WotC has posted some explanation about the new Warlord class as well as posted the entirety of the class and some examples of Warlord builds. This gives a pretty good glimpse of how a class and it’s abilities in 4e are structured.

Read it all here.

It seems that ENWorld’s previous owner is fed up with all the D&D edition wars that have been spawning in their forums since the advent of 4th edition. As a result, he’s sold the site to Diaglo, one of the more prodigious and well-respected forum goers. As a result, the site is now called Diaglo’s OD&D News. I, for one, welcome the change. After our recent playing of AD&D 1e, I think we should cast off the shackles of these newer editions. I know in the post about Wizards’ I said I welcomed the new changes to 4e and 3.5e, but I’ve had a few minutes to think about it and I prefer AD&D 1e. So we’re playing that.

I think this list of the top 10 reasons that OD&D (in it’s various forms) is the only real edition we need:

10. It smells better.

9. 3 paperback books are a lot easier to carry around than 15 hardback tomes.

8. No krazeee flying-kick halfling monk half-dragon warriors.

7. Once the magic-user has cast his spell, the player can go home.

6. People who pick pockets and locks are called thieves.

5. Nobody has ever heard of grappling rules – and don’t notice the lack.

4. Ancient dragons have fewer hit points than a 1st level 4E character.

3. Arbitrary rules are just part of the mystery.

2. Graph paper.

1. Nobody ever made it into a computer game.

I like the new look, myself. I find it to be a good homage to the days of yore for D&D. I especially like the article on Gnomes. I think they’ll fit Eberron much better as they are now. Also, the Halfling article is long overdue. I don’t know how I feel about the new playable race, though. What do you guys think?

You can check it out for yourself here.

You might also want to check this article on Errata for 3.5e. I think we’ll use it for the upcoming Eberron game to make it more like 4e.

UPDATE: Here are a few more articles. One is a naming contest, which is interesting. The other is regarding some pretty big changes to the miniatures line. Changes I think we could incorporate for our Eberron game.

Ok so there seems to be a lot of interest for Call of Cthulhu. That being said and the fact we will be mostly in person. I will be doing some scans and we will be playing Horror on the Orient Express. This puppy has been waiting for some use. So I will sort through it all and pull it together and keep people posted. So if EVERYONE who is possibly interested in this can please make a character by end of next week please send them in to me. Use Byakhee character generator. Feel free to send then to me. I think you can send me the Byakhee characters in which case I can print out.

- For those in attendance bring a binder for lots of handouts
- Everyone being focused on being in character, feel free to e-mail me your ideas if your not sure.

Unfortunately Marie is in need of a quiet home tonight as she had a project dropped on her and only has tonight and tomorrow night to accomplish this. Unfortunately my brother in law is still at home so I cannot move the net connection or Marie to another room till he moves out. All that to say I am forcefully unavailable tonight.

However I am free this weekend as Marie is in Montreal to classes. So there is that option. Though everyone can feel free to play online tonight through skype and hopefully Apr 1st we will have this sort of thing fixed up

So yeah some of you may have heard Ravenloft in passing last night as Curtis was making a character for it. If people can do the same that would be great as I would like some time to go over them and see what I can come up with. There is something I would like though before people start writing up their Ravenloft backgrounds. That is your not from Ravenloft. You are a group of random strangers who were travelling on a boat many miles off the Sword Coast. I will fill in the blanks with a nice writeup but I want being on the demiplane of dread to be a NEW experience. We will be using Hereos of Horror and all rules found within. I am still going over it myself but all seems to check out. Option to house rule, etc can be taken if need be. So just to keep thing in point form for the text impaired

- Characters are from the Realms
- Heroes of Horror being used as the rules book
- Have backup characters in mind or done as well (No punches, you WILL all die at some point by myself or each other)

Well believe it or not after about 20 minutes of testing we managed to get the mic working really good (so we think) with… Ventrillo! Yup, Curt did not cut out, we are all coming in more clear, people are not deaf and we all talked at once with much silliness and all without breaks.

