News Archive #20 March 2001 News from March 2001: March 30, 2001 I Smell Smoke: *Sniff, sniff* Something's on fire around here. Smells like burnt Brazil nuts, cookies and yogurt. And why do I hear Disco Inferno playing? Hmmm.... New in the Conversion Library: New prestige classes for slaying dragons and the undead, FR specialty priesthoods as prestige classes, Animal Friend and Kensai core classes, new monsters (druj and wraith roach), new and revised martial arts systems, a big weapons and armor spreadsheet from a variety of sources, and revisions to several other files. Dungeon #86: The May/June 2001 issue of Dungeon arrived in my mail today. As WotC was unusually prompt in posting a preview of this issue, I won't repeat that effort. However, I did want to relay that the next issue (#87) will ship with a CD-ROM containing two previously unpublished adventures, the entire issue of Dungeon Magazine #1 in .pdf format, and "exclusive Dragon Magazine goodies" including PC Portriats, a dungeon generator, and the 3E Monster Design Guide from Skip Williams. Errata Schedule: Scooper Gerard got a response from WotC's T'Ed Stark about plans for releasing errata: We have resolved the bulk of the DMG errata (in fact, I just finished with that). Now, it's in the Managing Editors' hands (they may have additional questions), but I would not be surprised to see DMG errata go up to the website as early as next week--but since I'm promising on their deliverable, I have to say it may take them a little longer. Still, we've done the review and we have very little R&D work left to do. I hope that the Sword and Fist errata goes as quickly, and that we can plow through the MM in early April and get it ready to go up no later than May. Keep in mind that all of these dates are based on things going well--no other projects needing extra attention, key people not getting sick, the servers not going down (say, due to another earthquake ), or what have you. It's our plan to get errata out and up to date as quickly as possible with two caveats: 1. When we publish it, it's right (we did an excellent job on the PH, for example, but there were still a few questions when we were done--I'd like to get closer to 100%). 2. It doesn't keep us from hitting other deadlines. Let's face it; the "worst" mistakes in any project we've released so far don't make anything unplayable. With Sage Advice and the discussion folders, we've answered a lot of questions where things have come up. I wouldn't want to postpone the release of new material because we were trying to correct small portions of already-published product. It's very important that we set aside time for errata and execute (especially now that we're settling into a "zone" with our new design and review processes), but we have to keep supplying you folks with new stuff to use and play. Thanks for your patience. D20 System News: Fiend Games has posted some news about War of Thorns on their site. From Jagged Edge Games: The SHADOWLANDS core book has just been released in version 0.0.4 (29-March-2001). This will be the last of the zero-zero releases. That's right: it is just about finished. The next release, scheduled for April 9th will be the much anticipated 1.0.0 release. Granted, we are still looking for an editor willing to take on these projects, but with the feedback we have received so far, it looks like the final cut of this will be very well put together (we know, we are patting ourselves on the back. So be it :) In May (tentatively, May 14th) the first of the zero-zero releases of our first supplement to the Shadowlands setting, RELIGION & SORCERY, will be posted here. This book will examine all of the spell-slinging classes and give you a lot of options for making your Mage different from every other Mage in the Shadowlands. Much of the material in that book is also easily portable to other campaign settings, so even if the Shadowlands is not your cup-of-tea, this book is still going to be a must-have! This book will have none of the Spell-Slinging Prestige Classes -- that will have to wait for the release of PEOPLE OF PRESTIGE in the next quarter... :) As always, these are free downloads - no money changes hands. We absolutely love feedback of all kinds, so come check us out and tell us what you think. Thanks! Four new Adventure Keep modules from AEG are apparently available now. (thanks to Kevin for the scoop) Community News: Jamis Buck has a new poll going: I'm trying to get an idea of what kind of demand there is for generators for other gaming systems. Creature Catalog has new converted monsters, including demon princes. Updates at Barsoom (which has returned to its original address at http://nemedia.hyboria.net/web/barsoom/), Defenders of the Realm, These New Dark Ages, and Michael's Imagination. RPGHost is hosting Hero Machine, a tool for making character illustrations. 3oni.com is an RPG site with some D&D resources, including indexes of feats, skills, and prestige classes from various sources. The D&D Community Council is currently taking submissions for the Netbook of Magical Treasures. Visit their website to contribute. D&D Talkshow: Here's a message from Dr. Midnight -- I'm organizing a weekly call-in online radio show about D&D3e. People with 56k or higher can listen to 3e discussion and if they have a microphone, they can "call in" and talk with me/others about 3e rules, characters, etc. The next show takes place on Tuesday April 3rd at 6 pm eastern time, it's called the "D&D DISCUSSION FORUM," and it can be found at www.talkradio.lycos.com. Official Website Updates: What's new at WotC? Psionics Handbook web enhancement, which includes stats for gem dragons, su-monsters, and thri-kreen. Manifesting: A Tale is a new free adventure written by Angel Leigh McCoy, with maps by Ian Malcomson. Golems 201, from WotC web developer Mark Jindra, presents the first in a series of unique golems and the stories behind them. A Day in the Life of Dragon Magazine is a very interesting look at how the mag gets put together. Thanks to Eldar, the first of many, many scoopers. March 29, 2001 Official Website Updates: What's new at WotC? New PC Portraits. New Map-A-Week New FR art related to Secret Societies of the Realms. A sneak peek at the Cult of the Dragon from the Realms, including stats for a "typical Cult wizard." An encounter with (and stats for) Sivak and Baaz draconians from Dragonlance. Scoopers: Sonny Mendoza, The shadow of my former self, Dave, Kyle, Bertman4. March 28, 2001 New Chat Server: I've given up on Gamespy's chat server for now. For the new link and the new information on the new chat server, step right this way. A big thanks go out to Pat for helping me get all set up. This should allow a little more control over what happens in the room especially during larger events. Cook to Leave WotC, Continue Creating D&D Stuff as Freelancer: Here's one of D&D's lead designers, Monte Cook, with the announcement (on my message board): I've resigned from Wizards of the Coast. My last day will be April 6. I've worked for TSR/WotC for over 7 years now, and it was just time for a bit of a change. However, you won't even hardly notice. I'm going to continue to write and design D&D products for Wizards as an out-of-house, freelance writer. The only change will be that I will also be devoting time to non-WotC writing projects as well, both game-related and not. I'll also still be posting messages here, and you can check up on me at my own site montecook.com (there's really nothing much there yet, but there will be soon). Please don't feel like this is some sort of terrible portent for D&D or anything like that, as mentioned in another thread. Like I said, you won't hardly notice the change. Community News: Planewalker.com has extended its Psionics Handbook contest through April 16th. The New Order of the Raven Chapterhouse has moved to http://orderoftheraven.50megs.com. Kyle Kornkven has posted an Access database with the stats from most of the monsters in the MM. You can find it at his Combat Planner site. When you get there, you will need to register as a new user, create a new "campaign," and then you'll find a link toward the bottom with the database file. Updates at Highlander D20 include a new monster and magic item. Message Board Roundup: My Boards: Keith Strohm, Jim Butler, Anthony Valterra and others on the departure of Butler and others from WotC: Keith Strohm: ...things look very good for the long-term success of D&D. Sure, there will be tweaks and refinements to the vision, but the D&D franchise is going strong and shows no sign of slowing down. Jim Butler was not recently laid off. Technically, he wasn't laid off at all. Rather, the position he held was slated for elimination last December during Wizards of the Coast's restructuring. Because there was a number of things that still needed to happen, as well as some action items generated from our deal with Infogrames, Jim and I worked on a later position elimination date for him. This did not come as a surprise to him. I will miss Jim immensely, as he was a staple for me when I joined TSR in 1995 and became a good friend. Jim Butler: Thanks for all of your thoughts concerning my departure from Wizards. While I wish that things would have worked out differently, I've known about this lay-off for some time now. During the past few months, I've tried to find another position in the company with the RPG team, but that hasn't transpired. I leave Wizards with a heavy heart, but I am not upset with them for how the situation has been handled. Everyone's been very honest with me since I learned of my impending layoff back in November. While at TSR and Wizards, I've designed, edited, and managed whole lines of products. I'm grateful to Wizards for the opportunity this has presented me and look forward to taking this knowledge with me to Bastion Press. Anthony Valterra: I'll be upfront. There is preasure on us to lower our costs and to raise our profits. Peter and Mary and I will be doing everything we can to lower our costs while maintianing a high level of quality. Because of this we will be trying to run our team with fewer people. This is probably a trend that you will see. As people in the company naturally move to other positions or on to other things they will likely not be replaced. Don't panic, it means we are trying to strengthen D&D by becoming more efficient. Official Boards: James Wyatt reveals details of Oriental Adventures: The fact that Rokugan is the "featured campaign setting" should not too strongly disappoint any Kara-Tur fans. The book includes lots of options NOT found in Rokugan, including all of the old OA races and classes (as well as new ones). We don't include setting material for Kara-Tur, but if you're a Kara-Tur fan, you already have that. With this book you'll have everything you need to convert. It is a D&D book, so requires the three core D&D books. Details of what's in the book: This is all subject to change as the book goes through editing, but here's my count: Number of new classes? 5 Number of new prestige classes? 25 Number of new races? 5 Number of new monsters? 75 Number of new spells? over 100 Number of new feats? 70 Number of new skills? 1 Prospective page count? 256, hardcover James Wyatt (and Sean Reynolds) on Draegloth vs. other half-fiends: No, no error. Yes, creative license. The draegloth is a specific creature that results from specific circumstances; therefore, it does not follow the generic template perfectly. Sean Reynolds on why he refuses to comment on "errors" in the RPGA's Forgotten Realms Guidelines: I'm not talking about the RPGA Living City guidelines. As far as I'm concerned, we haven't released that information yet. It isn't even the most up-to-date version. I'm not going to wast time explaining things that will be instantly cleared up once the book comes out (because the book _isn't_ out of date). Rich Baker on the new FR logo: We decided to change the logo for two reasons: First, we wanted consumers to be able to distinguish between 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition products at a glance. This is important because many retailers shelve our materials together indiscriminately, and more than a few keep very old stock on their shelves despite the fact that it doesn't move for them. Second, we wanted people to be able to read the logo at a reasonable distance. You can make out what the new logo says at a greater distance than you could with the old one. T'Ed Stark on speed of level advancement, and later, high-level campaigns. T'Ed Stark on errata: To ask us to replace hundreds of thousands of books at our cost because there is a small percentage of errata in them (consider the actual word-count percentage) is unrealistic.... We make all of our errata available free (you don't have to buy the new printings), and we help as much as we reasonably can to make sure everyone knows there's errata and that they have a way they can address it at little to no cost to themselves. Scoopers: The Shadow of My Former Self, Jeff. D20 System News: You can read a review of A Lion in the Ropes (Troll Lord Games) at Role-Play News. Necromancer Games has posted a wilderness expansion to their recent module, Rappan Athuk. (You'll need a password found inside the module to open the file.) Thanks to James Morris and Stephen D'Amato for the scoop. The Necromancer Games fansite has changed its name to Necropolis, and the web address has changed accordingly to http://move.to/necropolis. You can read about Quest RPG, a new RPG adapted from the D20 System, from RPG Source Entertainment. I've scoured D20 