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Essentials in Character Builder? I tried building my first Essentials character in Character Builder, a clone of my son's Dragonborn Fighter, to get a feel for what I could do. I liked the Fighter/Knight setup, but I was surprised that it seemingly only let me choose Essentials feats and...

The one difference I remember is the addition of Kalarel's "shadow" in one encounter. I thought that was a nice touch, so I added it to a number of encounters, increasing the exposure to the big-bad-guy before the final encounter. I made a bunch of changes to the adventure plot-wise, which...

We finally completed this Lair Assault on the third attempt. The second encounter is where we get bogged down, largely due to the dazing from the Dark Mantles. On the first two attempts, only two PCs made it out of that encounter. On our third attempt, we did teleport into the better...

Lair Assault: Spider Killer There doesn't seem to be a Lair Assault: Spider Killer thread yet, so here we go... This post is spoiler-free, but I imagine that the rest of the thread will not be. Our group has played it twice so far, and failed both times, though we have gotten two characters...

There's always Tomb of Horrors, namely the short translation of the old adventure that was the DM Reward about 2 years ago. Of course, if you play that at 9th level, the characters won't survive until 10th.

I don't know how it's written, but what I remember from our only encounter with BFD Hyacinth is that only the bloodied dinos ran away. But I might be mis-remembering.

While those are the rules as written, I think that looking at the flavor text is important. For example, something like a Thunderstone (or other explosion-based powers) is an explosion that pushes from a target square. That could be thrown into an area where you have neither line of effect nor...

For me, it would depend on the flavor text (even though it is not part of the "rules", I do sometimes have the players read the flavor text to help decide if they can do something unexpected with a power). If it was like a Storm Warden's slide, which would be based on wind and thunderclaps...

The way I think of that isn't that you're any stronger or tougher, but more skilled as a natural part of training. For example, I would expect that a karate black belt could break through a 2"x4" MUCH easier than a novice. Same thinking goes with hit points, though realistically, I wouldn't...

If the player wants to be in the thick of it, then they should pick an appropriate character, but the OP doesn't mention what they were picking. Perhaps an Earth Warden, along with a race of Dwarf, Goliath, or Warforged due to their racial powers.

Being prone with a ranged "gun-like" weapon gives +2 to hit -- think sniper. So, you'd get a +2 with a crossbow while prone, but -2 with a bow.

With respect to the Pixie Music Box... If I were DMing, I would point out that the text of the item implies that the item is to keep away wandering critters. It would thus not affect critters that are controlled by others (namely the riders and other orcs) and it would not affect those that...

To further optimize for this Lair Assault, I'm thinking of giving my Storm Warden a Mark of Warding ("Whenever one of your powers grants a bonus to a defense, increase that bonus by 1.") (It also specifically makes the mark penalty -3.) Clearly, it would come in use with Form of Mountain's...

Our second attempt went better, all but winning in the 6th round. We had the T-Rex down to 50 HPs with 3 PCs (barbarian, warden, ranger) left, but ran over on time, hitting 5 hours. We didn't do that much different from the first time, but we did have a cleric this time, which helped keep the...

Ah, we didn't do that (didn't even think of it), so I slid the two riders and two mounts, but didn't have the riders become prone when the slides in different directions dismounted them. It actually seems like they should get the fall-or-prone saving throw. I'll try look that up. We totally...

Our first dino-venture went pretty well, but we did ultimately lose. I think only one of us got bloodied. But there was sure a lot of work for the DM with all those dinos and orcs running around! One thing that went well for us was a Ranger who used Stalker's Mist to obscure the squares...

About a year and a half back (summer 2010), I had a TPK while DMing Encounters. I don't remember it too well, but I remember it was a room with torches along the walls and some sort of burrowing creatures that did some sort of nasty burst damage. (Anyone remember the details of that...

There were two incidents in our run through "Keep on the Shadowfell" that are memorable. When first approaching Irontooth's lair, the party wanted to take him by surprise (they had spied a kobold enter through the watherfall). The Half-Orc Barbarian picked up the Halfling Rogue and threw him...

Without a doubt, my # 1 would be S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, wherein our intrepid adventurers come upon a crashed spaceship full of robots, genetic experiments, and futuristic technology. It's a great module because it inspires some role playing due to the technology thrust into the...

I hope to inspire a new end-of-year tradition: Crit-mas! Show your appreciation of your DM(s) and buy them a gift certificate at your Friendly Local Game Store!