ROLEPLAYING GAME SUPPLEMENT James Wyatt Bill Slavicsek Robin D. Laws CREDITS Design james Wyatt (lead), Bill Siavicsek, Mike Mearls, Robin D. laws Additional Design Andy Collins, Rob Donoghue,johnn Four, Greg Gorden, Vacine "Vax" Merzouk, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Stephen Schubert, Matthew Sernett Development Stephen Schubert (lead), Andy Collins, Stephen RadneyMacFariand Editing Michele Carter (lead), Kara Hamilton, Miranda Horner, Cal Moore Additional Editing Greg Bilsland, Torah Cottrill Managing Editing Kim Mohan Text Review George Stray ton Director of D&D R&D and Book Publishing Bill Siavicsek D&D Creative Manager Christopher Perkins D&D Design Manager james Wyatt D&D Development and Editing Manager Andy Collins D&D Senior Art Director jon Schindehette Art Director Mari Kolkowsky Graphic Designer Soe Hemmi Cover Illustration Wayne Reynolds Interior Illustrations Steve Argyle, Ryan Barger, Kerem Beyit, Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai, Nicole Ashley Cardiff, Chippy,julie Dillon, Vincent Dutrait,jason A. Engle, Randy Gallegos, Tomas Giorello, Ralph Horsley, Howard lyon, Raven Mimura, lucio Parrillo, Georgi Simeonov "Calader," Amelia Stoner, Eva Widermann Cartographer jason A. Engle D&D Brand Team liz Schuh, Scott Rouse, Kierin Chase, Sara Girard, Martin Durham Publishing Production Specialist Erin Dorries Prepress Manager jefferson Dunlap Imaging Technician Carmen Cheung Production Manager Cynda Callaway Game rules based on the original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ' rules created by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and the later editions by David "Zeb" Cook (2nd Edition);jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Richard Baker, and Peter Adkison (3rd Edition); and Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, and james Wyatt (4th Edition). Dedicated to the memory of Dave Arneson 620-24206000-001 EN 987654321 First Printing: September 2009 ISBN: 978-0-786952441 U.S. , CANADA, ASIA, PACIFIC, & LATIN AMERICA Wizards of the Coast LLC P.O. 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VISlT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.WIZARDS.COM/DND OCT10N .................. 4 Skill Challenge Examples ......... 89 Emblem of Ossandrya ......... 154 Closing the Portal .............. 89 Rash and Reckless ............ 155 cture ................... 8 g ........ ................ 9 Arcs ................. 12 of Characters .......... 13 e World BUilding ...... 16 . g Hooks ............... 20 es .... .................... 22 e vards .................. 25 r Players Want .......... 26 " Characters ........... 27 _ -;}, ngs Level .............. 34 Opening the Ninth Ward ....... 90 Hunting the Mastermind ....... 90 Chasing the Bandits ............ 91 Traveling Through Gorgimrith ... 92 The Restless Dead ............. 93 The Rushing River. ............. 94 War by Other Means ........... 96 Moving Through Suderham ..... 98 4: CUSTOM1Z1NG MONSTERS ... 102 Monster Themes ................ 104 Using Themes ................ 104 Themed Groups .............. 105 Rod of Seven Parts ............ 157 Standard of Eternal Battle ..... 159 Organizations ................... 161 Recurring Villainy ............. 161 Political Complications ........ 162 Rivalry ....................... 162 Belonging to an Organization ... 163 Shifting Relationships ......... 163 Power Struggles .............. 164 Organization Elements ........ 165 Examples ..................... 165 Campaign Arcs ................. 168 Breach Smashers .............. 168 e as Story ............... 38 .' ations ............... 42 ;. for Large Groups ...... 50 rs for Small Groups ...... 51 rs and Attrition .......... 52 Demogorgon Cultist ........... 106 Feywild Denizen .............. 108 Goblin Allies .................. 110 Legion of Avernus ............. 112 lolth's Chosen ................ 114 Orcus Blood Cultist ........... 116 Pillars ofthe State ............. 169 Blood and Treasure ........... 171 The Mobius Trippers .......... 172 Dungeoncraft: The Campaign Arc .......... 174 =. . .................... 52 Snaketongue Cultist .......... . 118 6: PARAGON CAMPA1GNS ...... 176 o ement .............. 56 .. ................... 58 -astic Terrain .......... 58 overs ................. 