[4E] Open Grave excerpt up

[hong]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081215

I keep thinking of Exalted's Abyssals book. This is a good thing, mind.

[Nahat Anoj]

It's good - I like the bit about how the Raven Queen is a relative newcomer. Nerull was the original god of the dead.

This also seems really, really familiar to me ... has this excerpt been released before?

[Imban]

This also seems really, really familiar to me ... has this excerpt been released before?

Yes. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4pr/20081105a)

Basically the exact same preview, at least for the first section, though a few lines have been altered.

[aservan]

Ainh.

It is more useless fluff that has been written before. I don't see anything there that I must have.

Don't get me wrong I like 4e undead more then any previous D&D undead. Energy Drain was a stupid mechanic. Still I don't see any mechanics here.

This is another book like Draconomicon: . The 3e version was better in that case. At least it was useful to everybody not just DMs who want to run lots and lots of dragons.

My guess is that this will be the same.

I just have mixed feelings on this kind of stuff. I would rather have books be inclusive rather then exclusive. Be for both PCs and DMs. More undead monsters is all well and good. I don't really want stories in my games to be long involved affairs about what amounts to a DM undead PC.

[BrianDR]

Still I don't see any mechanics here.

It is a one page excerpt, after all.


I just have mixed feelings on this kind of stuff. I would rather have books be inclusive rather then exclusive. Be for both PCs and DMs.

Personally, I am very happy about 4e actually targeting a book to an audience. Woohoo, no more half-useless books!

[aservan]

Personally, I am very happy about 4e actually targeting a book to an audience. Woohoo, no more half-useless books!

Yeah, but I don't know anyone who exclusively is a DM or a PC. They do both. Ergo no half useless. Just one half useful at different times. Also from a marketing standpoint PCs way outnumber DMs. You can sell a lot more books to PCs. I want the company to be healthy.

My problem with the new Draconomicon is that is was very dull. It covered less then half the information of the old one. No PC stuff, no metallic dragons equals a lot less bang for my buck. I also really loved the Lockwood art of the old one, which is a tangental point, granted. The addition of three new colors doesn't make up for the missing stuff. I didn't even like the new fluff so that doesn't help. That's the thing though. Fluff is entirely subjective, let people make their own details. The game maker should only paint in very broad strokes.

I just don't need a huge amount of background information on monsters. Just the basics (the 4e Monster manual was on the too sparse side however). Almost no one wants to sit thumb twiddling there while the DM reads crap they don't care about. Can we just get to the action please?

I don't really need books like this as a DM and it is useless to me as a player. I like the stuff my friends and me create better. I only need WotC to make the monster stat blocks and enough flavor text that I know how they intend the monster to fit into the world.

[hong]

Yeah, but I don't know anyone who exclusively is a DM or a PC.

I know plenty.

[Wiseblood]

I know plenty.

Indeed. There are a few of us that do double duty as DM's and PC's in my current group but the majority are only players. Plus I know some people who never play. They just pop out of the woodwork every now and again with a campaign idea and those of us who can join up.

[DDogwood]

Yeah, but I don't know anyone who exclusively is a DM or a PC.

I only know a few people who are exclusively DMs, but I know plenty who are exclusively players.

[BrianDR]

Yeah, but I don't know anyone who exclusively is a DM or a PC. They do both. Ergo no half useless.

The thing is, that if WotC puts out X books a year, and X/2 of them are PC books, and X/2 of them are DM books, someone who wants both can just buy both and get the exact same amount of material as if each of those books had a 50/50 split of player and DM information. Meanwhile, people who only do one or the other don't have to buy stuff they don't have a use for. It's just superior organization in that sense.

Anecdotally, everyone I know is either primarily a DM or PC. Not to say that its exclusive, but there's usually a pretty heavy lean.

Also from a marketing standpoint PCs way outnumber DMs. You can sell a lot more books to PCs.

Yeah, thats true, I wonder why WotC changed their model. Perhaps they found that including a small amount of player material in books that were otherwise DM-centric wasn't encouraging each player to buy a copy, but rather causing the group to buy one copy and pass it around anyway, or even causing people to just pirate a book instead? Or maybe their new model is to forget about trying to get players to buy half-PC-material books and just get them to lay out $5/month for D&DI instead.


I just don't need a huge amount of background information on monsters. Just the basics (the 4e Monster manual was on the too sparse side however).

Yeah, the 4e manual was horrible in this way. Personally, I'd like somewhere between a full column and a full page on each monster (grouping): enough to know how they fit in and get a few story ideas, but not the endless fluff of something like the draconomicon.


Almost no one wants to sit thumb twiddling there while the DM reads crap they don't care about. Can we just get to the action please?


