With today/yesterday/apparently over a week ago for some guy in Canada. The Adventurer’s Vault was released, hopefully providing a nice supplement to the lack of magical items and various adventuring gear that 4th Edition so desperately needs.

Thanks to a thread on the Gleemax forums, one person in Canada received his book over a week ago, and he was nice enough to answer various questions we common folk had about the new material. Trying to read up on some of the various things that should be introduced, such as the new aclhemy ability, airships, and battle standards.  

Wait.. what? Battle standards? Really? Geez

The only thing that draws to my mind is this, I still remember a when WoW first introduced battle standards. I was told by a friend that they no longer are in the game, so I take his word for it. However, the issue still remains. One of the biggest complaints I hear from so many Dungeon and Dragon fans, outside of there not being enough material yet for them to make the conversion from 2nd/3rd/3.5 to 4th edition, is that it feels so much like a MMO. “Like a table top version of WoW”

I was one of the first adapters to 4th edition, I knew it was a little shaky, and I knew it has some minor flaws. I have yet to disagree with any of the complaints the other people are making However I like the system, not for the simplistic aspect of the new rules. Not for all the things they have done to make it seem more “easy going,” for the most part I just like how they have done the new classes, and races.  It’s complicated getting out of the old mind sets of the older rules, where magical items or certain feats would make or brake your character. You would long for that deadly battle with the dragon, but not so much to see if your group would be able to defeat the dragon, not because you wanted to be the hero to save your group on the brink of destruction, but because you wanted the dragons horde of treasure. With the longing for that new magical item that would allow you to bring pain and misery to your foes that stood before you.

With this new system, magical items are still important, and when you get them, they help define your character, instead of being the very definition of your character. People have stated with the new at will powers they feel like they are playing the Rogue in WoW, just standing there pressing the button for sinister strike, and every now and then pressing the one for eviscerate. I respond, “But in the older versions of D&D, didn’t you still do just that? Instead though you would simple say, “I want to swing at the target?”?

When you look at it in that perspective, it’s still the same thing, and sadly a tad bit boring. If you try to mix it up, pick at-will powers and other abilities that you don’t have to use on every attack, you can feel like you’re doing more. In a way you can alone can help shape the battle. With my current character, I have a level 4 Rogue of awesomeness by the way his name is Shingo, after one of the best Ninjas out there! His goal is to get in, do some damage, move out, and come back in from another angle. However, he has various ways to get out of trouble, and if I see a friend in trouble, I have a few abilities that will help setup a situation so my friend can get away and regroup himself.

The battle standards how ever, I feel like they really are wanting to turn it into a table top mmo. Hopefully with the next book that comes out in November, maybe they can steer it down a path that doesn’t make people think, “Is this a MMO?”

You know what really grinds my gears? Being a geek all of the sudden having something to do with being cool. Sure, Bill Gates is a filthy rich geek, but we are only considered geeks (dorks/nerds/etc) because we weren’t really comfortable with many things considered ‘cool’ by mainstream society. We were usually smarter than the average person – whether that translated into good grades in math, building computers, reading tons of books, or some other outlet. We might not have been given swirlies or shoved in lockers, but the things we really liked doing were not meant for the world to know. We gathered in secret covenants to enter the Forgotten Realms as heroic figures or to exhibit our hand/eye coordination in massive rounds of Goldeneye or Unreal Tournament. We watched epic tales of Wookies and Tribbles, and trounced our enemies with the sheer might of our Shivan Dragon. These are the things that entertained us the most – the essence of our childhood. Being a geek had nothing to do with being cool… but had everything to do with being ourselves. It was liberating, like taking off a mask you had no idea weighed you down. Now why the fuck are crowds of people all of the sudden pretending to associate with me because they play World of Warcraft or Halo 3? This constitutes to being a geek? I will wear my geekdom like a purlple fucking heart – I’ll tell people that I love White Wolf games and write them off when they look their noses down on me. I won’t quell my excitement over the announcement of the eeePC from ASUS, or hesitate to bring up that article on nanotube research or memristors I read about to my friends. Just because you liked watching the big green guy smash things in The Incredible Hulk does not mean I have to forget that you were the jock that made fun of the way I was in middle school, and it certainly does not make you and I the same clique.
Many people still hide their geekdom. These ‘Closet Geeks’ might even justify by stratifying fellow geeks into a hierarchy. ‘Im a geek, but he’s a dork’. ‘Im not a nerd’. Does this help you sleep at night? Does a fond memory of Magic: The Gathering prohibit me from going to a bar with my friends? Does owning Star Wars Trivial Persuit ban me from attending a concert? By discriminating against other people with different tastes – by labeling breeds of geekdom – we perpetuate the same feeling we get when our high school crush found out we played Dungeons and Dragons. We are unified under one common creed – if what we find entertaining doesn’t affect other people, why the fuck should anyone else dictate our personal time?

