Monster Manual 2!

I was lucky enough to receive a spankin' new review copy of the Monster Manual 2! I've not had the chance to actually exercise any of the new baddies in my campaign, but after reading through the book I am very excited to do just that.

The Good Stuff

There's a lot to like in the MM2. Some very iconic critters show back up: Rust Monsters, Genasi, Barghests, and the like... all exciting to see again. There is a large 14-page section on Metallic Dragons of varying difficulty levels (something for nearly every party level) and some truly excellent artwork. There's a whole host of new additions as well, I hope to review these new monsters as I get the chance to unleash them on my unwitting players.

Speaking of excellent artwork, they've got the Dimensional Marauder which I believe made a cameo appearance in the new Star Trek movie. I'm pretty sure they reused that artwork from before, but its still pretty striking. The Marauder makes use of a new snatch-and-grab style mechanic that can teleport the player and the Marauder itself around the map, giving close combat a bit more pizazz.

Located confusingly AFTER the glossary there is a single page that has racial traits for Monster Races intended to be NPCs, or if you're really brave, Player Characters. The options provided are Bullywug, Duergar, and Kenku. My mind immediately went to what havoc Vanir could wreck as a bullywug player character, but its probably wise to not give him any ideas.

The Bad Stuff

It seems that the nerf bat has struck, sadly. Petrification seems to still exist in its normal form, however many of the death effects appear to be AWOL. This was most noticable to me when reading the section on beholders... to me a beholder isn't a beholder if it can't kill you with a Ray of Death. Can the abilities of these new beholders still kill your players? Absolutely. They just do so in a more roundabout fashion.

It seems they are taking the opportunity to elaborate on sections previously created in the original Monster Manual... seeing some omissions from the Monster Manual make their return is encouraging, but part of me was wanting for a bit more originality.

Conclusion

The Monster Manual 2 appears to be a pretty solid addition on its surface, but the proof will be in the pudding as I drop some of these monsters in place in the campaign.

For a truly excellent in-depth look at the Monster Manual, head on over to the Critical Hits review. They even take an in-depth look at the contents of the Monster Manual 2 in two excellent articles. They're worth a read!

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!

Review of 4E Power Cards

For my birthday last month, Vanir and his wonderful wife, efreak, gave me a set of 4E Power Cards for my Wizard.  I had been using a some handmade cards for both my wizard and my bard, but writing out the power descriptions on note cards every level was a bit tedious.

The Cards

The set comes with 100 cards, including all the powers in the PHB plus a handful of blank cards to customize.  They are color-coordinated to match the book: Daily powers have a gray border, At-Wills are green, Encounters are red.  Utilities powers have a blue border with a checkbox indicating if it is a Daily, Encounter or At-Will power.

The flavor text is across the top, the keywords are just blow that, then all the details.  The class is listed on the very bottom of the card and on the back, so if you are running multiple characters, you can easily tell which powers belong to which characters.  The cards are easy to read and include all the details you need without having to flip through the book.  They are coated, so they have a pretty durable feeling to them.

My One Regret

The coating on the cards prevents pencil marks.  To really make these versatile, it helps to have your attack and damage stats already included on the power card so you don't have to figure them out every time.

To combat this deficiency, I grabbed my tape.  By adding a couple of strips of tape to the bottom of the card, I could add my stats in pencil.  I also added notes on bonuses that contributed to my numbers.  I made sure to leave a tab on each strip so I could remove the tape later if necessary. This is what my Flaming Sphere power card looks like:

You can see a close-up of my tape additions here.

Thanks to Martin from Gnome Stew, I have also confirmed that the power cards will fit in Magic-sized sleeves.  This can give an extra level of protection to your power cards, and you could use tape strips on the protector instead of the card itself.

Overall

I have found that I cannot stay sane during combat without my hand-made cards.  These new power cards are really nice and a great time-saver.  At about $10 per class, they are a reasonably-priced addition to your gaming bag for your PHB classes.

New Player's Handbook Heroes Minis

Martial Heroes 1
Originally uploaded by stupidranger

Dante & I received some of the new Player's Handbook Heroes minis this week. There are six total packs, and we got four to enjoy: Martial (1), Arcane (1), Divine & Primal.

What I Like

• Each pack has three minis, and one is a female; it's great to have some feminine representation in the new minis. And they are mostly dressed sensibly, which is a bonus.
  
• The Arcane set has a bard. It's been really hard tracking down a bard mini.
  
• Each mini has a unique power card, giving you a great opportunity to jazz up your character.
  

What I Don't Like

• The minis are obviously mass-produced; not all of the painting is clean and neat.
  
• While I appreciate they are trying for some variety, some of the race/class combinations don't really seem to fit: Dragonborn Rogue wasn't high on my list of character options... I like my rogues a little more unnoticeable.
  
• I realize there aren't a lot of Divine or Primal options, but seems to me like they could have put in a third class instead of have two Clerics or two Barbarians. They could have had an Avenger for the Divine pack and a Shaman or a Warden for the Primal pack, which would have eliminated the duplicates.
  

Overall

The Arcane set is currently high on my list since it has the Female Eladrin Wizard. Now I can use that for Eaerenel instead of the Male Human Wizard mini I've been using. And even though the Bard is a male, I'm probably going to use that Half-Elf mini, which will be significantly better than the Dwarf Fighter I've been using. I'm very happy to have minis that mostly represent my characters.

Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire

Dante & I watched the premier of Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire last Thursday.  I had high hopes for this show based on the commercials and the preview from ComedyCentral.com.  And my expectations were more than met.

ONLY VERY MINOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW!

The opening is classic: we are introduced to the group in... a tavern!  Kröd needs to get the keys to the dungeon to rescue his mentor, General Arcadius.  And the adventure begins.  The good guys strive to overthrown the bad guys.  The bad guys randomly kill people that get in their way.  And periodically, Kröd's sword is enveloped in flames.

There were moments while watching this that reminded me so vividly of fond memories of old campaigns.  The crazy plots to break someone out of prison.  The random NPCs who help out along the way.  The occasional (usually accidental) shooting of a party member with a light crossbow.  The overwhelming revelation that your party will have to save the world as foretold by the prophecy.

But if I could make one change... I would change the character of Aneka a little bit.  In my opinion, she's a little too much.  I feel that she's a bit too in touch with her sensual side.  I think it's great to have an female character who isn't a damsel in distress, but her habit of having relations every man she encounters is a little too much.  I'm sure there are some out there who will disagree with me, but if you take a look back at what I said, you'll see I started with "in my opinion." :)

So far, it's a very entertaining adventure, and I will be watching again next week.  Because the best part of an adventure is continuing it next week.

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.