System websites for up-to-date release dates and have altered the D20 System Guide accordingly. Recent releases include Silver Summoning (Fiery Dragon), Dragonlords of Melnibone (Chaosium), Witchfire Trilogy I: Longest Night (Privateer), and The Malady of Kings and Dzeebagd: Under Dark and Misty Ground (Troll Lord). March 27, 2001 Butler Departs WotC: In the latest in what seems like a long string of departures, Jim Butler is leaving Wizards of the Coast (thanks to Jason Hatter and Pat for the scoop): After 7 years of touring the multiverse, my last days with Wizards of the Coast are upon me. As part of a corporate reorganization, my position is being eliminated effective 3/30. It's been a tremendous opportunity working with each of you on the various online projects that have touched your roleplaying lives. I've been blessed to work with a great team of business and design professionals during my years with both TSR and Wizards, and I'll look back on these days with a fondness that is normally reserved for Golden Age discussions. What will I be doing next? Well, ironically enough, I discovered that I still haven't had enough of the RPG business so I'm starting a new company called Bastion Press. You can see the vague outlines of what we're planning at http://www.bastionpress.com. Take care, gang. It's been an honor to serve with you these past years. I hope my new company is blessed with half as many stalwart souls that have populated these lists over the years... Poll: What's your favorite D&D adventure from WotC? Something from Dungeon Magazine took the top honors (28%), with Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury coming in next. You can view the full results in the Poll Archive. The new poll (left) is a bit of a departure, but I hope you participate and vote your feelings on the matter of a potential print version of Dragon Fist. Will it come to pass? Who knows? And who knows who might be watching such a poll? ;) Reviews: You can read a new review of the Psionics Handbook at The Miami Circle. RPG.net has new reviews of D&D and D20 products. Community News: Sean Reynolds' Drow NPC of the Week has been updated. DNDHelp.com is having an online Q&A session tomorrow night to help people and answer their questions about the game. The Server: IRC.sorcery.net. The Channel: #DNDHelp. The Time: Wednesday, March 28th at 8:00pm CST. Savannah Knights is a website for a D&D campaign set in modern-day Savannah, Georgia. Webmaster "RangerWickett" says, "The characters, mostly college students, are recruited by an organization devoted to letting magical creatures and races live and survive in the normal world without conflict with humanity." RolePlayingMaster software by Luke Jones is now available for public download. Read this message on my boards to find out more about it. Gregory D. Simkins has created and posted a new MonsterDB -- a database program for dealing with D&D monsters. He'd like some feedback once you've given it a try. Dessicated.net is a Dark Sun setting and community site. Official Message Board Roundup: James Wyatt on "Oriental Adventures" 3E: My design work on the book is done, and it's in the capable hands of its editors now. Here's some key information: The three major sources for this book are (1) the first (1985) Oriental Adventures, (2) DragonFist, and (3) the L5R RPG. The book includes Rokugan, not Kara-Tur, as the sample campaign setting, but most of the book is devoted to providing a whole range of options to help DMs create their own settings or simply use the material in their existing game. A fourth, minor, source is my own interest in the cultures of south and southeast Asia. It's interesting that someone mentioned Thailand; my father is a professor of Thai history (David K. Wyatt), and I spent three months in Chiang Mai while I was in college. :) T'Ed Stark on a homebrew remedy for the harm spell: I recommend (strongly) adding a Fortitude save to the harm spell. It should have one; it doesn't. You might consider it to have a secondary damage effect (perhaps the same as inflict critical wounds) on a successful save (you are blowing a powerful spell), but definitely add the save. This has not been added as official errata, but it's a personal recommendation. Chris Perkins on adventure settings in Dungeon Magazine: We plan to give our Module Cauldron a stir and offer not only dungeon-based adventures but adventures set in other settings (including cities). We also have a couple event-driven (as opposed to location-based) adventures slated for future issues, including a really fun one by 3rd-Edition lead designer Jonathan Tweet. Here's a sneak peek at some of the adventures planned for upcoming issues... Chaosium's Charlie Krank on D20 Melnibone: I just wanted to post a quick note explaining our current thoughts regarding DRAGON LORDS OF MELNIBONE vs. our game line. In general we will treat these as separate game lines. We will publish for the d20 system and our own percentile system.... We will occasionally do books for both systems. These will be background books similar to the ATLAS OF THE YOUNG KINGDOMS, where there is minimal statistical data. In those cases we may have a d20 appendix and a d100 appendix. Scoopers: Azzy, RBB. D20 System News: D20 LotR Still Possible? Here's a note from Monica Jones, Marketing Director at Decipher, the company that scored the Lord of the Rings RPG license recently: We are considering various RPG systems, including D20. We'll be sure to announce the system once it is finalized by our RPG development team. (thanks to Bob Rarick for the scoop) From OtherWorld Creations: "Outpost Qether", a free scenario set in the world of Diomin, is available to download at www.otherworlds.cx/qether.shtml. "Outpost Qether" provides the player with an opportunity to explore the unique world of Diomin even further. Here's a brief synopsis: "Outpost Qether is a setting guide to the westernmost Tirasim frontier. The outpost is home to all sorts: traders, criminals, and military men. It is a place where hope is fading fast, for the Judges in Arioch have decided that the fifty-year-old installation has outlived its usefulness. Unless someone finds a good reason for the outpost to remain, it will be shut down. Recently, however, local scouts have returned with news...the Gadianti have set up a small post and are digging for...something. Perhaps it might just be the thing to give the outpost reason to exist. Perhaps if they send a party of adventurers to find out what's going on over there..." From Fantasy Flight Games: We will be releasing "Traps & Treachery" in June. This is a 176-page hardcover that will retail for $24.95. It features detailed descriptions and beautiful illustrations of dozens of mechanical and magical traps, puzzles, mazes, and other challenges for DMs to throw at their players. It also includes rules for designing traps, poisons, new rogue feats and equipment, and much more. March 26, 2001 Noah in the News: Webmaster Eric Noah of Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D Third Edition News is interviewed at RPGAction.com. (thanks to Eric Noah for the Eric Noah scoop) Community News: Richard Connery's Dragonlance fan site includes An Ansalonian Gazetteer and a a file for the Character Generator that will allow you to create Dragonlance characters. AtFantasy has some new features, including banner exchange and an RPG announcements mailing list. RPGMessageBoards.com is an RPG message board directory. Update from EN World: We are pleased to announce our new Technical Consultant, Liquide. With his help, we are instigating processes that wil automate many of the website's features: submissions, reviews, ratings systems etc. will all be automated and, so far, look very impressive. We will 'launch' the new systems soon. Fan ratings will clearly indicate the best d20 products and fan-created materials. The fan-created materials archive is starting to grow, and we have a number of prestige classes, alternate rules systesms (such as a Wound/Vitality Point conversion for D&D, Angrainnyu's Reference Sheet, Arcady's Rules amongst others). We strongly hope that you will regard this site as the storehouse of materials that are developed on Eric's House Rules Forum and that, when you create rules, classes, spells or whatever else on that forum, you send them to us when they are finished sothat everyone can find and enjoy them. On the Daemonforge front, the Prestige Class poll has concluded, with the following classes making it into the final setting: Elemental Guardian, Fiendhunter, Mist Crusader, Bugaboo's Helpers, Blind Assassin of Ka'Ragorr, Gnomish Outrider, Gnomish Brother and Fathers of the Eternal Hammer. We're halfway through the Miscellaneous submission topic, and have so far received a variety of entries including a couple of interesting locations, a system incorporating magic, airship technology and several different colors of iron, and a couple of submissions that address the world's history. Over on the messageboards, a few people have started writing short stories that illustrate different aspects of the world. If you have any ideas that could be incorporated into the Daemonforge world, please head on over and submit them. March 25, 2001 Community News: Orphaned Games Gazette is an RPG resource site dedicated to games that are out of print. Creature Catalog has been updated with new converted monsters. RealmsCrafters has posted a status report from Jamis Buck. (thanks to Gerard for the scoop) Lorekeeper has some programs you might want to investigate, including a character creator, a creature creator, a jump calculator, and an experience calculator. Kalam is a campaign world created as a group effort by the Kalamgroup and hosted at Fantaseum. The Wu Jen is a D&D Oriental Adventures conversion/resource site. Updates at the Conan D20 site. alt.SRD is a D&D resource site with house rules. Message Board Roundup: Official Boards: Sean Reynolds on FR Prestige Classes. Sean Reynolds on Beholder Mage spellcasting: A beholder mage gains spells in its spellbook just like a wizard. When it takes its first level in the prestige class, it gets spells just like a 1st-level wizard (cantrips, plus 3 + Int bonus 1st-level spells). At each level thereafter, it adds two spells of any level it can cast, just like a wizard does. Dave Gross on Dragon's coverage of inactive campaign worlds. Rich Baker on Ed Greenwood's participation in developing 3E Realms: You'll be pleased to learn that Ed is definitely continuing to contribute to FR game product in 3rd Edition. Ed wrote about 25% of the new 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and he's currently working on a portion of a 2002 product for us (a sourcebook about the North). Rich Baker on FR timeline advancement: We're thinking that the timeline will advance at the pace of 2 Faerun years to every 5 years of product. The new Campaign Setting coming out in June is set in late spring-early summer of 1372 DR. Rich Baker on Magic of Faerun: "Magic of Faerun" has over 200 new spells and 200 new magic items, plus feats, prestige classes, and other 3rd Edition goodies. Rich Baker on FR map scale and boundaries: The poster map in the new 3rd Edition FR Campaign Setting book shows all of Faerun. West-east, it covers the Moonshaes to the west edge of Brightstar Lake. North-south, it goes from the Spine of the World to the south coast of Halruaa and Chult. Icewind Dale sneaks in at the upper left-hand corner, and you see a smidgen of Durpar in the lower right-hand corner. Monte Cook on who's writing D20 Call of Cthulhu: Bruce Cordell, John Tynes, John Rateliff and a number of other great designers are all contributing to this product to make it really great. Monte Cook on D20 Call of Cthulhu: I can't go into a lot of the specifics (I'm sure you understand), but I can tell you that not only will the product deal with 20th-21st Century Lovecraftian horror, but it will also give you what you need to stick the Cthulhu Mythos into your D&D game, use the monsters, incorporate Insanity rules, and more. My Boards: Monte Cook on Tome and Blood: It's a safe bet that you'll see an elemental-flavored prestige class in this book. The book, written by Skip Williams and Bruce Cordell, totally rocks. You guys will like it. Scoopers: Magn0, Olive, The It's Man, T. Patrick Rooney, The shadow of my former self. New in the Conversion Library: Converted monsters (vision and reave), link to a new Oriental Adventures conversion site, plus revisions to files. D20 System News: The Scarred Lands Unofficial Fan Site has moved to http://www.scarredlands.f2s.com and has been revamped. The monster contest at Dark Portal Games ends tonight. Malls & Morons is ... something you can read about here. From Paradigm Concepts: Paradigm Concepts, Inc., in association with the RPGA is pleased to announce the next Living Campaign, Living Arcanis. With a sneak peek planned for Origins 2001 and the debut at Gen-Con 2001, Living Arcanis will plunge thousands of players deep into Arcanis, the World of Shattered Empires, with four original adventures created specially for these events. Paradigm Concepts, Inc is committed to fully supporting this endeavor that will allow players to have an unprecedented opportunity to affect the storyline and the World setting. These effects will not only be reflected in the RPGA Adventures, available to the more than 20,000 Guild-Level members, but also in the quality D20 products produced by Paradigm Concepts, Inc. Join us at Origins and Gen-Con 2001 and make your mark upon the Shattered Empires. New D20 Publisher: Bizzaro Games will be producing