D&D 4e Combat Tracker

Thanks to The Last Rogue who tweeted about this awesome D&D 4e Combat Tracker.
Some of you may know that I’ve previously endorsed Turn Wacher as my initiative tracker of choice. It’s got a lot of great features, including some things which this new program lacks, but it’s also got two major downsides: it’s not free, [...]

Win an Invitation to Google Wave

I’ve finally gotten some invites for Google Wave, and have been looking forward to this opportunity to run a contest.
All you have to do to enter the contest is send me a D&D 4e monster based on a creature from Magic: The Gathering. Everyone may enter up to three times, once for each tier (Heroic, [...]

Stunt Doubles for Absentee Players

The 4e DMG2 debuted official rules for ‘companion characters,’ which are basically just monsters that work for the PCs. I’ve been doing similar things for a while, and have even used this concept as a replacement for an actual PC when I had a player (the ubiquitous tag-along-significant-other) who didn’t do well with the complexity [...]

Random Encounters: Nineteen

I received this email earlier today.
Subject: Your Monster Maker
Okay, I have been trying to find stuff for 3.5e of D&D.
Mainly, how to make a monster.
Even more-so, HOW DO YOU DETERMINE a monster’s Challenge Rating?
I can’t figure it out for 3.5. I’ve scoured the net trying to find how to determine a custom-made monster’s challenge [...]

Friends & Foes: Changeling Husklords

Particularly cunning and devious, even for changelings, the rare husklords have an unusual ability which makes them nearly impossible to kill. A changeling husklord can shed its skin at will, leaving behind a convincing corpse to fool adversaries. Meanwhile, the changeling itself is completely invisible until it regrows a new skin, a process which takes [...]

Monster Maker Support Discontinued

In light of the news that Wizards of the Coast is coming out with their own fully-featured Monster Maker application for D&D Insider, I’ve decided to discontinue support of Monster Maker. I will be leaving it up on my website in its current state for those who wish to download it, but I will not [...]

Races with Flavor: Autophagous Orcs

If you ever encounter a member of the Grimscythe tribe, the first thing you’re likely to notice is that his arms are covered in scars and open wounds. Like many of the western orc tribes, the Grimscythe are cannibalistic. What sets them apart, though, is their practice of autophagia.
In battle, the Grimscythe orcs will literally [...]

Races with Flavor: The Games Dwarves Play

Their love of wealth and ale makes Dwarves even more fond of gambling than most other races, and dwarven culture is filled with a wide variety of gambling games. The traditional dwarven deck of card has four suits–anvils, hammers, flames and gems– each with thirteen ranks. The cards are numbered from one to ten, [...]

An Open Letter to Wizards of the Coast

Earlier this evening, RPGNow pulled all of their Wizards of the Coast product, at WotC’s request. This includes the ability for people who had already purchased PDFs to download them. Paizo will be removing them tonight at midnight.
Their stated reason is an attempt to fight piracy. This is at best misguided.
Piracy is. It will always [...]

Monster Maker standalone and some bad news

Well, some good news and some bad news.
The good news, I’ve had a few requests for a standalone version of Monster Maker and it’s now available. I’ve also posted a zip file with the font in it for people who use the installer version.
The bad news, I’ve decided to officially cease updating the monster and [...]