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Just for you, I will make a chart that shows who teaches each spell on the College Arcane paths in book 1. I have delved deep into the bowels of the first book and emerged with the following data. CantripsSectionInstructorNotes Exterminate201Arno Tweak29Arno Coughn/an/aon bookmark but...

Encounter 6 of CORE 1-1 is the first combat encounter. This encounter is worth unpacking in detail because it's super ambitious and impressive for one of the earliest fan-written 4e adventures. The combat takes place as the PCs traverse a trapped corridor within the ruined location en route to...

It would clear up why Landor lived in Saven, yet built his academy in Freeton — if those are the same place, the “yet” disappears. It would clear up why Carr vaguely remembers Beldon from visiting him one time in Saven. (I may not have quoted this from book 1, but it’s a thing.) It would clear...

You hit the nail on the head, Hussar. It’s been 16 years of arguments in bad faith by people who had clearly never read the material and had no interest in doing so. And when you called them on their crap, you’d get told to chill out man it’s just a game. Maddening.

Commentary: I actually do really like this plot dump, which does a great job of unloading a bunch of Capitalized Nouns that hint at a much more deep, rich, and expansive world than what we experienced in the previous book. There are paladins guarding monsters in swamps! Demons being summoned...

68 Thayne explains that after Beldon bit it, everyone hoped that Haslum would take over the academy — Haslum being the Keeper of Scrolls and archivist. [No, you're not senile: there is nothing in book 1 about Haslum as a character nor about Keeper of Scrolls as a bureaucratic position within...

It explains how we can keep going even after all those Your Quest Ends Here sections! The cliché is that the bookish apprentice is so engrossed in his studies that he forgets to eat. And, IRL, I did have one super, super, super smart friend who was like this. His parents literally had to...

On a related note, and to make good on a promise I made earlier in the thread, I present the following. Which will eventually showcase some truly spectacular 4e set-piece encounters (assuming I don't get my stupid self banned before then)...

The very first Living Forgotten Realms adventure was the Weekend in the Realms kickoff WEEK1-1, run at our store in October 2008. (Along with WEEK1-2 and WEEK1-3 because it was a triple-length adventure!) And… I don't have access to that file. It's not on the LFR adventures website and even if...

Learning from LFR: Encounter and Monster Examples to Steal for Your Game There is much to learn from the Living Forgotten Realms (LFR) Organized Play adventures which were published over the lifespan of 4e D&D (2008-2014). My goal is to crack open some LFR adventures and to scrutinize...

Thayne wears "supple russet doeskin" and has the "sinewy and hard" arms of "a fighter as well as a woodland sorcerer." According to this book's introduction, Thayne is a "ranger-wizard". That is not a valid multi-class combination per the AD&D PH (pp. 32-33). The closest valid combination is...

46 The torches are lit in Wealwood by the time we arrive at the sacred grove. Most of the permanent residents are "ill and kinless Kandians" who are recuperating here until they are healed or settled. It is in this "beautiful" refugee camp [oxymoron alert] that our father Landor lived and...

Sure, I have opinions about 2e and 5e that are... not positive. But I don't trot out tired old dog-whistle markers of the (very old) / (very new) edition wars about those editions, just to be edgy or whatever. "4e was like a video game hurr durr guys!" is just weaksauce.

Except 4e because f--k those guys, amirite? Oh geez, not you too, Chris Perkins. Edition warrior badge earned. I am so, so disappointed by this video. One of my heroes with feet of clay revealed.

Commentary: "Mignam flerol, lursip gravdam," Dalris says in the "spell language of the aboriginal Kandian druids." The words of Dalris's Entangle spell are a neat touch. Some spells' verbal components are phrases in Common (well, English in my version of the gamebook), some are recognizable...

19, redux [to refresh your memory after my long digression into gamebook mechanics] The manticore thrashes its tail which is so powerfully muscled that it lifts us off the ground as we try to hang on. Make a DEX test! (36) if 18 or more; (7) if less than 18. --- 36 We roll 1 & 6, add this...

Are you sure about that? Because I honestly am not so sure these (formerly?) broadly known facts about D&D-ized terms that are also real-world terms -- are so broadly known. If they ever were. Particularly once we get away from a term like ghoul which, almost regardless of culture/myth/story...

Is that pronounced DED-ruh, DAY-druh, or DEE-mon?

Interlude -- Character Creation Or, "Establishing Your Character" as the gamebook titles that section. YOUR Carr Delling will be different from someone else's because YOU help to create him. Each gamebook comes with a tear-out bookmark-slash-character-sheet. Unfortunately, 13-year-old Joshua...