Playing Your Best (D&D) Lesson 6: The Basics of Clerics in 3.5

The cleric is an important member of the team. A party without a cleric has less long-term endurance, and has a harder time dealing with undead. In addition to providing support to the rest of the party, a cleric can cover a lot of party needs.

The Basics of the Cleric

Clerics are primarily a support class. Their primary role is to make the rest of the party better. Clerics cast divine spells, which are not affected by the spell failure chance of armor and shields, but do provoke attacks of opportunity. Clerics can wear heavy armor and can use shields, so they are often backup melee fighters.

For all of the builds I talk about here, you want wisdom to be your highest attribute, since it is needed for your spells. You'll want charisma to be your second-highest if you want to be able to turn undead well, but if you aren't as concerned about undead, then you could put a lower attribute into charisma.

Playing a Melee Cleric

This is probably the most commonly played cleric I've seen. This seems like an obvious choice for the cleric, since they can use heavy armor, they tend to have high AC. To play a melee cleric, you don't need very high dexterity, because you'll be better off with the heaviest armor you can afford. For a melee cleric, you'll want a high constitution. Constitution is more important than strength for a melee cleric, because you want to be sure you have enough hit points to survive melee combat. As a cleric, you are probably the party's primary healer, and if you get defeated in combat, then the party is going to have trouble. It is for this reason that I don't advise playing a melee cleric. If you insist on playing a melee cleric anyway, then you will probably want to choose the destruction, good, or war domain as one of your domain choices.

The destruction domain will give you a once-per-day smite ability. This smite works on any enemy, doesn't care about the target's alignment. It is not dependent on any of your attributes. It grants you a +4 bonus on the attack roll and adds your cleric level to damage.

The good domain simply lets you cast good-aligned spells at 1 higher caster level. For most of these spells, that means a slightly longer duration. Some of your most useful low-level buff spells are good-aligned. Protection from evil grants the target a +2 deflection bonus to AC and a +2 resistance bonus to saves against any effect from an evil source, plus it prevents attempts to possess the protected creature, and suppresses the effects of charm and compulsion for as long as the protection spell lasts, regardless of the alignment of the source. It also prevents any non-good summoned creature from even touching the protected creature, unless the protected creature attacks or touches the summoned creature.

(Obviously, if you are playing in a campaign where you are more likely to fight good creatures rather than evil, then you will want the evil domain.)

The war domain grants you proficiency with your deity's favored weapon (if you aren't already proficient with it) and grants you weapon focus with that weapon. This is a pretty good benefit, especially since all deities of war in the Player's Handbook have favored weapons with a base d8 damage, however Corellon and Heironeous are slightly better choices since they use the longsword as their favored weapon, which gives you a better critical range, or if you are a follower of Gruumsh, the longspear will give you reach, allowing you to mitigate some of the threat to yourself while you are in combat.

Playing a Ranged Cleric

This is my preferred way of playing a cleric. This keeps the party healer out of melee combat, where they are most likely to get themselves killed. You will want your dexterity to be your second or third priority when assigning your attributes, which means your dexterity will benefit your AC, and will provide your attack bonus. Because of this, you don't need heavy armor, so you will want to take armor that allows you to get the most benefit from your dexterity. The breastplate is the best choice for you, if your dexterity bonus is less than +4. A chain shirt is your best bet if you managed a dexterity of +4. You are already proficient with crossbows, which is fine for a cleric, but if you are an elf cleric, then you are already proficient with shortbows and longbows, so splurge and get a longbow when you can afford it. You won't be using a shield, since you'll need both hands for your weapon. As a ranged cleric, your choice of domains are not as important for combat, so you can choose your domains based entirely on your party's needs.

Domain Choices

When you create a cleric, you will choose two domains. You domains give you special powers, and give you a choice of domain spells. As a cleric, when you prepare your spells each day, you also choose one spell of each spell level from one of your two domains.

Travel

Any cleric can benefit from the travel domain. Its granted power allows you to ignore any movement restrictions for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. The power itself says “as if you were affected by Freedom of Movement,” which is a 4^th level spell. The spell's description says you may move and attack normally, even under the effects of magic which would impede movement, including paralysis. You automatically succeed on a grapple check to resist or escape a grapple. You can even move normally underwater, including attacking with slashing or bludgeoning weapons.

The domain's power says it functions automatically, as you need it. So, did the enemy troll grapple you? Just slip out on your turn, or just choose to not be grappled. Were you paralyzed? Not this turn. Enemy druid cast Entangle? Just walk through it. For a total number of rounds each day equal to your cleric level, you ignore all effects that would stop your movement, and it turns on and off at-will. This is probably the single most awesome domain power available to the cleric.

Alignment Domains

These domains all allow you to cast spells of the appropriate alignment at +1 caster level. This isn't huge, but choosing the law or good domains in most campaigns means that your protection spells are more effective. Especially good at low levels.

