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[DnD 4E Discussion] Psion is out and it is awesome, and I normally hate psionics.
Aegeri
Tiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered User regular
Tiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered User regular
ITT people try to tell you the way you like to pretend playing as a fantasy elf or dwarf is wrong.
Here is a Dungeon:
Here is a Dragon:
Hence the name. Also, as a bonus picture here is Bane.
He's so dreamy
And no, he's not going anywhere from the OP. He wants you to love his manly pectoral muscles, his huge thigh muscles and bulging tip of the long hard shaft of his spear. Wizards even has a wallpaper of him, clearly showing they do seem to understand the joke at work here.
Speaking of before we go any further here, want to get the perfect way of starting 4E? Don't know where to go though? Try Wizards generously offering both a revised and improved version of Keep on the Shadowfell and the Quickstart rules? What will this cost you?
Absolutely nothing as it's completely free. Download them here.
Dungeons and Dragons is a pretty old game, originally being created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974, both of whom have passed way now. Since then it's had various iterations and editions, with the latest edition being 4th edition, published by Wizards of the Coast. The basic rules consist of three books:
As the name suggests, this is for players and also details the games core rules like combat.
This book details the various monsters and other things that populate the worlds of most DnD worlds.
This is for the DM and contains useful things like how much experience you have to make an encounter, treasure tables and rules for creating your own monsters.
If you want to play DnD, you usually only need the players hand book. Running a game requires those base three books.
Some stuff shamelessly stolen from the original post about the races and classes you can play as in the Players Hand Book, with some additions about the PHB2 races and classes by Terrendos.
Thanks Goose!
A lot of stuff has been released currently as well and I have most of it, so I'll give some minor thoughts on each and update as stuff comes out:
Campaign Settings
Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
Forgotten Realms Players Guide
Scepter Tower of Spellgard
This is currently the only campaign setting that has come out for Fourth Edition and IMO, it's pretty decent. It marks a significant departure from the previous editions versions of the Forgotten Realms however. It has enough detail that any DM will find it a useful resource for making a campaign and providing an overall world to set that campaign in. It does not have the depth of lore or similar that previous editions have had, which is what leads to a lot of the negativity surrounding the setting. I'll make a more detailed post about the FR specifically for those interested.
The players guide IMO is a useful resource even if you don't actually like the realms as a setting. Although a fair chunk of the book is dedicated to the FR, the Swordmage, races (Drow and Genasi) and feats make it a worthwhile purchase for anyone.
The adventure is decent quality, but requires a lot of work compared to the 'core' adventure series to get fully implemented into a campaign. It also starts at level 2, which is a real pain for DMs wanting to just jump right into a 4E campaign with the adventure and some fresh level 1 PCs. We have a thread for FR as well here.
Eberron
Eberron Campaign Guide
Eberron Players Guide
Seekers of the Ashen Crown
We have a thread for Eberron related things here.
Released books
Adventurers Vault
This is an excellent book for anyone, with a huge swathe of new awesome magical items and other things to bling your characters out with (or so you don't find yourself handing out bags of holding every single game as a DM because you can't think of anything else). This is a fantastic book.
Draconomicon
This is an excellent DM resource or just for anyone who loves dragons as well (It has some great artwork in it IMO). A nice smattering of new monsters, especially in the heroic tier as well as new options, new chromatic dragons and ideas for running encounters with Dragons. I highly recommend this book for any DM, but it doesn't have much utility for players.
Manual of the Planes
Good resource for DMs and a useful introduction to the planes. There is a new "race", Bladeling in the book and some Paragon Paths, but I wouldn't buy this if you're a player primarily. The book makes a lot of assumptions about the cosmology that may conflict with the Forgotten Realms and Eberron as well, which can make life something confusing if you're using those settings. Despite this, it's still useful and will provide plenty of ideas for running planar campaigns.
Martial Power
This is the best supplement for players released since 4E came out. Has a lot of new, interesting and fun options for martial characters, namely Fighters, Rangers, Rogues and Warlords. Good balance as well and has lots of great new paragon paths and more. I can recommend this book to absolutely anyone.
