Familiar Ground

WotC has released for free their Quick Start Rules that was included in Keep on the Shadowfell.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4news/20090428

Also available is the actual adventure, Keep on the Shadowfell and the Character Builder program that will allow you to build up to 3rd level characters.

It’s a great way to introduce new players to the game.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

I spent a bit of time earlier trying to see how I can reduce my carbon footprint.  All I can think of though was the punchline of jokes (”go lose some weight!”, “stop wearing graphite shoes”, etc).

Maybe I’ll go get a bicycle…

Or maybe I’ll just make a watercolor about the occasion and call it a day.  That sounds more like me.

Anyhoo, any suggestions as to what I should try to create a watercolor painting of?  One of the characters of the strip?  Make a Sunday paper style longer comic?

Luke Surl is a funny single panel humor comic that covers a wide variety of topics. The best comparison I can come up with is the Far Side or Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.  His site can be found at www.lukesurl.com.

He recently asked for other cartoonists to come do guest strips for him and here’s my contribution.

Luke wrote the script and I did the drawing. 

I have a section on the site where I’ve placed some downloadable freebies for D&D. One of them is a section called Print and Play maps.

Basically, these PDF documents are simple drawings in black and white that you can print out on regular paper and arrange together so you have a grid to play on (scaled for 1 inch figures). It’s great for those times where you have a pick up game or forget your battlemap at a convention or game store, but have access to the internet and a printer (most hotels have free guest computer centers).

Just make sure you set your printer settings to print at full size (not adjust size to margins).

I’ve got about a dozen designs so far and will be adding more sporadically. Feel free to distribute or modify these as you see fit.

If there are any specific terrain types you want to see, let me know and I’ll see what I can create.

So WotC is coming out with Arcane Powers, a new supplement for the game detailing various things of importance to Wizards, Swordmages, Bards and other classes using the Arcane power source.

One of the things that will be described in detail are the rules surrounding Familiars.

How does this impact the story?  Well, it won’t…much.  I’m pretty much guaranteed to use some aspects, but the “physics” of the story won’t correspond exactly to the rules.  It’ll come close, but not quite.

One of the major differences is that Familiars in the new edition are more magical extensions of their creator’s will.  They are magical constructs that just happen to have a physical form.  Killing the body won’t really affect it other than forcing the familiar to have to reform a new body after some effort.

Toad is different.  He was an actual cave frog that was granted sentience and a connection with his wizard, similar to how the older edition familiars worked.  There are familiars in this story that fit the 4e mold however, and they’ll be popping up later on in the story, but just be aware that Toad, Lady Sasha and especially Coco won’t correspond exactly to the rules on Familiars or Paladin Companions.

More info on the upcoming supplement can be found here:  http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/9780786949571