If being a geek is cool, then what is not cool? If everything is cool, then what does the cool status indicate? Nothing… but we all know that’s a lie (As is cake I hear). There is cool and uncool. And that which is geeky is still pretty much uncool. Did you like Iron Man? Of course… it was amazing. Did you point out the hints at War Machine or point out Jon Favreau’s character Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts get married in the comic? We are geeks because what we like gets us funny looks. We hang out, because we’re less apt to judge one another

In short… if you are not a geek, please stop considering yourself one. I don’t call myself a jock because I joined an inter-mural soccer team for a year.

And you know what else grinds my gears… when you can’t find those droids you’re looking for.

*Hands you a torch*
The room begins to fill with a strange and eerie mist. As you notice the walls have a slimy texture to them as you attempt to peer down the long, dark, corridor. Off in the distance you hear the breathing of a large creature. With the magical book in your hand, you begin reading to get a better understanding of what you are about to face…

Much like the Dungeon Master guide I did, I’m going to go through the chapters with you. I won’t give you all the information in it (you know… so wizards doesn’t try to eat me) but enough so they are happy with me if you go buy their product. So, grab that d20 and lets do it!

One thing I want to make notice before going through here so I don’t have to make multiple notes, almost every thing is now based on 1/2 your level. Example, instead of having certain scores for your Fort, Will, Reflex and gaining points every now and then when you level. You have your class modifier + 1/2 your level + other mods to determine what your saves are. Now this rule doesn’t apply to everything, but it’s pretty close. To get a better understanding of what I mean, check out a clean copy of the 4th Edition Character Sheet.

Chapter 1 – How To Play

Anyone that has ever played D&D before can for the most part skip this chapter unless you just want a quick review. For someone wanting to get into D&D for the first time, this is a great chapter to get a better understanding of just what D&D is.

Chapter 2 – Making The Characters

Finally, we are starting to get into the new rules that are brought to us by D&D 4.0. Before when making a group, the players were normally conscious of the different members in their party, so you wouldn’t normally go around making five Rogues. Well now all the classes have a role. Here are the different rolls:

• Controller (Wizard, Warlock)
• Defender (Fighter, Paladin)
• Leader (Cleric, Warlord)
• Striker (Ranger, Rouge)

Within this chapter you’ll also find one of the things I really enjoy, Retraining. So every time you level, say you don’t like a certain skill, power, or feat that you don’t think is working out just the way you want. Upon reaching a new level, you can pick one out of those three and select a new one in replace. (This doesn’t go against anything else you learn for your level up, this is extra)

Chapter 3 – Character Races

New comers!

Dragonborn – Creatures that resemble humanoid dragons. Their special ability? Duh, breath attack!! And you even get to pick what type of element it is! So for those of you that have always craved and desired to play a dragon based character, here is your chance!

