DDI Character Builder - Lessons Learned

Sometimes in the evening when I really don't want to read anything and when there is nothing on television worth watching I have semi-regularly accessed the DDI Character Builder (CB) tool and kind of randomly started test building characters just to see what I could come up with. In general this gave me an opportunity to explore some of the different classes and races, pick different combinations, and then see how the powers, feats, and items could be meshed together into a fun, and hopefully useful, character. I still haven't built a Bard or a Druid character that I like yet, but trying is half the fun.

DnD Encounters - Session 5 (03/28/2012)

This was the week of spring break for many of the local schools and The Gaming Goat was especially busy tonight. There was some sort of Yu-Gi-Oh contest underway for one thing, plus we were lucky enough to have have four additional Encounters players join us tonight. The new players wedged themselves in with the rest of the group, reviewed their pre-gen characters, and off we went. Our table featured myself, Tim, Zach, Tom was missing this week, and sitting in with us were Jacob, Joe and Zach #2. Clyde was DM'ing as always, and we were looking for a pleasant evening of wandering around the Sunset Shrine.

DnDNext News - There is None

The big NDA'd DnDNext roll-out was two months ago (here). Since then there have been weekly articles on Wizards.com that include survey questions. It's nice to see that Wizards is taking this seriously and is doing their homework, but as far an announcements go, nothing.

DnD Encounters - Session 4 (03/21/2012)

After last week's TPK at The Gaming Goat the our newly reconstituted characters (just add water!) were ready to get the show back on the road. Our dwarven fighter (Zach) was missing this night, but our mage (Roger), ranger (Tim), and dwarven cleric (Tom) were joined by a wandering monk (Don) just in time for the evenings festivities. With our usual DM (Clyde) at the helm the party quickly resumed their search for the Sunset Shrine.

March DDI Tools Update Released (Updated)

Wizards announced the monthly release of the DDI tools were available today (here). You might notice in the announcement that they identified the release as the "February update"instead of the "March update," so that link might be invalidated at some point.

DnD Encounters - Session 3 (03/14/2012)

This post will be a little different than the other Encounters posts I have done. It needs to be wrapped in black bunting with muted organ music in the background. A tattered group of miscellaneous adventurers all dressed in their sunday-go-to-meeting breastplates and their ceremonial swords all mill about aimlessly and speak in hushed whispers. What could be the cause of this somber occasion?

DnD Encounters - Session 2 (03/07/2012)

We started off this weeks DnD Encounter session with the same set of table mates (Tim, Tom, Zach, and Roger) and DM (Clyde) as last week. The players worked together very well last week so heading into this week and an encounter we are sure will be tougher than last week it is nice to have players that have worked out some basic tactics already. Well, "tactics" may be to strong a word - basically our two dwarven tanks go up front while the mage and the ranger provide the artillery support from the rear. It worked last week, I hope it works this week as well.

Making Vancian Magic Work in 4E (Updated)

A few weeks ago I pointed to a wikipedia link for a description of "Vancian Magic." This week Monte Cook expanded on the idea of Vancian Magic a little more (here) and included his thoughts on it as it applied to the design process going forward into DnDNext. I have stated my preference for magic user types following a different path than, say, a fighter-type, but I would also prefer to avoid the "15 minute workday" problem prevalent in pre-4E versions where a magic user would expend all their known spells in the first encounter and were then essentially useless until they took a full rest.