Hints for Dungeons & Dragons

Items You Need

• Dungeons &Dragons contains a dizzying array of magical items that your character can carry and use, but often you'll have to choose which to take with you, and many of them are borderline useless. A handful of magical items in particular are important for every character to have. Try to get both an enchanted weapon and enchanted armor. The Cloak of Resistance will give you a bonus on all saving throws, the Ring of Protection will give you a deflection bonus, and the Amulet of Natural Armor will give you an AC bonus, each equal to the item's enchantment level.

Flanking

• Flanking is an important tactic to use when engaged in hand-to-hand combat in versions of the game after second edition. If you engage a foe with a melee attack and a friendly unit is threatening it on the opposite side or corner, your attack receives a +2 bonus. This rule reflects the disadvantage someone fending off two attackers at once has in real-life combat. Working together with your party-mates to flank enemies can help you bring the monsters to a speedier demise. Some foes, such as the undead, are immune to flanking attacks.

Attacks of Opportunity

• An attack of opportunity is a free hit you're allowed to make on an enemy who drops his guard briefly during combat to do something else, such as drink a potion, cast a spell, or make a ranged attack such as shooting a bow. A successful attack of opportunity can cause an enemy wizard's spell to fizzle, making it a very effective technique. You can easily provoke attacks of opportunity from enemy combatants as well, however. To play it safe, avoid taking non-combat actions and never move more than the safe maximum of five feet per turn, when in a fight. If you're a spell caster, always cast on the defensive which does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

Focus Fire

• Most monsters in Dungeons &Dragons don't become any weaker as they are wounded, and can still attack with full ferocity until they draw their final breath. Because of this, it is always a better choice for a party to focus on one enemy at a time when confronted with multiple foes. This will usually take approximately the same amount of time as attacking all of them at once --- but as each baddie dies you'll take that much less damage each turn, rather than receiving the full onslaught until the very end.