Blackdragon's page

I dunno what the hype is about really. They stated they've been working on 4E for the past 2 years. Just 3 years after 3.5E came out.

So when you guys are 3 years into this 4E crap, they'll be working on 5E.

And the cycle begins again...round and round we go! Where does it stop, nobody knows!

The reality is this is really version 6. Basic, AD&D, AD&D 2E, D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, and D&D 4.0. The question is how much of 3.5 game play are they going to scrap? 90% like they did from 2nd to 3rd? or a small tweek like 3.0 to 3.5? With all this streamlineing that they were talking about, sounds like I need to blow the dust off my basic box set.

I thought it was funny.

It was just gently poking fun at things we've all experienced.

It wasn't calling us fat losers or anything, just showing some of the travails we've all had with some of the more unwieldy rules.

No, it was saying "Sorry the rest of the products D&D's made sucked so bad, but trust us. We'll get it right this time." IT's also them treating us like we're too stupid to fix the flaws in the game without their help. House rules have always been part of the game, and they always will be. They don't have to change the rules every couple of years to fix that.

I won't pay a monthly fee for Battlegrounds, FantasyGrounds, or Klooge, even a hyper-active version. I want to buy something and OWN it, not f&*king rent it. If I am ever late on a payment I lose out, if life eats my money, I lose a hobby that I invested 100s of dollars in if I don't have a physical group. F%$k that $hit!

I agree. If I wanted that, I would have bought Dundjin or one of the other programs like it and had it on my PC. So far, Wizards has talked alot of smack about how great their on-line content is going to be, but they have nothing to show us, just like when they took Dungeon and Dragon mags in house. It doesn't instill confidnece.

What really pisses me off about this is they act like back in the day we didn't make house rules to fix the flaws of each edition. The ONLY difference between what we did and what they are doing, is we didn't have the mechanics to put it into print.
And If I want to play D&D on-line, I'll ply the On-line D&D game or Warcraft...Or Lord of the Rings...or any of the thousand or so RPGs that are made for computers.

I will say that the on-line content seems cool, I don't like the idea of paying $40 for a book and then having to subscribe to a website just to get everything to play.

Also, Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that the three core books for this version aren't being released at the same time? I mean they're being released a month apart! What the Hell?

In reality, I'm sure I'll take a look at it, but I doubt it will make our group convert from 2E.

And for the record: My niece is 12. I've taught her how to calculate thaco, it's basic adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. She's already learned this in sixth grade math. It's not rocket science.

Please, then they would have to do a Savage Tide Crisis, and destroy the whole storyline because it screwed up continuity, then The WHOLE Ap would never have happened, and we'd have to start over... At least until they do an alternate Univers in which Demogorgon succeded launced the Savage tide and conqured the word. It would be called: Age of Demogorgon. The Pc's will all be evil, and Iggwilv will be a bald man in a wheelchair, and no body wants to see that on the cover! The horror!

Paizo are being ominously quiet about this....

My guess is they don't want to be sued by Hasbro...Though I bet Sebastian could put them in touch with a good lawyer.

fray wrote:

DangerDwarf wrote:

3.5 or 4.0, doesn't matter to me. I'll be running my Pathfinder campaigns using C&C. I have to convert either way, so its all good.

What's C&C?

A music factory? ;)

you're dating yourself with that one.

3.5 or 4.0, doesn't matter to me. I'll be running my Pathfinder campaigns using C&C. I have to convert either way, so its all good.

Same here. We never switched to 3.0 or 3.5 and still play 2E. I've gotten to the point I can do the conversions in my head. I can't imagin 4.0 (And I'm sure 6 months later 4.5) will be any harder.

What is the date the first part will ship? I've been looking over the boards, but I can't find it. I know it says August, but any Idea what day?

My group is just started Enemies of My Enemy, but one of my players has kidney stones, and the game is on hold for the moment.

Steve Greer wrote:

Is she getting the benefits from all of them? Nothing wrong with wearing a ring on every finger as long as only two of them are active on the stats.

Maybe two of them aren't necessarily on her fingers.... Oh, wait, that's Malcanthet.

Yes, but imagin the diplomacy check to get to see her rings... *EG*

Great! I never knew that! Now I can get that second suit of full plate!

If I allowed this, I'd have PC's that looked like Homeless people wearing 6 cloaks, four helms and six suits of armor.

Just hand the mercs some red shirts and be done with it.

