More options and aids for the time pressed GM.
Dungeon Master’s Guide II
Written by Jesse Decker, David Noonan, Christ Thomasson, James Jacobs, Robin D. Laws
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/dnd
ISBN: 0-7869-3687-8
288 full color pages
$39.95
The DMG II is the latest expansion for the 3.5 version of the D&D game. Clocking in at nearly three hundred pages, it’s one of the larger books to come from WoTC this year. Most of their previous books have ranged from 160 to 224. The book uses two-column layout with brick red borders and a callout feature the chapter and name of the chapter. Page numbers are on the outer edge at the bottom of the page and are clear and easy to see.
Art varies but I find more good than bad here. One of my favorite pieces has to be by Wayne Reynolds with the core group of adventurers fighting the tarrasque. Arnie Swekel handles the illustrations in each new chapter and does a great job providing some impressive visuals. Other fan favorites like Ron Spencer, William O’Connor, Ed Cox, Wayne England, and Michael Phillippi, among others, add their talents to this project.
The book includes a table of contents and an index, something rare for WoTC to include. While the book does have a few pages of ads, since it’s an official product, it doesn’t need a OGL or SRD page making up for the page count. While the book is on the higher end of the cost factor, it’s size and full color interior, make it a good deal when compared to most other hard cover books which tend to be about 224 pages in black and white for $34.95.
In terms of what the DMG II offers, I’d break it down into three broad categories. It offers advice on being a Dungeon Master, This includes tips on identifying different player types, as well as how to incorporate their desires and play styles into the game to insure that everyone is having a good time. It’s fair advice and will help gamers new to the whole role playing thing, but older hands should already have a fairly good handle on these things.
Since they went to the trouble of identifying different player types, I was a little disappointed that they didn’t really go into what happens if a player or even a GM, just isn’t working out. I know that answer should be obvious, but as I mentioned to someone else, some people will read the book and follow it to the core, assuming that they’re doing something wrong as opposed to just doing what common sense tells them to. In addition, some mention of table rules, things that have nothing to do with the game and everything to do with being a normal person, should’ve been at least side barred here.
Some other advice included is how best to spend your time preparing your adventure. They break the advice down into how much time you’ve got. Do you have one hour to prepare the adventure? Three? More?
How about arranging your campaign in terms of campaign structure? The differences between episodic and continuity are laid out, as well as methods in which to recruit new players for your game. Advice on selecting appropriate races and classes, as well as how to compromise with players when selecting the campaign mode and type.
For some DMs, using artifacts is a hit or miss option. They either give them out too early or give them out with no thought as to their overall impact on the game. The book includes notes on when artifacts are appropriate and some ideas on how to get rid of them.
What about creating a prestige class? The book offers advice on coming up with PrCs including appropriate requirements, names, core concepts, appropriate special abilities and powers, as well as a listing of sample accomplishments to enter a PrC.
The second area the book focuses on, is making preparation easier for the GM. They do this in a few ways. My favorite is the inclusion of Saltmarsh as a fully detailed and described city. This is the Saltmarsh first introduced over twenty years ago in the adventure module U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and its follow-ups, U2: Danger at Dunwater and U3: The Final Enemy. From page 119 to page 152, we get an overall map of the city, major NPCs, details on the government, important locations, daily life in Saltmarsh, and for every location noted on the map, an adventure seed to help the GM actually use it. The nice thing about Saltmarsh is that they’ve included some extra maps, outside of the city, like Saltmarsh Garrison and Andrigal Mansion to improve it’s overall utility.
Another area where the book helps the GM save time, is in using ‘complex NPCs’, things that go beyond simple fighters or mages. The book includes a number of NPCs to challenge or aid characters of many levels. These NPCs are done up in ‘themes’ and use the rules to follow those themes. For example, the first character, an ‘antipaladin’, isn’t a chaotic evil paladin variant. Instead it’s a fallent paladin with levels in blackguard. The giant slayer isn’t some PrC, but is instead a barbarian ranger. The Undead Master isn’t some new creation, but rather, a cleric, sorcerer, mystic theurge.