Open Grave
IMO, hands down the best supplement for DMs released thus far if you want your campaigns to have anything at all to do with the undead. Good adventure hooks, a wide array of excellent new monsters from filling out low level undead to providing even more high level undead monstrosities, this is an absolutely terrific book. Of course, if you don't like the undead much you won't find anything of interest in here and in a similar manner to the Draconomicon, there is nothing here for people playing in games to really make much use out of.
Dungeon Delve
Delayed somewhat and contains a large bunch of adventures of various levels and such. Is actually fairly interesting and really handy if you need an adventure now to put into your game in rapid time. I recommend this.
Players Hand Book II
I think this was a big moment for 4E in many ways, a really good balanced and thought out book would vindicate many of the decisions in 4E as well as really add some more depth and variation. A bad book however would probably really derail the success 4E has enjoyed thus far and the general verdict is it's an excellent book. It's well balanced with the first book, a couple of feats and epic destinies aside but everything in general is really well thought out: most especially the new classes are great and so are the new races. It's really added a lot to the game and IMO is one of the best supplements (and most important) supplements in 4E. I would almost say if you're a player this book is as much a must have as the original.
http://www.amazon.com/Arcane-Power-4th-D-Supplement/dp/0786949570/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241241964&sr=8-1]Arcane Power
This is an excellent book if you like the pew pew style of classes. The summoning wizard is a great option and the new wizard at-wills are amazingly good. Tomes are a terrific new addition to implements and every arcane class got some more new and awesome feats, powers and paragon paths. I highly recommend this book, but be aware that like Martial Power there are some things in here just a bit out of whack power wise. Nothing game breaking though, but certainly more powerful than core book options.
Monster Manual 2
Overall this is a very solid book and seems to have taken some new directions with regards to solos and minions. Solos have less HP and defenses, but do more damage and seem to have more actions per round. Minions have been given control functions or do plain annoying things on death (like immobolise whoever killed them). Overall it's a great book.
Released Adventures
H1: Keep on the Shadowfell
Good quality dungeon crawl, if a little hard for people new to 4th Edition DnD but is a good place to start if you are new.
H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth
This is a really solid adventure and has some good combats throughout it. There is also a sidetrek published in Dungeon in support for it as well.
H3: Pyramid of Shadows
This is the most "Dedicated" of the dungeon crawls that I've seen in this series, but has a wide variety of pretty fun encounters and IMO, works well. Easy to fit into any setting as well with little modification or work required.
P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens
I really like this adventure, especially the final siege towards the end of the module that gets pretty zany in the end. Good quality as well.
P2: The Demon Queen's Enclave
The "core" adventure series is a nice bunch of dungeon crawls to be frank and this one seems to keep up the tradition. It's pretty solid though and if the DM wishes, you can really up the backstabbing and intrigue, making it one of the more interesting adventures in the series.
P3: Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress.
This adventure is pretty solid and shadowdragons are a really nice addition to the usual group of chromatic dragons. It has some nice maps and is well thought out encounter wise from a quick reading. How some of these may play out in practice though I'd like to see (especially some of the later ones).
Upcoming Stuff
Eberron Campaign Guide: This month. Previews show it to be awesome sounding.
Eberron Players Guide: July. Has Artificer as a class and full write up for Warforged characters. There may be other races in this as well.
Seekers of the Ashen Crown: July. This is the adventure for the Eberron campaign setting. Note that like the Forgotten Realms, Eberron only gets 3 core books and the remaining support will be published in Dragon and Dungeon.
Future Release Speculation and Rumours
PHB III will have psionics, divine and primal heroes apparently. We have playtests of the monk already out, they are psionic now as a power source and the Psion class is being released through DDI early in July (probably to coincide with Eberron?).
New races (like the Revenant) and even classes (Assassin) are being released over DDI. Interesting idea from Wizards.
DMG2 is coming out later this year, maybe August/Septemberish. It contains full rules for making traps (there is a dragon article on this however), the revised skill challenge DC chart, new rules for traps and will have Sigil the city of doors fully mapped and detailed for insertion into peoples campaigns.
