DM Minion allows you to manage and organize many elements in an adventure: build encounters, monsters stat-blocks, player character details, track combat and campsite resting. It has a simple clear format and the control layout is easy to use. Using the monster database requires signing up for a free account with Goat Head Software, and monsters can be downloaded onto the portable device and even saved locally if internet access is not available during a game session. There are nine function tabs: adventure, notes, players, monsters, encounters, battle, camp, options, tools.

The adventure tab allows for the story name to be created, saved, loaded and deleted. Documentation can be attached to the adventure. Multiple adventures can be made and saved. Adventures can be uploaded to a Drop-box or downloaded provided a Drop-box account is set-up. The notes tab can be used to write adventure summaries: backgrounds, hooks, NPC details, etc. Notes can be edited or deleted. The players tab can be used to manually enter any character details, edit them later and delete characters that are no-longer needed. PC's can be downloaded from a Drop-box and existing characters can be transferred from one adventure to another.

The monster tab is used to create custom monsters, edit them or even clone a monster. All the monsters you can find on D&D insider are included in a database so you can download pre-generated monsters. Traps can be created and edited to be inserted into encounters later. If a monster has already been downloaded into an existing adventure it can be transferred to the current adventure. There is a Drop-box button for downloading monster files.

The encounter building tab has a place to write the title of the combat encounter. Multiple encounters can be created and saved. It took me about 2-5 minutes to build an encounter from scratch. Monsters can be added from the monsters loaded into the adventure. There are sections for treasure and encounter notes, like: monster tactics, setup, scene descriptions and terrain details. Encounters can be edited at anytime and run when ready.

The battle tab first sets the players initiative on a sliding scale. Monster initiative is automatically rolled. Notes can be viewed at anytime and new monsters can be added during a battle if the dungeon master desires. The character and monster defenses, hit points, healing surges and action points are all tracked. As monsters come up in the initiative order, power information is listed in detail with quick attack and damage rolling buttons. Encounter and Dailey powers can be marked as expended. Recharge powers are rolled automatically and inform the DM when they are ready to be used again. Damage and conditions can be applied to monsters and characters with any sort of duration. Monsters can be set to make auto save rolls and any action can be taken during rounds. The software developer has thought of everything.

The player characters campsite tab lets the dungeon master apply healing, damage, milestones, short rests, extended rests and add temporary hit points. The options tab has a number of useful monster labeling and initiative setting functions. Lastly the toolbox tab has a dice roller, calculator and custom condition builder. I can't say anything more about the package other than it's fantastic. Give it a try and prove me wrong that it's not worth investing your time and money.

The cavern before you stops at an underground river of red hot magma. Two iron boats with rock encrusted paddles are sitting on the shore line. The heated molten rock river winds away into the darkness. A devils head is mounted to the bow of the boat, each boat has a rudder and a set of long metal paddles.

The PC’s have been directed to travel down the river of magma to Daryl Van Horn’s lair. They must traverse the river successfully to reach the devils fortress of darkness and fire. A also had the devil head talk or insult the PC's if they failled skill checks, they even tryed to get information out of the animated head.

Set-up: To travel the river of lava, the group will have to work together to paddle the boats down the river to the fortress and brave the dangers on their way. Each boat will hold 3-4 people.

Props: Use a couple of paper boats and a wiggly section of red lines to represent the river on a battle map. Stones or polystyrene can be used as rock formations. Cotton balls make good ash clouds and a few character miniature. You might even want a couple of large fire elemental miniatures.


Level: 11

Complexity:  This whole skill challenge is made up of 5 separate complexity 1 skill challenges. Each skill challenge requires 4 successes before 2 failures. All skill checks are group checks. Group checks must have half the party succeed on each stage to be successful.

Primary Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Nature and Perception.

Secondary Skills: Anything that seems to make sense, give a +2 bonus to the next primary skill check.

(1)  Stage One: Lava River Earthquake

Experience Points: 600.

Complexity: The skill challenge requires 4 successes before 2 failures. At least one Acrobatics and Endurance skill check must be made by each character.

The heat of the lava river is so intense that the characters find it hard to bear. A series of earthquakes shake the boats as the characters paddle down the river. The boat gets knocked around by the quake and might flip over. Rocks and debris drop from the cavern ceiling.