I agree with the other posters that there are better ways of dealing with these spells than outright banning them. As the hamster says above, taking away Fly is a massive handicap against flying foes - I've had party members die in otherwise equal or even easy encounters because they couldn't get airborne. And what it so bad about Greater Invisibility - there are several ways of dealing with this, as pointed out on these boards.

While I know this is a consensual agreement between players and DM, taking this approach on a published module designed with these approaches in mind could go very badly. There's gritty, and then there is simply unfair.

And there are ALOT of flying foes, especially when you get to the abyss. I think this ban could lead you to a TPK unless your PC find a way to compensate.

Thanks Greg. Well, that's the thing. What if the mass market player didn't happen to choose those spells? Wouldn't it be better to include multiple solutions to encounters?

I guess you run into the issue of potential wasted effort on the writer's part. I mean, if the writer writes a cool encounter on a thin bridge in an ancient dwarven mine, and the players just say "er, no big deal: we cast Fly and go over it", then that's not very fun. :)

Speaking of LotR, man, D&D spells would ruin that whole book.

Bilbo: "Hey Gandalf! Check out my ring!"
Gandalf: "Let me see.. hm..." [Identify, Legend Lore.] This is no ordinary ring! It is The One Ring!"
Bilbo: "That's bad, right? How do we destroy it?"
Gandalf: [Divination] "We need to take it Mt. Doom." [Scry] "Looks like the coast is clear." [Teleport, toss].
Bilbo: "Well, I'm glad that's over."

Not nearly as much as if the remembered the eagles, and flew the damn thing to the mountain. The books could have been a short story.

Add a polymorphed Dragon into the population of Farshore, That's what I did. I had her disguised as a sorceress, who knew various bits of lore. You can put her working with the Elf Vesarin, or make her a friend of Atwaddle. Just keep her in the background during the seige, otherwise you can tip the ballance too far in your player favor.

Thanks for the input everyone. IT's definitly a freak. I can't wait to see how my players do.

What does Obox Ob look like? I've been reading through Enemies of my enemy, and I haven't found a physical description. Granted, there is ALOT to digest in this modual, so I could have just missed it. Can anyone help me out?

Who do they think they are, Gwar or something?

I'll hook them all up with a Bigby's b&*!@-slap.

Watch what you say about The Scum Dogs of the Universe. There are Bohabs in the room. ;)

Nick Cage should walk around with his head on fire all the time. The movie was like Forest Gump as Ghostrider. It was crap.

If you don't want the PCs to fight the "real" Demogorgon, why not end the campaign at Tides of Dread? At this point, they've already beaten their first "Aspect" of Demogorgon (actually a construct, but they don't know that) and killed the recurring villain that's been making trouble the entire campaign. They've just got their first epic-style powers and can raise the dead, teleport across the world, or slay hundreds of enemies in five minutes.

If you go on, they go from being epic in power to being basically superheroes, and I would think that killing an "Aspect" of Demogorgon would get thin after the eighth time you do it with the same characters. Killing demon lords has always been a part of D&D; remember that Lolth only had 66hp in 1E and could be one-shotted by any fifteenth-level magic-user. Demon lords and gods could chew up low-level characters however they pleased, but if you made it to the top they had to take notice.

It does not bother me that at the very end of the game, PCs might be able to face the real Demogorgon. If they can't interact with him, why does he even exist in the game? What was the point of leveling up at all and holding back Demogorgon's minions at every turn if you're still a weak loser at the very end, and all you can do is run away?

Nothing wrong with retiring characters at the end of a plot cycle. Some people just don't like high-level play, and if you're one of them, why even try? Just start over at the level you do like.

My concern isn't that they fight Demogorgon, My problem is that my players have interacted with him as a high level entity on a an epic level campaign about a year before STAP came out. At epic level, the group got pounded, and only got away with the help of a high level artifact that banished him. This is pretty fresh in their minds still, and they keep bringing it up. The players are truely affraid to fight him. If this group walks in and has a cake walk, they're going to be pissed about the other fight. That's my concern, and why I will have to see how it is written. I want the last game to be a challenge, not a TPK.

I know I'm not happy at the thought of loosing Demogorgon in my world. I've used him a few times in games, and the image that I've always conveyed was "Run away!" The stats that I've used are ten times what they are in Dragon, because I wanted the thought of fighting him to be kinda like fighting Boccob or Mystra in spell battle.
WHen I get the last adventure, I'll have to see how it looks. If it pushes the PC's into a stand up fight with him, I'll have to make some changes. Honestly I think that disrupting the ritual should be the high point. Getting away with your life is the reward.

