News Archive #16 November 2000 News from November 2000: November 30, 2000 D&D Adventure Contest! Adventures are the meat and drink of every Dungeons & Dragons game. They're the setting and script for exciting tales of daring and heroism. Designing a good adventure takes talent, skill, and time. Do you think you can write an adventure to match a map provided by Wizards of the Coast? If so, I want to see it! Enter the D&D Adventure Contest to win one of ten prizes, and better yet -- have your adventure posted here for others to download, read and enjoy. Interested? Read on... New in the Conversion Library: Creatures from the Cthulhu section of 1st Edition AD&D's Deities & Demigods, and updates to Scott Greene's Creature Catalog monster conversions. MonsterBase Updated: Henry Link's Monsterbase 1.1 is now available over at Jamis Buck's website. New Reviews: RPG.net has posted reviews for WotC's Star Wars RPG and The Sunless Citadel, Green Ronin's Death in Freeport, and and Nightshift Games' D20 superhero game, The Foundation. The Third Edition has posted a review of Dwarven Forge's Master Maze miniatures product. Offical Updates: WotC has posted a few new goodies, including new portraits, a Draconian Measures screensaver, and a really nifty list of books written by the inhabitants of the Forgotten Realms -- works like The Obarskyr Family Histories, Translations from Kara-Tur Haiku, and Zelthor's Blade and How I Broke It. (thanks to Dark Blackshield for the scoop) D20 System Guide Update: A minor update to the D20 System Guide -- updated product info and release dates for Fiery Dragon Productions. November 29, 2000 New in the Conversion Library: A new psionicist class conversion, regional feats for Dragonlance, an elementalist prestige class, and two more monsters (urd and cyclops). Electronic Gizmo: Randy Dorman has written a simple little JavaScript calculator for converting 2e XP into 3e XP. The calculator uses the two methods described in the Conversion Manual, as well as the Living City method. Hero Builder's Details: Scooper "Neomorte" has scored a copy of December's core D&D release, Hero Builder's Guidebook, and was kind enough to send along some details: The Hero Builder's Guidebook has hit the shelves. I pick mine up today. It is filled with tons of useful tips and a boat load of names for each of the PHB races. Here is the break down on what you can find inside: 1. Introduction 2. Rolling Your Ability Scores - Gives tips on placing dice rolls for specific goals in creating characters 3. Choosing Your Race and Class - Provides advice for each race/class combination. 4. Creating Your Personal History - Guides you through developing a history before becoming an adventurer. It lists the 5 major parts of this as: Home, Family, Instruction, Life Events, and Relationships and provides table to help decide these things randomly. 5. Selecting Your Alignment - helps with the decision of setting an alignment. Gives you a kind of alignment test to help make the decision easier based on thoughts and relationships of varying types. 6. Planning Your Future Career - Details out several "road maps" for a character to follow as they advance. They are: The Ultimate Archer Swashbuckler Prizefighter Necromancer Gadgetmaster Manipulator Research Wizard Sneak (and a scout: A Wilderness Sneak in a sidebar) Counterspeller Friar (also mentions The Unrooted Tree as a Druid Variant) 7. Appendix: The Rule of Names - Gives you 3 "don'ts" and 3 "dos" in choosing/making a name for your character as well as massive lists of character names for each race. It also includes two sections on Nicknames and Surnames (which gives lists of Dwarven Clan Names, Gnome Clan Names, and Elven Family Names). Bard/Rogue Book Title: Anonymous informs me that the bard/rogue class book is titled Song & Silence. I've worked this into the 2001 product preview from a couple of days ago for future reference. D20 System Guide Update: A minor update to the D20 System Guide -- updated release dates for OtherWorld Creations. November 28, 2000 New in the Conversion Library: More monsters, including voadkyn, iron cobra, and volt. D20 SRD Monsterific: More updates to the D20 System Reference Document -- almost all of the monsters are now posted. (thanks to Grant T, Oren Douek, Irve, and Randy Mosiondz for the scoop) Wyatt on Monsters: WotC's James Wyatt has posted a little "rant" about those who complain that the 3E Monster Manual is a little light on the monsters. He's written a pretty compelling argument to suggest that the 3E MM stacks up quite well against the first releases from 2nd and 1st edition. He's also put together a table of monsters included in the first monster release for each edition. 2001 D&D Lineup Updates: I've added and altered a few items in yesterday's speculation about what products we'll see in 2001 for D&D. See yesterday's news for the updates. Thanks to Staffan Johansson, James Wyatt, and Grant Kinsley for the additional info. November 27, 2000 D&D Lineup in 2001? Sure, we know what D&D stuff is slated for first quarter of 2001 -- but what happens after that? Here's some leakage mixed with a healthy dose of speculation to provide a very preliminary (and probably partially inaccurate) sneak peek at next year's products (10/28 and 10/29 updates are in gold): Core Adventures: By April 2001, the first four of eight planned core adventures will have been released. It seems very reasonable that the other four could come out in 2001. What they'll be like and who is writing them is yet unknown. Mega-Adventures: Monte Cook's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (weighing in at 192 pages) is pretty much a sure thing for Summer 2001. Also rumored is a Return to the Barrier Peaks. Deities & Demigods 3E: Well, that's probably not going to be the name, but you get the idea -- a big book of gods, religions, priest stuff. It's been in the rumor stage for some time, but recently Skip Williams confirmed that it's now in the planning stage. But will we see it in 2001? Tough call. High-Level Book: We know that the high-level rules are currently in development, and they're far enough along that the basics will be included in the FR campaign book. However ... one scooper indicates that he was chatting with WotC's Dale Donovan recently, and it sounds like the High-Level Book won't make it by the end of 2001. We'll just have to wait and see on this... Manual of the Planes: It's being written by Jeff Grubb. It will include the default D&D cosmology as well as tools for creating your own. It should simplify some of the Planescape rules, particularly those that deal with the effects of the planes on magic. Other than that, little is known, particularly a release date, though it's been in playtesting for some time now. Magic of Faerun: Sean Reynolds is currently working on this, though there may be others also involved. I'd be surprised if we didn't see it sometime in 2001. More Class Books: In January we'll see Sword & Fist, the class book for fighters and monks. Defender of the Faith, the cleric/paladin book written by James Wyatt and Rich Redman, is getting close to the end of playtesting. A bard/rogue book (Song & Silence) and a wizard/sorcerer book are currently in playtesting as well. The "nature boy" book for rangers/barbarians/druids hasn't been designed yet. Battle System: Word is that playtesting will begin very soon on a large-scale battle system. The title I've heard is "Skirmishes." Will this product include information on running kingdoms ala Birthright as well? No idea. Let's hope this one makes it out before the end of 2001. Oriental Adventures 3E: I've only heard a whisper about this product, which apparently will enter playtesting soon. Whether it will be a stand-alone campaign setting or integrated with the Forgotten Realms setting as the land of Kara-Tur is unknown. D20 Products: Wheel of Time and Call of Cthulhu are pretty much givens for summer and fall 2001, respectively. What about Dune? Hard to say, but if all goes well it could be out in 2001. Official Updates: Part 4 of the Cliffhanger Adventure is available. The Dragonlance page has posted stats for one type of draconian. (thanks to Dark Blackshield for the scoop) D20 System Reference Document is Monstrous: Monsters A-G have been added to the current draft of the D20 System Reference Document. Looks like more are on the way. (thanks to Oren Douek for the scoop) D20 System Updates: I've posted a few minor updates to the D20 System info page. Separated Fiend Games and Troll Lord Games entries. Clarification of the 0onegames entry. New info on the status of the D20 System Dune RPG. More products listed