Gaming Tonic
First Post
[news]Even with Gen Con on the horizon Wizards of the Coast still put forth the effort to deliver new adventures, themes, and of course D&D Next news. The fans are in for quite a lot of awesome stuff coming up in the next month but we will talk about with some of the designers of D&D Next over the next few weeks. Now let's get to talking about all the great stuff from this week.[/news]
- Fighters & Combat Superiority by Mike Mearls in Legends and Lore has all the gamers ready to battle for their opinion. The fans are in for a treat with this mechanic and I think it sounds like exactly the kind of thing that a fighter needs to remain relevant as the party progresses in levels. If the fighter is spending feats to gain utility while the casters increase their utility simply by leveling, then fighters will never feel equal. If you want to weigh in go ahead and join the other gamers who have a lot to say here.
[*]Pearls of the Sea Mother by John “Ross” Rossomangno combines lighthouses, aquatic adventure, and paragon level (15-17th) in Dungeon 204. This 21 page adventure is a great example of how you can mix terrain and environment with monsters to really challenge your PC’s and keep them on their toes. The end result of this adventure if the party is successful is the sort of thing players dream about their characters completing.
[*]Doug Hyatt has gone completely Feywild in Class Acts: Seekers of the Moonrise Vanguards for Dragon 413. This article contains a lot of great fluff that has plenty of excellent ideas for using the materials in your game and also includes…wait for it…new powers for the seeker class. We are also treated to a paragon path, the Moonrise Stalker. This is a critical hit article and the illustrations by Miles Johnston are fabulous inspiration.
[*]The Sword Collector by Michael E. Shea is a Side Trek adventure for characters of 23rd level appearing in Dungeon 204. This is a good short adventure with a lot of tips at handling high level play but the sword collection at the end is the true treasure, literally and figuratively. The descriptions on some of the swords at the end of the adventure are the kind of detail I love in my games.
[*]Rule of Three by Rodney Thompson will be moving over to the D&D Next Playtest Group section, but this week he responds to gamers questions about 4E D&D. How long will errata for 4E products be provided, the chance for a possible reprint of 4E material reflecting errata, and what can we expect in Eye on Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, and Eberron articles in the future are answered. I hope that we continue to see quality 4E stuff until at least the release of D&D Next, lots of gamers still want to keep playing the system and look to Wizards of the Coast for support. Jump in on the conversation here.
[*]Jeffrey Ludwig gives us Unearthed Arcana: Less Death, More Danger! in Dungeon 204. This is an excellent article that describes how you could go about adding nagging injury to your game with an Injury Deck, which you can print to use in your game. Jeffrey does a great job covering all the bases including multiple injuries and fighting thru injuries, but I really don’t need this level of detail in my D&D game. In fact it is why I like Dungeons & Dragons over some other systems that are available.
[*]Menzoberranzan Excerpts: Drow Factions by Bart Carroll reveals even more of what we can expect to see in the upcoming supplement, Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue. This time we get a glimpse of all the factions that are described in the book but unfortunately none of the material so we could see an exact sample. The full page of artwork is gorgeous and I can’t wait to get the book so I can possibly see the story behind it.
[*]Character Themes: Fringes of Drow Society by Doug Hyatt delivers three themes for your underdark adventurers, the Ooze Master, Secret Apostate, and Skulker of Vhaeraun. The ooze master doesn’t require your character to be drow so it has a place in a lot of different games. These are the kind of character themes that make the rest of the party feel a bit uncomfortable and that is good. Does everybody in a party have to get along? I say not all the time.
[*]Chris Perkins takes a look into The Well for the Dungeon Master Experience. A DM never knows what a player may decide to have his character do, but you can bait the hook and hope the player bites. Chris does an excellent job describing why the players may choose the options that they do for their characters and lets us know it isn’t the end of the campaign if the player doesn’t take the bait. Next week’s article is going to be about how to wrap up a campaign.
[*]Wandering Monsters in Dragon’s Eye View by Jon Schindehette is a very informative article about the massive amount of research that is being done to make sure that nearly forty years of material is properly represented. In January I informed you that Wizards of the Coast would be pulling material from all of their resources and this just emphasizes that what I reported was the plan. Now how do we apply for the job of looking over and organizing all that material?
[*]Menzoberranzan Excerpts: City of Spiders by Bart Carroll is another sneak peak up the upcoming supplement. This time we get a look at what we can expect to see about life in the drow city and what parts of the city are covered. We also get a look at another piece of great artwork that really sets the tone of the city of Menzoberranzan.
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