At Will

Arcane Power is out!  I’ve spent a few hours with it.  The quick verdict?  All is well in the Magic Kingdom.  Each arcane class gets at least one new build (sorcerors, the lucky SOBs, get two) plus a grip of paragon paths.   There are a host of new feats and rituals, and familiars are back! I’ve always been a fan of the little buggers, though they have a tendency to be forgotten.

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Just got my copy of Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead. It uses a similar format to the Draconimicon, but the content is even better than the Draconomicon.  Their are a lot clever imaginings and additions to the lore of the undead, in addition to some great mechanics and story bits.

Highlights:

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Playwrite has a bevy of cool tools that I’m downloading as I type this and will be testing out shortly — I’ll give full video reviews soon, but in the meantime you should check out the following Windows software and see what you think as all the tools seem promising:

• Trackworks – an initiative tracker, compatible with 4e.
• 4th Edition Power Creator – easily the best looking power creator I’ve seen.  Nice interface, HTML export features. One of the tools I’m most excited about.
• Crawlnotes – So. Fricken. Cool.  It might replace my current tool for session notes, The Journal. Mock out  dungeon visually and attach your notes to it!
• 4e Class Creator – Not out yet, but worth watching and waiting for.

Some great software here, so I hope there’s more to come.

So, you say you want more info on dragons.  Well, we’ve got red dragons, black dragons, white dragons, green dragons…and purple dragons, and brown dragons.  We’ve got all the chromatic dragons you might happen to want or need to know about in this little Draconimicon.  We’ve got undead dragons, blight dragons, blazewyrms, more kobolds…really, a lot of information.

Personally, I never really thought I’d need as much information about dragons as this book supplies.  You can find everything from dragon wingspans to mating habits.  Don’t think that I’m complaining though –it’s actually terrific. 

See, Draconimicon is a GM book.  It’s not for players, so the more fluff, the better.   As a GM I want as much info and fluff as I can get.  I’ll take the best bits and use them in my games.  I don’t know, typically until I sit down at the PC and start typing, what bits will stick and what will fall away. 

So, I’ve got this book in front of me.  It has sample lairs (with maps –I’m a map junkie), ideas for using dragons in campaigns, and a huge bestiary on dragon variants and dragon-related creatures.

One of the great things about dragons is that they’re set up now so that you can use them at all levels.  From level 1 to 30, you can find a suitable range of draconic mayhem to unleash on your players.  If you want to keep it strictly epic, of course, you can save it for later…but there’s still a lot of good info here.

In short, this is my sort of book.  I’ve already used a good chunk of the material in my current campaign and will be using quite a bit more. 

If you’re not doing anything with dragons in your campaign, you can definitely hold off.  Otherwise…get this book.