WotC announces 'Rise of the Underdark' campaign

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) I don't understand why WoTC are so incompetent at adventures that they've actually given up on them. It's hardly rocket science.

Rich Baker was good at adventures. Wait there, he's been sacked.

 

[Alphastream]

I'm kind of annoyed at WOTC for re-releasing the same battle maps I just bought four or five years ago.

That said, I like what Gale Force 9 is doing. Making the battle maps erasable is a good idea.

I was skeptical too, but I love the GF9 vinyl mats I own, including ones for which I already owned the matching poster map. The vinly mats are just gorgeous, you can write on them, and you don't worry about tearing them somehow. They are a bit expensive, but they can be such a nice part of a cool encounter. They also tend to match important parts of specific adventures... and those encounters are often worth stealing and modifying for later home campaign use.

These are the same and both refer to a campaign setting book, not an actual adventure or series of adventures constituting a campaign. That's what I think is lacking in this effort. I may still check out this book, but I doubt I'll buy it. It sounds like the typical sort of book that gives some information but then leaves it to the DM to do all the work of plotting out an adventure.

That may be the case, though there is a large segment that wants to see a toolkit for writing an adventure of their choice (and tier) rather than a single adventure. Also, I want to say I heard that they were looking at this as a version-independent offering, meaning that you could use it with and edition including 4E and Next. That would make it much more useful and appealing into 2013 and beyond.

On the 4E side, the PAX East adventure The Sun Never Rises is a nice intro to the whole Spider Queen arc. It will likely run at either Gen Con or PAX Prime, so judging it there would score a copy. Undermountain has adventure content designed to take a level 1 PC to 5th. Web of Spiders (Encounters) is 1-3rd. Both of those likely are good gateways to get a party into the Underdark and could then be furthered by Menzoberranzan (Encounters I think even deals with the city). The Dungeoneer's book (Kobold Trapsmith!!!) would also help with all of this, plus have more general advice useful in any edition.

Given Next being on the horizon, I think this is a pretty good mix of 4E and setting-independent offerings.

 

[Endur]

Yeah, I was confused too.

I don't understand why WoTC are so incompetent at adventures that they've actually given up on them. It's hardly rocket science.

Its not based on incompetence. I suspect its a business decision based on profit margin.

Due to print run size, they probably earn tremendous profits on the core rulebooks. Everything else is tiny.

 

[scourger]

...there is a large segment that wants to see a toolkit for writing an adventure of their choice (and tier) rather than a single adventure. Also, I want to say I heard that they were looking at this as a version-independent offering, meaning that you could use it with and edition including 4E and Next. That would make it much more useful and appealing into 2013 and beyond.

I can see that. I will check it out and see if there is a way to make it work for me.

 

[frankthedm]

The preview video is ok. Its not quite the voice I would imagine for this particular goddess of evil. But still, its better than nothing.

Definitely better than the voice actors T$R was using mid 90's. Uuuuuugh!

 

[Anguloke]

If they weren't starting with an Underdark-based villain (and certainly the most popular one), I'd say the mind flayers would be a great choice for a future installment.

I would think that would have been better for this product, with the Drow so over done.

It even still fits their plot line with them trying to make the world dark. There are past products that mention this goal of the the supposed old Mind Flayer empire before the Gith rebellion.