Elemental Domains

These domains give you the ability to turn creatures with a certain elemental sub-type the same way you could turn undead. It also lets you bolster creatures of a certain elemental sub-type the same way an evil cleric can bolster undead. The bolstering effect might be the more useful ability here. Summon a creature, bolster it. Turning creatures of certain types can be useful, but I'd say this isn't as useful as some other domains, simply because you don't know how often you will encounter those creatures. Take one of these domains if you, or your party's druid or wizard, plans to do a lot of summoning.

Animal and Plant Domains

If your party doesn't have a druid, you can substitute for the druid. Neat.

Knowledge and Trickery Domains

If your party doesn't have a rogue, you... still can't substitute for the rogue, but you can get close.

Sun Domain

Once per day, instead of turning undead, you destroy them. Neat, but not really useful. For the most part, a turned undead isn't much of a threat anymore, and if you waste your one use of destruction on undead that are too powerful, oh well.

Strength Domain

Once per day, you can make the party barbarian or fighter feel inadequate. This domain does give you access to some useful spells such as Stoneskin and Bigsby's Hands, which are spells otherwise only available to sorcerers and wizards. If your party contains a wizard who specialized and gave up evocation, you might want this domain just to get the hand spells at later levels.

Magic Domain

If your party doesn't have a wizard, you can kind of substitute for the wizard. Well, technically, this domain lets you use scrolls, wands, and and spell-trigger items as if you were a wizard of half your cleric level. Some of the domain spells are useful, but some are pretty pointless.

Luck Domain

Once per day, you can reroll any one d20 roll you just made. You do have to use this before you find out if you succeeded. This can be useful, especially if you're in a save-or-die situation. In fact, you should probably always save this ability for a situation when failing a save will result in death, or at least significant drawback that would cause you a lot of damage or burn a lot of resources to mitigate.

Healing Domain

You cast healing spells at +1 caster level. Meh. You don't need this.

Death Domain

Just no. Don't ever take this domain. Even if you're evil. There are better, more useful choices.

The Cleric's Tactics

As a cleric, you should focus more on preventing the party from taking damage, rather than trying to heal. If you play your cleric as a healer, you will always be playing catch-up, and will always be running out of spells. To accomplish this, you will need to choose the right spells. I shall discuss the best 1^st level spells below. In a later guide, I'll go over higher-level cleric spells.

Bless

This is a great 1^st level spell. It gives multiple characters a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls and saves against fear for 1 minute per caster level. Even as a level 1 cleric, this will last you 10 rounds.

Divine Favor

This spell only affects yourself, and only lasts for one minute, however it grants you a +1 luck bonus on all attack rolls and weapon damage, and increases by +1 for every three cleric levels, up to a maximum of +6. This is good if your party is lacking in combat ability, but at lower levels, you should prioritize Bless over Divine Favor, simply because Bless will affect several characters, and even if you only have yourself and one other attacker, giving two characters a +1 is better than giving just yourself a +1. Don't start preparing Divine Favor until about level 6 or so.

Entropic Shield

Use this if you're playing a ranged cleric.

Magic Weapon

Prepare this at least once a day, every day, until your party gets their hands on actual magic weapons. Until then, you give your party's primary fighter a magic weapon for one minute per cleric level. This not only grants a +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage, but since the weapon gains an enhancement bonus, it bypasses the damage reduction of any creature that is overcome by magic. Keep in mind, enhancement bonuses replace masterwork bonuses, so this is best when cast on mundane weapons.

Obscuring Mist

Great defensive spell. Use this to block off areas of the battlefield. This grants concealment to an area, making all attacks in that area less likely to hit. Keep in mind, this works both ways.

Protection

This is probably the best defensive spell you will have for a long time. Cast this on your party's primary melee fighter at the start of a big battle. You should prepare at least one of these every day for the rest of your life.

In part 2 of my cleric guide, I'll discuss most spell options for higher levels, and strategies for spell effects.

Playing Your Best (D&D) Lesson 5: Rangers in 3.5

Like other entries in the "Playing Your Best" series, I will be limiting this post to the Player's Handbook.

The ranger is an interesting class in D&D 3.5.  The ranger is part fighter, part druid, and has many skills suitable for scouting.  Rangers get the track feat, favored enemies, wild empathy, and a combat style.  It is the combat style that we're going to be focusing on in this post.

At level 2, the ranger can choose either archer or two-weapon fighting as their combat style.  The chosen combat style improves at 6th and 11th levels, and once chosen, cannot be changed.  The effects of the chosen combat style gives the ranger the effects of certain feats while wearing light or no armor, but does not actually grant the ranger the feat as a bonus feat.

Many players mistakenly choose their combat style based on what they want their ranger's primary method of combat to be, and why wouldn't they?  That's how it's presented in the book.  If you want your ranger to be an archer, you choose archery, and if you want your ranger to be a dual-wielder, you choose two-weapon fighting, but this would be a mistake.


