I finished Gangrel: Savage and Macabre as well as Ventrue: Lords over the Damned. I’m part-way through Daeva: Kiss of the Succubus as well as Witch Finders.

Clanbooks

Gangrel seems like the strongest clanbook of the lot so far. Ventrue is also pretty solid. Daeva is hard to place. It started off quite good, but the Felix & Dracula parts started to drag a bit. I had a hard time making my way throught the Carmilla stuff, as well.

I have to reiterate that these books are gorgeous. It’s high-quality paper with full color art. I’m not what you’d call an expert in role-playing books, but I don’t think it’s very often that people go all-out like this. 

Witch Finders

Witch Finders is the first supplement for the latest yearly game, Hunter: the Vigil. As you might imagine, it’s a book about hunters who go after witches. Early on they define witches pretty broadly, so the label covers mages, psychics, or any other sort of human that wields supernatural power.

This book is pretty sizeable as compared to previous supplements for the yearly games, and there’s quite a bit in here. Like the core, it’s got a story between each of the chapters. The story itself is pretty solid. I like it.

So, because it’s such a big book, there’s a lot of material in here. The first chapter is ostensibly about the history of witches, and offers faux historical documents from various eras along with a couple of story hooks related to the subject matter. There’s a rundown of various compacts and conspiracies’ takes on witches (and a bit for unaffiliated, tier one hunters, as well), a few new compacts, a new conspiracy, some new Endowments and Tactics, and a new magic system for people that don’t have Mage: the Awakening or aren’t interested in using those rules. 

It’s a little hard for me to read about hunters killin’ mages, I’ll confess; mages aren’t your traditional monsters, and I find the idea of going all inquisition on a mage a bit disturbing for some reason. Chalk it up to my preference for Mage, if you like.

Of course it doesn’t have to be that way, and the relationship is somewhat more complex than that, though I notice that most of the conspiracies like the Lucifuge, Malleus Malificarum, and Knights of St. George are pretty hostile by default. The compacts tend to be more measured.

As much as I have a desire to play characters that directly conflict with my own affect and beliefs, playing a conspiracy hunting down random mages is something I have a bit of a hard time with. Chalk it up to my preference for Mage, or my inability to really get into the mindset of a Christian zealous enough to torture.

That said, I could definitely see using these kinds of hunters as antagonists, as kind of a tangible disincentive for vulgar displays of magic, as a political pawn, or any number of things. Having these fleshed out groups available to draw on is quite a remarkable resource, especially when you throw either competing groups into the mix, or groups that could act as allies. More than most other groups, I see a lot of room for intersection between mages and hunters, at least from the perspective of Mage.

Posting schedule

You’ll notice I’ve managed about one post a week, if that. Yeah. I’m a bad person. Not playing D&D has had a pretty big impact on how much time I spend thinking about it, and of course intermittent traveling has put a damper on my interest in doing much beyond vegging out.

I’m hoping to remedy my lack of gaming. A friend of mine is talking about DMing a 4th Edition game, starting at level 2. I’m already trying to think of characters (eladrin warlord comes to mind as one possibility).

I’d also like to resume & finish Er-Eret. Given that Evan is still quite busy all the time, I’m not sure how likely that is. I’d start a new game but that might end up being the last nail in the coffin for Er-Eret.

It’s official: tomorrow D&D Insider goes behind a pay wall. They’ll keep some select stuff free (including the barbarian playtest, which is cool), but it sounds like most of it will go behind a pay wall. Let’s talk about that, eh?

Conflicted is my middle name

I’ve gone back and forth on this. I enjoyed reading the articles that they did put out. For a while, I seriously considered paying, if only because I like having a steady streaming of D&D-related articles to read. That’s still tempting. Half the reason I have so many role-playing books is because I enjoy reading as much as I enjoy playing, and I don’t need to coordinate five peoples’ schedules in order to read Witch Finders.

My problem is that, in terms of practical use, I tend to put this stuff in the “someday” pile rather than the “I must use this now” pile. When I called it my problem, though, I meant it: I don’t think my reaction is necessarily a function of the magazine’s quality.

See, I’ve bought World of Darkness books with all kinds of pre-generated story hooks and adventures. I typically have the same reaction. That kind of material is fun to read and thought-provoking. Despite all that, I still haven’t run jack from the nWoD since my Mage game from— well, by this point, I think it’s been two years. Shit.

Anyway, in Dragon in particular, there were actually a few articles that I thought were pretty great. The article on Traps was cool, and some of the monster-related ones were neat. I liked the warlock article. Ultimately I think if I were more actively involved in a D&D game right now, I would certainly fork over the cash. As it is, it’s been some number of weeks since we last played, and I’d be surprised if we got to play even during this month.

Tools, Bonus

The Bonus Tools are also going subscriber-only, so let’s have a word on that.

