Excerpts from Worlds and Monsters at Wizards

[Scholar & Brutalman]

There are now some excerpts from Worlds and Monsters as downloadable PDFs up on wizards.com.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

There are now some excerpts from Worlds and Monsters as downloadable PDFs up on wizards.com.

thank you!

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

If art reliably stays at that level of quality throughout the rest of the books 4e could be seize the title for best RPG art ever.

 

[GlassJaw]

The Worlds and Dragons article was pretty cool. I do like some of the concepts for the PoL setting. And while I don't like some of the new races in the core PHB, I like the idea of a non-human dominated world.

The design notes on dragons was interesting as well, specifically the details on one monster vs a party, which is one of the biggest problems with 3E. It's extremely difficult to design an encounter for the party against a single boss monster. A solo creature is at a huge disadvantage just by the lack of actions he gets vs a party.

 

[mhensley]

It's extremely difficult to design an encounter for the party against a single boss monster. A solo creature is at a huge disadvantage just by the lack of actions he gets vs a party.

QFTMFT

This beats me over the head like a bat every time I run a game. A big monster gets one maybe two shots in before the pc's overwhelm it. And surprise doesn't even help in most cases because you're limited to one standard action in a surprise round.

 

[Klaus]

That silver dragon is just... beautiful.




GAH! I want IN!

 

[pukunui]

If art reliably stays at that level of quality throughout the rest of the books 4e could be seize the title for best RPG art ever.

The art is mostly really good. The one of the silver dragon is stunning. I really like the ones of the Feywild and other parts of the planes, as well. Very evocative. Just looking at those pictures left me brimming with ideas ... and then reading the text gave me even more ideas. I had to start writing them all down in my notebook so I wouldn't forget them.

There are some weird bits in the books, too, though. Some of it's a bit too glaringly computer-generated ... like there's one spread of a sweeping landscape with a castle perched on a cliff in the background that would be really nice if it weren't for the fact that the artist took a little shield and skull combo and then copied and pasted it slightly above and to the left of the first one, so you've got two shield/skull combos that are identical and they're close enough that it's just weird and annoying ...

But aside from that, I really like the art, and I really like the fact that one of their "key conceits" for 4e is that landscape art and "contextual art" needs to have a place. They specifically address that 3e didn't do enough of that but instead had far too many items/people on a plain background, which just isn't very evocative. That was one of the first things I noticed about 3e - the lack of really evocative contextual and landscape art. It made me pine for my 2e books. It makes me really happy that it's making a comeback for 4e.

 

[Matt Black]

I have a lot of trouble with this statement from the excerpt:

A human-populated empire that resembles ancient Egypt, but with mummies in control, is less interesting than a realm ruled by salamanders, lizardfolk, or even dwarves.

Really?? I find the former far more interesting.

 

[Eldorian]

Really?? I find the former far more interesting.

What about a lizardfolk civilization resembling ancient mesoamerica that is ruled by mummies?

More interesting? Warhammer Fantasy!

 

[szilard]

QFTMFT

This beats me over the head like a bat every time I run a game. A big monster gets one maybe two shots in before the pc's overwhelm it. And surprise doesn't even help in most cases because you're limited to one standard action in a surprise round.

I totally just posted about this in my blog . Synopsis: I think the answer lies not in giving big monsters more attacks (big monsters are super-fast?), but in making them harder to fight in other ways.

-Stuart