Never be a Dual-Wielder

Two-Weapon fighting in D&D is a topic I have discussed before, but it bears repeating in this post.  A character wielding two weapons gets to make extra attacks per round, which, of course, means more chances to hit your target, but even with the two-weapon fighting feat, and a light off-hand weapon, you take a -2 penalty to each attack.  There are no light weapons that deal more than 1d6 damage, and there are no one-handed weapons you can wield in your other hand that deal more than 1d8 damage.  Your off-hand only adds half of your strength bonus to damage.
Let's assume a character with a +3 strength bonus and +2 base attack (since the ranger gets combat style at level 2).
If you wielded a great sword, you would make one attack per round with a +5 attack bonus that deals 2d6+4 damage.  On average, you would hit a target of AC 16 50% of the time and deal an average of 11 damage per hit.
If you wielded a longsword and short sword, you would make two attacks at +3, one deals 1d8+3 damage and the other 1d6+1 damage.  On average, against a target of AC 16, you would hit with one attack 40% of the time, and both attacks 16% of the time, dealing an average of either 8, 4, or 12 damage.
So, to figure out damage per round (DPR), we'll take average damage, multiple by chance to hit, which gives the greatsword 6.5 DPR, and the dual-wielder 4.8 DPR.


Archery

The ranger's archery combat style gives the ranger the effects of the rapid shot, many shot, and improved precise shot feats.  This does NOT give the ranger the actual feats, since the ranger loses the ability if he wears medium or heavy armor, but thankfully, there are no feats in the PHB that require these feats, except for the fact that many shot requires rapid shot.  If you want to focus on archery as a ranger, you can take other archery feats (point-blank shot, far shot, etc.) and just add your combat style as you level up.  This is a decent way to make an archer, but if you just want to be an archer, you're better off being a fighter.  So, if your goal is to make an archer, don't play a ranger, but if your goal is to be a ranger, and you want to focus on archery, then this is a perfectly fine way to go.


Don't be an Archer

The other option is to focus on fighting with a two-handed weapon, or sword and board, and use your combat style to give you the effects of archery feats, while you use your actual feats to focus on melee combat or other options, this way you have a decent option for both ranged and melee combat.


Sadly, I've never liked the ranger class.  As you can see, the combat style is lack-luster, with really only one good option.  They get an animal companion, but not until level 4, and their companion is based on half their level, and the companion must be chosen from a small list, which means they aren't effective for combat.  They get spells as early as level 4, but not many.  They get a decent variety of skills, but not as many as the rogue.  They get the track feat for free, but unlike the rogue, whose trapfinding is a class ability, any character can take the track feat, so it's not exclusive to the ranger class.  In a future post, I'll further explore the ranger class and discuss the pros and cons of the class as a whole.

The Real Reason the Star Wars Prequels are Bad

Star Wars Episodes 1-3 get ragged on a lot for various reasons (Jake Loyd, Haden Christensen, Jar-Jar Binks, midichlorians...) but nobody ever seems to talk about the real reason the movies are bad.


First, Obi-Wan is... too young?

Obi-Wan is depicted as an old man in Episode IV.  Probably somewhere in his sixties.  However, the expanded universe shows that Jedi strong in the Force age slowly, so in reality, Obi-Wan looked like he was in his sixties, but how old would he have to be to look that old?  Well, the EU also reveals that Qui-Gon Jinn was sixty-five when he died.  Sixty-five and he looked like he was probably in his forties, maybe.  Supposedly, Obi-Wan was twenty-five when he was knighted.  Twenty-five, and we know in Episode 2 that it has been ten years since Anakin saw Padme, so Obi-Wan has to be about thirty-five in Episode 2.  The Clone Wars only last about three years, so Obi-Wan would be thirty-eight.  Luke and Leia were about nineteen in Episode 4, so Obi-Wan would be fifty-seven.  Still younger than his former master.  Episode 1 should have been set further back in order to make Obi-Wan's age match up.


The Chancellor and the padawan

Anakin and Palpatine are showed to have a relationship in Episode 3, to the extent of a mentorship.  Why?  In Episode 1, we get a tongue-in-cheek nod to the fact that we're building to Vader when Palpatine tells young Anakin "we will watch your career with great interest."
Sure, in Episode 1, Anakin was the incredible boy pilot who blew up a Trade Federation control ship, but Anakin spends no time with Palpatine in Episode 1 or 2, and suddenly in Episode 3 Anakin just hangs out in Palpatine's office as if it was perfectly normal for a young Jedi to just chill with the most important and busiest man in the Republic.  Sure, there's a war on, and Anakin was a commander, but how often does the president meet with lieutenants or captains?  Palpatine would obviously meet with Yoda, Mace, or Obi-Wan.  They are generals.  Anakin was only recently knighted.  He wasn't knighted in Episode 2, but he is a knight in Episode 3, so at some time during the Clone Wars he was knighted, so within the past three years.  He wasn't a master yet, and even though he was knighted, in Episode 3 he is only ever shown in battle alongside his former master, Obi-Wan, and never shown actually leading a battle, so he's not a general.
Aside from all of that, there is no build-up to this in the movies.  Anakin and Palpatine just go from perfect strangers in Episodes 1 and 2 to friends in Episode 3.  Are we to believe that just because Anakin rescued Palpatine from Dooku in the beginning that Palpatine is suddenly a mentor to him?  No, when Anakin has defeated Dooku, we see Palpatine encouraging Anakin to kill Dooku, and when they do speak during the escape, Palpatine doesn't act like a chancellor giving orders, but like a friend giving advice.