I’ll confess it surprised me a little. These tools aren’t difficult to build from a software engineering perspective (the Encounter Builder obviously being a challenge unless you already have the monsters in a database). There are already fan-created alternatives out there, too.

I think leaving them free would’ve been a great show of good-will. In my opinion, everybody should have these kinds of tools, not just the types hardcore enough to pay. They’re basic enough that I don’t think they’re a deal-maker yet they’re convenient enough and simple enough that it seems a shame to lock ‘em up.

Of course, what the hell do I know? How big of a casual vs. hardcore spread really exists among D&D fans?

In the future?

What would change my mind? I’d reconsider if my game started back up, or someone started running something. I’d reconsider if they released the beta Character Creator to subscribers. After having used it at PAX, it’s quite compelling, though perhaps not the most earth-shattering tool ever created.

And boy were there were some amazing deals to be had that year. I acquired all but a few of the Vampire Clanbooks for between $1 and $2 each. I saw copies of Vampire for $5. At one point, someone must’ve offloaded a bunch of Planescape stuff, because I acquired a bunch of those, too. (And now I’m kicking myself for not having bought those boxed sets…)

After a while the deals petered out, and so did my visits. But on Saturday I was in search of a non-RPG book, and had occasion to visit the RPG sections. Though there wasn’t anything rare or particularly striking, I did find some goodies!

The regular, non-clearance section was a bit disappointing. I saw lots of 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms books that I might’ve acquired, except that they were in fine condition and fairly new, and therefore too expensive.

I was kind of surprised by how little White Wolf stuff there was. Typically there’re a lot of leavings from 1st Edition or 2nd Edition World of Darkness, but this time, it was mostly Exalted 1st Edition.

The clearance section was another story. There was a lot of junk, but clearly someone offloaded a bunch of old D&D stuff. Among many other things, I acquired for about $1 each:

• Hall of Heroes (FR)
• Darklords (Ravenloft)
• Aurora’s Whole Realms Catalog (FR)
• Ship of Horrors (Ravenloft)

There’re some other adventures that I acquired, and some 2nd Edition complete guides, like psionics and elves.

Judging from Amazon, a lot of this stuff isn’t rare, and shipping would make it quite a bit more expensive in the aggregate. But price or rarity isn’t really why I like these books. I think it’s just neat to rifle through them, either for inspiration or merely to see how the hobby has changed over time. It’s sad, in a way, because it was clearly a different time, and it is well and truly past.

Anyway, D&D stuff aside, I also got my hands on a copy of Kindred of the East for $2. I’ve never read it, and I’ll probably never make it the whole way through; they’re still kind of weird and mysterious for me, in the sense that I don’t know how most of their shit works. I kinda like that.

I also picked up a copy of the Lawnmower Man RPG, also for $2. I didn’t know there was a Lawnmower Man RPG, either. It looks kind of terrible, with pages and pages and pages of tables in the back. Apparently they were also selling miniatures just for the game. Weird!

Of course, I couldn’t resist going to the FLGS to see what I’d missed over the last few weeks, and thus acquired Night Horrors: Grim Fears, Witch Finders, and Savage and Macabre: Gangrel. Dammit, I’ve already got a huge backlog of stuff to read!

I had a chance to flip through it, and it seems pretty neat. I’d play one.

First of all, the barbarian is a striker! Yay! It could hardly be anything else, in my opinion, but there’s always that risk, you know?

There’re a few interesting mechanics I can see here.

Killing people and breaking things

One is the “charging barbarian,” which is an interesting idea. There’s always a good reason to charge if you Howling Strike (and why not pick up a Horned Helm while you’re at it?). It seems like that’s a pretty solid power anyway, giving you an extra 1d6 on top of whatever else. Swift Charge is another incentive.

The other is the rage mechanic, and I’m not sure about this one. I do think it’s interesting. As far as I can tell, you are “raging” after you use a daily attack power. Your at-wills get better while you’re raging. Of the two level 1 daily attacks, Swift Panther Rage seems like it’s objectively better— +2 speed (untyped) and shifting 2 squares as a move vs. Con mod damage if you or an opponent is bloodied? Get Swift Charge and the aforementioned Horned helm to charge 10 squares.

The weird bit is Rage Strike. It seems like you can’t actually use this until level 5, when you get a second daily attack: it requires that you’re raging (which requires you expend a rage power) and you have to spend a daily rage power (which is what daily attacks are called).

Level 5 is the new level 3

Since playing the Moathouse adventure at PAX (I should blog about that, shouldn’t I? Maybe?) I’ve got a better sense of what you can expect from level 5, so that’s another benchmark I look at. The level 5 dailies are pretty interesting. Frost Wolf Rage seems pretty good. I imagine a Str 16 / Con 20 dwarf barbarian dealing 8 cold when somebody hits, packing Primal Vitality and Blade Sweep.

