Tag: 4e

4th Edition D&D: Still Much More to Do #DnD #RPG #TTRPG #4e #WotC

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A Little Context for This Post

I love 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“4e“). If you don’t, that’s fine, but did, and I still do. During the 4e days, which I consider the best years for organized play, I was one of the primary organizers for Gamers Syndicate game days in the DC area. We organized Living Forgotten Realms games at as many as five sites a month on as many as every weekend each of those months. We also ran D&D Encounters on the weekdays. We got a little time off, but not much. As a result of my efforts, and the rather generous rewards program offered by Wizards of the Coast (“WotC“) that you’ll never see again, I received a lot of free product, so there were very few publications I don’t own. I own multiple copies for many, and some are still in the original wrapping to this day (e.g., the Dungeon Command Sting of Lolth package; several game day, D&D Encounters, and Ashes of Athas adventures). Needless to say, I’ve seen a lot of game play and, you’d think, I’d see it all. Well, nope.

A Little More Context for This Post

In September of 2023, I started hosting 4e games at my house (which I bought primarily so I could easily host games on my own terms). The other primary organizer of the game days I mentioned (Vic) and I created a game world and cosmology (largely based on his own game world), and are serving as alternating DMs for the campaign. Because of how seldom we meet, Vic is only now finishing up his first leg of the campaign, so I’m about to start my first leg at level 4. In preparation for the whole thing, I’ve been cleaning up, and adding to, the Masterplan campaign manager, which we use for running the games. (I know I just said I haven’t had my chance to DM yet, but I’ve had the chance to run my 4e delves based on classic 1st Edition adventures.) I’ve added several libraries for sourcebooks that aren’t part of the base Masterplan product because the author gave up on the project before those sourcebooks were released. At the moment, I’m adding the Dark Sun Creature Catalog library to it. By my count, there are 11 more publications I need to add to get the Masterplan files complete. That said, even when I do, I’ll still have to go back to the existing libraries to continue to clean them up. All my work is available here.

And Finally, My Point

When 5th Edition was announced, I had a conversation with a friend. We both agreed that 4e was ending too soon because there was too much we hadn’t yet done. As gamers plugged into organized play, we knew that we’d be moving on to the next system, and if we didn’t, we’d have no one with whom to play because we knew our gaming friends would be. As I mentioned, I’m currently entering creatures from the Dark Sun Creature Catalog into Masterplan. Despite having played in two 4e Dark Sun campaigns during the 4e days, I’m still running into monsters and other material that I’ve never even heard of, and it reminds me of the conversation. Note well that I never played 2nd Edition due to the Satanic Panic, so I imagine anyone that played it would at least have heard of those creatures, but a lot of this material is still new to me, and not just the Dark Sun material. There was just a ton of material that I never got to use. Some of my Shadowfell materials are among those still unopened.

If this sounds like I’m complaining, I’m really not. Despite WotC moving on from 4e relatively quickly, I still have a ton of material from which to draw. Guys like Rob Schwalb and Stephen Radney-McFarland had their dirty little hands all over that edition, so it’s no surprise that the things I’m discovering are really clever and interesting.

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Winter Fantasy 49 is in the Books #RPG #TTRPG #DnD #DDAL #WinterFantasy #nerd #4e #5e @baldmangames

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So, Winter Fantasy 49 is in the books. This is one of two vacations I take every year, and it’s probably the most fun. The nerds don’t see how that’s possible. I go to a gaming convention and play few (if any) games. This year, I had one game on the schedule, and it was canceled due to a car accident. (Everyone’s okay.) I didn’t put anything in its place. I don’t go to Winter Fantasy to game; I go to hang out with people and, for the only time of the year, drink like a fish. I probably had more to drink this week than I’ll have for the remainder of the year.

One more piece of flair for the den.

Good Habits

I’m a part of Winter Vantasy. In fact, I’m one of only two members that was there from the beginning. A bunch of people pile into a van and play D&D most of the way to Ft. Wayne. It’s the best 10 hours in gaming. We have certain rituals we follow, like lunch at Black Bear Burritos in Morgantown, WV, Sunday dinner at Portillo’s, and after hours drinking at the Brass Rail (best bar ever). It seems we add a new ritual to the trip every year.

