So then, what is the approximate word count for a critical threat submission, does that include stat blocks, can you introduce new items in a critical threat, and are there any "banned" races, creatures, templates or combinations? Just asking, you understand ...
M
I'm wondering about this too. I want to submit at least one Critical Threat idea but the guidelines are extremely vague on content and I don't have access to any back issues with previous installments. I'm afraid my submssion will end up looking like a short adventure.
Critical Threats are limited to 1250 words. Include stat blocks in the count. If you use anything from non-core books or new material, they must be explained sufficiently to allow someone with only the core books to use the Critical Threat. Only use material from WotC books unless you have advance approval (unlikely) from a Dungeon editor.
- Ashavan
Creative Director
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What Koldoon said.
And keep in mind, that 1250 word limit is a hard limit. Which is one of the reasons Critical Threats are so tough to pull off. Generally, they're mid- to high-level, and a stat block can often eat up 500 words all on its own. That doesn't leave much for the rest.
And that's on purpose. A critical threat isn't an adventure. It's a single NPC that fills a specific niche in a standard D&D world, be that the "shadowy assassin" or "cult leader" or "bounty hunter" or "corrupt merchant." If your NPC is so complex that you find yourself unable to present him/her/it in 1250 words, that means the NPC needs to be the focus of an adventure.
Critical Threats are also the easiest part of the magazine to get bumped to "next issue" when adventures run long. And adventures are always running long. We're trying to find a way to get Critical Threats back into the magazine with regularity, though. It's just taking a bit of time.
Awhile back, before Erik became uber-munchkin at Paizo, y'all had some really pretty guidelines done up that explained all the sections really well. Did I mention it was pretty? Whatever happened to them? It's now become a rather bland looking 22 pages of text. The other one was much prettier...
The guidelines aren't supposed to be pretty... they're supposed to be informative.
Which is another way of saying we had more time and resources to prettify the guidelines back then, when the magazine was bimonthly.
Heh, I was tired so I didn't quite get the gist across that I wanted to. What I meant to say was that the old guidelines had sections for each type of article and explained pretty much exactly, and in detail, what was needed and wanted for each.
It seems that that has been either condensed, or re-written and somewhat lost in the blandness of the text. As you well know, formatting isn't just to prettify stuff, it also serves the purpose of highlighting and seperating topics so that dumb people can understand them too. Although, you'd probably not say the dumb bit and be nice and diplomatic. I understand, it's a limitation of your job :D