Speeding up D&D 4E

Much digital ink has been spilled on the topic of speeding up combat in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. I think at this point we can all at least agree that combat can grow a bit sluggish at times. The interesting thing is, and it’s something that some people have touched upon at various points in the 4E lifecycle already, that there seems to be a paradigm shift away from the simple “4E is slow because of combat”, and I think that’s a very good thing.

The “new” (and it’s not new, just only discussed by a select few in the past) idea is that the problem lies more in adventure design than combat sluggishness. @glimmthegnome on Twitter planted the seed of this idea for me a couple of weeks ago, @gamefiend pushed it along, and @neogrognard put it into words in his Save My Game column on the Wizards website last week.

Lost Skills: Perform

I’m an old dog: it’s hard to teach me new tricks. For example, take a recent 4e character I made. Lute playing is a huge part of my character concept, and I instinctively wanted to quantify his lute-playing expertise as a stat. But it turns out there’s no spot on the character sheet for musical […]

Opportunity Actions: National Geographic Is Your Friend!

Given the hubbub lately over the impending end of Dungeon and Dragon magazines as compiled issues, there’s a void being left behind. Where can we truly go for great content, all in one place, that isn’t just a series of web articles that now have the luxury of being able to change the amount and […]

The Recycle Bin – ME2: Waist High Walls Grant +2 to Initiative

There’s a lot of shooter video games out there these days, Call of Duties, Gears of War, Uncharteds, and yes, even my beloved Mass Effect. Most of these use some sort of cover system popularized with the original Gears of War. Gone are the days of just jumping around like a coffeed up Tigger in […]