Eladrin – Introducing one of the new realms, the Feywild, upon first glance, you will think they are Elves. Well… you’re right. Long ago Eladrin and Elves lived together as a single race, but then when the Drow stirred a rebellion, ties between the two separated. Eladrin choose to remain in the Feywild, where Elves now tend to reside more in the world. There special ability? Oh yeah… a short teleportation skill. (5 squares)

Tiefling – Any D&D vet recognizes these guys right off the bat from the old Monster Manuals. Now however they are in the PHB! Horns! Red Eyes! Natural Evilness! What’s not to love here? There special ability, Fire Resistance and once per combat able to add their Charisma modifier to their damage rolls.

The Classics

Dwarf
Elf
Half-Elf
Halfing
Human

Sorry for you Gnome/Half-Orc fan boys out there, you won’t be able to convert to 4.0 just yet! Maybe one day… one day

Chapter 4 – Character Classes

By far the biggest chapter you’ll find in the book. This one actually doubles the next biggest chapter, so you know they did a major over-haul to the classes.

Upon looking at the first class, more then likely your favorite class and wanting to see all the new changes. Here is an example of what you’ll see. One of the new coming features to 4.0, class skills. Yeah you had some things like… Sneak attack… or Rage, and Wildshape back in your older D&D. But now, you build your character on skills, and every class has them. Instead of trying to build your character on feats and waiting to get more attacks. There are At-Will skills, that well… you can use at will and as often as you feel it’s needed. Then Encounter skills, which can only be used once per encounter, but can be re-used if you have taken a short break. (Five minutes = short break) Then the big one, Daily skill. These are the big skills, the one where your character digs deep and pulls out some crazy shit, and you can only use them again after you have taken an extended rest. So you will find these skills from level 1 – 10. After that you will find all of your Paragon class options. (I’m not going to list all of those, but I will list all of the character classes)

• Cleric
• Fighter
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue
• Warlock
• Warlord
• Wizard

For the most part, I think all of these classes are amazing with their new updates. However I still feel the Wizard took a major beating by the other classes with great clubs. I won’t get into it, I don’t want to detour some of you die hard Wizard fans, just be prepared and know that I warned you.

Every class has two example builds which are basically the direct opposites of each other. The Fighter has a defender build and a damage build, rogue has the stealthy or a bruiser build. Just to give you an idea of what each class would look like if you took certain powers.

Chapter 5 – Skills

This has to be the second most over-hauled chapter in my person opinion. Why you ask? Upon looking at this chapter, you will discover there are now only 17… 17 sills! They took a bunch of other skills and mushed them into others. Example, the Athletic skill now contains the climb, escape from a grab, jump, and swim. I’m actually in favor of this new change, yes it makes things simpler, but it also helps reduce character build time and level up.

Chapter 6 – Feats

Much like older version of feats, these are here to help mold your character. They range from Heroic Tier, Paragon Tier, and Epic Tier level feats.

Chapter 7 – Equipment

One of the biggest change you’ll notice to this chapter, it now contains Magic Items! No longer do you need to own a DM book, or trick you DM into relinquishing his for your own purpose to browse the magical items. So basically take what was once in the DM book, toss it into the PHB with a few new things like Holy Symbols, and categorization of arm, feet, hands, head, and neck slot. You have the new Equipment chapter.

Chapter 8 – Adventuring

Chapter 8 goes into Quest, Encounters, and rewards. All things I’ve covered a little bit prior to the 4th edition release from the excerpts Wizards released.

Chapter 9 – Combat

Here is another chapter that if you are familiar with the game mechanics, this helps with a nice review. For the most part, not a whole lot of major changes from the last version, but there are a few new things which you’ll want to read up about.

Chapter 10 – Rituals

The last chapter in the book, and probably one of the other neatest additions to the game. This is something any player that can cast Arcana or Religion spells and has the Ritual Casting feat. The spells are much like normal spells, they have levels, casting cost, time duration. These can be minor things, or huge abilities like being able to bring back the dead. Which by the way is much more cost efficient than it was in previous versions.

So what do you think? Have any questions, feel free to ask.

So this will be my second to last D&D post for a while. I have one more I want to do tomorrow and cover the Player Hand Book. I don’t plan on covering ever single page, just some of the highlights that I enjoy, or dislike about this book.