More information on DMG2 from one of the podcasts: Expands on advice
New mechanics and options: Monster design is mentioned (ok, now I'm interested).
Attempt to offer new ideas and similar.
May have a similar design to the first book (?)
Useful Stuff Provided By Wizards and other people
To go with some of the links provided from the previous threads, Wizards have an Art and Map Gallery here. This is free and provides a lot of useful maps and art for use in your games to pillage at will. The OP dungeon is shamelessly stolen from there
Additionally I recommend this site, which has a wide collection of fantasy art and such forth. Some of it is distinctly NSFW however, so consider yourself warned. They love naked women.
Another useful site is the Cartographers Guild forums. Many talented map artists at this site who make a range of maps, both large scale continental maps, town maps and dungeon maps. Some of the maps here IMO are a bit too fancy, with excessive mapsizes for use with maptools but there are some real gems on here as well. Incidentally, the guy who did the cartography for the Cormyr article in Dragon Magazine posts here as well. Here's an example.
Infidel has provided us with a handy 4E stat calculator. Especially useful if you don't have the character builder to do it for you. The most common problem I find with 4E games is people messing up their initial point buy by a couple of points. Unusually, this is because some people tend to give themselves less points overall.
Also, as a reminder, don't discuss pirating books in this thread. It's not going to get you anything except some infractions and probably a ban. So just don't.
Here is a Dungeon:
Here is a Dragon:
Hence the name. Also, as a bonus picture here is Bane.
He's so dreamy
And no, he's not going anywhere from the OP. He wants you to love his manly pectoral muscles, his huge thigh muscles and bulging tip of the long hard shaft of his spear. Wizards even has a wallpaper of him, clearly showing they do seem to understand the joke at work here.
Speaking of before we go any further here, want to get the perfect way of starting 4E? Don't know where to go though? Try Wizards generously offering both a revised and improved version of Keep on the Shadowfell and the Quickstart rules? What will this cost you?
Absolutely nothing as it's completely free. Download them here.
Dungeons and Dragons is a pretty old game, originally being created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974, both of whom have passed way now. Since then it's had various iterations and editions, with the latest edition being 4th edition, published by Wizards of the Coast. The basic rules consist of three books:
As the name suggests, this is for players and also details the games core rules like combat.
This book details the various monsters and other things that populate the worlds of most DnD worlds.
This is for the DM and contains useful things like how much experience you have to make an encounter, treasure tables and rules for creating your own monsters.
If you want to play DnD, you usually only need the players hand book. Running a game requires those base three books.
Some stuff shamelessly stolen from the original post about the races and classes you can play as in the Players Hand Book, with some additions about the PHB2 races and classes by Terrendos.
First off, races now provide only benefits and no negatives. Also, sorry if you liked the Gnome or Half-Orc, they'll be in PHB2, though the gnome is playable out of the monster manual. The gnome is also a monster, rarr.The Dragonborn:Not those pussies from 3E's draconomicon, these guys are badasses with a racial breath weapon. They make excellent Warlords, Paladins, and Fighters.
The Dwarves:They're wise and tough as nails, pretty much the best categorization of the tough dwarf I've seen in tabletop roleplaying games. They make great Paladins, Clerics, and Fighters.
The Eladrin:The "Elves" of last edition were split into two different races this time. The eladrin live in ridiculously magical feywild cities and make good wizards, warlords, and rangers. They can also teleport as a racial ability. Sweet sorcery, bro.
also Elves Elves lol.
The Elves:The other half of the elves from last time, they're forest living guys who are really accurate. They make good rangers, rogues, and clerics. See what I mean by Elves lol?
The Half-Elves:Proof that humans will screw anything. They're pretty tough and personable, and make excellent multiclassers. They make good warlords, paladins, and warlocks.
The Halflings:Short, fat... actually no, these are about as far from tolkien's halflings as a fat american on his couch eating potato chips is from a bush tribesman in africa. Except they both speak english. Halflings continue their tradition of being really lucky and quick, as well as make excellent rogues, rangers, and warlocks.
The Humans:Look in the Mirror. They're good at everything again and are the most adaptable, again. They make good anythings.