Our new Monday-morning ritual.

Bad Habits

I also didn’t eat particularly well, but my blood pressure is still optimal, and I came home weighing what I weighed when I left. I believe I can credit that to the fact that I went to the gym all five mornings that I was in Ft. Wayne, including the morning we left. I’ve never done that before. Drinking and eating until late Sunday night and having to get up early the next morning to drive home, there’s very little chance of getting up early enough for the gym, but I did it.

The Downside

The only bad thing about the show this year is something that was beyond Baldman’s control. The convenient watering hole shut down and has yet to be replaced. That means that people are either reliant on hotel bars (which close early) or have to walk a few blocks in arctic weather to get to a good one. In gaming parlance, that means we “split the party,” which created a (not so) funny vibe, and combined with the lower attendance this year, meant that I didn’t see a bunch of my friends. The Baldman will try to make arrangements next year to create a good space for us to meet, and I have confidence he’ll succeed. Also, see What’s Next? below.

What Did I Do All Day?

I heard this question a lot. Almost 15 years ago (the days of 4th Edition D&D), I, and others, organized a convention, synDCon, and in our second year, I created synDClash, which were a set of six dungeon delves each based on a different classic 1st Edition adventure. The Saturday before Winter Fantasy, I ran a couple of them for my 4e group. They were a hit, and I suspect the group will play them again when we don’t have a quorum. This inspired me to write two more delves during my downtime in Ft. Wayne. I finished Tomoachan’s Treasure (based on C2: The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan) and finished two of the three encounters for White Plume Beckons (based on S2: White Plume Mountain). I’ll finish up White Plume Beckons today (EDIT: Done!), at which point I’ll have eight of them.

I love encounter #2 of Tomoachan’s Treasure.

I put in a couple twists to the two I wrote this week. For Tomoachan, I gave it a bit of a Raiders of the Lost Ark vibe. For White Plume, I allow the players to determine the order of the encounters and to gain use of the artifact they obtain. For those that metagame that decision, they may be a bit surprised.

I’m mulling about writing delves for B1: Into the Unknown (perhaps called, “You Still Don’t Know Shit!”) and S1: Tomb of Horrors (maybe adding a twelfth pre-gen named Lara Croft), but I’m not sure if those are well-suited as delves. I could imagine people might be interested in me creating them for the A series (i.e., the “slavers’ series”) and perhaps X1: Isle of the Dread, and I know one member of my 4e group that would be particularly interested in I3: Pharoah, but I never played any of those mods, so I’m not sure I could do them justice. The same with T1: The Village of Hommlet and U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. However, I enjoy the writing, so in time I might give at least some of them a shot.

What’s Next?

Next year, I may play a couple of games. Hell, I might even run one (based on a silly promise I made). Next year’s show will be #50, and they’re creating a new living campaign set in Greyhawk using 5th Edition D&D rules. I might as well give it a try even though I’m not much of a 5e guy. After all, I hate 3rd Edition, but I’ll play it with the right group of people. The thing about Winter Fantasy is, for lack of a better word, that it’s cozy. It’s small enough that you’ll always (except this year) see your friends, but it’s large enough that there’s a decent number of things to do and you’ll always make new friends. If you haven’t been to Winter Fantasy, next year may be the best year to attend. If so, I’ll see you there.

Next year’s show will be fun.

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Running my 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Delves #4e #1e #ADnD #DnD #RPG #TTRPG

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Last Saturday (February 1, 2025), to give myself some practice running 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons using the Masterplan software, I ran a couple of my synDClash delves. TL;DR: They were written for my convention, synDCon, as competitive, 4th edition delves. Five players playing one pre-generated character each goes through three combats, and whichever group of five players goes the farthest is the winner. My friend, Dusty, won, but I never got the prize to him (i.e., the set of five beholder mins). If I ever see him again, it’s his. But I digress . . . .

I think this is the one. I mention it only because my shame is my penance.

