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I think it's about time the era of quick, painless resurrection spells came to an end. What's the point in killing someone if they can come back? Where's the heroism if death has no permanence? I'd love to see raise dead become a DM-fiat-only plot-device. Perhaps you can get your dead friend...

My party's just hit level 11 or so, and the bard player has moved out of the area. This leaves four characters, and the party no longer has a healing character. The party makeup is this: Maya - level 12 human shield fighter/dreadnought Adelaine - level 12 human night stalker assassin/venomed...

I'm ending a campaign arc (end of heroic tier) with a battle with the big-evil (which is a monster taking the form of a human adversary of theirs) in front of a huge obsidian portal in a knee-deep lake of blood. I need to make it epic and awesome, so what's the best end-boss fight you've...

Has anyone tried using the rules from page 138 of the DMG2 to get rid of the "basic plus" magic items? I feel like my players are kind of snowed under with magic kit and they have to find new stuff basically all the time to keep up. I'd also like to do a plotline where my characters end up...

This is inspired in part by the rumours surrounding daily powers in the new Essentials series, but I recognise that we know little about it so far: I think that anyone who's GMed has occasionally had the problem where you've got a great long stretch of time, and it only really makes sense to...

Back during the design phase of 4e there was quite a bit of talk about how powers were being split into two types, "attack" powers and "utility" powers, to prevent people just loading up on combat powers only, and allowing the utility powers to see some use. I've noticed the same problem...

So, I've been playing 4e since it first came out, and I love it. It's a great system and I have a lot of fun DMing it and playing it. My problem is that I love the idea of the 4E modules like Keep on the Shadowfell and so on, but the way they are executed completely turns me off - they're just...

Today I ended my second (short) campaign of 4e. Not due to rain of steel or anything, that'd be silly :D However, my players got to 6th level, and I think we were pretty much in unanimous agreement that Rain of Steel (level 5 fighter daily) needs to be toned down. For those unfamiliar with the...

I ran a pendulum scythes trap as part of an encounter with a trio of spectres today, and it raised an issue that I think needs errata. It's really hard to disarm a trap using thievery now! To disarm a pendulum scythes trap requires first a DC 27 perception check to spot the control box, which...

Today the group I DM for lost their first character - Raknor De Pomp, level 3 human rogue and dashing cad. He died to a group of oozes - a gelatinous cube and two ochre oozes, which the party fought in a particularly unsavoury dining hall. The best part was the number of players who realised...

With the dragonborn frenzy feat, you gain +2 to damage when bloodied. When you use reaping strike and miss, you get to do your strength bonus in damage anyway. Does dragonborn frenzy work with reaping strike? For instance, would a dragonborn fighter with 18 strength do 6 damage on a miss with...

First things first, I have just finished running Keep on the Shadowfell with my group. If you are going to play it, leave the thread, don't ruin it for yourself. Everyone else, welcome. Anyway, I found KotS to be a lot of fun in general - I had my players make new characters from the PHB...

Last night we played our game of Keep on the Shadowfell and an admittedly rather corner case came up. The cleric's command prayer can be used to cause a creature to slide 3 squares - it does this by compelling them to take the action themselves. But what if a creature can't physically...

Note: Boundless Endurance is a level 2 utility power for fighters. OK, let's see if I've got this power right. It's a stance that you can switch into as a minor action, but only if you're bloodied (I assume). Then, you get regeneration equal to 2 + your con mod. But what happens if you get...

Not sure if this has been suggested, but I really hate save-or-die spells as they are in 3.5 ed. It's really anticlimactic when a player or big monster gets zapped dead in the first round just because of a single dice roll. It always feels better to me when the fight lasts a few rounds, the...

So, one of my friends wants to make a Greek hoplite as his next character. He thinks the fighter class, breastplate armour, a spear and a shield would fit it best. However, he wants the spear to have reach as well as being one-handed, and I can't find any weapons (exotic or otherwise) that are...

I'm thinking of trying a new houserule for my next game - the elimination of the charisma stat and all charisma skills. The reason behind this is that a player with a strong personality will, in almost all cases, play characters with strong personalities, and shy players almost always play shy...

I've noticed that the druid in my campaign never uses wildshape because her AC suffers greatly. (going from magical armour, magical shield, and magical deflecting ring to "quite thick skin" is quite the step down) Thus, one of the iconic abilities of the druid, the ability to become a fierce...

My party: 18 elf druid. 8 rogue/10 slayer of domiel halfling. (basically a good assassin) 18 human warmage. 14 human paladin cohort to the halfling. Pretty well built characters, using most of the complete series of splatbooks. In my last game I ran four advanced Chuuls (33 HD, huge, CR 14...

My campaign's hit 18th level, and we're doing our first planar adventuring. The party is a level 18 rogue (technically an 8 rogue, 10 "slayer of domiel" or good assassin), his level 15 paladin cohort, a level 18 warmage, and a level 18 druid. They've done a little adventuring on a huge asteroid...