Stop Ben if you’ve heard this classic exchange: “Blast 5 goes like this, right? No, no – that’s a burst. Wait, stop and pass me the PHB.” For some illogical-Spock-like reason, we just get those two darn terms mixed up. Hence, our desire to make some handy home-brewed blast and burst templates.
Of course you can look up the descriptions (pg. 272) but that’s such a game momentum killer. Better to have a few handy templates to place over the game board.
There are a few options out there. Ben snagged some 4th Edition Blast Templates from Dragonfire Lasercrafts but using them felt like a twisted math experiment gone awry. Paizo had some GameMastery Spell Templates for 3.5 but unfortunately they just don’t translate into 4E.
Our latest home brew D&D experiment involved some plexiglass (found in the windows section of any Home Depot) and some fancy line-drawin’. The stickers were a classy touch.
This RPG game group doesn’t need the templates as much as we used to just because of sheer practice. In our minds, we’ve classified a “burst” as a grenade-effect and a “blast” as simply coming out from your body. Still, these templates are great for the new player to learn the ropes.
Sure, they could use some helpful identifying labels and a quick spray (to protect against scratches) but all in all, we’re just trying to open our minds up to bigger and better things. And it’s those incredible possibilities that keeps us going.
April 20th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Templates can make the game run so much faster. In the paragon level game I play in, I made a set of acetate templates for all of my wizard’s spells. Using wet erase markers, you can draw “special effects” onto your cheap templates. Now when I lay down a Storm Cage, there is no question where the wall of lightning is.
The wizard in my Birthright 4e game also uses the same style templates to great effect. They are especially useful when using a hex-based terrain, like HeroScape.
April 27th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Great stuff. I have been looking at different template options. I really like the look of your Plexiglas templates in the picture. Any chance you will put up some detailed instructions on how to make them? I would love to give it a shot.
May 17th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Ben got some big help on this one. His father-in-law owns every power tool known to man and made the cuts. Jason was a pro with the lines and sticker. I did get the material (Lexan Polycarbonate Sheet by Sabic Polymershapes) at Home Depot.