Wednesday 13 August 2014

Free Drizzt audio book? O.o

Quite the amazing find. Wizards is really going all out with their birthday of DND celebrations

http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/Free-The-Legend-of-Drizzt-The-Collected-Stories-Audiobook/B00M9AUY1Y

The Legend of Drizzt: The Collected Stories expands upon the epic legend of the dark elf with 12 tales performed by the all-star cast of Felicia Day, Dan Harmon, Greg Grunberg, Tom Felton, Danny Pudi, Sean Astin, Melissa Rauch, Ice-T, Wil Wheaton, Al Yankovic, Michael Chiklis, and David Duchovny!

Monday 11 August 2014

First game with the players handbook

Well my players did not want to finish the Starter set module and wanted to get their new full players handbook characters rolled up badly so off we were to the races.

in my group everyone had bought a players handbook so 4 players with 5 PHB at the table.

1 hour later everyone had a character ready to go. We ended up with two high elves, one a fighter and one a wizard, a half elf bard and a wood elf rogue. Lot of fwefwe at the table O.o

I took their back stories and wove them together into one. They were quickly confused to find themselves starting out at the ruins of a caravan they had survived an attack by 60 red cloaked riders the night prior. following the trail they found themselves arriving at Phandelver :o

While tracking down some of the red cloaks they found their old characters had been killed and zombified. Many fights later we came across one situation where a player tried to drag a fellow out of a hole away from enemy skeletons and then claiming there should be no attacks of opportunity because "forced moves no AOO". no way I was going to let that fly because it opens up waaaaay to much opportunity for using push the enemy effects to stop AOO for party members.

the game system played robust. fun and fast. 5th edition is the game system to take us back to tension and fun in a game. A player can be killed in any combat there is once again risk and reward and that "HELL YAH!" moments when players overcome something dangerous and feel some real accomplishment.


Friday 8 August 2014

Free content for DND5e

today wizards posted a supplement for the Hoard of the dragon queen module. This also serves as a boon of magic items, spells and monsters for your dungeons and dragons game.

Included are 12 magic items, 58 monsters and 35 spells. Interestingly this supliment also includes enough beasts that the ranger and druid classes in the PHB are helped along and can now use stats for creatures such as the Elk and Stirge.

http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/HoardDragonQueen_Supplement1.pdf

Thursday 7 August 2014

found something very interesting in the hoard of the dragon queen

Supplements: you can play this adventure with just the basic rules and the tyranny of dragons appendix online, which contains all the monsters and magic items not described in this book. Both supplements are available free downloads from dungeonsanddragons.com

guess we will have something to download tomorrow :D


Character advancement: Optional rule Milestone experience rule. under this rule you pick certain events in the campaign that cause the characters to level up. in hoard of the dragon queen the characters level up after completing each episode except episode 5

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?357793-Finally/page89#ixzz39l7mkN00

Wednesday 6 August 2014

Hoard of the Dragon Queen.



Firstly the Classic heavy stock paper and beautiful printing feels like it will stand up amazingly to play sessions for years. I really like that they printed on this classic non glossy paper and still included all the color tints to make it look fabulous.

The magic items, monsters and new background template really fit in with the feel of the module. The background gives players a real connection to the events of the game so its definitely work looking at.

 The background template is an add on to existing backgrounds to add in a possible new feature and some background events that tie directly into this module so if your playing this module its useful but if not its not needed.

The maps are beautifully done pieces by Jared Blando. https://twitter.com/TheRedEpic

Reading over the module I note that they have used a mode classic pre 4th ed design. Monsters in the back and rooms in the front. This give back soe economy of space and let them pack in more material for sure. This is something that always bothered me about 4th edition so I was very glad to see this format back.

The magic items, without getting into spoilers, include 2 legendary, 1 uncommon and 1 rare. The items give a real "WOW COOL" factor.

There have been plenty of sales promo materials written up about the product so I dont see much point in rehashing that angle of this product. I will say that Kobold Press has done a great job with this and I think wizards made a great choice going with them.

Look what was in a shipping package on my door too early :D

Firstly the formatting, fonts and graphics are AMAZING. the new materials I am reading for the first time keep putting me into a jaw drooped amazed and excited to play state of mind. 

One of the things I have been most curious about has been the new feats. getting to choose your stat gains or a feat is a pretty major decision in my mind so the feats better be pretty good. Well my goodness are they ever.

Feat: Skilled - Proficiency in any combination of three skills or tools of your choice. 

WHOW that's awesome. three not one? yes please :o

Feat: Spell Sniper - When you cast spells that require an attack roll the range is doubled. Your ranged spells ignore cover. You learn an extra attack cantrip.

Geezus yes please once more my goodness thats awesome. Or you could have had +2 to the prime stat and a +1/+1 hit and damage? hmmm these feats are actually tough choices now and really define a character. 

Polearm master for example you get to use a bonus action to smack someone with the butt of your weapon after each attack AND get an AOO whenever someone ENTERS your reach.

ok enough about feats as exciting as they are.

Multiclass COMBINES your various spell casting classes and gives you a POOL of spell slots you can cast spells from all your spell casting classes using those. so you may have 4 first level spells from 2 classes prepared and 4 spell slots of 1st level and 2 of second level for example. so you can cast your first level spells 6 times with 2 of them being over cast as 2nd level spells.

Nice balance I must say.

Background provide you with some skill and tool proficiencies as well as some starting equipment AND some nice suggestions for roll play traits. Reading over a background can give you so many ideas for a character. I was unsure about the whole background thing before but after helping 4 people roll up characters I have to say I am convinced now.

And the classes. My goodness the classes.

Bards that dont suck? Monks that are cool? Sorcerers with WILD magic surges? Totemic barbarians? Drow elves that feel like second edition? my gawd I think we need to start playing longer games each week for a bit.

Then I found the gods section in the back. Not huge it has the forgoten realm gods on a list and greyhawk? whow cool wait its also got eberron? AND dragonlance? holy cow wait whats this? more? nonhuman gods? historical pantheons? OMG its got Celtic, Greek, Egyptian and Norse gods listed?

the great wheel PLUS a feywild and shadowfella nd the positive and negative plains back?

... and finaly 8 pages of monsters? ogm wizards of the coast we love you guys.

next I will be reading the hoard of the dragon queen and totally looking forward to it