Each of the delves was based on classic 1st edition adventure module (what I always called a “mod,” which has strangely generated some grief on the internet). Why did I based them on 1e mods? Because I’m old. The mods were based on B2: The Keep on the Borderlands (easy), C2: The Ghost Tower of Inverness (moderate), G1-2-3: Against the Giants (moderate), D1-2-3: The Drow Series (difficult), S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (difficult), and Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits (impossibly difficult). I converted those delves into Masterplan project files, which can be found on my D&D 4e Resources page along with the pre-generated characters.

How It Went

In short, it went tremendously well. Everyone had a blast, and the software was smooth almost all the time. There were only two downsides. First, 4e is inherently slow, and despite delves being relatively fast, this particular group really likes to have side conversations. This meant that we got through only two: Return to the Borderlands (based on B2) and The Great Metal Dungeon (based on S3). Second, there was a clear error in my math for skill checks during the second encounter of The Great Metal Dungeon, which resulted in an unfair TPK. (Revisions have already been made but not yet uploaded.) The delve is labeled as “difficult,” but I assure you that those numbers were still unfair.

You know what I’m talking about.

But what this means is that there are still four more (plus perhaps a retry of The Great Metal Dungeon) available for my group to play during weekends on which we can’t get a quorum for our regular gaming.

New Delves?

Over on BlueSky, someone posted an image of his four copies of the original versions of C2: The Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan. That triggered a thought inside my soft human brain. If we get through these delves, I’m going to write at least two more based on Tomoachan and S2: White Plume Mountain. I don’t think there are any other mods that, though iconic, have much special meaning to me. Even Keep on the Borderlands didn’t, but I needed an easy one, I knew it was special to a lot of people, and I knew what the three best encounters to use would be. Perhaps I’ll convert S1: Tomb of Horrors as well considering that Wizards of the Coast already converted it to 4e, though that one would be hard to run as a delve. If so, for obvious reasons, I’d have to make it as impossibly difficult as The Demonweb Pits was. If I convert them, I’ll post the to my D&D 4e Resources page as Masterplan files.

I miss the days of 4e.

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Updates to My 4e D&D Resources Page #RPG #TTRPG #DnD #4e #synDCon #gaming

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FYI, I’ve updated my (modest) 4e resources page. It includes support for the Masterplan campaign manager. For those that don’t know, some guy (a pro software engineer) built a campaign manager for 4e and left it on GitHub for all to use. It’s a great tool. The glaring problem it has is that some of the monster files cause the application to crash if you try to open them. (A good example are several of the hobgoblin files from the Monster Manual.) Well, I’ve fixed a lot of those. I can’t say whether I’ve fixed even half of the issues, but I’ve made a ton of progress. I’ve also updated a lot of the stat blocks to Monster Manual 3 format. My edited libraries are available on that page.


In addition, I ran convention in 2010 and 2011 (synDCon), and one of the events I created was a dungeon delve we called synDClash. These were common in cons. All combat. Just try to finish three combat encounters in 45 minutes. Rather than have only one adventure that people would have to play over and over again, I created six, each based on a classic 1e adventure. (In hindsight, I wish I had added “Revisiting the Mountain” or whatever as a homage to S2: White Plume Mountain.) Those files are up there too as separate Masterplan projects.

In other words, there are project files and libraries available for download. Moreover, the character sheets — both the ones used for synDClash and the offline Character Builder versions I created over the past couple days — are linked to there. (Please let me know if the link to my dropbox file works.)

All of this is a work in progress. I’ll continue to create whatever fixes are necessary and update sourcebook stat blocks to Monster Manual 3 format, but if you’re running an in-person 4e game and weren’t aware of Masterplan, you should consider it for tracking initiative, etc. We use it with a big screen TV as our battle map. This was my goofy way of letting everyone know that the set up was ready for what was the upcoming session: Reveal.

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An Unexpected Supplement to My Stash of (A)D&D Material #DnD #TTRPG #RPG #WotC #1e #2e #3e #4e

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My return to 1st Edition AD&D (“1e“) is now two years strong, and now I’ve added a 4th Edition D&D (“4e“) game to my schedule. So, it was a nice surprise for my friend, Mike, to let me know that he was offloading his old school D&D material. Before you get too excited, he’s giving these materials only to people he knows well because we’re getting them on the honor system. The only cost is to make a (tax deductible) donation to a cat or dog charity that represents the approximate cost to buy them in the store or on eBay. Considering I’m going to get a cat in early April, that’s an easy ask of me.