dark and humorous fantasy supplents for the D20 system. Official Website Updates: What's new at WotC? "Lunchtime Dungeon Crawl" is the subject of the new installment of Celebrity Game Table. Character Close-up features a bard loremaster. The Business of RPGs investigates The Role of Market Research. A preview of Dungeon Magazine #86. Scoopers: Magn0, Oren Douek. March 23, 2001 Community News: Updates at ThirdEdition.net include converted Birthright Spells, converted Dark Sun spells and some new magical items. From the D&D Community Council: The creation of the Netbook of Skills is getting underway at the DnD Community Council. It's likely you have ideas for new skills, new ways to use old skills, or creative twists for Profession or Craft or Knowledge. Visit the web site to learn how you can submit your idea to be included in the Netbook of Skills! Message Board Roundup: Official Boards: Scooper "tsadkiel" reveals details of Dragonlords of Melnibone: New feats - Pounce & Strike (Myyrrhn only; think of it as a charge attack from the air), Close-Order fighting (some small bonuses when fighting together with a partner), Set Spear (Pretty self explanitory). New Skills - Conceal Object, Fly (Useful mostly for stunts - bring your own wings), Sailing, Scent/Taste, Trap. Monsters - 6 breeds of Demons, plus a "build your own Demon" section, 23 assorted other monsters, some of whom are unique creatures. Races - Human, Melnibonean, Half-Melnibonean, Myyrrhn (winged people), and "half-orc" (really degenerate humans from Org.) There are notes on playing the other standard D&D races as well, but they're optional. The alignment system is also new - no Good/Evil axis, and your degree of Law, Chaos, or Balance is determined by your actions, and not the other way around. There are also some cool benefits for becoming a Champion of your alignment. Dave Gross on the pros and cons of electronic publishing for Dragon Magazine material: Our publisher is keen on electronic distribution and has been investigating the possibilities. There's no question that electronic versions of the magazine would be useful. The challenge is to make them available legally and for enough of a profit to make it worthwhile--while at the same time ensuring that the certain knowledge that the contents of an issue will be available for download doesn't significantly detract from sales of the paper product. My Boards: Monte Cook on Tome & Blood content: Actually, none of those Dragon prestige classes [Eldritch Master, Mystic, or Rage Mage] is going in Tome and Blood, most likely. Scoopers: Nick, Oren Douek. D20 System News: Mystic Eye Games has announced the winners of their recent monster design contest. They've also posted a new monster drawn from the honorable mentions in that contest. (thanks to John Kubisz and Shawn Kehoe for the scoop) Fiery Dragon has posted a downloadable map from their recent release, The Silver Summoning. (thanks to Bertman4 for the scoop) Take a look at this website for a forthcoming game called Godlike. Note that it's described as "the game of paranormal powers and World War II combat." Note that at the bottom is some copyright info including the standard D20 System stuff. That is all. :) WotC Exposé at Salon.com: You can read an enlightening look at the early days of Wizards of the Coast, penned by former WotC employee John Tynes. (thanks to Jim Morris, first of many scoopers) More on Manual of the Planes: WotC's Jeff Grubb passed along a few more tidbits about the forthcoming Manual of the Planes: The Manual of the Planes is written by myself, Bruce Cordell, and Dave Noonan. Yes, it will be out in September. Just saw the first draft of the maps yesterday and gosh, they're just beautiful. March 22, 2001 Master Tools Update: Byrt Martinez has posted his first Master Tools .plan update since he took over as the senior producer for this product. It's gone straight to the Master Tools website (as opposed to either official or unofficial message boards), and contains no new information. (thanks to Greg Currie for the scoop) Community News: Michael's Imagination has been updated with a new prestige class and new NPC classes. Dungeon Master's Haven is a D&D resource site. Includes a Psionic character sheet and a Jump skill calculator spreadsheet. New (and revised) spell sheets at Jamis Buck's place. Message Board Roundup: Official Boards: Monte Cook on Boccob's Blessed Book. New forum: Min/Max Play. My Boards: Monte Cook on Magic Item Prices: The number one most important thing about the magic item pricing guidelines in the DMG is that it's just a "price guestimator." It's not something that you can look at and say, "hey, I can make item X for N gp." It's something that you can look at and say "If I make X, what might it's approximate worth be?" ... If you're looking for a rule in the Core Books to back this up, try the last sentence on page 243 of the DMG. "Use good sense when assigning prices, along with the items here as examples." Monte Cook on Characters Sharing a Square: Any time you actually enter an opponent's square, that opponent gets an attack of opportunity. Two characters (assuming that neither is tiny sized or are three sizes different from each other) in the same square probably deserve a -2 circumstance penalty (each) for attack rolls, and might even use each other as cover. Monte Cook on limitations to the bladesong spell (the spell is posted at WotC): It was my intent to have the same parameters for the effect as the daze cantrip (only humanoids, nothing over 4 HD). That got left out. Scoopers: Bob Huss and The shadow of my former self. Oriental Adventures in October, Planes in September: An anonymous scooper from GAMA dropped me a line: I saw a little leaflet WotC is distributing at GAMA, featuring four products with release dates later this year: Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, by Monte Cook (July) Master Tools (August) Manual of the Planes, by Jeff Grubb (September) Oriental Adventures, by James Wyatt (October) Origin Awards Nominations: A number of D&D and D20 System products were nominated for Origin Awards. D&D and Star Wars are both up for Best Roleplaying Game; Death in Freeport (Green Ronin) and Three Days to Kill (Atlas) were among the nominees for Best Roleplaying Adventure. The Monster Manual was nominated for Best RPG Graphic Design, the Beholder miniature is up for Best Sci Fi/Fantasy Miniature, and Dragon Magazine is up for Best Professional Game Periodical. Other nominees that caught my eye were Fractal Terrains from Profantasy for Best Game Aid or Accessory; WotC's and Green Ronin's Chris Pramas for Best Game-Related Short Work; and three WotC novels up for Best Game-Related Novel. April WotC Products Spotted: A couple of scoopers have indicated that they've seen WotC's The Standing Stone and Black Dragon miniature available in game shops. (thanks to Kevin and Jsin for the scoop) Dragon Comic Preview: Twentysides.com has posted a preview of Kenzer's D&D comic book, In the Shadow of Dragons. Official Website Updates: What's new at WotC? The complete list of spells that will appear in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book in June, with a brief description of each. A Sneak Peek at the Realms' Emerald Enclave and more on FR Secret Societies. An Encounter Level Calculator. (It's nifty, but may I also point out an alternative?) A new Playtest Group kind of buried in the Chainmail section. A new Map A Week. Preview of Dragon 282 complete with a Sage Advice question that includes a minor correction to the Assassin's Sneak Attack ability from the DMG. A new edition of Miniatures Playhouse. Some new essay installments at Wizards Word. Scoopers: Steve Mulhern, Eldar, Todd Antill, Dan Eveland and Oren Douek were the first of more than a dozen scoopers. March 21, 2001 Poll Results: What's your favorite D&D accessory thus far from WotC? The Psionics Handbook (28%) and Dragon Magazine (25%) led the pack. Sword & Fist (15%) and Monsters of Faerun (11%) followed. You can view the complete results in the Poll Archive. The current poll will run through Sunday. Community News: La Liga Mess and D&D Mexico are two Spanish-language Yahoo groups dealing with 3rd Edition D&D. You can grab Bob Fitch's new Bard Spell spreadsheet, and updated versions of his Wizards, Sorcerer and Psionics sheets as well, over at Jamis Buck's place. DNDCampaigns.com is a site devoted to developing and hosting D&D campaign worlds. Webmaster Greg Brouwer says, "Although our site is still under construction, the campaign section and message boards are currently operational and we can begin webhosting now." Join the D&D Community Council: Over 100 members strong, the DnD Community Council is continuing to grow! We are looking for even more folks who are interested in participating in our wonderful D&D information sharing program. We are looking for contributors, artists, team members, team leaders, designers, etc. The Community Council is the first effort under the Open Gaming License to consolidate the works created and converted by the gaming community into a series of resources that can be downloaded and introduced into any campaign. Join our team of intellectual explorers. Become part of the creative journey! Visit our site to get a quick idea about who we are and what we do. [Read more...] D&D Council Adventures Site: We are currently looking for folks to become a part of our newest addition to the DnD Community Council... the D20 Fantasy Adventures Site! Right now, we are soliciting for volunteers to work on our review and rating board for community developed adventure materials. Take a look at this quick review of the program and requirements. D20 System News: PEG's "Weird Wars:" Pinnacle Entertainment Group is planning an RPG of "historical horror roleplaying in a war-torn world." Dubbed Weird Wars, it will use the D20 System. PEG is already pegged to publish a D20 System version of their Deadlands game this summer. (thanks to Jeremy Morris for the scoop) Necromancer Games unveiled their newest D20 accessory, Demons & Devils, at GAMA. (thanks to Hank for the scoop) RPG.net has posted new reviews of Terror in Freeport (Green Ronin), Relics and Rituals (Sword & Sorcery), The Last Gods (AEG), and Legend of the Steel General (0one Games). Twentysides.com has posted brief reviews for D20 System freebies The Quest For Amelia (Fiery Dragon Productions) and Shades of Yesterday (Agatha Blades). You can officially scratch a D20 System Lord of the Rings RPG off the rumored list -- it ain't gonna happen. Read this press release to see why. (thanks to Swack-Iron for the scoop) You can read the table of contents for Dragonlords of Melnibone over at the Chaosium website. (thanks to Oren Douek for the scoop) Kalamar Available in April: Mark Plemmons, Comic Manager at Kenzer, says the Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign setting for D&D will be available "probably mid to late April." March 20, 2001 Strohm Leaves D&D Position: As indicated in this post on the official message boards, WotC's Keith Strohm has accepted a new position within the company, leaving RPGs in the hands of Mary Kirchoff, who is currently the head of WotC's Book Publishing program. Keith's new title is apparently Vice President, Pokemon Product Group. (Miniatures will be under the guidance of David Hoppe, with Chris Pramas as Miniatures Creative Director.) I got to meet Keith at GenCon last year, and it was one of the highlights of my trip. I wish Keith the best of luck in his new position, and I hope he drops by now and then to check up on us. Official Website Updates: New at WotC... Chapter 3 of this month's Cliffhanger. New PC Portraits. FR e-cards. Scoopers: Six Foot Gnome, Dread, mattj, The shadow of my former self. Community News: Netbook of Feats: From Bradley Bemis, Chairman of the D&D Community Council: A new version of the Netbook of Feats has been released. Consider it my last hoorah as the Team Leader before I step aside to make way for Sigfried Trent and begin working on my Reverie Campaign Setting. Dragonlance Core Rules: Want to be involved with the creation of DL 3E? Read this announcement at the Dragonlance Nexus. Updates to Spelljammer 3E include new monsters: Argos, Dizantar, Dracon, Giant Space Hamster, Kindori, Lutum, Monitor, Space Swine, and Witchlight Marauder. RPG Planet has posted a preview of the BGII expansion disc, Throne of Bhaal. Cattidrizzt's Wonderland is an art gallery from an ex-Disney artist who is apparently a big fan of that famous drow from the Realms. (thanks to The shadow of my former self for the scoop) Midgard: The Online d20 Adventure Magazine's website is almost ready for the public. They hope to have two sample adventures available by April 2nd. They are taking submission queries at: midgard_submissions@hotmail.com. World of Kara is a D&D campaign site. The City-State of Talenorn Campaign has moved to miskatonicilluminati.tripod.com/dnd.htm. The previous incarnation of the site was one of many sites axed by Tripod (as reported at Salon.com). Official Message Board Roundup: T'ed Stark on the Celestial Template's CR Adjustment: The celestial template is pretty butch, that's true. But keep in mind that any creature from a plane other than the material takes on a few negatives as well. For example, they can be dismissed, warded by particular protection spells, and targetted for a few other effects that are simply "well, you lose" declarations. It's tough to balance the CR of a creature that has those on/off toggles. If you have a wizard or cleric with the right spells, you just plain win. Also, remember how