Failure: The party’s boats are hit by too many falling rocks and get beached on a rock shore line with a hole in it. The group must make emergency repairs for about half a day and losses a healing surge or there surge value, due to the heat from the lava river cavern. Failure by 5 or more by a character means they get hurt by falling rocks or lava heat and they take 1d10 damage.

Success: The party guides their boats down the lava river, avoiding the falling rocks from the earthquake and the hot steam coming off the lava.

(2)  Stage Two: Lava Geysers

Experience Points: 600.

Complexity: The skill challenge requires 4 successes before 2 failures. At least one Acrobatics or Athletics and Endurance skill check must be made by each character.

The earthquakes stop and the boats enter a lava geyser field. Jets of flame and fire shoot out of the river of lava. Lava geysers spray the characters with sheets of molten rock that try to burn their flesh. On occasions lava bombs shoot out of the geysers and travel high into the air before falling down toward the boats.

Failure: The party is sprayed with lava from the geysers or a hit by a lava bomb that explodes. The characters loss a healing surge or there surge value, due to the molten lava burning their skin. Failure by 5 or more by a character means they get hurt by falling lava bombs and lava spray, they take 1d10 damage.

Success: The party navigates past the lava geysers and continue down the river.

(3)  Stage Three: Toxic Ash Cloud

Experience Points: 600.

Complexity: The skill challenge requires 4 successes before 2 failures. At least one Endurance and Perception skill check must be made by each character.

Once the characters get through the lava geyser field they come to a black and grey cloud. The lava geysers have released toxic and poisonous gases, along with thick ash that has nowhere to go. The ash cloud conceals the correct path of the river and the boat could easily crash into sharp rocks or the wall of the cavern. The ash is so thick that it also affects the characters ability to breath. Toxic gases can also cause PC’s to fall unconscious.

Failure: The party is suffocated with toxic ash and loss their way in the cloud. The characters loss a healing surge or there surge value, due to the poison gases from the ash cloud. It takes many hours to find their way down the river. Failure by 5 or more by a character means they inhale ash and they take 1d10 damage.

Success: The party guesses the best way through the ash cloud and cover their mouth and nose long enough to keep the toxic ash out of their lungs.

(4)  Stage Four: Fire Elemental

Experience Points: 600.

Complexity: The skill challenge requires 4 successes before 2 failures. At least one Athletics or Acrobatics and an Endurance skill check must be made by each character. An Arcana skill check of DC 21 will know that the creature is a Fire elemental, and best not fought in a lava river.

A monstrous fire elemental rises out of the lava and attacks the characters boat. The elemental will try to flip or toss the boat about. It might splash the characters with burning lava. Grabbing, breathing fire and striking characters in the boat are things the fire elemental will eventually try.

Failure: The party is splashed by lava, struck by the elementals fists and has fire breathed on them. The group escapes the elemental, but are worse for wear, and so is the boat. Everyone losses 2 healing surges or twice their surge value in hit points. Failure by 5 or more by a character means they are battered more than anyone else and take 1d10 damage.

Success: The party escapes the elemental with no real consequences.

Note: Please note that the players might prefer a combat encounter rather than a skill challenge for the Fire Elemental. See the monster manual on page 104 for details on the Fire-lasher. The group can face between 1 and 5 elementals at the DM’s discretion. I ran this section as a combat encounter.

(5)  Stage Five: Lava River Rapids

Experience Points: 600.

Complexity: The skill challenge requires 4 successes before 2 failures. At least one Athletics, Acrobatics and an Endurance skill check must be made by each character.

If the group gets past the fire elemental, the lava river picks up speed and flows into a set of rapids. The lava rapids try to smash the boats into rocks and flip the boat over. At this point the boats have been in the river so long that they start to melt, including the paddles. At the end of the rapids is a massive lava fall that will finish the party if they are careful, a wharf sits at the top of the falls that they can hitch their boats too.

Failure: The party’s boats are knocked against rocks and the boats start filling with lava. The group losses a healing surge or there surge value, due to lava burns and collisions. Failure by 5 or more by a character means they get hurt by rock collisions or lava burns and they take 1d10 damage. The DM can also apply extreme failure, if the group doesn’t succeed on any skill check and have the boat drop off the lava falls and kill the characters.

Success: The party guides their boats down the lava rapids, avoiding the rocks and lava falls. They hitch the boat to wharf and continue to Daryl Van Horns lair.

