July purchases...

[MerricB]

My monthly trip to Mind Games in Melbourne netted me a few new products...

D&D
The Sinister Spire - alas, no MMV was present in the shops, so I settled for a bunch of adventures. Barrow of the Forgotten King was an interesting - if linear - dungeoncrawl, and I thought that the second in the series would be more of the same. I was delighted to find something quite different - a town in the underdark, with many dangers to challenge the PCs. There aren't really that many combat encounters in the adventure, but there is a *lot* of potential for the DM to have fun with.

Eyes of the Lich Queen - haven't really had a chance to look at it yet.

DCC #2: The Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho - One aspect of living in Ballarat is that I really haven't seen much outside of Wizards' products; and I prefer buying things from a LGS. So, noticing the rack of DCC adventures, and being in the mood for some adventures, I settled on this one. (Hey, it's by Mike Mearls!) As I read it on the train back, I realised I'd recently been involved in a debate on EN World about this adventure - whether the ogre proved the CR system worked or not! I'm going to say this about the adventure: there aren't any dead areas. Pretty much every encounter area is a battle or trap. I'll probably use this to kick-start my next campaign after my Ulek game finishes up.

DCC #11: The Dragonfiend Pact - It was really cheap, it was ENnie-nominated. I haven't looked at it much yet. The two DCC adventures have made me interested, though, and I'll probably pick some more up in the near future.

DT4: Ruins of the Wild - my second set of these absolutely excellent wilderness tiles. I've used the first set already in the Savage Tide game, and, based on the experience, I knew I wanted to get a second set to allow large wilderness areas. I really hope Wizards bring out a second set of Wilderness tiles soon!

Board Games
Power Grid - currently ranked #3 on BoardGameGeek.com, this game has been on my "must get" list for the last 7 months, but it hasn't been in stock. It was yesterday, so I snaffled it. It isn't my favourite boardgame (yes, I've played it before), but it deserves further study.

The Lord of the Rings - Friends and Foes expansion - one of the rare co-operative games, I really wanted this expansion but haven't seen it for some time. Nice to get it finally.

Runebound: Sands of Al-Kalim - I'm not really a fan of Runebound, but I'd heard that the big expansions did good things to the game. We actually got to play it last night, and it wasn't bad.

Runebound expansions - a few small expansion sets: Crown of the Elder King; Artifacts and Allies; The Dark Forest; and Terrors of the Tomb. Just because I wanted to see how they changed the game.

Cheers!

 

[grodog]

Sounds like fun, Merric. I bought a large lot of old Grenadier minis this past month, and will be heading to CA the week after next, which usually ends up netting me some D&D books and/or some good fantasy/scifi books from the Bay Area bookstores. That's about all notable, other than my subscription to Kobold Quarterly, and a few other OOP titles from eBay.

Right now, I'm looking forward to GenCon for some new releases, and scouring the hall and auctions for older stuff.

Have you seen Drow of the Underdark yet, and if so, what are your thoughts?

 

[Imruphel]

(snip) The Sinister Spire - alas, no MMV was present in the shops, so I settled for a bunch of adventures. Barrow of the Forgotten King was an interesting - if linear - dungeoncrawl, and I thought that the second in the series would be more of the same. I was delighted to find something quite different - a town in the underdark, with many dangers to challenge the PCs. There aren't really that many combat encounters in the adventure, but there is a *lot* of potential for the DM to have fun with. (snip)

I have to agree, The Sinister Spire is excellent. I spent longer reading it than the woeful Expedition to those Parts of Undermountain that we Remembered to put on the Map because Pedestal has such potential as a setting for more Underdark games. I was surprised att how good it was.

 

[MerricB]

Have you seen Drow of the Underdark yet, and if so, what are your thoughts?

Alas, I've not got it yet. I had the chance yesterday, but passed it up in favour of the adventures (and boardgames). Drow - except for their initial appearance - have never really interested me that much, so it's a lower priority for me.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Gothmog]

In the past month, I've picked up:

WoD Spirits
WoD The Blood
WoD Belial's Brood
Monsternomicon Vol 2
Hordes: Warmonger minis
Hordes: Bog Trog Ambushers
Hordes: Gatormen Posse
Warmachine: Sea Dogs
Reaper's Infernus: Demonic Dragon
Aces & Eights RPG

 

[RichGreen]

The Sinister Spire - alas, no MMV was present in the shops, so I settled for a bunch of adventures. Barrow of the Forgotten King was an interesting - if linear - dungeoncrawl, and I thought that the second in the series would be more of the same. I was delighted to find something quite different - a town in the underdark, with many dangers to challenge the PCs. There aren't really that many combat encounters in the adventure, but there is a *lot* of potential for the DM to have fun with.

