Dungeon Master’s Kit Review, Part 1

While hunting for my intended prey, Gamma World, I also managed to snag a Dungeon Master’s Kit, a boxed set that comes with I managed to snag a Dungeon Master’s Kit while in search of Gamma World, my intended prey. By it’s kit-like nature, it comes in a Red Box-sided box. While it costs twice as much it also comes with a substantially larger amount of content:

• two fold-out maps that depict areas from the adventure module
• three sheets of tokens
• the aforementioned adventure module, in two parts
• a comparatively flimsy Dungeon Master’s Screen
• a Dungeon Master’s Book

Skipping over the maps, the token sheets are what you’ve come to expect assuming that you’ve kept up with material from the Essentials line. They’re a great substitute for minis not only for price but for players who don’t like having minis that only tangentially represent their character, or DM’s that tire of substituting rough approximations. Also, if you aren’t a fan of using colored tokens to represent bloodied monsters they have a red-ringed, “bloodied” side. The DM Screen is like the original one, just with updated tables (including skill DCs by level) and made of a thin stock that makes it both fragile and difficult to keep open, like screens from past editions, so score another for the nostalgic factor I guess.

The real treasures are the Dungeon Master’s Book and the adventure module, Reavers of Harkenwold.

Dungeon Master’s Book is another “digest-sized” volume, comparable to both Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Rules Compendium, that is basically a compacted version of Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Dungeon Master’s Guide 2. So, there’s advice on table rules, running the game, the general D&D world, combat, making encounters, designing quests, sample traps, monster roles, and more. Basically, with this I don’t need to reference the other DMing books, but also I don’t need to go to Player’s Handbook for combat, either. The best part? It’s got all the rules updates.

Additionally, it expands upon the Nentir Vale, includes the random treasure table from Rules Compendium, and provides some more sample items with rarities. I think it’s a great book. It’s small, its comprehensive, it’s updated. It’s the next best thing to having your shit on pdf. My only problem is that if I want a replacement, I have to pick up another DM’s kit. Next time, I’ll review the adventure, which so far I’ve only heard good things about. We’ll see.

The Mind’s Eye Opened

This is one of the best articles on Dungeon I’ve seen in a long time. Its divided into three parts, providing advice on injecting psionic elements into your game and an entire psionic monster theme so that you can swap out powers on existing monsters to represent being fucked with by psionics and/or the Far Realm. It works out well even if you dont like psionics, as most games will still use aberrants and the monster theme is pretty damned extensive.

The first part focuses on various ways to introduce psionic stuff into your game, from running a one-shot to see how your players like it to saying fuck-all to continuity and allowing immediate retraining of MC powers. Personally, I would probably have players retrain feats or let them pick up “psionic talents”. Talents are just a flavor-word for boons, and using legendary boons is an excellent way to give characters access to psionic powers without being too overt, and can easily be threaded into the narrative by writing it off as exposure to reality warping energies. Kind of like mutations, just psionic instead of radioactive. There are five featured in the article, with a broad level range and encounter item power built into each that can only be used with un-augmented at-will attacks.

The lion’s share of the article, however, is the Far Realm Mutant Theme. It works off of rules presented in DMG2, which does a good job of allowing you to reflavor monsters somewhat without making entire monsters from scratch that are just other monsters with a twist. There are eleven individual powers, divided into attack and utility powers.

• Grasping tentacle is a given. The monster can grab a target and each turn they remain grabbed they take automatic damage. It deals no damage by itself, but there’s a penalty to escape attempts. Very nice.
• Secret face causes a monster to peel apart when bloodied, pushing enemies back and causing them to grant combat advantage. The idea is similar in effect to all those latest Resident Evil games, when after you riddle a zombie with a shit-ton of bullets, causing a bunch of crazy shit to bust out of it and make your day a lot worse. I endorse this idea.
• Unpredictable mind causes a kind of psychic backlash whenever you hit it with something that deals psychic damage. In past editions I would fucking HATE this, so I’m really happy that psychic damage isnt relegated to just disciplines: it gives it a nice, wide blanket effect on classes.

