know if there is anything in the current sheets that could be better. These are living documents (they’d have to be with all the errata, right?) and we’re willing to improve them.

If you want to take it another step further and you want to actually work on a cheat sheet to provide, say the word. It’s an easy way to contribute and if we don’t get some help it’s unlikely that we’ll finish all the classes before the next edition is announced.

For now Temporary Hit Points presents you with:

General D&D Cheat Sheet

D&D Skills Cheat Sheet

The first two articles of this journey detail the process by which I created my first character of the campaign (Alain). I say first because it’s Dark Sun and we were told to have a second character ready just in case (and on a side note I designed Alain to become a possible NPC later anyway, something that may be the subject of a future article).

So now the character is built and the next thing I wanted to do was figure out how to establish Alain in the group. I had a vision for Alain when I built him. He was going to see himself as a superior…at least to the other characters in the party. He’s a leader, and in the truly Dark Sun sort of way sees the other PCs as useful, so it’s in his interest to keep them alive. I don’t, however, want him to be seen as uncooperative, a pain, or my playing of him to dig into other people’s fun. I had to find a way to establish who he was in the group and do it in a way to get others to accept him in the way I viewed him.

This is a tricky thing to do. Sometimes you make a character and just wait to see what the dynamics of the group are and some of the characters personality and decisions are formed directly from that. In fact, you almost always have to be prepared to do that and to make sacrifices to your original idea in order to make things fit so you don’t trample on the fun of others. Sometimes, however, you can try and establish things in a way that will guide the other players towards your idea, and I have to say it worked brilliantly with Alain.

In the case of Alain (my PC) I had a few advantages. First, the entire party and, in fact, the campaign, was brand new. So there was no established party that I had to fit into. This meant that if I acted correctly I could set up not just Alain and his role in the party in a way that everyone would be happy, but I could mould the party itself a little to make this work even smoother.

My second advantage is that I’m usually the DM of this group of players and part of the concept I need to get across right away is that Alain is the party’s leader. Not just in “role” (meaning healer/buffer) but by virtue of the fact that everyone should and will listen to him. Being the usual DM for these players, I think, made them naturally inclined to listen to me, if not my PC. I can point to evidence of this by looking at the previous time someone else took over DMing for the group and I got to play and often everyone followed my lead and they really…REALLY shouldn’t have. That guy was never very stable and certainly didn’t have their best interests in mind.

So I found myself, on the day of the game, practicing lines in the mirror to help me establish Alain’s authority. I wanted to have a plan, to have, at least a vague idea of what I was going to say. This could blow up, the others could defy his authority and this would make Alain’s concept a lot less fun for me…he’d have to go all emo and pull a bunch of “I told you you should have listened to me” lines. That’s no good.

“Look, if you listen to me and do what I say you just MIGHT survive this.” That was Alain’s opening line. That’s what I practiced. I didn’t know how the campaign would start, but it’s Dark Sun, so I had a good idea that this would fit in. It wasn’t his actual FIRST line of the campaign, but it was the first time I really spoke through him in character in the game. I suspect it would be the first thing anyone would remember about it.

The rest of the things I did when I built Alain was all in support of this concept as well, and that was a huge help. He’s a warlord that works in such a way that if you do do what he says, you get bonuses to attacks, damage, sometimes even extra attacks or charges. This naturally inclines people to pay attention to what he says. He also follows the Templar theme, which, in the story of Dark Sun, gives him some level of authority. Given that the players are mostly new to the setting when Alain tells them to do something because he’s the authority around here…they’re inclined to take heed.

And for what it’s worth, he successfully followed through on that opening line. Almost to a one people do what he says and they all made it from the wilderness outside of Urik to Tyr without proper weapons or even supplies and not a single person died.

That said, I’m not sure that Alain has their best interests at heart either…but he is at least a natural leader and strategizer. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Do you have any stories of success or failure in establishing your characters role in a party? What worked for you? What didn’t? Leave a comment below to let me know!