Any Dark Sun info from DDXP yet?

[Dire Bare]

Crystal weapons bug you more than swords made of solid obsidian?

Yyup! Because, hey, the aztecs had obsidian swords. They broke, sure, but at least they actually existed.

Um, no, the Aztecs did not have solid obsidian swords. They had "macuahuitl" which were wooden swords with obsidian blades set into the edges. A solid obsidian sword is impossible in the real world, although I'd have no problem with it in a D&D setting.

Ah, forgive my confusion. When you replied to Tzarevitch's "solid obsidian" with a "Yyup!", it gave me the wrong impression I guess.

So, as mentioned above, how about crystal bits embedded in a aztec type sword? How different is that?

 

[Wik]

Ah, forgive my confusion. When you replied to Tzarevitch's "solid obsidian" with a "Yyup!", it gave me the wrong impression I guess.

So, as mentioned above, how about crystal bits embedded in a aztec type sword? How different is that?

Ha ha. No, the error is all mine.

As for the crystal thing - it really isn't much different, but I still don't like it. It just feels wrong to me, somehow. The bits of crystal seem either "high fantasy" or "unlike the real world" or maybe even "science fiction" in my mind, whereas materials such as obsidian, stone, wood, and bone all have analogues in the real world that are just easier for my mind to "grok".

And yes, when I ran dark sun, there were solid obsidian swords - and it didn't bother me, realism be damned. It's just a different "step" for my mind to take when crystal is concerned. This is possibly because I've been familiar with Dark Sun since about 1996 or 1997... I've known it for over a decade, and it's just hard to see something a new weapon material that just doesn't have the same "feel" to it as the old materials.

For what it's worth, I didn't like the new weapon materials introduced in the DRAGON/DUNGEON crossover a couple of years ago, either. Actually, I liked them even less.

 

[TylerDurden]

The Explore Fairhaven series of articles stand out in my mind as probably the best Eberron articles released for 4E. Great material for DMs there, perhaps enough to inspire a Fairhaven-based campaign.

I do wish we Eberron fans would get more articles like those, but I also wonder about the future of support for campaign settings. As more settings become available, I don't see how WotC can meaningfully support all of them on a monthly basis. I suppose they will have to allow readers and authors to vote with their reading habits and article proposals.

Not sure why WOTC feels the need to pump out all of the GENERIC world content. If they would just tweak those articles/cities to a specific setting I would be happier. I would not mind seeing monthly themes with DDi where they can focus on specific campaigns. Why do we have the Chaos Scar....could that not be in Eberron? Could they build that for a specific setting instead of GenericLand?

 

[Jack99]

Not sure why WOTC feels the need to pump out all of the GENERIC world content. If they would just tweak those articles/cities to a specific setting I would be happier. I would not mind seeing monthly themes with DDi where they can focus on specific campaigns. Why do we have the Chaos Scar....could that not be in Eberron? Could they build that for a specific setting instead of GenericLand?

Because way more people play in a homebrew world perhaps?