General Grievous

Dude knows how to fight, but he has no Force powers.  Why has it taken the Jedi so long to beat him?  Even a padawan should be able to get the best of him.  Just lift him and hold him in mid-air.  Now he can't fight.  Moving on.


The Jedi go to war

In Episode 4, Leia referred to Obi-Wan as "General Kenobi" in her hologram and stated that "years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars."  Lucas basically wrote himself into a corner here.  He needed a reason for Obi-Wan to be a general during the Clone Wars, so how did he solve that problem?  Well, have the clone army commissioned by a Jedi, then have Yoda decide to go get the clone army in order to save Obi-Wan from Geonosis, but wait a minute, by Yoda's own admission in Episode 6, he is not a warrior and says "wars not make one great."  Why would Yoda consent to leading an army?  The army should have been turned over to the Republic and the Jedi should have stepped back.  The Jedi, by their own admission, are peacekeepers.  It goes against the Jedi's own teachings for them to actively lead a war.  Their only role in war time should be to protect VIPs, act as negotiators, maybe take on missions of special circumstances where it would cost too many lives to send in soldiers, but even then...


The Jedi serve the Republic

The Jedi are supposed to be unbiased practitioners of the Force.  They follow the will of the Force.  The Jedi temple should not be on Coruscant.  We see Jedi Masters constantly consulting with politicians in Episodes 1-3.  The Jedi becoming generals for the Republic shows us that the Jedi are more concerned with serving the Republic than they are with serving the Force.


Anakin was right

If the Jedi Council was more concerned with serving the Republic than it was with the Force, then Anakin was right.  The Jedi had become corrupt, not by the Dark Side, but by politics.  So, Anakin did bring balance to the Force by destroying a corrupt system and forcing it to start over.


Anakin wasn't dark enough

Anakin's fall to the Dark Side begins in Episode 2 where we see him slaughter Tusken Raiders because of his mother's death, and in Episode 3, he fears losing Padme, and Palpatine uses that as a way to manipulate Anakin further, but when Anakin turns, it's like flipping a switch.  Sure, we can see some frustration in Anakin, due to Palpatine's involvement, with him feeling like the Jedi are holding him back, but once he turns against Mace, he's suddenly "I have to kill ALL the Jedi."  Anakin doesn't question anything.  He knew Palpatine was a Sith Lord, he knew Palpatine needed to be arrested, he even said to Mace "he must stand trial," but once he sees Palpatine kill Mace, he just abandons all that.  He just accepts that "oops, I goofed, guess I'm a Sith now."  Palpatine, a man Anakin knows to be a Sith, kills the Jedi who was trying to end the evil of the Sith, and Anakin just decides that instead of trying to stop Palpatine himself, or running away and waiting for Yoda, he'll just go kill.  He goes from seeing Obi-Wan as his brother to "I hate you!"


Obi-Wan was an idiot because plot

We already know that Obi-Wan had to defeat Anakin, but we also know that Anakin had to live, so because plot, Obi-Wan can't kill Anakin.  That's fine, but the way their duel ended allowed Obi-Wan and Anakin to share some heart-breaking dialogue.  THAT was stupid.  Because of that scene, Obi-Wan walked away from a still-living Anakin, who he had just left disabled and watched burn beside a river of lava.  If Obi-Wan really loved Anakin, he would have tried to save him.  Anakin had only one arm, no lightsaber, he was no longer a threat to Obi-Wan.  Obi-Wan should have used the Force to render Anakin unconscious, then carried him from Mustafar to get medical attention.  However, because Lucas (or his writers) didn't know how to write the scene correctly, Obi-Wan does the most evil thing he could do for a brother.  He walks away and lets him lie there in agony, not knowing if he was going to die, or if someone else would save him, but who else could save him?  If Obi-Wan walked away, the only other people in the galaxy who knew where Anakin was were Yoda and Palpatine!  So, Obi-Wan leaving Anakin was basically saying "you're either going to lie here in pain until you die, or Yoda will fail to kill Palpatine and you'll be rescued by the only person in the galaxy we don't want you to be with."
The scene should have taken place far above, on one of the platforms suspended over the lava.  Obi-Wan could have had his heart-breaking lines, then Anakin could have lashed out in a rage, Obi-Wan cuts him down, Anakin drops his lightsaber, but falls over the edge to the lava below.  Obi-Wan sees him fall, unsure of whether he lived or not.  Obi-Wan goes to search for him, but senses Palpatine coming and realizes he has no choice, and has to flee.  Or the scene could have played out like it did in the movie, but Obi-Wan takes an unconscious Anakin back to the ship, and on the way, he is intercepted by Palpatine and is forced to abandon Anakin in order to safely escape with Padme.  Seriously, there are other ways to have written that scene.


Speaking of idiocy...