I’m just going to cut to the jump, so click below to read the rest.

One of the first things you’re going to notice after you break this bad boy open, is the rich and detail artwork found all throughout the book. Every chapter has a nice page and a quarter image with a side column detailing what you will find in the chapter.

If you played any previous versions of Dungeons and Dragon, then the first 3 Chapters should just be a nice little review for you. Covering How To Be A DM, Running The Game, and Combat Encounters. Chapter 4 will be partially review, partially new stuff for you, as it talks about Building Encounters.

I spent some time with Chapter 5, NonCombat Encounters. The big reason, skill challenges. This here is a new, interesting, and (for me at least) intimidating new feature brought forth in 4.0. So you know in D&D you have skills, and you know you have skill checks. Well a skill challenge is like skill challenges on crack like a combat, but without the hacking and slashing. A brief example from the DM book:

Do I like the skill challenge? Yes. Am I confused with exactly how to introduce it and use it? Oh yeah. My only option you ask? Setup one, toss it at my players and let trial and error run its course.

Chapter 6 covers Adventures, such as using a publish adventure, fleshing your own, and the setting. 7 is all about Rewards, which I covered in a previous post. I’m still rolling the whole, parcel reward system around and trying to figure out if I like it.

So according to this, as the party goes from level 1 and progresses on to level 2, they should acquire the above gear through their encounters. One idea is to forgo giving reward for a weaker encounter, and in another, put in two parcels. Such as a magical item and some coins. Maybe give one big fight or a Major Quest reward something such as three parcels.

Chapter 8 and 9, again, if you are familiar with the rules and content found inside a DM book, are just a review. Campaigns, The World. Chapter 10 probably has to be one of my favorite chapters in the book. It helps show how to customize monsters, adding equipment to them and some of the new templates. One of the funnest things (even if I don’t think I’ll ever use it) has to be the Random Dungeons. So you roll a d20, and look to see what the result is, and add that to your dungeon. Example, roll a… *rolls d20* 8. Go straight 4 squares, side passage on right.

And there you have it, I guess I broke it down more then I originally planned, but that’s just how it goes. What can I say, I’m a super cool person nerd that loves his D&D. The last chapter in the book covers Fallcrest. Which is an example of a good size town called Fallcrest.

I can say this much, so far I’m not a fan of the new Wizard class. The more I look at it, the more I dislike it. Everything else seems to be pretty good. Give me a day or two and I’ll be able to write a little better post. I’ll try to break down the new PHB and the DM book.

I’ll say this much for now, there are only 17 skills now! That’s right, 17!!

Economy/Rewards:

This is probably one of the few things I’ve read so far, that I hope I’m not reading correctly because so far, I don’t like the way it sounds.
From what I’ve gone through, it sounds like before you even really get started, and you’re on your way to the next level (for the sake of exampling, we’ll say we are level 5 working on 6) that all of our rewards are already predetermined before we ever get there. Sure we may not know it as players, but even from the Dungeon Masters stand point, one of the joys about reward is the randomness of it. Some might be under par, some may be your big score!

Lets take a look at their examples:

3rd Edition treasure works like this:

If I put 5th-level characters through 13-1/3 encounters of their level, theyll gain enough experience to become 6th level. On average, theyll also gain 21,333 gp, 33 sp, and 33 cp. Or thats the goal, anyway.

In practice, the ochre jelly wont have any treasure at all.

The young black dragon will have randomly-generated treasure worth 4,800 gp on average (triple standard), but depending on my dice it could come out to nothing at all, or the PCs could come away with a jackpot of over 50,000 gp in cash-equivalent treasure (coins, gems, and art) plus magic armor worth as much as 15,000 gp.

The 5th-level NPC bard will have 4,300 gp worth of gear (skewing heavily toward magic items that the characters will sell at half value).

and

4th Edition treasure works like this:

If I put 5th-level characters through 10 encounters of their level, theyll gain enough experience to become 6th level. Theyll also gain four magic items above their level (one 6th, one 7th, one 8th, and one 9th), and total gold-equivalent treasure equal to double the value of a 5th-level magic item, or 2,000 gp. Thats the goal, and heres how it works out in practice.

