Building the Best Assassin (Executioner Build) in D&D

Meet Havelock. He's the current character I play in Dungeons & Dragons. Havelock is a (currently) Level 10 Drow Assassin (Executioner build). This post is going to be a guide to what I feel is the best build for an assassin in D&D. There'll be a bit of theory craft, a bit of lore, and a bit of baseless opinion, so feel free to disregard or complain.

This guide is going to be based on D&D 4th Edition (4e) , rather than the just recently released 5'th edition (5e/D&DNext) because I don't play 5th edition. I'll also be using the character builder provided by Wizards of the coast, for no other reason than it allows you to print out spell cards after character creation. Over the years Wizards has added (and removed) some options, so this may not match everything that's available in the player guides.

Ratings:
When choosing between options in your build, I'll use the following ratings which should be self explanatory: [Useless], [Neutral], [Decent], [Good], [Great].

So lets begin:

The Assassin Class

So you want to play an assassin. It's a fine choice, you have a lot of fun and a lot of versatility in this build. Unlike other strikers (damage dealers) you have multiple venues to deal damage, from poisons, to daggers, to garrotes, to shrunken... there are quite a few builds available. This guide will list the main options that are available as well as my top choices. Many of these are up to opinion and you shouldn't feel obligated to follow these.

My Assassin, "Havelock"

The Executioner Build

Unlike the standard Assassin Class in D&D, which uses Shadow abilities, the Executioner build is more like what pretty much everyone else thinks of when you think assassin. Rather than using abilities like taking on a shade form by channeling powers of the Shadowfell (basically using dark magic) the Executioner relies primarily on martial abilities (with 1 or 2 exceptions). The Executioner build is in fact so distinctly removed from the Assassin class that it should really be its own separate class. In my opinion the Executioner build should be renamed "Assassin" and the current assassin should be renamed to a new class that better describes its mechanics... something like Fell Rogue or whatever... 

The point is, we'll be building an Executioner Assassin. I've never played a regular Assassin and I have no intention to start since 4e is slowly coming to a close.

Executioner Option: Finesse vs Shrouds

You have the option of choosing between the Attack Finesse trait or Master of Shrouds trait. The benefit of BOTH is that you use Dexterity instead of Strength when making Melee basic attacks. 

[Decent] Attack Finesse simply give you an extra 1d8 to damage rolls made with a 1 handed weapon (melee or ranged), which bumps up to 2d8 at level 11 and 3d8 at level 21.
[Good] Master of Shrouds gives you an extra ability:

This ability doesn't seem like much at first, until you realize that it stacks, up to 4 times. So each shroud is only dealing 1d6 damage when it's invoked (and then its removed) you have the option of dealing 4d6 damage to a boss on a long fight. 

This is a tough choice, but I went with Assassin's Shroud, for the main reason that it gives you a decent ranged ability that you can use as a Free Action, rather than a Standard Action (meaning you can attack a target in melee range and then add a shroud to another target in the same turn). It doesn't allow you to do the standard once per turn 1d8 damage that Attack Finesse does, but the possibility of dealing 4d6 damage on an enemy (possibly a boss) is really appealing, as our DM's like to make long and hard boss fights. And, if the attack misses, you deal damage minus 1 shroud. Definitely worthwhile if you're fighting creatures with high defense. Both, however, are great choices. 

Choosing your Guild

Assassins have to be trained somewhere - that somewhere is at an Assassin's guild. There are there main guilds, each of which (deepening on the story of your campaign) have satellite offices in most cities and cultures. 

There's no right or wrong answer, and each choice gives you unique benefits as well as different options toward role playing. 

League of Whispers (Ranged)

From Dragon Magazine 394 (p2):

The very existence of this guild of executioners is often dismissed as myth or urban legend. The League of Whispers keeps its membership a secret. Although individual members might be known as assassins, their association with the guild is rarely more than a matter of speculation for nonmembers. The league keeps its existence a mystery by executing anyone who discovers the truth. The order holds secret meetings once every full moon, where the members converge to discuss jobs, trade secrets and tricks, and receive orders from their Grandfather of Assassins.

Choosing this Guild will give you the following abilities:

[Decent] Bola Takedown: A basic Crowd Control opportunity. Knocks a target prone. 
[Good] Quick Shot: Must use a hand crossbow. Allows you to attack with a crossbow at point blank range without invoking an opportunity attack, then step back two squares. 
[Great] Precision Dart: Must use a blowgun. Allows you to shoot a poisoned dart at your enemy, applying 1 poison to them. 

