Dungeon Digest #002 (14 Jun 2015)

[Carbon]

* How to check the balance of your D20 (YouTube)

We’ve all had that lucky (or unlucky) d20 that’s made us question our beliefs in fate, karma, or a higher power - ten natural twenties in a night just shouldn’t happen, let alone happen regularly. Whether you think your dice is the chosen one or your weekly sacrifices to the dice gods have been working, you might want to check your die’s balance before you go off offering your dachshund’s newborn puppies before next week’s big battle with the main villain. *Cough*. 

This test should work with any die, though the rounder and more spherical the die the more prominent the bias. Besides, twenty-sided dice are the only ones that really matter anyway, at least as far as D&D is concerned.

* 5e Player’s Handbook Errata released

After several months in the open, 5th Edition D&D has finally received its first rules errata. Discussion on the rules clarifications and corrections can be found here.

In most cases, a delightful consequence of errata being released is the resulting price drop in existing printed material. Hardcover Player’s Handbook is on sale on Amazon for $24 (free shipping and handling w/ Prime). In fact, it looks like all three of the core books are on sale at the time of this writing. (June 14, 2015)

* Way of the Four Elements: Remastered (PDF) by SpiketailDrake

The elemental monk subclass in 5e D&D has been somewhat lackluster for being one of the more cooler and flavorful options available to players, and many haven’t failed to point that fact out. I’m sure that they’ll take the feedback and eventually revise the subclass to be more competitive with the rest of the class options in the book, though who knows how long that’ll take. So some folks over at the Giant In The Playground forums got around to crowd-sourcing their own fix for the unfortunate monks that just wanted to be the next avatar. 

SpiketailDrake’s version is by far the best, in terms of flavor and scaling as well as being in a neat and appealing PDF, though feel free to check out the rest of the ideas an compilations in the forum post linked above.

* The Tomb of Horrors is free online (PDF)

Just a friendly reminder that you can download the original Tomb of Horrors module by Gary Gygax online. 

If you haven’t run this module, you’re missing out, and this goes for both players and Dungeon Masters alike. It might take a bit of prior reading and tweaking to fit your current system but the ideas in this classic dungeon have stood the test of time, and as a shining example of what total-party-kill incarnate looks like. Though arguably not the best written or balanced(heh), the demi-lich’s Acererak’s tomb is perhaps the most iconic and, at least for me, one of the most fun D&D modules out there for its sheer genius and state of being outright unfair. It is the undisputed king of the classics, and is the very essence of the term “dungeon crawl.”

"Anyone who claims they made it through [The Tomb of Horrors] without losing a single PC from the party is a liar, a cheater, or both." - Mike Mearls