For more time saving tools, they’ve included a lot of tables. Do you find yourself needing more encounter tables? Things like what you’d encounter in an Abyssal or Infernal Rift type of thing or perhaps what you’d encounter in the domain of a blue dragon? Perhaps you need more classical aids like the sewer encounter table or the lost ruins?
Other tables included the Sample Treasure Hoards. This is something I can easily see Ronin Arts coming out with an expansion for, “101 Treasure Hoards” or something along those lines. Just a few simple lines of text with the coins, goods, and items listed by the EL. On the other hand, it looks like WoTC took a page from Ronin Arts and have included their own Rumors and Hooks, allowing the DM to select from 50 plots.
Also of use to time pressed GMs are the sample guilds. These aren’t orders that belong to a specific PrC, but rather, a way for the party to have mentors, sponsors, and a campaign guiding tool. Included is information on joining the guild, including entry requirements, the benefit, including economic, gear, service, information, and access benefits, as well as how to play a member of that guild. Methods of advancement, missions and responsibilities are included, as well as how that guild fits into the world, how to use it in your game, and what skill checks will reveal about the guild, It’s a good section and provides the GM and players several options for all the core classes.
Want to have an explorers style guild? Sign the players up with the Order of Ancient Mysteries, including ten different sponsored expedition seeds. Want an all purpose organization to destroy fiends and undead? Use the Shining Crusade. Want something a little more sinister? Introduce the Red Knives Gang.
The third general area that the DMG II handles are tweaks to the campaign. I consider these things that don’t always follow the core rules but can be added in with little trouble and can add atmosphere and unique elements to the campaign.
Want your players to have contacts among NPCS? A quick rule allows the player to have as many contacts as her Charisma bonus. Want unique abilities for your NPCs? Not quite a template or even a quick plate, but rather just some characteristic that’s not normal? That’s covered and includes a CR adjustment and level adjustment for players who con their DMs into allowing them to take those abilities.
How about rules for the players being an apprentice or a mentor? Taking the Apprentice Feat gives you the benefit of training whose bonuses take different forms depending on what you trained for. Trained as a martial artist? Then get +2 to Intimidate checks and +2 to Reflex saving throws as well as getting Concentration and Tumble as class skills
If you’re a mentor, you gain a +2 competence bonus on checks involving any of your four associated skills. For example, let’s say that you’re a mentor of Soldiers. Your associated skills are climb, handle animal, intimidate, and ride.
Rules for finding and keeping apprentices, as well as the duties of mentors and apprentices, both from the GM’s point of view and the character’s point of view, are included.
What about those who want to open their own business? I’ve known many a player who retired a character in the ever popular bar or had a thief go on to found his own thieves guild. Now you’ve got some rules for handling businesses including the primary skills needed, along with the secondary skills, associated guilds, the amount of capital needed, the resources required, and what risk factor you take in having that type of business. It includes details on you’re profit check, including how many ranks you may have in the secondary skills, as well as where the business is located, and a multiplier for the amount of risk involved. Businesses with a higher risk factor pay off more.
Or how about teamwork benefits? You have a team leader who has to meet certain prerequisites and team members have their own prerequisites, much lower than the team leaders. By working together for at least two weeks, the characters gain a benefit, one for every four Hit Dice of the lowest level of the team. For example, if you look at Field Medic Training, the leader has to have eight ranks of the Heal skill and every member must have one rank. When two team members try to stabilize a dying creature in the same round, the second attempt automatically succeeds. Or how about Snap Out of It? Here the leader has to have eight ranks of the Concentration skill or the feat Iron Will, and each member must have one rank of Concentration. For that, a character can give another character under the effect of a compulsion effect, a new save against that compulsion.
Teamwork benefits are nice little extra that can make each group of adventurers different from previous groups. While the effects are nice to have around, they also don’t seem to be overpowering at the same time,
Yet another little tweak that’s ‘cool’ is the companion spirit. By performing a ritual and sacrificing some experience points, the players gain a companion spirit. This is a team spirit that effects all the members who partook in the ritual and has level requirements to increase the ‘tier’ of the spirit. Each tier having it’s own separate experience point cost. Using the spirit is a free action that can be done once per team member’s turn.
