Today I’m going to discuss why that’s an inaccurate view. As players you (we!) have a responsibility, nay, a duty, to assist in the process of creating the world in which we play. From locations to NPCs, from magic items to story hooks, players can provide the DM with some much-needed direction and feedback to ensure that the game the DM is running is exactly the one the players want to be playing.

Providing direction to the DM may seem like a strange reversal of expectations, but it happens all the time. When you create a character background, your DM examines it for ways to incorporate it into the story. When you make your feat selections or power choices for a level, your DM is taking notice and trying to include ways for you to use them. Even something as simple as the choices your party makes—if you regularly employ diplomacy rather than leaping straight into combat, for example, an attentive DM will begin incorporating encounters that reward that kind of behavior.

With that in mind, one might consider ways in which they as a player can contribute to the enhancement of the campaign setting and overall play experience. When the DM requests a character background, then, consider whether the background you provide is giving sufficient story hooks for the DM to work with. One of my own players realized this after a few sessions of play—his backstory placed him as the sole survivor of a bandit raid on his village, an orphan with no ties to anyone and very little motivation other than day to day survival. After several sessions in which other player characters were given prominence through their own backgrounds, he requested that he be allowed to rewrite his background to include more for me to work with.

Your character background is a very easy way for you to tell the DM the kinds of things you’re looking for. You can use it to seed NPCs, locations, story arcs, or even specific magic items or abilities that you hope to gain. Much of the same advice given to the DM for writing campaign briefs applies to a player writing character backgrounds:

• Keep it short. Don’t provide the DM with 40 pages of detailed history—it will most likely never get read, at that length, and certainly the DM will be overwhelmed if every player provides that kind of detail. Around 3 pages at the most should be enough to cover a character background.
• Keep it to the point. Don’t go on at length about irrelevant details. Stick to the important points, the ones that might come up in play. Your DM can always ask you for elaboration on something later if it’s going to come up in play.
• Keep it clear. Try to avoid dropping in names without detailing who they are. Your DM will wonder who Susan is if there is only one mention of Susan anywhere in the background and it is not made clear who she is and what importance she played. Make an effort to ensure that names are consistent and that your writing style is clear at all times on who is doing what to whom.
• Consider formatting. Use formatting to make your background clearer and easier to read. Try to keep the formatting as consistent as possible throughout the document.
• Keep it open-ended. If you’ve closed the book on a rivalry or a relationship with a family member in the character background, it will be difficult for the DM to incorporate that in the campaign. Always remember that your aim is to provide material for the DM to work with, not tell a story about something that’s over and done with.
• Keep it organized. If your background meanders from point to point with no particular structure, it will be difficult to follow at best and incomprehensible at worst. Find some way to keep it organized and structured and it will be easier to read and work with.
• Avoid fiction. Again, you’re not telling a story about something that’s already happened, you’re providing raw material for the DM to explore during play. Fiction is a closed book—if you’ve given your rivals a strong voice that goes counter to how the DM envisions using them, you may be frustrated when the rival is portrayed differently, or the DM may be frustrated by an inability to use the character in a way conducive to his or her style.
• Remember that you are not the only hero. This point is not part of the advice given for writing campaign briefs—it is unique to players. In most cases, your character is not the sole cast member, but part of an ensemble consisting of all the other players. Try to keep that in mind when describing your background and concept, because nobody enjoys sitting around idle while one player gets the entire spotlight—or being the player who’s excluded because their background marks them as somehow separate from the team.

The character background is not the only way you can provide direction as a player. As a DM, when I finish a session or an adventure, I usually ask my players for feedback. What did they enjoy? What dragged on, or felt out of place? What do they want to see more of in the future? The worst answer to these questions, in my experience, is “I don’t know”, or any variation on that theme. I know for a fact that I’m not running the perfect game—because there’s always room for improvement—and I appreciate being given feedback that helps me get even a little closer.

Unfortunately, neither of those is particularly useful for me as a DM. I’ve learned to be specific about the kinds of background details I’m looking for in particular and have found that now I get results that not only can I use, but leave my creative players feeling less frustrated about their hard work going to waste and my less creative players feeling less lost when they write their backgrounds.

