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Featured Video

In my ongoing quest to figure out why there was so much hate for D&D 4e, I went back in time to 2008 when it was released to see what complaints people had from the beginning. One issue that was common, was the introduction of character roles.

Character roles never seemed like a big deal to me so I decided to do a comparison between what abilities characters had in the 4e Player’s Handbook and what that same character gets in the 5e Player’s Handbook.

The differences were not as stark as one might have been led to believe.

News and Updates

I’ve been digging into the old issues of Dungeon Magazine and plan to start doing walk-throughs of those modules in the near future
Dungeon Crawl Classics came up on last week’s live stream so I went right out and picked up the core rules and some adventures. Be on the lookout for some DCC videos in the future.
Dealing with character death was another topic covered this week and there were some amazing comments about how different tables deal with it. There is definitely a balance needed between having consequences and not discouraging the player.
There is a ton of debate going on about what the new OGL for One D&D will look like. I had thoughts on it and also took a few moments to highlight that Wizards of the Coast does not own everything.
I saw some comments this week that indicated some confusion over what exactly OSR (Old School Renaissance) is. I think Ben from Questing Beast summed it up very well, though I did put together my thoughts on what I love about OSR.
DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild are both having huge sales on products through the end of January.
And don’t overlook the Dungeon Crawl Classics Humble Bundle if you want a ton of their PDFs.

Epic Battles in D&D

In another of my videos this week, I walked through Part 2 of the Reavers of Harkenwold adventure. This module came with the Dungeon Master’s Kit that was released as part of the D&D 4e Essentials line back in 2010.

I had looked at Part 1 of the adventure in a prior video.

This part concerns a large battle taking place at the Iron Keep overlooking the village of Harken and involves a large army trying to stop the Iron Circle from taking over the region. It presents this battle in a great format that can be used if you are wanting to do an epic battle in your campaign.

To get an idea of how it is handled in Reavers of Harkenwold Part 2, look no further than the final battle at Minas Tirith in Return of the King. This fight involved tens of thousands of soldiers battling for survival, but the story was not told from that perspective.

While we do get glimpses of the larger fight, the focus of the story is the smaller struggles that our heroes are dealing with.

Pippen saving Faramir from Denethor
Gandalf saving Pippin from Denethor
Merry trying to find a way to join the Rohirrim in battle
Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli first needing to recruit the army of the dead and then arriving at the fight

The Reavers of Harkenwold does the same. While there is a larger battle going on, your role is not to take on the Iron Circle armies. Instead, you must infiltrate the castle and make your way to the main baddie and deal with him directly. The rest of the fight happens off screen.

Once you defeat the villain, then you meet up with the rest of your army and exchange battle stories. Large battles are rarely interesting from far away. It is what the heroes do during that battle that matters. This adventure gives a nice blueprint for having a battle of that scale while still focusing on your characters.

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The Mines of Kashtel Gale (update)

In Issue# 2301, I announced my plans for a year-long dungeon-crawl campaign titled, “The Mines of Kashtel Gale“. I will release a new module each month during the year.

I have completed the maps of Kashtel Gale, the first level of the mine, the ship that the party travels on to reach the gale, and the port where the ship docks. I have also completed mapping out the overall storyline for what is happening and who the main villain is. Paid subscribers can scroll down for a peek at how those maps are coming along.

I am still on track to have the first module in the series released in January. Each module will be available at DriveThruRPG and will be free for paid subscribers.

That’s it for now. Note that I use affiliate links to help support the newsletter. Using those links and any contributions received through Ko-Fi allow me to keep this newsletter free.

Don’t forget to join me for my live stream every Thursday at 7pm ET to talk about all D&D stuff.

Until next time.

Take care.

Paid Subscriber Exclusive

Below is a look at the maps coming in the first module for The Mines of Kashtel Gale.

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