So, what did I get? First up, the box sets and hard-covers.

Menzoberranzan box set, Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn box set, Greyhawk Adventures, Dragon Lance Adventures, the Scarlet Brotherhood, a reprint of the Second Edition Player’s Handbook, Oriental Adventures, and Dragon #56

In general, I never owned any of these in the day, and I bought the PDF of Oriental Adventures from the DMs Guild during my recent rebuy because the hard cover wasn’t on sale. I’m glad I now have a hard cover without paying through the nose for it. I’ve been intrigued by Star Frontiers based on the relatively recent chatter it’s generated — the less I say about that chatter, the better — so I picked it up out of curiosity. As for Dragon #56, I told Mike I wasn’t interested in any of the magazines except perhaps the one that has the 1e bard in it, redone as a character you can play at 1st level. Sure enough, he had that issue. Score!

Next up, some soft covers.

I was planning to buy the Book of Lairs and Book of Lairs II, so that makes this supplement all the sweeter. I never owned any of these materials either. Now for the minis.

Yeah, that’s quite the haul, ain’t it. Of particular interest . . .

I never owned this guy. In fact, I never knew it existed, and I was quite the mini collector during the 3rd Edition D&D and 4e days. Somehow this one escaped me. Right now, the cheapest I see it on sale is $20 + about $6 shipping, so this one will set me back a bit.

These are just a few of the minis that I’ve never owned.

These are a few of the minis that I own but could always use more of. My players may not appreciate multiple Balors on the field of battle, but them’s the breaks.

One of my Living Forgotten Realms characters had a giant owl, so I was a bit disturbed when the stand for that mini broke. No amount of crazy glue could fix it. Now, I’ve replaced it. I think I took the second one out of some sort of cosmic spite.

Importantly, I have every intention of using these goodies in my 1e and 4e games, so this is quite the haul.

Some animal shelter is going to be very happy very soon.

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Yet Another Supplement to My Stash of D&D Material @luddite_vic @serpentineowl #DnD #TTRPG #RPG #WotC #1e #3e #4e

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A while back, I told you I was preparing for a return to 1st Edition AD&D, and to do so, I had to update my stash of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“1e“) materials. Fast forward a couple of years. I’ve been running a 1e game for the first time in 40 years, and the only addition I had to make to my stash was the Egg of the Phoenix. Now, I’m less than 24 hours away from hosting a 4th Edition (“4e“) game (alternating DM duties with Luddite Vic), finally finishing my unfinished business, but I already have all the 4e stuff I could even need.

On a related note . . . .

Even though I can no longer stand 3rd Edition (“3e“), there were some books that were fantastic that I wish I had never sold. Serpentine Owl, who’ll be playing in the upcoming 4e game, gave me the reprint of Deities & Demigods (in perfect condition with the 3.5e conversion in the back); Erik (who left Twitter/X) gave me Hordes of the Abyss and Tyrants of the Nine Hells (both also in perfect condition); and then Jason (on Twitter/X but doesn’t appear to use it) gave me the Book of Vile Darkness (in pretty good condition). If I had gone through eBay, I would have paid almost as much for those four books as I did for all the 1e reprints I bought combined, but I got them all free.

If you click through the Book of Vile Darkness link, you won’t be able to view it without logging in and removing filters for adult content.

<gears turning>

So, after mulling it over, I realized, “The universe has provided so much in this regard, I think I can justify doing something stupid, especially something that isn’t too stupid.” I went to eBay and purchased the mediocre-at-best Book of Exalted Deeds just to have a match to the Book of Vile Darkness. I don’t know if I’ll ever use the material, but it’s nice to have that matched set, and I didn’t have to pay anywhere near USD$100 to get it. Now, I think my stash is complete, but who knows what I’ll be writing in a year?

Once again, I have zero regrets.