When a DM asks for your background, what that usually means is that they are looking for story hooks and potential NPCs to include in their campaign to make your characters feel more involved and the world feel more organic—to make it feel like your characters are a part of the setting, not just visitors. The idea is not to go into great detail about everything that happened to your character before they began adventuring, but to answer specific questions. What your character has done is less useful to the DM than information on who they are.

Many games offer suggestions on what kinds of questions are important or useful to ask for developing your character concept. Some of these questions—who is your character? Why is he adventuring? What is his favorite thing in the world? What is he afraid of? What does he want more than anything else, even enough to betray a friendship?—are very useful for determining your character’s personality and how you will play him, but only slightly useful for the DM in making your character part of the campaign.

More useful by far are questions that deal with who and what your character is connected to. Most valuable possessions, childhood friends, family members, estranged or otherwise, mentors, old enemies, or even places that your character is connected to can all be useful for a DM who is looking for a plot hook. It’s much more exciting to be sent on a quest for the mystical artifact that can cure any wounds if it’s to save your closest childhood friend than if it were merely for some NPC to whom you have very little connection, or to track down the villain who stole the tome of arcane rituals when it’s a nemesis from your past rather than some faceless thief. Even though there is very little practical difference between the two in terms of the ultimate path of the adventure, it can elevate your character’s connection to the game and heighten your own enjoyment.

Too much detail should be avoided, though. It can be difficult to incorporate an NPC who has been well developed, with strong mannerisms and speech patterns—you may find yourself saying “no, that character wouldn’t talk like that” or “No no, he has blue eyes, not green!” or otherwise take issue with the DM’s portrayal of a character that you have developed heavily. It’s much easier to work with a character for the DM if they don’t have to fight a preconceived notion of who the character should be. At the same time, too little detail is also occasionally problematic, since that can lead to situations where the DM incorporates a character from your backstory and you’re left wondering “who is this guy and why am I supposed to recognize him?”

One final thought—as always, remember that there are other players when writing your background. Sometimes the DM will focus on someone else’s story for awhile, and it’s important to go along with that when it happens, even if only because you would expect the same when it’s your turn in the spotlight. On the other hand, you can use the other players as a resource when writing your backgrounds, as well. Several of the most interesting characters I have ever played have been created after talking to another player about shared background elements and working out ways in which we knew each other before the game began and mutual story hooks that would work. Sometimes this can backfire, if you present the DM with characters who have a backstory that threatens to dominate the group or the campaign as a whole, but it can also be extremely rewarding, for DM and players alike, if it is something that can be worked into the plot.

Hit points and you

To summarize our last article, hit points are an abstract number representing how much damage a character or monster can take. That number can represent a great range of things, including injury tolerance, resistance to pain, stamina, morale, luck, discipline, training, magic and even divine protection.

Now as a Dungeon Master, or even as a player who wants some descriptive flair to his actions, deciding just what this means can add realism and common sense to your game. That in turn can make your game more engaging, and more enjoyable. There are many ways you can describe the effects of damage and resisting damage.

By ability score

Pick the monster’s highest ability score. For descriptive purposes, that’s the source of its toughness. Even if, mechanically speaking, the monster only gains hit points from Constitution, that won’t matter: we’re really only using the ability scores for inspiration here.

Strength: Strong creatures resist injury with innate combat prowess and physical control. When an attack hits, describe how the creature attempts to parry, blocks the brunt of attacks with his weapon or other parts of his body, or diverts the attack to less lethal angle. Many high-Strength monsters are also high-Constitution (see below).

Dexterity: The creature is especially nimble. When an attack hits, describe the creature as rolling with the punch, or trying to dodge but not quite succeeding. Be careful not to give the impression that a successful attack missed or dealt less damage than normal.

Constitution: Creatures like this rely on raw guts. When an attack hits, describe the creature as taking the hit full-on and fighting regardless. The creature suffers the wound quite clearly, but doesn’t flinch.

