Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead (January 2009)

[Lord Soth]

link

All I've seen about this so far.


--edit--
just added the url to avoid page warping
-Jester

[Jonathan Winters]

What company is this from?????

Patrick

I'll try to get to Bruce's site later on....

[Jester of the FoS]

# Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (January 20, 2009)

I'm disappointed that WotC is already flooding the market with 4e books. Draconomicon, Open Grave, Martial Powers, etc. All within 6months of the game's release.
I can understand the big books (Manual of Planes, renames Arms&Equipment Gude, renamed Magic Item Compendium, etc).
A book a month is just too much.

[HuManBing]

Well... looking on the bright side, the early release of a large number of books means that the depreciation in price will take place much earlier too.

So if, like me, you bought most of your books second hand mere months before they announced a new edition last summer, then you can probably swoop and get bargain deals much earlier than with 3.5!

...

...I think.

[HuManBing]

Edit: Thanks Jester for linking the url!

[Rotipher of the FoS]

If nothing else, the fact that they're planning lots of supplements for the immediate future suggests that advance orders for the Core Three 4E books are reasonably high. Methinks the "No way am I buying the #$@%&^ rules all over again!" factor hasn't dented their sales-figures much, online anti-hype to the contrary.

[HuManBing]

You could be right. Like I said, despite my heavy outlay on 3rd ed., I never bought stuff new, so it's unlikely that WotC even saw a penny of my money. The fact that I hold them in low esteem for their move to 4E probably doesn't deprive them of any income because even if I did jump onboard they wouldn't have gotten anything anyway.

[Jester of the FoS]

If nothing else, the fact that they're planning lots of supplements for the immediate future suggests that advance orders for the Core Three 4E books are reasonably high. Methinks the "No way am I buying the #$@%&^ rules all over again!" factor hasn't dented their sales-figures much, online anti-hype to the contrary.

Given WotC writes and finishes their books six months in advance they probably planned all these books before pre-orders went in. Open Grave will be finished at at the publishers before 4e drops.

[impworks]

Only a book a month? My memory may be playing tricks but I seem to remember a time when 5 or even 10 releases in a month from TSR was the norm. Although back then stitch bound, paperback 30-90 page adventures and supplements with lower production values than today's for £5 to £10 would sell well...

Oh dear I seem to have slipped into the Four Yorkshiremen sketch

[Lucius]

Probably for me this book will have no use in RL. Even if someday I decide to use the 4 ed rules in my RL campaigns I will change many things, starting by making the lich´s phylactery a rule. I didn´t liked the idea of making the phylactery optional, for me a lich without one is just an skeleton (even with the magic.)

And I would not be surprised if this book turns to be the "Volume I: "undead X and undead Y secrets"...something like they will do with the Draconomicon.

For RL use I think both the old and new (3e) VRGs do all the job, since they deal more with roleplay details than with rules (something I doubt Open Grave will do.)

I'm disappointed that WotC is already flooding the market with 4e books.

Me too.

[Paladyn]

I'm always "one edition" late, so probably I won't buy it. Honestly saying, I try to collect 3/3,5E RL, so 4th Edition is beyond my scope. I don't like what I see (it is too much like MMORG without computer), so I will stick with things i know and like. But perhaps, in a few years... meaby?

[steveflam]

I didn´t liked the idea of making the phylactery optional, for me a lich without one is just an skeleton (even with the magic.)

Yes a Lich without a phylactery is not a Lich period !

[HuManBing]

Actually, here's my thinking on d20 and why I'm growing disenchanted.

DnD is not a mathematician's game. The system is not particularly intuitive, and it's got artifacts and flaws left over from previous editions that just take a long time to iron out. Although 3E tried valiantly, making class XP equal and simplifying the ability scores and bonuses, it still introduced yet more arbitrariness in the class skills and the Skills/Feats trees.

Yet I put up with this, partially because I was too young to know any better, and partially because I liked the fluff that came along with the (somewhat wonky) crunch.

I can't say that anymore.

Wizards is systematically disassembling all the fluff I liked, and it's not upgrading the crunch in a way that makes sense for me. 3.5 still has all sorts of ill-thought-out crap like how Monks can never regain their class once they multiclass, and how clerics and wizards can't take Bluff as a class skill, and how Bards, Clerics, Sorcerors, and Wizards have differences in their spellcasting that makes some of them really weak and others arbitrarily powerful.

