DDOCentral

Returning to D&D two and a half years ago, I made a very conscious decision to run my games digitally. A big part of this decision was down to my personal situation – I didn’t yet know anyone to play with – but also because I liked the visual elements that online virtual tabletop play necessitates.

It was clear to me early on that the old-fashioned method of map design wasn’t going to cut it. Pen and graph paper was not going to be an option here. I was going to have to find a map drawing tool.

My requirements with regards to a map drawing tool were fairly simple.

• Preferably browser based so I could access from multiple different computers, syncing my maps to the cloud.
• Easy to use. I’m a User Experience professional so I had huge expectations as to how a map drawing tool should work.
• The…

Modrons, Mephits & Mayhem! is an adventure for three to five characters of levels 5-8, by Tim Bannock.

If I had to list my favourite D&D adventures of all time, “The Lost Mine of Phandelver” would definitely be up there. It marked my return as a Dungeon Master in 2016 and it’s a tight little sandbox adventure.

With that in mind, the D&D Essentials Kit caught my eye purely on the basis that the included adventure, “Dragon of Icespire Peak” returns to the village of Phandalin and the surrounding area. I was also keen to access the adventure content digitally and with the physical product including a voucher for the D&D Beyond version of the adventure, it made sense to buy the physical box.

Ultimately, nothing in the Essentials kit is particularly “essential” to me these days. I own all of the core rulebooks and supplements. However, compared to the original Starter Set, the Essentials Kit is a huge improvement and contains some interesting items. Included within the…

Back in the day, playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, we never used the Deities and Demigods rulebook as a “Monster Manual of gods” (though this apparently happened in other groups). We got way more use out of the extended ability scores tables in the front of the book.

Usually it wasn’t due to characters having inherent ability scores above 18 (though those amazing magic tomes got used more than once), but more often to reference temporary ability boosts from magic items, like Giant Strength potions. It was so fun opening the DDG to find what your over-18 abilities were.

Strength was fairly simple, being a logical progression of the table in the Player’s Handbook, with no new special abilities. But, wow, talk about being a juggernaut in melee and a threat to doors and gates everywhere!

Intelligence, in addition to boosting magic users in their spellcasting, also conveyed increasing…