I was checking out some Shadowrun stuff recently when I noticed a mention of Catalyst’s new upcoming SF/Horror game Eclipse Phase.
One of the things our group missed when we first started playing Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition was that players could only perform one Immediate Action per round. The rule that defines this is not all that hard to locate, being found plainly under the explanation of what an Immediate Action is it states, “You can take only one immediate action per round”. Mostly, we just overlooked it.
I have always had a bit of a problem with perception in role playing games. One issue is the fact that, with so many players (five or six for most games I have run), one player will inevitably roll high and thus find whatever it is they are looking for, even if they have a low score in perception. The RAW for D&D 4th Edition tries to avoid some of this by using Passive Perception Checks.
For those fans of the Barbarian class in D&D the preview is up at the official site.
Because it is a preview article you do not get all the options and some of what is listed might change before the official release in 2009 (as part of the Player’s Handbook 2), however we do get to see some of what we’re in for.
Heading over to the Shadowrun site to try and figure out why my pulped tree version of the Runner’s Companion wasn’t in yet I discovered Catalyst’s newest product with an apparent street date of October 14th: Cthulhutech.
We had our first actual Shadowrun game yesterday and boy was it a bumpy ride…
We had our first session last night after our near party wipe. Things went quite well and the players were able to see the usefulness of having two defenders as they were surrounded by a group of orcs.
So, we had our first character death in Dungeons and Dragons today. Actually, we had our first, second, and third character deaths and a fourth character who was so disgusted with the whole ordeal that he went off into the unknown.
Most days I glance over the top news stories on Yahoo and today was no different. I try to keep myself informed on a variety of topics but I admit that I only read the articles that look as though they will be interesting or humorous.
I’ve mentioned before that I have trouble with locations in my role playing games. I’ve never been good at picturing things three dimensionally and when it comes to buildings I have trouble picturing room layouts (both where the rooms should be within the structure and what should be where in the rooms).
As I have mentioned several times I am a huge fan of Shadowrun. I love almost everything about the game from its living world with new and interesting events happening all the time to its concise and well thought out rules. Shadowrun, for me, offers the perfect mix of action and role playing and really opens itself up to all kinds of gamers.
Recently I purchased the Runner’s Companion combo pack which gets you the pdf version of the book and the hard bound version when they release it. Most likely I would have waited for the hard bound version if my next game were not starting soon but as it is starting soon I wanted the new options available for my players. I also figured that it gave me the opportunity to write a brief review of the book in a somewhat timely fashion.
I’m really not a fan of RPG.net these days. They seem to always come down very harshly on the games that I like best and often their “reviews” are little more than sarcastic rants. Still, I do pop over their from time to time and check out what is being said.
I finally got my hands on Unwired for Shadowrun 4.0. It looks pretty good even if it seems to contain a bit more fluff and a little less crunch than Arsenal, Augmentation and Street Magic.
I’ve spoken at some length already about my feelings toward skill challenges and in general those feelings have been rather positive. This article is meant as a wrap-up of all of the previous discussions and to be sort of my “final word” on the subject. In all likelihood I will mention them again but probably not at this length. I hope that this post will not end up being tragically rambling but then that is my writing style and I am trying to touch on several related topics so I’ll do my best but don’t count on it.
Wizards started showing previews of their up coming book Adventurer’s Vault today. The book is described as having “Hundreds of new weapons, tools, and magic items for your D&D character” which sounds pretty nice from a DM’s perspective.
The most interesting thing for me was the preview of the wondrous item, Bag of Tricks.
After my first attempt at making a solo monster I was left frustrated and disappointed but after starting a post on the official forums and reading what others had to say about solos I decided not to give up. Instead I refocused and began working on a couple new ideas for solo monsters. Below you will find the stats for the first of these solos.
I’ve been working on a number of different projects lately and they have taken up the time I would normally be using for ranting about some random D&D thing… er… I mean “writing for the blog”.
Wizards posted new errata for the 4th edition core books today. Most interestingly are the changes that have been made to skill challenges.
I have a lot of annoying habits and tendencies. Among these is the habit of criticizing everything. It is seems to be in my nature to be critical at all times. I have never personally considered this a bad thing, I actually think many people are not as critical as they should be and find their lack of criticism disturbing, but I can see why in some situations it could be considered bothersome.
One thing that has bothered several of my friends over the years is my critical interpretation of nearly every movie I see. This has lead people to joke (or perhaps not “joke”) that I hate all movies. The truth is more that I find fault with most movies. For example I loved Batman Begins but I think Christian Bale’s “Batman Voice” was awful and I have no problem making fun of it. I simply feel that I can like or even love something and still notice and criticize its flaws.
Most people know that I like the new Dungeons and Dragons quite a bit but I don’t feel that this prevents me from seeing things in it which I consider to be flaws. One flaw I see in the game at this point is the concept of Solo Monsters.
Since the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition there has been a lot of talk about Skill Challenges. A lot of players find the idea to be quite intriguing, allowing more dramatic rules for situations that were once resolved by a single roll of a single die, but others have pointed out that the math for the Skill Challenges seems a bit broken and in some ways, they are unfortunately correct.
One of the biggest complaints I see these days in regards to D&D 4th Edition is the limitations put on a character because of Class and Role. While some people seem to understand what the creators were trying to do, others either don’t get the idea or deliberately avoid understanding it. Because this is a bit of a hot topic and one that interests me I thought I would spend a moment talking about how I perceive it and how I feel it should be perceived.
My gaming group made their final decision about our Saturday morning RPG last night. We had already come to a unanimous decision that Scion had major issues, and while there was some divergence as to what to do about it most fell closer to the “abandon it and don’t look back” side than the “muscle on, the idea is so cool!” side.
I’ve told this story a couple times over the past week and thought maybe I should just write it up for the blog as other gamers may find it amusing.
Last Tuesday we finished our first 4th Edition Dungeon with the players confronting the Gribb Witchdoctor Rikshock and his minions. Upon entering his rather nasty looking quarters they discovered that both he and his minions were in fact on the other side of a ten foot wide crevice in the floor. Across the crevice was a thin wooden plank. The only thing on their side of the room was a desk.
Here are two Elite Gribb I made up for my player’s first D&D 4th adventure. I was trying to figure out how to template them before posting but computers and I really don’t get along. These guys are based on my Gribb statistics.
I got a call yesterday from a friend of mine I don’t see too often, about a fumble table I had used in my last D&D game. Basically I had written up a random table to roll on whenever a player fumbled because I felt the whole “lose the rest of your attacks” or “hit yourself” or whatever we had previously been using was kind of boring and uninspired. I guess this friend (he had played the flashlight wielding paladin I have mentioned a couple times) is in a new game and had mentioned my table to his new DM. I was rather flattered and told him I would seek out the table and post it on the blog.
Instead I ended up with this Super Hero Universe idea. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