Great article if you like psionic or aberrant shit. If you like both, then hey, bonus.

Treasure Parcels and Magic Items

I kept getting people coming from the site My Girlfriend is a DM, but when I would try to go there I would get a WordPress login screen that didnt do shit when I made a WordPress account, logged in, and gave it another shot. Well, today I figured, “What the fuck, lets give it another go,” and was rewarded for my labors by an actual front page. Their most recent article (as of this writing) discusses another article from Critical Hits about magic items and magic item-flavor, which I guess I’ll touch on by proxy.

I kinda follow the treasure distribution method, by which I mean that players can hand me wish lists and I make the best of it. If I can drop something they really want into the mix, great! If I cant? Tough shit. Disenchant/sell it and move on. I try to meet them halfway, to be sure, but I’m not going to sacrifice logic for theme and/or consistency. Magic items in 4th Edition are not as necessary as they used to be, so they’ll live if they their tiefling wizard doesnt get a master’s wand of scorching burst asap.

If they dont like what they find, they typically just pawn it when they can, but now they are starting to see some reason to my rhymes and hanging on to some of the odder shit because I like to foreshadow things or give them an edge. If I want to throw a hard encounter with undead at them, I’m liable to put in some gravespawn potions to give everyone an easier time. This rewards the players who recall and think about their inventory. Of course, sometimes they just fucking forget about it, to their detriment.

For my players: does anyone recall that magical tattoo from The Hounds of Ulster? Jerks.

As for keeping magic items magical, I rarely just drop in a magic item with just its label intact. In Songs of Erui magic items can be created through the standard means of arcane magic, but many are made by taking objects with powerful spirits and carefully shaping them. A spirit might inhabit a vein of metal that is used to make a sword, or a tree that is made into a bow. Sometimes spirits are also forcibly bound to something, as well. This allows me to easily make legacy/intelligent weapons that grow in power after becoming acclimated to a specific user.

Giving a powerful item a history is also a good way to add to the narrative of the game, especially if the owner isnt dead and/or has relatives that know about it. It can also be a necessary component for later in the game, as a symbol to prove something (lineage, honor, bravery, etc) or even a key of some sort (like a rod that can unlock a door or staff that can activate a portal).

Even fairly common items like potions might not look or act like the average market fare. Found some potions on gnolls? They’re thick and viscous, like blood, and taste terrible. You can drink them, but dont plan of finding a lot of buyers if you’re looking to sell them. Sometimes I like to add in some minor kicker effects. Like, orc-brewed potions might grant a damage bonus but impose a defense penalty for a turn in addition to the normal effect.

I also add a lot to item crafting if the players want to entertain that particular indulgence. Monster parts, powerful locations, or gifts from powerful beings can reduce the cost of a magic item, allow a character to create an item more powerful than they could, or even imbue an item with a special property. In Erui, ley lines can be used to reduce the cost/pretend you’re one level higher than usual.

For example, in The Bone Forest, the players discovered an ancient druid ziggurat. It was built atop a ley line nexus and had an affinity for storm magic. I would have allowed them to reduce the time spent creating magic items, and if they had thunder/lightning shit would have let them make higher level magic items since it would represent them harnessing raw magic energy instead of just doing it themselves.

This is a bit more difficult to do, and I mostly just eyeball things and go from there. If I think they are getting too much shit, I hold off later. Its not hard to make up the gap or widen it later if things get out of hand one way or another. This probably wont work well for sticklers that really like to adhere to the treasure rules.

As an example, the party found lightning-charged crystals underneath the druid ziggurat, and after some careful scrutiny discovered that they were highly unstable but could be used to make some magic items tied to lightning (reducing the cost or letting you make an item of 1 level higher than normal), sold for some cash, or just lobbed like a grenade. You know, whatever works!