The continent of Khorvaire, within which most of Eberron’s adventures take place, has just seen the end of nearly a century of warfare. The nations which once formed a kingdom that spanned the continent were embroiled in a bitter struggle for succession in which there was, in the end, no victor. Now these nations are independent sovereign territories who have held an uneasy peace with each other since the Last War ended two years ago. New nations have sprung up in the course of the Last War, and others have lost territory or been obliterated entirely, so tensions still run high, and nobody truly knows if peace will last.

Here’s some info that might be handy to read before we start our Eberron campaign. It’s not too long, and it does a good job of explaining the basics. I’d really appreciate it if people could take a few minutes and read this. It’ll make it that much easier for everyone to get into the game when we start.

Read it here.

So here I am, sitting at my desk this morning, still grinning ear to ear. I had SO much fun last night. It’s been awhile since I’ve run anything (since last September or so, actually), so it’s really great to have had the opportunity to run the game last night. I get the impression everyone else had alot of fun too, and that makes me happy to hear.

Thanks everyone for making it happen and really getting into it. It was probably the most fun I’ve had in a D&D game in years. I really truly mean that.

I figure that if people want to and are available, we can play any time between now and the next regularly scheduled session time (ie, between today and next Thursday). Just make sure you’re on Skype if you’re available so we can all get an idea of who’s around at any time.

Furthermore, I’m going to flesh out the last floor of the dungeon and see if any monsters have moved into the rooms you guys have cleared thus far. Who knows what’ll be lurking in the shadows when you guys head back down into the dungeons of Castle Zagyg!

Also, if this AD&D thing becomes relatively regular, I might consider getting the Castles and Crusades rules. It’s like 1e AD&D, but with some of the logical improvements from d20 (ie: AC goes up, no more Thac0, etc). Then of course there’s OSRIC as well. But for now I’m pretty happy with the AD&D 1e rules as they are. Besides, I don’t imagine this campaign being our mainstay, or anything, just a fun little jaunt into the past.

I look forward to the next foray into the dungeon, TPK or not!

You arrive at a small town by a large lake. Down a road, there is a yellow Victorian house with an American flag. There are revelers here. They stand on the front lawn swilling ale and eating from bountiful plates of ham and beans. They invite you to join their assembly.

As you approach, however, something catches your attention: a strange buzzing sound in the air. It’s coming from the tiny winged beasts that are hanging from the trees, crawling along the ground, and crashing clumsily against you. “Cicadas,” explains your host, a heavyset man with a gray ponytail and thick glasses that magnify his eyes. “It’s a good thing they don’t have mandibles.” Then, quite cordially, he invites you inside his house to play a game.

I haven’t read much of it yet, but it’s good so far.

Check it out here.

Alright, I hate to derail all the hard work you guys all did getting ready for Eberron. Hold onto those characters we WILL be starting it relatively soon. However, in light of yesterdays events, it only seems fitting that we finally put on those old musty boots and trudge down into a dank dungeon in honour of the man who started it all. Originally, I considered running White Box D&D (the original original) much like Gary himself ran up until January of this very year. But upon further consideration, it seems more reasonable in this short order to play AD&D 1st Edition instead. We never really played it in the past, having started with 2nd Edition, but I think it only right that we play this one.

If possible, it’d be best if you all gathered at Carl’s to make characters (Thursday, perhaps?). The only books you will need to use are the Player’s Handbook, and optionally some stuff from Unearthed Arcana. I haven’t parsed through the books yet to pick out anything I want to avoid, but I figure we’ll use pretty much everything.

Here are the guidelines:

• Level 1
• Roll your ability scores using 4d6 (drop the lowest), arranged in any order. You must keep these scores unless the AVERAGE (add em all up, divide by 6) is less than 10, then you may reroll. I originally thought it was just 3d6, but this method is actually Method 1 in the DMG, much to my surprise.
• Pick your class based on the scores you get and what the group needs.
• Roll 1st level HP, take whatever you get.
• We play until there’s a TPK or until the adventure is complete.
• Disregard everything concerning races in Unearthed Arcana. Use all the race stuff in the PHB only.

I will see about making my own adventure for this. Dungeon map on graph paper and everything. It will be awesome.

Well the night was a success. People got their characters done and should hopefully be making it digital soon and sending it off to Curt. It went slow as we had only one set of core books. So just a note to the guys that you can bring your core books or any other useful books down. Much like the days of Curts basement, just put your name on it and take it or leave it at your pleasure.