Intelligence: Some creatures are highly intelligent. Describe how the creature watches carefully in combat, executing cautious, well-planned manoevers. When an attack hits, describe how the creature attempting to execute a parry or defensive technique but failing to prevent the full force of the blow. See also magic-users, below.

Wisdom: High-Wisdom creatures take advantage of strong instinct and combat insight. Describe how the creature always seems to place himself in the best stance or spot to defend against your next attack. When an attack hits, describe the creature ducking or dodging but moving too slowly or too little, or making an unlucky move in the wrong direction.

Charisma: Charismatic opponents survive by force of personality. Describe them as having an intimidating presence, physique, or glare, that seems to invoke fear and throw his attackers off their attack. When an attack hits, describe how his intimidating presence seems to psych out the attacker, making even other opponents cringe by exuding a sense of danger. See also magic-users, below.

By monster type

Corporeal undead and regnerating creatures are particularly fun because they often feel no pain and can keep going after a lot of serious physical damage. Feel free to describe a skeleton as its ribs smashing, or its jaw being knocked clean off and continuing to chatter uselessly on the ground. You can go as far as to impose penalties, such as a badly-wounded creature losing an arm (loses an attack or perhaps its shield bonus), a leg (slows the creature and may knock it prone) or its head (creature effectively blinded, head might continue on with one hit point and weak damage).

By character class

Warrior classes (defenders) typically gain hit points from rigorous training and discipline. They parry hits, roll with punches and strike careful defensive stances. Warriors weaken the impact of attacks by taking blows to a different part of the body than the attacker intended. A swordsman might step forward into his opponent’s attack, so that the attack only hits with the haft of the axe and not the blade.

Rogues and similar (strikers/skirmishers) take their hit points mainly from quickness and agility. They lack the training of a fighter, but generally have the advantage of lighter armour, greater mobility, greater flexibility and better cunning.

Magic-users may be considered to draw hit points from magical defences, even if there’s really no such spell. Describe attacks as making dents in a spellcaster’s invisible personal shield, or being absorbed by attending spirits, or deflecting around the wizard as he holds out his staff. Take care not to give the impression that the spellcaster is immune to the attack.

Divine classes (particularly clerics and paladins) benefit from their deity’s protection. Describe these as simply surviving attacks in a surprising manner or due to suspiciously coincidental happenings. Perhaps a crossbow shot deflects from his helmet, an opponent’s sword catches on a low-hanging branch nobody noticed was there, or a fireball leaves him surprisingly unscathed.

Templated characters, including 4E’s “Elite” monsters, often have more hit points than their counterparts. This is especially noticeable in 4E when applying a template to low-hitpoint characters. A low-level wizard with the Death Master template (an elite necromancer) can have around 100 hit points, when the player characters have around 35. Create a concrete reason for the extra hit points. Perhaps the necromancer is surrounded by spirits and wears living bone mail armour, or the tiefling acolyte is protected by a faint spirit in the guise of the demon prince he serves.

This list isn’t absolute. Some classes fall into a mixture of these categories, while others may draw their power from techniques or talents not listed here.

Describing the hit

Be careful not to cause confusion by suggesting that a successful attack was a miss, or that the creature has some damage reduction ability that it doesn’t. Make it clear when an attack misses completely (“You miss: it dodges and your attack swings wide”) or the creature negates some damage (“A hit, but its steel carapace resists your sword: minus five damage”).

Describe a critical hit or final shot as a complete failure of your opponent’s defensive technique. A high-Constitution monster takes the hit in a particularly vital spot, or a super-Intelligent lich curses as your attack slices through a gap in his arcane shield.

It happens to every party sooner or later. Maybe that last fight was a little bit too rough, or maybe the dice just weren’t on the party’s side—whatever the reason, someone’s kicked the bucket and now it’s time to decide what to do about the dead character. Obviously the death has to have some effect on the game—if dead player characters just wandered back in after the fight ended none the worse for wear, death wouldn’t mean very much at all. (Unless you’re playing Paranoia, in which case that’s half the fun.) On the other hand, if the penalty for dying is too harsh, it can lead to death really being the end—players will not want to continue with the game with characters who have been heavily penalized if it means they’re going to be at a disadvantage from then on. It may seem ludicrous to consider a player being forced out of the game simply because their character has died, but it’s entirely possible for excessive penalties for character death to cause a player to become frustrated enough to quit.

