Adventurer’s Vault 2 Preview
Today Wizards of the Coast released a playtest for the next Adventurer's Vault due out late next year and we get a look at two new types of items, Magical Tattoos and Orbs of Sequestered Conflict.
Magical tattoos grant a variety of different bonuses but generally react when you use action points, healing surges or become bloodied. For example, the Backlash Tattoo allows you to make a basic attack the first time you are bloodied as an immediate reaction. The Escape Tattoo allows you to teleport three squares after being damaged by a critical hit. I find these types of items very interesting and can have lots of fun with them as a DM. Imagine instead of opening a chest and finding treasure, a bright light flashes and the PC who opened it is branded with this tattoo. You could even develop some nasty ones that cause negative effects (insert evil DM laugh here) until the tattoo is removed through a disenchant ritual.
The next type of item is called a Orb of Sequestered Conflict and allows the PCs to teleport all nearby creatures into the orb, either to battle or converse in seclusion. This could possibly ruin an encounter that you painstakingly created the environment for, so as a DM you need to be careful about handing these out or place restrictions on their usage. Maybe by having the orb glow softly in a situation it can be used, this would allow you to "turn it off" in special situations. Currently these orbs are detailed in the preview with specific terrain features and they are accompanied by crude drawings of what the terrain should look like. I sure hope these are just temporary and are replaced by real map drawings.
That's about it for this preview/playtest, two new interesting types of items and dozen or so examples. Give them a try and report back to WotC to offer feedback and suggestions. Overall what do you think of these items?
What’s On Your Holiday Wish List
There are so many RPG books, novels, comics, video games, DVDs, etc. competing for your holiday dollars. Usually I just end up buying everything when it comes out and my wife always complains she has nothing to buy me. So this year I'm holdin' back (sort of) and just putting everything on my wish list.
What items are on your wish list? Leave a comment below.
New Druid Class Previewed
The new druid class was previewed this morning in the D&D Insider over at WotC. We only get to see levels 1-3 until it is released in the upcoming Player's Handbook 2 this March.
Druids rely on the Primal power source and are able to control the battlefield from a distance in human form and up close in their beast form. Although the druid is classified as a Controller role, depending upon your build, you can add in powers that make you a good leader or striker. These two primal aspects are called Primal Gaurdian and Primal Predator, which gives a bonus to AC and boosts your speed, respectively.
Your class feature at-will power lets you change into beast or human form as a minor action and shift 1 square. You can only do this once per round though (Powergamers, I know what you were thinking 
) It is interesting that all of your equipment becomes part of your beast form when you change and you still gain their benefits, but anything you were holding drops, except your implements. Also anything in a container that is part of your beast form is inaccessible.
In addition, Druids start out with 3 at-will powers, but you must always have 1-2 powers that have the beast form keyword. The beast form powers allow you to slow your enemies, grant combat advantage, and slide them around. Your human form powers usually restrict movement or cause damage via fire and lightning.
All in all, it seems like the druid will be a very popular PC due to it's nice powers that allow you to do so much, it has great roleplaying potential, and who would want to turn into an animal at will!
What do you think? Are you as excited about the PHB2 as I am?
Demonweb Preview and BIG NEWS for D&D Minis!!!
OK, let's just get into the big news first then we can look at the previewed minis. After the upcoming Demonweb set, the D&D minis will no longer be (completely) randomized and will come in two flavors; Hero packs and Monster packs. There will be six D&D Heroes packs with 3 visible figures each, 2 males and 1 female. Each figure will also come with a unique power card featuring a brand new class power.
The first D&D Monsters set called Monster Manual: Dangerous Delves will release as a 40 figure set. Each package will contain 5 figures, 1 visible, 1 rare, 1 uncommon, and 2 common.
Now here's the downside, in my opinion, the price is a little high ($10.99 for Heroes and $14.99 for Monsters) and the stores will have too many options to stock. So instead of having 1 SKU for a random D&D pack, you will have 6 SKUs for each hero pack and then another SKU for each monster pack depending on which mini is visible. This seems like a downside for game stores, at least, which in turn is bad for the players because they won't have access to all the packs. So what is the most logical solution, shop online, and that only means less business for the actual stores.
I don't know how I feel about it exactly. What do you think? Leave a comment below.
Oh yeah, the two new previews are for a pair of Ogres. The Ogre Pulverizer and the Brutal Ogre Warhulk. I really like these two guys, they look both mean and dumb, which can be a bad combination.
Playing the BAD GUY!
I came across this article on playing a "evil" PC and how it affects the campaign as well as inter-player relationships and thought it was an interesting read, especially in light of our recent decent into villain territory in the DC Heroes campaign.
What do you think? Comment below.
The Power of the Dark Side - Roleplayingtips.com
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