Come and hearken to the last installment of the Fortress of the Stone Giants from Paizo’s Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path. We slay Mokmurien and shed some dim light on the next leg of the plot!
Do you want headless giant necromancers? Hounds of Tindalos? Dwarven boogeymen? Then this is the session summary for you!
In the end, our brave heroes retire to Fort Ranek with loot, freed prisoners, Ravno’s missing sister, and some new scars in tow!
Posted in session summaries
Tagged 3.5e, adventure path, D&D, rise of the runelords, RPG, RPGs, runelords
Today’s D&D 4e excerpt, “Economy & Reward,” is emblematic of the core ethic behind 4e that makes it hateful to me.
Their new theory on giving out treasure is even more obsessed with everyone getting the same stuff than previous editions. So rather than random treasure, or DM-placed treasure without doing math (God forbid) to make sure every 5th-level PC’s net worth is identical, the DMG has a “fifth level treasure parcel,” containing everything a good little group of adventurers should get while they’re fifth level. It’s broken up into ten chunks, and you just place the chunks in encounters where you think they should go. So they’re guaranteed to get the planned cash. Because any 5th level character not having the exact same amount of treasure is wrong.
This time, we review epic destinies, orcs, and giants!
Epic Destinies. As we know from previous excerpts, in D&D 4e there are three tiers of play – Heroic (levels 1-10), Paragon (levels 11-20), and Epic (levels 21-30). Epic play ends with fulfilling your “epic destiny” and immortality (and character retirement). In other words, you can “win D&D.”
Several thoughts on this.
One, I started D&D with the Basic Set, so the progression from Basic to Expert to Companion to Master to Immortal isn’t unfamiliar to me, nothing wrong with it per se.
Nick Logue has started his own imprint, Sinister Adventures, and has a cool looking lineup of OGL adventures and supplements planned. “Dark Vistas” will be D&D 3.5, True20, etc. compatible and Dark Horizons will be sci-fi (OGL Future, for example) based. They look awesome!
As the Pathfinder RPG, Paizo Publishing‘s open gaming 3.5e based D&D variant, nears its open beta stage after a lively open alpha, some awesome news appears. Monte Cook has joined the team as a “rules consultant!” Monte’s been innovating great stuff with 3e-based mechanics well after 3.5e went into the weeds. This is great news and a real feather in Paizo’s cap. All indications are that the Pathfinder RPG is going to rock on ice!
We are plumbing the depths of the Fortress of the Stone Giants in Paizo’s Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path. Having snuck in via some underground caves, the combat with the giants, ogres, trolls, and other freakier creatures is getting more intense.
My character Valgrim the Summoner is really able to unload on the bad guys now, at least when our fearless monk and/or dragon shaman don’t just charge up into melee before he gets to go. I bet if our enemies were confused or blinded you wouldn’t be taking 100 points of damage in the first round boys!!! And you should hear them complain about my demon monkey slave. He teleports them around all day and then when he starts flinging just a little poo they get all snotty.
All of this and more awaits you – here’s the newest summary!
Oh, and check out Yenneck Grumman at level 10, fresh with a level of Warblade. We’re excited, Bruce seems to take a perverse pleasure in designing suboptimal characters up till now. He’s steppin’ out!
Posted in session summaries
Tagged 3.5e, adventure path, D&D, rise of the runelords, RPG, RPGs, runelords
Wizards is printing more Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition excerpts leading up to the release. And they’re still suckin’. I’ll rate each from 1 (retarded) to 5 (good idea!) 3 means “not better or worse than 3e.” Let’s look at a long list – multiclassing, the warlord class, racial benefits, paragon paths, new monsters (the swordwing and the phane), customizing monsters, and powers.
Multiclassing. Summary: multiclassing is dead. You can’t multiclass, there’s just some feats that let you take one or two abilities from another class, and they’re heavily restricted. They say in the article itself that “this approach lacks the intuitive elegance of the 3e system.” No shit. Then why replace it? Answer: so that they don’t have to work too hard on the base classes and worry about “dipping” and all. 1/5.
The Warlord. Derived from the marshal of 3e, the marshal is more of a leader than a fighter. Actually, this one seems OK, besides the really wonky class design and power format, but that’s not unique to the warlord. 4/5.
Racial Benefits. They’ve added some racial feats, which is a good idea. They’ve done it by taking most of the benefits races used to get out, which is a horrible idea. Yes, you heard that right. So instead of a dwarf getting +4 AC vs giants, they can spend a feat to get +1 AC vs anything larger. And instead of them getting proficiency in dwarven weapons, they have to spend a feat to get that plus +2 damage. The redefinition of the power is fine, the practice of taking it out of the core and making you buy it sucks. 1/5.
I go away to Vegas for a week and suddenly Wizards decides to get right with God by talking about their GSL/OGL plans! Here’s the links.
The summary is that they’ve decided not to make their GSL license terms prohibit a company from publishing *any* open games under the OGL, only any open product in the same product line as any 4e D&D product, falling firmly between the previous “by individual product” and “by entire company” theories. As an example, Paizo Publishing has an OGL line of GameMastery adventures. So theoretically, Paizo could publish 4e adventures, but under a different product line (e.g. “NewFangledAdventurez”.) This is very good news! Not great news, but good news.
Wizards has published another D&D 4e preview of several angels. As usual, I’m underwhelmed.
On the rules side – I understand shaving down the special abilities of creatures to make them more manageable. But now even a high level angel or devil doesn’t have any real magical powers, just a couple special attacks. And those are pretty cheesable; the succubus’ charming kiss and angel of vengeance’s sign of vengeance are probably best used on an ally.
But my main problem is with the backstory change. Now in 4e, angels aren’t really servants of the gods of Good – they are just Astral mercenaries who sell their services to the highest bidder, of any alignment. This ties into several other changes – in 4e there is no Celestial or Infernal, just “Supernal,” and there’s no holy or unholy, just “radiant.”
Wired Magazine has published an excellent article on the life of the departed co-creator of D&D, Gary Gygax. His passing has generated a surprising amount of coverage from the media; just goes to show how far the influence of gaming has spread, really. (I just saw an animated Gygax in a Futurama episode last week!) For more, check out these older posts of mine:
So some people think that the two-part interview that ICv2 did with Scott Rouse (D&D Brand Manager) answers some of the pending questions about the OGL/GSL debacle. But that’s only based on an uninformed reading of the interview. Not even WotC is claiming that this interview is an answer to the question, but it’s about licensing in general so some people are getting confused.
Part I is the part mentioning licensing; go read it then come on back.
In the face of increased publisher, customer, and public concern over the reports that the new license for the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons contains a “poison pill” provision that prevents any licensed company from also producing open source games under the Open Gaming License, Wizards is staying quiet. Scott Rouse, D&D Brand Manager, had originally promised clarification of the issue on Monday the 21st after the news broke. Then on the 21st they said “No…” and asked ENWorld to come up with a list of interview questions for them to answer. ENWorld got the list together (in the requested 1 hour span!) and sent them in, but Wizards upon seeing them said “Um… I think we’ll go with a Q&A on the Wizards site instead… We’ll send you some ‘exclusive’ answers of course, because what you care about is site hits, not the truth getting out…” Now, even that is stretching out. The Wizards community liaison indicates that a response will not come this week, and maybe not next week either.
Geek Related 