dramatic a boost in CR actually is. Adding +2 to the CR of a creature should double how tough it is; adding +1 is a 50% increase in measurement. Is a 4 to 7 HD creature with the celestial template really double the effectiveness (since a creature with 8+ HD does gain a +2 to its CR)? I don't think a celestial ogre, for example, is more than a CR 3 encounter. Monte Cook on how many attacks a creature with multiple claw attacks gets when limited to the "attack action": Only one. Even though they have the same attack bonus, the two claw attacks are still treated as separate attacks. Robert Sullivan, author of "Imaskarcana: Faces of Magic" in Dragon #281, with some additional background material. Sean Reynolds on FR Drow: In the FR campaign setting, there are no differences in the ability score modifiers between male and female drow. Thanks to Oren Douek and The shadow of my former self for the scoops. Master Tools Slated for Early August: This press release from WotC announces that Master Tools will be released in "early August." (thanks to James Fudge, the first of several scoopers) March 19, 2001 New in the Conversion Library: Oasis of the White Palm (module I4); Shadowrun-to-D20 conversion notes; a Kabbalist prestige class; and updates to several files. Chainmail is New Miniatures Skirmish Game: Rumors have been flying for some time about new "skirmish" rules for D&D. What wasn't perfectly clear is that this is in fact a new miniatures game. Today WotC formally announced the new game, dubbed Chainmail (an hommage to D&D's earliest days), in this press release. There's also a special Chainmail area on the WotC website (just visit www.wizards.com/chainmail/) and a new official Chainmail message board. Chainmail is due in October. (thanks to Eric Anondson, the first of about a dozen scoopers) Official Message Board Roundup: Dave Gross on Dragon Query Letters and the Kinds of Articles They're Looking For: Email query letters are not only okay, they're preferred. Unless I'm out of town, you should expect a reply within a couple of business days. If you haven't received a response in a week, a follow-up email is just fine.... "Crunchy bits" in articles are always good: a new feat, a prestige class, new equipment, and so on make great sidebars to larger articles, but usually we don't want to see an article that's nothing but new feats. Also, we don't need many prestige classes, since we have a lot in the works already--and people keep pitching new ones all the time. Dave Gross on what's coming up in the May-September issues of Dragon: ...gods & clerics, dragons, halflings, (a surprise), and Planes through September. Dave Gross on an Orcs: Orcs will get an issue next year, though we'll also probably cover half-orcs at the same time. New Sword & Fist forum opens. Thanks to Oren Douek and The shadow of my former self for the scoops. Community News: GamersTavern.net is a live streaming call in show about Pen and Paper Role Playing, and Minature wargamming. Nyambe d20 is a fantasy setting inspired by African myth, legend, and history. NPC Equipment Generator ver 1.3 by Jonathan Jacobs is now available at Jamis Buck's place. Bob Fitch presents his Psionics Powers sheet, which is available over at Jamis Buck's place. Fantaseum has received a facelift, as has Pool of Radiance II fan site The Scrying Room. Paul Stephanouk is searching for volunteers for an upcoming beta of his Vorpal RPG software for the Palm OS. The Oriental Adventures Project homepage has moved to http://come.to/kara-tur/. This Yahoo club is a companion to the website. Updates at The Alcove of Leenar the Green. The Sleeping Imperium has moved to http://sleepingimperium.rpghost.com. Crystalline-Hope.com -- The site is created for players to play 3rd Edition D&D online in chat rooms with live players and DMs. DMs set the games up and our attempt is to have multipe DMs, so that there are games running for people with either regular or odd schedules. Update from EN World: This has been a big week for us over at the EN World Site. The biggest addition to the site has been a d20 reviews page. Here you can read reviews of all the 20 products released so far, and post a review of your own. Our intention is to create a comprehensive library of reviews including every d20 product out there, all in one place. If you have a spare moment, pop over to the site and review some of the products that you have bought so that others can read your opinion when deciding which book to buy next. We have also created a rating system, so that it is easy to pick out the good products form the bad with a single glance. As you probably know, we have reently started accepting general fan-created submissions. We have receieved some high quality items, and have set up similar review processes for these items. Again, you'll be able to see which ones are the best. As the items are rated, we will create a 'Pick of the Best' section, where you can see a single list of the best fan created works and the most essential d20 buys. Finally - news of Daemonforge. The Prestige Class topic has closed, and a poll has been posted to determine which make it into the world. We have receieved 19 entries, and only 8 will be used, so please head on over and select your favourites. The poll will remain open util Friday, and we will post the results next weekend. The author of the most popular entry will also have an NPC named after him or her. The next topic for your submisions is 'Misceellaneous'. This two-week topic will be used to flesh out details and clear up some of the vague areas. Perhaps you'd like to design the gnomish airships, flesh out one of the strongholds or create your own town - or maybe you'd like to write about an important historic occasion. Anything goes for the next two weeks. March 18, 2001 Poll Results: Who got the shaft? Rangers, by a whopping 26%. Rangers got almost twice the votes that half-orcs got (13%), and dual-wielders (12%) and necromancers (11%) weren't far behind. View the poll archive to see the rest of the results. The new poll asks about 3E accessories, and will run through Tuesday evening. D20 System News: From 0onegames: By popular demand (we 've received hundreds of emails), The Living Legend Prestige Class is now posted! It's a four page PDF booklet (FREE!), download it here. Citizen Games, according to product schedules sent out from Wizard's Attic, is a new D20 System publisher. They have two mid-level fantasy adventures on deck for June 2001: Secret at Greenrock and Castle Dunmere. (thanks to Jon Mines and and B.T. McTeer for website information) Official Message Board Roundup: T'ed Stark on the Usefulness of Bards: I think that anybody who plays a bard for a long time (that is, more than just a few levels) will start seeing how cool they are. We had a bard in one campaign I was in, and he became invaluable... T'ed Stark on Uncanny Dodge: A character can normally only be subject to a sneak attack if he loses his Dex bonus or if he's flanked. A sufficiently high level rogue (6+) does not lose her Dex bonus when caught flat-footed and cannot be flanked. There are other ways to sneak attack someone, but most of them rely on magic or extreme circumstances (if you completely tie up a rogue, for example, she'll lose her Dex bonus because she cannot move). Helpless (such as those under the effects of a hold person spell) characters lose their Dex bonus. T'ed Stark on Bard and Sorcerer Bonus Spells: Bonus spells for sorcerers and bards work exactly the same as for other spellcasting classes--they get to cast more spells per day. Erik Mona on Greyhawk Monsters in Monsters of Faerun: The Monsters of Faerun book, by the way, is a D&D book with some FR info, not the other way around. Just because manscorpions and bullywugs appear there does not mean they've been co-opted from Greyhawk. Hell, Greyhawk has an entire desert filled with manscorpions, and the closest thing to a bullywug god I've seen outside Eric Noah's message boards. Thanks to The shadow of my former self for the scoops.

March 17, 2001 Reviews: RPGAction has posted reviews of The Silver Summoning (Fiery Dragon) and Rappan Athuk (Necromancer). You can view short capsule reviews of D&D and D20 System products at Twentysides.com. New in the Conversion Library: A new Sheen (Monsters), updates to the Alt.Ranger (Classes), Chapter 3 of Scourge of the Slave Lords (Adventures), and modern-day sci-fi/fantasy rules for D&D (Other Games). Community News: Sean Reynolds' Drow of the Week: WotC's very own Veggie Boy has started what he hopes will be a frequently updated NPC gallery featuring drow characters, complete with stat block and illustration. Eyru has moved to a new address: http://www.eyrurpg.com. Druid's Cove has a survey about what you would like to see in an RPG website. The Spanish mailing list DnD-es@yahoogrops.com, with more than 270 members and around 600 messages per month, now has its own web site at http://www.dnd-es.com. The web site is full of original material and conversion documents in Spanish. RPG.HMImages.com is an NNTP server with optional web interface for discussing D&D and other RPGs. This service was created in response to the announcement that WotC's message boards won't be able to offer NNTP access in the immediate future. Official Message Board Roundup: Sean Reynolds on FR deities: ...we were only able to give a half-page to about 30 deities, the rest are in a big table with alignment, domains, portfolio, etc. ... no room to discuss their plans. A future book will cover them more in Faiths & Avatars style. Sean Reynolds on FR regions: We tried to give each country at least a page. We do focus more on the Dalelands area and the Silver Marches more than other places, though. Sean Reynolds on FR magic: Spells similar to the Simbul's spell trigger will be in [Magic of Faerun]. The Magister template will also be in that book. Dave Gross on a Songs and Silence release date: ...we have a Rogues (and Bards) issue slated for December, when Songs and Silence is released... T'ed Stark on size and layout of the Monster Manual: ...we have a Monster Manual crammed full of as many monsters that we could reasonably fit into a 224 pages and it looks "short" by comparison [to the other books]. Chris Pramas on Miniatures Sets to Go Along with Modules: We'll be doing a bit of that. There will be a Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil boxed set this summer, for instance. Chris Pramas on Kobold Minis, a "Minis Game," and other tidbits: ...we'll be making some kobold minis this summer.... And I'm afraid plastic bases are here to stay, especially with the minis game coming up. [Presumably he's referring to the Skirmishes game?] Thanks to The shadow of my former self for the scoops. Official Updates: More goodies at WotC: Psionics Handbook Art Gallery -- go ahead, try not to smile when you look at Easter Egg Scissorhands, I dare you. Ray of Depletion is a new spell designed to suck the power from a psion. Marlissa is a fiendish bard in the Fight Club. Thanks to Eldar for the scoop. March 16, 2001 Errata from Dragon Magazine: As some of you know, earlier tonight I was contacted by staff at WotC and asked to remove the errata corrections I'd posted below in my Dragon Magazine #282 preview. I aired my objections to this request over on my message boards, and before long a minor riot had broken out on both my boards and the official boards. Happily, the issue has resolved itself positively. Here's Dragon Magazine editor Dave Gross with the scoop: First off, we at Dragon agree that there's a difference between "Sage Advice" in general and errata. We don't object to the free posting of errata. When Eric or others post it, we think it's cool. We object only if someone uploads big chunks of an article or whole articles, which doesn't happen often. Sometimes we do it because we know an article is popular and scarce, but we have plans to make it available soon. For instance, all of the Year 2000 "Sage Advice" columns after 3rd Edition are in a CD-ROM that comes with the June issue. A month after that issue hits the stands, we don't mind that the Wizards website will be uploading them. (But don't tell anyone--make them buy the magazine first! Or did I just spoil that?) At Dragon, we appreciate the passion with which you folks are writing about errata, and we share your appreciation of the difference between customer service and new product. Where there are any gray areas, we'll work them out in the months to come. Thanks for telling us your opinions. We're listening, and we will be answering you with every issue. Official Message Board Roundup: With the new boards online, new information. Viva la internet, eh? "Sage Advice" to Appear Online: Dragon Magazine editor Dave Gross reveals plans for a "Sage Advice" archive: ...starting in July the Web team will be uploading a "Sage Advice" archive. Also, in our June issue, we'll include a CD-ROM that features, among other groovy things, an archive of Sage Advice columns from last year. The online "Sage Advice" will always be delayed about six months after the print publication, so Dragon readers still get it first. DMG Errata Coming ... In a While: D&D Creative Director T'ed Stark: DMG Errata will be coming along as quickly as we can compile it. Unfortunately, it's been a very busy time here in the office, so I can pretty much guarantee the material won't be posted until later on this month. Right now, I'm reviewing quite a bit of material and getting ready to attend the GAMA Trade Show. When I return, finalizing errata for the DMG, the MM, and our already-released products becomes a top