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You are here: Home / Archives for 4th Edition

4e Success or Failure: Magic Items

January 21, 2011 by Logan Bonner

Were 4e’s changes to magic items a success or a failure? Are they streamlined and lean, or boring and plain? Logan Bonner delineates where they went right and where they went wrong in revamping the classic treasures of D&D.

Filed Under: Featured, Minor Quests, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4E Success or Failure, 4th Edition, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games

Review: “Legend of the 5 Rings” 4th Edition RPG

November 24, 2010 by Bartoneus

I discovered Legend of the Five Rings several years ago, but in the past I have never had a chance to play the RPG system itself and instead have ended up playing Oriental Adventure version of D&D or other systems with strong Asian influences. That’s why I’m very thankful that Alderac Entertainment Group has provided us with the 4th Edition of the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game core book, which is right off the bat one of the most beautiful RPG books I’ve ever seen. Plus a contest to win a copy of the L5R core book!

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, contest, core book, giveaway, L5R, Legend of the 5 Rings, Legend of the Five Rings, Reviews, roleplaying game, Roleplaying Games

Review: Essentials D&D “Heroes” Books

November 19, 2010 by Bartoneus

If you’re a 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons player then the two Essentials books that you most want to look at are Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. Each book is presented in a similar style to a stand alone Player’s Handbook with Heroes of the Fallen Lands introducing new builds for the classic D&D classes (Clerics, Fighters, Rogues, and Wizards) while Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms introduces new builds for Druids, Paladins, Rangers, and Warlocks. Each of these books stands on its own perfectly well and you don’t need to buy both if you’re only interested in the classes presented in one of them.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, books, D&D, dnd, Dungeons & Dragons, essentials, heroes of the fallen lands, heroes of the forgotten kingdoms, phb, player, player's handbook, Reviews

Dark Sun Heats Up

July 30, 2010 by Bartoneus

We are fortunate enough to have received copies of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting and the Dark Sun Creature Catalog today, and as usual we’d love to share anything and everything that we can with you guys! Earlier today I offered to answer questions via twitter (@Bartoneus) and here are some of the questions I was asked and the answers I provided (names were removed for privacy and simplicity)

Filed Under: Featured, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, campaign setting, creature catalog, D&D, dark sun, darksun, Dungeons and Dragons, preview, q&a, question and answer

D&D 4e: The New Player’s Option

June 16, 2010 by Bartoneus

I was actually very surprised while looking through the Wizards Spring 2011 catalog when I stumbled across a new book coming out in March, Player’s Option: Heroes of Shadow. There are a lot of aspects to this book that are interesting, for one it is supposedly going to be a 6″x9″ and 320 page book selling for $19.95 in trade paperback format. The description for the book mentions three specific classes that it will support – Assassins, Necromancers, and Hexblades.

Filed Under: Featured, News, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, heroes of shadow, new, player's option, preview, shadow power source

Review: “The Hidden Current” 4e Adventure Module

May 12, 2010 by Bartoneus

The Hidden Current is the first chapter of the Dark Veil Campaign arc for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons that promises to take players from level 1 to level 30 published by Blackbyrne Publishing. Though the adventure module is a bit amateur in presentation and some of its elements, it more than makes up for that with its original ideas, good writing, and an exciting series of adventures for your players to enjoy!

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, blackbyrne publishing, D&D, dark veil campaign, Dungeons and Dragons, module, Reviews, the hidden current

An Undead History

April 30, 2010 by guest

Have you ever written a detailed and complex history for your campaign only to watch it gather dust as your players focus on the now and not concern themselves with the prior events of your campaign world? As a player, have you ever been intrigued by a campaign settings rich history only to find that your GM never uses anything from the campaign’s past? Providing interesting and detailed histories for your campaign can really help the world come alive on the table and within your players, however it is far to easy to create a detailed history and then focus on the current and future events of your game. This doesn’t have to be the case; some of the more interesting games and adventures can be fuelled by events that have happened in the world before your adventurers even arrived. Below is a detailed scenario in which new adventurers can become involved in a historical event that never concerned them.

Filed Under: Flavour Feast, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, Curse, Cursed Items, D&D, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, History, Necromancer

The Planar Orphan

April 23, 2010 by guest

Eladrin of the Feywild are an enigmatic people. With a natural detachment from events that occur on the material plane, these creatures can seem heartless and uncaring. However those that have the privilege to call an Eladrin friend know the true extent of their love and compassion. Five hundred years ago, the Eladrin now known as Loch was sentenced to death for unspeakable crimes. Fleeing to the material plane, Loch has continued his lifelong experiments in hiding. After hundreds of years of experimenting with planar magic, the Eladrin wizard finally nears his goal – a creature merged with the essence of both the Feywild and the Shadowfell.

Filed Under: Featured, Flavour Feast, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, 4th Edition, D&D, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, Eladrin, Feywild, Orphan, roleplaying games, Roleplaying Games, Shadowfell

Review: “The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea”

April 14, 2010 by Bartoneus

The Plane Above is the next 4th Edition D&D supplement that focuses specifically on the Astral Sea, denizens of the plane, a wide variety of locations found there, campaign ideas involving the plane and a handful of new monsters that can be found in the Astral Sea.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4th Edition, astral sea, book, D&D, dnd 4e, Dungeons and Dragons, Reviews, the plane above

Review: “Player’s Handbook 3”

March 18, 2010 by Bartoneus

The Player’s Handbook 3 is the newest core release for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons that introduces a lot of new content including the psionic power source. In much the same way the PHB2 introduced primal classes with a back story, this book lays out the changes to any D&D world that might bring about psionic characters and races. If you’re a fan of psionics, miss rangers that could cast natural spells, want to play classes that are more versatile and flexible, or if you’re just looking for some new options for your 4th edition game you really should check out this book.

Filed Under: Featured, Reviews, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e dnd, 4th Edition, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, PHB3, player's handbook 3, Reviews

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About the Author

  • Logan Bonner

    Logan Bonner designed, developed, and edited Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition products (including Player's Handbook 2, Arcane Power, The Slaying Stone, and Monster Vault) at Wizards of the Coast until 2009. He now lives in the Seattle area and works as a freelance game designer, writer, and editor. (Follow Logan on Twitter or email him)

    Email: logan@critical-hits.com

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