The Tieflings:Blah blah blah our ancestors made pacts with devils and we're not half-breeds anymore. We get angry really well as a racial ability. We're also merciless, etc. We make good Warlocks, Warlords, or Rogues.
Also they really AREN'T the same tieflings we've had for 20 years.
We also have a bunch of new races now since PHB II came outDeva: Former spirits under the service of good gods fighting an unending war against darkness. Must remain tirelessly good lest they be reborn into Rakshasa. Good avengers, clerics, invokers, and wizards.
Gnome: Small Feywild natives who learned trickery during slavery to fomorians. Curious, stealthy, and small, these short Elflike creatures make excellent bards, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards.
Goliath: Mountain-dwelling nomads, covered in pebble-like bone growths that make them extra tough. Tall, massive, and strong, goliaths revere primal spirits and make excellent barbarians, fighters, and wardens.
Half-Orc: Channelling the strength of orcblood and the decisive, resourceful nature of humans, some say these warriors were hand-made by Kord himself. Others consider them an abomination. They don't much care, so long as they've got food and battle. Half-Orcs are excellent barbarians, rangers, and rogues.
Shifters: Descended from lycanthrope ancestors, these animal-like men see nearly everything in terms of hunter and prey. Able to draw on their ancestor's instincts, they are excellent druids, fighters, rangers, wardens, and surprisingly good clerics.
Introducing the Classes:
Every class now has a "Role" within the party, and a party is recommended to have every role represented to succeed, though it need not have to. It is considered "pro" to have proper party balance.The Cleric:Is classified as a Leader.The Fighter:
He's the priest of a god with some pretty wicked spells to heal his allies and disable his enemies. Usually at the same time. Rarely will the cleric spend entire turns casting Cure Light Wounds.Is classified as a Defender.The Paladin:
He's a badass with a sword and board or a Two handed weapon, his job on the battlefield is to keep the enemies from stomping his friends, and he can do so with a variety of weapons, which all behave differently depending on how you choose your powers.Is classified as a Defender.The Ranger:
This guy is the champion of a deity, who uses some pretty powerful melee spells to lay waste to the enemy. He does alot of glowing holy magical energy damage, too. He also uses either a sword and shield or two handed weapon. His crappy spellcasting from previous editions has been replaced by a whole host of wicked awesome prayers that can heal his allies and smite his enemies.Is classified as a Striker.The Rogue:
This guy can use either a bow or two one handed weapons to mercilessly mutilate his enemies. He can also designate specific enemies as his quarry, this includes a giant glowing red arrow above their head.
Because this game is now WoW.Is classified as a Striker.The Warlock:
Is only good for picking locks and disarming traps, not really though. Sneak attack has been toned down a bit, but the rogue's huge damage boost makes up for it, because he really tears shit up with some pretty awesome powers.Is classified as a Striker.The Warlord:
Makes soul selling pacts with either Fey, Demons, or Cthulhu. Fires blasts of eldritch energy and murders people. Also, curses people so that he deals even more damage.
Strikers are nuts.Is classified as a Leader.The Wizard:
This is the new class focused on tactics and inspiring your fellows. He's pretty cool and can actually replace a cleric in your party very effectively, and he brings a different playstyle to the table too. Cleric Inc. hates him for breaking its monopoly on this role.Is the only Controller.The Swordmage:
The wizard is good at killing lots of enemies, very fast. He's not as amazingly and unstoppably powerful as he used to be, but still is pretty cool.Is classified as a Defender.
The Swordmage was released in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. He combines arcana and swords to make wonderful stabby magic. But probably not swordchucks.
We also have some new PHB II classes just to add to the excitement!Class: Avenger
Classification: Striker
Power Source: Divine
Primary Abilities: Wisdom, Intelligence, Dexterity
"My god has words for you. This blade will show you to him."
Avengers are excellent at isolating and eliminating single targets. Other followers do what should be done. You do what must be done. Pro: roll two attacks under certain circumstances. Con: Reliant on enemies for static damage boosts.Class: Barbarian
Classification: Striker
Power Source: Primal
Primary Abilities: Strength, Constitution, Charisma
"My strength lies in the fury of the wild."