Back in the days of AD&D Second Edition, dying was pretty harsh. You were out of the game till someone could raise you, which was an expense to the party. You couldn’t be raised at all if you were an elf, and even if you could be raised, you lost a point of constitution permanently, with all that entailed. If you died and were raised enough, this would eventually become essentially a hard cap on the number of times you could be brought back, but in practice most people abandoned their characters long before that particular limit set in, for obvious reasons.

Third edition removed the stat loss in most cases and the restriction against raising elves (though non-native outsiders couldn’t be raised) but you still had to find someone to raise you, pay the associated costs, and until then you were out of the game. Problems could arise in situations where people decided that it was easier to simply roll up a new character any time they died. We’ll examine that in a bit more detail later.

Fourth Edition is pretty much the easiest to come back from the dead in. There is no long-term loss—a temporary penalty to rolls for about half a level, a loss of gold equal to the cost of a low-tier magical item, and being out of the game until your buddies can get your remains to a safe place, either to pay someone for the ritual or perform it themselves without fear of interruption. Of course, if that proves untenable, it’s easy enough to return with a new character, as before.

The issue becomes whether these penalties are sufficient detriment. Once upon a time, the argument goes, dying in D&D really meant something—it was a harsh situation and it wasn’t easy to come back from. That’s the way it should be, right? You shouldn’t just be able to shrug it off and come back as if nothing happened, right? And if you want to bring in a new character, well it should be at a lower level than everyone else, right? Death is supposed to be a big deal, and it should have real consequences to it, right?

Wrong. The problem with that thinking is that it doesn’t take into account the full consequences of what harsh penalties to dying do to the game. Loss of a level means that that character is now more likely to die again in the future because of the discrepancy between their character’s level and the rest of the party. Of course, the next time they die, they lose another level…Admittedly this can be mitigated by a skillful DM, but it’s a frustrating thing for the player to deal with in any case. As far as it goes, being removed from the game until your character is raised can potentially lead to the player sitting out a fight or two while the rest of the party tries to get to safety.

The financial loss is not insignificant, either. Given that there is a very real expectation that characters will use their adventuring gains to purchase whatever magic equipment they require that isn’t obtained through looting the bodies, the loss of a chunk of those funds towards bringing back a dead friend can be a major setback in the acquisition of much-needed gear. If more than one person in the party dies at the same time, it’s even harder to recover.

As for bringing in a new character, the same note about character levels applies. Ideally when a player brings in a new character to replace the old one, there should be some agreement that the party can’t just have at the magical gear carried by the old character—with the exception of any plot-essential MacGuffins he may have been carrying. If your players question that, point out that whatever kept his spirit from coming back with a raise dead spell also leeched the power out of all his toys. There’s enough “a wizard did it” to go around when you have a setting where people can come back from the dead that it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for them to believe that.

A further note is that in 4th Edition, even should your players want to bring in a new character to avoid having to pay for raise dead, it’s worth observing that at any level beyond level 3 or so the new character may well be at a significant detriment in terms of gear anyway. The parcel system suggests giving out four magic items each level, at level +4, +3, +2, and +1. By level 5, your character may well have items at level 9, level 7, and two at level 6, for example—plus whatever items you’ve spent your share of the gold on to that point. In contrast, a character started at level 5 by the rules presented in the DMG for creating characters above level 1 will have one item at level 6, one at level 5, and one at level 4, plus enough gold to buy a level 4 item. The gap only gets higher as the party level increases. It definitely makes it more desirable to stick with the character you’ve already got—and the penalties are not so harsh that it becomes too frustrating to keep playing in the long run just because the dice let you down.

Ultimately, keeping players satisfied and wanting to keep playing should take a higher priority than applying “realistic” or harsh penalties for dying. The ability to come back from the dead at all should be inherently unrealistic enough to undercut any arguments to the contrary. In the end it all boils down to the question of “what is the most fun?” If your players all agree that the game is more fun with harsher penalties for dying, by all means impose them—but be aware of the broader implications of that decision on your game, as with any house rule.