for Atlas Games and Sword & Sorcery Studio (thanks to Nik for the scoop) Adjusted the availablility info for Star Wars Gamer magazine. Community News: Sisterworlds is a D&D campaign site. The Emperor of Galovinius has posted a Star Wars RPG character sheet here (607kb zipped PDF). Tierra del Noche is a D&D campaign site. November 26, 2000 New Cover for Speaker in Dreams: In January 2001 we'll all have a chance to hold a copy of James Wyatt's D&D adventure, The Speaker in Dreams, in our hands. James tells me he himself has just gotten a copy of the final product. He was kind enough to scan the cover, which is quite different from the placeholder appearing on the web at Amazon.com and the WotC product catalog. James reveals the following in notes appearing at Amazon.com: Here are a few of the things you'll find in The Speaker in Dreams: The adventure is story-based, a style of adventure that is difficult to pull off well. The new Dungeon Master's Guide talks a bit about story-based adventures, and suggests using a flowchart as if it were a dungeon map. That's exactly what this adventure does: the main map is a story flowchart, although smaller sites within the city are mapped and keyed as well. Though it's story-based, it stays close to the dungeon style of play. It's loaded with action, and includes "mini-dungeons" within the city. Shows off the rules for designing cities with a fleshed-out example. Note that even more information about the city in which the adventure is set will appear on the Wizards web site when this adventure is released. (I had to cut a lot of words from the manuscript!) The adventure models a living city with NPCs, and highlights some of the important elements of city encounters. As a city adventure, it really gives characters with high Charisma scores (and ranks in Diplomacy, Bluff, and Gather Information) a chance to shine. Bards and clerics should be especially happy. Since the adventure is designed to take characters from 5th to 7th level, it includes information about recruiting cohorts and followers, since characters gain that option at 6th level. What better place to recruit followers than a city, and what better way to do it than by making friends in the course of a city adventure? I had a lot of fun writing this adventure, and the folks I know who have been playtesting it have also had a great time. There are villains in here who, if the playtests are any indication, will be talked about for a long time to come. All About D20: Need to keep up with D20 System products? With over a dozen publishers involved and WotC producing their own D20 System games, it's hard work keeping tabs on it all. Never fear -- I've put together an extensive D20 System resource page. It outlines the basics behind the Open Gaming Movement, lists the third-party publishers involved and their scheduled products, and brings together links to different fan-created D20 System materials. Check it out -- and if you're a D20 System publisher, please let me know if I need to correct any facts about your products. Avalanche Reveals Constantinople: Historical games publisher Avalanche Press will be releasing a D20 System adventure called The Last Days of Constantinople in December. Read more about it here. (thanks to Ronaldo Fernandes for the scoop) New Reviews: D&D site The 3rd Edition has posted reviews of Death in Freeport and each of the adventures in Dungeon Magazine #83. And RPG.net has posted a review of the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. November 25, 2000 New in the Conversion Library: A horde of undead, monsters from The Temple of Elemental Evil, gehreleth from Planescape, and Dragonlance PC races. Yet More on Polymorph: An additional clarification from Sean Reynolds about the polymorph spells from the PHB and how they affect (or don't affect) extra-planar creatures. I've worked this into the previous news on this subject for future reference. (thanks to James Hoover for the scoop) What about tieflings and aasimar -- aren't they outsiders? For the Forgotten Realms, which has those races as PCs, we came up with the term "native outsider" - they're outsiders, but their home plane is the Prime Material, so you can bring them back from the dead with raise dead. You could also say that that makes them the equivalent of a PMP [prime material plane] creature for the purpose of polymorph. Community News: Northern Journey, an epic fan-created FR adventure series, has been converted to Third Edition D&D. "At present, the 300+ page Northern Journey Campaign Guide and the first five of 8 modules - Silverymoon, Moonwood, Backlands, Tale of 2 Liches and Impiltur - are complete. Earlier this month, we finished the conversion of all of this material for D&D 3E. The modules also include more than 100 maps and dungeon plans." The World of Lamaar can now directly be reached at http://www.lamaar.de. A site called Schmuck the Kneerubber has a comic strip about Third Edition D&D. The Dragon Tavern is a message board for posting D&D adventure ideas and receiving feedback on them. Mike's RPG Page has character sheets for the Star Wars RPG. Official Updates: A whole bunch of new stuff at WotC's official D&D site. (thanks to Dark Blackshield and The shadow of my former self for the scoop) Forgotten Realms Characters: Stats for a FR Villain by Roger E. Moore; a sneak peek at the stats for Alusair Obarskyr, regent of Cormyr. Fight Club: An evil centaur with a laser rifle; information on the Fight Club Arena. WotC's CEO Peter Adkison sits in at the Celebrity Gaming Table. Character Closeup focuses on new celestial animals that could be summoned using the summon monster spells. Celestial Cachalot Whale, anyone? Interview with Justin Whalin of the Dungeons & Dragons movie. November 21, 2000 New in the Conversion Library: Greater colossus (flesh golem variant), slow shadow, another version of the deathmaster prestige class, and a link to site with lots of monsters-as-PCs stats. Ask the DM: NeuroZombie, the webmaster of Community: 3E, has set up an e-group called Ask the DM. "A forum for experienced and aspiring Dungeon Masters of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition. We plan on setting up workshops, chats and forums to help all DM's become GREAT DM's! We also want to create a large database of links and help files for all aspects of Dungeon Mastering, including world building help and DM Tip's and Trick's." Sounds like several regulars from my message board are going to be participating. Read more about it here. Rules Clarifications: Several clarifications from the kind folks at WotC... More on Polymorph: Several clarifications to yesterday's scoop on the polymorph spells (see yesterday's news for the update; thanks to Gerard for the scoop). Shield Spell: How far (side to side) does the shield spell provide cover? WotC's Sean Reynolds (thanks to Gerard for the scoop): Upcoming Sage Advice answer: On a grid, draw the line along the grid lines - between squares - instead of crossing squares. In other words, pick a grid line that borders your square ... that's the dividing line. Sleeping Characters: WotC's Skip Williams has some suggestions for how to deal with deciding if a character wakes up when noises are nearby (thanks to Chris Staufer for the scoop): The best way to to allow a Listen check to hear what's coming, you can assess some penalty for being asleep (-10 or even -20), or you can assume the sleeper is "taking 0," which is sort of like "taking 10" except that you assume a die roll of 0. In the latter case, sleepers will awake to sounds that have a 0 DC on their listen checks, such as a pitched battle going on withn 100 feet (a pitched battle as a Listen DC of -10, see DMG, page 93). Expertise, Tumbling, and Fight Defensively: WotC's Sean Reynolds has the latest word on whether one can combine the Expertise feat and the Fight Defensively combat action and how the Tumbling skill works into the mix (thanks to our old friend James Hoover for the scoop): OK, apparently Skip [Williams] got out of a meeting this afternoon where they discussed this, and they have reversed their decision. So: Expertise is *not* a better version of Fight Defensively. The two *can* be used together. A character with 5 ranks in Tumble increases their dodge bonus by 1 when using Fight Defensively. A character with 5 ranks in Tumble does *not* get an additional bonus when using Expertise. D20 System News: The D20 System Reference Document (Draft) has been extensively updated over at the Open Gaming Foundation website. It now includes some material from the DMG and the MM as well as all PHB spells. If you want a look at the guts of D&D that will