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2 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2010 - 9:10PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Apr 27, 2006
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 Dragon 394
Channel Divinity: Corellon's Devotedby Robert J. Schwalb Corellon gave arcane magic to the world. The unanswered question is, why? Talk about this Article here. 
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2 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2010 - 10:05PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Dec 26, 2008
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7 pages of fluff and a paragon path. Still, more player crunch than anything else this week. Friday better knock my socks off.
Forum signature? Quick think of something witty ... ... ...
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2 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2010 - 10:29PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Dec 20, 2004
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What's up with the PP's prereqs? Shouldn't that read 'Eladrin OR elf'?
astralArchivist.com - 4e D&D house rules, homebrew, and story hours - now featuring ENWorld's Zeitgeist adventure path! Will Thibault is a winged, feathered serpent rarely found anywhere except in warm, jungle-like regions or flying through the ether. Due to his intelligence and powers he is regarded with awe by the inhabitants of his homelands and is considered to be divine.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2010 - 10:37PM
#4
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What's up with the PP's prereqs? Shouldn't that read 'Eladrin OR elf'?
Yup. The sole item of the article is a paragon path that isn't able to be taken (as written).
If you look past the plot and the voice acting, Metroid: Other M was an okay game. Not a great game, but an adequate one.
Not using the Metroid item collect jingle though? That, was a mistake.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2010 - 11:45PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2008
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I like the idea of a sidebar discussing options, rather than have this hypertrophy of forced feats like a +2 to stealth rolls against Spiders or some crap, that wind up being just nonsense you have to scroll through as you search for implement expertise on the Character builder.
However the "we already have enough crunch" idea for future articles would have to better executed. They could have interspersed sidebars to discuss how to match the article fluff to existing Crunch. For instance they could have done a fluff bit on the "magepriests of Corellon" and then written up some good arcane/divine hybrid and multiclass options or pointed out a combination of poison resistance feats and stealth utility powers to represent Drow Slayers. Kind of like those old character build guides but without the specificity which made them boring reads.
And for the love of god can we have a moratorium on new backgrounds? As is I cynically just search for whatever skill I want and then select whatever background is remotely related to my character concept.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 14, 2010 - 11:46PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jun 10, 2008
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You have to be so bad-ass you count as both. I wasn't expecting anything useful to my current character, and I am not disappointed.  Even if he could take the PP, which he can't since he's half-'elf'(Actually half-eladrin, but there aren't mechanics for such things), it's not as good IMO and certainly not for him as Champion of Corellon is.  Fluff-wise, eh. Some bland rehashing of the real Corellon's stuff, and a lot of thinly veiled rewriting of the entry on the real Corellon from the 2E FR supplement Demihuman Deities. Hell, even the art looks like it was, ah, 'inspired' by the cover of said supplement. (Like, he's wearing the same thing and has the same 80s metal hair, waving a sword with one hand and with some random magical glowiness around the other. Even has the same pissed look on his face.) A bit of new stuff, but mostly nothing I haven't seen before, except the last time it was applied to a different Corellon. (I'd have an easier time convincing people that 4E core Corellon != 1e-3e/4e FR Corellon, WotC, if you'd stop reusing fluff between them so much.) I'm surprised that they didn't use Sahandrian. :P Props for the Hanali mention, though. Hell yeah, Hanali is awesome. The most offensive thing is probably the 'all drow are horrible and eval forever' thing, and it's still less offensive than the Redeemed Drow Epic Destiny was. Come to think of it, Schwalb wrote that too. New rule: Schwalb isn't allowed to write anything about the drow. Or I'm not allowed to read anything he writes about the drow. It makes me twitch. Also, sniping at elves in the bio. Classy. Overall: Crunch: 2/10. There pretty much isn't any, the current version isn't actually usable, and bonuses that only apply to certain kind of monsters are terrible and they need to stop doing them. Art: 6/10. Todd Lockwood did this so much better. Also, c'mon, at least get rid of the 80s metal hair. The pose is also kind of wonky. Lolth looks OK, though, for a spider thingie. The PP art is decent but nothing special. She looks more like a random Winter Fey Swordmage to me. Fluff: Hard to rate. Most of it's at least decent, but it was better the first time and applied to a god I like more. I also lol a little how we have an explanation for a shift in holy symbol where there's no known shift, but we still lack an explanation for the FR version's symbol shift where there *is* one. The drow stuff is somewhat offensive, but more in the 'oh come on really are we really doing this again' sense than any other. Eh, 5/10. I'm not in love(I was kind of hoping for something a little more original to differentiate between the two Corellons a bit more than 'Well this one is a bit more of a dick, also spring'), but I don't hate it either.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 1:13AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2010
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The flavour seems all right, pretty generic god-conflict stuff. I got bored after the first page and a half and skimmed the rest. Meh.