Below are five helpful hints towards accomplishing that goal.

1. Talk to the DM about what you’re looking for in the game

Even experienced players often overlook this first point. Every gamer has different tastes and expectations, and the only way your DM will know what you’re looking for out of the campaign is if you let him know. If you want to play a roleplay-heavy game with strong emphasis on character development, but he’s running a traditional dungeon-crawl, then you’re not going to be happy—and your DM won’t be happy when they find out that you’re unhappy, especially if you never mentioned it before. There are very few GMs who are in this solely for their own enjoyment, and the best way to ensure that you’re getting what you want is to talk to them about your expectations.

2. Talk to the DM about your character

Most GMs have some idea of the kind of campaign they want to run ahead of time. It can be interesting and fun to create unusual characters but if they don’t fit into the campaign the DM is writing then it will cause problems down the line. Creating a hot-headed bullywug barbarian who thinks the world is out to get him and treats violence as the first and best solution to any problem could add an interesting dimension to a game, but if the DM had planned a very intricate campaign based around courtly politicking and intrigue, it can be disruptive, and, depending on how you play it, destructive. This is not to say that such a juxtaposition can’t work, but it’s often more satisfying to choose a character concept that will work well within what the DM has in mind rather than at cross-purposes, for player and DM alike. The bullywug barbarian may give him an idea for another campaign, one that would play to the strengths of the concept, as well.

3. Talk to the other players about your character.

Although the DM may be ready to approve your character as fitting in with the campaign, it’s important to make sure that your character will fit in with the other characters as well. It’s quite possible to have characters who each work individually, and even have a common enemy, but still lack any sort of cohesion. Most GMs find little so frustrating as a campaign that falls apart because the characters hate each other and can’t work together, or never even try—and your own enjoyment of the game may even be increased when you and the other characters have a common background or shared story elements that stretch back to before the campaign even began.

4. Remember that you are not the only hero

In a similar vein to the previous point, it’s important to recall that you are not the sole focus of the game. You may enjoy skulking and skullduggery and solving problems through stealth, but if every time a problem comes up you’re the one to who gets to solve it, the other players are going to start to feel bored. Conversely, if every time a chance for sneaking around came up the party’s fighter were to charge in screaming bloody murder, you might begin to feel as though your character’s strengths are being ignored. Ideally every character should get to share time in the spotlight, and every playstyle will see equal representation.

5. Be co-operative and willing to compromise

Above all else this is the most important thing that you can do to keep your DM happy and running games for you. If the DM offers a plot hook, don’t run the other way at full speed. If there’s a debate over disposition of treasure, volunteer to let someone else take the treasure this time around. If the DM tells you your character concept won’t fit the campaign, don’t get too upset—there’ll be plenty of other games to run it in. If you make the effort to make the game fun and cooperative, you may find that you’re invited to more games. This goes double if some of the other players are also GMing their own games and need a good player! In contrast, if you demand that you be the central focus of every session, don’t play well with others, and generally create a disruption for the game, you may find yourself without a game to play in. Ultimately, one of the best things about RPGs is that they are cooperative games, rather than competitive, and you never need to have fun at someone else’s expense; remember that and the game may turn out to be more rewarding by far.

The following article should help you to add a narrative explanation to the cold abstraction of the hit points system, including its results: damage, healing, temporary HP, and those fourth edition specifics, healing surges and minions.

Hit points

Hit points are a figure that can represent anything that prevents a character or creature from being seriously injured by an otherwise successful attack. HP doesn’t always measure physical wounds, but rather can represent stamina, morale, easily treated minor wounds, and even abstract things like luck or divine protection. Hit points are like wealth: where you get it isn’t as important as the total purchasing power you have access to.

Examples: Gorlarg the Fighter takes a punch in the jaw, but Gorlarg’s tough enough that he doesn’t even flinch. Gil-Lachel the sorcerer is protected by an array of subtle magical enchantments. Lothar the cleric praises Sehanine when the dwarf swinging an axe at his head makes an unlikely fumble. Ansen the Swift counts his blessings when a flock of arrows heading his way all miss their mark.