eventually be open for third-party publishers to use in their D20 System products, head on over. There's also an update to the D20 System Trademark License. (thanks to Oren Douek for the scoop) PEG's John Goff, formerly slated to write the D20 version of Deadlands, indicates that his departure and PEG's decision to hold off on the D20 Deadlands product are coincidentally related (thanks to Jon Mines for the scoop): Although reported in the same sentence on RPGPlanet, the two events are completely unrelated. PEG's parent company has put the D20 Deadlands project on hold until the D20 STL is complete--largely following the advice from Ryan Dancey himself warning against investing a property too deeply in the trademark prior to the finalization of the STL. It's a wise choice, IMO, and doesn't mean the project is dead. My departure is primarily due to my desire to cut my writing back to part-time. After two years of full-time game design/writing, I found the fun starting to wane and the writing began to feel too much like work. I'm moving back into the "real world" and trimming back to just projects I think are fun or cool. (I went far more in-depth in my column over on Games Unplugged's site: http://www.gamesunplugged.com ). I doubt that the Deadlands project's delay will seriously hamper WotC's push [to see third parties publish D20 System materials]--particularly with Star Wars and now CoC and (IIRC) the Wheel of Time and LotR. Besides, my plans for the Deadlands D20 were to keep the system as close to the one presented in the PHB as possible to keep the learning curve down--not to see how far I could tweak the D20 core. The Scarred Lands fan site has some information on upcoming Scarred Lands products from Sword & Sorcery Studios. November 20, 2000 Official Update: Part 3 of this month's Cliffhanger adventure has been posted. (thanks to Dark Blackshield for the scoop) Community News: Jamis Buck has posted a downloadable Windows version of his online Random Dungeon Generator along with the source code at his D&D Generators page. Realms of A'dohn is a D&D campaign site. New character sheet at City of Wyrmport. Master Tools Update: Here's an update on Master Tools from Master Tools Master Jim Bishop. This was posted on my board, so if you have comments for Jim feel free to post them there. Phew! Spent last week at Fluid's offices in lovely Mill Valley, engaged in the kind of stripped-down, oiled-torso combat you might expect from the early career of Shatner. Over what else, but milestones and a solid feature list for this beast we call the Master Tools. At issue was feature bloat. Specifically, the tendency to throw every cool idea we've ever had into the mix, without regard to our (increasingly tight) schedule. It's the classic conflict between developer and publisher that plays out in every development cycle, much like the classic conflict between sperm whale and giant squid. The conflict works like so: the developer feels time pressure and petitions for fewer features or more time. The publisher feels market pressure and petitions for more features or less time. Hilarity (and/or oiled-torso combat) ensues. We spent four days inching through the list of features, identifying which ones were a priority and which weren't. It felt horrible. When I finally left for Seattle, it was with the queasy feeling that ex-features were hanging onto the bottom of the plane, like panicked Vietnamese during the fall of Saigon. But the upside is we know exactly what we're doing. I think Fluid feels less anxiety, and our milestone list is far more realistic now. The Master Tools feels more like a real piece of software than ever before, and less like a collection of impossible wishlist items. So here's what we've agreed to so far: Race generator: This tool contains all the monsters from the MM, and allows users to enter their own. Prints as stat block or MM-style entry Character generator: This super-expanded version of the cGen demo has all the classes from the PH, DMG, and possibly some of the class books (Sword & Fist is awfully cool . . .), and allows any combination of race, class, prestige class, and template. This is the big mixin' pot of the product, and is the hardest task ahead of the programmers. Prints to stat block or character sheet. Can equip all magic items. Magic item generator: Make a magic weapon, armor, or shield according to the rules in the DMG (and equip it) Random treasure generator: Generate treasure according to the rules in the DMG Probable a la carte treasure generation Random encounter generator: Generate encounters according to rules in the DMG and MM Probable a la carte encounter generation Mapper: All the major/minor features, wall and floor types from the DMG. A slew of monster images. A slew of monster and ambient sounds. Linking between maps Keyed encounter areas that dump to text files. Build encounters in the mapper (or in the eGenerator). Tons of "template" maps (pregenerated maps for easy adventure creation): Output -- Adventure file auto-formats text to the D&D standard adventure format. Prompts that make it easy to build a module ("Enter default door DC here"). Customizability: We're restructuring the database to make it easier to decipher, and the app calls directly from the Access tables instead of (as with the demo) from a closed database format. This was a tough decision to make, since it creates a substantial barrier to entry for many users. But Access does so many things so well, that we'd be stupid to waste our dev. time to duplicate it. My hope is that we'll find a group of fans to write a front end that allows simple data entry into the tables--if you're interested (and hopefully qualified) please email me at mastertools@wizards.com and we'll talk. The good part of this decision, is you can customize almost _anything_ in the product. It's really an incredible amount of direct control we're placing in the user's hands. Items that are still in discussion: Table maker: Allows easy construction of, and output from, random tables. So easy to do we'd be silly not to, but still not 100% guaranteed. Export/import: Not so much an undecided feature, as a feature in search of a good design. Here's the crux of the problem: let's say I send you my new adventure, and it contains unique monsters, magic items, classes, skills, and feats that I created locally on my machine. Can you read the adventure, open the monster files, item files, etc. if you don't have my database? The final version of the back end will be big: something like 10 megs Andrew estimates. Do users have to send these huge tables all over the internet in order to trade their files? We're still talking about this--but I'd love to hear input from y'all. Especially those of you with experience in swapping database-linked files. Update: What about a "combat tracker" or other tools for use at the table or in online games? A "runtime" D&D tool is high on our list for an expansion to Master Tools, but we just don't have the scope to handle it in the core product. Peter is very excited to see D&D played over the internet (which would require a turn-by-turn combat manager), so it's a safe bet that we'll build it in the near future. Polymorph Errata: WotC's Sean Reynolds indicates that there could be a correction coming up regarding what forms can and can't be assumed through the use of the polymorph spells as presented in the PHB (on the WotC Message Boards): Current in-house ruling is "no undead, no constructs, no outsiders, no elementals [unless you are that sort of creature already]." Updates: What if the polymorphing creature is already an undead, construct, outsider or elemental? What forms can these types assume? Anything a prime creature could, plus outsiders of their type (or elementals of their type, etc.) Why not outsiders? Outsiders are innately magical creatures with inherent magical abilities in every atom of their bodies. They're not made from the same stuff we are. What about the shapechange spell? Shapechange is 9th level, I'd say it wouldn't be limited in that way. What about tieflings and aasimar -- aren't they outsiders? For the Forgotten Realms, which has those races as PCs, we came up with the term "native outsider" - they're outsiders, but their home plane is the Prime Material, so you can bring them back from the dead with raise dead. You could also say that that makes them the equivalent of a PMP [prime material plane] creature for the purpose of polymorph. Polyhedron #144: The October issue of Polyhedron arrived in my mail today. It's bigger than it used to be (64 pages now), and has a bunch of 3E stuff you might want to see if you get a