Owen and Beru Lars were Luke's actual relatives?  That was stupid!  Anakin had already visited them in Episode 2.  He knew where they lived.  Yoda thought it was a good idea to hide Luke there?  Owen should not have actually been related to Anakin.  He should have been a relative of Obi-Wan, or one of the non-clone officers who served the Republic during the war who befriended Obi-Wan, maybe could have even written in that he saved Obi-Wan from Order 66 or something!  That would have been awesome.  It also would have made sense for the Jedi to hide Luke with someone Anakin didn't know, and by putting Owen in the war along with Obi-Wan, it would have given Obi-Wan a reason to trust him, and a reason for Owen to act like he did in Episode 4, not wanting Luke to go off to the academy.  As it was written, though, there's no real reason for Owen to keep Luke away from Obi-Wan.  No real reason for Obi-Wan not to train Luke as a child.  If Owen had actually fought in the war and had first-hand experience alongside the Jedi, maybe even witnessing the effects of Anakin's fall, then his reservations would have made more sense.


The planet it's farthest from, yet everything happens here

Why oh why was Anakin born on Tatooine???  Episode 4 already used Tatooine as Luke's home planet, where the Jedi chose to hide him from his father.  Just like we shouldn't hide him with actual relatives, how about we don't hide him on his father's home world?  Episode 7 introduced us to Jakku as another desert planet.  It wouldn't have been so hard to create another desert planet for Episode 1, or here's an idea, how about anywhere other than a freaking desert?  They have podracing on Malastare, how about that planet?  Ord-Mantel?  Anoat?  Seriously, there are so many planets that are named in the EU, or even mentioned in the movies that we never see on screen, why not expand the galaxy a bit more and use them?  Why does everything have to happen on Tatooine?  It's Anakin's birth place, Luke's home, and also happens to be where Jabba runs his organization.  For a desert in the outer rim, a planet Luke describes as "if there's a bright spot in the center of the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from" it sure is a pretty important planet.


Technically, Dagobah is farther

In Episode 5, we learn that Yoda lives on Dagobah, a swamp in the middle of nowhere.  Apparently, nobody ever has a reason to go there because we never see any sort of settlements.  The only living things we see are Yoda and a bunch of birds and lizards.  Yoda obviously lives here for a reason.  In Episode 5, Obi-Wan says Yoda is the Jedi Master who taught him (which Episode 1 screws over by making Qui-Gon Jinn his master, but hey, I guess Lucas can't remember every line from the orig trig that established continuity), so we know Yoda is a more powerful Jedi than Obi-Wan, so even without the prequels or the EU, we can guess that a really powerful Jedi would live in such a miserable swamp in order to hide.  So, we know that at some point after Episode 3, Yoda would go into hiding on Dagobah.  That doesn't mean he has to give up, though.  In Episode 3, he duels Palpatine, puts up one hell of a fight, even gets the better of him a couple of times, but when the two of them hold Force lightning between them until it explodes, Yoda just decides he has lost and runs away and goes into exile.  He doesn't even try again?
You know what would have been really awesome?  What if Yoda didn't use a cane in Episodes 1-3?  Yoda duels Palpatine until Palpatine injures him so badly that he can barely walk.  Yoda barely manages to crawl away after the explosion and the next time we see him in Episode 5, he has a cane.  That would have been pretty cool, and would have given Yoda a better reason for giving up the fight.
One could argue that after that point in the duel, Yoda could sense he was going to lose, but in a movie, it's really hard to convey what a Jedi senses if they don't tell us.  Yoda could have said to Bail Organa, "too powerful he is, defeat him I cannot," rather than say "failed I have, into exile I must go."  Failed?  How did you fail?  Yoda's line in the movie gives us no explanation.  It makes it feel like Yoda just gave up.


So, rather than complain about the poor acting in the prequels, or midichlorians, how about we instead complain about how they effectively ruin the story of Star Wars?  With Episodes 4-6 already 20 years old when the prequels were made, it's not like the writers didn't know how the story would end.  You established things 20 years ago, now write the prequels to fit what you already said.

How to be a Better Gamemaster Part 4: Intelligent Villains

Most of the time, the villain of a major story isn't just some big brutish warrior who smashes everything he sees.  More often, the villain is a methodical planner who operates behind the scenes to put the big brutish warrior who smashes everything he sees right where the villain needs him to be.

As a gamemaster, you have to be able to portray a wide array of NPCs.  What do you do when you want to portray a villain with a really high intelligence, perhaps one who is smarter than you?  It's very difficult, sometimes, to portray characters who have abilities that differ greatly from our own.  Intelligence is one of the hardest attributes to convey in a game.  What exactly does an 18 intelligence mean?  In the d20 system, 10 is considered the human average.  There is always a chart in the core rules that tell you how much you can carry based on your strength, so you can easily figure out how strong your character is, but there's no handy chart that tells you how smart you are.

A high intelligence usually grants extra skill points, and in D&D, grants a wizard extra spells.  However, there's no real guideline to tell us how a high intelligence should be represented.  What we do know is that 18 is considered the peak of natural human ability for any attribute.  So, does that mean a character with 18 intelligence is a genius?  A super genius?  The next Einstein or Tesla?

As a gamemaster, you'll need to figure out just how smart you want your villain to be.  Luckily, playing a genius is easier than playing the same character as a player.  Why?  Because you can cheat!  This is one of those times where bending the rules is perfectly acceptable, because it enables you to better play an intelligent character.  Let's look at a couple of examples.

