Dungeons and Dragons Blog

I’m a huge fan of Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics.  They’re old school style modules that are fun to play with plenty of action and not as much talking and role playing.  It’s the D&D I remember as a kid and while I now like a more complete game, these modules make for a great night of gaming.  I did a review of Idylss of the Rat King so I encourage you to check that out to see what you get.

For a while, the Dungeon Crawl Classics all kind of stood on their own.  Now Goodman Games is introducing the Gazetteer of the Known Realms, which is basically a campaign setting formed around the 30+ Dungeon Crawl Classic modules that the company’s produced over the years.  I was very interested despite the fact that I’ve ran my campaigns in Faerun since it’s inception (I have the original boxed set still) and the only thing that’s probably stopped me from picking this up has been it’s price tag ($70).

Now Goodman Games is giving you sneak peak at the campaign setting.  You can download an excerpt from the GM’s guide and they now recently released an excerpt of the Gazetteer that discusses the North Reaches of Aerth.

I caught on to Wolfgang Baur’s work when he began publishing his Adventure Builder series on the main D&D website.  At the bottom of the first one I noticed a link to a website called Open Design, where Baur was  soliciting donations to be a patron of a custom made openly designed adventure.  Patrons would be able to follow the construction of the adventure and would even have input along the way.  I found out about it late and decided to just follow it in passing.

Now, the project is finished and for a $25 donation you can get a copy, but it’s only for a limited time.  September 30th is the last day to make a donation and I ponied up to check it out.  I might take on a more active role in the next project to help with my own campaign design.

I love RPGnow.com.  You can not only find old first and second edition Dungeons and Dragons products available in pdf format, but there’s a variety of various third party products that are well worth the $5-10 price tag.  One of my latest purchases was written by Philip J. Reed and it’s 101 Spellbooks, Tomes of Knowledge and Forbidden Grimoires.  I’ve written about this before, butI’m a magic junkie.  When a book like Spell Compendium or Tome of Magic come out, I consider it a must buy.  I saw 101 Spellbooks in the top five listing for d20 Spell/Magic Books and I liked the description so I picked it up.

I must say, it far exceeded my expectations.  The books are very well put together, not just for their spell listings but for some of their special affects.  As a DM, I immediately started coming up with ideas to place some of these spell books in my campaign.  I figured some of the books would make nice magical item finds by the party but then there were some very cool books that I could form a nemesis around.

In addition to the spell books, you also get a detailed listing of special books.  While these don’t contain spells, they do give the owner a particular benefit.  Sometimes it’s an increase to a skill while others contain direction to building a certain magic item.  There’s also a variety of mundane books (no special effects, but some interesting items to place throughout a campaign).

Well worth the $7 download price, right?  Well, you get even more.  You get around 75 new spells and while there’s a bit here for everyone, there’s quite a bit if you run a necromancer.  Most of the spells are lower level spells (3rd level and lower) but there are some higher level, including two ninth level spells. 

There’s also some new feats, several of which center around poison.  I particularly liked Concealed Magic, which allows a spell caster to cast a spell discretely without giving away the fact that he’s actually casting a spell.   You also get over a dozen new types of poison and four new skills.

To round things out, you not only get a nice landscape colored version of the book, but you get a black and white profile version that is great for printing (which I did, it looks great).  I enjoyed this product so much that I also plan on checking out the other 101 products.  101 Feats looks particularly interesting.

I like to call this one “Return to the Isle of Dread” because that’s how they hooked me into this one.  I completely missed the Shackled City adventure path and got in late on Age of Worms so I’m interested to see how this plays out from the beginning.

My first D&D purchase was the Expert Rules, which contained the original Isle of Dread and once baseball season ends, I’m going to do a Blast From the Past on this one.  I know that’s a month away, but I’m really limited time wise, both playing and writing, during baseball season but come winter, I’ll be getting back to a more regular writing schedule here.

Anyway, Savage Tide takes you to Sasserine, a very interesting port city.  There you help out a noble and take down an evil guild in your first step towards the Isle of Dread.  The magazine comes with a cool fold out map of the city and an adventure that should take you through about third level.

There’s also a high level adventure that continues the Maure Castle line.  I don’t have the older Dungeon Magazines which have the other two installments so I really didn’t get into this one too deeply.