chance. We're told that the next issue of Living Greyhawk Journal will include a poster map of the City of Greyhawk. "Secrets of the City of Ravens" includes some new "shadow magic" spells for D&D. The FR Survival Kit is presented here. It's the same as that presented in Dragon Magazine recently. A 3E playtester presents an article on feats, particularly effective feat combos and feat paths to create specific types of characters. "The Palace of Passion" describes a temple to Sune located in Raven's Bluff. A review of Atlas Games' D20 System adventure, Three Days to Kill. There's a bunch of other stuff in this issue -- general articles on roleplaying, articles specific to Gamma World and Call of Cthulhu -- so if you're an RPGA member, keep your eyes peeled for issue #144. New in the Conversion Library: Firbolg stats and a Skeleton Warrior template. Deadlands D20 Update: Several folks have written in with more information on why the D20 version of the Deadlands RPG is on hold. Apparently it has more to do with Pinnacle Entertainment Group's new owners than the departure of John Goff. Here's a quote from Pinnacle's Shane Lacy Hensley (thanks to several scoopers on this issue): The D20 book has been put on indefinite hold. Cybergames.com doesn't feel it's an appropriate product. We're still behind it here, but the loopholes in WOTC's license has given our new owners some concern. Star Wars Extravaganza at Gamers.com: You can read a very detailed analysis of what's in the Star Wars RPG book, an interview with Bill Slaviksek, and some other related articles over at Gamers.com. (thanks to Kraddalc for the scoop) November 19, 2000 Community News: The Dungeon Dimension is a D&D resource site with new races, classes, feats, etc. Updates at World of Lamaar, World of Sulerin, and Realms of Lore's Creature Catalog. The 3rd Edition has posted a new review of the Dungeon Master's Guide. New electronic gizmo: Armor Generator, by Yodanuts. I created a program for Microsoft Excel which creates and displays every stat you need to know for magic armors via the rules in the DMG. It allows you to select armor type (ex. chainmail), armor material (ex. mithral), magic enhancement bonus, and special abilities. The program generates everything from the market price, cost to create, creation time, to info like armor weight, max dex, etc. To download: Go to www.idrive.com (enter "Yodanuts" in the textbox under "Visitors destination i-drive"). The file is called "armorgen1.xls". I would very much like to hear anyone's constructive comments: Is this a helpful program? What would you like to see added? Are there any inconsistancies with the DMG? Any Bugs? E-mail Yodanuts at wetnoodles@netzero.net. Hero Builder's Guidebook: Alert scooper Glenn Williams spotted a different cover for the Hero Builder's Guidebook at Electronics Boutique. On a related note, WotC's Ryan Dancey gives us a little preview of what's inside the Hero Builder's Guidebook (on the WotC message boards, thanks to Gerard for the scoop): 64 pages of text total including credits and table of contents. 4 pages of advice on allocating ability scores, selecting a starting class and selecting a starting race. 29 pages of examples of first level class/race combos (and in some cases, more than one per class/race). Some highlights: The Professional, a human wizard using magic to pursue an unsavory career as a hired killer. The Heartbeat Drummer, a dwarven bard trained in the timekeeping arts of the forge. Gruumshbane, elven paladins trained to strike deep into the wilderness and strike their acient foes. Members of the Powerful and Mysterious Congregation of the Moon, Stars and Sky; specially trained gnome sorcerers who guard their communities against demonic incursions. Seekers of Corellon Larethian, half-orc priests called to the service of the elven patron diety. Street Tough, halfling monks trained in the arts of urban hand-to-hand combat 11 pages of detailing your character's personal history and background 4 pages on selecting an alignment and understanding the worldview of your character 9 pages of suggestions for future development 4 pages of names and guidelines for creating names by race November 18, 2000 Official Updates: The Vessel of Stars is a new free adventure for 4th-level D&D characters. The adventure features new creatures featured in this month's Monster Mayhem: the Vrill and Stellar Deva. (thanks to Anthony Pitman and Nobody for the scoop) D20 System News: AtFantasy.com has posted an interview with D20 System publisher Sword & Sorcery Studios. Castle Steelstone has posted an Open Gaming Licence FAQ. Rumor has it that the planned D20 System version of Deadlands is on hold. According to this rumor, John Goff, the fellow slated to write the product, is leaving Pinnacle Entertainment Group. November 17, 2000 PHB 2nd Printing Bonus Insert Available: You probably know that the 2nd printing of the D&D Player's Handbook swapped out the "2000 Survival Kit" for a new 16-page insert. Even if you early adopters aren't going to buy a new PHB, you can still have all of the goodies, which are split up into several PDF files for your downloading pleasure at the WotC site. This includes the AoO article that appeared in a recent Dragon Magazine; two pages of summoned monster, familar, and animal companion stats; and Sage Advice questions and answers. Downloads are here. (thanks to Anthony Pitman for the scoop) Official Updates: Some new Forgotten Realms stuff, including a new Realms Roundtable and stats for a new NPC -- King Obould Many-Arrows, an orcish barbarian/fighter. (thanks to Adam Csanadi for the scoop) DM Screen Software Update: Version 1.2 of DM Screen is now available. It includes support for more custom generators and has additional program launchers, as well as an expanded combat planner. Grab it here. D20 System News: A few more reviews for D20 System products have appeared over on RPG.net, including reviews for NeMoren's Vault, Three Days to Kill, and Wizard's Amulet. 0one Roleplayng Games has released the first product for Seven Avengers, the Heroes and Magic Sourcebook, a free download. View the cover; download the sourcebook (1 MB PDF). You can see a list of products and release dates for Sword & Sorcery Studios' Scarred Lands setting at the Scarred Lands fan site. New in the Conversion Library: Shadow dragon converted to 3E stats, and Lizard Folk presented as a PC race. November 16, 2000 Star Wars Reveiw: You can read a very positive review of the Star Wars RPG at the Star Wars Database. Here's an excerpt: ...the section on the Force is absolutely one of the best pieces of Star Wars writing I've ever read. Approached almost as a dissertation on the aspects of the Force known to the Jedi, it takes a comprehensive and in-depth look at what makes the Force what it is in the Galaxy Far Far Away. Some game notes are included, but what really shines is the intellectual and philosophical way in which the Force is analyzed, supported by quotes from famous Jedi Masters throughout the ages. If you are looking for an impressive read in a roleplaying book, look no further, as this chapter is one of the best reads I've had in a while. Free Overnight Shipping on Star Wars RPG: If you order your copy of the Star Wars RPG from the Wizards Online Store, you'll get free overnight shipping. Note that contrary to an old rumor, this product does not include a free miniature. Others have indicated that the Star Wars RPG is already shipping at Amazon.com. (thanks to Mike Mistele for the scoop) Community News: Former RPG Planet site Fantaseum has a new home and a new address: http://www.fantaseum.com/. Makes sense, yes? Stop by and say howdy. :) RPGevolution, a web-based magazine, is not dead. (thanks to John Grigsby for the scoop) Kingdom of Albion is a D&D campaign site. Creature Collection 2 -- Call for Contributions: Sword & Sorcery Studios, creators of the D20 System Creature Collection, is soliciting submisions for Creature Collection 2: Dark Menagerie. Get the details here. (thanks to gishmakai for the scoop) Official Updates: You'll find several new items over at the official D&D site, including a new "future fantasy" map, some additional maps for Ravenloft II, another installment of Elminster Speaks, and another issue of Legends of the Lance. (thanks to Dark Blackshield and John Grigsby for the scoop) November 15, 2000 New in the Conversion Library: Greyhawk magic items, Dragonlance deities, Dwarven kits presented as "recipies," and 1st edition adventure U2: Danger at Dunwater. ESD Update: Jim Butler has posted some minor date revisions to the list of ESD products scheduled for release through the Wizards