4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

Weapons is the theme of today’s preview of the upcoming Adventurer’s Vault.  Four weapons are previewed:

Assassin’s Weapon: ongoing poison damage
Gambler’s Weapon: a random -2 to +9 to your attack roll
Opportunistic Weapon: make an additional opportunity attack (for a total of two)
Thieving Weapon: Pick the pockets of your opponent while in battle

The variety of the preview makes me hopeful that we’ll see even more fun options in the rest of the book.  The Adventurer’s Vault: A Guide to Weapons, Equipment, and Treasure for Your Character goes on sale September 16th.

The Forgotten Realms excerpt today reveals the names 24 new rituals and talks about three of them in more detail.

Simbul’s Conversion (level 1): expend unused daily arcane powers to regain healing surges
Walk Crossroads (level 14): allows you and party to walk in the fey, essentially “teleporting” you to a destination up to 150 miles away (based on check result).  You won’t be exactly on target though.
Raise Land (level 30): finally a kick butt mega power.  Want that castle and surrounding farmland moved a few miles into the air?  Well look no further than this ritual!

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide goes on sale today.

Paizo’s Pathfinder is now out in Beta.  The PDF is free and the hardcopy is $24.95.

Wizards is probably realizing right about ... now ... that they haven’t exactly won the hearts and wallets of their fans and partners with the various launch issues of 4th edition.  They have announced that they will be revising the 4th edition SRD and more importantly, the GSL.  Here’s hoping the revision is more agreeable with the publishers.

“We recognize the important role third party publishing support plays in the success of the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. We have listened to the community and our valued colleagues and have taken their concerns and recommendations to heart. Our commitment to the health of the industry and hobby gaming lifestyle is reflected in the revisions to the Game System License.”
--Linae Foster D&D Licensing Manager

At the bottom of the announcement, it mentions a new fan site policy.  I wasn’t aware that we needed a fan site policy.  It should read like this: ”Thank you fans.  Keep up the good work.  We’ll try to remember that we’re gamers too and not be such corporate-heads all the time.”

In a surprisingly open post, Randy Buehler talks about the plans for D&D Insider as well as the current status of the things they’ve been promising for some time now. 

I applaud their willingness to share some inside details about what’s going on and what we can expect.  We have always known about the “wizard behind the curtain” so there’s no need to hide behind the curtain anymore.  Keep the honesty and open communications coming!

The Game Table is the biggest, most complicated piece of the whole package and it’s going to take the longest to get right. The good news is that it’s far enough along that it’s being used by a Tuesday night campaign being run at the office. The bad news is that the players take bets on how many times it will crash each week.

There are two new excerpts up at Wizards.  First is a series of several PDFs (why it’s not just one is beyond me) that preview H3 Pyramid of Shadows, an adventure for character levels 7-10. 

The first PDF previews the adventure synopsis (BBEG wants out of prison), provide a couple of adventure hooks (discover a map, dream vision, crazy dude (who provides a map), and ye olde wanted poster).

The second details an artifact (yeah!) - a talking head a la Bob from the Dresden Files.

The third, fourth and fifth PDF files provide a preview of three entire encounters (2 pages each), maps and all. 

So what’s new about this preview?  NO ART.  Yep, not a single piece of artwork in the previews outside of the maps.  Technically, there is a low-res piece of artwork of the pyramid amidst the jungle on the website.  Not exactly inspiring.

I posted this in the forums but thought it deserved front page treatment, too.

Per Clark Peterson (co-founder of Necromancer Games) on his own forum, Necromancer Games is not joining the 4th Edition push of third party publishers right now.  It appears that unless Wizards of the Coasts makes a few changes to the Games System License, he might be out of 4E altogether.

Now we have the GSL. Right now, in my view, the GSL needs some major reworking or clarification to be usable. The bottom line, in my view, is that the GSL is a total unmitigated failure. And that is a shame. I have been one of the biggest vocal proponents of Wizards and I love Scott and Linae. I still do, big time. I am hopefull (sic) that we can find a way to change or clarify some of the issues with the license so that we can use it and create 4E products. You know that philsophically (sic) I believe in supporting the current version of D&D.

Since Necromancer was one of the first 3PP to voice support for 4E, it’s a shame to see that the overly restrictive GSL might force them away from the new game.

Please dont take this post as bashing Wizards. I am not doing that. I support Wizards.

Just something to note for those who don’t like 4E.

So now will you release all that stuff for 3E? Doubtful. The market for 3E is not there. I expect Pathfinder to revive it, but that isnt going to be a full, public supportable system for some time...We are trying to work to be able to get a usable GSL or other arrangment (sic) with Wizards to bring you the awesome 4E content we have planned. If that wont work, you will see us fully supporting Pathfinder.

He does intend to support Pathfinder at some point, either with the GSL changes he wants, or else he’ll just move in that direction when Pathfinder is released, but at least for now, there won’t be anything going either direction.

Dungeon 156 had a few updates on the 30th - a side trek and a Forgotten Realms conversion, both for H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth, and last but not least an update to Ari Marmell’s Last Breaths of Ashenport which came out for 3.5 in December.

Dragon 365 had a few updates this week.  Expeditionary Dispatches about Dolurrh’s Dawn in Droaam (Eberron) and Roll vs. Role about snaketongue cultists (generic).

There was a new Steal This Hook about the Nentir vale where both Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth are set, another entry in the Converting Your Character series (a misleading name since you can’t really convert from 3.5 to 4), and a new article on the Goblin Language of Eberron by author Don Bassingthwaite.

I just want to say a few things about all these updates.  The Last Breaths of Ashenport may have been one of the last 3.5 adventures, but it was one I wanted to run as soon as I saw it.  Ari Marmell did a fabulous job of trying to keep a Lovecraftian feel to the encounters and succeeded pretty well in the conversion, although a few errors have poked up at the Wizards boards.  The Forgotten Realms conversion of Thunderspire Labyrinth bothered me not because of anything it did, but because there was no similar treatment for Eberron, although I do have to say I’m happy that Eberron is still getting support, with an article each from the creator (Keith Baker) and the author of the second published novel in the series (Don Bassingthwaite), so I’m feeling the Eberron love.