You prepare the spells for an exceptionally intelligent wizard villain you plan to confront your players at the end of a long adventure.  When the fight begins, you realize the players have obtained abilities that make them immune to one of the wizard's spells, or they have developed tactics you didn't plan for, and his spells are no longer the best way to deal with this situation.  What do you do?  Well, an intelligent villain would have gathered information about his enemies.  He would have found out everything he could about the party he was about to fight.  In other words, change some of his spells in the middle of the game.  You might not have planned for what the party was going to do, but there's no reason why your villain couldn't have predicted it.  He would have planned for it, so changing his spells so that he can better deal with the party is a great way for him to anticipate and plan around them.  I did this with a previous campaign, introducing the villain about a third of the way through the story, and having him show up to taunt the players occasionally as they continued their adventure.  They never knew when he'd show up again, and I even told them that any spell or tactic they used in battle could potentially be seen by him and he'd be able to plan around it.

For our second example, suppose your players get the upper hand on your villain before you wanted them to, or maybe you did want them to, who knows?  Instead of killing the villain, they decided to capture him.  What do you do now?  Perhaps the villain planned to be captured.  As the GM, you can easily alter a few things and have the villain put an escape plan into motion.  Perhaps the villain already has already paid off a guard, or already knows about the loose brick in the prison wall, or that the proper leverage can lift half-barrel hinge doors off their hinges.

Be careful when using tricks like this.  Make sure that only appropriately intelligent opponents get to change their plans in the middle of the action.  Villains that aren't in the upper ranges of intelligence should have to deal with whatever plans they make and whatever happens if those plans fail.

Designing Dungeons: Themes and Realism

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A dungeon's theme is largely an aesthetic choice.  A theme is the overall look and feel of the dungeon.  Crawling through the sewers, going through a labyrinth under the palace, and a set of catacombs under a mausoleum should all feel like very different dungeons to the players.


Choosing a theme

Sometimes the theme is an obvious choice.  Is the dungeon in a graveyard?  Your theme is probably undead.  However, oftentimes you will have to make a conscious choice about your dungeon's theme.  The labyrinth under town is a very generic environment.  What's its theme?  That's up to you to decide.

When coming up with a theme, you'll need to consider such things as how close is the dungeon to civilization, what sort of natural life is near the dungeon, and is there any specific type of monster you want to use in this dungeon.

If the dungeon is close to town, then either there aren't very many dangerous creatures in the dungeon, or there are and the town is a lot more eager to have it cleared out, due to the threat it poses.  A dungeon close to town is easier for low-level characters to deal with because there is less travel time between the town and the dungeon, so the party can more easily retreat and rest if they suffer too much damage.  A dungeon farther from town allows for more opportunities for encounters while traveling.  If the party faces threats just getting to the dungeon, then they will be more cautious and less willing to run back to town when things get tough.

Natural wildlife near the dungeon provides an obvious source of food for potential predators that have taken up residence in the dungeon.  However, if the party notices a lack of wildlife around the dungeon, it could be a sign of the presence of the undead, or a very dangerous creature residing in the dungeon.

While some of these ideas may not be obvious to your players, maintaining consistency this way will help make your world and your dungeons feel more realistic.


Designing With a Theme

Once you have decided on a theme for your dungeon, you'll want to design the dungeon with that theme in mind.  The majority of the encounters in your dungeon should fit your theme.  If your theme is undead, at least 90% of the opponents in the dungeon should be a type of undead.  Living creatures aren't very likely to share a dungeon with the undead, so an encounter with a living creature in such a dungeon would be very out of place unless you come up with some interesting reason for it.

The encounters in your dungeon aren't the only thing you should consider.  The environment itself should fit the dungeon's theme.  A dungeon populated mostly by spiders should have cobwebs lining the halls.  If the dungeon is a cave and doesn't contain intelligent opponents, then the floor, walls, and ceiling should all look naturally formed and rough.  If your dungeon was once inhabited by intelligent creatures and is now inhabited by monstrous creatures, leave a few signs of the former inhabitants lying around.


Designing Realistic Dungeons

If you want your world and your dungeons to feel like a realistic environment, you should consider why the dungeon exists in the first place.  Nobody builds an elaborate series of trapped rooms and corridors, and places guards and monsters inside without a reason for it.

1. Living creatures have needs.
If your dungeon is populated by a lot of living creatures, they will need a source of water, a source of food, a place to sleep, and a place to leave their droppings.  In some situations, a magically sustained dungeon can be an exception, but most creatures won't move into an environment where they would be denied their basic needs.  For a realistic dungeon with living creatures, you will first need a source of water.  Unless your dungeon contains a magically purified water source, then the water has to be moving.  Still water eventually turns stagnate and won't be fit to drink.  If there is only one water source in your dungeon, then it could become the most dangerous location in the dungeon as every creature in the dungeon visits it several times a day.  Secondly, you will need a source of food.  This is an easy one.  Smaller creatures become the food source for larger creatures.  All you need is a source of vegetation for the smaller creatures.  Fungi, small plants, or bugs can be the bottom of the food chain in your dungeon.  As for a place to sleep, most creatures don't require much, but many types of creatures do at least make some sort of nest or bedding to sleep on.  One thing to remember is that most creatures of at least a cat's intelligence won't leave their droppings in the same place where they sleep.