What level? Who knows? (My players would say Epic.) I kill an average of three PCs a session, even when I'm running Epic Level Games.

office_ninja wrote:

I just restatted the orlath. It's pretty terrifying with just two levels of fighter, taking Improved Multiweapon Fighting and Greater Multiweapon Fighting. 39 attacks per round FTW!

Sure, you can do that, but why on earth would you want to? The thing is irritating enough to run as is.

To see the look of terror on your players faces when you roll fifty D20's at a time. (We use a plastic tumbler, like a yatzee shaker from hell!) I mean, why else would we buy all those pretty dice?

So, beef him up. Add an amulet to his gear that radiates negative energy, turning him into a super death knight (Use the words elite or advanced, this seems to equal higher hit points for any monster.) ALso use it to give him a high regeneration (20 or 30 HT PTs per round). WHen my players fought Vanthus, I added a thousand hit points to him cause at 100 HT pts, he wouldn't have lasted one round with one of my players (Nevermind that my dice hate Vanthus, and rolled for him like he was trying to jump on his enemie's sword!)

Ok, my two coppers on this is as follows: If any parent truely believes that their child isn't being exposed to language far worse than this, you are dilusional. I remember how Myself and my friends talked when we were EIGHT! and getting on to a child about their language teaches them one thing: Don't cuss in front of me!
This backwards morality is what sickens me about our culture. It's Ok to slaughter the goblin vilage down to the last child, just don't step in cow $#!+ when you do? Children are exposed to graphic violence all the time, but Gods forbid someone show a breast at the superbowl or the whole frigging world comes to a halt! (And I was watching that Superbowl. the flash happened so fast, I wasn't even sure I saw it. Thankfully we have a useless Media that replayed it like it was the towers falling for two F***ing weeks!)
If you children aren't mature enough to deal with profanity, then they sure the hell aren't mature enough to deal with the violence. If you don't want your kids to read Dragon, hey, how about you try something novle and be a parent! It's your job to filter what you child reads, not societys.

I'm going to go take a hot shower now, and see if I can get the vein in my head to stop throbbing.

One word: Prozac.

I find myself agreeing with you... The Nine Hells are surely freezing over. *Grin*

I really miss Kobolds that look like Dogs, as opposed to these lizard things from 3.5. Kobold's speaking Draconic? It's absurd. Gotta change them back. maybe even go more Champions of Norath, or Shuikoden with them.

"Ninty nine Goblins with spears on the wall. Ninty nine Goblins with spears. You knock one down, you kick him around, Ninty eight Goblins with spears on the wall..." Oh wait, you meant songs for the Goblins to sing? My bad.

Is it just me or do I feel a Touch of 'Kobolds ate my Baby' in these new goblins? Maybe a hint of Darklings from 'The Darkness' Comic Book? I love it! This is how I've played my Goblins for years!

Scuttlecove, hands down. It has to be the most twisted setting Dungeon has ever put out. It gives me a warm fuzzy.

I have to go Old School- Warduke (Venger wasn't on the list.)

Has Dungeon ever done Venger from the old D&D cartoon as a Critical Threat? If not, Maybe food for thought in these final issues?

I Really wanted to Say thanks to the Paizo staff for having their plan in place before announcing the end of the two magazines. Emotions are running high about this, I know I'm one of the ones pissed at Wizards, but the transition would be that much worse if I wasn't looking forward to seeing what you guys have planned for Pathfinder. I've been playing for 22yrs and Dungeon and Dragon Magazines have always been there. I'm not happy about the loss, and Wizards response to questions about it have been less than inspiring. But with Pathfinder at least we know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you.

I've been trying to find an E-mail address for the Colbert Report to see if we can get Wizards put 'On Notice' On his show. I think it would be pretty funny, and given that Colbert himself is a self admited gamer, he might go for it. Any thoughts? Or better yet, Does anyone know the E-mail. I've tried Comedycentral.com, and thecolbertnation.com. (Colbert Nation I can't get to load. Comedy central has a link to the other site.)

The main question I have, and the question that was never addressed, was this: why can't a Paizo print product AND a WOTC net product peacefully coexist? If the internet can theoretically reach so many more people, what threat to that cash flow is a print magazine or two?

I don't see how the two formats are mutually exclusive.

The answer is Money.