This is basically a ranger who uses poison. Very similar to the Demon Hunter class in Diablo III. If you choose this class, I only recommend Bola Takedown if you plan on handling crowd control (typically a controller task, not a striker task). Poison Dart would be your go to ability as it allows you to apply your assassin poison to the target from a distance. 

Way of the Ninja (Ranged/Melee)

From Dragon Magazine 404 (p1):

Of all the warriors in the realm to draw steel in combat, the ninja is the most mysterious. The streets are full of whispered rumors about these silent spies and killers, who seem able to appear anywhere at any time. Some say that ninja can alter their appearances so skillfully that one of them can stand before a victim in the guise of a lifelong friend or trusted retainer, and awaken no suspicion; and that they can kill with a single sword stroke. 

Choosing this Guild will give you the following abilities:

[Useless] Ninja-to Rush: Gives combat advantage if you've fallen or flown this turn.
[Neutral] Whirling Kusari-gama: Knocks a target prone. 
[Great] Poisonous Shuriken: Target 1, 2, or 3 creatures. If it hits, apply a poison to all three targets. 

The only good ability is Poisonous Shuriken. It's really the only reason to become a ninja in the first place. This is essentially a version of Precision Dart that hits multiple targets. 

Red Scales (Melee)

From Dragon Magazine 394 (p2):

This order of assassins works to keep society in balance. If any organization grows too powerful, too corrupt, too wealthy, or too vile, the Red Scales weigh and measure the members of that organization and then collect a payment that they are owed in blood. Though one might call the Red Scales idealists, none can say what truly drives them. Rumors abound that this guild’s Grandfather of Assassins is touched by some planar entity. They say that his eyes are orbs of golden fire, a feature he gained, along with his new policies, only after he returned from a journey to the distant East.

Choosing this Guild will give you the following abilities:

[Good] Garrote Strangle: Allows you to strangle an enemy, grabbing them and forcing them to take a -2 penalty to attacks against yourself so long as you sustain it. Can only be used if you were stealthed or invisible, or otherwise hidden from a creature. 
[Good] Poisoned Dagger: Must be used with a dagger. Applies a poison to the target even if it misses.
[Neutral] Quick Lunge: A 1-square shift followed by a knockdown attack, and if you hit you can shift back where you started. I don't think I've even used this ability in game. 

This is the option I chose Red Scales, as it fits more in with the Assassin theme than any other build, and besides, you get to freaking strangle people.

Now you may be thinking, "But wait, Red Scales has only 2 [Good] and [Neutral] 1 option, whereas each of the other guilds have at least 1 [Great] option by your own rating. Aren't you hurting yourself by choosing Red Scales?"

The answer is, maybe, it depends on if you look just at game mechanics alone. I however plan to Role Play as an assassin, and to me, having the Garrote and Poison Dagger just seems more Assassiny to me.

Poisons

You can choose from 4 poisons (out of 6 to begin with), so really you'll be choosing 2 you don't want.  I'm only going to list the in-combat benefits, you may want to take a look at the out of combat (role playing) damage/effects each poison does and decide for yourself. 

Level 1 Poisons (Choose 4)

[Good] Bloodroot Poison (D 394) Deals 6 extra poison damage & dazes target.
[Neutral] Carrion Crawler Brain Juice (D 394) Deals 4 damage & slows target.
[Decent] Greenblood Oil (D 394) Deals 10 damage & the target cannot regain hit points.
[Good] Id Moss Powder (D 394) 2d10 damage & 5 ongoing psychic damage.
[Useless] Nitharit Poison (D 394) 2 ongoing damage.
[Good] Ungol Dust (D 394) 3d8 damage & 5 ongoing acid damage. 

Id Moss Powder and Ungol Dust are both good choices, but I go with Ungol Dust over Id Moss. You definitely want to choose 1 or the other. I'm writing a specific entry about dice rolls and which dice combinations are better, but suffice it to say that the most likely outcome on a 3d8 roll is either a 13 or a 14 (9.4% probability) vs 11 (10% probability) on a 2d10. As a general rule, when it doubt, go with the higher number of die rather than the higher die number, if that make sense. 

