If you’re anything like me, you’ve been following the previews of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition and are frothing at the mouth to get the books. You’re also a bit miffed at the idea of dropping $100+ on the books. As it turns out, though, you can have your cake and eat it too. The best deal I managed to find for these books ended up costing me just under $17 per book, a far cry from the list price of $104.95 for all three. Here’s how I did it:

1. Apply any organizational discounts. At B&N, organizational discounts stack with coupon discounts. For example, I’m a AAA member, so I started by logging in through AAA.com/barnesandnoble to get a 5% discount. If you’ve got any sort of organizational discount that applies, like the B&N membership discount or the Geico Privileges discount, be sure to give it a try.
    
2. Add it to your shopping cart. Go to the 4th Edition Core Rulebook Gift Set product page. This is where the lion’s share of your discount comes in; Barnes & Noble cuts 35% off the list price and gives you free shipping for preordering. Select Preorder to add it to your cart.
    
3. Apply your coupon discount. Proceed through checkout. When prompted for a coupon code, enter Y8Y8E9R if you’re a new customer to receive a 25% discount. Of course, you can get the new customer discount even as an existing customer if you’re sly enough to have a spouse or good friend place the order for you. The coupon expires on May 26th, but you should be able to find similar coupons if you order after this date. Here’s the page where I found the coupon codes for you latecomers.
    
4. Select free shipping. Be sure to choose the best free shipping option available. For me, this was expedited free shipping, which takes three to five business days.
    
5. Wait with rapt anticipation. Count the days until June 11-13, when your books should arrive in the mail.

Following these steps, I managed to get the full set for $50.95, or just under $17 apiece. Your mileage may vary. First-time B&N customers who don’t have any organizational discounts should be able to get the set for a little over $54, which is still a pretty good deal.

Share your thoughts. Has anyone found a way to (legally) get the books any cheaper?

1. Good guys make the best villains. Nothing stirs player hatred quite like betrayal, be it on a personal level or simply a betrayal of principles. If it’s possible, get the party actively involved in your villain’s fall from grace. By making them partially responsible for the villain’s existence, you make them feel responsible for his crimes and that much more committed to stopping him.
    
2. A good villain isn’t untouchable. Remember; your players are the stars of the story. Don’t make your villain so powerful that they don’t pose a threat to him. Make him challenging, even oppressive, but not untouchable. That way acting against him isn’t a seemingly futile prospect.
    
3. A good villain is evil by choice. Someone forced to commit wicked acts against his or her will is a victim, not a villain. Someone who chooses the path of evil, however, is much easier to despise. It’s okay for the party to understand, and perhaps even empathize with, the villain’s decisions; just don’t make those decisions easy to forgive.
    
4. A good villain acts by proxy. Until the climax of the story, your villain should never be in real harm’s way. Send proxies to do your villain’s dirty work. After all, they’re expendable; your villain isn’t.
    
5. A good villain forces hard decisions. Stop the villain, or stop the forest fire he started to distract you? Kill the villagers he infected, or let them spread the plague to others? A good villain will actively put the party into situations like these where the consequences of either choice could be disastrous.
    
6. A good villain finds creative ways to torment the party. Sending wave after wave of minions after the party is a natural part of villainy, but it gets boring if that’s all you do. Have your villain attack the party’s family or allies, defame them in the next town over, curse them, put a bounty on their head, etc. By harassing the party from many different angles, you keep them on their toes.
    
7. A good villain is never truly defeated. Although your villain shouldn’t be unkillable, he should have a contingency plan for nearly any situation. Naturally, he’s there to be thwarted, quite likely numerous times, but the fat lady shouldn’t be singing for him until the very climax of the campaign. Even then, leaving a twinge of doubt about his demise is a great lead-in to another campaign.

I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons for the past 15 years. In that time, I’ve loved every edition of the game. I read almost every supplement, I put together incredibly complex characters, and I still DM at least a few times a month.

That being said, I have mixed feelings about a new edition. It feels to me like version 3.5 hasn’t had enough time to mature. I remember getting my 3.5 core book set in early 2005, so it’s only been out for about two-and-a-half years. In that time, I’ve had some grand campaigns, and I think the system is pretty solid as-is.

Is there room for improvement? Yes, in as much as there’s always room for improvement. Still, I have to ask whether or not 3.5 is worth messing with. It isn’t just Wizards of the Coast; thousands of players and DMs have put a lot of work into their 3.5 games. Do we want to throw that all away and start from scratch, especially considering the current game isn’t that bad?

I honestly don’t know. I like my 3.5 campaigns and characters. When 4th edition comes out, I know I’ll spring for it, and I’ll probably like the changes that have been made.

I guess it just seems too soon…

My most recent excursion into min-maxing centered around one question. Which does more damage, a scimitar or a longsword? The question is fairly straightforward for most D&D veterans. A scimitar has a larger crit range (18-20) but lower base damage (1d6), while a longsword has a smaller crit range (19-20) but greater base damage (1d8). This will no doubt sound tedious and unnecessary to a casual player, but most of us who excel in the fine art of “character optimization” have pondered this question once or twice.

To get at the answer, I designed a d20 weapon comparison tool. Just input the damage stats of the two weapons you’re considering and see which is better. It doesn’t take other factors into account yet, but it’s pretty good for answering the base damage versus crit debate.

As for the scimitar versus longsword question, it depends on your damage bonus. You have to have a pretty hefty damage bonus (+19 or greater) to make the scimitar deal better damage on average. If it’s a choice between two keen swords, however, you don’t need nearly as much of a damage bonus (+9 or greater) to make the scimitar deal better damage. The whole debate is pointless, of course, if your target is immune to critical hits, but we min-maxers still like to argue about it nonetheless.

