D&D 4E Rambling thoughts about D&D 4th Edition

[cavalier973]

Glancing through issues of 4e-era “Dragon” magazine, I see in issue #374, p. 53, the introduction of the Prince of Frost, and it reminds me of the “Cold Prince” in Dolmenwood.

 

[Randomthoughts]

I wish I had a printed copy of Keep on the Shadowfell. Oh, look! There’s one on Amazon for $36! There is also one available for $126.

The DMG is one of my favorite D&D books of any edition.

PHB2 was a travesty.

More rambling thoughts:

I had downloaded all the Dungeons and Dragons magazines before DDI expired...but they're on an old laptop that I'm currently not able to get into...and forgot to back them up

I liked all the DMGs including the Essentials version, though admittedly, I didn't read through the entire thing. My favorite 4e book though is the Rules Compendium. I remember just bringing my adventure notes, PC sheets (since I managed them for my players) and the Rules Compendium to my games. Oh and the MM3 Math on a Business Card

 

[cavalier973]

More rambling thoughts:

I had downloaded all the Dungeons and Dragons magazines before DDI expired...but they're on an old laptop that I'm currently not able to get into...and forgot to back them up

I liked all the DMGs including the Essentials version, though admittedly, I didn't read through the entire thing. My favorite 4e book though is the Rules Compendium. I remember just bringing my adventure notes, PC sheets (since I managed them for my players) and the Rules Compendium to my games. Oh and the MM3 Math on a Business Card

Oh, that is a shame, about the inaccessible files. Trying to figure out how to recover them would drive me to distraction.

Maybe someone can do a list of the top recommended issues of both Dungeon and Dragon, as a help to anyone considering purchasing from dmsguild

I know I started a thread somewhere, listing each adventure in Dungeon, including each adventure’s level and a brief synopsis. I think I got through maybe three issues before letting the project lapse. I should pick that up again.

 

[nevin]

More rambling thoughts:

I had downloaded all the Dungeons and Dragons magazines before DDI expired...but they're on an old laptop that I'm currently not able to get into...and forgot to back them up

I liked all the DMGs including the Essentials version, though admittedly, I didn't read through the entire thing. My favorite 4e book though is the Rules Compendium. I remember just bringing my adventure notes, PC sheets (since I managed them for my players) and the Rules Compendium to my games. Oh and the MM3 Math on a Business Card

if it's just an old password thing try hirens boot media usb or cd. A lot of them are on the internet archive as well

 

[Joshua Randall]

A rule I think is easy to miss is the limit on magic item daily power use. If a heroic tier adventurer has a magic sword with a daily power, and a magic shield that also has a daily power, the adventurer can only use one or the other each day.

It’s a janky un-fun rule though.
also you get an additional daily item power use per milestone, if you care.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Dungeon magazine - Canonfire has an index, Canonfire!

Dragon - the FR fan wiki lists them all but you have to click each one to see its contents. Dragon (magazine)

(and yes there are not legal places to get more than just listings, which I’m not going to mention)

 

[cavalier973]

I was perusing issues of Dragon magazine, and saw, in issue #382, a solo adventure for a PC and the goblin Splug.
Reference was made to a “D&D Test Drive”, with a hyperlink that no longer works. I didn’t remember the D&D Test Drive, and my initial thought was it was something to do with “D&D Next”, but this issue came out in 2009, which was earlier than the D&D Next play test.

I did a quick search, and found this: Wizards launches D&D 4E Test Drive - Nuketown

So, the test drive is, in a way, still available, because it consisted of the Quick Start Rules and pregen characters, the adventure “Keep on the Shadowfell”, and the “free” version of the character builder (which only went to third level). The character builder is no longer available, but the other items are, at no cost, on dmsguild.

Dungeon Masters Guild - 4th Edition -

www.dmsguild.com

 

[cavalier973]

Dragon #410 has a page with a dragon that one can cut out, fold, and glue together.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Dragon #410 has a page with a dragon that one can cut out, fold, and glue together.

There was an old issue of the print magazine with a cardboard insert dragon you cut out, which I always assumed was the homage being made.

The old cardboard dragon had snarky AD&D monster manual stats like Special Attack: paper cut and Alignment: fine as long as you don’t put the wings on upside down.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A rule I think is easy to miss is the limit on magic item daily power use. If a heroic tier adventurer has a magic sword with a daily power, and a magic shield that also has a daily power, the adventurer can only use one or the other each day.

You gain an additional item daily use at each milestone, so you could use both on any adventuring day in which you had at least two meaningful encounters (and/or Skill Challenges). You also started with 2 uses at Paragon and 3 at Epic. So, you'd generally be able to use significant item dailies on most items you'd accumulated. (It did prevent you from stocking up on copies of cheap lower-level items and constantly using the same item-daily-centered combo, tho)

Milestones were a pretty neat little rule, as they gave players some resources that built up over the day - item daily uses, action points, improved item powers - and mitigated D&D's otherwise overwhelming tendency towards the infamous 15 min workday. Would've been nice if more had been done with them.

(of course, instead of doing more with milestones, Essentials replaced item daily limits with an arbitrary system of Rarity, that greatly reduced what PCs could make/buy by making most items "uncommon," added 'Rare' often OP items in MME, and generally pushed back in the direction of magic items as a way for DMs to re-shape PCs - often so as to help underpowered classes, which Essentials also restored, so there's that)