Barbarians are savage warriors, channelling primal energy through themselves and their massive weapons. Darting back and forth across the battle, your fierce chouts make the enemy quake in fear. Pro: Big damage dice, lots of damage potential. Can fly into mighty rages. Con: Rages are daily powers, so don't expect to use them a lot. Also low defenses that get lowered during certain attacks.Class: Bard
Classification: Leader
Power Source: Arcane
Primary Abilities: Charisma, Intelligence, Constitution
"I play the song of my ally's victory over your corpse."
Bards are artists, channeling magic through unbelievable skill with music, drama, or poetry. Your skill with blade, book, and hymn are the stuff of fables. Pro: lots of fancy rituals to help in conversation. Can take as many multiclass feats as she wants. Con: Comparatively less healing than clerics, and less effective hazing abilities.Class: Druid
Classification: Controller
Power Source: Primal
Primary Abilities: Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity
"I am the seeker. I am the stalker. I am the storm."
Druids are the most effective and purist channelers of primal fury and embody all aspects of nature, from the calm of the still leaf to the fury of the thunderbolt. Pro: Alternates between caster form and wild shape for effectiveness in every situation. Con: Too many At-Will choices, fewer burst options than Wizard/Invoker.Class: Invoker
Classification: Controller
Power Source: Divine
Primary Abilities: Wisdom, Constitution, Intelligence
"Mighty Pelor! I beseech ye! Smite these wicked foes with your unending light!"
Invokers are invested with a pure spark of their chosen god, rather than being merely ordained by corrupt priests and weak rituals. They are the purest of their god's mortal agents. Pro: Arguably a better controller than Wizard, plus gains access to the sweet Channel Divinity stuff. Con: Less overall damage potential, less powerful rituals, and lacking the utility spells that make wizards such good generalists. Also I'm not that fond of the PP choices.Class: Shaman
Classification: Leader
Power Source: Primal
Primary Abilities: Wisdom, Constitution, Intelligence
"The spirits surround me, guiding my movements and obeying my commands."
Blessed with a mighty spirit companion that aids his allies, the Shaman is a primal, spiritual force. His mighty companion serves as both a focus for his attacks and as a shield to protect both him and his allies. Pro: Protector spirit makes an excellent backup Defender or Striker. Con: You have to give up your actions to command it.Class: Sorcerer
Classification: Striker
Power Source: Arcane
Primary Abilities: Charisma, Dexterity, Strength
"The difference between you and me? You wield magic. Magic wields me."
Sorcerers are natural founts of arcane power, resulting from either a history of dragon's blood or a product of mysterious, chaotic forces. Either way, you practically bristle with barely-contained magic, parcelling it out as needed in battle. Pro: Potential for very high damage and lots of cool effects. Con: Those effects are typically random, some of which can hit your allies.Class: Warden
Classification: Defender
Power Source: Primal
Primary Abilities: Strength, Wisdom, Constitution
"Get past me? You might as well try to push the mountain aside."
Wardens are protectors of the earth, drawing on primal spirits to protect their allies from harm, and the natural world from the encroachment of those who would corrupt it. Pro: You are a brick wall, but harder to hit and probably more resilient. Con: You're not supposed to wear heavy armor, and marking all adjacent enemies means you're going to need all that toughness.
DM/Player Tools and Helpful Links
- A spreadsheet with all the magic items from the PHB, organized by Item Level and Body Slot (and subtype, in the case of Weapons, Armor and Implements) (Credit DVG)
- RPTools: Pretty useful for playing D&D over the internet. Get Maptool HERE
- Ability Generator from WotC
- Wizards' main site for D&D
- Enworld resource site for tabletop games
- Myth-Weavers Forum's character sheet tool. Has sheets for many games, including 4e
- H1 Keep on the Shadowfell for maptools
- Rescue at Rivenroar
- Asmor.com's Monster Maker makes a cool looking statblock, similar to the MM ones (thanks, Hexmage)
D&D Insider Subscriptions
D&D Insider has gone into subscription beta mode. What that means is, for three preset payment structures, you can access all of the online content Wizards is producing exclusively for Insider members without restriction. There are currently demos available for all the previously released content, listed below:
- D&D Compendium from WotC
- Dragon and Dungen magazines also from WotC
- Encounter Tool from WotC
More and more exclusive content will be added each month. Also, Insider subscribers will be included along with those who signed up at D&D Convention events in the closed beta testing for the new Character Builder application, the next tool on the slate to be released for the Insider. So, what are the prices, you ask?