priority. Thanks for your patience. S&F Halfling Outrider BAB Ommission was in Error: D&D Creative Director T'ed Stark: The Halfling Outrider (in Sword and Fist) should have a Base Attack Bonus. In fact, in early copies of the manuscript, it did. I don't understand how it got dropped, but we missed it in galleys. Sword and Fist is one of the products we will have complete errata posted for very soon. Enter the Maestro: Two of my hosted sites have joined forces to work on a new project called Maestro. Here's what Jamis Buck and the folks at RealmsCrafters have to say about it (and you can read more about it here): Maestro is a role-playing game prep tool for desktop and notebook PCs. The idea is that you will use Maestro to build your adventures and characters and then hotsync with RPG Companion(tm) (our RPG session management tool for Palm OS) to take with you to the gaming table. This way we supply you with a complete solution, from prep to play. We aren't ready to release a ship date yet but an unofficial date would be 3rd Quarter 2001. Dragon #282: The April 2001 issue of Dragon Magazine arrived in my mail today. This is one of the more fun April issues I've seen in some time. Let's dig in, shall we? Foolishness: April Fools is the theme, and we're served up plenty of it -- gaming etiquette spoofs, modern songs with RPG lyrics, the muskrat presented as a PC race, silly monsters, goofy PC portraits and cover by Phil Foglio, etc. General Gaming Articles: Seems like more than usual -- articles on things like designing logic puzzles, writing ads to find gamers, DMing techniques, profile of cartoonist John Kovalic (he mentions my friendly local game shop, Pegasus Games!), a continuation of Gary Gygax's look at the elements of roleplaying. Goodies: A free Warlord deck from AEG, plus two-page spread detailing the rules. Also more Instant Dungeon Tiles. D&D Stuff: Oh, hey, there's some D&D stuff burried in here too... Countdown to the Forgotten Realms: "Magic of Faerun" teases us with terms like "the Weave" and "spellfire," "high elven magic" and "circle magic." We're treated to a new Realms spell -- Eagle's Splendor (increases Charisma by d4+1 for 1 hour per caster level, doesn't provide bonus spells). Realms fiction from Elaine Cunningham. NPCs of the Monster Hunters Association. Blessed of Gruumsh: A prestige class for orcs and half-orcs who are devoted to the one-eyed orc god. Lots of evil-eye type powers. Ecology of the Purple Worm Vs. Elves prepares you to battle elven enemies. Sage Advice: Clarifications for some rules presented in Sword & Fist (though at first glance, I don't see anything that hasn't already been mentioned on message boards or otherwise archived here on the site). Also presented are some important corrections: Monster Manual Errata -- Swallow Whole: The text describing the swallow whole special attack (page 9 of the Monster Manual) should also say: Creatures swallowed whole are considered grappled. A creature with the swallow whole special attack does not suffer any penalties for grappling creatures it has swallowed; thus it retains its Dexterity bonus to AC and can make attacks, cast spells, and threaten squares normally. If a Creature's description of the swallow whole special attack allows swallowed creatures to cut their way free, it should say, "light piercing or slashing weapon" rather than "Small or Tiny slashing weapon." Corrections -- "How to Create A Monster": A revised CR Guesstimator is presented, as well as a correction to how to calculate the number of feats a creature receives. Here's the corrected CR Guesstimator. Use the creature's Int bonus, not Int modifier, when determining number of feats. (In other words, don't use an Int penalty to reduce the number of feats a monster gains.) D20 System News: WotC has new boards for the D20 System, including those for Star Wars, Wheel of Time and Call of Cthulhu. (thanks to Scott Payne and Sommers for the scoop) Monkey God Enterprises now has a website. (thanks to mike goyette for the scoop) Roc Games has new forums. Their website also indicates D20 products coming out as early as May 2001. (thanks to Jason Wyant for the scoop) Hârn DE: International game developer Auran today announced Hârn DE, the first electronic modules for tabletop roleplaying set in the Hârn fantasy role playing setting. Hârn DE (Digitally Enhanced) is a series of 3D interactive fantasy adventure modules on CD-ROM. The modules will use Auran's game engine technology by enabling the players to view and hear live 3D environments featuring terrain, buildings and other items critical to the adventure. Hârn DE will suit both d20 and HârnMaster 2nd Edition rule sets. The first module, Web of the Widow, is set for a June 2001 release. For more information visit the Auran website. WotC Message Boards Return: Head on over to the WotC Message Boards. Be sure to read this announcement about the new boards. You may find these direct links to be useful (thanks to Scott Payne and Sommers for the scoop): Message Board Home Dungeons & Dragons Boards Forgotten Realms Boards Other Worlds Boards D20 System Boards including those for Star Wars, Wheel of Time and Call of Cthulhu. March 15, 2001 Community News: Jamis Buck has posted Bob Fitch's Paladin spell spreadsheet; Bob apparently has a Ranger spell sheet on deck and a special treat for psions coming soon. Twentysides.com is a D20/D&D/etc. resource and news site. Updates at Michael's Imagination include a new Master Spy prestige class. Realmspeak is a D&D/FR resource site. The Sage on Psionics: A couple of scoopers have passed along Skip "The Sage" Williams' clarifications to some psionics questions they had: Can you dispel a power made permanent with the incarnate power? You can't dispel an incarnated power, though you might be able to dispel the power's effects. What powers can be made incarnate? You can incarnate any power that isn't permanent, isn't instantaneous, and doesn't have it's own XP cost. Can psionic characters "unlearn" or forget powers to make way for new ones? No, you can't "forget" powers (but see below). Is a character who has been affected by the 9th level power apopsi (permanently lose 1d4 psionic powers) now able to learn 1d4 new psionic powers? In other words, does the use of apopsi free up those power slots? And how does psychic chirurgery restore these powers? The powers and their slots become inaccessible. Psychic chirurgery restores access in the same way one recovers an erased file off a computer disk. Are manifester levels added on when a psionic character picks up a prestige class? If my 5th level Psion is also an 8th level Metamind, what manifester levels does he use for (a) his Psion powers and (b) his Metamind powers? Track powers for each class seperately, just at you would for any other multiclassed psionicist (see page 16 in the PsiH). Could a psion using the Mind Switch power keep (a) racial innate psionics (a githyanki's ability to use telekinesis at will, for instance); (b) Monk special abilities (if multi-classed)? You retain class abilities and anything that depends on your mind. Scoopers: John Coccaro, Ed Bonny, Tudor Carsten. D20 System News: There are only a few days left to submit entries for the Dark Portal Games monster contest. New entries in the D20 System Guide, including a new publisher (RPG Source) and a new section on D20 System magazines and other periodicals. RPG Action has posted an article about altering Simply Roleplaying! to use D20 System-like mechanics. No idea what Simply Roleplaying! is? Neither did I until I read this. Official Updates: Okay, I've been slacking off on keeping up with what's new at WotC... here we go: New Map-A-Week and new PC Portraits. Ed Greenwood talks about Secret Societies of the Realms. So do the members of the Realms Roundtable. New miniatures including elementals. A Forgotten Realms Novel Guide. Wizard's Word is a new area for gaming-related columns. Scoopers: David Fair, Bertman4, Berandor, Derek, Apegod, Dark Blackshield, Bryon Wischstadt, Joe, Spearhavoc, and CylentWolf. March 14, 2001 Community News: Bob Fitch is at it again -- he's created a Druid spell spreadsheet, which you can grab over at Jamis Buck's place. PCGen ver 1.4 beta is now available. This is a highly useful character generator tool that includes prestige classes from a variety of sources and can generate Star Wars characters too. Black Falcon Aerie's feat lists and spell lists have been updated. A whole bunch of new and converted monsters at Creature Catalog. Barsoom has moved to a new (and "hopefully temporary") address: http://homepage.mac.com/coreyr/. 3eDnD.com has posted a weather generator and new DM advice. Update #1 from EN World: Due to popular request, we have extended the Prestige Class topic by one week. The closing date is now Saturday 17th March. We've already received a number of excellent classes and are looking forward to still more. Head on over to the EN World Site for details on how to submit a class. Burning Man's rewrites are coming along nicely, and we will soon have definitive versions of the Dying Gods, the Patrons and the Fiendlords posted. He is also redrafting some of the monster and race entries, including the Drainen and the Mantu People. The Hybrids page has also been updated (as, for some reason, the poor gnomes were getting cheated out of their Con bonus and three races were lacking favored classes). Update #2 from EN World: The last couple of days have seen some big changes at the EN World Site. We are expanding our scope to include all fan based submissions. By doing this, I hope that all of Eric's regular visitors regard the EN World Site as the storehouse for the excellent materials that, until now, have been scattered over the House Rules Forum and various personal websites. Superb materials such as Angramainyu's Combat Reference Sheet, OldOne's d20 Economic System, and Arcady's XP and Point Buy systems spring instantly to mind, as well as the plethora of Prestige Classes, Races, Feats, Skills, Adventures and so on that are floating around on the net. Non-conversion fan-created submissions are the only real 'gap' in Eric's coverage of 3E D&D. We will fill this gap so that you have, at your fingertips, every resource available to the discerning D&D player. Eric has kindly voiced his best wishes and offered his support in this venture. Between Eric's Site, the Creature Catalog, Jamis Buck's site and the EN World Site, you will need to look nowhere else for your gaming materials. We will also be including a special feature - fan reviews of submitted materials. We have asked Eric to set up a 'EN World Reviews Forum', and we will link to a single review thread from each material posted on the site. You will be able to read the reviews written by others and post your own reviews so that others may benefit. The EN World Site has now been redesigned to incorporate this extra scope. We will, of course, be continuing the Daemonforge project as always, creating a D&D setting designed by you, Eric's regular visitors. I strongly hope that you will support us in this, and that we all benefit from our growing community (and Eric's ever-expanding quest for world domination). With your help, this corner of the web will prove to be the true heart of the online D&D fanbase. Please send in your materials so that the rest of us can enjoy them! All works will be credited to the author, and will be designated as Open Game Content. Thank you all for your support so far, and for the support that I'm sure you will continue to give. Morrus Poll Results: As you can see in the Poll Archive, the question "What D&D product (not D20) are you most anticipating?" has been answered by over 4,000 voters. By a clear margin, Master Tools wins (29%), followed by the FR Campaign Setting (21%). No big surprises there. Tied at 10% were the High Level Campaign Book and the wizard/sorcerer class book Tome & Blood. Behind these were mega-adventure Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (9%), Manual of the Planes (8%), and cleric/paladin accessory Defenders of the Faith (6%). Bringing up the rear were Kenzer's official licensed D&D setting Kingdoms of Kalamar, the forthcoming bard/rogue book Song & Silence, and "other." The new poll has been posted -- it will run through about Sunday. D20 System News: Shadowcraft Studios is folding its operation. Shadowcraft's "Khepri" says, "I've had little time to work on it as I wanted too, and I'm involved with too many other projects. I'm of the mind that if I can't put 150% into something, it's not worth continuing." OtherWorld Creations, publishers of Diomin, will present Into The Darkness at GAMA. Preview copies will be available at the OtherWorld Creations booth, #2408. The product will be available through Wizard's Attic beginning March 21st. Jagged Edge Games has released ver. 0.0.3 of the Shadowlands core rules for download. JEG's K. David Ladage says, "Version 0.0.3 is very close to being the final (1.0) release of the Core Rules which will be in April. Religion & Sorcery, our first supplement to the Shadowlands setting, is still on target for the May release." RPG Gate is a German-language RPG website with a D20 section. ED20 is a D20 Earthdawn cross-over fan site. Reviews: Tuesday's reviews at RPG.net include those for Raid on Tonwell (Fantasy Flight), Crucible of Freya (Necromancer), Dead Fire (Dark Portal), Diablo II: Diablerie (WotC), Diablo II: To Hell and Back (WotC), and Death in Freeport (Green Ronin). Nexx has posted a review of the Psionics Handbook, plus comments on the review from PsiHB author Bruce Cordell. "Sage Advice" Removed: Not exactly