A Life Full of Adventure

I love the D&D 2e Monstrous Manual and Monstrous Compendium Annuals. They are such a ground for inspiration. I recently realized my collection was missing the print versions of the Annuals, so I started ordering the least expensive ones from Amazon. Compendium Annual Volume One arrived recently, and I thumbed through it to reacquaint myself with some of the monsters. There weren't really any for my Warhammer South Lands games, set in the Spears of the Dawn setting. Here's the closest thing to something I might use: Stone Snake: I'm always looking for a little variation that fits the Warhammer setting. (Copyright WotC) Snake, Giant Cobra : Giant varieties of creatures are great, too! (Copyright WotC) Ormyrr: Fit the snake profile and add a little variety. (Copyright WotC) Ophidian:  Yet another snake creature. (Copyright WotC) Naga, Bone: Can't forget about the skeleton version of some of these. (Copyright WotC) ...

I would definitely agree with this assessment. Q: What are the two most important concepts in the D&D game? A: The most important concept in the game is player choice. In order to give players the most fun in the game, they must be able to make choices that will make a definite difference in the fates of their characters. The second most important concept is that actions have consequences. Player decisions will lead to further campaign developments. --Jon Pickens et al., "Dispel Confusion" column, Polyhedron #13

I love the D&D 2e Monstrous Manual and Monstrous Compendium Annuals. They are such a ground for inspiration. I recently realized my collection was missing the print versions of the Annuals, so I started ordering the least expensive ones from Amazon. Compendium Annual Volume Four arrived recently, and I thumbed through it to reacquaint myself with some of the monsters. There weren't really any for my Warhammer South Lands games, set in the Spears of the Dawn setting. Here's the closest thing to something I might use: Human, Pygmy:  Small humans who live in the deepest jungles. (Copyright WotC)

The sweat of Grungni is a very rare magical liquid collected in small vials. One drop of the potent sweat collected from the dwarven ancestor is enough to completely heal a dwarf of any and all wounds, fatigue, and insanity.

I love the D&D 2e Monstrous Manual and Monstrous Compendium Annuals. They are such a ground for inspiration. I recently realized my collection was missing the print versions of the Annuals, so I started ordering the least expensive ones from Amazon. Compendium Annual Volume Three arrived recently, and I thumbed through it to reacquaint myself with some of the monsters. I was excited to find some that will fit perfectly in my Warhammer South Lands games, set in the Spears of the Dawn setting. There weren't many, but I like to mark them down to remind myself later. Firenewt: Distant relatives of lizardmen that roam hot regions. (Copyright WotC) Cildabrin: A mixture of spider and scorpion. (Copyright WotC)

Greg Christopher, author of Ambition & Avarice , posted these tips on Google+ yesterday. I thought I would share. It helps for those who might be stuck in a combat rut. Read on and open your imagination: This was asked in the Ambitions & Avarice community, but I thought I would share publicly because it says a lot about how people think. It was brought up by [Jim]. Jim noticed that since my monster model also incorporates a very low rate of attack bonus progression, a PC in heavy armor would be very formidable. If your troll (you are running the game) has no attack bonus and the knight has an AC of 22, you are going to be flailing and doing nothing, right? A lot of times in traditional RPGs, we think of combat as people standing next to each other just bashing away. That's why this seems to be a problem. And I'm not picking on Jim here, TONS of gamers think this way. But in the A&A rules, you can initiate a grapple with a touch attack. So that knight wit...

The Doomstones campaign is a Warhammer-ized version of a high-fantasy "seek the artifacts of power" type game. It's not a campaign that I think fits particularly well into the Warhammer mythos, but when it was release there wasn't much of a Warhammer mythos to constrain it. The campaign begins with 2nd to 3rd career PCs in a remote area of the Border Princes. Most Warhammer adventures take place within the Empire. A fan (or someone) decided that there needed to be an adventure that bridged the gap between where a group of established players might start out in the Empire to where the Doomstones take place in the Border Princes. Thus Crossing the Border was born. Since I really want to run the Doomstones campaign at a couple local gaming conventions, I thought I'd playtest this Crossing the Border and see what we thought. Here are those thoughts: The adventure is far too easy for 3rd career characters. Basic-level bandits and orcs, while potentially deadly,...