Sly Flourish: D&D Tips for the 4th Edition Dungeon Master

Monster Group Bosses

23 January 2012 - Boss monsters need help. We've discussed the problem and potential solutions before but it's worth returning to the topic again. Boss monsters; whether they be elites, normals, or solos; all act like ...

Building a Modular 4e Game

17 January 2012 - There's been a lot of talk and speculation about the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons, particularly in WOTC's attempt to build a more modular form of D&D. Of course, we'll all be keeping an eye...

Getting the Most from the Book of Vile Darkness

09 January 2012 - This month, Wizards of the Coast released Robert J. Schwalb's Book of Vile Darkness supplement for 4th edition D&D. Today we're going to look at how to squeeze the most use out of this product for...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: December 2011

06 January 2012 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for December 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! Ran a skill challenge based on Inception tonight. The playe...

Default Feats

03 January 2012 - From time to time you might be called upon to build characters for other players. Whether it's for a one-shot game, a convention game, a guest player, or a player who simply cannot be bothered to main...

Sandbox Gaming Podcast with Erik Scott De Bie

27 December 2011 - Last month I had the excellent opportunity to spend an hour talking with Erik Scott De Bie, fantasy author and freelance game designer for Wizards of the Coast. Erik worked on Shadowfell: Gloomwrought...

Abyssal Plague Environmental Effects

19 December 2011 - This past week, Wizards of the Coast published my second Abyssal Plague article, Abyssal Plague Epic Threats (DDI Subscription required). This article contains four epic-tier Abyssal Plague monsters i...

2011 Poster Map Buyer's Guide

12 December 2011 - The Battle Map Comparisons article on this site continues to be a popular draw. We all love our encounter maps and there's a lot of potential options available. The more we use these options, the more...

Building Great Traps

05 December 2011 - Good traps are hard to find. Using the rules as written, you might expend a monsters-worth of experience from your encounter experience budget and have the whole party avoid the trap completely. Today...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: November 2011

03 December 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for November 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Try running your game without a DM screen to keep...

Heroic Tier Boss: Aspect of Graz'zt

28 November 2011 - Last week I discussed the advantages of a level 1 to 10 campaign but one thing such a campaign lacks is the feeling of facing truly powerful and devastating enemies. The Neverwinter Campaign Sourceboo...

The Sweet Spot of 4th Edition

21 November 2011 - As much as we love 4th edition D&D, the design begins to break down as levels increase. The scaling power of PCs makes it harder and harder for 4e dungeon masters to build challenging encounters. ...

Inherent Bonuses and Random Loot

14 November 2011 - In October 2011, Monte Cook wrote a Legends and Lore article entitled Magic and Mystery that discussed some of the problems with the magic item system of 4th edition. It's an article worth reading, bu...

Dave Chalker on Epic D&D

07 November 2011 - Recently Dave "The Game" Chalker, my friend and editor of the Ennie-award-winning gaming blog, Critical Hits spent an hour talking about the conclusion of his epic-tier campaign. As you can imagine, D...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: October 2011

04 November 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for August 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! #dnd tip: Time to go look for that bargain-bin halloween prop...

Auto-damage Effects

30 October 2011 - We DMs have a lot of things to balance when building encounters. We want mechanics that are fun for our players and fun for us. We want mechanics that keep the threat of a battle high. We want mechani...

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium Random Loot Tables

24 October 2011 - Introduced in the earliest days of D&D, random loot tables have been woefully lacking in 4th edition. With a lot of excellent updated items in the Dungeon Master's Kit and Mordenkainen's Magnifice...

Dungeon Effects

17 October 2011 - Wizards's latest Organized Play program, Lair Assault: Forge of the Dawn Titan, includes an interesting twist: dungeon-wide effects. This single-encounter adventure includes dungeon-wide effects that ...

Increase Epic Aura Damage

10 October 2011 - While most math in 4th edition scales linearly, player power scales on an increasingly steep curve. While monster damage increases by about 1 point every level, player healing increases even faster. W...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: September 2011

07 October 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for August 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! By the way @dndtweets also pulls from @4eblogs so you probabl...

Poster Map Visual Index

03 October 2011 - The published poster map is one of the greatest tools of the lazy dungeon master. It gives lazy DMs a large, high quality map full of great details for environmental effects and terrain powers. Figuri...

Introducing DnDTweets.com

26 September 2011 - You're a busy person. You have a regular game to prepare, a family to pay attention to, and a full time job. You don't have time to surf Twitter every ten minutes looking for D&D news. Yet there's...

Skill Challenges with Quinn Murphy

19 September 2011 - Back in mid August I had a chance to talk to Quinn Murphy, the lead writer for the website At Will. Quinn has spent significant time thinking about and designing skill challenges, one of the more chal...

Randomly Selected Character Themes

12 September 2011 - Introduced in the Dark Sun Campaign Setting, character themes add a new layer of mechanics and story to your players' PCs. While typically players would choose a theme to fit their character, today we...

Tools of the Lazy Dungeon Master

06 September 2011 - Good dungeon masters know where best to spend their time when preparing a game. Custom building monster stat blocks, designing intrictate skill challenges, and developing huge encounter areas take a l...

DM Tips Twitter Archive: August 2011

02 September 2011 - Below is an archive of all of the Sly Flourish DM Tip Twitter posts for August 2011. Get daily DM tips at http://twitter.com/slyflourish! I think published poster maps are one of the three best lazy ...

Three Powers for Solos to Shake Status Effects

29 August 2011 - Solos need help. A while back I wrote about the economy of actions and the devastation that limiting those actions can have on a powerful solo monster. In short, a daze, stun, or dominate against a so...

Reduce Table Transactions

22 August 2011 - Running a smooth game requires a lot of management at the table. There are a few easy tricks, however, to keep things running smooth. A good DM, for example, learns how to manage the flow of informati...

D&D Essential Conversations with Kato Katonian

15 August 2011 - After Gencon 2011 I had a chance to have a conversation with the internet’s Kato Katonian about D&D Essentials, D&D 4e design improvements over time, 4e’s broken bits, and limiting...