62 -raps ...... ............ 64 Solo Traps ............ 66 Traps ................ .. 66 ,Iaiden .............. 66 Those Who Hear. ............. 120 Tiamat's Red Hand ............ 122 Templates ...................... 124 Applying a Template .......... 124 Functional Templates .......... 125 Beast of Demogorgon ....... 125 Champion of Bane .......... 125 Chaos Warrior .............. 125 Cursed Guardian ............ 126 Paragon Status .................. 178 Reaching Paragon Tier. ........ 178 Crowns and Thrones .......... 178 Masters of War ............... 180 Down to the Depths .......... 181 Darkness in the light .......... 183 World Hopping ............... 184 Masters of Reality ............. 185 Masters of Time ......... . ..... 185 I'on Portcullis ......... 67 to .rlIing Chamber ....... 67 g Walls Room ........ 68 Boulder ........ 69 Dragontouched Destroyer ... 126 Grizzled Veteran ............ 127 Hellbound Soldier. .......... 127 Mad Alchemist ............. 128 Sigil, The City of Doors .......... 186 Origin Stories ................. 186 The Impossible Place .......... 186 Portals ....................... 188 Strangler Statue ....... 70 tal Tiles . ........... .. 71 ::; .. = ...... ,,,"' Hunter ............. 72 Slithering Idol .............. 129 Spectral Assassin ........... 130 Spiderblessed Spinner. ...... 130 The lady of Pain .............. 190 Rules and Governance ......... 191 Sigil's Businesses Terrifying Haunt ............ 130 and Services ................ 193 Victim of the Mad Dance .... 131 The Wards ofSigil. ............ 194 Class Templates ............... 131 Faces of Sigil. ................. 202 Creating Monsters .............. 133 Typical Street Encounter. ........ 204 -'- ""LLENGES ......... 78 "e Basics ............. 80 Challenge ork ....... ........ .. . 80 <Play ................ 80 es ... ............... 82 ""es in Depth ......... 84 e ... ................ 84 ariety of Options ...... 85 Failure ............. 86 e Challenges ......... 88 . Challenges .......... 89 5: ADVENTURES ................ 134 Alternative Rewards ............. 136 Reward Types ................. 136 How Rewards Work ........... 137 Creating a Reward ............ 137 Divine Boons ................. 139 legendary Boons .............. 142 Grandmaster Training ......... 144 Item Components ............... 146 Artifacts ........................ 147 Adamantine Horse ofXarn ..... 148 Amulet of Passage ............ 150 Cup and Talisman Typical Sewer Encounter ......... 206 GateTowns ..................... 208 A Conspiracy of Doors ........... 210 Starting the Adventure ........ 211 Encounter D1: Doorway to Danger ........... 212 Encounter D2: Tradegate ........ 214 Encounter D3: The Night Market. ............ 216 Encounter D4: The Demon Caves ............ 218 Encounter D5: The Warehouse ... 220 Ending the Adventure ........... 222 of Al'Akbar ................. 152 lNDEX ......................... .. 223 PLAYER'S HANDBOOK 2 introduced eight new classes and five new races to the D&D"" game. It presented racial paragon paths, character back- grounds, and new feats and rituals for every character. Monster Manual fO 2 presented over 300 new mon- sters to the game, covering every level and role. From the humble ankheg broodling to the mighty Prince of Demons, Demogorgon, it's full of monsters to chal- lenge your players and add new life to your dungeons. So what's in Dun8eon Master's Guide'ID 2 that will make your game better? JUICY RULES BITS Let's start with the juicy rules bits you can drop in your game right away-like the eight pages of new traps in Chapter 2. You also get solid guidelines for creating your own traps, covering everything from getting the numbers right to making sure your trap threatens the characters-not the fun of your game. Chapter 2 also includes new types of fantastic terrain you can add to your encounters, as well as introducing the concept of "terrain powers"-attack powers built in to an encounter's environment. Chapter 4 is about tweaking and adjusting mon- sters. It rounds out the rules presented in the first 4th Edition Dun8eon Master's Guide with additional rules for making minions and refined guidelines for elite and solo monsters. It presents new templates, includ- ing class templates for the classes in Player's Handbook 2, and introduces monster