What's Up With D&D? for Monday, 25 June 2012

[Gaming Tonic]

[news]The fans kicked their board posting into overdrive this week with today's Legends and Lore article by Mike Mearls. It really seems to have struck a nerve with the fan base both positive and negative. Besides that we find out about a 3.5 reprint and receive an excellent article about using ships in your Dungeons & Dragons game. I am working on a big interview so please keep your fingers crossed that all goes well. Now on with this weeks news. [/news]

• Mike Mearls gets things stirred up with Playtest Update in Legends and Lore. I think moving healing outside of the cleric spell list is a great idea. Some fans seem really upset by having to wait for the next playtest update as well, and that would seem to be the biggest shocker in this article. Lots of fans are talking about this article here.
  
  
  [*]News about the 3.5 reprints can be found here. Fan reaction can be found here. Do not forget to take the poll if you want to see more of this sort of thing from Wizards of the Coast.
  
  
  [*]Rodney Thompson answers questions about advantage/disadvantage and tactical combat for readers in Rule of Three. I don’t think he was very specific in his response to the question about domains. He does an excellent job at explaining domains and spheres and what they were in early editions but actually says nothing about what we can expect to see in the next edition.
  
  
  [*]Jon Schindehette is mapping things out for us all in Cartography, in Dragon’s Eye View, and the path is good. Like a lot of gamers, I have a hard time with drawing maps when I am DMing and several good ideas to keep in mind are given that canl help us make more out of maps in our games.
  
  
  [*]Blog: Reacting to the Reaction by Tom Lapille is a great tool for sorting out game mechanic specifics in your D&D Next game. This is a great idea to help out the gamers and make sure they are getting excellent feedback from the open playtest. If a bunch of gamers are confused by the rules or the way they are written then you will only have frustration and not feedback. I expect to see a lot more about action economy because it has been expressed several times as an area of importance. EN World fans are giving their feedback to this blog here.
  
  
  [*]Lori Anderson takes to the seas in Unearthed Arcana: Ships in Your Campaign. This article provides excellent details on life aboard a ship upon the high seas. This is a very in-depth piece that outlines a ship’s crew, supplies, layout of each deck, and more. A detailed description of The Falling Star is provided, as well as a host of magical items for use in your nautical campaigns.
  
  
  [*]Chris Perkins examines the need for a party to have The Moral Compass in The Dungeon Master Experience. I really enjoy it when my party has a moral compass that is true and good when I am the DM. It makes it so much easier to anticipate what the group will do next. Parties without a moral compass also seem to fall apart as Chris points out.
  
  
  [*]Keith Baker gives us the Sovereign Swords in Eye on Eberron. This is another great article that is heavy in the fluff so it details the heroic group for use in any game in any edition. I wonder what could happen with the new edition and Eberron, but if we keep getting great articles like this with plenty of adventure ideas then hopefully it will continue in Dragon and Dungeon magazine.

 

[Alphastream]

I really found Lori's article to be superb. If you like her work and want to see more, check out her Living Forgotten Realms adventures (such as CALI3-3 The Agony of Almraiven, NETH4-1 Containing Shadow, and CALI4-1 Plain of Stone Spiders) and also the work by her like-minded and talented husband, Dan Anderson (I love his work on LFR's Epic Adventures and his articles like Backdrop: Xiousing).

I'm a big fan of theirs, all the more so because they are really nice people and really fun gamers.

 

[Gaming Tonic]

I really found Lori's article to be superb. If you like her work and want to see more, check out her Living Forgotten Realms adventures (such as CALI3-3 The Agony of Almraiven, NETH4-1 Containing Shadow, and CALI4-1 Plain of Stone Spiders) and also the work by her like-minded and talented husband, Dan Anderson (I love his work on LFR's Epic Adventures and his articles like Backdrop: Xiousing).

I'm a big fan of theirs, all the more so because they are really nice people and really fun gamers.

Thanks Alphastream for all that great info. I am a big Forgotten Realms fan so I will definitely check this out. The Xiousing backdrop was an excellent article, if not the best in that series so far.

 

[Feeroper]

I've been eagerly awaiting Dungeon magazine to update with the rest of its articles and scenarios for this month. I am quite fond of the months theme and it worked out beautifully as in the home game Im running, the PC's are presently on board a ship and are in the middle of a nautical adventure. Ive got some inspiration from some of the articles they have put out so far and I like where it is heading.

As for the 3.5 reprint, thats great news and I think it will go a long ways to garnering goodwill from lapsed players who felt burned when 4e came out. I really like how they are genuinely reaching out to the cummunity for this next edition changeover and really embracing their past alongside the present.

 

[Li Shenron]

[*]Rodney Thompson answers questions about advantage/disadvantage and tactical combat for readers in Rule of Three. I don’t think he was very specific in his response to the question about domains. He does an excellent job at explaining domains and spheres and what they were in early editions but actually says nothing about what we can expect to see in the next edition.

To me it actually says a lot about what we can expect:

- domains will grant more known spells
- domains will grant additional class features since the beginning
- domains will also grant more features (not just spells) at higher levels
- War and Sun domain class features granted at 1st level are spelled out quite explicitly, while one higher level feature for each is mentioned as a possibility

Granted, it doesn't say yet how many domains each Cleric gets or how many and which spells (some possibility can be reverse-engineered from the playtest PCs), but the hints at how domains work are strong.

 

[billd91]

To me it actually says a lot about what we can expect:

- domains will grant more known spells
- domains will grant additional class features since the beginning
- domains will also grant more features (not just spells) at higher levels
- War and Sun domain class features granted at 1st level are spelled out quite explicitly, while one higher level feature for each is mentioned as a possibility

Granted, it doesn't say yet how many domains each Cleric gets or how many and which spells (some possibility can be reverse-engineered from the playtest PCs), but the hints at how domains work are strong.

Hey, those all work for Pathfinder. Should work for D&D too (since much of it already did).

 

[Alphastream]

Hey, those all work for Pathfinder. Should work for D&D too (since much of it already did).

Is this supposed to be snarky?

Domains in Pathfinder come from Domains in 3E. D&D Next is trying to speak to previous editions. Because of that, many of its mechanics and approaches reflect previous editions.