The PP seems OK save for having to be both an eladrin and an elf, which is impossible - but I'm guessing that will be changed for the compiled release. It doesn't seem to really fit with any Divine classes though, so I guess it's more intended for magic users - swordmages and warlocks, particularly.
Backgrounds: 2 skills or a language. BLAH. Seriously, could we have moratorium on backgrounds unless they do something other than 'two skills or a language' (surely all possible combinations are covered by now?!) - although there is something new in the suggested quests, which could be useful, though I wouldn't take the background to get that use. There's plenty of scope for backgrounds which do interesting things which are also useful and provide good character background, like Gritty Sergeant, say.
Once again, and I'm kind of tired of saying this now, so I won't bother any more: I want to play my own story, not someone else's. If I wanted to take in someone else's story, I'd read a book.
Overall: better than the other articles so far this month, but that's not saying an awful lot.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 1:17AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jun 10, 2002
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I'm very happy with the article. It was perhaps a little light on crunch, but I don't mind that. Many of the CD articles have loads of crunch, so I'm glad to see one that focuses on things like the deity's history, myths about him/her, worshippers' practices, and so on.
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2 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 4:32AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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90% generic fairy story, 10% almost useless crunch. What am I paying for again?
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2 years ago ::
Dec 15, 2010 - 6:38AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2007
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Crunch: 2/10. There pretty much isn't any, the current version isn't actually usable, and bonuses that only apply to certain kind of monsters are terrible and they need to stop doing them.
Actually, I think this is a good example of how to go about it. The bonuses are just that - minor benefits that affect certain enemies, but not the core part of the power. This PP can still use their abilities all day long and feel like they are worthwhile - they just happen to have some extra oomph vs certain favored foes. I find that vastly preferable to other PPs (like the dragon themed ones from some older article) that are pretty much useless against anything except their ideal enemy.
As for the fluff... nothing that really inspires me too much, but I don't think it unreasonable for them to reuse older fluff. Many new players just don't have the context or background with these gods, so filling some of that in for them is reasonable.
Speaking of backgrounds, I'm in agreement with everyone else that they rarely add something to an article. I'm not suggestng more elaborate mechanics to them, because that was a mistake from the start. But they need to genuinely be inspiring - they have to actually stir up the imagination and help someone come up with an awesome character concept they otherwise wouldn't have considered.
"So, maybe, you're... an artist, or something? Do you like art? Sculpting? No? Ok, maybe... you've got some elf blood! Oh yeah, how about that, you are distantly related to - no? Not that either? Let's see... Maybe, you... know stuff? About, you know, places? You saw... things, and worked for... people? Wait, come back, my last idea is actually pretty cool!"
Seriously. The first three backgrounds are so hopelessly vague, I'm rather appalled that the background section merited almost an entire page of the article. That said, I like the 'associated quest' idea - and the witch background I can actually see as genuinely interesting - but the rest of this is so simplistic and vague as to be useless. Especially because there are probably equivalent backgrounds already out there - this would have been a worthy place to include a sidebar steering people towards existing choices.
As it is... as always, of late, I find myself wanting more crunch. I know, I know, people asked for more flavor and fluff. Find a balance. Either extreme will leave a lot of people disappointed, in the end.
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