Captain America

 

Captain America and his signature shield

I’m still in the middle of moving — new job and new home means very few blog updates, as I’m sure anyone who’s still following me has noticed — but I had a chance yesterday to catch the Captain America movie, and it demanded comment.

Captain America is a very interesting sort of superhero.  He doesn’t follow the general arcs other superheroes do.  By far the most common superhero character-development arc is Tragedy – Vengeance – Responsibility:  something bad happens to the character that drives him to become a superhero, and once he’s addressed the situation, he feels responsibility to continue to pursue justice.  This arc describes many Marvel heroes, including Spider-Man and Iron Man, as well as DC’s Batman, who is similar to Captain America in that he’s not a “true” superhuman but rather a human operating at the pinnacle of his abilities.

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Review: Divine Power

Divine Power

I was previously pretty happy with Martial Power and Arcane Power, and based on my initial reading, Divine Power seems to continue the trend.  As you’d expect from the book’s title, this supplement for fourth-edition Dungeons & Dragons offers new options for the divine classes:  avengers, clerics, invokers, and paladins.

As I mentioned in earlier reviews of the Power series, this sort of class-focused supplement has been pretty common in D&D’s history, with varying levels of quality showing in the finished products — but the Power books tend to fall toward the top of the quality scale.  This is still true of Divine Power.

I should mention, perhaps, that I’ve had a long-standing fondness for the cleric class, and that I’ve found avengers and invokers equally attractive since their introduction to 4e D&D.  So maybe I’m a little biased.  After looking through the book, though, I’d have to say even paladins come off pretty well now.  This might be my favorite Power book yet.

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Deep Psi

Side note first:  I fixed a problem that might have been keeping comments from working correctly, so if you’ve tried to leave one lately and failed, you should be able to now.

On to the main post.  Recently, I decided I’d try a subscription to Insider.  Although I didn’t see a lot of purpose to it when I first got the core books, and I’m not terribly moved by promises of exclusive content, I figured it would be worth a try, and if nothing else there might be some interesting stuff in Dungeon that I could lift for my game.  Plus, I’d get access to stuff like the Swordmage, a class printed in a book I have no intention of ever buying.  And the Monk, in which I have something of an interest, if you hadn’t noticed…

I haven’t played around with Insider enough to really comment on it yet.  I can say that I find the character builder fun to tinker with, and probably pretty useful (although I’ve never had problems with creating characters in 4e using pen and paper, either).  Dungeon and Dragon look promising enough that the subscription might be justified, although the Dungeon content looks a little lighter than I’d like.

But the main thing that’s caught my attention is the Psion class, recently revealed.

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Foxbat for President: Sacred Cows and Hamburger

Sacred cows make the best hamburger, or so the saying goes.  When it comes to RPGs, they tend to provide grist for the mill.

There are sacred cows aplenty in rules systems, of course.  That’s one of the reasons why we have edition wars:  change anything, no matter how inconsequential you think it might be, or how much better you think the new version is, and there’s sure to be someone loudly decrying the change and lamenting that the new version just isn’t the same game any more.  No more assassins or cavaliers in 2e?  Sacrilege.  No more THAC0 in 3e?  A travesty.  No more Vancian casting in 4e?  Well, that’s fine, but not for any game whose title includes the words dungeon and dragon.

That’s not the sort I’m thinking about today, though.  I’m interested in the sacred cows within the settings.  The characters, locations, and other elements that are always present, if only lurking somewhere in the background.  The ones that define that setting, that — in a sense — make it what it is.  The ones that are iconic — not Tordek and Mialee, but the real icons.  The ones with names like Bigby, Mordenkainen, Raistlin, Elminster, Vecna.  (There tends to be a good share of wizards among them.  I don’t believe this is a coincidence.)  The guys you know and love.  Or hate.  Sometimes both.

A campaign set in one of these published settings must acknowledge its sacred cows at one point.  Either it kowtows to them, making use of the pre-existing body of lore that surrounds them (however nebulous it might be in some cases — how much do most D&D players really know about Bigby, other than that he’s the guy with the hand spells?), or it slaughters them, creating some explanation for why they’re no longer present or have no impact.  The former option limits the GM somewhat; the latter often infuriates players who have a fondness for that setting.  Witness the reaction of Greyhawk fans to Greyhawk Wars, or the more recent reaction of Forgotten Realms fans to the 4e redesign of that world.

Which brings us to Foxbat.

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Review: Arcane Power

Arcane Power

Following my positive experiences with Martial Power, I decided to pre-order Arcane Power, the new fourth-edition Dungeons & Dragons supplement that deals with additional options for the arcane classes:  bard, sorcerer, swordmage, warlock, and wizard.  Based on my initial reading, I feel pretty confident about saying that the Power line continues to display a pretty high standard of quality.  Class-based supplements have been pretty ubiquitous in D&D since the second edition, and their quality has varied, but like Martial Power, this book seems to fall toward the top of the heap.

Arcane Power is a 160-page book, and there’s a lot crammed into it; it felt a little longer than Martial Power to me, although it’s the same page count.  Physically, it seems similar to other fourth-edition hardcovers; its layout, binding, and so forth all seem decent.  Some people have reported problems with ink smudging in their 4e books; I’ve never experienced any such issues, but if you have, the ink and paper seem about the same to me, too, so that might be something to watch for.

Content is split up into five chapters by class, each of which covers new powers, builds, class features, and paragon paths for its respective class, and a sixth chapter including new feats, familiars, epic destinies, rituals, and a handful of magic items (tomes, for the new wizard build).

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