Level 15 Poisons (Choose 1)

[Useless] Black Lotus Extract (D 394) Deals 8 extra damage
[Great] Insanity Mist (D 394) Deals 3d10 + Dex mod damage, & ongoing 10 psychic damage
[Good] Lich Dust (D 394) Deals 10 extra poison damage & target is weakened. 

This one's a no-brainer. I should mention that Black Lotus Extract has a non-combat option of dealing 40 poison damage in a Role Playing setting, so you may want to chose that option, depending on what type of games your DM runs. If you plan on killing a lot of people out of combat, Black Lotus Extract is a good option. However, for strictly combat purposes, Insanity Mist is the way to go. The most likely damage output on it will be either 16 or 17 (7.5% probability) and it gives 10 ongoing damage (psychic, for some reason, but damage is damage). The weakened ability of Lich Dust is nice, but I feel that Insanity Mist will help you down your enemies quicker. 

Level 25 Poisons (Choose 1)

[Neutral] Dark Reaver Powder (D 394) Deals 10 poison damage & dazes target until end of next turn.
[Decent] Dragon Bile (D 394) Creature falls prone and is stunned until end of next turn.
[Great] Eye of Basilisk (D 394) 6d10 + Dex mod poison damage & target is slowed.

This one again is a no-brainer. Choose Eye of the Basalisk. The most likely outcome on a 6d10 roll is either 32, 33 or 34 (5.5% probability). Now, that 5% probability doesn't seem like much, but keep in mind that 33 is also the median damage, as well as the average damage. That means that you have just as likely a chance of getting a damage roll higher than 33 as you do of getting one lower than 33. You also add your Dexterity modifier to this damage, which at level 25 should be pretty high, considering that we're pumping Dexterity every 2 levels, unless you really need Charisma for something. The prone & stun on Dragon Bile is nice, but situation, and Dark Reaver Powder is absolutely useless unless you really need to take someone out for only 1 turn. Dragon Bile does the same thing, but gets a [Decent] rating because it both stuns and knocks the target prone, meaning they have to use a move action to get up on their 2nd turn after being stunned. 

Race

What Race you choose is mostly an aesthetic or role playing choice. For my part, I chose to play a Drow, as the Assassin (Executioner) theme really sets in with the Drow character. 

[Great] Drow - Dark Elves, Drow play great Assassins. Gives you a few extra damage dealing abilities. Automatic +2 to Dexterity and +2 to Charisma for some reason... I guess Drow are pretty Charismatic 

[Great] Changeling - Good for role playing, as you can infiltrate your enemies and pretend to become one of them. You also get the Becomer feat, allowing you to basically perfectly mimic a single race. Automatic +2 to Charisma and +2 Dexterity.   

[Decent] Eladrin - Can choose between being either a Sun Elf or Moon Elf. Each give inherent bonuses to certain abilities like Bluff or Streetwise and a weapon proficiency. Automatic +2 to Intellect and a choice of +2 to either Dexterity or Charisma. If you choose Eladrin, go with the Dexterity.  

[Decent] Gnome - The real benefit here is in Stealth. Gnomes can make a Stealth check anytime they make an Initiative roll and have any kind of cover or concealment. Automatic +2 to Intellect and a choice of +2 to either Dexterity or Charisma. If you choose Gnome, go with the Dexterity.  

[Decent] Halfling - Not a lot of benefit here, but does give an ability forcing an opponent to re-roll an attack against you. Automatic +2 to Dexterity and +2 to Charisma.  

[Decent] Goblin - The Goblin Tactics power allows you to shift 1 square as a free action when hit, but other than that not much choice here. Automatic +2 to Dexterity and +2 to Charisma.

[Great] Hengeyokai - A shapeshifting animal, you can choose a few options that give bonuses to Stealth or Acrobatics, both good choices for Assassins. Automatic +2 to Dexterity and +2 to Charisma. 

[Good] Revenant - The Dark Reaping ability allows you to deal an extra 1d8 plus Charisma modifier damage once per encounter as a free action, which is nice. Also you can choose to have your past life option be one of the other races listed so you can meet pre-requisites, like Drowmesh armor, for example. Automatic +2 to Dexterity and +2 to Charisma. 

[Great] Human - The standard choice. As a human you get a bonus feat choice at level 1, which is useful, and +2 to any ability you like. A versatile choice. 

Background & Theme

Background and Theme are optional and you don't have to choose 1 or the other. Themes will give you unique bonuses or extra abilities, whereas Backgrounds will give you extra skill training, skill bonuses or languages. Both of which are useful to have. 