Online Store. View the updated Forgotten Realms ESD list here. Jim adds the following (thanks to Renshai for the scoop): Dragonlance materials are currently at the scanning house, but they still have a few DS products to finish up yet. I suspect that they'll start scanning Dragonlance materials late this month or early in December. That process will probably take a month or more, and then we'll be moving on to D&D releases. I don't have an ETA for when any other world's products will start the scanning process, as I'm not sure yet how long it will take to scan in all the D&D materials. Availability: The products can now be downloaded anywhere in the world that the online store currently ships. That includes the following countries as of now: United States (The 48 contiguous states, AK, HI, and most U.S. military addresses), Canada, United Kingdom, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Gibraltar, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland. The online store is currently working to add more countries to its shipping locations, and they hope to have some added both this month and next. Please don't ask me if your country is one that they're working on, because I honestly don't know. France, Germany, and other Western Europe locations are obvious priorities for us, though. Community News: RPG Archive has gathered several fan-created D&D adventures. World of Dragonhorn is a D&D message board community. They also offer web-based e-mail accounts here. Community 3E has added an improved chat room and an online D&D greeting card service. Tom Proudfoot has posted some prestige classes at his site. The Seven Kingdoms of Aqin Tor is a D&D campaign site with some new prestige classes. FR Guidelines Available Online: Need a huge chunk of Forgotten Realms goodness? You'll want to download the Forgotten Realms Guidelines from the RPGA's Living City website. This document (a 375kb .PDF file) contains many of the rules for creating D&D characters suitable for the FR setting. It includes race and class modifications, new feat descriptions, new prestige classes, new cleric domains, and rules for Rune Magic. Grab yours quick before WotC changes their minds! :) (thanks to Wyrm Pilot for the scoop) November 14, 2000 Sword & Fist Contents: A scooper named "Dormflyn" has a friend who has a copy of the Fighter/Monk options book, Sword & Fist, set for a January 2001 release. He was kind enough to send me a preview of what's inside: New feats: Blindsight, 5 foot radius Circle Kick Close-Quarters fighting Death Blow Dirty Fighting Dual strike Eagle Claw Attack Expert tactician Extra stunning attacks Eyes in the back of your head Feign weakness Fists of Iron Hold the line Improve overrun Improve sunder Knock-Down Lightning fists Mantis leap Monkey grip Off-hand parry Pain Touch Pin Shield Power lunge Prone attack Rapid reload Remain conscious Sharp shooting Shield Expert Snatch arrows Throw anything Zen Archery Prestige classes: Cavalier Devoted Defender Drunken Master Duelist Fist of Hextor Ghostwalker Gladiator Halfling outrider Knight Protector of the Great Kingdom Lasher Master of Chains Master Samurai Ninja of the crescent moon Order of the Bow initiate Ravager Red Avenger Tribal Protector Warmaster Weapon Master Sections on: Worldly matters (organizations and how fighters and monks live in the world) Game within the Game (Tactics for fighting) Tools of the Trade (New weapons) Same skills, New uses Community News: Read a review of Fiery Dragon Productions' D20 System adventure, NeMoren's Vault. The World of Inzeladun is a D&D campaign site brought to you by one of the most prolific contributors to the Conversion Library, Vincent Darlage. You can find new feats, monsters, spells, prestige classes and more. Official Updates: You can find part two of this month's Cliffhanger adventure. And on the main Forgotten Realms page, you can see a Realms weather report. (thanks to Dark Blackshield and Kyamsil for the scoop) New in the Conversion Library: Several monsters have been added. November 13, 2000 PHB Errata List Updated: Remember the original PHB errata list -- pages and pages of mostly typo corrections mixed in with essential rules corrections or clarifications? Well, WotC has posted the slimmed down, color-coded version created by Scott Broadbent in its place. Here it is. (thanks to James Morris for the scoop) Q&A with Keith Strohm: WotC's RPG Director Keith Strohm was kind enough to answer several questions on a variety of topics: Is the Psionics book going to be a hardback? Yes. The psionics book is going to be hardback. In fact, the strategy is for all "cap systems" (rules sets that can be added modularly to the core rules presented in the three core books) books to be hardcover. I've gotten word that there are two variations of the DM's Screen -- one rather flimsy, one more sturdy. What can you tell us about that? There was an issue with the spec document for this product and it went into production with a different paper type than originally conceived. We managed to catch it before the entire print run was completed, and so we have products with two different paper stocks. I've used them both, and while the thicker paper stock does work better, I've had no trouble using the thinner screen. Where can people write or post mistakes they've found in products? And what's the ETA for the 2nd printing of the PHB? The second printing is in our warehouse and should be making it to stores as we speak. There is no set place to send errata yet, though we're working on setting up a centralized errata mail address that will be funnelled right to R&D. My impression is that we're hearing a lot less from official WotC folks on the message boards especially since the server switch. Is everyone just super busy? Yes. We've absolutely been crushed by the amount of work we have to get done. I suspect that as we clear the load a little bit, you'll see more participation. The ESD program is still pretty young, but what's your impression of how it's going so far? It's going phenomenally well. So far, all of the products have paid for their scanning, and we're seeing a lot of people returning to our website. Another positive thing. We're starting to see D20 System products rolling out. In particular the first one of real substance is the Creature Collection -- hey, they beat the MM out the door. Any impressions, reactions? I assume that so far this is still viewed as a "good thing"? We're extremely happy with the success of OGL and D20 products like the Creature Collection. The OGL strategy is being fulfilled at a rate faster than we had even hoped, and I think the fallout will ultimately benefit the consumer. As RPG Director, I assume that puts you at the head of the Star Wars RPG products as well, correct? What kinds of special events can we expect up to and around the time of the release of the game? Yes, I'm also in charge of the Star Wars RPG, though Peter Kim is the associate business manager who actually does all of the hard work :) On the 11th, we had our Star Wars release party, which drew about 800 people--including Star Wars fans from across the country. It was a complete success and we're all very happy with the initial buzz from consumers about Star Wars. This month saw the release of the final Alternity products. Any final thoughts on this line? Well, I was actually one of the original editors for the Alternity game, and I think that the Alternity books were packed full of interesting and fun information that made SF gaming a real draw. It's always difficult to have to have to create "exit" strategies for game products that you personally like (ask me sometime about how hard it was for me to mark Of Ships & the Seafor destruction), but Alternity just didn't draw the numbers it needed to in order to survive at Wizards of the Coast. I've interacted a lot with Alternity fans and I have to say that they are all extremely passionate about their favorite game system. Hopefully Alternity will be alive and well around gaming tables across the country for years to come. Community News: A new prestige class at City of Wyrmport. Realms of Lore (and its Creature Catalog) have new addresses. Companions of Evernight: Path of the Paragon is a D&D campaign website. November 12, 2000 New in the Conversion Library: Spells from the Complete Wizard's Handbook, and three more Al-Qadim monsters. Gygax Interview: The reclusive Gary Gygax, father of the D&D game, gives a rare interview. (thanks to Shawn for the scoop) Community News: Updates at Return to the Dungeon, From the Ashes, and DNDFiles. Bobby's Page o' Various RPGs has an RPG Release Schedule (including D&D and D20 System products) and a D&D Index Database. Sword & Sorcery Studios would like to remind you that they have a live Moderated Java chat they are running for the Scarred Lands in the mythical city of Fangsfall. It features continual interaction and a fully function diceroller and a character sheet database. It is not a MUD, but a roleplaying environment with live Dungeon Masters. World of Lamaar is a D&D campaign setting site with beautiful hand-drawn maps and other useful material. November 11, 2000 Anonymous on FR "Slower Experience Table": As I reported yesterday, Dragon #278 indicates that in the forthcoming Forgotten Realms rules, characters who are members of so-called "powerful races ... use a slower experience table than other player characters." Anonymous clears up a point... ...under the "Dwarves of Faerun" header, when you mention the method of determining more powerful races' experience needs, you've jumped to an erroneous conclusion. The slower xp table merely works out the calculations for the more powerful races, following the method presented in the DMG. So rather than the 1000 xp at first level, it has a column for +1 races that starts with 2000. 