Hit point damage

Hit point damage has two defining properties. First, it is cumulative: unlike a missed attack, each amount of hit point damage brings you slightly closer to certain peril. Second, it imposes no immediate penalty, until enough damage is accumulated that the character is mortally wounded, killed, or knocked unconscious. This means that only the last attack represents a serious debilitating injury, while the rest represent something less significant: a painful hit, a series of strikes that wears down the opponent’s stamina.

Monsters don’t always follow the same restrictions as humanoid characters. A skeleton might be able to lose half of its ribcage without penalty to combat, while a regenerating creature like a troll can suffer severed limbs without much bother.

Examples: Gorlarg stoically absorbs another hit from the ogre’s club, but his will to fight is fading with every strike. An undead spirit feels its corporeal strength fade as it’s struck with burning arcane magic.

Healing

Healing canonically counters damage by healing wounds, but if we’re to be realistic then the first few hit points you lose are barely wounds at all. It’s safe to say that healing simply restores whatever vitality is lost in combat. Healing is at its most dramatic when it saves a hero from a mortal wound, but the effect is more subtle when the same healing spell or duration of rest restores stamina or spirit.

Temporary hit points

Temporary hit points are usually from a magical effect or morale boosting effect. In that sense they’re similar to normal hit points, except extra.

Healing surges (4th edition)

A common misconception is that healing surges turn every fourth edition character into a cleric who can heal by themself in combat. A more accurate assessment is that healing surges are a daily limit to how much of your hit points (stamina, morale, and so on) you can recover out of combat or when healed with magic. Your mind and body can only take so much punishment before taking a rest, even when healing spells are applied.

After a battle, you can bandage minor injuries and rest briefly to regain your stamina and courage.

Minions (4th Edition)

An oddity of 4E, minions are D&D creatures who in effect have only one hit point, because they always go down in one successful hit. They fill a useful mechanical role, but how do they fit in a world where monsters take multiple hits?

The solution is this: Minions have no hit points. The rank and file creatures, the peasants of that monster’s race, minions simply have none of the features required to give them hit points: no combat toughness, stern morale, magical defences or luck of any sort. You either hit their AC or you don’t, and if you do, because you’re an adventurer and not a chump, you’re quite certain to deliver at least a knockout blow.

The Basics

• Most rolls now add one-half the character’s level. This includes attack rolls, skill checks and ability checks. This prevents powerful high-level characters from having a puny +1 to a skill.
• Fort, Reflex and Will are now called Defenses, and work like AC: they have a base of 10, and the enemy rolls his attack versus your flat number.
• Saving throws refer to a different mechanic: at the end of each round you roll with a 50% chance to end an ongoing effect, such as being poisoned or on fire.
• Players have “healing surges”, a sort of resource that renews each day and can be expended to restore hit points. A misconception is that this allows characters to freely heal themselves in combat. Rather, healing still requires a cleric or similar, and healing surges are limits on how much healing a character can receive in a day. Some 1/day or 1/encounter abilities allow a character to spend a healing surge on their own. Clerics can heal at-will out of combat, to the limit of each character’s remaining healing surges.

Races

• Most races have +2 to two ability scores. This contrasts with third edition where most races had +2 to one and -2 to another.
• Level adjustment is gone. Monster races can be played, but at a reduced power level equivalent to a player character race.
• Tiefling and dragonborn are playable races. Gnome and half-orc are gone from the Player’s Handbook but are re-introduced in an expansion.

Classes

• Classes are divided into four roles, being defensive, offensive, area offensive and healer. A similar division existed in third edition (warrior, rogue, wizard and cleric), but it’s more pronounced.
• Multiclassing is limited. A feat lets you take a class ability of another class, but you can’t take levels in separate classes. This may be remedied in a further expansion.
• All classes have numerous combat abilities, or “powers”. “Powers” is a general term for a wizard’s spells, a fighter’s combat techniques (like Cleave), and so on.
• Warlord and warlock are core classes. Barbarian, bard, monk, druid, sorcerer and specialist wizard are missing, but are or will be re-introduced in future class books.