There's still systemic problems, and simultaneously the WotC crew have efficiently siphoned off all the parts I like. The various "Expedition" modules and their cack-handed handling of old standbys are grim reminders of how badly out of the loop Wizards has become - it's almost as painful as watching George Lucas thrash through a new trilogy with double the special effects but a quarter of the plot of the old one.

This has come to a head with me taking a good couple of days to roll up a new NPC (see my Mazrikoth thread) and balancing everything purely by the rules to make sure it's not arbitrary. The rules suck for DMs creating advanced characters - there's no easy way to say it. The rules were clearly made to allow players to build characters from level 1 upwards, but even so, the Skills/Feats and Prestige Classes are so arbitrary that they have to start planning their progression from the time they get their L3 feats.

Not to mention the inherent inflexibility of the system. Guess what? Your Fighter at L1 will have a base AC of 10. As he gets higher level, he'll be able to hit stuff real easy, but his base AC will still be... 10. It's not like he learns how to block a swordblow any better or anything. But not to worry! He'll be able, with nearly 200 hp, to sit in a dragon's mouth for a few minutes because your body gets tough like steel after a few levels!

This is quite frustrating and I'm looking at other systems aside from d20, including two systems that TSR itself released in the 1980s and 1990s (Star Frontiers in 1983, and Amazing Engine in 1992) which are highly flexible and less arbitrary than DnD.

You can't help but feel nostalgic about the good old days of DnD. Even if the system itself sucked coconuts through a straw, it had a multitude of creative settings and plenty of good stylistic writing. But looking at the two-setting narrowness of 3.5, and the steady entanglement of its ever-growing rules corpus, I have to say I'm done. The changes for 4E that I've seen do take steps to simplify the rules somewhat, which is laudable, but again it seems to introduce plenty of arbitrary "designers think Monks shouldn't be able to Bluff" type of pre-made decisions that I just don't have much respect or patience for.

Fortunately, Ravenloft is something you CAN take with you. It never really fit too well into the d20 system anyway, in my opinion, and I'm joining many others in experimenting with what other systems do support it better.

[Jester of the FoS]

I didn´t liked the idea of making the phylactery optional, for me a lich without one is just an skeleton (even with the magic.)

Yes a Lich without a phylactery is not a Lich period !

So what were liches then between 1976 and 1989 when phylactery's were described in 2nd Edition?
Back in 1e all we knew about phylactery's were that liches had something called "a phylactery"

There's still systemic problems, and simultaneously the WotC crew have efficiently siphoned off all the parts I like. The various "Expedition" modules and their cack-handed handling of old standbys are grim reminders of how badly out of the loop Wizards has become - it's almost as painful as watching George Lucas thrash through a new trilogy with double the special effects but a quarter of the plot of the old one.

Keep in mind that the Expedition books were a way to quickly pop out a couple books with the B-team of writers while the A-team was busy on 4e. They were quick and easy projects they could hammer out quickly without having to worry about balance or new mechanics.

I've really grown to anticipate 4e. Partly because I've had some bad 3e experiences lately that really highlight the problems with the system (grossly broken PCs, abused PrC, abused monsters, bad CR, etc). Partly because I decided to be the pro-voice here and on other message boards (for sake of balance and as a devil's advocate).

[Le Noir Faineant]

If nothing else, the fact that they're planning lots of supplements for the immediate future suggests that advance orders for the Core Three 4E books are reasonably high. Methinks the "No way am I buying the #$@%&^ rules all over again!" factor hasn't dented their sales-figures much, online anti-hype to the contrary.

Given WotC writes and finishes their books six months in advance they probably planned all these books before pre-orders went in. Open Grave will be finished at at the publishers before 4e drops.

My guess is that they want to take what they can from the splatbook market before the GSL companies step in.

Keep in mind that the Expedition books were a way to quickly pop out a couple books with the B-team of writers while the A-team was busy on 4e. They were quick and easy projects they could hammer out quickly without having to worry about balance or new mechanics.

Ouch, Jester, Ari might bite you for this!