'Tis simplification of math, nothing more. Duel of the D&D Database Utilities: Henry "C'mon August!" Link has whipped up MonsterBase, a monster database program that allows you to enter monster stats, copy them as long or short stat blocks, and save them for later in a big database. You can download MonsterBase at Jamis Buck's website. Blake Whitelaw has updated his Stat Block Generator to include a database so you can save all the Monsters, NPCs, Traps and Towns that you enter. Official Updates: New stuff at WotC's D&D site... (thanks to Dark Blackshield for the scoop) Press Release concerning the Kenzer & Co. "Kalamar" deal. "The new Kalamar hardcover will contain approximately 250 to 300 pages as well as full-color maps included as an insert. Kenzer and Company is aiming for an early spring 2001 release for this product. Other scheduled products available spring 2001 include: the Kalamar world atlas and four full-length world supplements and adventures. Summer 2001 releases for the Kalamar line will be announced in December." D&D Movie Interview with actor Lee Arenberg. Spotlight on Living Greyhawk guru Erik Mona. The Maztica boxed set has been added to the Classic Downloads page. November 10, 2000 New in the Conversion Library: New and revised Planescape notes, revised Dragonlance races, spells from the Complete Necromancer's Handbook, Al-Qadim monsters, the penanggalan as a template, another stab at the centaur as a PC race, and conversion of the classic 1st Edition module, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. MT Update: If it's Friday, it must be time for a Master Tools update from Fluid Entertainment's Wayne Cline: Scott Mathews and I went up to WotC this week to talk about (what else?) Master Tools. We continue to lock down the design. The most important thing we're determining right now is not only what MT will do, but also what it will not do. Admittedly, one of the biggest hurdles we face when we meet about a particular feature is the snowballing effect of "What about this or that?" Just like the many people on the MT Discussion list debate a lot about different features and what they want, so do we. Ultimately, we need to lock down a design and stick with it, and that's what our next week is going to be about. Progress-wise, as Jim said last week, Andrew has laid out the Monster Generator and we're hammering out the fine details and bugs. Now, we're working on the Treasure Generator, where you'll be able to generate a pile of treasure or a single item using the tables in Chapters 7 & 8 of the DMG. Yours truly gets the fun job of inputting all that information into Access databases. I've seen the preliminary drawings of the Blackguard that will become the mini that's going to in the box and it's really cool. This may not be the final design, but the sketch has him wielding a wicked-looking sword holding up the head of a guy he's just defeated. He looks like one mean mamma-jamma. Also, those promised screenshots on the WotC website really will be coming soon... hopefully early next week. Dragon #278: The December 2000 issue of Dragon Magazine arrived in my mail today. Allow me to tell you about it, won't you? This month's theme is Dwarves: The dwarven language, battle cries, proverbs, and society are presented in loving detail over the course of several articles. Use this juicy stuff to shoot down the argument that 3E isn't about role-playing. James Wyatt presents dwarven Class Combos -- multiclass "recipies" for creating archetypes such as the Artificer (fighter/wizard), Slayer (fighter/rogue), Stoneling (cleric/rogue), and Temple Defender (Fighter/Cleric/Dwarven Defender). "Dwarven Gizmos" introduces several non-magical gadgets that a dwarf might like to have. The Stonelord is a dwarf-only prestige class. Lots of magical ability to deal with earth and stone, of course. "vs. Duergar" -- hints and tips on how to battle the evil dwarves of the Underdark. Countdown to the Forgotten Realms: "Forgotten Realms Rules" provides maddeningly vague samples of new rules in the 3E Realms. Regional Feats: We get a short list of new feats, but with only general descriptions of what they do. "Education" provides "bonuses to all Knowledge skills," while "Treetopper" provides "bonuses to Climb checks and you retain Dex bonus to AC when climbing." Beyond Level 20: Most of us have heard the rumors about how FR (and D&D in general) will deal with high-level characters, and much of it is confirmed here. "Instead of the usual array of advantages characters receive upon gaining a level, those who rise above 20th level can pick an Epic Level Ability. Those can range from a +1 Ability increase to a +1 Higher-Level Spell, giving a character a 10th-level (or higher) spell slot that can be especially useful for wizards who enjoy metamagic feats." Dwarves of Faerun: We're given more details about some of the dwarven subraces. The Gold Dwarf, for instance, gains +2 Con, -2 Dex, +1 attack bonus against aberrations. Get this, though: "Gray Dwarves and Deep Gnomes (yeah, they're not dwarves, I know) are 'Powerful Races,' meaning they use a slower experience table than other player characters. Guess where you can find that table." Interesting -- instead of using the DMG guidelines whereby the DM assigns the base race as a certain number of levels in addition to whatever class levels they may have, they're going to introduce a different XP table for the "powerful races." Hmmm... A bunch of other stuff -- a D&D Movie article, Greyhawk fiction from Paul Kidd, magic items from Baldur's Gate II, a profile of Julia "FR Deity" Martin, and loads more. Electronic Gizmos: A couple of new fan-created electronic tools for D&D: Jamis Buck's computer wizardry strikes again with his online Random Dungeon Generator. Enter a few parameters and presto -- a random dungeon map appears with a key below, including monsters, NPCs with stats, treasure, door conditions (stuck, trapped, etc.), and dungeon dressing. Very spiffy. John Dell has created Figure Finder, a tool for finding minatures to match a description. Type in some key words and you'll get back a list of minis that match. November 9, 2000 Two Million! Unofficial Dungeons & Dragons News has reached a milestone -- two million hits! Thank you so much for visiting and supporting my site over the past 15 months. A special thanks goes out to the many mature-minded posters on the message boards. They do an excellent job as acting as mediators, diplomats and peacekeepers when things get hot. :) Again, thanks a million! I.C.E. Melts: Iron Crown Enterprises, a venerable RPG publishing company, is no more. Read the announcement here. (thanks to Jim Morris for the scoop) Realm Overseer Released: The 3D map viewer Realm Overseer, compatible with Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer, has been released. Giant Vermin Clarification: WotC's Sean Reynolds indicates that you can use the vermin stats from the Monster Manual instead of the chart provided in the PHB for the spell giant vermin. (thanks to John Coccaro for the scoop) Contests: Enter the Baldur's Gate II Givaway for a chance to win stuff. Enter the 1st/2nd Edition Give-Away Contest to win some used AD&D books. D20 News: Green Ronin has posted a Freeport Pirate prestige class created by Chris Pramas in their Focus on Freeport. (thanks to Fathershambles for the scoop) RPG.net has posted a bunch of new D20 reviews, including reviews of NeMoren's Vault, Death in Freeport, The Wizard's