In choosing a Theme, you'll want to look at the abilities and bonuses each gives you. The priority in choosing themes (and I won't list all of the possible themes as there are literally hundreds) should follow something like this: 

Damage Dealing Abilities: You'll want to choose a theme which offers you an extra attack of some sort. If its a standard (rather than Encounter) ability even better, as it can replace your At-Will attack. 

Utility Abilities: Abilities that give you an extra utility are a good choice here, although "Utility" is a rather nebulous term. By Utility I mean abilities that give you an added skill. For example, there are themes that give you extra abilities your class might not have, such as an additional stealth, abilities that weaken, ensnare or knock targets prone, or anything that is going to be situationally useful. 

Mobility Abilities: Some feats give you extra movement, or escape abilities if hit, for example. For an Assassin class (think Melee) you can't afford to get hit a lot. Anything that allows you to move, escape or shift (without incurring opportunity attacks) is a good thing. 

I've chosen the Spy theme, which gives you the following ability: 

The Skulking Spy ability gives you an optional shift (replacing your standard move action, however) up to your speed. At the end of that shift, you can make a stealth check to become hidden. As a stealth class, an extra opportunity to become hidden is very useful. 

In choosing a Background - think role play. Backgrounds don't give you extra abilities - rather they give you extra training in skills or a bonus to already trained skill. Since Stealth is your main skill, I recommend choosing a background that boosts your Stealth. I chose the Occupation - Hired Killer background, giving me a +2 to Stealth. 

Abilities

Dexterity will of course be your main ability. All of your attacks use your dexterity modifier, so pumping points into Dexterity is your top priority. 

Charisma is your secondary ability. You'll want to pump points into this as well, as it is used for many of your checks (depending on feats) as well as various role-playing options. 

Strength was previously an important ability, but in the most recent version of 4e it is now completely useless as Executioner assassins can choose between Attack Finesse or Master of Shrouds, both of which replace Strength with Dexterity as the modifier you use when making melee basic attacks. 

Skills

What skills you choose will depend on what type of game you play. An Assassin/Executioner is basically a deadlier form of a Rogue/Thief, so you'll already have stealth trained, which is important as many of your abilities require you to sneak up on people. 

Bluff is a good choice here, especially if you select the Spy theme which, at level 10, allows you to use Bluff checks in place of Diplomacy or Knowledge checks. 

Intimidate, Thievery & Streetwise are all good choices for role playing situations. Acrobatics, Athletics, & Perception are good skills to train for many combat situations. 

Keep in mind that since Dexterity will be your highest ability, Acrobatics, Stealth & Thievery will be your highest skills before training, so you may want to train 1 or all of them to give yourself an edge, or others in order to bring your skills up to snuff. 

For Havelock (at level 1) the skills I chose were these: 

From the D&D Insider Character Builder

Powers

Level 2 Utility

[Neutral] Distracting Illusion - Creates an illusion that can be used to distract your enemies.
[Great] Silent Stalker - Allows you to move your speed to within 2 squares of an enemy & remain hidden. This is great because you can later take a feat that allows you to make a stealth check whenever you become hidden!
[Neutral] Smoke Bomb - (Encounter) Creates a burst 1 zone of obscured squares that lasts until the end of your next turn.
[Decent] Summon the Mists - (Daily) Creates a zone of 5 squares that are obscured until end of encounter. A better version of Smoke Bomb basically. 

Level 6 Utility

[Decent] Darkness - Creates a burst 2 zone that obscures everything within it until the end of your next turn.
[Useless] Feathery Tread - Allows you to levitate, which can be good by allowing you to ignore difficult terrain. In general, however, its a waste of a feat.
[Useless] Ghost of the Rooftops - Allows you to climb and jump a distance up to your speed. Good for certain situations I suppose... except you might as well just make an acrobatics check as your acrobatics should be fairly high.
[Great] Vanish - Allows you to literally vanish whenever you are hit by an attack, ranged or melee, with a teleport!

