Alea Publishing Group 4th Edition Tentative Plans

Due to the recent announcement of 4th Edition, Alea Publishing Group made a change to their product release schedule as well as the type of products produced until the release of 4th Edition in 2008.

The Feudal Lords Campaign Setting, scheduled for release in December, is now slated for an after 4th Edition debut. We initially decided to release the campaign guide early for long awaited fans to become familiar with the setting before 4th Edition. However, we decided to wait for two reasons: to enhanced and build upon the campaign even more than originally planned and we hope that 4th Edition changes will improve the setting making some of our initial changes defunct.

With that said, with Caldor: City of Crossroads and our FREE campaign starter guide, The Chronicles of Yrza the Crow, players can begin exploring the world of Terra today. Also, we will continue to support these two products with 3.5 adventures until the release of the campaign setting. The first of which is The Shew Stone followed up by The Lost Heirs.

We will also take this opportunity to expand upon our d20 Modern Horror adventure line. The first adventure, under the working title, The Invisible People.

Furthermore, we are planning to update some of our existing products to the 4th Edition format as soon as possible. Since most of the products we create for the d20 system are self-contained rules that add to the system rather than change the system, we feel that they will adapt to 4th Edition easily. Two of these products are Honor and Corruption and A Question of Loyalty: A Guidebook to Military Orders. Those who already own these products will receive these updates free up until the new release - so get them now while their price is reduced.

Lastly, in concerns to the Feudal Lords Campaign Setting, we anticipate the change from 3.5 to 4th to be a fairly easy transition and therefore we expect to release the setting a month or two after the SRD release of 4th Edition.

I know that is a lot to say, since we have no relation to the WOTC design team. However, almost all of the new rules in the Feudal Lords Setting are self-contained, meaning their mechanics could adapt since they do not change the existing rules but merely attach onto them. For example, in Honor and Corruption, the benefits or rewards given to characters might change due to the changes in 4th Edition benefits (i.e. a reward that offers a +2 to Will saves might change if 4th Edition no longer uses Will saving throws), but the rule mechanics of how the character receives the benefit or reward will not change.

Another good example of self-contained rules is the OGL Sanity Rules. These are easily adaptable to almost any game system with a few minor tweaks.

Well, I think that is enough for "official" announcements for today. Any questions, concerns, or comments, please feel free to ask away.

1 Any plans for updating Mindcraft?

2 any more details on Shew Stone and The Lost Heirs? levels, length, price?

3 Any more details on Invisible People?

Voadam said:

1 Any plans for updating Mindcraft?

Click to expand...

Not at the moment, but it too is a self-contained system, therefore it might be possible determining on what designers of 4th Edition have planned for psionics. If it is a better system, then there is no need to update Mindcraft. Also, Mindcraft is a product of a freelance writer, Doug, who might take up the task revising the system for 4th Edition.

Voadam said:

2 any more details on Shew Stone and The Lost Heirs? levels, length, price?

Click to expand...

The Shew Stone, which is slated for release early next month, is designed for levels 6th to 12th. However, it being a mystery as well as a dungeon crawl, many of the encounters are designed regardless of character level. So, with a little tweaking, it could run with any level party (within reason of course).

It is set in and around Caldor, but generic enough to fit into any campaign setting or city, and has characters searching for an ancient elven stone last believed to be in the possession of Calmar the Swift Mind, a rogue last seen nearly seventy-five years ago. Characters have the option of working with those wishing to find it or those wishing to destroy it. It leads characters to an underground Romas street sunk years ago by a volcanic eruption. And has many elements of politic intrigue, mystery, and life-threatening encounters.

The Lost Heirs, once again, is a mystery that deals with twenty year old secrets, blasphemy, and two noble sons who are missing with their lineage in question. This is designed for 1st-3rd level characters with the ability to adjust to higher level players.

Each adventure is about three to four game sessions in length depending on role-playing factor and has a similar XP reward system found in The Whisper of Horses d20 Modern Horror Adventure. So characters gain experience for solving problems as well as "hack n slash."

