Musings: Early 2006 releases from Wizards

[Jarrod]

I'm very excited about the Player's Guide to Eberron. The ECS has too much information mixed in, and not enough about a lot of things players want. Five Nations was _great_ ("a day in the life of..."), but had a tight focus.

Here's hopin'

As for Dungeon, the adventures are short. However, the Adventure Path adventures link together fairly well, so you can run a set in sequence. There's also "mini-arcs" of 3 or so that they are publishing in consecutive months. So it's kinda the best of both worlds. You will notice the word count limit, though... the fights tend to be few and hard rather than often and easy, but that's something that can be futzed with.

 

[MerricB]

It's something I wanted to do since quite some time, but I have never found it around here in the FLGS, and I'd like a preview before buying one.

But anyway I thought that Dungeon only had short adventures, not 4-6 levels long which quite require some tens of pages to print...

Well, Dungeon is now doing serialised adventures - the individual components are self-contained, but you can combine them all into a greater adventure.

Recent offerings include:
The Abyss series in Dungeon 117-119: Touch of the Abyss (16 pg)/Shadow of the Abyss (22 pg)/Wrath of the Abyss (25 pg) plus Istivin: City of Shadows (15 pgs) which details the city. I guess that makes it about 78 pages in length.

The Shards of Eberron series in Dungeon 123-125: Crypt of Crimson Stars (7 pgs), Temple of the Scorpion God (9 pgs), 3rd part (?)

The Age of Worms Adventure Path in Dungeons 124-135: The Whispering Cairn (32 pgs + 16 pg backdrop); and eleven more installments to take PCs from levels 1 to 20!

Of course, Paizo have just released the compiled Shackled City, which weighs in at 416 pages and was mostly first published in Dungeon magazines.

Cheers!

 

[Desdichado]

I *like* the soulknife.

Me too. But I do think it's just a tad weak, and it seems to be missing something. Namely, if it's supposed to be a psionic monk-like character, why does it have cleric BAB instead of fighter BAB? Bumping it up would also take care of the the "tad weak" complaint. And if it's not supposed to be a psionic monk-like character, what is it supposed to be? That's what it's closest to, but it seems to just barely miss the mark.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I know you're kidding around, JD, but I look at the EPH as the core psionics book. I didn't much care for the 3.0 rendition of psionics. The EPH finally got D&D psionics right. I'm glad that psionics is getting an additional book the way the rest of the classes have. The day may have finally come where psionics is no longer the "red-headed stepchild" of D&D! (No offense to the red-headed stepchildren here! )

Kane

 

[I'm A Banana]

Power of Faerun - 160 pages - us$29.95 - Tier C

I'm 90% convinced that this is going to be a book about FR psionics.

And I ADORE the fact that the XPH is getting a Complete series treatment.

Races of the Dragon could be the one Races book I end up getting, depending on the treatment of it. What I need? Information on role-playing and differentiating kobolds, half-dragons, etc. What I don't need? Yet another dragon-inspired race. I don't like this Races trend being to add another race to your campaign. It's just not gonna work, man. Raptorians will never be as cool as elves, or even avariel! YOU SUCK AT EVOCATIVE RACE DESIGN, MANG!

 

[MerricB]

Me too. But I do think it's just a tad weak, and it seems to be missing something. Namely, if it's supposed to be a psionic monk-like character, why does it have cleric BAB instead of fighter BAB?

That one's easy: it's a balance problem.

Namely, the high-level Mind Blade has a "free" weapon of +4 potency with +3 or +4 enhancements on it. (That's about 128,000 gp worth there for a 18th level Soulblade, or about a quarter of the value of a 18th level PC... that's a bonus). When you factor in the weapon, you are very close to the fighting power of the secondary fighters (paladin, ranger), if not exceeding it, especially once you've spent the money you didn't have to spend on your mind blade on other things.

Being able to specialise on your blade so much gives the possibility of exceeding the fighter in his area of expertise. So, the lower BAB.

Unfortunately, the bonus enhancements aren't that great. The effect of the Kalashtar racial substitution level that allows the "holy" enhancement to be used on your mindblade (+2d6 damage vs. evil and counts as good-aligned damage) makes the Soulknife an entirely different proposition and much more effective in battle.

Cheers!

 

[cmanos]

It will be interesting to see whether the new Eberron races are reprinted in this book, along with the Artificer. I'd think that such would be a good move, as it would cut down what the players actually need to have to play in Eberron, and it would also mean they didn't have access to some of the GM-only information in the Campaign Setting.

OK I can see putting the artificer in there. But races? There is an entire book devoted to the races of Eberron. WTF do they need to be printed a 3rd time in a 3rd book? That is seriosuly redundant. I can understand putting out a book for Eberron Players that leaves out all the DM stuff that is in the Campaign setting, but WTF reprint things a third time? Or is it 4th> I believe all the races are also printed up in the MMIII.

Yay! Lets pay for quadruple redundancy!!!!!

 

[The_Gneech]

Well, don't forget Miniatures, Miniatures, Miniatures. I rather suspect that the upcoming adventure modules are as much "Miniature Scenarios" books as they are RPG modules.

-The Gneech

 

[MerricB]

OK I can see putting the artificer in there. But races? There is an entire book devoted to the races of Eberron. WTF do they need to be printed a 3rd time in a 3rd book? That is seriosuly redundant. I can understand putting out a book for Eberron Players that leaves out all the DM stuff that is in the Campaign setting, but WTF reprint things a third time? Or is it 4th> I believe all the races are also printed up in the MMIII.

Yay! Lets pay for quadruple redundancy!!!!!

I like redundancy. How many players have ECS or Races of Eberron or MM3?

Cheers!

 

[Welverin]

The day may have finally come where psionics is no longer the "red-headed stepchild" of D&D! (No offense to the red-headed stepchildren here! )

Putting them in the core books would help, but that would enlist too much whining from the “I don’t want anything I don’t like” contingent to ever happen.

I'm 90% convinced that this is going to be a book about FR psionics.

Oooo, I would definitely buy that, and I haven't bought a FR book since FaP or MoF, which I only bought due to massive discounts.