Like it says in my profile, I hate everyone, don't take it personally.

Dude, the next time you see one of my post, do us both a favor and scroll right past it. It will save us both the stress.

Blackdragon wrote:

Does my experience make me more qualified than the people at WoTC? Damn right it does!

I don't really buy that either. These people will be game obsessives. They will ahve played loads. And they get to do it all day, everyday, because it is their job. So I suspect a certain amount of hubris in that comment. I find very little of the stuff coming out of WotC is particularly unbalanced, in my humble (no doubt, lesser than yours) experience, and an awful lot of knee-jerking to stuff on the boards.

My reacting isn't 'Knee Jerk', my reaction come because I own a buisness, and I know to listen to what my customers want. The custome decided what is right or wrong based on what they buy. I could care less it WoTC Playtests or not. It doesn't change the fact that most of the people I've talked to aren't impressed with their work. Also given that Hasbro is the parent company of WoTC, I somehow doubt that the execs over there get to sit around and play games as opposed to having other people playtesting for them. Don't assume that because Paizo spends so much time playtesting (WHich shows in the quality of their games) that Wizards does too.

Paizo, you clearly made a mark with your publication of the mags though. Specifically your Adventure Paths. Before those, not many of my friends really talked about Dungeon adventures with any real seriousness.

You're right about that. The Adventure Paths have set the bar pretty high for game moduals. And from what I've seen of WoTC's prepackaged games, they aren't even in the same league (I'm not sure they're even playing the same game.)

Balabanto wrote:

Well, Sebastian, I run 4-5 games a week plus about 5 pickup games that occur infrequently. I have more GMing experience than most people will ever acquire in their lifetimes. I'm 37 years old. I'm a VERY conservative gamer compared to a lot of the people that are out there.

So, are you playtesting in those sessions, or does the above experience make you more qualified and informed on game balance than the people who consider that topic 40 hours a week, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, and also run, participate in, and enjoy games on the side. Maybe you could get a job at WotC since you know so much. They'd probably be at least as impressed by your experience as I am.

You don't have to work in the industry to recognise CRAP! It's high handed to imply that because we don't make our living at D&D, we can't tell if it's good or bad. I've been playing 22yrs, and I've seen some cool stuff come out of D&D, and I say this reluctantly, due to the fact that I've never converted to 3.0 or 3.5 (I have most of the books, but we read them and decided to stick with 2ED and convert the things from 3.5 that we liked.) The Epic Level Handbook was great, as was Book of Vile Darkness, but as Balabanto said, most of what WoTC has put out has been alot of fluff and no hard content. THeir moduals are no deeper that they were with TSR. And this new format (Delve?) It looks like it was written for children (Which in my guess it was.)The push has been to make D&D less of a roleplaying game, and more of a traditional boardgame. The bottome line is Money!

Does my experience make me more qualified than the people at WoTC? Damn right it does! That's why I don't buy anything of theirs that I can't read first (Thanks to the chairs in Barns and Nobles. Companies go out of business all the time because they don't understand what their customers want. How do I prove that I know more than WoTC? I don't buy the crap that they put out. I wait until something comes out that proves it's good. Usually through word of mouth on this board.

I imagine the format also places some limits on the sorts of adventures you can run (for example, it seems to discourage open-ended and role-play-heavy adventures, at least from what I've seen so far).

That was my take on it too. I bought Cormyr and it felt like it was a modual writen for a 10 yr old. almost no roleplay, not much in the way of a challenge, and I think I could run it in a single 4 hr session. Not inspiring.

Everytime something under open licence starts to make money, WoTC pulls it's licence and tries to take it in house to cut out the middle man. The problem is that they are bordeline incompetent. I bought the WoTC modual Cormyr. It has content comparable to a short Dungeon modual, at close to $30!
WoTC is owned by Hasbro, and Hasbro doesn't care about us, what we want, or what's best for the game! It is all about profit margins! Once they think that they've bled out all the money that they can with 3.5, they will revamp D&D into something new to force players to buy another whole new system Again!
While I might not agree with everything Paizo does, or like everything they put out, The company is run by gamers, and they GET IT! They know what it's like to be a gamer, and have a real passion for the game. And it means alot to us. I'll continue to support Paizo with my money, and to The Nine Hells with Wotc!

Please tell me I'm counting right, the last part of Savage Tide comes out in the last issue of Dungeon, Right?

