More Online Stuff

I'm going to cover three online posts from WotC today that happened sometime in September 2000. The first is...another NPC preview, this time for the bard. Really? We already have the complete Player's Handbook, so why another generic character? This time it's Devis, the iconic bard for the game. He's a half-elf, and his best scores are in Charisma and Dexterity. The levels are 1st, 3rd and 7th. There's really not much to say that hasn't already been said about the new bard class, so I'll move on.

Next up is a brand-new spell! Posted as part of WotC's online 'Spellbook' feature, the spell is mirror move. It's a 2nd-level bard and sorcerer/wizard spell, and it allows the caster to copy another character's feat. It has to be a general feat (no item creation or metamagic), and it has to have an obvious physical effect that can be mirrored. So, you can mirror the Dodge feat, but not the Alertness feat. This is quite useful, as it allows the caster to mirror a number of feats equal to his Intelligence bonus before the spell expires (at 1 minute per level, there's plenty of time). You have to actually have the prerequisites for the feat, though. It's not clear from the spell description if this includes other feats (such as Power Attack being a prerequisite for Cleave), so that would be a DM's call.

Last, we have our first entry in the 'Celebrity Game Table' feature. No, this isn't about Wil Wheaton or Bill Gates; it's about Wizards of the Coast people. This one is Praemal, a campaign run by Monte Cook, one of the chief designers of the game. It was started as a 2e game, then became a 3rd edition playtest campaign instead. It's a campaign set in a world that was only created about a century ago, so the human characters are literally the fourth generation to exist. It's an interesting idea, certainly, although I wonder how the elves and dwarves are managing, being in the very first generation. Did their gods create them like Adam and Eve, fully grown to start? That's another DM's call.

The interesting thing about this campaign writeup is that it actually includes some new spells and magic items that came from the game, although they aren't part of the Player's Handbook or Dungeon Master's Guide. These can certainly be added to any campaign; there's a variant on a fireball that can track unseen enemies, a magic missile variant that looks like a whip, and more. Some interesting stuff there.

And that will do it for now; I'll have more next time, including another online adventure. Stay tuned.

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