Arcane Power: State of the Bard Address

We were fortunate enough to receive a copy of the new Arcane Power sourcebook for review recently. I was particularly excited to get my hands on this, as I had recently rolled up a bard and wanted some new abilities to play with.

The new Prescient Bard build in the book sets the flavor for many of the new bardic abilities. These turn your bard into something of a short-term prophet, able to see the future and to mess with it a little to his advantage. There are a lot of really cool powers to choose from, but on occasion I feel they didn't try hard enough to engage the player's imagination and just relied on the combat mechanics. (This is one of my primary complaints with 4e in general, not just this book.) Take for instance the Horrifying Truth power, whose description reads "Your cruel pronouncement becomes truer with every strike." It deals damage, dazes the target, and stuns the target if it doesn't save. With that kind of description, I'm expecting a gypsy to hop out of my lute and rub the target's nose and say "THINNER!". Or maybe the ghost of a creepy Japanese girl to appear and proclaim the target not a pitcher, but a belly-itcher, causing him 4d8+CHA self-esteem damage.

They've added several bardic paragon paths in Arcane Power as well:

• Cunning Prevaricator - basically your bard is fantastic at lying and exaggerating. Somehow this translates into making him and all his allies invisible at strategically opportune times. (As an aside, "Lying Lights" sounds to me like the name of something I would have watched on Cinemax as a teenager when my parents had gone to bed.) Later powers let him misdirect the opponent's attacks back upon himself or other enemies, presumably so the bard can ask him "why do ya keep hitting yourself?"


• Euphonic Bow - The concept for this one is, in my opinion, one of the coolest things in the book. You're a bard, except your bow plays notes as you attack. The path description says something about the sound your arrows make as they hit their targets providing percussion for the song of battle, and all I can think of is Freddie Mercury singing, "out of the doorway, the bullets rip -- to the sound of the beat!" It's sort of like multiclassing your bard with an arcane archer, but without quite the range of abilities. Still neat.


• Grave Caller - Apparently they have bardic assassins. Who knew? This one seemed a little out of place to me, since I guess I always imagined assassins as being quiet and not singing. Then again, I've watched enough anime in my day to know that a really talented assassin can use anything they want as a weapon, immense size and noise be damned. Either way, if you're looking to cause grief (possibly in the form of death) to one unlucky creature at a time, the deathmark ability and its associated powers are a good way to get there.


• Half-Elf Emissary - Ever have one of those people in your group that tried to max their Diplomacy skill and use it as often as possible? Well, now that person's empathy and oratory ability are deadly weapons. (For, ahem, "aggressive negotiations", I would assume.) This path gets automatic points against it for only being available to half-elves. Because everyone knows dwarves and half-orcs can never, ever be charismatic and likeable. This path's powers are based largely on him being such a galactically amazing social butterfly that the number of people he can see, friends and enemies alike, make his abilities stronger. I kind of want to bludgeon myself into unconsciousness when I think about this one too hard.


• Karmic Shaper - Sort of the "evolved" form of the Prescient Bard build, this path is all about squaring up karmic debts. Well, sort of. You "interpret" karma, so that means if your enemy does something bad to you, your powers make him pay for it. If one of your allies screws up, you interpret all the good times you've had together and replace his attack roll with one of your own. It's kind of like D&D My Name Is Earl, but backwards and with swords and a touch of godlike power to change fate.


• Life Singer - You're a bard who comes from this place where some bad stuff happened and evil spirits cursed you with bad weather. Now, in order to combat the evil spirit (which I thusly dub "El Niño"), you become a tree-hugging pacifist hippie. Your power is that of smugness, and atop your ivory tower of morality, you grant bonuses to all your allies only if they do not attack anything. This will almost certainly set a new standard for the paragon everyone regrets picking almost immediately due to everyone hating them forever. This paragon path may ruin long-standing friendships. I worry for the future of gaming now that this is out.

A few odd complaints aside, I would wholeheartedly recommend this book if you've got a bard. The only thing I'm really disappointed in is the lack of the 3.5 book Complete Arcane's Seeker of the Song prestige class. I had my fingers crossed, and was denied.

Next time, I'll review the Sorcerer class. Spicy!