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An Overdue Update to My Dungeon Crawl System for Which No One Asked #4e #DnD #TTRPG #RPG #DCS @Luddite_Vic

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My buddy, Vic, and I are getting ready to share dungeon master responsibilities on a new 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“4e”) campaign set in a game world of our own creation. The subject of my Dungeon Crawl System (“DCS”) came up, and it had me thinking about a change I should have made to it back when people were playing 4e en masse.

For context, the DCS is a method of 4e encounter design that speeds up 4e’s notoriously slow combats and eliminates the need for the so-called “15-minute adventuring day.” The PDF can be found here.

There are two things you need to know to understand the change. First, in the DCS, NPCs were granted a +10 environment bonus to initiative assuring they’d almost always go first, and when they didn’t, the result would feel remarkably satisfying for the players. Second, there was a flaw in 4e’s math that didn’t manifest for most games because epic-level play was relatively rare. NPCs didn’t keep pace with PCs, such that by the time you reached epic level, the PCs were walking through NPCs as if they weren’t even there.

This, of course, assumes that you built your epic encounters as instructed. Sly Flourish provided some excellent (and free) advice on how to design your encounters so that they could keep pace with the PCs’ power curve. The short answer was cheat. Pull out all sorts of terrain, traps, and other tricks. “Gone are the days where monsters out of the book could threaten PCs.” If you’re completely unfair, the end result will be a reasonable challenge for the PCs. The long answer provides far more precise science than that.

The fact that the NPCs couldn’t keep pace with the PCs detracted from the game as written, but it fit nicely with my DCS. To put a point on it, epic level 4e as written in the sourcebooks was the DCS. Build encounters as written, don’t allow short rests more often than every other encounter, and epic level was fast and furious and reasonably balanced.

The Change

Put another way, as the PCs approach epic level, there’s less of a need for the DCS. 4e itself slowly morphs into the DCS, so the DCS needs to slowly eliminate itself. There was one easy way to do that requiring an insignificant conceptual leap.

For the NPCs’ environment bonus to initiative, the bonus shouldn’t be a flat +10. Instead, use this formula: ((30-[PC level])/3)+1 always rounding down. In Excel, use column A to list the levels from 1 to 30, then populate column B with =MAXA((ROUNDDOWN((30-A#)/3,0)+1),0), where A# is a placeholder for cells A1, A2, A3, etc. In English, it’s this: For levels 1-3, the bonus is +10; levels 4-6, it’s +9; 7-0, it’s +8; etc. Each set of three continuous levels has the same bonus, and it’s one less than the previous (i.e., lower) set of three levels. For those who work best with charts, it’s this:

LevelBonus
1-3+10
4-6+9
7-9+8
10-12+7
13-15+6
16-18+5
19-21+4
22-24+3
25-27+2
28-30+1

This creates enough of an improvement that no further tweaks are strictly necessary. So, as for the rest of the numbers, until you hear otherwise, use my system as written for levels 1-20, but when you hit 21st level, build encounters the way the Dungeon Master’s Guide instructs you. That’s probably precise enough because, if you’ve bought in to running the game, you’re already committed to the notion that you’re bound to tweak your encounters anyway. My system’s precision is close enough for dungeon master work, even at high paragon and epic.

I will definitely be using this system quite a bit when I running this campaign.

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The Mythology of Baledaar #4e #DnD #TTRPG #RPG #MythologyMonday #MythologyMonandæg #folklore #baledaar @Luddite_Vic

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My buddy, Vic, and I are starting a new 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“4e”) campaign for which we’ll be alternating as dungeon masters. The campaign will be set in a game world of our own creation called Baledaar (BA-leh-dar). I spent all weekend entering the cosmology into Masterplan. Doing so required that I fill in some (not all) of the gaps in our, well, master plan for the campaign setting. I’m really happy about where were taking this.

We created several Twitter/X handles for many of the deities and locations of the campaign world. To keep them active, I posted some goofy, soap opera-like back and forth, but going forward, a lot of the tweets/exes(?) will represent updates for the progress, as well as some in-character interaction that isn’t necessarily as goofy. The idea will be to give people a feel for the setting elements in case we ever publish it.

In light of the direction in which Elon is going, I’ll probably create a few of these on Mastodon as well.