So I did research on Mics and found 2 omni directional ones for the cheap. So going to purchase one. They are roughly $10 – $20. So I will buy one and ask people to contribute to the cost since it is for us all. I doubt it will be much of an issue but do not want to dish on everything.

Food I recommend people bring common snacks. Not a grocery list mind you but do not be shy to bring stuff for others to enjoy. I will find a place that will be specific for game night food. Saves Neil bringing a huge bag lol

So yeah I will test this omni mic (if I can find it today locally) with Curt just to make sure it is a go for that.

Aside from that I have plans if people are good for attendance and participation for this particular game for an alternate game (other night or same but w/rotation).

So I got to thinking at work when looking at 4th Edition books online and reading the reviews Curt had posted. It has come to my attention that what is the point? What is the point of playing if nobody is availabe, or when people are they putt around the internet half paying attention while the few who take it seriously only get so much enjoyment. Now we have all done this and I count myself no different. In fact my schedule has always been wonky. But then I got to thinking some more.

If I am taking a day a week to see people in person or spending a few hours every few days to play WoW then why the hell can I not take the time to play D&D. Just playing WoW I have been able to play with Curt, catch up, talk to Chris, do some questing together and having a good time. So why can we not do that with D&D? The idea pool is not dry as their are constant campaign suggestions.

Why go to GenCon even apart from the coolness factor?

When was indeed the last time that 2, 3 or 4+ of us got together and slayed a dragon. Not coming to you? Me neither

Well that is going to change folks. You may have noticed my responses in the 4th ed rule book thread. Cause personally I would play 20 hours of D&D rather then a game of WoW or AoC. So the gears continued to go.

Now personally if I was Curt I would be down that most games got a handful of characters in or none at all and not want to run much of anything. But I say we do the good man who takes his time to prepare all this stuff for us the time it takes to give him what he needs to make an awesome game.

So with that in mind I suggested we do a game where we are explorers investigating a cavern which we think is ruins of some sort. From there game goes on, no worrying about meeting, back to basics. Game would take place in Eberron as Realms is getting a 4th Ed overhaul. Thing in mind for the game

- Every thursday 7 – 11 (4 hours)
- We play with whoever is there though I would like if we could get a 75% attendance record. If you cannot make it and loose out on cool things (tough shit)

A concept I read about and would like to try is buying a $20 audio mic for omni directional recording for voices. This is so we can conferance from a single location to Curt over Skype. This means that we can group up together and play without being seperated so to speak. Because distractions, internet surfing, even playing video games has occurred and then people ask questions like what happened for the past 15 min while. So for others and Curt it can be insulting and annoying.

Also we can keep books in a single location, kinda get that frat house spirit of gaming again.

So far those I have contacted this afternoon and are down with said schedule are:
Neil, John, Curt (obviously), myself and even Clifford

Clifford is available only if we can do the conferance thing though since he is still sans internet.

Everyone is over tonight so characters shall be made!

Edit: Oh noes, the spellingz!!!

Massawrym on Ain’t It Cool News wrote this sizeable, 3-part, D&D 4e review that’s a pretty interesting read with some very intriguing tidbits about the game and how it plays now. Check it out.

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

D&D Experience started yesterday (it’s a D&D-focused convention) and tons of information about D&D 4e is spewing forth. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve found most interesting:

•  Mike Shea on ENWorld has been liveblogging the event from the start and has picked up some interesting tidbits.
• You can see high quality versions of the demonstration character sheets on this Picasa album.
• GamerZero has posted videos from the presentations of the show.
• There’s more on the ENWorld mainpage, including a picture of the Kobold Skirmisher stats.

So far I really like what I’m seeing. It looks like characters and monsters start with alot more HP and do alot more damage from the outset, but things don’t drastically change over the course of levelling up by the sounds of it, so it’s easier to maintain balance. I can’t wait to see what else people find out.

Check out this neat little Planescape comic tucked away on the Wizards site. Judging by the (lack of) design and the old-style D&D logo on the bottom, I’d imagine this is from way back in the days of 2nd Edition and Wizards is just preserving it for posterity. Or something.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnD_PS_Index.asp?Page=1