Female Roleplaying Gamers Needed for New Book!

Geek’s Dream Girl and StupidRanger are joining forces to write the ultimate guidebook to female roleplaying gamers around the world.

We need YOUR input! Girls, you are the heart of this book; share your experiences with us!

Guys, you have an especially important role in the success of our book.  Not only do we need your input, we also need you to get out there on Facebook, Myspace, IMs, forums, chat rooms and Friendly Local Game Stores to spread the word to every girl gamer you know!

Topics to be covered include:

• Token Girl at the Game Table
• Friendly Local Gaming Store & Gaming Conventions
• Gaming With Those You Love (Significant Others & Children)
• Sexism and Stereotypes
• Your Gaming Style, Your Games, and Your Characters
• Explaining D&D to Non-Gamers & Attracting Other Girls to Gaming
• The RPG Industry
• Calling the Shots: The Girl GM

This book will celebrate all the ways girls contribute to the gaming culture and we’d love to have you be a part of it.

Want to see your name in print as part of our book?  Please take our surveys:

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Review of Blackstaff Tower

At one of Ed Greenwood's author signings this year, Steven Schend was signing and giving away copies of his new novel, Blackstaff Tower (releasing today) from the Ed Greenwood Presents Waterdeep series. I'll confess that I wasn't familiar with Schend's work, but I seldom ever turn down a free book, so I very happily accepted his book and resolved to read it as soon as I had finished the book I was reading at the time.

Now, I am a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms, but Waterdeep is not one of the places I have visited often. Everyone knows of the City of Splendors, but my knowledge of the history and lore of the city are pretty slim. And I only had passing familiarity with Khelban Blackstaff or the Blackstaff Tower.

Schend did a great job of involving me in the story. The first chapter was very disconnected from the prologue, so it took me a little while to be fully introduced to the characters and how they all fit into the story. Very quickly, though, I was immersed. The story was engaging; I became invested in the characters and needed to know what happened next. Before I knew it, I was a third of the way through and in danger of staying up all night to finish the book! (I didn't, but only because I had to work the next morning.)

It's an epic tale of good versus evil with plenty of intrigue and suspense thrown in for good measure. Without ruining the tale (because I highly recommend reading it for yourself), the story follows the adventures of a noble-born, a spellcaster, a thief, a sellsword and the Blackstaff heir in their quest to prevent the evil mage from taking control of Waterdeep.

There were several things I liked about Schend's writing style. First, he was able to draw me into the quest very quickly and with only a little effort. I was concerned for the good guys, I despised the bad guys, and I desperately wanted to see the good guys succeed, especially during those times when I was sure they couldn't possibly overcome of the odds. Second, Schend easily provided me with the information I needed to feel comfortable in Waterdeep; one of the characters was a student of Waterdavian history, who shared information about the city without lecturing so there was never too much unnecessary information to bog down the story.

Best of all, Schend handled the combat sequences beautifully. As I read about the battles, I could imagine sitting around the table, rolling the dice... the successes and near misses were so vivid. I simultaneously felt as if I was watching the battle and participating in the roleplaying.

The one thing I would have changed was the ending. Not to say that the story didn't end well: all the lose ends were wrapped up and there was a sense of closure. However, it seemed a little rushed; I wanted it to be drawn out a bit. I'm sure this is partly because I was having a great time and didn't want to see it end. To me, it felt hurried during a time when I wanted to savor the successful end of the quest.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely read it again. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys stories of the Realms.

Recommended Reading: The Silmarillion...

While not one of my favorite books by J.R.R Tolkien, I have long admired the significance of his posthumously published work The Silmarillion. Most other nerds do not share my reverence of this particular book, considering it a somewhat disjointed very difficult read. In fact, many of my Tolkien-loving friends have never finished it.

I consider that a dirty shame.

What is it?

The Silmarillion is essentially a collection of myths, legends, and histories of Middle Earth. This includes, but is not focused on, the Third Age of Middle Earth which contains the Lord of the Rings stories that everyone loves.

This work is considered by most to reflect the main body of Tolkien's unfinished works. He started writing the stories that would eventually become this work in 1914, and continued revising and expanding them all throughout his life. At one point, he heavily desired that The Silmarillion be released alongside the Lord of the Rings stories but his publisher wasn't biting.

