June 2013 This article was originally published in & Magazine, Issue 1 in May 2012. Written by Bryan Fazekas. A common lament among Dungeon Masters (DMs) is the difficulty of keeping low level parties alive. Some DMs seem to kill off party after party, which can dampen the fun for both the DM and the players. There are three questions to answer: Why keep the
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Extendable Rules for Turning Undead July 8, 2021
October 2006 This article was written in December 2005, formalizing ideas I had used many moons ago. Originally published in Footprints, published by Dragonsfoot, I'm republishing it here in HTML format. Copyright 1990, 2005-2006, 2011-2014 by Bryan Fazekas, all rights reserved. This document may not be published or reproduced in any fashion except with explicit permission of the author. March 2011 Due to a question
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Revised Saving Throw Matrix July 8, 2021
In Dragon Magazine #80 in the column Leomund's Tiny Hut Lenard Lakofka published a revised saving throws table that smoothed out the incremental changes by level, e.g., instead of the Magic User changing saving throws every 4 levels, slight changes were made more often. Upon reading Lenard's article I immediately adopted his version of this table into my campaigns. I've reproduced the table on this
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Revised Combat Matrix July 8, 2021
This page contains a revised Combat Matrix for all levels and hit dice of characters and monsters. The Combat Matrix presented here is reproduced from an article published by Lenard Lakofka in Dragon Magazine #80. Lenard's article was on the "5% Rule" which evened the attack tables out and made the progression more even. I made no contribution to his effort other than re-typing the
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Paquin Crii July 8, 2021
June 2013 I originally named this wonderfully useful NPC "Panamon Creel", after the character from Terry Brook's novel The Sword of Shannara. For publication in & Magazine, Issue 4 in February 2013, I changed the name to avoid copyright infringement. This article is published here in its published format. Paquin Crii History Paquin Crii was born in the year 7866 ASNK in the city/state of Refuge,
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D&D Survival Tips July 8, 2021
In February & March of 2009 a couple of threads started in the Dragonsfoot forums, where people offered survival tips for the dungeon and wilderness. Some of the tips were serious, some less so ... some VERY much less so. I took the action to compile the two lists, which I organized into one and republished in the forums. A few days later I decided
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Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar – Spore Spitter May 8, 2021
This was another of my brother's monsters from our first campaigns. I re-created it from memory and updated it according to my current prejudices. The Spore Spitter was published in & Magazine, Issue 8, and this short fiction was included in the article. The Spore Spitter description is here. The woman found her elderly husband where she expected to find him, sitting in
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Marissa, Trajan, and Etjar – Anyuri May 8, 2021
I'm not sure what inspired creating the Anyuri, but it's a great foil for lower level parties in a high magic campaign. Trajan sat in Jannalanga's tavern in Kerr with his wife, both sipping mulled wine from heavy mugs that preserved the heat. Hal had finished a fantastic tale of how he survived an encounter with a pack of shape shifting beasts, creatures
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Other Characters – Weapon of Change May 7, 2021
The characters in these pastiches are made up as single-use characters. While it's possible I might re-use any of them at some point, I rather doubt it. When dreaming up this one I could not fit any of my existing characters into the framework I needed to explain how a Weapon of Change works. I needed someone bright and someone with no knowledge, but none
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Council of Rendelshod – Greymen May 7, 2021
The Council of Rendelshod was composed of the characters from my original campaign, with my co-DM (my brother Kevin). While that campaign ended in 1986 (or so) the characters live on in my campaign world. Some of the characters – including Thorin, Meselda, Baldor, Susafras, Paprazzi, Edine, and Fay – are characters from the original campaign. Others, such as Kortag, were added to my own
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