Amulet, and Three Days to Kill. (thanks to James Landry for the scoop) The publishers of the Multiverser RPG will be producing a conversion book that will include notes to convert D20 System rules as well as other rules systems. Darrin Drader of The Empire of Galovinius website indicates that an as-yet unamed publisher will be creating D20 System adventures set in his campaign world, Galovinius. Star Wars Fast Play: WotC has posted a Star Wars RPG Fast Play game. It's posted as a series of web pages rather than a downloadable file. It includes pregenerated characters (though not with full D20 System stats; instead, simplified "fast play" stats) and maps. (thanks to PLCM for the scoop) Official Updates: WotC has posted a new "map of the week." (thanks to several scoopers) November 8, 2000 Community News: Rokugan has been updated with new core classes, prestige classes, and feats. Kargatane, the official Ravenloft fansite, has returned after several weeks of technical difficulties. [Note to self -- make a backup of the website...] Justin James Tindel invites you to drop by his art gallery. The online version of Jamis Buck's NPC Generator now includes random motivations and background info for the characters generated. The 3rd Edition has posted a review of Necromancer Games' D20 adventure, The Wizard's Amulet. Official Updates: You can read new material about the Forgotten Realms, including a new Realms Roundtable and more notes about FR artwork, plus a new installment of Realms at Night. In addition, there are some new portraits posted over at WotC. (thanks to Dark Blackshield, Issak Haywood and NeghVar for the scoop) New in the Conversion Library: Martial arts, significant revisions to Dark Sun conversions, PC centuar race, and abilities/powers from the AD&D Player's Option books converted as feats. November 7, 2000 Star Wars RPG Review: A new review of WotC's Star Wars RPG has been spotted over at SciFi.com. Though not a fan of levels and classes, the reviewer still gives it a positive review. (thanks to Bob Huss and Black Moria for the scoop) WotC Press Release on WoT: Here's WotC's official announcement of their forthcoming D20 System RPG based on Robert Jordan's popular Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels. (thanks to Brian for the scoop) Kalamar to Become D&D Campaign Setting: Speaking of licensing deals, WotC has apparently reached a deal with Kenzer & Company, creators of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic, to license Kenzer's Kalamar setting as a D&D world. "This is not just a basic D20 license!" adds Brian Jelke, Vice President of Kenzer and Company. "The new Kalamar products will feature the Dungeons & Dragons logo on the covers." You can read more about this announcement here. (thanks to Coik and Tabitha768 for the scoop) November 6, 2000 Wheel of Time RPG from WotC: SciFi.com posted a press release reporting that WotC will indeed produce a D20 System Wheel of Time RPG. Reported release date is summer of 2001. (thanks to The Emperor of Galovinius and Alan DeHaan for the scoop) New Cliffhanger: WotC has posted the first part of a new cliffhanger adventure called The Hallowed Hills. (thanks to NeghVar for the scoop) New in the Conversion Library: Monsters (cyclopskin and norker), the Ghul Lord class, Planewalker's Handbook conversion, and Dragonlance 5th Age magic. Community News: The Hall of Heroes and Heroines is an RPGA Network club located in Perth, Australia. Not much 3E stuff there yet but they'll soon be playtesting WotC products and holding tournaments. The 3rd Edition has posted a review of the Creature Collection. The Sleeping Imperium has been updated with a martial arts system for 3E. New material at Rolegamer.net includes Plot Ideas and Quick NPCs. A bunch of new stuff over at A Player's World. OpenRPG 0.6a has been released. "OpenRPG is an open source role-playing applications that facilitates gaming online. Its also great tool for tabletop gaming as well. Included in this release is a new game tree, d20 add-ons, and help files." Living Dead Girl is a horror RPG site with some D20 System rules. Mike Ceranko has created some fantasy art he'd like to share with you. Dalenthas has updated his site with information on his campaign world. November 5, 2000 D20 News: Scarred Lands News: Want to keep up with all of the news for Sword & Sorcery's forthcoming Scarred Lands D20 System campaign setting? You'll want to check out the Scarred Lands fan site from Jason Bell. Odyssey D20: Eden Studios, publisher of horror RPG All Flesh Must Be Eaten, will be publishing a D20 System line of products. Dubbed "Odyssey," the line currently features two products: Wonders Out of Time and Akrasia, Thief of Time. Both are 32-page adventure/sourcebook products, and both are due in February. Aldor Map: Mystical Alchemy Gameworks has posted a PDF file of the map of their forthcoming D20 System campaign setting, Aldor. (thanks to cam for the scoop) November 4, 2000 Thieves in the Forest Ships: Atlas Games has shipped their second "Penumbra" D20 System adventure, Thieves in the Forest. This adventure for low-level characters was written by veteran D&D author John Nephew, and will be available at Amazon.com or your local game store by next week. Community News: Castle Steelstone has been updated with a D20 psionics system and morale rules. The Stat Block Generator program (200kb zipped) has been updated with more room and more fields for things like spell lists and special abilities, plus stat block formatting for traps and cities, including random city generation built in. City of Wyrmport is a D&D campaign site, plus new material including a Gladiator core class. Master Tools Update: Friday night has come and gone, and that means a Master Tools update, delivered this week by WotC's Jim Bishop (thanks to Jason for the scoop): This week has seen some amazing progress on the product, not all of it related to software. Just a few hours ago I reviewed the initial concept work for the packaging, and I'm very happy with the direction we're taking. We were lucky enough to get Henry Higgenbotham for the job; he's the same artist who did the covers for the PH, DMG, and MM, and our ambition was to make the Master Tools the fourth design type in the series. We wanted it to define a fourth leg to the D&D "look and feel" , but still "read" as D&D. Here were the suggestions I sent to the art director (after a long description of the product itself): The packaging should strongly convey the idea of "utility," of the product being FOR something. Since customizing the rules is big selling point, I'd like there to be some feel of things that can be modified--maybe levers or buttons that look like they could be operated. This would also feed into the issue of it being an interactive product; it should not look like a book, but rather like something that can be used, manipulated, or altered. Ideas: maybe a puzzle box, like the artifact in Hellraiser; or a fantastic machine like the Apparatus of Kwalish with levers and gears; or a clockwork apparatus with dials and crudely-machined parts. Another idea is to make it look like a wooden container, a toolbox owned by an artificer or skilled craftsman. The design should work with the box flap as well--ideally, opening the flap would reveal the interior of the puzzle box/machine/clockwork mechanism/toolbox. Everybody loved the idea of a puzzle box, but Henry wasn't confident he could execute it properly. And a fantastic machine that, just coincidentally, was the same shape as a box seemed kinda silly. So Henry's design shows a mechanical toolbox, like a cross between the trapped cover of the DMG and a fantastic clock. The manual will be done as a shopworn leather notebook, with an embossed symbol on the cover that will match the design on the face of the CD. Hopefully I'll get an OK to post some sketches, because they look great. As long as I'm talking about packaging, I should also mention that we're planning to include a promotional miniature in the first build of the product. Todd Lockwood is doing the concept work for it, Chaz Elliot (hopefully) will sculpt, and thanks to Wayne's great idea, we've already settled on the subject: a bad-ass Blackguard, the ultimate bad guy. We weren't happy with the illo from the DMG, so we've asked Todd to really go crazy and make it look cool. On the software front, Fluid has been cranking at top capacity this week. They just turned over a second revision of the Monster Generator that's far more polished than the first draft, and has lots of cool new features--best of all it has all the templates from the MM, and great-looking "portraits" from