Acrobatics (DC 21): You balance the boat by shifting position as the earthquake rocks the boat or rapds throw the boat about.  Dodge lava spray from falling rocks, avoid flame jets, slip away from lava bombs. Maybe duck overhanging rocks, somersault over fire elemental blows or perform a backward flip to avoid getting thrown out of the boat. PC’s can throw spare paddles to a comrade who has lost their paddle to the lava river. Characters can also catch paddles thrown to them by another hero. You can also slip clear of fire elemental grabs.

Athletics (DC 20): You paddle harder and avoid falling rocks, ash clouds, lava bombs, flame jets, lava geyser spray and an fire elementals trying to tip the boat over. It’s possible to steer the boat with the rudder away from the lava falls and through the lava river rapids, etc. You can leap clear of dangers from the lava river as long as you stay on the boat. Holding on tight to stop being thrown out of the boat or grab a comrade that is about to fall out of the boat.

Dungeoneering (DC 19) or Nature (DC 24): You warn people that the lava river might have the following: lava geysers, heat vents, lava spray, rapids and earthquakes. Rock falls are a possibility if there is an earthquake. If someone spots the dark cloud of ash you warn people to cover their nose and mouth as the cloud is likely made up of toxic gases and ash. The lava river may have many branches so it’s important which branch to take the largest branch is more likely the safest. You figure out the best route down the lava river. It is even possible that creatures live and hunt in the lava river and they are best avoided.

Endurance (DC 23): Endure the extreme heat from the lava rivers heat. Hold your breath in the toxic ash cloud. You paddle at high speed to avoid the dangers for about 10 minutes. The spray from lava geysers burns your flesh, but you fight back the pain. You get thrown about the boat going down the lava river rapids, but manage to hold your breakfast down. The fire breath from the fire elemental is intense, but you find enough air in your lungs to stay alive. The elementals blows threaten to knock you senseless but you stay conscious. Rocks fall on your head but you are tough and shake them off.

Perception (DC 20): You spot rocks falling from the roof and warn the group so they can get out of the way. The heat from the lava river is so hot you can see the heat waves rising, so you keep your hands inside the boat. You spot the following before it can surprises you and warn the party: jets of flame, lava spray from geysers, a creature rising out of the lava river, lava river rapids and lava falls. A lava bomb shoots up into the air and you watch its path downward so you can avoid it. A black cloud ahead of the boat appears, it looks very hazardous to you.

First of all if you really want to make things easy for yourself, buy a subscription to D&D insider, it is money well spent. I had a truck load of pre-printed D&D maps and my vinyl re-writable battle map, so that was sorted. I just happen to have bucket loads of 40k and Star Wars miniatures to populate the maps and game, left over from my wargaming past. The Dark Heresy book had one adventure that needed converting, but everything was there that I needed. My next problem was changing the skill tests in the 'Illumination' adventure to skill check DC’s with the skill list 4e offered me, that wasn’t hard with the help of the Dungeon Masters Guide. NPC’s from the Dark Heresy book needed to be converted to 4e, but with ‘Adventure Tools’ and the very handy online monster builder, I had that wrapped up in a few hours. My last problem, building characters for a Sci-fi universe from a fantasy template, that’s not so easy.

I knew that building characters with the online tools was the way to go, but not everything would transfer from fantasy to sci-fi without alterations. The first thing is that classes don’t really fit the 40k world, but with the ‘Hybrid’ option, that turned out to be very simple to solve. Space Marines were a combination of Fighter, Paladin, Battle-mind, Psion and Warlord, but any combination could be used. Acolytes followed the same principle, just with less armour. Equipment was a problem, but with a DM created table of alternatives, this could be hand written onto the character sheet. Fantasy weapons didn’t really match the 40k world and there was no way to edit the entries on the character builder. In the end I created a table that listed fantasy weapons and matched them to the scifi eqivalent. Players could hand write the real name of the weapon onto the character sheet.

I managed to get everything prepared in two weeks and ran the game over three weeks. It proved to be very easy to prepare and run the game, even if it was viewed as too dark by the players. A few people didn't think that the game duplicated the feeling of playing an awesome powerful space marine, but the adventure was not set up for veterian marines and the players used level one characters. When I had finished, I realized just how easy 4e made running a homebrewed rpg adventure. That's not to say I wouldn't prefer the ability to edit the entries on the online character builder or a super simple rule system. I have to agree with wizards of the coast and all the people that claimed that 4e makes a DM's job easy. Now I'd love to see how the D&D 4e rule system performed with a Starwars roleplaying adventure. Maybe that will be an option next Christmas.

