Archive for 'Reviews'

Just ran my most current installment of the “Shadows Over Khorvaire”, and being hard pressed for time, I grabbed a complete “encounter” from the recently published “Dungeon Delve” as a filler for my usually planned out game encounters.  I have to say, I was a bit hesitant at first, but the players genuinely enjoyed the encounters and the feel of the encounters.

The format for each chapter in the book consists of a series of encounters for a given level.  In my case, I used the “Orken Stronghold” from the book.  Prep time for the session was easy, with stats and tactics provided for each encounter.  I had already worked on a treasure allotment for the party, so I simply replaced the included treasure with my “parcels“.  One of the great things that dawned on me over the course of play is how badly I had been pacing combat and encounters.  This book was a real eye-opener for how to properly scale out a series of adventures.  I’m going back to the drawing board with my adventures and encounters and plotting them out using this book as a guideline.

There are some seriously wicked encounters in the book, and even the offer for how to expand them out in to full-blown “adventures” rather than just a packaged, yet random encounter.  I’m genuinely pleased with this and would recommend it greatly to the time-pressed GM out there.

Having recently acquired a copy of the Eberron Player’s Guide, I’ve set about to see what I can incorporate into my Home Game.  Going through the book, there is a lot of interesting things to take in.  One thing that was quite noticeable (and somewhat of a disappointment) was the book’s overall size.  Weighing in at 160 pages, the EPG is one of the thinner 4th Edition books released.  The book’s layout and content though makes up for the lack of girth.0

The book looks quite interesting as far as content, especially as the majority of the book deals with information that is completely relevant to the Players and their Characters.  The book does a very good job of incorporating the newer 4th Edition components in to the original 3rd Edition setting. I was quite pleased with the incorporation of the previous story elements from Eberron and how they were adapted in to the 4th Edition.

Some of the more enjoyable points of interest is the inclusion of the the 4th Edition Races.  The EPG lays out information for the inclusion of the races from both the Player’s Handbook 2 (PHB2), the Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide (FRPG) and the  Dragon articles.  The setting history relies heavily on the goblinoid races, so the major focus from the EPG is on the monsterous races published in the Dragon magazine.

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So with the invention and publishing of the new 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the local gaming group was doing well in adventures.  As my players gained experience and treasure, I wanted something a little different to spark interest with the players on the new edition.  Having recently read an article on how to incorporate props into your tabletop game.  I wanted to try a little something new and having seen the beauty of a recently posted series of “4e Power Cards”, decided to use the same tool that was used to create those cards.

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Hello and welcome to Maiden”s Head Games. Here at the Maiden”s Head want to share some of the various tools, tips and tricks that I have used in the varying games that I play. From the dark, fantasy filled dungeons of D&D to the depth of an alien ocean in Blue Planet, I look to bring you several different views on the tools that are out there and available for you the Dungeon Master to use. As our first review, we”re going to look at the note-taking & organization application Evernote. Read More →