When gaining a companion spirit, the group chooses a specific quality and a general quality. For general, we have Communication, Magical Storage, Salve, and Transference. For specific, we have Chain, Corrosion, Flame, Frost, Lens, Lightning, Rampart, Shadow, Shroud, Thunder, and Tower. Each one has five tiers. For an example, a Shadow Companion spirit starts off by offering a bonus pool on Hide and Move Silently checks equal to double the number of team members. A six creature pool would have a +12 bonus pool. This can be split up to one team member taking half the bonus (in this case, +6), and is a free action. The pool split stays that way for the rest of the day. Great for groups that might have a tank or two and want to improve their stealth.
Other tweaks come in the magic item section. This includes things like signature traits that have no game effect, but add flavor. Does that sword you bear have gaudy coloring or does it emit a faint trail of smoke? Little things to add character to items and the spellcasters who create them. “Roaz is known for making items with skulls and leering faces built into them…. This could be one of his creations.”
How about Bonded Magic Items? While bearing some similarities to the Item Familiar feat from Unearthed Arcana, these items don’t need a feat to become bonded, but do offer greater benefits to the ‘Treubond’ feat character. Characters can spend XP and gold to increase the item as if they had the appropriate craft feat, but can only be bonded to one item at a time. In addition, items can undergo specific bonding rituals to gain different abilities, as long as the player meets the requirements.
For example, say the character wants to take the Ritual of Dread. He has to have Intimidate 6 ranks and kill a creature with the energy drain special attack with a CR two levels higher than the character’s level. After performing the ritual, the character gains a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves against negative levels, unless he’s got the Truebond feat, which allows him to ignore a single negative level, taking no penalties but must still remove the negative level the next day so that it does not become permanent. As a final note, it can only be done on a weapon.
Now some people don’t like Touchstones. These are places that a player takes a feat for an it gives them some special ability that can be recharged by going back to the touchstone. Here we have Magical Locations. For example, look at Everflame. This is a location with “the magical essence of fire”. Characters who are at least fifth level and don’t have any fire resistance, gain resistance to fire 5 for one year. The character can only gain this benefit once.
To me, this is another example of adding depth to the campaign and putting it in game rules. It’s a good thing but is not going to be for everyone. The key to these Magical Locations, is that they are in effect, magic items that the GM must keep track of when determining how much wealth and magic his party has. The Everflame for example, has a value of 10,000 gp, 2,000 gp per affected creature. Now if that player is latter lagging in power because he’s two grand shorter than the others in cash, what does the GM do? Stop using the Magical Locations or control what the other players do? For example, what if another character gives the Everflame blessed character some items to make up for his sudden lack of magic? It’s something that’ll have to be handled in game through careful game mastery and cooperation among player and GM.
Another new mechanic is synergy abilities. These require the item to already have a prerequisite and often magnify it or add to it. For example, Slippery Aura can only be put on armor or shields that have the slippery mind special ability. When activated, allies within ten feet gain the slippery mind ability. The slipper mind ability, included here, allows a second save against enchantment spells or effects.
More mechanics can be found in the template section. Here items gain a template that has an affinity that costs less to add to the item, as well as notes on cost, weight, hardness, and special abilities. For example, a Githcraft template on a weapon adds nine hundred gold to the cost, and has an affinity for Mindcrusher and Silver Sword, and deals an extra 1 point of damage to psionic creatures.
Other magic items don’t provide such new mechanics, but do have some great ideas behind them. For example, the Domain Draught gives a user access to the specific domain crafted for the drink for twenty-four hours, included using the domain’s granted power, and chosing spells from that list as well as her own until the draught expires.
The DMG II is one of the better books I’ve read in a long time from any company. The numerous bits that I can use will allow me to craft several different types of campaigns with some ideas coming into play rather quickly. For example, how about a campaign setting where Magical Locations are well known and countries skirmish over possession of them because they affect not just individuals but countries that own them? The concept of templates for weapons opens up a whole new category that can be expanded upon with traditional dwarf forged items to mind flayer creations. The sample NPCs will come in handy when I’m time pressed and as a ‘flashback’ bit, the whole Saltmarsh city details are nice to have just for nostalgia, in addition to acting as a good resource in and of itself.
Regardless of what you’re looking for, chances are the DMG II at least touches on it.