Hi Merric,

A few questions: how well would this one work as a standalone adventure? Who lives in the Underdark town? What levels is it for?

Cheers


Richard

 

[MerricB]

Pretty well as a standalone, I think.

The scum of the earth live there - it's got lots of small groups of underdark races, almost none of which are particularly competent. Lots of gangs. Half the buildings are empty. (Drow, Undead, Kuo-toa, Grimlocks, and quite a few unusual things).

The adventure should take a PC from level 5 to 7, if I have it right.

Cheers!

 

[Ant]

I guess Australia dips out at the moment as my FLGS also had not received MMV when I wandered in for my monthly purchases.

Like Merric, I also picked up The Sinister Spire which I've been reading through and, for the most part, am liking quite a lot. I'm a fan of the Delve format though, so that does help a bit. The module is a bit on the expensive side, though.

Other purchases for July:
Kobold Quarterly: Wolgang Baur's excellent new D&D e-zine. Worth it just for the Erik Mona interview.

Night Below booster pack which then led me to order a case of Night Below boosters (yet to arrive).

I'm also waiting on a Paizo delivery containing Dragon: Monster Ecologies, Zogonia: Slice of Death, GameMastery Item Cards: Dragon's Trove Deck and GameMastery Module D0: Hollow's Last Hope.

Hmmm ... July is turning out to be an expensive month. Luckily it's also my birthday month so I can justify these purchases somewhat.

 

[Tomovasky]

Let's -Critical hit deak: Have not got to try this in game, but it looks like it will be a lot of fun.
WotC-Sinster Spire- Have not got to look though this I just thought the cover looked deadly. Now I need to get the Barrow of the forgoten king.
Gamemastery D0 & D1- read D0 last night and there are moments were I just grining with evil thought and other times were I could not help but laugh out loud
Spoiler: I thought Ulizmila’s Cauldron to be amazing… I can not wait to see my players face “ I’ve got swallowed by what”. There nothing better then a monster that they are not expecting.

 

[bento]

My monthly trip to Mind Games in Melbourne netted me a few new products...

DCC #2: The Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho - One aspect of living in Ballarat is that I really haven't seen much outside of Wizards' products; and I prefer buying things from a LGS. So, noticing the rack of DCC adventures, and being in the mood for some adventures, I settled on this one. (Hey, it's by Mike Mearls!) As I read it on the train back, I realised I'd recently been involved in a debate on EN World about this adventure - whether the ogre proved the CR system worked or not! I'm going to say this about the adventure: there aren't any dead areas. Pretty much every encounter area is a battle or trap. I'll probably use this to kick-start my next campaign after my Ulek game finishes up.

Fun to read, but a bit long. You really have to work as a DM to instill the sense that something isn't quite right with these critters. We spent about seven 4 hour sessions on it, and if I ran it again I'd cut out some rooms. Otherwise it has some fun encounters!

DCC #11: The Dragonfiend Pact - It was really cheap, it was ENnie-nominated. I haven't looked at it much yet. The two DCC adventures have made me interested, though, and I'll probably pick some more up in the near future.

Did you say $2 DCC? Oh yeah! This was my first DCC, and its probably the best $2 adventure they've published to date.

This month has been kinda thin - went on vacation so I was cut back on purchases. I managed to pick up:
Original D&D box set pdf: Never owned it and so I picked it up once they announced it over at RPGNow. Wouldn't want to GM it, but it would be fun to play in a game.
The Lazy GM: Goblinoids: 360 stat blocks for goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears for $10. That's $.027 per stat block - what a deal!
Critical Hit Deck: used this in the game on Friday night. One player got a crit on the BBEG right off the bat, turning double damage into double damage plus 4 points of Dex damage! Got my revenge later when the same player went into a room with 7 stirges thinking it would be a cakewalk!