2. Why is this dungeon here?
If your dungeon is located in a civilized area, perhaps it once served as a prison.  If that's the case, there should be cells, bars, doors, a few traps, and some remains of the prisoners.  Depending on how old it is, and what creatures reside there now, not all of these elements need to be intact.
If your dungeon is located in the mountains, perhaps it used to be a mine.  If that's the case, it should appear to have been dug with picks, there should be support beams every 20-30 feet, likely rails for mine carts, and there could be some remains, such as an old, damaged lantern, a broken pick, perhaps the bones of an unfortunate miner under a collapse.
Alternatively, if your dungeon is in the mountains, it could be a naturally formed cave.  If that's the case, there should be stalactites, stalagmites, possibly dripping water, a small pool, or maybe a stream.

3. Considering Traps
If you want to place traps in your dungeon, you should consider a few things.  First, who built the trap?  This is largely decided for you when you consider why the dungeon exists to begin with.  Second, what is the trap's purpose?  Traps can serve five purposes: keep someone out, keep someone in, kill, hold, or alert.  A trap designed to keep someone out should block off passages while the trigger is on the outside of the trap.  A trap designed to keep someone in, triggers after the trap is passed, then blocks off the exit.  A trap designed to kill will employ something lethal.  A trap designed to hold will attempt to keep the triggering character in one place.  A trap designed to alert will make noise or create some sort of signal to bring the guards.  Traps can serve more than one purpose.  A trap designed to hold an intruder does little good on its own, but add an alarm to the trap, and it not only secures an intruder, but summons the guards so they can decide how to deal with the intruder.
From a realistic standpoint, alert traps should be the most commonly built.  Think about ways in which we protect our homes, or how businesses protect themselves.  Alarms cover doors and windows and send a signal when they are opened without authorization.  This sort of trap does nothing to the intruder on its own, allowing someone to decide how to respond.  If the owner of the trap sets it off by accident, there's no risk to themselves.
Hold and alert traps should be the next common trap.  This is slightly more secure than the alert trap, because it tries to hold the intruder until someone arrives to deal with them.
Traps designed to keep people out would be the next common trap.  These sorts of traps should have some sort of bypass after they are triggered, in case they are accidentally triggered by their owner.  No intelligent creature would set up a trap that would lock him out of his own lair if he had an accident.
Traps designed to keep people in aren't very common.  This sort of trap could be used in a treasure vault, so long as the vault doesn't contain an item that would make the trap pointless.  This sort of trap should be combined with an alert as well, so that it acts as a hold and alert trap.  However, this sort of trap could also be placed at the entrance to a tomb, in which case alerting someone isn't necessary.
Kill traps should be rare, and only placed in areas where the trap's owner wouldn't worry about triggering it accidentally.  Nobody would ever put a trap that's capable of killing themselves in a place where they will regularly go.


This covers most of what you'll need to consider for designing with a theme and designing realistic dungeons.  My next few posts in this series will start getting into more details of dungeon design.

Designing Dungeons: Goals

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Before you sit down to design your dungeon, you should first figure out what it is you want to accomplish with this dungeon, or perhaps, what do you want your players to accomplish.  This is the goal of your dungeon.  Your dungeon can have multiple goals.  Perhaps one of your goals is for your party to achieve their next level.  Perhaps you want them to discover an important clue or information that will advance the plot.  Perhaps this dungeon will involve a climactic battle with the villain.


Level Goals

Do you want your party to level up at the end of this dungeon?  If so, you'll need to plan encounters and experience accordingly.  Following the guides in the core books, it takes 13 to 14 encounters to achieve a new level.  This assumes the party is encountering challenges appropriate to their level.  For example, a party of level 1 characters facing a level 1 challenge is awarded 300 experience to divide among the party.  If there  are 4 players, this is 75 each.  75 times 13 is 975, and 75 times 14 is 1050.  It takes 1000 experience to reach level 2, so 14 level 1 encounters will be enough for a party of level 1 characters to reach level 2.  However, it is quite boring to face the same type of encounter every time.  You'll want to vary the difficulty of your encounters.  According to the DMG, it is recommended that about half of the encounters be equal to the party's level.  About a tenth of the encounters should be lower than the party's level, and only a few should be higher.

Challenge ratings are a measure of the overall difficulty of the challenge.  A challenge that's the same level as the party will consume about one fifth of the party's resources if handled correctly.  You can safely assume the party can go through 3 or 4 encounters equal to their level before they have to rest.  Because of the random nature of criticals, never assume that the party will survive the maximum amount of challenge they should survive.  Theoretically, a party of level 1 characters can go through four level 1 encounters before they need to rest.  However, two orcs are considered a level 1 encounter, and the default stats for an orc assume they are wielding falchions, which deal 2d4+4 damage with an 18-20 critical chance.  This means each orc deals an average of 9 damage per hit.  Most level 1 characters can't survive more than one hit like that.  If that orc happens to score a critical hit, that's an average of 18 damage, enough to drop a level 1 character (a level 1 barbarian with an 18 consitution and the toughness feat has only 19 HP).  The lower the party's level, the more likely they'll need to rest between encounters.  Take that into account as you design your dungeons.

