Dragon Magazine Annual Cover and TOC

[Dire Bare]

How much is the book?

$30 MSRP, $20 on Amazon.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Magazine-Annual-4th-Compilation/dp/0786952458/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250546560&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Dragon Magazine Annual, Volume 1: A 4th Edition D&D Compilation (9780786952458): Chris Youngs: Books[/ame]

 

[Rechan]

Agree that the Ashen Covenant and the Yeenoghu article are no brainers.

I am also glad they included the two Gladiator articles and Art of the Kill. Those were great.

 

[JoeGKushner]

On the other hand, as this is all content that's already been paid for in theory, some of it for a year or more, how many do they NEED to sell? Hell, even the cover is a reprint.

 

[amethal]

In retrospect, I suppose an article on epic destinies isn't a bad idea, what with there not being a LOT out there.


Creature Incarnations: Gnolls
Creature Incarnations: Fell Taints
Bestiary: Dangers of the Demonweb (Monster stats for the Demonweb Minis series)

Secrets of the City Entombed (Necromancy powers for many classes)
Class Acts: Bard (Multi-classing PPs)

Thanks, agree with you on the gnolls.

 

[amethal]

So, out of 14 chapters, seven are available for free. I'm not saying those articles are bad, but the book seems rather expensive even for people who have no DDI account.

Depends on who the target audience is.

I suspect (but obviously have no evidence) that the people who :-

* keep up to date with the free stuff on DDI,
* but are not willing to subscribe,
* but will pay for a "dead tree format" greatest hits of stuff they mostly haven't seen before,
* but won't pay for a "dead tree format" which includes a significant proportion of great stuff they have already seen in electronic format,

is a small group.

I would argue (but again have no evidence) that people who :-

* don't bother with DDI,
* and will look through a book in their FLGS and not wonder whether they can legally download its cool contents off the internet for free

is a bigger group.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I think the selection of articles is fantastic! Every one on that table of contents page is stellar (well, I have trouble reading the last one).

The last entry is "Author Bios."

 

[doctorhook]

That Star Pact article had some awesome fluff, and a ton of crunch. What it didn't have was awesome crunch; there was a lot of poorly thought-out stuff in there. Any word on whether or not some of this stuff has been reassessed, balance-wise?

EDIT: Punisher of the Gods is also in this book. If anything needs to be fixed, this needs to come first.

 

[Shroomy]

I took a look at this at Borders. It looks nice, but since I have a DDI subscription, there's not much there for me; I was hoping their would be a lot more designer notes (which were interesting, however, I read all of them while in the bookstore), which may have enticed me to buy this from Amazon given their discount. Oh well, if you don't have a DDI subscription and you're a hardcore 4e player, it would probably be worth it.

 

[Remathilis]

Oh well, if you don't have a DDI subscription and you're a hardcore 4e player, it would probably be worth it.

I seriously wonder how many fall into both categories.

 

[Dire Bare]

The last entry is "Author Bios."

Man, I love those too!!!