As one might expect, here at WotC, we’re all very excited about the upcoming release of the books. There’s an all-day event in Seattle at
Neumo’s from 9 to 5, and a good portion of R&D (and other folks from WotC) will be running games. Anyone who is in the area should definitely show up! I’ll be running games from 9-1, and possibly longer if we need the extra people.
We’re also having our own release party here on Thursday, and I’ll be running a game for that. Should be fun—there’s nothing like killing your co-workers’ characters and alienating them for the rest of your career. Whee! Actually, if that was the case, then no one here would be friends. We’re all in enough games that eventually you’re bound to kill or be killed. Sadly, though, I have not yet succeeded in killing one of my PCs. What am I doing wrong!? More on my game a little later.
I’m still working on
Manual of the Planes. I finished up with the monsters, and I’ll say this—there’ll be no shortage of high-level threats. The book contains 28 creatures, including 1 archdevil and 2 demon princes. The book does include a playable race, as well. There are also some paragon- and heroic-level threats, several of which are new creatures specifically oriented toward the Shadowfell or Feywild. I’m eager to try a few out, and I’m also looking forward to when the characters in my campaign are high enough level to start venturing into the Elemental Chaos and the Astral Sea; I can’t say I’ve ever been so eager to give my players the chance to explore the planes before.
Currently, I’m focused on editing the paragon paths, rituals, and magic items. The paragon paths offer a variety of class- and race-based options. Some are traditional options based on prestige classes that existed in 3.5, and a few are new. They are also not exclusive to planar campaigns. Although the paragon paths make more sense in a campaign that features a planar element, that’s not a condition. I can only see one or two that would work poorly in a non-planar campaign. Similarly, the items all have planar components, but many would appeal to a character adventuring in the world.
I just finished up work on a couple DDI articles, one of which involves some new creatures. I’m not sure whether it will survive development, but I took a stab at creating a solo lurker ooze. I designed it with some horror movies in mind, using the concept of the dark, formless creature that lurks in the shadows, striking at anyone who moves to the edge of the light. If nothing else, hopefully it’ll at least remain an elite. I’m interested in seeing us expand the selection of solo monsters beyond just dragons and a few other obvious choices.
Outside of the office, I’ll be doing some contract work on Monster Manual 2, so maybe I’ll have the opportunity to craft a few more solos and elites. So far, I’m excited about my creature selection. I’m mostly juggling ideas right now, but I suspect I’ll start pounding out a few stat blocks this weekend.
After taking a break from my co-workers’ Monday night gaming for the last couple months, I rejoined last week to start Rodney Thompson’s new Forgotten Realms campaign. I’m playing a character named Harold Glimmerswick (wizard), who is from Waterdeep and has spent the last 40 years of his life as a scholar in Blackstaff Tower. Needless to say, he is a rather elderly character. He has been out in search of an adventure without really knowing what an adventure is. It’s quite fun playing a really naïve character who knows nothing of the world, including basic colloquialisms and turns of phrase. During last session, he asked why an NPC would want to go get “nailed” in a “house of ill-repute,” assuming that having nails put into you would be quite painful. Check out
Rodney’s blog for more information on that campaign.
For the last few weeks, the characters in my campaign have been making their way through a dungeon that led down into an enormous caldera (much like Yellowstone) that has grown over with jungle. I was pleased with how the dungeon delve went. The characters had a total of 7 encounters (including one they fled from), and by the time they reached the exit of the dungeon, none had more than 2 healing surges left. In fact, half the party had 0 left. I was pleased because I feel like I paced the dungeon well and didn’t have the 5-minute workday syndrome. Up until now, I’ve had some difficulty creating appropriately paced dungeons due to certain imbalances in the party and my own tendency toward throwing very difficult encounters at the group.
I’m excited to run the game tonight, because now that they’re about to journey into the jungle, I’ll be able to throw a new selection of creatures at them, none of which the characters have seen yet. Also, I’m looking forward to using the new condition markers I just got from
Alea Tools. With the volume of conditions and effects in 4th Edition, I decided it was time to get a better system for marking. We use Alea Tools’ magnetic markers in Chris Perkins’s game with great success. I fear that once the books are widely available, there’ll be a wait list to purchase these markers.
(From Alea Tools' website)
In Perkins’s game, things are pretty much business as usual—journeying to other planes, time travel, trapped Primordials, death cults of Vecna. I’m playing a genasi in the game, and I’ll say this—the new art for the genasi kicks ass. I was optimistic when I wrote the art order for the Forgotten Realm Player’s Guide, but it turned out better than I could have anticipated. Of course, it went through several re-concepting passes before the final appearance was determined. I think the race is the better for it, and I think it’ll be way cooler to play a genasi now. I’m still loving the swordmage, and I’m looking forward to getting a broader suite of powers courtesy of DDI. I haven’t decided yet whether to go with a paragon path based on being a genasi, a swordmage, or both. I’ve still got a couple levels to before I need to decide.
On our company boards, someone posted a link to the
twitter page of writer/actor Wil Wheaton, who commented on enjoying 4E. I’ve been thinking about subscribing to twitter, but I haven’t made the plunge yet. Same goes for maintaining a blog on livejournal. So far I’ve just limited myself to facebook. I don’t know if I have the time (or dedication) to keep anything else up-to-date. I tried running a google group as a resource for my campaign, but I really found the added time required to maintain it was better spent actually working on the campaign.
Well, it’s getting near lunch, so that’s all I’ve got for now. For my next blog, I think I’ll take a page out of Chris Perkins’s book (or
blog, rather), and put up some general information and pictures related to the campaign setting I’m running.
-Greg Bilsland