Of course, the program can help shed light on other weapon choices for your character. In testing it, I came across these interesting findings.

• Dagger versus Punching Dagger – As you can see, there is practically no difference here except for a slight damage increase against opponents with ACs so high that you have to roll a 20 to hit them. It’s not worth giving up the versatility of a normal dagger, in my opinion.
• Dagger versus Kukri – Even with a high damage bonus to take advantage of the increased crit range, you’d be hard-pressed to get the kukri to dish out more than an extra point of damage on average than an ordinary dagger. As with the punching dagger, I don’t think an infinitesimal damage boost is worth losing the dagger’s versatility as a thrown weapon.
• Longsword versus Bastard Sword – The only difference between these two weapons stat-wise is a one-point increase in average damage. For fighters and other characters with spare feats to burn on Exotic Weapon Proficiency, that’s not bad, although it’s still sub-par when compared to staples like Weapon Specialization. Take the good feats first; save bastard sword proficiency for when you haven’t got anything better to use them on.
• Scythe versus Greatclub – Don’t let that x4 crit multiplier tempt you; the scythe dishes out damage about as well as a greatclub, which is arguably one of the worst two-handed weapons in the game. Even if you have the damage bonus to make those rare crits really worthwhile, you’d still be better off using a greatsword. It’s a shame, I know, but a scythe just isn’t worth using unless you’re in it for character reasons.

I’m interested in hearing what other people learn from my weapon comparison tool, or whether anyone else even finds it useful for that matter. Suggestions for improvement are, likewise, quite welcome.

That’s why I made sure to pick up this little jewel. Suddenly, being a melee combatant doesn’t have to be boring. Tome of Battle offers a wide array of new options. In lieu of your hum-drum hacking and slashing, you can initiate spectacular martial maneuvers. Enter a Punishing Stance, cut the dragon down to size with a Strike of Perfect Clarity, and follow it all up with a Finishing Move. You can bet I’ll be playing a gestalt warblade in my next game.

The only problem I found with this book is that it’s a bit on the short side. There is a huge potential for new prestige classes here that the writers simply didn’t fulfill. The chapter on maneuvers, while well-packed, feels a bit limited. Then again, this could have been due to game balance considerations more than anything, much like the warlock invocations of Complete Arcane.

All in all, it’s definitely a worthwhile addition to the gaming table. There aren’t a lot of new rules to work through, so introducing it to the game shouldn’t be problematic for most groups.

Of course, I hate feeling ripped off, so I shopped around for the best price before I bought it. Whatever you do, do not get this book at retail, since you’ll end up shelling out $30 or more. The same goes for a lot of online stores. The best price I managed to find was online at Buy.com. Even with shipping, the price there was less than $20, which is better than you’ll find at Amazon or Ebay.

The Deck of Many Things has obvious appeal for a number of reasons. Players of D&D, by definition, enjoy the prospect of grand adventures, of grave risk for even greater rewards. The Deck of Many Things allows just that in a very compressed format. There’s no need to fight monsters or solve puzzles. Your victory or defeat can be determined with the draw of a card.

From the DM’s chair, of course, there’s a lot more to lose. The Deck of Many Things is notorious for its ability to completely destroy a well-constructed campaign. All it takes is one character drawing the “Gain beneficial medium wondrous item and 50,000 XP” card to make everyone else feel unnecessary. After all, their companion has just gained several levels and can easily trounce anything in their path single-handedly. On the same token, a character could immediately lose all of their hard-earned gear, be trapped in an extradimensional space, or be slain permanently. While the party may recover, the individual player may very well feel swindled.

Using a Deck of Many Things should never be done lightly. A single card can radically unbalance a campaign or ruin someone’s fun. The more people who draw from it and the more cards that are drawn, the more likely it is that one of these game-ruining cards comes out. Consider your players’ attachment to their characters and their degree of risk-taking behavior before giving them the option. Fewer cards means lower risk.

It’s also worthwhile to audit the Deck’s effects before introducing it into play. Consider mitigating the worst cards to prevent the campaign from suffering if they’re drawn. If you do so, be sure to balance the Deck by mitigating a card of opposing desirability as well. In any event, the potential risks should be balanced by the potential rewards, but there’s nothing wrong with tweaking it beforehand to keep things under control.

The important thing to remember about a Deck of Many Things is that drawing from it involves gambling everything. Players gamble their characters and DMs gamble their campaigns. The only safe draw from a Deck of Many Things is the one that is never made. Keep that in mind and consider carefully before putting it in front of your players.

Being the antagonist, players tend to look at you differently. They read your actions and, though they may try to avoid it, infer hints as to what might be coming next. Since most campaigns are more fun when the players are kept guessing, GMs must employ the art of deception to preserve and enhance everyone’s enjoyment.

One method that I’ve found to be particularly effective is to make your players paranoid. When they’re convinced that your cues may or may not have profound significance from one moment to the next, they’ll stay on their toes. To do this, I recommend sending false cues as to what’s really happening.

Here is an example from a D&D game that I used to great effect. At the start of the game, I passed a note to a random player. The note indicated that it was fake and that the player should react with surprise and not reveal its contents to the other players. It worked like a charm. My players took the false hint that something sinister was in the works, giving me the appearance of a devious antagonist.

During this same game, I had the players roll unnecessary Listen and Spot checks. This tends to have a somewhat more immediate effect, causing the players to ask themselves, “What is it that we didn’t see or hear just now?” When everyone is primed for a surprise encounter at any moment, paranoia can’t be far behind.

I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to keep players guessing. It is the sense that there’s always something bad about to happen to their characters that I find most effective. If you do your job right, you may receive compliments in the sort of unexpected way I did. As one of my players put it, “I hate you! That was awesome!”