When Im planning those 10 encounters, I look at the 5th-level treasure parcels in the DMG. Thats the treasure Im going to give out, conveniently divided into ten chunks. The ochre jellys not guarding any of that treasure, but the dragon has (lets say) three parcels.

The 5th-level NPC has a 6th-level itemnot because he needs it, but because its one of the treasure parcels. The characters dont find magic items that are beneath their noticethey wont walk out of the drow enclave with a wheelbarrow full of +1 rapiers.

I might even tuck some of that treasure away in a locked vault without a monstrous guard, and save a parcel or two for a quest reward.

Again, maybe I just need to actually have the books and be able to play with it, I’m just afraid they are trying to make certain aspects of the game to simplistic.

The one great advantage I could see of getting the treasure predetermined is, lets say you fight some troll fighters, and one of them happens to be carrying a magical item. The question would always come up “Well why didn’t he use that item against us?”
In this scenario, I can see it being a good thing to know what he is carrying before hand. But alas, with a few days, I’ll be able to get a better understanding of this (and I’ll be sure to update you on my new found feelings)

Following is the first 10 levels of the Experience Rewards table.

Experience Rewards

Monster LevelStandard MonsterMinionEliteSolo

1	100	25	200	500
2	125	31	250	625
3	150	38	300	750
4	175	44	350	875
5	200	50	400	1,000
6	250	63	500	1,250
7	300	75	600	1,500
8	350	88	700	1,750
9	400	100	800	2,000
10	500	125	1,000	2,500

Here is a breakdown of the different tiers:

Levels 01 – 10 // Heroic Tier

From the PH: In the heroic tier, your character is already a hero, set apart from the common people by your natural talents, learned skills, and some hint of a greater destiny that lies before you. Your capabilities are largely determined by your choice of character class and to a lesser extent by your race. You move around on foot or on a relatively mundane mount such as a horse. In combat, you might make mighty leaps or incredible climbs, but you’re still basically earthbound. The fate of a village might hang on the success or failure of your adventures, to say nothing of the risk to your own life.

Levels 11 – 20 // Paragon Tier

From the PH: In the paragon tier, your character is a shining example of heroism, set well apart from the masses. Your class still largely determines your capabilities. In addition, you gain extra abilities in your specialty: your paragon path. When you reach 11th level, you choose a path of specialization, a course that defines who you are within a certain narrow range of criteria. You are able to travel more quickly from place to place, perhaps on a hippogriff mount or using a spell to grant your party flight. In combat, you might fly or even teleport short distances. Death becomes a surmountable obstacle, and the fate of a nation or even the world might hang in the balance as you undertake momentous quests.

Levels 21 – 30 // Epic Tier

From the PH: In the epic tier, your character’s capabilities are truly superheroic. Your class still determines most of your abilities, but your most dramatic powers come from your choice of epic destiny, which you select at 21st level. You travel across nations in the blink of an eye, and your whole party might take to the air in combat. The success or failure of your adventures has far-reaching consequences, possibly determining the fate of millions in this world and even planes beyond.

Now the way multi-classing works now, you no longer take a level in another class at a level up. Instead, if you meet the prerequisites, you can take a feat from another class. This is to hopefully allow for better combinations if you want to play, say a Wizard/Fighter. Before if you tried that, your character would be a little gimped based on the lack of hit points you would acquire.

Multiclass feats allow you to dabble in the class features and powers of another class. You might be a fighter who dips his toe into wizardry, or a warlock who wants a smattering of rogue abilities. Each class has a class-specific multiclass feat that gives you access to features from that class.

With the new multi-class system, you will only be allowed to multi-class once, no more, Fighter/Barbarian/Druid abominations.

Class-Specific Feats

There are two restrictions on your choice of a class-specific multiclass feat. First, you can’t take a multiclass feat for your own class. Second, once you take a multiclass feat, you can’t take a class-specific feat for a different class. You can dabble in a second class but not a third.