a huge surprise, but I've been asked to remove the Sage Advice document I posted yesterday. I'm told that if you're looking for all of the Sage Advice on 3rd Edition you'll be able to find it on a CD-ROM that will be bundled with an upcoming issue of Dragon Magazine, along with a bunch of other goodies. March 13, 2001 Community News: angramainyu's D&D Reference Sheet was updated last week. Swords of the Amanar is a D&D campaign site. Septentrionalis is a campaign world for D&D adventures in 17th century North America. The Dragonlance Nexus is now accepting submissions for their Adventure Portal area. The submission guidelines were posted on Dragonlance-L. Wizards on the Boards: Some of the fine folks from WotC occasionally stop by my message boards with items of interest. Here's one such post: Monte Cook on the Leadership Feat: If you want multiple cohorts, you take the [Leadership] feat multiple times. New in the Conversion Library: Pharaoh, the first module in the classic Desert of Desolation series, has been posted (Adventures section); more Mephits (Monsters section); and the Sword Dancer from the Forgotten Realms. Cleric Spell Spreadsheet: If you liked the Sorcerer and Wizard spreadsheet utilities created by Bob Fitch recently, you'll love his latest tool -- a Cleric spell spreadsheet. Simply indicate your cleric's level, Wisdom score, domains, and opposing alignment, and viola -- a list of spells your cleric has access to, complete with saving throw DCs, durations, ranges, etc. calculated for you. Check it out over at Jamis Buck's RPG Generators. Monster Creation Tables: Pat Rooney has compiled the tables from Skip Williams' Dragon Magazine article on "How to Create a Monster." Tables similar to these were provided at various game conventions at monster-building seminars. My understanding is that the whole article will be available online at WotC sometime in the near future, so you'll soon have instructions on how to use the charts. The file is a 208kb .pdf* download. * For some reason, some people report that .pdf files downloaded from this site don't appear in the browser window. No, I don't know why. To save the file instead of viewing it in the browser, right-click and choose "Save Target As" [Internet Explorer], or SHIFT-click the link [Netscape]. March 12, 2001 WotC's Strohm on Errata Plans, More: Keith Strohm, WotC's director of RPGs and miniatures, was kind enough to answer a few questions on a variety of topics, including product errata: How are the errata lists for the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual coming along? Last time I checked, they were moving along fine. The plan was to have all of the errata for the books that we have released up by mid-March and then have a monthly rolling update, if necessary. You mentioned in a message on my boards recently that there have been some changes to the way products are handled in editing, specifically the addition of a "review council." Could you go into more detail about that -- what the review council does, who's on it, how it will help, why it's needed, that sort of thing? The Review council consists of a rotating membership of R&D Designers who evaluate and 'review' new applications of existing 3rd Edition design (feats, skills, spells, etc.), as well as all new 'mechanics' (when appropriate) for balance with the existing 3rd Edition ruleset and compliance with the underlying design principles of 3rd Edition. One of the things that always bothered me about 2nd Edition D&D product is the way that different books would present different mechanics for resolving similar situations and the way that certain books had mechanics that were clearly unbalanced when compared with other sections of the game. The Review Council will help insure consistent rules and mechanics throughout the entire D&D and Star Wars lines. Sword & Fist has drawn some criticism due to errors, unclear rules, and unexplained departures from the norm of D&D. It's been out for about two months now -- when do you anticpate that we'll see an errata list for this book? I mentioned earlier a mid-March errata debut for our products. Since it's already the 12th, I'm sure that the process is running smoothly and we'll see errata any day now. Are there plans for an online Sage Advice archive? Such a thing seems as though it would be an obviously useful tool to have available, and starting now before the task becomes overwhelming seems like a logical choice. It does. I haven't specifically thought about such an archive, but it does seem useful. This is probably already being planned by the folks in periodicals, but I'll inquire. When will we see the D&D product lineup for the rest of 2001? We generally release information to the public at the same time that we release our catalog to the book trade. I think it will be a month or two before we see any info. Community News: Agartha has posted Trial by Fire, a free .pdf D20 System adventure. Several updates at the Creature Catalog, including a new Creature Locator. The Trinoc*Con website has posted a monster created by Skip Williams during a monster-creation seminar. I'm told this pre-dates the release of the Monster Manual back in October. The illustration was provided by Mark Schultz. (thanks to Robert Nichols for the scoop) D20 System News: As noted by several scoopers, the D20 System Reference Document is slowly getting a bit of a facelift. A number of sections have had their html pages replaced with .rtf files, apparently in anticipation of their formal release under the Open Gaming License. (Thanks to Quentin, Dennis, and Grant) An interview with Michelle Nephew of Atlas Games and a review of In the Belly of the Beast have been posted at AtFantasy.com. (thanks to Pat for the scoop) Chaosium's Dragonlords of Melnibone should start shipping to distributors in a couple of days. Official Updates: What's new at WotC? Chapter 2 of the current Cliffhanger. A new free PDF download for Dragonlance: Gnomes--100, Dragons--0. A revised ESD product schedule. Scoopers: Gish Makai, Gerard, Pat, Steven, Pierre-Louis, Corvis. March 11, 2001 Poll Results: I've decided that for now I'm going to try to do two polls per week -- one Monday through Wednesday, and one Thursday through Sunday. As you can see in the Poll Archive, the results of the previous poll (Most Anticpated D20 Product) indicates that Ravenloft and Wheel of Time are virtually tied for first place, with Call of Cthulhu and "Other" coming in next. Creature Collection II, L5R, and The Dark Side pulled in after that, with Deadlands bringing up the rear. I'm fairly sure that many of the "Other" votes would have gone to Dragonlords of Melnibone (Chaosium, due this month) -- sorry about that, I just forgot to include it. Conversion Library Remodeled: With over 250 files ready for download, the Conversion Library has grown a lot since it started in August. I've done a little remodeling in the Conversion Library -- I've split the Monster Conversions off of the rest of the library so it loads a bit faster. I've sprinkled links to the new Monster Conversions page liberally in the original Conversion Library, so you shouldn't have trouble finding it. D20 System News: From Matt Staroscik of Privateer Press: To celebrate the impending release of our first book, we're having a contest! Winners will receive a free copy of The Witchfire Trilogy, Part I. To enter, just email your funniest gaming anecdote to contest@privateerpress.com. Keep it to 500 words or less, and check out web site for all the details. From James Bell of Fiery Dragon Productions: Since The Silver Summoning will be available at distribution this week, we figured it was about time that we finally post the extension to NeMoren's Vault - Quest for Amelia. It's a 10-page PDF available for download from the NeMoren's Vault special pages. To access it, you'll need the Runes of Passage found on page 23 of NeMoren's Vault. New Site -- Star Wars RPG Network: Looking for Star Wars RPG news and goodies? Check out the Star Wars RPG Network. It's brought to you by some of the same people involved with the Star Wars Database website, and is intended to replace that site, which will apparently close down shortly. March 10, 2001 New Service -- RPG Registry: Looking for a new game, new players, or a new game master? You'll want to visit and register with RPG Registry. You can indicate what times and days you're available to play, what games you're familiar with (and at what skill level), and then you can search other registered players. You can also enter information about recurring games you're involved with or one-time events. Another fine service from the people at the RPG Host network. March 9, 2001 Reviews: You can find a new review of the Psionics Handbook at Role-Play News. You can find reviews of Galal's Grave (Fiend Games), A Lion in the Ropes (Troll Lord Games), and Relics & Rituals (Sword & Sorcery Studios) at About.com. (thanks to sk0766 for the scoop) D20 System News: Shards of the Stone D20: As pointed out by scooper Mark Shocklee, Obsidian Studios is "working on revamping Shards of the Stone: Core into an edited FUZION version, a Five-Stat™ version, a d20 version, and we are open to any other mechanic conversions you suggest." Core is the name of the Shards of the Stone world, as well as the name of the game's central rulebook. What is the Wenis? No one knows, not even you after you visit this promotion for a new D20 System game. Official Updates: What's new at WotC? An interview with Psionics Handbook author Bruce Cordell. A preview of the Psionics Handbook. Message boards are still down. Scooper: Magus Darkwind. Community News: The April Fools issue of the Nexus News, the newsletter of the Dragonlance Nexus, is scheduled to come out March 30. Sign up for the newsletter at the site. Netbook of Creatures ver 2.1 is now available from the D&D Community Council. Updates at Nasha-Koria include new lands, people, feats and prestige classes. ThirdEdition.net has new prestige classes and a new poll. Ashara has been updated with a new poll, new Gods info, and new cultural information for the setting. Jamis Buck and RealmsCrafters have teamed up as explained in this press release. The Shadow of Bukrai: A HârnWorld D20 Resource has moved to http://www.dndharnguide.addr.com/. There, you'll also find an updated version of the D20 System Conversion for HarnWorld. Version 2.0 is 71 pages and includes new race, class, and skill information. More About FR Maps: WotC's Rich Baker describes the other maps inside the FR Campaign Setting book (thanks to Pat for the scoop): Among the inside maps we have a full-page map that shows the North at 40 miles to the inch, and another one showing the Dalelands at the same scale. There are several thematic maps (political boundaries, trade and resources) plus inset maps showing Nimbral and Evermeet. We've also got a small map of Ashabenford, and several maps for local adventure sites. March 8, 2001 Community News: Creature Catalog updates include 3E stats for Ixitxachitl, Su-Monster, Deadly Puddings, Morkoth, and Floating Eye. Oh, and ... MISKA the Wolf-Spider from the Rod of Seven Parts boxed set. Jamis Buck has posted ver 1.8 of Jonathan Jacobs' Treasure Generator, as well as a PocketPC "characer tracker" from Sterling Heibeck. Update: check out Bob Fitch's Wizard's Spellbook Spreadsheet (Excel) just posted at Jamis' place. Vincent Darlage's Conan D20 site has been updated with a Half-Fiend Wizard, a Vampire, a druidess, Xaltotun (a mummy wizard), a Zamboulan dancer, a magic item, and a few more supporting NPC's. Agartha has moved to http://www.planewalker.com/agartha/. Updates at Barsoom (apparently down at the moment) and Michael's Imagination. New in the Conversion Library: An alternative ranger, more gem dragons, conversion of Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog, and an update to Dragonlance Equipment and Magic. FR Map Dimensions: WotC's Rich Baker describes the map in the FR Campaign Setting book (thanks to Pat for the scoop): The map is 21 inches by 31 inches (might be 21 1/2 by 31 1/2, I'd have to check to be exactly sure) which is pretty close to standard size for our poster maps. It shows Faerun at a scale of 120 miles to the inch. We dropped Evermeet off the map because there was no way we could show Faerun in the detail we wanted to and still show Evermeet in its relative location to the main continent (but there's an inset map of Evermeet in the interior). New Poll: A number of people have expressed an interest in taking D&D and D20 System related polls on my site, so I'm starting one right now over on the left. I plan on posting a question per week. Feel free to send suggestions for future poll questions. Official Updates: What's new at WotC? A new Map-A-Week. New PC Portraits. The Gods of Faerun are illustrated in the Realmswatch Artist's Sketchboook -- includes some new color pieces. (thanks to Sonny Mendoza for the scoop) Tavern Generator now (apparently) works on Netscape. Message boards are still down (thanks to S. Rex for the scoop) New D20 System Publisher -- GuildMaster Games: Here's an introduction to GuildMaster Games, a new D20 System publisher: GuildMaster Games is a subsidy company of MPI, a New York based historical publishing company. We have recently started GuildMaster Games to explore the open gaming content license sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. Many employees of MPI are avid role players and have worked for such companies as Highlander Designs and Fantasy Games Unlimited before finding our home in mainstream publishing. We are delighted at the