Level 10 Utility

[Useless] Death Mark - Allows you to always know where a target is and they can't become invisible to you. Only useful in Role Playing heavy games.
[Neutral] Eyes Unseen - Allows you to see and hear anything that happens from a square in addition to the square you're standing in. Good if you need to scout out a position.
[Neutral] Veil of a Thousand Faces - Assassins have a class feature called Flawless Disguise which allows you, during an extended rest, to craft a disguise, giving a +5 bonus to Bluff checks when NPC's attempt to see through your disguise. Veil allows you to craft a new disguise as a standard, at will action, with only a +2 to Bluff rather than the +5. Not really useful in my experience.
[Good] Walk Through Shadow - An additional Teleport (since you already chose Vanish at level 6). 

Feats

With so many feats (and I mean literally hundreds from which to choose) it's hard to give a top 5 or top 10 list because I would definitely miss something. So instead, I'll list the priorities you should have when making your choice, then list what I've chosen for my Assassin. 

Feat Priority

To Hit

You definitely want to be able to hit your targets. Anything that would increase your accuracy is a definite priority

Damage

Damage is definitely something that you'll want to look at. Anything that will increase your damage, such as weapon proficiencies or additional trainings would be something you'd want to prioritize. 

Stealth/Movement

You're pretty much an OP Rogue, so you should use this. Anything that gives you a vanish, stealth, escape or invisibility is going to give you a great boost to your damage and Role Play opportunities. 

Defense

Defense is key, but you may want to prioritize damage dealing before defense. Honestly if you've got a good group of people who have healing abilities then you can hold back on some of the defensive feats. 

Role Playing/Utility

Perhaps you think feats that increase your ability to Role Play should be a top priority, and perhaps you're right. For me, although I do enjoy the Role Play aspect of D&D, if you can't kill your enemies then all the Role Play in the world is pretty useless. Unless of course you can Bluff your way out...

My Choices

Keep in mind that in making my choices I'm playing a Red Scale Executioner, who is also a Drow, so some of these choices won't necessarily apply to all Executioner Assassins. 

Level 1 Versatile DefenseTwo-Weapon Defense - +1 bonus to AC and Reflex when wielding a melee weapon in both hands.  

Level 1Venom Hand Master - Ignore Poison Resistance. I was forced to choose this feat when my DM began crafting monsters immune to poison.  

Level 2 Assassin's Cloak - Gives a Stealth check option whenever you become invisible, as many of your abilities do.  

Level 4Ki-Focus Expertise - +1 to attack rolls made with a Ki Focus (all of them) and +1 to damage rolls agains Bloodied targets.  

Level 6Master at Arms - +1 to attack rolls made with a weapon (all of them).  

Level 8Silent Shadows [Guild] - +2 to Stealth checks.  

Level 10Two-Weapon Fighting - +1 to damage rolls when using a Melee Weapon. 

Equipment

Ki Focus (All Guilds)

A Ki Focus is required for all Executioners (all Assassins really). For lore purposes, a Ki Focus allows the Assassin to channel dark abilities. Even though Executioners are martial (rather than shadow) classes, you still need your Ki Focus. The in-game reason is simple: you can infer it's enhancement bonus (i.e. +1, +2) to your weapon when using your abilities. For this reason, when purchasing weapons, go for weapons with the best secondary abilities (i.e. adds 6 additional poison damage on a critical hit, for example) and go for the higher enhancement bonus on the Ki Focus. Your Ki Focus should always be the one you put your money on. 

Rapier (Ninja & Red Scale)

Wizards of the Coast user Litigation turned me on to this. Until I read a few of his forum posts I had been using dual daggers. However, he pointed out that Rapiers are the best weapon for an Assassin to use due to their damage (1d8 on a rapier vs 1d4 on a dagger). So, unless you're using your Garrote Strangle or Poison Dagger abilities (probably 2 or 3 times per encounter) you'll be using the rapier to deal most of your damage. 

Red Scale Executioners

Dagger

Red Scale Guild members will need to have a Dagger handy in order to use your Poisoned Dagger ability, although you might want to look at a Dynamic Weapon, which can change into any type of melee weapon you choose. This is useful because there are other weapons that deal more damage than Daggers, but these are still necessary in order to apply your poisons. 

Garrote

A Garrote is necessary for your Garrote Strangle ability, one which you can only use while hidden from your target, but when it's used it's quite powerful. Once successful, it becomes a sustained ability, making your target immobilized & muted (helpful if an enemy's ability requires speaking). In addition, the target takes a -2 penalty to attacks made against you so long as the ability is sustained. 

League of Whispers

Bola

You need your Bola for your Bola Takedown ability, which helps in Crowd Control. 