themes-a great way to tweak the flavor and powers of a monster to make it fit whatever kind of adventure you want to run. You'll find new artifacts in Chapter 5, including old favorites such as the Rod of Seven Parts and the Cup and Talisman of AI'Akbar (both of which appeared in the original Dun8eon Master's Guide back in 1979) as well as all-new artifacts deSigned to appeal to pairs or whole groups of characters. Chapter 5 also sets out a new system of rewards you can use instead of (or as a supplement to) magic items. Divine boons represent gifts from the gods or their agents, legendary boons express the accom- plishment of great deeds of power, and grandmaster training reflects what happens when a player charac- ter learns from a legendary master. Near the end of Chapter 1, you'll find rules for companion characters-a great way to round out a small party or bring an important NPC along for the INTRODUCTION ride with your player characters. That chapter also includes handy rules for altering a character on the fly so he or she can fit in with a party of characters of much higher or lower level. EXPERT ADVICE A Dun8eon Master's Guide isn't just about rules, it's about helping you be a better Dungeon Master. Whether you're a veteran DM or a first-timer, this book has ample expert advice to improve your game. Chapter 1, "Group Storytelling," focuses on the cooperative experience of creating a dramatic nar- rative. Whether you're looking to inject a little more drama into your game or you want a group-created story to drive your campaign, you'll find advice that will help you bring the characters at your table to life. Chapter 2, "Advanced Encounters," extends that advice to the level of the individual encounters that make up your adventures, offering advice to help make each encounter an important part of the plot. This chapter also includes advice on how to tailor encounters for different player motivations, how to deal with large and small groups, how to encourage movement in combat, and how to pace encounters to build dramatic tension. If you've wondered how to encourage characters to press on without taking an extended rest, or how to handle a long fight with wave after wave of onrushing enemies and no time for a short rest, this chapter has the advice you need. Chapter 2 ends with a sample encounter that pulls many of the elements discussed in the chapter together into a Single, dynamic fight. Chapter 3, "Skill Challenges," focuses on using skill challenges in your game, combining extensive, detailed advice with lots of examples. It sums up the basic rules of skill challenges (as already expanded and clarified in rules updates found on www.wizards. com), moves on to discuss five key elements of skill challenges, and wraps up with a series of examples. In among the rewards and artifacts in Chapter 5, "Adventures," you'll also find plenty of advice to help you build your campaign. Sample campaign arcs, including a hands-on example of how to build a campaign arc, help you form the skeleton of your campaign, and information about using artifacts and organizations can help you flesh out the details. If the characters in your campaign have advanced to paragon level, be sure to take a look at Chapter 6, "Paragon Campaigns." This chapter offers tips and uggestions for campaigns set in the paragon tier, ,esents the city of Sigil as a home base for char- _ ters' adventures through the paragon tier, and , cludes a short adventure for 11th-level characters. D&D INSIDER hroughout this book, you'll find excerpts of material - m the pages ofDun8eonTM magazine, particularly -ephen Radney-MacFarland's "Save My Game" lumn and James Wyatt's "Dungeoncraft" column. me other material in this book originally appeared the "Ruling Skill Challenges" column by Mike earls or in feature articles in Dra80nTM magazine. These columns and features are part ofD&D .:iderTM, an online subscription-based service signed to bring new life and new ideas to your -D game. D&D Insider is a suite of content and :.lIs for better gaming, including: Dra80n magazine, which features new material and expanded content to help make your characters and campaigns more fun and more compelling: character options, powers, feats, magic items, para- gon paths, epic destinies, monsters, campaign