D&D Compendium Screen Shot

I’ve been a subscriber to Wizards of the Coast “Dungeons and Dragons Insider” from the beginning mainly for the Dragon Magazine, and Dungeon Magazine content. In fact, for a while I considered the D&D Compendium kind of useless. After all, I already own the book, right? Maybe, but not quite.

Basically the D&D Compendium is a database of all the D&D rules published by WOTC. This includes major releases like Monster Manual 2, but also Dungeon and Dragon magazines, and RPGA adventures.

As a DM you can use it to find creatures based on name, then sort by type, role, level, or XP value. In addition, you could search for a specific power and then find creatures with that power. Just as an example, there appear to be about 41 different kobolds in 4E already, though I’m always looking for more.

As a player you can search for Feats, Powers, Paragon Paths or Epic Destinies. For example, I did a search for speed and found a feat called ‘Shared Speed’ which allows a familiar and his owner to share a speed bonus.

And when it comes to owning the books, you don’t have to, as long as you have your subscription, all that information is yours. Even though I have yet to purchase the 4th Edition version of Manual of the Planes I can still see and print the stats for the Barbed Devil from that book.

So, if like me, you subscribed to D&D Insider for the magazine content, or perhaps for the Character Creator, make sure you take the time to try out this outstanding resource.

Monstrous Personalities offers examples of non-combat encounters with monsters, creatures, and critters of the Dungeons and Dragons game.

This encounter can occur anywhere, outdoors or within a dungeon, as long as a kobold tribe lives nearby. The party hears the faint call of a high pitched voice calling for help. Tracing the source of the sound they come to a simple covered pit trap, and in the bottom of the pit stands a kobold chief, named Squirm. Squirm wears a brightly painted mismatched set of armor. Initially the kobold cowers at the appearance of the party, but as long as the party shows no hostility he opens up and speaks with the party.

If the party speaks with Squirm he explains the following: Recently a scout returned reporting the presence of a rival tribe near his tribe’s territory. Leading a small war party Squirm hoped to drive the rivals away, but instead he found himself in this trap. Luckily he suffered only minor injuries, unfortunately, it turns out that someone in his tribe had dug the trap specifically to trap him, for though the war party looked down and saw he was still alive, none even made an attempt to help him, and several appeared happy to see him in the pit.

Squirm wants the party to help him return to his tribe. While he now knows the tribe wants him gone, he doesn’t think they’ll take further direct action, because it is considered bad luck to kill a chief (especially by the chiefs), though apparently leaving one to die of starvation isn’t quite as much ‘bad luck’. He also believes when he returns, he can get help from his supporters, and he’ll be more aware should there be another attempt.

Depending on your plans, the encounter can conclude with the PCs accompanying Squirm to a point at the border of his tribe’s territory. If you’d like to turn this into an adventure, Squirm might try to convince the party to protect him until he can surround himself with tribe members he considers loyal.

My 'Free RPG Day' Haul

There’s the picture, if you read my previous post, you’ll see I basically got everything I was hoping for, plus the Paranoia: Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Alpha Complex, and 2 huge spider miniatures which the store had leftover from a Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures release tournament.

I arrived about 10 or 15 minutes before the store opened, and there was no one else waiting. By the time opening time came around there was one other player there, who was looking for the White Wolf Geist Quick Start Rules.

There was a bit of confusion, so they didn’t put out the free products right away, this gave me some time to look around. I’d already gotten the Eberron Player’s Guide and the Arcane Towers Dungeon Tile set, so I didn’t need anything specific. I did find a copy of Level Up issue 1, some Exacto knife blades, Captain America #600, a pack of Dangerous Delves miniatures (Aboleth Visible, Chimera rare), and a box for my son to store his Pokemon cards in. Because we waited patiently, the clerk gave me those two huge spider promos, and mentioned that there might be some others they might be able to find for me down the road.

Haven’t had a chance to really read through the free stuff, but I was glad to see the large Dungeon Tile that came with the the Khyber’s Harvest Adventure, though the tile might be a little adventure specific and it might have been cooler if they’d created some modular pieces.

