In Celebration of Third Party Products
SabreCat:
While I'm a huge fan of the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons, one thing I'm unfond of is Wizards' stance toward intellectual property this time around. Not only have they entirely shut down their sales of PDF format game books because, oh no, people could copy and share them (a clear case of "if PDFs are outlawed, only outlaws will have PDFs"), but their business practices are engineered to keep third-party publishers under their heel. The license available to such publishers is much more restrictive than the one available under the previous edition, and the ubiquitously used Character Builder tool makes it next to impossible to build characters using custom classes or races. These sorts of things not only hurt third parties, but ordinary gamers who just want to hack a few things for their campaign world.
Suffice to say, with my current attitudes toward "Intellectual Property" (scare quotes intentional), fan fiction, remixing, and the like--i.e., the free exercise of creativity and the efforts of media producers and lawmakers to quash it--this situation rankles me deeply.
So here's a fun little thing, a positive-spin protest against the situation. I built a character using three substantial pieces of third party D&D4 content:
I think this character would be great fun to play--sort of like a Druid, dashing in and out of melee to deliver a mix of close-combat and ranged attacks with debilitating effects, but with an Orb Wizard's ability to juggle those status effects around and keep them running. With Tikbalang speed and tricks, she's as mobile as a Rogue while she goes about her shtick. Plus her defenses are uncommonly balanced, with no defense hit on less than an 8 on average. Etc. If any table I played at allowed this kind of content, I'd play her in a heartbeat!
Is it all as balanced as Wizards' first-party content? I'd say so. Sure, at-will phasing from a Tikbalang racial feat may be a bit much, and the number of save-ends effects the Witch Doctor spreads around is pretty insane. But it's no Twin Strike or Orb of Imposition, you know? I'd allow her in my game, level pending!
While I'm a huge fan of the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons, one thing I'm unfond of is Wizards' stance toward intellectual property this time around. Not only have they entirely shut down their sales of PDF format game books because, oh no, people could copy and share them (a clear case of "if PDFs are outlawed, only outlaws will have PDFs"), but their business practices are engineered to keep third-party publishers under their heel. The license available to such publishers is much more restrictive than the one available under the previous edition, and the ubiquitously used Character Builder tool makes it next to impossible to build characters using custom classes or races. These sorts of things not only hurt third parties, but ordinary gamers who just want to hack a few things for their campaign world.
Suffice to say, with my current attitudes toward "Intellectual Property" (scare quotes intentional), fan fiction, remixing, and the like--i.e., the free exercise of creativity and the efforts of media producers and lawmakers to quash it--this situation rankles me deeply.
So here's a fun little thing, a positive-spin protest against the situation. I built a character using three substantial pieces of third party D&D4 content:
- Kiznit's form-fillable character sheet, available from Dragon Avenue (free)
- The Tikbalang character race by Nosfecatu Publishing, an anthro-equine fey creature from Filipino folklore ($1.50 from RPGNow)
- The Witch Doctor character class by One Bad Egg, now published by Highmoon Games ($4.00 from RPGNow; a preview version is available for free)
I think this character would be great fun to play--sort of like a Druid, dashing in and out of melee to deliver a mix of close-combat and ranged attacks with debilitating effects, but with an Orb Wizard's ability to juggle those status effects around and keep them running. With Tikbalang speed and tricks, she's as mobile as a Rogue while she goes about her shtick. Plus her defenses are uncommonly balanced, with no defense hit on less than an 8 on average. Etc. If any table I played at allowed this kind of content, I'd play her in a heartbeat!
Is it all as balanced as Wizards' first-party content? I'd say so. Sure, at-will phasing from a Tikbalang racial feat may be a bit much, and the number of save-ends effects the Witch Doctor spreads around is pretty insane. But it's no Twin Strike or Orb of Imposition, you know? I'd allow her in my game, level pending!