set- ting source material, and more. Dra80n magazine also regularly features material slated for inclusion in future print products, giving you the opportu- nity to share your feedback with the Wizards of the Coast design and development teams. Dun8eon magazine, which proVides three to five new adventures every month-something for each tier of play (heroic, paragon, and epic)-so you'll always have a game that's ready to run. Whether ~ you run those adventures, or play your own home- brewed adventures and campaigns, Dun8eon offers a continuous source of articles, features, hints, and tips, to help make the job ofDMing even easier. The D&D Character Builder, a stand-alone appli- cation that puts information from every printed book and online article at your fingertips as you build and level your character. In addition to pro- viding an updatable and easy-to-read character sheet, the Character Builder generates power cards for you to quickly reference and track your character's powers. The D&D Compendium, a searchable online data- base of the complete rules text for every race, class, paragon path, epic destiny, skill, feat , power, item, and ritual - from every D&D rulebook and online magazine article. Wizards of the Coast is working constantly to expand and improve the tools and content available on D&D Insider, so be sure to check www.dndinsider.com for the latest updates. And if you like the excerpts from D&D Insider you find within these pages, become a subscriber and check out what you've been missing! PUTT1NG IT ALL TO USE ce the release of the Dun8eon Master's Guide in 2008, D&D game has grown. Besides Player'S Handbook 2 and ster Manual 2, you and your players might own Martial er"', Draconomicon'": Chromatic Dra80ns, Open Grave"', enturer's Vaulf", the FORGOmN REAlMS"" or E B E R R O ~ Cam- -8n Guide and Player's Guide, and any number of other :lplements and adventures. How do you put it all to work your game? Start by knOWing when to say no. If a player brings a .v option to your table that doesn't fit in your game, s okay to tell the player to hold on to that idea until s campaign wraps up and you (or someone else in your up) starts something new. Balance this, of course, with advice to say yes as much as possible (see page 28 of - Dun8eon Master's Guide), but know the limits you want _ 'Our game and don't be afraid to enforce them. f your players are eager to try a new class or build they .md in Player's Handbook 2 or a power source book such -\Teane Power'", check out the sidebar on page 35, which usses how to let players take on multiple characters. '-' should also feel free to let your players tweak aspects . eir characters when new options become available. If guardian druid in your party wants to become a swarm _ d once Primal Power'" comes out, and the player can e that change without doing violence to the story of .. r game, let it happen. The D&D Compendium, part of the D&D Insider suite of tools, is a great way to keep track of information that appears in multiple books. If you're trying to find the caller in darkness, the Compendium can tell you quickly that it appears in Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead (and that it's a level 19 elite soldier). Using the Compendium to build encounters keeps all the information from your books at your fingertips. Loot freely. For instance, you don't have to be running a game set in the world of Eberron to find something worth using in the EBERRON Campai8n Guide. Maybe the idea of characters with dragon marks tied to a mysterious proph- ecy fits in with the ideas you have for your own campaign. Letting your characters take dragon mark feats-and then pitting them against agents of the Chamber and the Lords of Dust-makes everyone at the table happy. Delves (short, three-encounter adventures), lairs, and even single encounters are easy to work in to whatever adventure you're running, whether it's a published adven- ture or one of your own creation. If you craft your own adventures but find yourself underprepared for a session, picking up a delve from Dun8eon Delve"', a dragon lair from Draconomicon, or even a couple of encounters from one of the dozens of adventures found in Dun8eon magazine is a great way to keep your game on track . - James Wyatt INTRODUC T I O N