- $59.40 for 12 months - $4.95 per month
- $19.95 for 3 months - $6.65 per month
- $7.95 for month
To subscribe to the D&D Insider service, click here.
You can find screenshots of the Character builder here.
Thanks Goose!
A lot of stuff has been released currently as well and I have most of it, so I'll give some minor thoughts on each and update as stuff comes out:
Campaign Settings
Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
Forgotten Realms Players Guide
Scepter Tower of Spellgard
This is currently the only campaign setting that has come out for Fourth Edition and IMO, it's pretty decent. It marks a significant departure from the previous editions versions of the Forgotten Realms however. It has enough detail that any DM will find it a useful resource for making a campaign and providing an overall world to set that campaign in. It does not have the depth of lore or similar that previous editions have had, which is what leads to a lot of the negativity surrounding the setting. I'll make a more detailed post about the FR specifically for those interested.
The players guide IMO is a useful resource even if you don't actually like the realms as a setting. Although a fair chunk of the book is dedicated to the FR, the Swordmage, races (Drow and Genasi) and feats make it a worthwhile purchase for anyone.
The adventure is decent quality, but requires a lot of work compared to the 'core' adventure series to get fully implemented into a campaign. It also starts at level 2, which is a real pain for DMs wanting to just jump right into a 4E campaign with the adventure and some fresh level 1 PCs. We have a thread for FR as well here.
Eberron
Eberron Campaign Guide
Eberron Players Guide
Seekers of the Ashen Crown
We have a thread for Eberron related things here.
Released books
Adventurers Vault
This is an excellent book for anyone, with a huge swathe of new awesome magical items and other things to bling your characters out with (or so you don't find yourself handing out bags of holding every single game as a DM because you can't think of anything else). This is a fantastic book.
Draconomicon
This is an excellent DM resource or just for anyone who loves dragons as well (It has some great artwork in it IMO). A nice smattering of new monsters, especially in the heroic tier as well as new options, new chromatic dragons and ideas for running encounters with Dragons. I highly recommend this book for any DM, but it doesn't have much utility for players.
Manual of the Planes
Good resource for DMs and a useful introduction to the planes. There is a new "race", Bladeling in the book and some Paragon Paths, but I wouldn't buy this if you're a player primarily. The book makes a lot of assumptions about the cosmology that may conflict with the Forgotten Realms and Eberron as well, which can make life something confusing if you're using those settings. Despite this, it's still useful and will provide plenty of ideas for running planar campaigns.
Martial Power
This is the best supplement for players released since 4E came out. Has a lot of new, interesting and fun options for martial characters, namely Fighters, Rangers, Rogues and Warlords. Good balance as well and has lots of great new paragon paths and more. I can recommend this book to absolutely anyone.
Open Grave
IMO, hands down the best supplement for DMs released thus far if you want your campaigns to have anything at all to do with the undead. Good adventure hooks, a wide array of excellent new monsters from filling out low level undead to providing even more high level undead monstrosities, this is an absolutely terrific book. Of course, if you don't like the undead much you won't find anything of interest in here and in a similar manner to the Draconomicon, there is nothing here for people playing in games to really make much use out of.
Dungeon Delve
Delayed somewhat and contains a large bunch of adventures of various levels and such. Is actually fairly interesting and really handy if you need an adventure now to put into your game in rapid time. I recommend this.