A character who has taken a class-specific multiclass feat counts as a member of that class for the purpose of meeting prerequisites for taking other feats and qualifying for paragon paths. For example, a character who takes Initiate of the Faith counts as a cleric for the purpose of selecting feats that have cleric as a prerequisite. These feats can qualify you for other feats; for example, a warlock who takes Sneak of Shadows can use the rogue’s Sneak Attack class feature, which means that he meets the prerequisite for the Backstabber feat.

and lastly,

Power-Swap Feats

The Novice Power, Acolyte Power, and Adept Power feats give you access to a power from the class for which you took a class-specific multiclass feat. That power replaces a power you would normally have from your primary class. When you take one of these power-swap feats, you give up a power of your choice from your primary class and replace it with a power of the same level or lower from the class you have multiclassed in.

Any time you gain a level, you can alter that decision. Effectively, pretend you’re choosing the power-swap feat for the first time at the new level you’ve just gained. You gain back the power that you gave up originally from your primary class, lose the power that you chose from your second class, and make the trade again. You give up a different power from your primary class and replace it with a new power of the same level from your second class.

You can’t use power-swap feats to replace powers you gain from your paragon path or epic destiny. If you use retraining to replace a power-swap feat with another feat, you lose any power gained from the power-swap feat and regain a power of the same level from your primary class.

That pretty much wraps up the Tiers and Multi-classes, tomorrow we shall dabble some into encounters, dungeons, and the Economy/Rewards.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love magical items as much as the next dungeon crawler, and it always feels good when you have that long sought after magical weapon, clutched in your players hand, ready to creep around a corner to defeat that blasted troll.

The goal is, for magic items to still have an impact on your character, but not as much as 3.# did. The main categories you’ll want to worry about that will have that sort of impact on your character will be, weapon, armor, and neck (necklace/cape). Some of the other categories will tend to focus on a certain type of attribute, like footwear will lean on movement/speed.

I wish I could find the original article where I read their example, but with the books coming out in just a few days, we can all see together. They are wanting your character to be more about their skills and abilities instead of your base stats, and then enhancing them with gear. From what I can see, it’s looking like it will shape up well.

Wizards Excerpt: You and your magical items

Tomorrow, the different class tiers and multi-classing. Oh, and just to let you know, they have gotten rid of prestige classes!

For any of you that haven’t bothered to read up on it, or just now hearing about it. Through this week I plan on going over some of the different parts (That I know at least) about the new set. For today, I shall mention a little about their online integration they will have with 4.0

D&D Insider:

What is this you ask? Well to answer that one directly, we shall refer to the Wizards FAQ:

D&D Insider is a suite of online tools and editorial content created to digitally enhance the tabletop experience. This added component of D&D works along with the physical product, organized play, and community to offer robust gameplay.

D&D Insider will be a monthly fee to have access to ALL the fun little features they will offer. Probably one of the biggest is for us older players that have had to move away from our D&D group. You will be able to play the table top version of D&D online, at a DM table.

Now this brings up the controversy,

“It’s not D&D if you’re not all together in one room.”

Which I can agree. There are countless moments that I, as the DM cherish from just being able to watch my players struggle and watch as their minds work to figure out the puzzle. (It’s quite a joyous feeling :P)
But also, as mentioned, I have a few friends that have had to move away, but they still wish to play D&D, so this opens up a channel for them to be able to do so.

Getting away from the table, lets look at some of the free stuff you’ll get to play with if you sign up. Things like the dungeon builder. You’ll be able to create encounter maps, save them off as .jpgs and print them off. And probably another nice feature will be the Character Builder. Yeah it’s fun to be able to write your own character out, but this is a good way if you have… less the acceptable handwriting. *cough*

There will be tons of stuff you’ll be able to do with that $15, and they have claimed to release more content and features each month. I’ll talk a little more about those and other features 4.0 has in store the rest of the week. Tomorrow, what does everyone love? Magic Items!!