John Marron's page

I just started running 2 4E games, one with 4 players and 1 with 3. Both have run fine (I'm using a published module - HS1 - for both groups). The players in the 3 person group specifically chose not to have a companion character since they like to feel that character death is a real possibility (they have also chosen to use inherent bonuses rather than magic items, and to make resurrection much harder to get). I haven't toned down the encounters yet, so they are certainly challenging, but I get the feeling that with a group of 5 characters, they might even be too easy.

John

A bunch of the stuff I use for creepy background music has already been mentioned (The Village, Vertigo, Shinjuku Thief, 99 Darkest Classical), but I didn't see a few of my favorites mentioned yet:

The score Philip Glass did for the silent 1931 Dracula, played by Kronos Quartet
Winter Was Hard by Kronos Quartet
The String Tribute to Tool

There is also this amazing site full of creepy ambient stuff:

http://www.darkwinter.com/index1.html

John

Okay, so this is not a thread about the mathematics of Skill Challenges. The last few Dragon/Dungeon articles have cleaned it up and basically has set the failure rate at 3 regardless of the amount of successes needed. Simple enough.

Could someone post links or pointers to these Dragon/Dungeon articles that clear up skill challenges? I have the errata, but have not seen the articles.

Thanks

For markers I just raided my 4 year old daughter's collection of foam shapes. They are roughly 1- 1.25" across and 1/8" thick. They come in lots of shapes (heart, triangle, square, circle) and colors. We put them under the mini to show status. Red hearts = bloodied, dark green circle = Hunter's Quarry, light green circle = fey warlock's curse, blue circle = Fighter's mark, yellow triangle = slowed, etc.

You can get a tub of thousand's of them (more than you'll ever need) for $8.

Here's a site that sells them:

http://craftsuppliesforless.com/kidscraftsupplies_foamies1.html

The ones I use are the "Foamies Bucket of SHAPES, Assorted Shapes - 5.5 Oz"

There are bunch that are too big or small to use, but there are plenty of useable ones. They are very effective and cheap. You should also be able to find these in local craft stores (Michael's, Hobby Lobby around here).

John