Players Hand Book II
I think this was a big moment for 4E in many ways, a really good balanced and thought out book would vindicate many of the decisions in 4E as well as really add some more depth and variation. A bad book however would probably really derail the success 4E has enjoyed thus far and the general verdict is it's an excellent book. It's well balanced with the first book, a couple of feats and epic destinies aside but everything in general is really well thought out: most especially the new classes are great and so are the new races. It's really added a lot to the game and IMO is one of the best supplements (and most important) supplements in 4E. I would almost say if you're a player this book is as much a must have as the original.
http://www.amazon.com/Arcane-Power-4th-D-Supplement/dp/0786949570/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241241964&sr=8-1]Arcane Power
This is an excellent book if you like the pew pew style of classes. The summoning wizard is a great option and the new wizard at-wills are amazingly good. Tomes are a terrific new addition to implements and every arcane class got some more new and awesome feats, powers and paragon paths. I highly recommend this book, but be aware that like Martial Power there are some things in here just a bit out of whack power wise. Nothing game breaking though, but certainly more powerful than core book options.
Monster Manual 2
Overall this is a very solid book and seems to have taken some new directions with regards to solos and minions. Solos have less HP and defenses, but do more damage and seem to have more actions per round. Minions have been given control functions or do plain annoying things on death (like immobolise whoever killed them). Overall it's a great book.
Released Adventures
H1: Keep on the Shadowfell
Good quality dungeon crawl, if a little hard for people new to 4th Edition DnD but is a good place to start if you are new.
H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth
This is a really solid adventure and has some good combats throughout it. There is also a sidetrek published in Dungeon in support for it as well.
H3: Pyramid of Shadows
This is the most "Dedicated" of the dungeon crawls that I've seen in this series, but has a wide variety of pretty fun encounters and IMO, works well. Easy to fit into any setting as well with little modification or work required.
P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens
I really like this adventure, especially the final siege towards the end of the module that gets pretty zany in the end. Good quality as well.
P2: The Demon Queen's Enclave
The "core" adventure series is a nice bunch of dungeon crawls to be frank and this one seems to keep up the tradition. It's pretty solid though and if the DM wishes, you can really up the backstabbing and intrigue, making it one of the more interesting adventures in the series.
P3: Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress.
This adventure is pretty solid and shadowdragons are a really nice addition to the usual group of chromatic dragons. It has some nice maps and is well thought out encounter wise from a quick reading. How some of these may play out in practice though I'd like to see (especially some of the later ones).
Upcoming Stuff
Eberron Campaign Guide: This month. Previews show it to be awesome sounding.
Eberron Players Guide: July. Has Artificer as a class and full write up for Warforged characters. There may be other races in this as well.
Seekers of the Ashen Crown: July. This is the adventure for the Eberron campaign setting. Note that like the Forgotten Realms, Eberron only gets 3 core books and the remaining support will be published in Dragon and Dungeon.
Future Release Speculation and Rumours
PHB III will have psionics, divine and primal heroes apparently. We have playtests of the monk already out, they are psionic now as a power source and the Psion class is being released through DDI early in July (probably to coincide with Eberron?).
New races (like the Revenant) and even classes (Assassin) are being released over DDI. Interesting idea from Wizards.
DMG2 is coming out later this year, maybe August/Septemberish. It contains full rules for making traps (there is a dragon article on this however), the revised skill challenge DC chart, new rules for traps and will have Sigil the city of doors fully mapped and detailed for insertion into peoples campaigns.
More information on DMG2 from one of the podcasts: Expands on advice
New mechanics and options: Monster design is mentioned (ok, now I'm interested).
Attempt to offer new ideas and similar.
May have a similar design to the first book (?)
Useful Stuff Provided By Wizards and other people
To go with some of the links provided from the previous threads, Wizards have an Art and Map Gallery here. This is free and provides a lot of useful maps and art for use in your games to pillage at will. The OP dungeon is shamelessly stolen from there
Additionally I recommend this site, which has a wide collection of fantasy art and such forth. Some of it is distinctly NSFW however, so consider yourself warned. They love naked women.
Another useful site is the Cartographers Guild forums. Many talented map artists at this site who make a range of maps, both large scale continental maps, town maps and dungeon maps. Some of the maps here IMO are a bit too fancy, with excessive mapsizes for use with maptools but there are some real gems on here as well. Incidentally, the guy who did the cartography for the Cormyr article in Dragon Magazine posts here as well. Here's an example.