Blowgun

An absolute must for your Poison Dart ability. Keep in mind that these are two-handed weapons, so plan your feats accordingly. As an absolute must get the Blowgun Training feat as this increases its range and its Crit damage. 

Hand Crossbow

This one is a better choice overall vs a short bow. You can use the Two-Weapon defense Feat for a little boost in survivability, and it does increased damage (1d8 vs 1d6 on a Short Bow) at the cost of range. 

Way of the Ninja

Shuriken & Kusari-Gama are obvious choices for the Ninja. Other than that, you'll be going with a Rapier for your melee damage.

Conclusion

I hope this guide has been helpful. If I've overlooked something or there's something I've gotten wrong, I'd love to know about it. In the meantime, anyone who likes can look over the character sheet for the Level 1 Assassin I've built, Havelock:

Havelock's Character Sheet

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Dungeons and Dragons - An Introduction

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is the original Role Playing Game. Oh, people played role playing games before, kids pretended to be knights and fight dragons, but D&D was the first game to create a set of rules and a world in which to play.

D&D began as a pen and paper RPG: in other words players wrote all of their information on paper, without the assistance of computers to calculate damage or graphics cards to render the action - the action itself was in your mind.

First Published in 1974 by TSR and created by Gary Gygaz and Dave Arneson, it was derived from miniature war-games, and used the miniatures to represent players and monsters within the game.

To play D&D, first you create a character. Characters follow the classes and races with which most people are familiar. Players can be a dwarf, an elf, a hafling (hobbit), a human, or some other more obscure races. Classes follow what most gamers will be familiar with: Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Wizard, Cleric.

All of this is done on paper. Players will fill out a character sheet describing their attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, etc) then choose from a list of available abilities based on their class, fill out a few other attributes for their character and eventually you will have all you need to play a game of D&D.

For anyone who's reading this and has never played D&D you might be thinking to yourselves well that doesn't sound very fun. And it's not, if that's all you do in order to play. The other thing that you need is a Dungeonmaster, or DM, who is willing to put forth a lot of effort in order to build your world. And I mean a lot of effort. For every minute that you spend working on your character and your characters skills, abilities, and backstory, a good DM is probably spending about 15 minutes. I'm going to be writing other post about being a Dungeonmaster later on, but suffice it to say that once you find a good Dungeonmaster you really want to keep him going. Because the amount of effort and time and energy it takes to design and build a really engaging in counter is exhausting.

The key to D&D is role-playing. For some of us, that might be a bit too much. Those of us who play World of Warcraft may have logged onto one or two role-playing servers, as I have, and only lasted about 10 or 15 minutes. Some people do take the role playing way too seriously, but Dungeons & Dragons is a game that's essentially played on graph paper, and the only tools that you really have at your disposal are a few die, a pencil, and your imagination. The amount of role-playing in a Dungeons & Dragons game really depends on who is playing. With my group, most of us will speak in the third person about about our characters, although we do try to stay in character, by that I mean only making actions that are logical for our character even if we may not necessarily feel that they are the correct or best action. However, we don't take it to extremes as some people do - we don't show up to our games dressed as our characters, we don't speak in the first person when describing our characters moves, although sometimes we will get a little bit deeper into character when we are having conversations with nonplayer characters, who are voiced by our DM.

Other people take it a bit more seriously, and that's fine. The whole point, the whole magic of D&D is the fact that a player can do pretty much everything with their character, so long as the DM allows it. Want to try to seduce that ogre over there, sure that's fine. Might not be the best idea, but you can try it. If the rest of the party wants to go right but you want to go left, well if the DM allows it then you can. As a general rule you don't want to split the party but…Dungeons & Dragons is about as fun as your group allows it to be. In the past I played with some people where it wasn't very fun, but then again the current group that I play with have made it the most fun that I've had in years. It really depends on the group of friends that you have, and the amount of energy that everybody brings to the table

I'm going to end this post by listing a few things that you really mean in order to play D&D session, as well as a few things that you don't need to but I highly recommend.

1 - a Dungeon Master

First off you need a good Dungeon Master. He or she is the person that runs the game, builds the maps, writes the nonplayer characters, and basically decides what will and will not happen for your session. This person should know the rules of D&D, as well as be interested enough in the game in order to write a very well thought out and enticing campaign. On a sidenote, the Dungeonmaster doesn't necessarily have to write his own campaigns, as Wizards of the Coast, the current makers of Dungeons & Dragons, have written a series of prebuilt campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons games. If you're new to Dungeons & Dragons, and you're trying to organize a group on your own with other players who have not played in a while, I highly recommend that you go this route for at least the first few sessions just to get your feet wet.