Skills

• There are 17 skills, where 3.5 had 36 skills plus 10 knowledge categories. Skills are fewer, but more useful: for example, Perception covers spotting, listening and searching, while Thievery covers all lockpicking/trap-disabling/pickpocketing attempts.
• Most rolls add one-half character level, as mentioned.
• Skill training works differently. Rather than spend points, players pick a number of skills to train in at character creation. Trained skills receive a +5 bonus. Although this bonus does not increase, it is in addition to the usual ability score modifier and one-half character level bonus.

Feats

• Characters receive feats more often. A 20th level character will have 12 feats.
• Magic item creation no longer requires feats. Instead, it requires only a Ritual (see Magic, below), which works like a spell in third edition.

Equipment

• Weapons and armour no longer have multiple properties. You can still find a Holy Avenger, but not a +3 keen icy burst greataxe.
• Scrolls and wands of combat spells generally don’t exist. However, non-combat spells appear in scroll form as rituals (see Magic, below). The old wand of cure light wounds for between-combat healing is no longer necessary.
• Items sell for less. Mundane junk is unsaleable, and most magic items sell for only one-fifth their buy price. This discourages hoarding junk to sell. Your DM is encouraged to make your desired treasure easier to find in treasure, perhaps as part of a quest.

Combat

• Players can take three actions: a standard, a move, and a minor. A minor action is something like drawing a weapon or sustaining a spell by concentration.
• Multiple iterative attacks are gone. Instead, fighter types gain powers which grant extra opportunity attacks, deal hefty bonus damage or cripple an opponent.
• Critical hits work differently. You no longer need to roll to confirm a critical hit, but instead of rolling double damage you simply deal maximum damage. Wizards can get critical hits with their spells.
• Almost all attacks are either at-will, 1/encounter, or 1/day. Cleave, Magic Missile and a basic melee attack are all at-will, Cause Fear an encounter power, and Fireball a daily. Most attacks take a standard action.
• Action Points let you take an extra standard action in a round. Action Points reset to one when you sleep to regain daily powers and hit points, and you gain one more for every two encounters you go without sleeping.
• Tactical movement is more important. Certain abilities of enemies or allies force movement, and certain terrain hinders movement. A lack of full-round actions and move-equivalent actions encourages movement.
• Miniatures are strongly recommended. The game rules assume you use a combat grid, even if it’s just coins and dice on graph paper.
• Diagonal movement no longer costs more squares. In other words, if my speed is six squares (30ft. in old measurement) I can move six diagonally the same as I would horizontally or vertically. The same goes for weapon ranges.

Magic

• Wizards now roll to attack with spells, against rather than a fixed DC against the opponent’s Fort, Reflex or Will roll.
• Spell preparation is essentially gone, as mentioned. However, wizards can still know more daily spells than they can cast per day, and choose their daily selection from this.
• Non-combat spells are now called Rituals. A common misconception is that fourth edition only includes combat spells. This is because non-combat spells for all classes are hidden away in the back of the Player’s Handbook. Rituals are spells which typically take longer than one round to cast, including Discern Lies, Knock, and Drawmij’s Instant Summons.
• Area effects have only two types. A burst is an area centered on a point, while a blast is a square area. Area effects can be “close”, meaning adjacent to the caster: a close burst is centered on the caster, while a close blast has at least one square adjacent to the caster (such as a breath weapon).

Miscellaneous

• The game standardly runs to level 30. This contrasts with AD&D 1st edition through D&D third edition, where twenty levels was the default limit and epic levels were introduced in expansions.
• Higher currency changes slightly. Platinum pieces are now worth 100 gold rather than 10, and a new 10,000gp denomination called the Astral Diamond (AD) is introduced.
• There are only five alignments: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil and Chaotic Evil. Almost no spells or classes rely on alignment, however, so retaining the old alignment system shouldn’t cause problems.
• There are several minor changes, too many to list here. They include weapon damage changes, armour proficiency changes, pleasant minor tweaks, a simpler grappling system, and a somewhat different implied setting with a different standard deities list.

