Wizards DDI Update and new Books

Now that all (most?) of us have installed the DDI Character Builder (CB) Tool there was a new update released this past Tuesday (01/19/2010). When you initially access the CB tool you should see a screen with an option to either start the tool or get the update. Whenever an update is available that particular button will be selectable. There weren't much in the way of new material or bug fixes this time, but we did just come through the holidays.

The Wizards content calendar  doesn't list any updates to the Adventure Tools scheduled for January and February's schedule hasn't been released yet.

Overall I must say I am very pleased with the tools so far. All of the numbers and calculations are there, all of the choices are there, all of the new information flows in on a monthly basis, as well as any updates or corrections. Of course every D&D-type PC game for the past 25 years has had a similar CB-type tool built into it, plus there are other available (PCGen), so it's not like they had to do this from scratch. Plus being able to collect the charcters into a PDF file and then ship them around as such is a nice option too.

Other promised tools, such as the character visualizer and the networked players platform, are still somewhere out there in the ether. I am not sure I care.

Wizards also released a game supplement this week covering Dragonborn, their history, character archetypes, and providing several new powers and features:

A review at EN World is available here.

A similar book is planned for Tieflings in June of this year:

Both books are 32 pages and length and cost $9.95. Will I buy them? Well, I will definitely spend time at the bookstore reading them, and again, any new feats, powers or build options will all flow into the CB tool, so I guess we will all get them to some degree.

I also found similar books for Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Eladrin at Goodman Games.

Now the book that does interest is Underdark:

Lots of crunchy information about life below the surface, the kind of thing I like to read. I am heading out to the book store later today (with my gift cards and 30% off coupon) to take a look at it.

Here is a link to the Wizards product catalog for 2010.