2 - Players

The next thing you'll need quite obviously is players. The best groups have about 4 to 6 players, any less than four players and it just is too hard to kill anything, any more than six players and you end up having to wait about 15 or 20 minutes in order to play your character each turn.

There are several different ways to build your character, and of course you can always download some free character sheets, but for new players I would go ahead and recommend using the official Dungeons & Dragons character builder. Unfortunately this will cost you some money, $9.99 a month, but it does open you up to a lot of toolsfirst off, the character builder won't really let you build illegal characters (by that I mean characters that don't conform to D&D rules that describe how to build a character). It won't really allow you to build a level one character with 25 strengths, and the rest of his attributes at say five. You can go below the minimum level of attributes, but this is really the only illegal thing that you can do in the character builder. This is nice because it saves the Dungeon Master time by not having to read through your character sheet and make sure that everything is in order. For one thing I don't know if divine shield is really a paladin power or not, but if it's from the DND official character builder then I'm just going to go ahead and saying that he is allowed. Not a lot of dungeon Masters will know everything about every single class, so this will save you some time and some headaches.

In addition, the online character builder has every single possible option for building the character that is allowed in D&D. This means that you are able to use some of the builds that are in D&D supplements, that were written about dragon magazine, or that have come out in an update to D&D. The price is a little expensive, and there are other online character builders out there, but I highly recommend it for one last reason: once you build your character to character builder will generate a player sheet that is very easy to read, as well as create spell cards for your character. Most of the character builders will just have a list of your skills and abilities, the official D&D character builder will create cards that show all of the information you need for your spells.some people will leave them in printed out sheets, I myself prefer to print them on card stock and put them into playing cards so that I can have them at shuffle them as needed. This is especially useful if you're starting off with a new character that you're not particularly familiar with, and you need to actually read the ability text to make sure that you're playing it right.

3 - The Dungeon

The last thing that you really truly need is a map. When I played in high school we basically ran our games off of graph paper, which is fine if you don't have a budget,  but there are some other pretty nice options out there if your'e willing to spend some money. Currently our group uses 3-D maps, from prebuilt dungeon tiles that are made by Dwarven Forge. They're a little pricey, but after you've made the initialinvestment you don't really have to spend anymore money off of it. Wizards of the Coast also makes their own dungeon tiles, which are two-dimensional but printed on high-quality paper and they look really good, but if you really want to up your game I do recommend three-dimensional tiles, if you have the money to spend.

4 - Miniatures

You don't necessarily need this in order to play the game, but these do you help out a little bit. Miniatures, both of your player character as well as NPCs and monsters really help you visualize your game. Another option is you can print off monster tokens, or player tokens, off of card stock or regular paper cut them out and use those to position your character. All in all, with the amount of free tools that are out there you could basically playing Dungeons & Dragons game with each individual only having to spend about $20, and that would be for the player died or for the Dungeonmaster guide.

With this post out of the way I'm going to be posting a little bit more about Dungeons & Dragons in the coming weeks. First off, I'll be posting a few characters that I've built, as level ones and as higher levels.

Second I'm going to be writing a review of the first to pre-built campaigns made by Wizards of the Coast: The Keep on the Shadowfell, and The Thunderspire. Lastly I'm going to try to describe some of the custom games that my group has been playing, as well as posting photos of the various maps and minis that we've been using. I should warn everybody however that in the early days of us playing most of the photos were taken off of cell phones. I have since started taking photos using my DSLR, so the quality will start getting better as I continue to post images. In addition I will be plugging our podcast, The deadly Dungeoneers, which is an audio recording of all of our sessions.

A bit of warning about this podcast, first of all it is definitely adult language, in addition we don't always play in a linear order. We take turns DM'ing - I DM'd for about the first year and a half, and after that we've basically let one person DM per month. As a result, some sessions get split in half and other sessions get inserted in, so it doesn't necessarily go in the linear order. Once we get the stream up I'm hoping that we can put all of the podcasts in a linear order, rather than the order that they were recorded on, but this will get a bit confusing because we added a few new characters along the way, and removed a few other characters. Basically about the first 10 episodes are going to be a bit of a mess, but we have since upped our production quality and paid a little bit more attention to continuity.