the MM as well. It also has spells, and both feats and skills work perfectly. Remember that annoying issue in the cGen where multiclassed characters had to select the same skill twice to take it as both classes? The new design very elegantly solves this whole problem. We've got the monster art question worked out finally--many thanks for all your suggestions. We decided to do as many monsters as we could in full detail, so something like 75 are guaranteed to be done in lush, perfect color, and I wouldn't be surprised if Waddy & Co. came through with even more. We've also identified "iconic" examples of the basic monster types, so a pewter-colored beholder will stand for all (unpainted) aberrations, a pewter-colored wolf will stand for all (unpainted) animals, etc. Wayne and Scott's plan to allow users to import monster portraits within the mapper could also go a long way towards solving this problem as well. As if that wasn't enough good news, we're starting to define a Master Tools "official update" team within Wizards. This team would make sure that new content from R&D (and possibly periodicals) would be posted in MT format as the print product hits market. Looks like the managing editor's department (under Kim Mohan) would be responsible for "feeding" an updater (that'd be me) and then we'll assign a web guy to post the updates regularly. We still have a long way to go before D&D is a true hybrid of digital and print mediums, but this is one more step in the right direction. Who knows? We might eventually release for-sale products that are _only_ available in MT format . . . FR Spells and Magic: WotC's Sean Reynolds has put out a call for the top Forgotten Realms spells and magic items that you'd like to see converted to 3E for the forthcoming Magic of Faerun sourcebook. If you have an opinion to share on the subject, be sure to stop by the WotC message boards (RPG.DND.Forgotten_Realms) to post your suggestions. (thanks to Gerard for the scoop) PHB 2nd Printing on the Shelves? A scooper has informed me that he spotted the 2nd printing of the Player's Handbook in a game store in Ottawa, Canada. Looks like Christmas has come early. (thanks to Daksian for the scoop) More Free D&D Downloads: You can download the following Maztica and Oriental Adventures files (PDF files, each at least 3 MB), found by scooper "Max": FMA1, Fires of Zatal FMA2, Endless Armies FMQ1, City of Gold OA5, Mad Monkey vs. the Dragon Claw November 3, 2000 New ESD Products: Several of the promised electronic downloads for Forgotten Realms have been posted for sale at the Wizards Online Store. Recent titles include Tantras, Shadowdale, Golden Voyages, Lords of Darkness, and Curse of the Azure Bonds among others. Just go to the Online Store and type ESD in the search field. (thanks to Sonny Mendoza for the scoop) Spell Contest: WotC is sponsoring a spell-writing contest. Do you have some 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons spells you have created for your game? Or simply a great spell concept? This is your chance to share them and even win D&D product! Through the month of November, Wizards.community is running a spells creation contest. Simply submit your spell to the Wizards of the Coast message boards at www.wizards.com/boards/ using the following guidelines. In December, all spells will be judged and the guest with the best spell submission will receive the new Dungeons & Dragons Player Character Sheets. The contest guidelines follow: 1) All submissions must be posted to the "Games: 3E_Spell_Contest" folder in the Wizards of the Coast message boards at www.wizards.com/boards/ 2) Submissions must be original creations. Spells that match or are very similar to already published spells in prior products will be disqualified. 3) Spells must use the 3rd Edition rules and MUST follow the format and order described in the Players Handbook page 171. Submissions that vary from this format will not be accepted. 4) All submissions must be received by November 30, 2000. 5) Submissions will be judged by the following criteria, in order of importance: - Creativity and originality - Rule balance (spell fits appropriate effect and stats for level and class) - Grammar and spelling 6) Participants may submit up to three entries. We look forward to seeing your submissions. Questions on the contest may also be posted in the "Games: 3E_Spell_Contest" folder on the message boards. New in the Conversion Library: White Plume Mountain from 1st Edition D&D, and a Sheen from Dragon Magazine. Free Passes for GenCon 2001: You can win a pair of passes for GenCon 2001 by entering a little contest here. (thanks to Black Moria for the scoop) Living City Character Creation: The RPGA has posted a file (850kb zipped PDF) with the current Living City character creation guidelines, a character sheet, and a character log form, on their downloads page. OA & DS Downloads: You can download a couple of adventures from Oriental Adventures and four Dark Sun products on the Classics Download page. All PDF, and all free, of course, as usual. (thanks to Adam Nave and Eric the Dread for the scoop) Spell of the Month: WotC presents Understand Object, a new arcane spell for D&D. (Thanks to The shadow of my former self and Black Moria for the scoop) Spotlight on The Scrying Room on RPGPlanet: GameSpy chats with Eric "Fihnakis" VanDriel of Pool of Radiance II fansite The Scrying Room about RPGs, D&D, and the gaming community. (thanks to wsmith for the scoop) November 2, 2000 OtherWorld Interview: Roleplaynews.com has posted an interview with R. Hyrum Savage, Chad Cunningham and Chris Miller of OtherWorld Creations, one of the D20 System publishers. Harper Pins: Munckin Monstrosities? So you think the Harper Pins as described in the Forgotten Realms Survival Guide are too powerful? WotC's Sean Reynolds explains (on the FR message board): Actually, there are several varieties of Harper pins, that's just the most powerful one (converted from 2nd edition AD&D). Lesser harper pins have fewer enchantments and don't cost anywhere near as much as the posted pin (which is now known as the greater Harper pin, by the way). ESD Product Delay: You may have noticed that some of the electronic D&D products scheduled to hit the Wizards Online Store are late. WotC's Jim Butler says, "I went on vacation and the products got delayed. They should be available by Friday." (thanks to Spencer Cooley for the scoop) Official Updates: Several new items of note over at the official D&D site (thanks to Dark Blackshield and cam for the scoop) New Map -- a modern city. Realmswatch has been udpated with a bit from Ed Greenwood. Mage Hunt in Ansalon "adventure seeds." November 1, 2000 Community News: New updates at World of Sosaria include a complete chronicle of the campaign thusfar, and a couple of new tools in the Miscellany section, including an Excel-based party manager and a set of dungeon geomorphs for the Visio program. The Lighthouse is a source for Mystara-specific and compatable 3E material. This month's theme at Dusk is "Wizards." Includes new items (spell, feat, character, skill, monster, magic item, etc.) related to the theme which will be revealed throughout the month. D&D Taladas: James O'Rance has created and posted conversion materials for the Taladas region of the Dragonlance setting. Scarred Lands Chat: Sword & Sorcery Studios have set up chat areas for online gaming and in-character chat based on their Scarred Lands D20 setting. (thanks to Jon Parton, Ian, and "cam" for the scoop) LC Character Conversion: The RPGA has posted guidelines for converting and creating characters for its Living City Campaign. Though it doesn't provide any juicy details on what the Forgotten Realms 3E will have in store for us, there are some hints scattered throughout. One particularly tantalizing bit is the mention of "Forgotten Realms Guidelines" which will apparently be available online by Nov. 15th. For folks not playing in this campaign, there are still some interesting bits: A 2E to 3E XP conversion chart. Some might prefer this to using levels to convert, as 2E classes aren't balanced by level (a 15th level 2E Thief had fewer XP and less power than a 15th level 2E Paladin, for instance). A couple of suggested additional familiars for wizards and sorcerers: hairy spider (which will be detailed in the Monsters of Faerun book) and tiny lizard. Some new feat names: Ethran, Sadistic Training, Cast Rune, and Shadowweave Magic. Rumor has it that Sadistic Training can allow a character to exceed the skill rank cap. Suggested penalties for divine spellcasters who change deities. 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