4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

5 out of 5 stars

• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Author: Robert J. Schwalb
• Released: August 25, 2010

Sometimes, everyone could use a little warlord.  If you play a character that’s thought just that and has multiclassed to gain warlord powers, or are a warlord that has multiclassed for a little extra versatility, then this article is perfect for you.  Inside you’ll find 4 paragon paths for multiclass/hybrid warlords: warlord/fighter, warlord/paladin, warlord/barbarian, and warlord/warlock.  Each builds on the elements of each of your classes to create something that isn’t quite one or the other, but still embodies both traditions.

This is the kind of article I really like, as it touches on an idea that doesn’t usually appear in WotC‘s print material.  There isn’t really an good unifying fluff to this article, but paragon paths have always appeared with some fluff to really give you the flavor of the idea and each of these delivers on that point.  All-in-all a very good article.

3.5 out of 5 stars

• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Author: Stephen Radney-MacFarland
• Released: August 24, 2010

In this edition of Save My Game, Stephen reflects on some of the things that he picked up on watching other people DM at GenCon.  Mostly the tips relate to things he’s talked about before, making it really hard to tell exactly what is new about this advice.  Still, it’s good to have reminders of these things from time to time.  If you’re an experienced DM or a regular reader of Stephen’s column, however, it’s unlikely that you’ll find anything which is really new to you in this article.

5 out of 5 stars

• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Author: Robert J. Schwalb
• Released: August 24, 2010

Well, WotC is finally moving on to start populating the next level in the Chaos Scar: level 5.  Even better, the adventure we get is something of a departure from the usual linear format that Chaos Scar adventures follow, with a forking plot that forces the adventures to make priorities and possibly trade the success of one mission for another.

With an XP split of 2950:925:7003 (3.2:1:7.6) quests to skill challenges to combat, the adventure is a little light on XP for the skill challenges despite having four of them, mostly because they are all set up to have very low complexity.  At the same time, all that quest XP makes up for it, rewarding characters who manage to find a way to balance the forking objectives of this adventure and complete them all.

The adventure also brings up the very real possibility of failure and how that might result from various actions that the party might take.  In addition to the possibility that poor planning regarding the two goals might lead to one failing, the adventure also discusses the possibility that the party might fail at both challenges if they make poor decisions at various points.  It goes on to describe how these decisions would play out in this adventure, and makes some suggestions for how the party might resolve them by taking on other adventures, but doesn’t detail those other adventures.

I really like this kind of adventure writing.  The way real control over the outcome of the story is put in the player’s hands is really nice.  On the DM side, I’d like to see details for the other adventures that might result from success, failures, or partial failures in this one, but I’m content to not find them here.  They’re simply other adventures that I’d like to see written up so that the DM who does use this adventure has more to go on.

4 out of 5 stars

• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Author: Arnie Franke and Rachel Cirricione
• Released: August 23, 2010

While the article attempts to make some sort of connection between the fluff and mechanics it presents, they really aren’t very well connected.  That, however, isn’t really a bad thing in this case, as both sets of material are really good.

The first two pages are the fluff and describe an aspect of drow society: the education of the young.  A strictly caste based society, the education of drow children follows a similar rigid caste system with only some children getting the benefits of a full education.  At the same time, the academies of drow society also strictly reinforce the backstabbing and treacherous methods that characterize drow society.

The mechanical elements on the last page are four items.  An attempt is made to tie these items into the fluff by giving them drow based flavor and saying that they are items which some academies have “inherited” from “retired” faculty.  However, the items themselves (an orb, a holy symbol, and two weapons) don’t have to have that kind of tie given the mechanics they have (though the holy symbol’s “Prerequisite: You must worship Lolth.” is kind of a downer).  Alternative flavors could easily see them in the hands of non-drow characters.

Cryptic Studios (Star Trek Online, Champions Online, original co-developer of City of Heroes) has announced that it will be creating a new computer RPG called Neverwinter, based on the 4th Edition game rules and a new projected book trilogy by R.A. Salvatore. Cryptic is hesitant to call it an MMORPG (indeed, they call it a Co-Op Roleplaying Game--but isn’t that a bit redundant?), and from the sounds of it, they’re right. Gameplay will be centered on creating a party of 5 characters and raiding dungeons. It sounds like the online component will be required to log in, but that if you don’t want to find a random group of 4 other people, you’ll be able to adventure with 4 computer bots.

I think it sounds cool, but Star Trek was kind of a bust, and Champions, to my eye, just seemed like the City of Heroes engine warmed over with Champions licensed material.

More information is available at playneverwinter.com

Image after the break

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4 out of 5 stars

• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Author: Robert J. Schwalb
• Released: August 20, 2010

Gnomes are tricksters; a race that prefers guile and subtlety to dashing and brilliance.  The strive to escape notice and leave their enemies guessing as to just what happened.  This article provides a few powers for a variety of classes designed to play to this idea.  The powers are an encounter for artificers, an 7th level at-will for psions, a daily for swordmages, an encounter for bards, an encounter for paladins, a daily for sorcerers, and an encounter for warlocks.  However, none have a requirement that the character be a gnome and only one (the bard encounter) has an explicit special benefit for gnomes.  As a result, the article isn’t nearly as gnome centric on the mechanics end as it is on the fluff end.  I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if I like that or not.

Still, the powers are neat and have some neat flavor behind them.  Just the kind of thing that I like to see.

4 out of 5 stars

• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Author: Pierre van Rooden
• Released: August 19, 2010

We’ve seen the concept of divine characters (Invokers in particular) who draw on the power of a dead deity before. This article expands on the theme by providing 4 backgrounds, 3 feats, and an epic destiny for characters worshiping dead deities to use.  Additionally, it describes 5 dead deities and how they used to fit into the pantheon for you to use.

The background benefits are the same old hum-drum, but the backgrounds themselves are farm more detailed than usual.  Instead of each taking up 1/4 to 1/3 of a column, they take closer to a full column each.  That gives the player who wants to use them a whole lot more to think about and use when creating their background.  I like it.

The feats are interesting and one is even the kind of feat you might want to build a character around.

The epic destiny is cool too, but the associated utility power is limited by the fact that it has benefits specified by deity for just the 5 deities in the article.  If you’re worshiping some other dead deity then you’re going to have to houserule it in order to use it.