Now it's your turn to test the D&D 4e system!

You can check out some of the games photos in the link below.

community.wizards.com/prom/go/gallery/it...

 One of the fundamental concepts of D&D is that it’s an adventure experience for a group of hero’s that work together, towards a common goal. The characters played in the adventure need to be able to work together, but they don’t necessarily follow the traditional hero format. I’m a dungeon master and player, who’s been involved in: 3.5e, 4e, Bulldogs, Star Wars saga and Pathfinder. There is one traditional hero in my current group out of seven players, the rest are anti-heroes. I rarely see the traditional hero played in D&D compared to the anti-hero, why? Let’s have a look at the reasons.

 The traditional hero has developed mainly from demigods born with special abilities described in greek mythology, this is reflected in roleplaying games giving characters: powers, feats, talents and skills beyond the normal villager. The circumstances that lead to the traditional heroes birth or creation are unusual, and this can all get presented in Dungeons and Dragons by players, but that’s often where the link between D&D and traditional heroes stop. This sort of traditional hero displays courage and a willingness for self sacrifice that benefits the greater good of the world, often leading to death. And here’s the problem with the traditional Hero, players are punished for character death, it’s viewed as failure to be punished not rewarded. A heroic character death or attempting to die heroically is usually not rewarded by DM’s, it’s left to a player being satisfied with playing that sort of character as an personal reward. It might as well, be no reward.

 Running the traditional hero means as a player sitting and waiting for a chance to re-join the game  when your character dies and it will because that’s what happens to the traditional hero more than the anti-hero. I've experienced the frustration of waiting for a chance to join back in when I've played traditional heroes, what about yourself? It’s not really a situation any player wants to find themselves in, so why risk it by playing the traditional hero, maybe because you have to try it atleast once. With a new character  built the player is ready to go but how long did it take to make? Modern D&D character creation is long and complex, another reason not to play self sacrificing heroes. It takes me about 30 minutes to build a Pathfinder or D&D character at first level, longer if it's a higher level. If DM’s don’t try to reward players for running a self-sacrificing character, you will see few traditional heroes at the table. This includes the player who tried to run a heroic character, but ended with a fizzle when the lowly kobold got a critical hit. 

 The traditional hero has never been the staple character, even going right back to Gary Gygax, characters died so quickly they were really just cannon fodder and it was more about doing what every you could to keep them alive. But given that character creation was quicker and simpler, you were more likely to see a traditional hero at the table. Treasure hunting is a strong focus in D&D, what can the PC find and use for their own personal gain, greed is not a traditional hero virtue and yet it's key to D&D. Even early versions of D&D based character experience off the amount of gold they aquired. In a modern world the traditional hero has become less popular and is viewed by a growing number of people as cliché. The gangster, drug dealer and criminal are now the new heroes. The anti-hero is the new modern popular focus and more players want to role-play this sort of character, it’s also what seems to work best for D&D from the very beginning of its conception.

 Heroism can cover martial acts or moral excellence, as traditional heroes are shining beacons of virtue. It’s tough for an average person to identify with the traditional hero, given their own human flaws, even if they know what the character would act like. Heroes in myth often have close but conflicting relationships with gods, and this is represented in D&D at higher levels, but puts a spot light on their activities which usually results in DM’s presenting harder battles to highlight the character being an enemy of a  god. Routinely the traditional hero meets a mysterious death with no burial, something that is translated to D&D when PC’s die in a dungeon and are left by the other characters after being looted. They can look forward to being stripped of possessions and asked to either make a new character or if they are luck raised from the dead with the sale of their gear.  Yet another strike against the traditional hero being run by a player.

 How wrong could a dungeon master be if they rewarded players for a heroic death or attempt. Would rewarding players for roleplaying a traditional hero, lead to more being played, possibly. Will continuing to punish players for roleplaying a traditional hero result in fewer of these characters, most likely. Is it really unfair to reward people for playing the traditional hero rather than the anti-hero? If the dynamics of D&D game play are not changed, then the anti-hero is going to continue being the staple character at the table. The traditional heroic character is simpler for a person to role-play than the anti heroes and much easier for a dungeon master to manage. But with so much working against the character at the table, it’s just not going to be seen till something changes. The traditional hero is a dying breed.