Tag Archives: dungeons and dragons

Works in progress (Dungeons & Dragons)

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Picture taken by Krystalle during one of our recent games

Editor’s Note – The following 2000+ word post is not going to be of any interest to you at all unless you’re into tabletop role-playing games (and even then you may not care if you aren’t playing Dungeons and Dragons). I give this warning in advance to spare your precious time.

If you follow my Twitter or Facebook feeds you’re probably aware that, over the last few months, some friends of mine and I have been regularly playing Fourth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. It has been a great deal of fun on many levels. Not only am I gaming again on a regular basis (a pastime that has played an integral role in my life since I was in my early teens), but I’m doing so with my family. Finding activities that all of us enjoy can be a bit of a challenge, and the fact role-playing fell into this category just makes it all the more awesome.

The more time I spend gaming these days, the more I realize that during the years where I spent most of my free time playing games like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft I was really just trying to fill the tabletop RPG void in my life. Now that I am tabletop gaming again on a regular basis I realize that it was a less-than-fulfilling replacement. As much fun as I had playing MMORPG’s (and let’s be clear – I DID have a lot of fun), there just isn’t anything quite like making up your OWN stories and having adventures that aren’t pre-determined by a set of programmers. The exhilaration of defeating an epic monster in a scripted encounter is nothing compared to the joy of defeating a party of kobolds while sitting around a table with your friends making Monty Python jokes.

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Rules question – #dnd

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I probably would have just asked this question via twitter but it’s a bit long for that.

I’m confused about dying in fourth edition.  Specifically, I am unsure of how the Heal skill works in relation to it. I’m going to quote a few rules and then my interpretation of them to see if you all agree.

Ok, first we have the definition of dying in 4e:

• You’re unconscious.
• You’re at 0 or negative hit points.
• You make a death saving throw every round.

Here are the rules on Healing the Dying:

When you are dying, any healing restores you to at least 1 hit point. If someone has stabilized you using the Heal skill but you receive no healing, you regain hit points after an extended rest.

HEALING A DYING CHARACTER

Regain Hit Points: When you are dying and receive healing, you go to 0 hit points and then regain hit points from the healing effect. If the healing effect requires you to spend a healing surge but you have none left, you are restored to 1 hit point.

Become Conscious: As soon as you have a current hit point total that’s higher than 0, you become conscious and are no longer dying. (You are still prone until you take an action to stand up.)

And here are the rules on the Heal Skill (specifically First Aid):

Make a Heal check to administer first aid.

First Aid: Standard action.
DC: Varies depending on the task you’re attempting.
Use Second Wind: Make a DC 10 Heal check to allow an adjacent character to use his or her second wind without the character having to take an action to do so. The character doesn’t gain the defense bonuses normally granted by second wind.
Stabilize the Dying: Make a DC 15 Heal check to stabilize an adjacent dying character. If you succeed, the character can stop making death saving throws until he or she takes damage. The character’s current hit point total doesn’t change as a result of being stabilized.
Grant a Saving Throw: Make a DC 15 Heal check. If you succeed, an adjacent ally can immediately make a saving throw, or the ally gets a +2 bonus to a saving throw at the end of his or her next turn.

Here is my question…

If  a character is dying but has not used his Second Wind in that encounter the character attempting First Aid can opt to go for the easier DC 10 Heal check.  This would restore the dying character to a number of hit points equal to their Healing Surge amount and burn one of their healing surges.  If they have no healing surges left it would restore them to 1 HP.  If the dying character has already used their Second Wind for the encounter all that can be done for them is a stabilization check.

Am I interpreting that correctly?

Five tips to make game night healthier

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Food! On a Table!

That's a great spread, Mike, but where are we going to put the battle mat? Image courtesy of kweezy mcg

There’s a video out there by a group of comedians known as the Dead Alewives that wonderfully captures my early memories of playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends in my teen years. You probably know the video I’m talking about.  It’s the one that has the line about casting Magic Missile at the darkness. A line that makes my friends and I giggle and repeat the phrase in that voice every time we hear the words “Magic Missile.” ( So much so that Krystalle almost refused to use that spell entirely unless we let her rename it for her character – but I digress.) If you’ve ever played a tabletop RPG you’re likely to find something in that sketch that resonates with your memories of game night, up to and including the iconic “Where are the Cheetos?’ and “Can I have a Mountain Dew?”

Snacking and gaming go hand-in-hand. So much so that the 4th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide mentions the importance of snacks in several places (and stresses that one of the benefits of being the DM is that YOU shouldn’t have to pay for them). The problem is that, as a general rule, the snacks that we commonly associate with game night aren’t really the kind of things you want to eat if you’re trying to be healthy. I love Doritos and Jolt Cola as much as the next gamer, but the hundreds of all night sessions that were fueled by those kind of foods when I was a kid were contributors to the fact that I was over 400 pounds by the time I was 28 years old.

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