Wait, your DM reads the background info during the session, not during his own prep-time? :eek:



Personally I'm looking for two things out of Open Grave:
-New Monsters, (especially lower-level) because thats what I feel 4e is thin on right now.
-Some fluff ideas on how to make undead more interesting than they have been - something that moves it beyond the old standbys (zombies, vampires, wraiths, etc.) that we've seen countless times.

[Fallen Seraph]

I am quite glad they are separating DM and Player books, it means that if your a DM who wants ideas and such you can get a book full of them, if your a Player who wants more options you can get a book full of them. Not a tiny bit there a tiny bit here.

I am quite glad too they are making books that are generally more fluff ones and generally more crunch ones. Especially when it comes to monsters. Since you figure if you had like suggested above a page per monster group that is 153 (there is 153 different monster groups, so a page a group that is 153 pages) less pages for monster crunch. That is a ton fewer monsters.

[aservan]

It's way to late and there isn't any reason for Wizards to care what I want at this point in the book's development, but I would like to see stuff about undead that gets more then just clerics and paladin's happy.

I mean they are all vulnerable to radiant damage is good and all, but they are all resistant to poison and Necrotic. That makes certain builds rather suck.

I can't think of a monster that is vulnerable to poison. Making things like poison breath weapon for dragonborn stink. You would only take it to fit a certain character concept or if you knew your DM hated undead.

Maybe those kind of mechanics are unavoidable? Maybe undead aren't undead without those things? Previous editions certainly felt that was the case. I never understood why vampires were immune to mind effecting? Umm they have a mind. They aren't zombies. At least they fixed that stuff.

Maybe it is just me, but I can't get excited for this book. At least not so far.

[SpringsBoundlessThorns]

This is another book like Draconomicon: . The 3e version was better in that case. At least it was useful to everybody not just DMs who want to run lots and lots of dragons.


Just an earnest question: did you really sit down and read the Draconomicon? It is a book filled with interesting crunch and some fluff (truly some of it horrible). But the book as a whole was amazingly useful and not just to a DM who wants to run a bunch of dragons.

[aservan]

I noticed some monsters that I will definitely want to run. There are pages and pages of pretty dry and often dull encounters. I mean the one in the shadowfell versus the vampire dragon. It gets points for some level of originality, but loses them big time for things like thirty crypts that all lead to the same place. Oh and there is no reason to have the crypts in the first place?

Come on. Give me a break. I paid for this? This is the successor to my favorite 3e supplement?

I am sure some people loved it. For me that is not useful crunch. Most of the people I play with will read it or at least skim it. They DM sometimes too. So None of us will use an adventure with no surprises.

The only part that will see any use is the monster write up sections. Which is what about a quarter of the book at best.

The fluff is bloody awful for the most part. Dragon have a friggin elemental organ now? Yuck.

[Zeea]

I'm happy with the new books. I felt the 3e Libris Mortis and Draconomicon were borderline useless crap and the new Draconomicon was much better. Also, I DM 99% of the time and my players DM about 1% of the time, so we'd really prefer books to be split both ways.

I don't really think player books sell all that much better than DM books since most groups will only purchase one of each book and pass it around.

[Burgonet]

Well they've got my attention.
I'm impressed with the speed and directness that the D&D crowd know their target market this time around, and on the quality of the books released overall.

[Nightingale]

I wonder if we'll see rules for a playable Undead "race"? Cause that'd just be awesome.

[sporkpimp]

I want the company to be healthy.Thank God they have you to keep them on track, lest they tragically forget to try and make money.

-A.

[Smartmonkey]

I wonder if we'll see rules for a playable Undead "race"? Cause that'd just be awesome.

Forsaken FTW!

But seriously, I'd rather have books sold that are explicitly for players (martial powar!) and for DM's (Draconomicon). I play and DM, as does another player in our group, and one of the major headaches I experienced running a 3e Eberron game was trying to control OOC knowledge of players who compulsively read splats, including monster statblocks. Keep the player stuff in player books, and DM stuff in DM books.

[hong]

I wonder if we'll see rules for a playable Undead "race"? Cause that'd just be awesome.
Would shadar-kai count? Because dollars to donuts, they'll get a big writeup in this book.

[hong]

Moar excerpt!

The undead nation of Hantumah (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20081219)

It's like an evil Shangri-La.

Tidbit: katanae now do 1d8 damage, and are high crit! But are they just reskinned scimitars, or a new weapon type entirely...?

[CLAVDIVS]

Would shadar-kai count? Because dollars to donuts, they'll get a big writeup in this book.

No, because they're not undead. And they got PC stats in the MM.