Comments on: Old Advice Is The Best Advice

By: Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Sunday Seven: 2009-09-06

Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Sunday Seven: 2009-09-06 — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:21:30 +0000

[...] Old Advice Is The Best Advice This is, indeed, very old advice, but it’s so great and precise that I had to share it as well. Any GM worth his salt not only knows his world, the adventure(s), the monsters and vital NPCs, but he also knows the characters in the players’ hands and the players sitting at the table. [...]

By: Toord

Toord — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:48:27 +0000

Your group has 5 players?!?!? :o

By: Asmor

Asmor — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:59:13 +0000

For a 4e GM, it’s probably better to note the passive perception specifically.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:42:36 +0000

*Really* old advice:

Tell your player to roll a d20. If they ask “am I rolling high or low?”, you shrug your shoulders. Then make a call based on your judgment.

By: Dyson Logos

Dyson Logos — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:30:22 +0000

The battleboxes by Fiery Dragon had a great little pad in each box that was used for the DM to track the primary scores (AC, HP, Saves, Spot, Search, Listen, attacks) of four characters per page.

They are great for 3.x games.

By: Chris Cumming

Chris Cumming — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:17:43 +0000

I’ve recently taken to writing this information on the back of the little 3×5 initiative cards hanging on my DM screen. This way I can quickly jot down conditions or modifiers too. In addition the order presented (in initiative order) is easy to see at a glance.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:22:16 +0000

It’s a good idea, but I’m afraid it may lead the DM to assume he knows the defenses when he really doesn’t. Sometimes they add up.

When a badly wounded ally ends his turn adjacent to my Dwarven Cleric, it’s easy for him to have up to a +6 bonus to AC and +4 to his other defenses. That’s +2 from Second Wind, +2 from Shield the Fallen (if he is still bloodied), and +2 (AC only) from Shield of Faith.

At the very least, I think the DM should be prepared for reminders after every successful attack. “Did you remember the AC bonus from ?”

By: Doron

Doron — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:17:46 +0000

Here's a .doc sheet I created just for this. up to 6 players and for 4E players: Players.doc BTW great advice about writing down the monster's defenses, it sure will save a lot of time flipping pages..

By: kaeosdad

kaeosdad — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:56:54 +0000

The character builder is super handy for this. When you print the char sheet and power cards the very first card is lists all their ability scores, defenses, passive scores, hp etc… on a single easy to read normal size playing card.

Very handy.