What's Up With D&D? for Monday, 30 January 2012

[Gaming Tonic]

The big thing on the menu this week is the DDXP and what the fans thought of the playtest. The message boards and forums have lit up and everybody is having a great time talking about the next iteration Dungeons & Dragons. I am a fan and have loved what I played so far and although it is rough you can see a promising foundation coming together. We still get some great stuff from WotC for 4th Edition and a couple things that work in any edition.

• Sha’ir, a Heroes of Elemental Chaos excerpt by Bart Caroll shows you another glimpse of what you can expect in the upcoming accessory. These options for elemental themed wizards and a new wizard sub-class are perfect for that player in your game who loves his wizard to set the world and themselves ablaze.
  
  
• The Eye on Eberron by Keith Baker in Dragon 407 focuses on Vadallia and Cardaen, a history piece that gives backgrounds and adventure hooks for those who have an interest in the elves in Eberron. I hope we continue to see more pieces that flesh out the corners of the pre-established settings because you can use them with any edition of D&D.
  
  
• King Hanaksaman by Rodney Thompson in Eye of Dark Sun details an interesting edition to the world of Athas. Whether you use King Hanaksman and his exiles as a friend or foe for your group is up to you. Like I said previously filling in the corners of these worlds suits me just fine.
  
  
• Chris Perkins takes care of Unfinished Business in the Dungeon Master Experience. Chris gives a few suggestions on how to scale adventures that your players didn’t bite on when you thought they would. I think some of the points are great, especially the ones concerning not scaling everything up so that the players feel the power that their characters wield in the world.
  
  
• Check out the D&D XP Seminar Chat Streams to see some excellent feedback to the questions that the fans have about the next edition of the game. There is a lot of great information there for you to absorb and interpret. This really has the fans talking and you can read some of the comments here, here, here and finally here at EN World. You can get a round-up of all the DDXP news, insights, and opinions here.
  
  
• Shelly Mazzanoble weighs in on the new edition in Outsourced. It is encouraging to hear people speak about what a massive task that making “one game to unite them all” will be and talk about their own skepticism. The fans have a lot of say and I am glad to see her give that a mention as well.
  
  
• The Blades of Kings: Cormyrean Swords of State by Brian Cortijo and illustrated by Hector Ortiz is one of my favorite articles in a while. I have always been a fan of the Forgotten Realms and Obarskyr history so this sort of support helps me out no matter what edition I am playing. Several new magic items are presented for use in your games.
  
  
• Rodney Thompson talks straight in Rule of Three as he tackles some tough questions about how much of 4E we will see in the new edition and some other elements that we may or may not see from previous editions. I was pleased with the answers and am glad to see the fans getting this kind of access.
  
  
• Get tough with your players by using these Monster Manual Updates for the Nightmare and Worg from Logan Bonner. I love the picture of a Blackguard sitting atop his Nightmare with his Worg pet to challenge the party outside of town. That encounter is free for you to use.

[curupira]

Wow, THAT's something I did not expect from WotC. Time to dust off my copy of The Complete Sha'ir Handbook (one of the best AD&D modules I've ever had)!

[Alphastream]

D&DXP judges received Heroes of Elemental Chaos as a judge reward. The book is awesome. Those of us that are in the playtest credits (several of us were at the con) agreed that Wizards did an especially great job of incorporating feedback. It suggested to us that Wizards playtest system is yielding really good results. Of course, playtesters don't make a book; we just sand the few rough edges. The real credit goes to the many people at Wizards that worked on the book. This book is filled with great imaginative content. It works in any setting, but I especially like it as a way to enhance the elemental concepts in a Dark Sun campaign.

The Ashes of Athas campaign featured another Heroes of the Elemental Chaos preview: the Elemental Adept theme. Players received a copy of the preview and could choose to substitute the theme for their PC if they so desired. I believe the preview will soon be on the Baldman Games web site.

We also received (depending on what you chose as a judge) copies of the Cathedral of Chaos tile set, which includes some awesome new tiles that are 1x1 tokens with cool things like swords, wall pieces, mushrooms, and other dungeon decor. The normal-sized tiles are excellent, with some cool lava/fog/water features.

The new map pack was used in the LFR (Living Forgotten Realms) battle interactive and the map images are gorgeous. I can't recommend these highly enough.

[Donal Graeme]

Thanks for the info.

Also, Alpha, I don't suppose we could get you to take some pictures of the Cathedral of Chaos set for us? I would love to see it. Thanks.

[Alphastream]

Originally Posted by Donal Graeme

Thanks for the info.

Also, Alpha, I don't suppose we could get you to take some pictures of the Cathedral of Chaos set for us? I would love to see it. Thanks.

Sure! My son wanted to play with them, so I took a picture of what he did, then flipped the tiles. Not the best shots, but gives you a feel. Nice addition to previous sets. You can see them in my minis gallery.