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Obsidian Portal - Virtual Tabletop Tools

When I played Dungeons & Dragons in high school, I was never the Dungeon Master (or Game Master). I made my character sheet, brought a pencil and a set of die, and did what the DM told me to.

When I started playing again, it was up to me (as the one who wanted to get back into D&D) to be the DM. This involves not only knowing the rules of the game, but building and running a dungeon, as well as managing all of the players.

Being a DM is a much more daunting task than I had thought it would be. Building not only a good dungeon (one that's not too easy but not too hard, has an interesting and unique set of challenges, and is above all fun to play) but keeping track of it all is a lot of work.

I discovered discovered Obsidian Portal about a month ago, and our D&D game has almost completely transitioned over to it. Obsidian Portal is a website that allows DM's to create a custom wiki (think wikipedia) for your campaign. You can also view other DM's campaigns and (depending on their permission) utilize it for your own. Here are just a few reasons why I love Obsidian Portal:

It's Free: Obsidian Portal is 100% free to players. DM's can create a free campaign (with some limitations) or can opt in to an "Ascendant Membership" for $4.99 per month. This allows you to have more than 2 campaigns, more than 1 map per campaign, multiple GM's, email notification, remove ads, among other features.

Maps: The maps in Obsidian Portal run on Google Maps' API, which allows you to upload an image, then tag it. The tags can be public or GM only, and they can link to other pages in your wiki. The map is zoomable (but only with 3 levels of zoom) and scrollable, just like a Google Map.

GM Secrets: The best part about Obsidian Portal is that it allows for two levels of knowledge: Player Knowledge and DM Knowledge. Lets say your players have encountered an NPC in the last game. You create a page for this NPC, and put in all the information the players were able to gleam from the character. However, lets say that this NPC is a spy for the main villain of your campaign. In the "DM Only" section you can put this information and the players will not be able to see it. When, later on in the game, the players discover the character's true origins, you can edit the page and move that info into the player knowledge section.

The Wiki: Obsidian Portal is, at it's core, a wiki. As such, players as well as GM's can edit pages (The player section). This is great in case the players remembered something that the GM forgot to add, or something that got made up on the fly.

Forums: Obsidian Portal offers a forum just for your campaign. A great feature for larger groups of players, the GM can add sub forums, stickies, and even moderate comments. The forum also allows for email notification

User Specific Permissions: The best feature is that you can create pages, wiki articles, maps, etc, that only certain players can see. Have someone who's playing a dwarf and want them to know the layout of Hammerfast because thats where their character is from? No problem - just create the map and give that user access to it.


All in all Obsidian Portal is a great website, and until recently that was what we were using for the longest time before we decided to create our own website. I highly recommend it, especially for people who can only play on a monthly basis, or those who are playing using some Virtual Tabletop software.

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A Return to Dungeons and Dragons

About twelve years ago, as a rather awkward sophomore my friends and I played two games: Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons.

Both were equally regarded as nerdy, but the key difference was that Magic took about a day to learn and could be finished in as little as 20 minutes.

Dungeons and Dragons, on the other hand, took weeks just to complete one game, each encounter could last longer than an hour depending on how you played. It was my first foray into Role Playing Games before I moved on to the world of Computer Gaming.

The Original Role Playing Game - With Dice!

D&D is the worlds first Role Playing Game. Kids had been pretending to be knights and wizards since, well presumably there actually were knights (and wouldn't it be cool if there had been wizards, too?), but D&D was the first gaming system to set down rules, procedures, and lore. This turned it into more than just a simple imaginary exercise but a full fledged game.

After college I turned away from tabletop gaming in general because, well, beer and pizza had a greater hold on me, but in the last few months I've gotten back into D&D.

A lot had changed in the years since I'd last played. When I last played the current rules were AD&D, a slightly more technical and, in my opinion, better balanced, version of the original D&D rules.

The current gaming system runs on the Fourth Edition (4e) set of rules. Many people with whom I've spoken prefer the last rule set, version 3.5, but since I never experienced it I'm more than happy to play in 4e.

4e is a very simple system, and with Wizards of the Coast's (D&D's current producers) online character creation tools, its really simple to jump right in. I'll be posting different topics about D&D a little later, so for now I'll post a few photos of our current D&D sessions.

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