Keeping Monsters in Line in 4th Edition.

"Alright! the dragon moves up to the fighter and attacks!"

"Hey, don't you remember that the dragon is dazed from my attack last round?"

"S*&#, I forgot!  Now he has no more actions and has done nothing threatening to the party!  SIGH!"

Do you ever experience anything like this at your table?  I do...and quite often at that.

NPC's: Monster Creations - Simple and Memorable

I am trying to remember something of the past, a creature, person, or anything else that I have ever encountered in my whole career as a RPGer.  Any memorable occasion where someone or something helped, interacted with us, anything!!!

Surprisingly enough, I can hardly even remember a handful.  Maybe that is why gaming sometimes can be such a drag to me.  The NPC's I meet tend to be lackluster, impersonal, unenthusiastic and unimaginative.

As a gamer, Most NPC's get the job done and bring you to the next battle. Unfortunately, in order to get the full "nine yards' of the gaming experience, you need a combination of three things.

New Ritual: Merlin's Magic Item Enchantment

With the introduction of rituals in the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, it has (in my opinion) taken away a lot of the fun from spellcasters, especially when it come to creating, or improving magic items.  Characters are forced to take run of the mill items; where every other character has one or can acquire one at their whims.  

The players do have the options though of transferring previously acquired item properties and powers into a similar magic item of a higher level.  For example the party finds a +3 magic platemail suit of armour.  The player to get this item could, with the use of this ritual, transfer the existing properties and powers of thier current +2 suit of leather armour into the +2 suit of plate armour, provided that the armour they are transfering the properties to is not of higher level.