I’ll try and have some breif reviews of the free products starting later this week.

Safe travels,

Paul

Ok, so not ‘Here’, not even now, but tomorrow (June 20th) at your local gaming store as part of FreeRPGDay.

Participating stores will be giving out free products from Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Goodman Games, Q-Workshop, White Wolf, Mongoose, and more (click for a full list of participating companies and the products to be given away).

Top 5 items I’m anticipating and hoping to get:

#5: Mongoose Publishing: Introduction to Dragon Warriors. I had heard of this game before, but never read or played it, so I’m curious to take a peak.

#4: Goodman Games: 4th Edition Hero’s Handbook: Immortal Heroes. Goodman Games always puts out good products.

#3: Paizo: Pathfinder Bonus Bestiary. Always love some new monsters.

#2: Q-Workshop: Unique die. I recently got a set of their dice, and they are beautiful.

#1: WOTC: Khyber’s Harvest Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Adventure. I’m a big fan of Eberon.

I’ll be going to the Portsmouth, VA branch of Atlantis Games and Comics. I’ll probably only be there a short time, close to opening because the wife and kids will be with me (probably waiting in the car), but based on some email correspondence it sounds like they’ll be running the WOTC’s free Eberon adventure, Khyber’s Harvest and White Wolf’s Geist RPG starting around 2. That may change though, so I’d give them a call to check.

You can look for a store close to you here: Free RPG Day Store Listing

Expect pictures and brief reviews of whichever free products I manage to grab sometime tomorrow evening.

Enjoy, and safe travels,

Paul

Got my Monster Dice from Maow Miniatures recently. I ordered them online from a site called GameDaze.com.

Here is a picture of them all together:

And here’s a link to a set of Flickr pictures with individual photos as well: Maow Miniatures Monster Dice Photo Set

They look really cool, though I’m a little worried about painting them because the detail is very fine, and I haven’t painted in a few years. I’m going to try and pick up some paints next Saturday (June 20th) when I go to Free RPG Day.

I’m still debating which one to paint first. I’m especially fond of the ones I’ve called ‘Monster’ (the flat face), ‘Beholder’ (the big eye), and ‘Mouth’ (the big mouth). I’m leaning towards painting Mouth first because it’s the deepest carving, and I think it will be most forgiving if my hand isn’t as steady as it should be. Though I expect the eyes (located in 2 of the pips on the die) to cause trouble for me.

I tried rolling the dice, and the carvings as expected throw the weight off, so while they will roll, I suspect if you were to chart their rolls you would find that they are not truly random. Though they will look pretty cool sitting in front of you next time you’re sitting down to play Dungeons and Dragons.

More updates and photos as the project progresses.

Safe travels,

Paul

My top 5 creatures from the recently released  Dungeons and Dragons 4E Monster Manual 2

#5: Myoconids. Living mushrooms, old school and low level, gotta kill them all. And how nice of them to constantly share any damage done to them with the other Mushroom Men.

#4: Bullywug. Humanoid frogs destroying the environment. Classic critter with some interesting mechanics attached.

#3: Ant, Giant. If old movies are to believed, apparently an atomic bomb must have gone off! Planning an adventure for my kids, and I think a collection of giant insects and similar cretures will be fun. Too bad I couldn’t find any toy ants this weekend.

#2: Rust Monster. Ok, maybe I like the classics too much, but I was happy to see this creature make a return. I know some don’t agree, but I think the workings of the rusting ability will work well.

#1: Geonid. This one is totally new to me, which is part of the reason it made it all the way to #1. Another one I can’t want to see in play, a boulder becomes an enemy without notice, a mouthful of glowing purple crystals trying to grab onto the characters.

Like my own gaming style, this list leans towards the lower level creatures. Some others that jumped out at me: Iron Dragon, Earth Archons, Behir Bolter Whelp, Centipedes, Darkmantle, Gnaw Demon, Drakes, Frost Giant, Goblin Acolyte of Maglubiyet, Oozes! and Tomb Spider.

Overall a great variety of creatures, though I wish there’d been a kobold or two tossed in.

Safe travels,

Paul