Order of the Stick

OOTS is another one of those sites that I consider to be pretty well central to modern D&D gaming culture. Rich Burlew is the amazing mind behind this ongoing story. Now some 700 strips in length, running through a growing pile of printed books and increasingly eschewing its origins as a simple ‘gaming comic’, Order of the Stick will surprise you at every turn.

Burlew has just completed the most recent chapter of the story, and it looks like the adventures of Elan, Roy, Durkon, Haley, Vaarsuvius, and Belkar won’t be picking back up until the end of the month. That makes now the perfect time to get caught up!

And there’s a lot to get caught up on. Long gone are the days of just making 3.5 edition jokes and calling it a day. Burlew still happily hits us with regular doses of d20 humor, to be sure, but the comic is so much more than that now. Strong characters, carefully planned storytelling, and fantastic dialogue makes this so much more than your typical webcomic.

Burlew’s touching tribute to Gary Gygax might particularly be of interest, even if you have no plans to read the series. His light touch speaks volumes about how he approaches story. Order of the Stick is a highlight of my time spent online.

If you haven’t read the comic, or you stopped reading at some point, I highly recommend getting back into this fascinating tale. You’ll be glad you did.

Dark Sun Returns!

More than a little bit surprising, eh?

Critical Hit

I’m a Monster!

Stained Glass

The Map

Magical d20

Rolling Big

Crunch of the Day: Channel Divinity

The above example of the Invoker’s Rebuke Undead power is a fantastic example of the “Channel Divinity” series of powers. Divine classes often get divinity powers as part of their core package, and a number of them are available via feats connecting divine characters with their deity. In essence, they’re a way of converting and broadening the old ‘Turn Undead’ power that Clerics got in 3.5 and previous editions. Turn Undead, indeed, is a Channel Divinity power that Clerics have in 4E.

What makes these powers really interesting to me, and enjoyable, is how they took a mechanic that nobody was really happy with and made it awesome. The Undead-specific abilities require an enemy type that you were never guaranteed to face in a campaign. The rules for turning undead were also usually pretty arcane; even in 3.5, which arguably made them more approachable than ever before.

In 4E, divinity powers concretize the connection between a character and her deity. Each god has their own specialized divinity power, and the re-introduction of domains to the game in Divine Power added a host of additional divinity options. These powers are all appropriately ‘themed’, of course; Bahamut’s divinity power acts as a sort of divine armor. That mechanically expresses a holy connection players previously could only express through roleplaying.

For making something boring and confusing fun and awesome, as well as giving divine characters something new to lord over everybody else, Channel Divinity powers get the nod for Crunch of the Day.

Fighter Essentials and Item Sets

Wizards dropped a weekly-kickoff’s worth of new material on us. The freebie-side article talks about item sets in the upcoming Adventurer’s Vault 2. They detail the items in the Golden Lion’s Battle Regalia, a set of armor geared specifically for tribal barbarians. As always, it’s a ton of fun to see how they mesh the mechanics of the gear. In this case we’ve got three pieces of non-armor gear, and two weapons. The weapons are a little strange; in order to get the full-five set bonus you’ll need to jump into combat with a spear strapped to your back and a blade in your hand. Not sure what the logic with that one is?

The other new article is behind the Insider wall, and details all-new Fighter information. The piece kicks off with some basic information about the mechanics of playing a Fighter, and then works through four common builds for the class. The end of the article details a few new feats, powers, and some paragon paths. The paths and feats cover a lot of ground for the class, while the powers are aimed at fleshing out options for the two-weapon Tempest Fighter build. If you’re a Tempest fighter I don’t think you can afford to ignore this article; there’s just too much on offer. Other Fighters can give it a pass, as a lot of this material seems like tweaks on the content from Martial Power.

Still, nothing seems too overpowered or out of sync with previous content. If you’re a big fan of the Fighter class, there’ll definitely be some good stuff to review here.