Musings: Early 2006 releases from Wizards

[Desdichado]

Eh, who needs monsters? There's a solid chance there will be TWO psionics purchases!

Monsters are done to DEATH. Leave them to the Tome of Horrors crew, who does 'em right and open content to boot.

I'm sure we'll see a monster release before the end of the year, but CRIMINEY, we've got enough.

I'd probably agree if you meant just monster collections. I'm not sure we need Monster Manual IV or Fiend Folio II. But I could definitely do with more books like Lords of Madness.

 

[Kanegrundar]

HA! Says you, KM, but I'm a confessed monsteraholic.

Even if WOtC doesn't put out another monster book (which I'm sure they will at some point), there's still plenty coming out in from other publishers. YAY!!!

Kane

 

[BlackMoria]

Red Hand of Doom is confirmed as an adventure. This quote from Richard Baker on the FR discussion boards

Red Hand of Doom is a 128-page "super-adventure" that starts you off at 5th level and takes you up to about 10th or 11th. It's set in a stretch of a fairly generic campaign "region," but here's my secret plan: I made sure that the topography of the place very closely matched up with a piece of the Forgotten Realms map (specifically, the Channath Vale--the region around the Wyrmbones, Rethmar, and the Channathwood). You can drop the adventure into your FR campaign seamlessly.

The authors of the adventure are myself and James Jacobs, of Dungeon magazine.

 

[delericho]

Well, there are two books I'm definately sold on: "Complete Psionic" and "d20 Future Tech". I'll take a look at some of the others on the list, but nothing immediately grabs my attention.

Products I would like to see:

A "Lords of Madness" for humanoids, covering orcs, goblinoids, kobolds and gnolls. This should detail the culture and tactics of each race, explain the differences in tactics used and, most importantly, provide statistics for lots of sample members of warbands (like Libris Mortis did for undead, and the Draconomicon did for dragons of all colours and ages).

An "Expanded Oriental Adventures". Update whatever hasn't been done from the 3e version, collate the updated classes from the Complete series (and give us a non-dual-wielding samuri), and probvide a new default setting. This could be Kara-tur or Rokugan, but would probably be better placed to be something entirely new. It should also be a setting where it's actually appropriate to use all the options in the rest of the book, instead of immediately ruling out most of the new races.

An Environment Series book on planar perils. We've seen some of the more extreme real-world environments given a D&D twist, but what about environments that don't have real-world versions? Surely the planes can't just be the real world writ large, can they?

Actually, I'd also quite like Environment books on forests and mountains, and perhaps plains too.

Plus, there's my dream product, which would be a massively powerful electronic tool to assist in game preparation. I'd be willing to bet, though, that such a tool will never happen.

 

[BlackMoria]

In Magic of Faerun, arcane magic is referred to as 'The Art' and divine magic as 'The Power'.

If I was a betting man, I would say Power of Faerun is about divine magic and may well be the return of the Specialty Priest in 3.5 format for all the main deities of Faerun. Perhaps embellished with actual maps of typical temples of each faith. The usual crop of feats, magic spells, and magic item particular to each faith.

I find it no concidence that Eric L Boyd (who did the specialty priest books in FR 2E) is listed as one of the authors.

Interesting that.....

 

[I'm A Banana]

If I was a betting man, I would say Power of Faerun is about divine magic and may well be the return of the Specialty Priest in 3.5 format for all the main deities of Faerun. Perhaps embellished with actual maps of typical temples of each faith. The usual crop of feats, magic spells, and magic item particular to each faith.

Certainly possible, though I think that were that the case Magic of Faerun would be called Art of Faerun, and no one would know what the heck was going on with it, either.

Could also just be an update to Magic, though, what with the 3.5ing and stuff.

 

[Welverin]

I agree. I don't really care if psionics end up in the Core Rules, just expand up psionics like everything else. Psionics players are out there, give them love!!! Or something like that... :\

I actually do care about them being in the core books, even if it's just in the back of teh dmg. With WotC's policy of not mentioning things in the core books they effective prevent support of psionics in other products, and they aren't popular enough to support multiple books on they're own (I was surprised to see Complete Psionics is on the way).

I think that's a good policy, which makes it important to have the somewhere in the core books to allow further support.

Certainly possible, though I think that were that the case Magic of Faerun would be called Art of Faerun, and no one would know what the heck was going on with it, either.

What's to stop them from making an Art of Faerun book? It's not like it couldn't use some updating with the 3.5ing and stuff.

 

[Nightfall]

*thinks it's more about power groups but admits magic/divine stuff is possible...or just a reworking of magical effects and stuff (including psionics) in the Realms.*

 

[Mokona]

A "Lords of Madness" for humanoids, covering orcs, goblinoids, kobolds and gnolls.

Most of the humanoid races you mention are playable as PCs so they'd probably be better to cover in a "Races of" book instead. I agree with you that this should be done by WotC as soon as possible.

Draconomicon, Libris Mortis, and Lords of Madness focus on creatures that are too high ECL or too non-humanoid to make regular characters. Giants (because of their racial hit dice), Fey (because of their spell-like abilities), and Celestials/Fiends (because of their hit dice and special abilities) would all be good choices for the next monster type book.

 

[Banshee16]

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!

I agree...Power of Faerun sounds like a book about psionics in Faerun...just like Magic of Faerun is about, well...magic of Faerun

Powers are an aspect of psionics, afterall..

Banshee