While designing dungeons, you should have an idea of how much experience the party has and try to plan your encounters based on how much experience you want them to gain.


Plot Goals

Is the dungeon itself the entire adventure, or is it just a piece of a bigger plot?  If the goal of the adventure is a simple fetch quest, perhaps the objective is in the dungeon.  Perhaps the fetch quest becomes more complicated when the party discovers the objective isn't in the dungeon.  For a more complex plot, you can leave a clue to the actual location of their target within the dungeon.

Dungeons can easily serve as a means to advance the plot, because a party goes into a dungeon with clear goals in mind.  They expect to have achieved that goal by the time they've cleared the dungeon.  If you don't want the dungeon to be the end of the current adventure, then instead of putting the party's target in the dungeon, put some sort of clue in the dungeon instead that leads them to another location.

When designing the dungeon around the plot, you need to keep in mind such things as what information you want the party to gain from the dungeon, and how you want to deliver that information.  If the adventure's target isn't in the dungeon, you need to make sure the party doesn't miss the clues, and a diligent party won't.  Most players who go into a dungeon looking for something specific, who don't find it, will examine everything they can to figure out what they missed, however some players, particularly new players, won't, and will instead look to you for a hint about their next step.  While it is important that you make sure they find the clues, it is also important that you don't make it too obvious.  You want them to feel like they found the clue, instead of you handing it to them on a platter.  I'll try to go into more details about delivering subtle clues in a later post.


Encountering the Villain

An encounter with the adventure's villain, or perhaps a recurring villain, is always a great moment in any D&D game.  As a DM, your objective in such an encounter is to make it memorable.  First of all, if a recurring villain is about to show up, you may want to drop a few hints leading up to the encounter that the villain is about to show up, especially if the villain doesn't realize the party is nearby.  If the villain is aware of the party and plans to ambush them, then you'll want to keep that a secret.  Any good villain will cover his tracks.  However, not every villain can prepare for everything, and you may want to reward a clever player who does something you didn't expect by dropping a hint of the villain's presence.

Turning an ordinary encounter into a memorable one is actually fairly simple.  The easiest way to do this is to change the environment.  A fight with a wizard and his two bodyguards could be just another encounter.  That same encounter taking place in a room with a large pit in the middle, and the villains making use of bull rush and spells that threaten to knock the players over the edge makes it into a much more memorable encounter.  However, adding such an element increases the difficulty, so you should take that into account.  I'll go into more details on this in a later post concerning creative encounters.

Want to make your villain memorable without increasing the difficulty of the fight?  There are ways to do this, too.  If the villain threatens something important to one or more of the players, you can be sure they'll remember it.  I had a dragon once take a barbarian's weapon while the barbarian was frozen in fear.  The player wrote the dragon's name on his character sheet along with "took my axe" so he'd never forget why he was angry with this dragon.  One of my player characters got married within the game, so for the final encounter with a succubus attempting to become a demon lord, I had his wife chained to a wall, and the succubus had polymorphed his wife to make her look like the elf queen the succubus had been impersonating, and the succubus had herself chained to the wall and altered her appearance to look like the character's wife.  Both appeared to be unconscious.  The succubus had a nondetection effect on her, so the party couldn't detect evil to determine which was which.  There was literally no way of knowing who was who, and the succubus appears to "wake up" and warn the players that elf queen was really evil and was only appearing to be chained up and helpless and that they should kill her now before she attacked.


This covers the basics of defining the goals of your dungeon.  I'll go into greater detail on some of these points in later posts.  Hopefully, this will get you started when thinking about what your dungeons are trying to accomplish.

Designing Dungeons: Overview

This post is the beginning of a new series specifically for D&D 3.5 DMs.  During this series, I will discuss the basics of dungeons, designing around a theme, making your dungeons realistic and interesting, and designing dungeon encounters.


First, why design dungeons at all?

The first, and most obvious answer is that the first part of the game's name is "Dungeons."  It's traditional.  From a mechanical standpoint, a dungeon serves as a clearly defined path of progression from one encounter to the next.  Each room of a dungeon acts as an encounter, usually with doors separating one encounter from the next.  In this way, players have the security of knowing that whatever is in the room is the challenge that must be overcome, plus the uncertainty of what lies beyond the next door.


So, what is a dungeon?

Pretty much anything can serve as a dungeon.  The classic dungeon is a cave system or series of rooms carved out of stone that form an underground complex.  A sewer system can also serve as a dungeon, and makes for a great low-level adventure.  However, the king's castle can also be a dungeon.  A city in the midst of a rebellious uprising can also be a dungeon.  While these last two don't fit the aesthetics of a classic dungeon, they can serve the mechanical role of a dungeon and can be designed the same way.


I'm going to keep this post short, as this is just the basic overview.  In later posts we'll delve into the details and discuss the theme and goals of the dungeon.

Part 1: Goals
Part 2: Themes and Realism