The Wiz is having an “unconventional online convention” called UnCon (I wonder what marketing monkey came up with that name). Since the convention is online, anyone can attend any of the multitude of events that are planned. Festivities kick off Monday, October 23rd (at 3am in the morning!).

You can view a complete list of all events here: http://wizo.wizards.com/uncon/pages/events.php?sort=2. Be sure to change the time zone to match yours, as it defaults to Pacific time.

All-in-all, it looks like there could be some very good content to come out of this. My main concern is that with all high-traffic, real-time, web-based events - bandwidth. Nothing ruins a potentially good time like lag and page timeouts. I’ve seen it happen to the best of them - hopefully Wizards has taken this into account and added the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the expected traffic.

Even if you’re not that into D&D, there’s events for a ton of Wizards products. Take a look at the events list to see if there’s anything you’re interested in.

I certainly won’t “see” you there, but I’ll be picking a few events to scope out next week.

Announcement | 546 Views | No Comments »

When most people think of magic item destruction they tend to think one of two things.

The first is Sunder. This is something any character can do, though it’s only “worth it” if you have the Improved Sunder feat - which requires a Strength of 13 and the Power Attack feat. This pretty much puts this option in the hands of the stronger melee types.

The second is Disjunction. This option is something that many DMs have an issue using in games. In the hands of NPCs, you can totally screw your PCs. In the hands of the PCs, they can be a nightmare to deal with and make your plans shrink to nothing. Luckily, it’s a 9th level spell and offers a save to resist the effects.

I’ve got something else in mind that you may find interesting.

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Combat & Tactics, Magic, Magic Items & Equipment | 941 Views | No Comments »

If you’re a regular reader (do we even have regular readers?) then you know I’m a fan of the D&D minis, even though I don’t play the miniatures game. Regardless of this fact, they’re consistently making awesome looking minis of iconic D&D monsters to enhance your game playing experience.

From what I’ve seen so far, there’s a lot of awesome looking miniatures to be had. If you’re not up to speed with your devils, the included pic is a gelugon. And here’s another image of a cornugon.

Even if you’re not into the minis game, this set will have a huge set of collectables for many D&D players.

Amazon has the Blood War miniatures up for about $5 off. Buy 3 and get free shipping. Release is set for November 7th and you can pre-order now.

Announcement, Product Review / News | 599 Views | 1 Comment »

I’ve had some conversations about creatures raging and how much concern they have for their personal safety while in a raging state - both monsters and PCs.

I don’t think a creature while raging necessarily needs to be idiotic, mindless and so focused that they’ll willfully do things that do not grant any benefit. They can - but that should be specific to the creature and circumstance that they find them in.

Let’s take a deeper look at rage and what it says for your character’s willingness to get hurt for no reason.

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Classes & Class Abilities, Combat & Tactics, DM Tips | 565 Views | No Comments »

I’m a fan of old fantasy movies. One of my favorites is Jason and the Argonauts (circa 1963).

If you’re not familiar with the movie, the premise is simple - Jason has to adventure for the golden fleece and faces a number of challenges along the way. The guardian of the fleece is the fearsome hydra, along with King Aeetes, the leader of the people who currently possess the fleece.

After Jason defeats the hydra and Aeetes witnesses their escape with the fleece, he calls upon his evil goddess Hecate, Queen of Darkness for help in slaying the intruders.

Want to learn about the Children of the Hydra’s Teeth? Dig down for the details.

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Magic Items & Equipment, New Content | 475 Views | No Comments »

Wizards has been posting a series of articles titled “Know Your Enemy”. There’s been six published thus far.

The articles give a quick blurb on 4 or 5 different monsters along with the appropriate Knowledge checks to find out various things about them. When we encounter “new” monsters in games that I’ve played the first thing that gets asked is, “Do I know what it is and what it does?” This gives some structure to that by providing DCs for Knowledge checks.

Enjoy!

Combat & Tactics, Races & Monsters | 697 Views | No Comments »

Healing has almost always been relegated to the realm of the divine. Somehow Bards sneak into the mix here, but we’ll ignore those flighty fools for now since their shortened spell list and spells per day limit them as efficient healers.

Dig in to find one method that arcane spellcasters can use to gain access to a large number of healing spells.

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Magic, Skills & Feats | 3,709 Views | No Comments »