Infidel has provided us with a handy 4E stat calculator. Especially useful if you don't have the character builder to do it for you. The most common problem I find with 4E games is people messing up their initial point buy by a couple of points. Unusually, this is because some people tend to give themselves less points overall.
Also, as a reminder, don't discuss pirating books in this thread. It's not going to get you anything except some infractions and probably a ban. So just don't.
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Azulan Saul Tigh
I don't feel bad about it.
It's pulp action-adventure. An example adventure I ran:
The party (wanted for the murder of a Sergeant in the army of Thane) through the aid of a friend manages to sneak onto the Lightning Rail to Sharn, the City of Towers. On the way, the Rail is hijacked by Sky Pirates who hit the Rail with a grappling ballista from their airship. The Pirates board the Rail in an attempt to rob the passengers blind, but the party foils their plans in a daring battle from car to car and on top of the roof of the Rail, eventually defeating the Pirates' champion, causing the Pirate survivors to retreat back to their airship and flee.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
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Also, did anyone actually answer when I asked when the Eberron PG was out? I forgot...:oops:
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Dragons made of dungeons. Obviously.
Bane.
I think he's not really into any flavor of D&D.
The character builder updates normally come out about 4 - 5 hours later than when they update the normal Dragon/Dungeon content for some reason.
The normal DDi stuff is always ready when I get into work, but the character builder is never updated until after my lunchtime
Also, Eberron is awesome.
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They really need to overhaul & consolidate their billing and account interface.
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Roll a natural 20 on a perception check, followed by a natural 20 on initiative, followed by an over 50% miss rate for the remainder of the fight.
Clearly it just wanted to lure me into a false sense of security.
My cleric may worship Bahamut, but he curses the dark god M'apt Ools on a regular basis.
I once ran a magic-carpet dogfight in Sharn, with the combatants exchanging arrows and magical attacks while twisting and wheeling between the tower spires and around other airborne traffic. The fight moved on to the roof of a tower, and then through a big skylight, with the combatants landing on a huge table in the middle of a nobleman's banquet. The bad guy eventually fled to a balcony and leapt on to the back of a passing mail gryphon, making his escape. The PCs were so mad that he got away, but he dropped his satchel during the fight, so they got the information they needed anyway.
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So, instead, its just like "Hey, here's half the stuff you need to play. Come back next month for the rest!"
Just seems weird.
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Yep. I've opened a support ticket with them, which they've since escalated to someone who was supposed to contact me within 48 hours. That was almost 2 weeks ago.
Don't feel bad. We have support contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that do and say the same thing. ;p
man, everything is slow today. =\
Someone on rpg.net said there was a production delay with the CG.
I actually think this way might make more sense from WotC's point of view. Yeah, putting out the CG gives DMs time to prepare, but if the PG comes first you'll have players buying it just for the new crunch, and then they might get into the setting and lean on their DM to run a game for them.
This would be totally awesome if my players would buy anything.
Right now I'm trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to sell them on an Eberron campaign.
But if you release them both at the same time.. you get the same results? :P
However, a production delay is an acceptable excuse. Given their habit of typos, I wouldn't be surprised if a rather large errata-required one slipped by and they wanted it fixed before it went out the door.
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Indiana Jones and the Sorcerer's Stone! :P
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Goddamn, I get hard just thinking about running a campaign like that.
Really though, do your friends enjoy Indiana Jones? Uncharted? Doctor Who? Tomb Raider? Harry Potter? Star Wars? If they like any two of those, you can pretty much be like "Blam! Here it is!"
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"God damnit! That's supposed to be COUNT Ferdinand! We can't ship this! Call back the entire order and have them start again!"
Edit: Actually, I'm kind of tempted to "inadvertently" TPK my Forged by Fire party so I can build an Eberron campaign. :P
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To some degree I can understand a reluctance for players to buy the new materials given most of what you can do in the newer games can be done baseline with just a little imagination juice. The base's flexibility in that regard works a little against selling more product. You can do pulpy things with the core setting provided you invest the time in doing so, I guess is what I'm saying?