The Hobgoblin Barracks (03/28/2010)

The adventurers started this week at the east end of an east-west hallway with a pair of closed doors facing north in front of them. The party had just heard these doors click shut a few seconds after they initially started down the hall, so somebody or something knows they are out here. Bogar and Krstic are at the back of the party, so it must be time to get things started.

PDF's and Downloads

About a year ago I purchased H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth (TL), the follow-up to H1: Keep on the Shadowfell (KotS). I finally opened TL up a few weeks ago and was doing some preliminary reading in anticipation of us starting it in likely ~2 months or so. I do not have a PDF version of TL, but I do have a PDF version of KotS because you can download it for free at the Wizards.com website (here). I like being able to just pop open the PDF when I am planning game play, and I also like to be able cut/paste artwork out of the PDF to enhance our game play (and my blog), and having a PDF makes this much easier.

Leveling Up Update

Group members that have the DDI Character Builder tool have provided an updated *.dnd4e character sheet file or else have provided me with instructions for what to update on their character. I haven't heard from Leo yet, but I am sure I will shortly. There are a couple of questions still floating out there and so there may be a few tweaks yet, but we are in good shape for this coming Sunday.

Hobgoblin Guard Room (03/21/2010)

We left off last week with our hearty but tiring adventurers advancing down a set of steps in order to face a band of Hobgoblins. Leo had warned us he would be a late arrival tonight ... and did somebody say something about a spider?

Player's Handbook 3 Released

The new Player's Handbook 3 (PHB3) has been released. It includes rules for Psionics, has new races and classes, and has the long awaited rules for hybrid, or multi-classed, characters. Critical-hits.com has produced a better review than I could, so the link is here.

Wizards has been releasing material from PHB3 for several months now at wizards.com, and much of the new material for races and classes has already been sourced into the Character Builder (CB) tool. The next update to the CB in early March will include the remainder of this data.

More Fun With Floor Runes (03/14/2010)

The evening's session got off to a delayed start because the daughter and 2-1/2 year old granddaughter of Grandpa Scott came by to pay a visit to the Sunday Night D&D crew, plus we got to find out that a grandson will be arriving in May. Once we got the video connection working Mark and Deb in North Carolina were able to join in as well. Given that Scott's daughters are the oldest of the group's kids and members of this group started playing together before they were born ... well, it just made us all feel old. Regardless, a child's smile is always a blessing.

Character Builder Update Available

Mark had previously reported that he had encountered some problems when trying to level up his Cleric after he had installed the March 2, 2010, Character Builder (CB) upgrade. He had looked online and saw that the problem had also been seen by other users and had already been reported back to Wizards. I expected a bug fix upgrade at some point soon, but hadn't checked for a couple of days, and as I said it's available now. I downloaded the upgrade successfully and left Mark a text that the upgrade is available, figuring he could test it some time over the weekend.

New Purchases

I acquired a Seagate 1 Terrabyte external hard drive this week. It was on sale at Best Buy. There are many different versions of portable/external hard drives on the market, and if a smaller size or a unique color was important than I could pay more for less space. And besides, if I was willing to pay $80 for 500 MB I might as well pay the extra $20 and get a whole terrabyte anyway.

Wizards Adventure Master Asks For Feedback

Rodney Thompson is one of the lead developers at Wizards and last week he posted on his blog (here) that he has read and heard a lot of criticism about the quality of the adventures that Wizards has published. Rodney has therefore asked for input, thoughts, and ideas from the game playing public as to what they think would make better adventures. As of Wednesday morning there are 39 responses in the comments section, some cogent, some in-depth, and some just weird.

Sir Keegan and the Floor Runes (03/07/2010)

The group is back at full strength this week as Joette has returned from her world tour. After getting her caught up on the progress the party made in her absence the night's festivities commenced. The characters had ended last week's session standing in front of a large pair of doors on the west wall of the Altar Room. After just having fought zombies and skeletons the party nervously awaited its next action.

Why Is There No Jewish Narnia?

I was perusing JewishReviewofBooks.com the other day ... no, of course I wasn't. But I did end up there following a link from instapundit.com pointing to an article as to why there is no "Jewish Narnia" or its equivalent (article here). An interesting article about the difference in writing styles and choices, specifically as related to science fiction and fantasy, from the perspective of Jewish and Christian history and culture. Definitely worth a read.

Wizards News - Monster Stat Blocks Are Being Tweaked

Yesterday Wizards announced (here, subscription required) they are going to slightly alter the way monster stat blocks are displayed starting with products released in May 2010. When Monster Manual 3 is released in June its monsters will be displayed using this new stat block format. An example is of the new stat block format is given, but honestly, without a side-by-side comparison it's kind of hard to tell what is really different between the current and the new version.

News and Notes (Updated)

As a news note the March upgrades for the Character Builder and Adventure Tools are now available. The new source material (Martial Power 2) is included plus a smattering of fixes, this is the first substantial update following the annual Christmas holiday slow-down time. My personal bugaboo - the print limit on journal entries - is not fixed yet, but too be fair most of the open issues are for stuff that is pretty esoteric (known issues list here). As such I don't think there is anything that affects us as first level characters.

Into the Crypt (02/28/2010)

Joette is still in India, although she will be heading to London England for most of the week. She will return Saturday, which means she will be present - at least physically - next Sunday. As for the rest of us we have an as-of-yet unopened door to go through ...