Warstories is the name I gave to a series of short articles meant to spark discussions and advice amongst DM’s. With the series, I hope to tackle common problems that crop up during the game, and see how other people deal with them at their table. If you have an idea for a future subject to tackle on Warstories, please send me an email.
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Steph
April 19, 2010
Ok so I’m having a rough time DMing a campaign. Maybe you guys could make some suggestions. I am new to Dming to begin with and I’ve jumped into 4th edition blindly. My first campaign is for my husband. It’s a solo game, which in and of itself, makes it almost impossible. To make matters complicated my husband wants to play a very unique character. A male drow wizzard. I haven’t been able to find a good 4E template for a drow so I tried to make one out of the 3.5 one, however, alot of the spells don’t work with 4E and a level one drow is hard to do even in 3.5. I’m not even sure what the wizzard mechanics are in 4.0! If that’s not enough, he insisted on being the first person to invent the gun. We found many gun templates and eventually agreed on how to do it. Oh, but it gets better. . . his ultimate goal is to become a god. so I cracked open a 3.5 book on how to do that, but he’s only got till level 20 to do so. Being a solo character he will level very quickly, gaining all the xp of an entire party. I am also trying to give him enough good gear and money that he can fight an encounter intended for a whole party. With this all figured out I thought I was ok, guess again.
Our first session was mostly improv in the town I sent him to after leaving the underdark. after that we had our first encounter, the enemies were way too strong and he could barely hit them. Lucky for me, he’s good at this! He changed into spiderform and climbed a tree, guessing that his oponent didn’t have any ranged attacks. So when his oponent follows him up the tree he pushes them out of it. (Can a spider DOO that??) I have no idea how tall this tree is or even what numbers to roll to see if he could do that so i just said the enemy fell out of the tree and ran into the dungeon. Now I know I have alot of work to do. HELP???!!!
Dave
April 24, 2010
Wow, what a situation. Fortunately it is similar to what I have been through, and what I am sure others have been through. Racial statistics for the drow are in the Monsters Manual page 276.
Trying to load him with gear so he can fight as an entire party will be a nightmare. If it is really necessary, look in the Dungeon Masters Guide and read about templates, elite monsters, and solo monsters. It is possible to give a creature/player a template which mWow, what a situation. Fortunately it is similar to what I have been through, and what I am sure others have been through. Racial statistics for the drow are in the Monsters Manual page 276.
Trying to load him with gear so he can fight as an entire party will be a nightmare. If it is really necessary, look in the Dungeon Masters Guide and read about templates, elite monsters, and solo monsters. It is possible to give a creature/player a template which makes them an elite, or the equivalent of two normal monsters. Two templates would make one the equivalent of a solo monster or five normal monsters. I would not recommend stacking more templates, as the situation will quickly become silly rather than fun.
One of the epic progressions is demi-god, so I would recommend you and your husband to read about it in the Players Handbook. It will allow you to map his longterm progression.
Take care,
Dave
selenus
June 20, 2010
Actually, we anticipated this problem in our campaign, and so we each get control of two PC’s. This way, we all can have our fill of different classes, without upsetting the storyline.
Jasonj
August 1, 2010
Pick up the epic level handbook , or you could track down the old immortal rules box set .
breitling navitimer
January 1, 2013
There are some attention-grabbing deadlines in this article but I don’t know if I see all of them heart to heart. There’s some validity but I’ll take hold opinion until I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we want more! Added to FeedBurner as nicely