On the other hand, Thunder Hawk Rage caught my eye, for letting you daze a dude and knock dudes prone throughout. It’s not as much the +2 to hit a prone enemy as much as it is that anybody spending time next to you has to choose between crawling (half speed, provoke OAs) or spending a move.

Here’s the thing about the way raging is set up. Spending a daily is already pretty good. You get half damage, and typically other ongoing effects. The barbarian gets a nice boost to his dailies.

Returning to the level 5 dwarf barbarian above, take Recuperating Strike (+10 temporary hp while raging). Pretty sweet! I have a newfound respect for temporary hit points after playing an Infernal warlock in the Moathouse bit.

And while I feel lame for bringing up this, too, this same dwarf could take Swift Charge, a Horned Helm, and Howling Strike. While raging, do an extra 2d6 on a charge. Get dwarven weapon proficiency and a mordenkrad. What’s that work out to? 11-29 on a charge? The nice thing is that Howling Strike doesn’t provoke if you’re raging.

What’s old is new

Obviously I am going to have to remake Beth’s barbarian, Deedee Grumfist, with this character. I believe she was level 7 or 8, human barbarian, which I’ll probably just map to level 5 in terms of 4e power level. 3e didn’t offer much customization there, so I might have to wing it.

Poetic license! That’s the ticket.

In the meantime, let’s have a post! I got my grubby little mitts on a copy of Adventurer’s Vault, a book full of new equipment, and I’ve had some time to peruse it. 

The short and sweet? There’s some really neat stuff in here for anyone who regularly plays D&D 4th Edition.

First, let’s get this out of the way: this book doesn’t really make any bones about what it is. It’s a big old list of arms and equipment. Honestly, I’m not even really sure how to talk about this book. I have a hard time with large swaths of crunch, so it’s typically a long time before I make my way through the whole thing.

Despite that, I wanted this book for more than one reason. Mounts, alchemy, battle standards, and new weapons are all cool and intriguing. My chief problem, though, was that I was running out of interesting items to hand out. For instance, with multiple Hide-wearers in my group, what level 4 to 6 items do I give out? There aren’t that many!

The flip side to that is that I wouldn’t recommend this book if you aren’t either involved in a series of short-running games, or one or more ongoing games. It is straight-up items, and if you don’t play that much, you won’t get much benefit from the added variety.

Itams

The Superior weapons are pretty good. They aren’t overpowered for the most part, but some of them are a little too close to being objectively good. The weapons that go a damage die up (e.g. waraxe) are slightly concerning if only because 2[W] looks a lot nicer with d12 instead of d10.

I like Alchemy. The idea of one-off items isn’t new, but it’s interesting to see 4e’s take on missile weapons with special effects, like Alchemical fire arrows (my personal favorite). Hard-coding the attack and damageto the item nicely separates this out. Some of the classic items like Thunderstones or Smoke sticks come back, and it’s nice to see them there. I’ve already got some scenes in mind.

There’s a section on vehicles, which I mention because there’s an airship. My first thought was: really? But it’s totally in keeping with 4e’s over-the-top, high fantasy. If there are airships, then of course there are riding gryphons and dinosaurs and glowing flowers and all kinds of other crazy shit. I don’t incorporate this flavor in my games enough even though I like it, and this was a nice reminder.

From there, there’s a whole list of items organized similarly to the magic items section in the PHB. What’s there to say? There are plenty of items in each category, and some particularly evocative items, such as gloves that let you hide things in ‘em, a scabbard that hides your weapons, or gloves that let you shift after a charge. It’s all interesting stuff, and I’d be surprised if there weren’t something for everyone here.

Of course, there are quite a few interesting Wondrous Items, as well as Reagents (consumables that enhance spells), Whetstones (consumables that enhance weapons), Battle Standards (stick ‘em in the ground to get an area-effect buff), and various other bits. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that, on top of the usual master list of items for each slot, there is also an index of all items in the book by level. Even though D&D is begging for a browseable database (and I suppose the Compendium and the Character Creator are the answers to that), this is a really nice touch.

Appendix

The only other thing I should mention about the book itself is that there’s a section about the role of magic items in your game. In brief, it talks about ways to scale up items PCs already possess (i.e., the “grandfather’s sword is obsolete” problem), unique items, and transferring enchantments from one item to another (i.e., the “I’ve respecced and now I need a new sword”).

Final thoughts

As I said above, I recommend this book if you find yourself running out of interesting items to give to your PCs, which happened for me. I’m mostly not worried about incorporating any of these items in my game, and in fact some of them are fairly inspiring, in terms of providing plot points or just generally being evocative. Alternatively, if you play a lot, this will solve the problem of a dearth of interesting items to choose from at early levels. 

If you don’t play regularly, it’s not as great, since the main benefit you get from this book is when you play a wide variety of games or progress through levels.