Voadam said:

3 Any more details on Invisible People?

Click to expand...

Since this is still in development, I cannot say too much, but I can provide a bit of a quote to chew on:

“One of [Stephen] Hawking's arguments in the conjecture is that we are not awash in thousands of time travelers from the future, and therefore time travel is impossible . . . [But] there's the possibility that they're here alright, but we don't see them.”
—Carl Sagan

It is a d20 Modern/Horror adventure, much in the tradition of The Whisper of Horses. If there is anything else, please feel free to comment.

Thanks for asking and for your support.

Man, I'm so bummed! I've purchased and downloaded everything currently available for Feudal Lords in the hopes of converting my main gaming group when it was released in December. Our group has no desire to change editions at this point (I use DM Genie to manage my games and most likely will for a long time to come), so the new Feudal Lords won't work for us.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad at Alea; in fact their reasoning just makes good sense. I'm just personally bummed because I was really hoping that this was going to be our new campaign setting.

I can say that if we ever decied to move to 4E, I will definitely be picking up Feudal Lords.

Anyways, good luck with the new release! I'm confident that it will do well!

The Levitator said:

Man, I'm so bummed! I've purchased and downloaded everything currently available for Feudal Lords in the hopes of converting my main gaming group when it was released in December. Our group has no desire to change editions at this point (I use DM Genie to manage my games and most likely will for a long time to come), so the new Feudal Lords won't work for us.

Click to expand...

I completely understand that - we are still talking about how to release the 3.5 rules of the Feudal Lords for free or cheap. It is the work load that puts us thinking of alternative measures (there is only 3 of us).

One of our other ideas that come up recently this week is to open an "unofficial" Feudal Lords myspace account and use their blog tool to put these rules out there. We were hoping to do this if Gleemax worked out as we hoped, but we rather be on our own schedule rather than WotC's.

So, keep tuned, I am meeting today with Ryan, our web guy, for some ideas. So keep in tune to our frequency for more details. We worked hard on those rules and playtested them diligently just to throw them aside.

Thanks for the support.

One of our other ideas that come up recently this week is to open an "unofficial" Feudal Lords myspace account and use their blog tool to put these rules out there. We were hoping to do this if Gleemax worked out as we hoped, but we rather be on our own schedule rather than WotC's.

Click to expand...

I'd sign up for a Feudal Lords 3.5\4 Beta test group in a moment. I have all of your stuff and like Levitator I was thinking of making a big switch to your setting.


Sigurd

Sigurd said:

I'd sign up for a Feudal Lords 3.5\4 Beta test group in a moment. I have all of your stuff and like Levitator I was thinking of making a big switch to your setting.


Sigurd

Click to expand...

Well, I am developing the tools to make the 3.5 rules content available ASAP. These products will be art lite (because we will have to pay for the art again for the 4th edition setting), but not graphic lite and probably packaged as a Playtest document.

They will also contain little fluff, but with the Chronicles of Yrza the Crow out for FREE, I don't see that as a problem. We will probably add more fluff as the countdown to 4th Edition continues.

As for the cost, it will be low - something on par with the Poor Gamer's Almanac or accessible through an "unofficial" myspace account.

So stay tuned!

That's very encouraging to hear! Thanks for not forgetting about those of us who won't be upgrading to 4E. I understand that it must be difficult for a company in the final stages of a product release to have to make major changes when the game engine changes. I'm doubly appreciative that those of us staying behind can still take a shot at this campaign setting. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on even more FL material!

There is an unofficial Feudal Lords Campaign website available through MySpace. It is still in its infancy stage and is nothing fancy, but it is a start. Through it, we will funnel 3.5 rules for the campaign setting.

We hope, it will also serve as a playtest center for rules dedicated to the setting - so join MySpace and take part posting in those "Playtest Rules Blogs."

Thanks for your support. Here is the link:

http://www.myspace.com/feudallords

Please feel free to comment here on any other concerns or questions.

Thanks a ton for this Jraynack! I'm on my way!!