Which DM Screen to use...

[pfloyd]

I'm going to be starting a 4e campaign in the next couple of weeks.
I have a copy of the 4e DM's Screen with the update, and I also purchased the DM"s Toolkit and Monster Vault this past week, just so that I would have portable copies of the books with me.

I was comparing the two DM Screens, and saw that there were quite a few differences, mostly in the Damage By Level, DCs for skills and breaking things, and DC by Level.

So with this, I'm wondering which screen I should use. My players are new to 4e (but not D&D in general), and we're not playing Essentials (though I am going to be using some of the material from the books as I see fit, mostly with monsters).

Thoughts?

[D'karr]

I'm going to be starting a 4e campaign in the next couple of weeks.
I have a copy of the 4e DM's Screen with the update, and I also purchased the DM"s Toolkit and Monster Vault this past week, just so that I would have portable copies of the books with me.

I was comparing the two DM Screens, and saw that there were quite a few differences, mostly in the Damage By Level, DCs for skills and breaking things, and DC by Level.

So with this, I'm wondering which screen I should use. My players are new to 4e (but not D&D in general), and we're not playing Essentials (though I am going to be using some of the material from the books as I see fit, mostly with monsters).

Thoughts?

There are two DMs screens that have the errata included in them. They are the one that comes packaged in the DMs Kit and the one with the Remorhaz. If you have the older DM screen that has the Fire Giants, and it did not come in the DMs Kit, then it does not include the corrected information.

[pfloyd]

Plus there's the Deluxe one coming out later this month... unfortunately two days after my game starts...

---------- Post added at 11:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 AM ----------

And looking at the changes -- the Skill Difficulty by Level values are different in the Essentials DM Screen.
Instead of 5/10/15 for levels 1-3, it's 8/12/19 for level 1, and it goes up from there with each level.

As for the other screen, it does have the Fire Giant on it... but this does have the updates.

So... I am thinking on printing up the pre-Essentials DM screen, and clipping it to the Essentials one, as they fit the same page size.

[Nai_Calus]

I'm of two minds for my own purposes. On one hand, an updated screen would be nice. On the other hand, I really don't like the new one's art, and I really like the drow guy on the old one.

[pfloyd]

I just didn't like the way Essentials changed some of the values for the target numbers. They don't jive with the ones from the non-Essentials version. Not sure why they decided to change them.

I'm going to stick with the pre-Essentials values, since my players don't have the Essentials books.

[D'karr]

The DM screen that comes in the Essentials DMs kit and the Deluxe one with the Remorhaz art both have the corrected skill check numbers that were errata'd several months ago.

The original DM Screen has the same Fire Giants/Underdark art that was in the DMs kit but has the "incorrect" numbers. If you go get the errata from WotC and print it out, it actually has different numbers than all the current screens. The newer screens conform to the numbers in the Rules Compendium pg 126. Since that is the "consolidated" rules those are the "correct" numbers.

Remember that those numbers have gone through many iterations to arrive at the ones you are seeing now. The last compiled rules update is dated October 2010, and as always, older errata would have been superseded by newer errata, etc.

In any case all this is moot as even the Rules Compendium states that these are "samples" and "suggested" values. In other words, if you think the DC should be 2 higher or lower then use what feels "correct" to your situation. The samples simply give you a gauge to measure by.

[pfloyd]

I did check the compiled errata list as published by WotC as of... October, I think... the numbers are still different from the Essentials. However, they do jive with the PDF DM screen I have.