WotC Blogs II

[Glyfair]

As for the gnome...now they are just messing with us.

He is talking about the Monster Manual, and we already knew they were in there.

 

[Glyfair]

Chris Thomasson posted again in an effort to catch Mike Mearls (good luck there, Chris):

just saw the cover final for Dragon #360. Two words: Bad Ass. Marc Sasso is freaking awesome. A clipped version of the sketch is up on our Dragon page, but the full-color version will lead off our Ecology that month. I'm actually really excited about the Ecology. It's all 4th Edition flavor, so it's forward compatible content for the new edition. You'll get a first look at how the death knight is changing in the new edition.

One more thing: When you see the cover, there are a few little Easter eggs that point to a few new elements of 4th Edition. I'm going to be interested to see everyone's guesses, and I'll also have to see if I can get permission to confirm the correct ones.

 

[Glyfair]

And Mike Mearls counters Chris' attempt to catch up. Not much there, but a few tidbits that indicate that kobolds will have some sort if trap mechanics.

As we glide into out deadlines tomorrow, I've started to think about my playtest campaign. There have been a few times when I've had a sudden urge to write an adventure, such as when James came over and talked about making the mechanics for kobolds really speak to our trap rules. I now have a huge desire to write up a classic, kobold warren.

 

[TerraDave]

He is talking about the Monster Manual, and we already knew they were in there.

But are they--gnomes--playable out of the MM?

 

[Glyfair]

But are they--gnomes--playable out of the MM?

From discussion in the Eberron 4E thread on WotC we know some races will be. As I understand it, they won't have as many options as a PHB race, but they will be playable.

 

[Glyfair]

Rich Baker comments on the reaction to the devils and demons comments.

Wow, I'm sort of surprised -- more people were reading than I thought. It looks like I stirred up a real hornet's nest with my comments on the work I'd recently done on devils.

For those of you worried about mashing succubus and erinyes together... I do think there's room in the game for both a fury and a succubus. The problem is, erinyes have rarely been depicted as furies (ironic, given the name of the monster). Even in 3.5--about the most fury-like depiction of the monster in a long time--erinyes have charm monster at will. It's their iconic shtick, really. That's the sort of thing we would like to improve on.

One quick point of clarification I'd like to make... Don't assume that we're going to apply the 'Points of Light' conceit to existing campaign worlds. I think Realms and Eberron would prosper if they got just a little more points-of-lightish, but we're not going to overthrow worlds with that much breadth and history.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Mearls' latest comments on Keep on the Shadowfell development:

I'm creating the maps for H1, plotting out a couple dungeon levels, encounter maps, and a few other things. It's been fun. While H1 is far from a mega-dungeon, I've tried to incorporate at least some sense that the PCs can wander around the dungeon, exploring different sub-sectors and having a really different experience based on what they do.

The really nice thing is that there isn't much of a sense of an XP grind in 4e. You can pretty much tackle the encounters in almost any order, though if you hit tougher ones first you'd better consider heading back to the surface to rest rather than press on. I intentionally set one really tough fight near the entrance, giving the PCs a chance to find themselves in far more trouble than they wanted.

The question for you now is, if you ever play this adventure, which of the passages from the first room leads to the deadly encounter?

Sounds like H1 will be a lot of fun -- I miss that style of dungeon (B2, B3 for example). Lady, or tiger? in the first room.

That's actually more how I prefer to DM -- I've never really felt the XP grind.

 

[Rechan]

I do hope that the sub-sectors and the areas of the dungeon are different. You know, turn left, flooded cave network, turn right, catacombs, go straight, fortress.

Let's not have fourty identical rooms.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Let's not have fourty identical rooms.

Aw, damn it. There goes my next mega-dungeon.

 

[Glyfair]

Sounds like H1 will be a lot of fun -- I miss that style of dungeon (B2, B3 for example).

The "really tough fight near the entrance" sounds a lot like RttToEE. While the adventure gets a lot of criticism for the long grueling dungeon in the middle, the moathouse and the first encounter there gets a lot of praise. I've seen a lot of discussion about that one encounter, and I think it counts as a 3E "shared experience" event.

For those checking my posts for the latest blog updates, Olgar has quoted this update in the post above.