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A Funny Story from Origins 2009 #DnD #4e #RPG #TTRPG #Origins @originsgames @baldmangames

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As promised yesterday, here’s a funny story from my only other Origins trip in 2009.

Something I didn’t mention in the video: I remember clearly that the swag I received for working the convention included the newly released Eberron Player’s Guide for 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. It wasn’t a complete stretch to think that Keith would have been there, but sitting down at a Living Forgotten Realms table to play an ordinary game was a bit of a stretch.

I saw Keith Baker hanging out with Luke Gygax at a bar at Origins last weekend, but I wasn’t going to interrupt them with this story about a guy he didn’t know (Steve) being told by another guy (me) he didn’t know for an incident in which he played no part.

But I hope Steve sees and remembers this.

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Dungeons & Dragon’s (and My 1st Edition) Treatment of Medusae #ADnD #1e #3e #4e #DnD #RPG #TTRPG #Medusa #Greek #mythology

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One of my favorite villains is fantasy roleplaying is Medusa. In Dungeons & Dragons (“D&D”), that’s a species of creature. In Greek mythology, that’s the name of one of three of her kind, known as Gorgons. Most of you know this, but for those that don’t, here’s one of many videos on them. While I respect the work game designers do, I’m always going to prefer mythological creatures to those game designers invent. Mythology got me into D&D, not the other way around.

3.5 Edition D&D

I love the way D&D has treated medusae generally. I vaguely remember an article in Dragon Magazine during the 3.5 Edition D&D (“3.5e”) days with a writeup on their ecology, which included their male counterparts, the maedar. I never got to use that article because it came towards the end of 3.5e, and I was so caught up in running Living Forgotten Realms and other canned adventures that I didn’t write much of my own material. I always wanted to write a medusa as a BBEG.

4th Edition D&D

In 4th Edition D&D (“4e”), I loved how 4e’s game mechanic was applied to the medusa’s petrifying gaze attack. In 4e, save or die was jettisoned and replaced by what you could call “save thrice in a row or die.” That is, you got three saves over three turns before you were killed, dominated, or whatever. If you saved successfully once during that run, you shook off the effects (though relatively rarely, you still might be subject to an aftereffect on a successful save). This worked really well with the medusa because each failed save during that three-round process resulted in increasingly bad effects. That is, on the first failed save, you were slowed (i.e., speed cut in half). On the second, you were immobilized (i.e., speed of 0). On the third failed save, you were petrified. This gives the player a means to immerse oneself in the action, as the cascade of worsening effects can give you the feeling of slowly turning to stone. (FYI, medusae weren’t the only creature to use this cascade.)

1st Edition D&D

I’m running 1st Edition D&D (“1e”) for the first time in 40 years, so I had forgotten quite a bit. There are a couple of things about medusae that I relearned. First, their gaze attack targets a single creature, whereas in later editions it attacks multiple targets. Second, the gaze is active, not passive. That is, a character merely gazing upon a medusa doesn’t harm the character; the medusa has to intend to petrify the opponent. (See Monster Manual II, page 55 for more information.) While these represent a break from mythology, as you’ll see, they worked to my advantage. One other thing to note is that I house ruled petrification to use the 4e system of slow progression to being petrified.

B2: The Keep on the Borderlands

Going into last session, my group and I knew that we had reached the end of the adventure. So, I told them that I’d be railroading them a little bit to make sure we wrapped things up and that a particular encounter occurred. That encounter was with spoiler alert! a medusa – I named her Xisper – who was captured by inhabitants of the Caves of Chaos and chained to a wall. She used her gaze attack against one PC, but he saved successfully. Some of the PCs held true to their good alignment and refused to allow anyone to kill her but indicated that they’d leave her to her fate, so Xisper immediately went into negotiation mode. Long story short, that negotiation led to them freeing her to clear out the gnoll infestation (the one area the PCs never addressed) and gave me the perfect recurring NPC to bring back at a later date. She’s undoubtably evil, but alignment in my game world is always more complicated than the books present, so she could still be of use to them, and them to her. This is even better than a BBEG.

Xisper will return.

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