August 11, 2008

GSL, SRD, Stealth, New Rituals, and DRAGON Editorials - oh my!


A big batch of updates hit the Dungeons & Dragons website over at Wizards of the Coast today. So, while everyone else is talking about the upcoming changes to the GSL and the SRD (any change is a good one at this point), I'm just pointing out that there have been some game related updates as well.

Stealth & Other Errata: The new stealth rules have been clarified (finally) in the latest updates to the Player's Handbook. The new 4th Edition rules for the Stealth skill include Opposed Checks, Becoming Hidden, Success, Failure, Remaining Hidden, Keep Out of Sight, Keep Quiet, Keep Still, Don’t Attack, Not Remaining Hidden, and Enemy Activity. Its a full friggen page in the Errata, not to mention that 2 months later there are 22 pages of Errata already. Can you say "Oops!? I guess we messed that one up, eh?" Maybe once the new GSL or SRD is available I'll acutally be able to legally reprint the rules errata here. I'm such a complainer...

Dragon - Ritually Speaking: There's a new (well written) article from Peter Schaefer entitled "Ritually Speaking" that includes 33 new Rituals. Considering the PHB only contained 49 Rituals, this is a 67% increase in the total number of rituals in the game. So, grab this quick before they make you pay for it. All in all, this is a very nice addition to the existing RAW ritual set. Here's a summary list in the same format as the one in the PHB (click to make it bigger):
Dragon - Editorial: A brief editorial by Chris Youngs entitled "Fatality!".
Forgotten Realms Player's Guide Excerpts: Finally, don't forget to grab a few new Warlock powers while your at it. There are six total, three in the PDF file and three more directly on the web page. They all work with the new "Dark Pact", which is part of the PDF as well. All Must Sacrifice (Warlock (Dark) Attack 13) is going to be so fun to play with once my players are up to that point. Better yet - use the pact as a BBEG finale power, wohoo!

2 comments:

  1. Wizards are chucking out so much great stuff right now it's getting difficult to keep up :)

    First the Artificer, then the Swordmage and now the Dark Pact Warlock (or at least, a good enough part of him to make a 1st level guy).

    Add in the adventures, articles and other excepts and I reckon we must have got an entire supplement-worth of goodies. Not bad :)

    Heck, it makes up for the p-poor editing work in the core books - especially the PHB. All those errata and foobars must have hurt........

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  2. I agree. Its going to be a bummer when all those things go to DDI and we have to pay for them. I wonder how much, if anything, will be released for free once DDI goes live. All the buzz about the software for DDI - meh, i could care less - the software is fluff IMHO. New content is the only reason I would pay for DDI, if I paid at all...

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