possibility of being able to produce content compatible with the 3rd edition of the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game and have an aggressive product release schedule in the coming year. Our initial line of products is entitled the "Nostalgia Series" and will have the classic feel of 1st edition in terms of style, as well as presentation. Our second line of products developed will be d20 rules supplements, the first being available in August. D20 System News: From James Bell of Fiery Dragon Productions: "The Silver Summoning is done at the printer, and will hit distribution on MONDAY." From Matt Staroscik of Privateer Press: "Book I of The Witchfire Trilogy is rolling off the presses as I write this. It should be shipped out soon." From Kevin Webb of the Highlander D20 RPG website: "Demon Knight: The Sacrifice is a new D20 game system based on the movie "Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight". The original material for this RPG was written for the "White Wolf: World of Darkness" by J.A. Stuart at: ian@ialas.demon.co.uk. and was converted and edited to the D20 game system by myself. The files can be found in the Watcher's Library section of this web page." (Warning: annoying background music alert!) March 7, 2001 Forgotten Realms Guidelines Updated: A new version of the FR Guidelines have been posted to the RPGA's Living City website. Some things that were deleted in the last version were restored, such as the cleric domains. (thanks to Jason for the scoop) Bishop Departs Wizards of the Coast: Jim Bishop, producer on the Master Tools project, announced today that he is leaving WotC: It is with real sadness that I announce my departure from Wizards of the Coast. I've been with the company almost four years and had the good fortune to be involved in some great games, including Baldur's Gate and 3rd Edition D&D, and of course I was lucky enough to head up the Master Tools project. I'm moving on to game design at a startup, which is honestly the only job that could have lured me away from this one. I had the opportunity to get my hands dirty in one of the best CRPG ideas I've ever heard, and just couldn't pass it up. I want to thank all of you on the mailing list and on Eric Noah's site for your support and suggestions since we first announced this product last year. It has grown in concept and execution into a truly great piece of software, and a lot of the credit is owed to you. A special thanks to everyone who offered their time and expertise to answer our questions. Last, I want you to know that the product is in good hands. Byrt Martinez, a senior producer here at Wizards with over a decade of experience, has taken over the title. He's being briefed over the next two weeks as I get ready to move on. Nothing, from the specs to the release date (still secret, but will be announced soon!), will change as a result of this transition--don't worry. Best of luck to you all, Jim Bishop Producer, Wizards of the Coast I want to offer my sincere congratulations to Jim on his career move, and my best wishes for the future. I had the chance to speak with him at GenCon last year and I can honestly say I'll never meet a nicer guy. Good luck, Jim, and keep us posted! (thanks to Sheldon, Bill, Steve for the scoop) Psionics Handbook Corrections and Clarifications: Message board moderator Piratecat passed along a list of corrections and clarifications from Bruce Cordell for the Psionics Handbook in this thread. Note that these corrections are not yet official errata corrections as they still need to go through all of the channels. I'll work on getting the corrections over to the Errata Center and the clarifications over to the Psionics section; in the mean time have a look for yourself. If you have further discrepancies you notice, there's a thread on the boards for reporting them. French PHB Available: Scooper Pascal Aubin writes to say that the French-language Player's Handbook is now available. Here are some details he shared: The French PHB is on sale here in Paris as of today (march 7th). The translation looks pretty good (it was translated by Eric Holweck, who already did several AD&D and Greyhawk products), though there are some changes, such as "halfling" becoming "halfelin" (used to be "petite-personne"), and "feat" being translated by "don" (gift). A very welcome change in the otherwise unmodified layout of the book is that it doesn't have any lines in the background, making it much more legible than the English version. Also, the errata from the first printing have apparently been corrected, although the "survival kit" is still there (which makes sense since we don't have the French DMG and MM yet). New in the Conversion Library: Chapter 2 of Scourge of the Slave Lords, Cleric's Challenge II, a devil slayer prestige class, and stats for mind flayers and ulitharids (noble mind flayers) with the psionic template from the Psionics Handbook applied. March 6, 2001 Official Updates: What's new at WotC? A new Cliffhanger Adventure. March's Realmswatch column is about secret societies in the Realms. A new Map-A-Week. A preview of Diablo II: To Hell and Back. Part III of Read Bruce's Mind. Scoopers: Spearhavoc, Bertman4, Tanis Half-Munchken, Sheldon. D20 Product Covers: Two D20 System publishers are sporting sneak peeks at cover art on their websites. Demons & Devils from Necromancer Games is a collection of three short adventures, and apparently will ship to distributors within the next few days. (thanks to Allan for the scoop) To Stand on Hallowed Ground from Fiery Dragon Productions is two adventures in one (with two pieces of cover art), and it's due in April. Details on the two adventures: Swords Against Deception by Mike Mearls. An adventure of stealth and intrigue for 10th level characters. The Ghost Machine by James Bell. A frightening adventure for characters level 5-7. Reviews: New reviews of D&D Character Sheets, the D&D Gazetteer, and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer have been posted at Korath's Keep. RPG.net's Tuesday reviews include those for the Star Wars Gamemaster's Screen (WotC), Last Days of Constaninople (Avalanche), Wizard's Amulet (Necromancer), and two for Sword & Fist (WotC). (thanks to Carl for the scoop) Parts of D20 SRD Nearing Release: Here's WotC's Ryan Dancey on the status of the D20 System Reference Document (on OGF-D20-L, thanks to Allen Laws for the scoop): I am very pleased to announce that the first eight sections of the SRD have completed review in R&D. Next, those eight sections will move into a (fast) approval cycle by the business managers, and then they will be formally released as Open Game Content under the terms of the Open Gaming License v1.0a, hopefully by the end of next week. In the R&D review, a handful of changes were requested, all of which either add or clarify existing content in the SRD. Nothing was removed. I will be making those changes to the affected sections when the SRD is updated at the end of next week. At this milestone, I will be adding " - Released" after the names of each section as they are approved. T'Ed Stark and Dave Noonan are now reviewing the rest of the SRD. Obviously, that will take some time, and I anticipate continuing to announce incremental approvals. T'Ed has taken the lead on the review process, and I expect it will advance at a fairly rapid clip. I feel fairly confident that we will have a completely released SRD by the time of the GAMA Trade Show later this month. Community News: WotC's Sean Reynolds has posted two of his own D&D characters on his personal website. Says Sean, "One of them is Shurrin, the character I talked about before the PH release when we were debating making certain character types, the balance issues of multiclassing, etc." The Living Web is an online RPG community that uses WebRPG to facilitate frequent D&D games over the Internet. The Creature Catalog has new monster conversions, including Cave Fisher, Flind, and Killmoulis; and Werebadger and Animal Lord templates. Jamis Buck is looking for volunteers to help him enter data from Relics & Rituals and the Psionics Handbook for his Treasure Generator. Updates at Eyru: Logs of the official campaign now number nine full sessions and there's a great story shaping up. We've added some new house rules for d20 gaming and a handful of artifacts and magic items. The site also now includes links to much of the source material (printed and online) which was used to generate the campaign setting. Updates at Defenders of the Muse include two new "specialty priest" prestige classes. March 5, 2001 Wizards on the Boards: Some of the fine folks from WotC occasionally stop by my message boards with items of interest. Here's one such post: Sean Reynolds on When Turned Undead Flee and What They Do Until Then: They aren't able to move away until their turn. Since they are cowering if they can't move (PH page 140), they are considered cowering until it is their turn. Kenzer's Kalamar: Curious about Kenzer's Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign setting for D&D? Well, you're in luck. First, I've udpated my Kalamar section on the Settings page with new product information. Second, here's Kenzer & Co.'s vice president, Brian Jelke, on my message boards: Kalamar is an official D&D campaign setting published by Kenzer & Company under license from Wizards (final page count is 272). It will bear the D&D logo on the cover. With this fantastic privilege comes the responsibility of staying true to the game, look and feel established by Wizards. The entire book including text, rules, art and even the layout has been approved by Wizards. We will have samples available at the GAMA trade show coming up in a few weeks. Among the many questions and comments I've seen on this site concerning Kalamar it seems that it boils down to 2 questions. 1) What is the setting like? and 2) What makes it unique? Kingdoms of Kalamar is a medieval fantasy setting fundamentally based on realism. It's recent history encompasses the proliferation of 6 human races (subraces really, they're all human) throughout the world of Tellene. It also includes all the standard fantasy races of D&D like elves and dwarves and a few new ones unique to Kalamar like Half-hobgoblins. In fact full blooded hobgoblins are also a prevalent civilized race with their own independent kingdoms. The most advanced societies use steel including plate armor, and can fashion complex siege weapons. Less advanced groups may still be using bronze or even stone tools. There is no gunpowder. But then again, who needs gun powder when you've got magic. Magic exists and has certainly influenced the history of the world but Wizards and sorcerers are not overly common and common people accept most unusual and seemingly inexplicable events as the work of one of the gods rather than arcane magic. In smaller communities, the townsfolk easily confuse wizards and especially sorcerers with clerics, and arcane spells may be misconstrued as miracles or portents of the gods. In fact, the pantheon of deities is one of the aspects of Kalamar that make it unique. Merely reading through the pantheon of Kalamaran deities will give players and Dungeon Masters alike inspiration for untold gaming sessions and adventures. FR's Ed Greenwood To Pen Kalamar Sourcebook: On my message boards, Kenzer VP Brian Jelke posted the following press release: March, 1 2001 - (Mundelein, Ill) - Kenzer and Company is proud to announce the latest addition to the Kingdoms of Kalamar family: Geanavue: The Stones of Peace, a sourcebook by Ed Greenwood. Ed has been busily penning a new campaign sourcebook for the Kingdoms of Kalamar, Kenzer & Company's official Dungeons and Dragons® campaign setting. Here's what Ed had to say when we gave him the Kalamar material he needed to get started on the project. "I'm reading through it with the same old thrill that I used to have in the dear dawn days. I'm pumped! You've got me excited!" "Having the premier writer of Dungeons and Dragons products add another notch to his belt with a Kingdoms of Kalamar book just made good sense to us." adds Brian Jelke, Vice President of Kenzer and Company. "Ed has created some fantastic stuff over the years and we're looking forward to combining our strengths with his to come out with a kick-ass product." The Kingdoms of Kalamar core book, a 272 page trade-hardcover with color, will be available this Spring. The new Kalamar supplement, Geanavue: The Stones of Peace, is planned for a GENCON 2001 release. The Geanavue book is a detailed city setting to be used as seed and background material for further adventures. Here are some of the features the book provides: The history of the Basalt Throne and the Emerald Eagle, the common name for the government and ruling house of the city respectively. A detailed accounting of life in Geanvaue including local laws, customs, festivals, commerce and more. Information on the local guilds and families of power, the holy houses and not-so-holy houses. All this exquisite detail is tied together with adventure outlines, rumors and legends as only Ed Greenwood can do! WotC Community News: With the official boards still in the midst of being upgraded, I've been passed some news related to the WotC community (chat/messageboards) area: The Cantina, a science fiction "in-character" chat area, is now up and running, as was promised in Star Wars Gamer magazine. It is open 24 hours a day, and can be accessed through the chat area of the Wizards site. This page describes what goes on here. The Fantasy Short Story Contest is running again. They're looking for