Why you should care.

There are five main sections of The Silmarillion, and you can find out more about their contents courtesy of a very well crafted Wikipedia article on the topic. One of my favorite sections is the first, which mirrors an allegorical retelling of the creation story regarding Middle Earth and its races.

As the book progresses, its tone shifts first to myths and histories of the elves and we are given a wonderful love story, "Of Beren and Lúthien". I will not do the story the injustice of being summarized by my clumsy hand, but suffice it to say if you want depth of characters and a lesson in epic storyline construction you really can start there and be completely satisfied.

I could go on and on about how excellent aspects of this text is, but that would take a long time and my hands would be numb from typing. Anyone who delights in world-building would benefit from the depth and grandeur that Tolkien (and his son, who edited The Silmarillion) gives Middle Earth beyond what most people are familiar with.

It is a shining example of how being passionate about world-building does not have to involve every last detail you ever conceived of in every storyline. If Tolkien had included 1/5 of the characters that he speaks about in The Silmarillion in The Lord of the Rings stories, it would've been fifteen volumes and nobody would've ever heard about it because the first person to start reading it wouldn't be done yet. It takes a light touch to color a small portion of your landscape correctly with the right characters, and Tolkien gives a master's course in doing this in The Lord of the Rings.

In addition to the world-building aspect, you also get some excellent character archetypes from the tales contained in its 365 pages. The aforementioned Beren and Lúthien are great examples, as are Fëanor and his line, who created the magical jewels called Silmarils that the collection is named after. The passion, motivation, and depth of these characters are excellent examples of how good character development can be in a short space. Taking a few of these stories, reading them, and reflecting on how you can build characters as dynamic as these would be an excellent exercise to prepare you for your next campaign, whether writing one or playing in one.

This article is clearly biased.

This week, I was able to add a first edition / first printing of this book to my collection and I consider it a true prize. It doesn't trouble me at all that many of my Tolkien-nerd friends don't apprecaite it. I do, and that's the important part!

The Tale of the Empty Fire Safe

In the absence created by the lack of Internet last night, Dante & I continued our quest for junk that can be sold at our upcoming garage sale. As we are cleaning the hall closet (a meca for junk!), we came across the fire safe we received as a wedding present.

Dante looked at me and asked if there was anything in there. I told him that since it was locked, the more important question was, where is the key.

Fortunately, I rolled really high on my Remember Where Random Item Is Located roll and found the key in a basket on top of the kitchen shelves. Upon opening the safe, it was, in fact, empty.

Dante got a gleam in his eye and headed over to the hutch in which we keep Important Documents. I briefly wondered what he decided was important enough to go in the safe that has been empty for four years, but my contemplations were short-lived as he quickly returned in plopped something right in the safe.

I asked what he put in there, and he lifted from the safe one of the D&D books signed by Gary Gygax. Because, of course, what document could be more important to save during a fire?

Choose Your Own Adventure...

Our good buddy Yax over at DungeonMastering posted up a whopping 83 free D&D Adventures. I don't know whether it was the boldly advertised "adventures" in the title or the massive amounts of caffeine that I have ingested tonight, but it got me to thinking about the old school "Choose Your Own Adventure" book series.

I remember that one such book named "Space Vampire" (by Edward Packard) used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. It wasn't the storyline, per se, but there were several "failure" illustrations that showed your gaunt dessicated corpse after the Space Vampire did his thing. Judith Mitchell certainly had the "creepy enough to seep into my dreams" illustration thing down.

Write your own adventure, or use a stock adventure?

This is one of the eternal questions, and it comes down to matter of preference. Personally, I find it generally easier for me to invest myself in a storyline or plot point if I create it from the ground up. I tend to either forget (I'm not much of a note-taker) or fail miserably at adapting the stock adventure elements to my own storyline, so I tend to prefer hand-rolling my own modular adventures.

There was a small part of me that was somewhat compelled to write my own "Choose Your Own Adventure" book when I was a kid, and I have to believe that was some of my proto-DM tendencies wanting to be released to the world.

Has anyone else been otherwise inspired by these books, or am I just particularly insane for keeping a special place in my heart for them?