1. The last barbarian of a tribe, who dedicates his life to hunting down the monsters that wiped out his people.
2. A dwarf of royal lineage, adventuring in self-imposed exile until he proves himself worthy to lead his people.
3. A common thief, with a secret identity as an elite assassin.
4. A loudmouthed cleric who secretly only does it for the money. For reasons unknown to him, his deity grants spells anyway.
5. A disgraced warrior, falsely accused of treachery, who seeks to restore his name.
6. A mage obsessed with finding and studying new and rare monsters.
7. A paladin of the Lawful Neutral deity of commerce, hunting for treasure to stimulate the economy.
8. A silver-tongued villain who plots to lead a rebellion and overthrow the king.
9. An exile from a distant world who seeks a way home.
10. A decorated military leader who hides a secret that he’s actually a terrible coward.

History’s not without its great words and deeds, and great military leaders have said and done inspired their men. Take these tales from the Roman text, The Strategemata.

Alexander the Great

Marching along the desert roads of Africa, and suffering in common with his men from most distressing thirst, when some water was brought him in a helmet by a soldier, he poured it out upon the ground in the sight of all, in this way serving his soldiers better by his example of restraint than if he had been able to share the water with the rest.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla

When Sulla’s legions broke before the hosts of Mithridates led by Archelaus, Sulla advanced with drawn sword into the first line and, addressing his troops, told them, in case anybody asked where they had left their general, to answer: “Fighting in Boeotia.” Shamed by these words, they followed him to a man.

Julius Caesar

The deified Julius, when his troops gave way at Munda, ordered his horse to be removed from sight, and strode forward as a foot-soldier to the front line. His men, ashamed to desert their commander, thereupon renewed the fight.

Servius Tullius

In the battle in which King Tarquinius encountered the Sabines, Servius Tullius, then a young man, noticing that the standard-bearers fought halfheartedly, seized a standard and hurled it into the ranks of the enemy. To recover it, the Romans fought so furiously that they not only regained the standard, but also won the day.

Part 4: Tactical Dispositions

Sun Tzu says:

The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.

The roman legions had this idea down pat. The iconic Roman soldiers fought in tight formation behind tower shields, leaving just enough room to stab with a spear or sword. It didn’t make them invulnerable, but this high-defence method often proved effective. Many modern martial arts follow a similar “defend first, let your opponent leave an opening” mantra.

The Dungeons & Dragons rules often encourage us to make direct, offensive attacks. Kill your opponent in two rounds and he won’t get a third chance to attack. Sun Tzu’s school of thought considers this reckless, especially when we ignore the famous rule: “Know your enemy and know yourself.” Having seen injured characters charge foolishly into combat, I think caution is too often overlooked.

How can you boost defence over offence? Depending on class and resources you can opt to invest in greater defensive capability rather than offensive. This is only really effective if you can acquire defensive ability easily enough to become especially well-defended.

Since D&D characters can often take quite a few knocks, the practical situation has to be taken into account too. Is it worth surviving two more rounds against your opponent if you could have killed him in two rounds earlier instead? As long as you don’t underestimate your enemy, offensive action is fine.

What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage. He wins his battles by making no mistakes.

Attacking a superior force may be brave, even exciting, but to do so unnecessarily is reckless. If you succeed you’re hailed as a hero, but as a D&D adventure often requires many battles, and taking injury now is only wasting resources that may be needed later.

Consider an adventuring party that stumbles onto a gang of trolls. The brave hero will launch himself into the enemy, hoping to take them by surprise. The clever hero will rest the night and return with more fire spells – the troll’s weakness.

That said, D&D is about excitement and risk. If you are confident that you can complete the adventure even with a suicidal attack on a bundle of trolls, why play it safe? Besides, I’ve previously complained about too much sleeping in dungeons – this isn’t ancient warfare, and when you take out most of the risk you take out most of the fun.

Part 5 Next Week

Stay tuned for the next part of this article in a week’s time. You can subscribe to this blog via the RSS feed, the Livejournal feed, or if like me you prefer the old-fashioned method, simply bookmark the front page.