fantasy short stories under 10,000 words in length. The rules for the contest, and the information on how to enter can be found by following the links on the bottom of this page to the rules, judging information and submission areas. The Prestige Class Contest will be reinstated on the new message boards. The deadline will be extended a comparable time, to make up for the missing time since the old board died. The old entries will be salvaged off the old boards and placed on the new boards, if possible. If not, then an official message will go up asking for everything to be resubmitted. Community News: Hosted site RealmsCrafters has acquired "the other Palm RPG utility" in development, SaiD3U. Read all about it in this press release. Updates at The Sleeping Imperium include new classes, a new magic system, and updates to psionics and martial arts systems. Dragonlance Nexus is running a contest. Submit an NPC for a chance to win an autographed Dragonlance novel. You can find a new review of the Psionics Handbook at Gaming Outpost. (thanks to James for the scoop) Becky Glenn has submitted a FileMaker Pro database of spells from the PHB to Jamis Buck. Visit his site to download the file. EN World Site Announcement: We're halfway through our two week Prestige Classes topic, and have received some excellent entries such as the Blind Assassin of Ka'Ragorr, the Gnomish Outrider and the Naked Warrior(!) You have until next Saturday to send in your submissions. As usual, visit the EN World Site for details. We still need artwork, so if you have any artisic ability and wish to contribute, drop me a line at morrus@lineone.net. Thank you to those who have already sent us art, and to those who have promised to contribute. The Cry and Placard is a D&D campaign site. Kyle Kornkven has created an online Combat Planner for D&D. D20 System News: Both Caravan of Hope (Monkey God Enterprises) and The Blood Reign of Nishanpur (Paradigm Concepts) will be shipping to distributors within the next week. Dark Portal Games is running a monster design contest. You'll win a copy of their upcoming module and receive a cash payment for the use of your monster in upcoming products. Dark Portal Games' Darrin Drader indicates that they'll be posting material on thier campaign world, Arekoz, soon. Not only will Arekoz materials be free for downloading, but they'll be "open source" so fans can publish certain kinds of derived products from the Arekoz material. Shadowlands Core Rules v0.0.2 from Jagged Edge Games has been released. Several typos and some corrections to rules were made, as well as including a few items in the glossary that were left out of the original release. Scrollwork Press is a monthly print newsletter that addresses the D20 System in addition to more "generic" RPG materials. Their goal appears to be to help new writers get off the ground, so if you have some material to submit you might want to drop by. March 4, 2001 New in the Conversion Library: Complete conversion of AD&D 1E module U3: The Final Enemy -- the trilogy is complete! Plus revisions to the conversion of Vikings historical supplement. March 3, 2001 Wizards on the Boards: Some of the fine folks from WotC occasionally stop by my message boards with items of interest. Here's one such post: Chris Pramas on the Lack of Kobold Miniatures: Never fear, we have a blister of kobold minis coming this Spring. It'll have two kobolds, one with a crossbow and one with a spear. I don't have the schedule at home, but IIRC it's a May release. And starting this month we should be on track for monthly new minis releases. You should see the Black Dragon very soon. (thanks to Blackjack for the scoop) Community News: Updates at Spelljammer 3E include the Fractine, Gonn, Lakshu (planetbound), Space Swine, and the much anticipated Dracon, and Giff. Creature Catalog now has Aerial Servant, Marut and Xvart stats. Interview with James Wyatt: Not so long ago, James Wyatt was "one of us" -- just one of millions of D&D fans. Now, he's writing D&D products and living the life of a rock star at WotC. Well almost... :) James was kind enough to answer a bunch of questions about recent and forthcoming products he's worked on, including Defenders of the Faith, Monsters of Faerun, and The Speaker in Dreams. Read the interview. March 2, 2001 Wizards on the Boards: Some of the fine folks from WotC have stopped by my message boards recently with advice and rules clarifications. Here's a sampling from Monte Cook and Sean Reynolds (you'll have to find the thread where Gary Gygax posted yourself :): Monte Cook on Custom Magic Item Prices: ...the rules for coming up with prices in the DMG are there to aid the DM in coming up with a fair price in comparison to other items. Not for players to exploit to get items to be as cheap as possible. It wasn't meant to handle some Champions or GURPs like point-buying min-max. If the price you come up with using the rules doesn't seem exactly right, fiddle with it until it does (that's what we do). The rules will get you in the ballpark, however, and often--for very straightforward items--should get you dead on. Monte Cook on Half-Dragon Mixed with Other Monster Races as PCs: If you look at the table on DMG page 22, there's an asterisk by half-dragon that leads to a note stating that you should choose a standard race as the creature's base race. That's there for exactly the issues you raise--adding a half dragon template to an elf and adding it to a monster do not produce proportionate results. Game balance (unfortunately) just isn't that easy. Adding natural armor to more natural armor, the strength bonus to natural attacks, etc. etc. is unbalancing if you just add the two level equivalencies together. Unfortunately, while the standard races are meant to be balanced, there is no straightforward formula for how much better the half-dragon template is for some monsters than for others (for example, if I had the half-dragon to do over, I'd base the CR adjustment on base creature HD like fiendish creatures, et al, but hindsight is 20/20 and even that isn't terrible accurate because of all the other factors that go into a monster).... The ultimate rule to remember is that what works for you in your campaign is more important than what's in the book, particularly if you're venturing off into interesting territory that the book never intended to cover. Monte Cook on Dragon CRs: ...the dragons are all considered to be the top-end of their respective CRs. It is Dungeons and DRAGONs, after all. Since they are meant to be "epic" threats, (or "boss monsters," if you will) the CR is based on the idea that you know you are going to face a dragon, and thus are prepared with protection from elements and other spells. That said, ... I think at least some dragons are probably underrated in CR. In a recent playtest, we took six of our iconic PCs at 20th level and put them up against a CR 20 black dragon. We won, but we certainly expended more than 20%-25% of our resources. It should have probably been more like CR 22. Not all of my fellow designers agree with me, though. Sean Reynolds on Touch Attack Spells/Unarmed Attack Combo: The general rule with touch attack spells combined with unarmed attacks is that you make your unarmed attack roll (not a touch attack), and if you succeed, but effects occur (punch damage and the spell). If you fail, you didn't touch, you don't lose the spell, and you can try again. Official Updates: What's new at WotC? The second installment of Roger Moore's Perilous Gateways series for the Forgotten Realms has been posted. (thanks to Renshai for the scoop) You may recall earlier this week reporting about a secret code in Diablo II: To Hell & Back that takes you to the Secret Cow Level site at WotC (which didn't yet exist). Well, that site is now up and running and you'll find it right here. Get ready to kill some pole-axe-wielding cows! (thanks to Buddha_DM for the scoop) The main D&D page has been prepped for this month's theme: Psionics. Master Tools Update: WotC's Jim Bishop provides this week's update: I've spent a lot of time looking over the last deliverable from Fluid this week, and it's a good one. The race generator is done, and the character generator is roughly 30% done. The mapper is laying down all sorts of walls and floor tiles, and doing something called "transitioning", which means that if you lay a water tile next to a flagstone tile, you get a little mixed tile between them, where the flagstones are visible underwater. It's a very realistic effect, and gives the whole map a finished look with no additional user effort. The new art looks fantastic, and new sounds are great as well. In last week's .plan Wayne referred to the "background sounds" Paul had done, and out of the whole sound suite it's these I'm most impressed with. Dripping water, footsteps (both approaching and retreating), traps going off, wingbeats--he's basically got the answer to every time a player asks, "What do I hear through the door?" I can't wait to plug these into my laptop for a little at-table SFX library. As for the character generator, I'm wondering about one thing: ex-classes. So for my question o' the week, I'm curious to hear how you guys feel about the ability to create an ex-paladin, or ex-monk or whatever, without adding a class that has an opposing alignment requirement. Currently, you can only get an ex-paladin if you multiclass into barbarian, bard, or monk. If you try to make a paladin with a non-Lawful Good alignment, it just changes you to LG. Is the ability to choose an ex-class important to you? If so, what's the best way we could implement the rules in this case? That's all for now. To give you an idea of where we are, the race generator is due later this month (but seems to be ahead of schedule), and both the print function and the full character generator (including templates and prestige classes and all the trimmings) are due next month. The way Andrew's hammering this stuff out, I bet everything comes in early. New in the Conversion Library: Wu-jen, amethyst dragon, psionic wild talents, updates to Planescape conversion notes, and post-Psionics Handbook updates to Dark Sun files. Psionics Handbook Errata -- Slayer Prestige Class Weapon Proficiencies: According to WotC's Customer Serivce, the Slayer Prestige Class is proficient in "just simple and martial weapons," not "all weapons." (thanks to Aaron Morgan for the scoop) D20 System News: D20 Reviews: You can find a review of Relics & Rituals (Sword & Sorcery) at RPG Action, and reviews of Sword & Fist (WotC) and "Legends & Lairs" adventure Olenar's Heartstone (Fantasy Flight) at Pen & Paper. Atlas Games' The Tide of Years is now shipping to distributors. Mystic Eye Games has added a forum to their website. AEG's D20 "Warlords?" Perhaps you noticed the ad for AEG's Warlords D20-ish card game in Dragon #281? Though it didn't sport the D20 System logo, it depicts a card complete with an Armor Class, To Hit Modifier, Class, Level, Alignment, etc., and calls itself "The card game that you already know how to play." So what's the deal? Scooper Dr. Confoundo tells us more: At a local Los Angeles convention a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to demo Warlords, AEG's new CCG, with the designer (whose name I forget). At it's most basic, this is D20 the card game. You have fighters, clerics, thieves, and wizards. Each character has an Attack bonus, which you add to a D20 roll, and try to get over the opponents Armor Class. It has action cards like Great Cleave, Critical Strike, and Improvised Weapon. I remarked upon the similarity to the designer, and his response let me know that it was deliberate, without telling me they had "ripped-off" the design. He mentioned that it would be fairly easy to convert RPG characters over into CCG cards. I also had a chance to chat with John Zinser, head of AEG, who mentioned that if the CCG sells well, there will definitely be a series of D20 sourcebooks and products detailing the Warlords universe. The ad in Dragon says we'll be treated to a free 25-card deck in the next issue of Dragon. Community News: The Guild Companion has a new article detailing an alternative system for non-combat experience awards. (thanks to Isidorus for the scoop) Chris Hawkins has set up a web radio station so you can listen to fantasy soundtracks and other D&D-ish music at http://www.live365.com/ (search for WDND). Michael's Imagination has been updated with new prestige classes, feats, and setting information. Creature Catalog features new conversions including Dark Creeper, Dark Stalker, and Trapper. New submissions at ThirdEdition.net. March 1, 2001 D20 System News: Eagle-eyed scooper Anthony Roberson of Role-Play News spotted new D20 System products on the schedule at AEG -- new Adventure Keep modules slated for April; a Farscape sci-fi RPG scheduled for June, and a Legend of the Five Rings D20 System "companion" book in October. Community News: New fey creatures at Defenders of the Muse. Fiend Games has moved its website to http://www.fiendgames.com/. You can now buy their products direct from the website. The New Arabian Adventures has moved to http://arabianadventures.org. Planewalker.com is running an adventure-writing contest, and the prize is one of five copies of the Psionics Handbook. Aardy's RPG Page has several useful D&D files including a Player's Screen/Cheat Sheet, and lists of spells sorted by different criteria (by saving throw type, by spell resistance, by component, etc.). (thanks to Gerard for the scoop) Dungeons & Dragons, D&D 3E and AD&D are all property of Wizards of the Coast.