Hey, do you guys think that you could time the Ecologies in Dragon a little better? The Kopru Came out the Month AFTER lightless Depths, and the Devourer A month later. It would have been nice if the Kopru one had been in sync.

Blackdragon wrote:

Does it really matter what invisiable being's name your killing people in?

Yes, it does.

This is what Jesus said to me:

"Soldier, you are content with what you are. Then that you shall remain until we meet again. As I go now to my Father, you must one day come to me" - Jesus Christ to Casca (in Casca: The Eternal Mercenary)

I probably shouldn't have put that spear into his side.

Rotflmao

I think that Cannibalisim is very subjective. I doubt a dragon sees eating an attacking knight as 'Cannibalisim'. More like lunch. Trueborn Werebeasts see sentient creatures as cattle. They can be nice to their food, they can make friends with their food, but it doesn't change the fact that their still food. I wouldn't see it as any more revolting then having a cow as a pet. If you get hungry enough, it stops being a pet.
I think that alot of the views that I'm seeing on Cannibalism comes from a very human, not in the game world view, of right and wrong. In a fantasy setting, there are lots of creatures that will eat sentient flesh without a thought, and without it being an evil act, because it is simply their nature and the creature is simply their prey.

You already listed Mystara and Bane. Before I go on listing others, you might want to check out this thread, over on WotC's boards.

The only 3e template I know of, other than those you listed, is the Chosen of Deneir (Cadderly, for example). It's available from WotC's site.

There are other Chosen in the Realms:
-Chosen of Azuth (referred to obliquely in the Magister entry in Magic of Faerun)
-Chosen of Bane (Fzoul Chembryl)
-Chosen of Cyric (Malik el Sami yn Nasser)
-Chosen of Eilistraee (Qilue Veladorn)
-Chosen of Labelas Enoreth (Vartan Hai Sylver)
-Chosen of Mask (Avner of Hartsvale)
-Chosen of Silvanus, Eldath, and Mielikki (the Emerald Enclave)
-Chosen of Talona (The Rotting Man)
-Chosen of Ubtao (Alisanda Rayburton, Dhlamass Rayburton, Ras Nsi, Fipya, Kwalu, Mainu, Ossaw I)
-Chosen of Umberlee (Slarkrethel)

You forgot: Erevis Cale Chosen of Mask, Drasek Riven Chosen of Mask and Rivalen Chosen of Shar. Also don't forget the Martyrs Progeny of Torm (the children of the followers the sacrificed themselves a Tantra so that Torm could defeat Bane.

Does it really matter what invisiable being's name your killing people in?

DMaple wrote:

You are forgetting the jailbait cabin "boy" ... Tavey Nesk, who is obviously pretending to be a boy ... look at the picture in #142 and tell me I'm not right.

Tavey's definately a boy. He looks just like Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Tom Sawyer. Of course now that I say that, everyone's probably going to have him eaten by dinosaurs just to erase the image.

Everyone in my group thought he looked like a young Anakin Skywalker. I turned him into Darth Vader during the seige of Farshore, and he managed to kill the teams captain. (HE turned traitor on the group and sabotaged alot of the islands defenses.)

James Jacobs wrote:

And yes. This is possibly the best thread title ever.

Thanks! But you're not off the hook with that pin-up calendar that easy!

GAAAHHHH wrote:

Orcus? Cheescake? That's just wrong...

The only time "Orcus" and "cheesecake" would be found in the same sentence would be if he was shoving another slice of triple fudge caramel ripple down his Abyssal gullet, the fat bastard. That's why he's "Prince of the Undead", and not "Prince of the Unfed".

Obviously you haven't seen the new and improved Orcus in the Book of Vile Darkness. It looks like he been on the South Beach diet and has a personal trainer now. Six pack abs and all.

Well then you could tell the Protectorate to leave the city, you could kill everthing in Scuttlecover that is CR9 or above, destory all of the boats stoping the food and the drugs, start a huge fire in the city that destroys half of the city, get rid all of the wrecked boats infront of the city and invite an army from several of the cities in the surrounding area and then teleport part of the army into the the Scuttlecove Palace and have the rest in boats.

By no means am I say this is logical, I'm just saying this is a possibility.

And in the end, Scuttlecove will be no better off, because your PC's will be no better that what they have overthrown. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

If my PC's attempted this, they would find the entire city turned against them, including some super high powered monsters and NPCs that were running the show behind the scenes. Pcs have to know that they're not the top of the food chain. otherwise they get cocky.