Tinkerbell Half Marathon 2014

Ok, this post has nothing to do with gaming but I wanted to post this some where and this blog drew the short straw.

My wife signed my up for this race since she knew that if she didn't she would be going alone and she didn't want to go alone. The Tinkerbell Half Marathon is a Disney race held in Disneyland every January that is marketed towards women. Men are not allowed in the first corral and get no medals nor prizes. As a result of the 13000 participants this year only about 1500 were men. Note I wrote "participants" and not "racers" or "competitors". It is a timed race but the vast majority are not out there to break any records, in fact I would go so far to say the vast majority do not even run.

I have to say the race is very well organized. It starts at 5am but there were thousands already present when we arrived just after 4AM. The race is divided into 5 corrals. When you registered you were asked to submit a previous run time from another race. They used that time to place you in the appropriate corral. The faster you are the closer you start to the front. As I said earlier even though I can run a half marathon about 50 minutes faster than my wife she started in corral A and I was back in B. I'm not sure I understand the logic of not letting the men be in A. Someone told me that it was so that a woman would be the first to cross the finish line but if that is so they needed to give Corral A a bigger head start since even with an 8 minute lead over the men, a man was still the first to cross. One guy I talked to said that last year the men had to start in Corral C which was a nightmare since he spend the first half of the race trying to run around slow women running or worse walking in packs. He still finished 9th overall so I guess it wasn't that bad.

I think it is a result of different objectives. If it's a real race and I am being timed and I am going to go full speed and run the best race I can. My wife first goal was to get lots of good pictures with Disney characters; a decent finish time was secondary. They should put the people who actually intend to run at the front and let the rest follow behind.

There was good security at the starting line. I guess Boston scared organizers last year and I saw several sniffer dogs at the start and again at the end. Security also ensure everyone was in the correct corral. You could move back but not forward. I saw one guy get escorted back to B from A just before the race started. Did he really think he would not stand out in the group of all women?

Apparently slow people at the back in Corral E complain that they might not have enough time to get pictures and still have time to finish walking the course. My response is "Run bitches!" but I'm not the most empathetic of people.

As I said, Corral A left at 5am and then we slowly moved up to the starting line where they held us for 8 minutes. Then we were allowed to begin as they moved up the groups behind us which they staggered as well. The first part of the race consists of running around the north perimeter of Disneyland. The streets are closed to traffic and since I was at the front of the pack in Corral B it was a nice start. Some people passed me early on but I'd be seeing most of them again. Eventually on the far side of Disneyland we entered the park through an employee entrance, went through a tunnel and then found ourselves in Disney California Adventure which is to the south of Disneyland. By this point I was moving into the back of the mass of female runners from Corral A. Running through the park was kinda cool but at the same time a pain in the ass. There was lots to look at but the paths were fairly narrow and women would randomly start to walk, pull a 90' turn to get a picture with a Disney character, and worst of all were the water stations where all of the female runners would slow down and grab a drink (why?) without moving off to the side. I had a couple of near misses and actually clipped a rather svelte Buzz Lightyear whose stupid wings hit me in the face.

We also ran through the backend of the park. It was neat being in areas the public doesn't normally see like of some of the studios and offices but I have to admit I was focused more on my pace than anything else.

Finally around the 10km mark we passed out of the park into the dark streets of Anaheim. Ironically as I left the park I had also left behind the bulk of Corral A. It was so peaceful running down Walnut street I have to admit it was probably my favorite. My pace increased significantly and yet my heart rate went down. There was no more dodging and weaving on tight turns in the park it was just long straight roads, cool night air and the occasional light breeze. As I moved down West Broadway I caught up to a younger Asian fellow who congratulated me on my race. I wished the same to him and then he picked up his pace a bit and we pretty much ran together for the rest of the race.

There was a slight downhill slant to the last few km (or at least I convinced myself there was) so I kept picking up my pace. When my Garmin beeped 20km, I decided to go kick it up one last notch. I pulled ahead of my running buddy and did my best to sprint to the finish (although it turns out my sprint was not all that much faster than what I'd be doing previously). I kept going around these corners only to find that I wasn't there yet. I could hear the finish line in the distance and I knew I was close but it seemed it was always one turn away. Finally I passed two more females and there it was! I did hear the announcer call out my name and where I was from, but I was pretty much blind at this point and all I could see was the last corner and the finish line peaking out over the spectators.  I crossed at 1:31:41 chip time or 1:39:57 gun time which was fast enough to make me 26th or 28th overall depending on which standings you look at (the standings on the Tinkerbell site are broken up by sex and division which make it really hard to compare to the amalgamated list). I found my running buddy in the standings. He finished only a second behind me but technically finished ahead of me since he started a minute later.

There were lots of photographers in the finishing area so I got one done and then went to get my food and drink. The photos are ridiculously expensive. At the Calgary Half last year, marathon photo harassed me for months with increasingly betters deals to buy a picture. If I have any decent ones I'll hold off a while before I shell out my hard earned cash for a digital picture.

The finishing area is well set up. Lots of room and an obvious progression. Even later when it got busier I'm sure it would have not been too congested. The bag pick-up was sorted by last name which would have been good had I checked anything. I was eatting my banana as my wife texted me she was at the 16km mark. I wandered over to the finishing area knowing it would be at least 30 minutes before she showed up.

I am amazed at some of the costumes people run in. Tons of women put on a shiny skirt and many had fairy wings strapped to their back. Some guys dressed up as Tinkerbell as well. There was one guy dressed up as Minnie mouse holding a camera. Apparently he is super fast but must have stopped for lots of pictures or was taking it easy since I beat him by about 15 minutes. I saw guys dressed up as Jasmine from Aladdin, Captain Hook, and one guy running in a 3 piece suit with a name tag that said Walt. It's neat how many people really get into it. My wife finished with a 2:20:00 which is pretty good since she spent a total of 12 minutes doing pictures.

My favorite part of the race was definitely the second half. It was faster and more relaxed at the same time. Running through the park is cool and all but if you want to enjoy that part of the race why not just lollygag your way through the 10km race the day before which takes place solely in Disneyland. I just found running through a horde of slow moving sight seeing women stressful.

If you are wondering what the actual course looks like you can find the route HERE

Overall I really liked the race. It was very expensive however and I can't see myself doing it again anytime soon. I'm running the Princess Half marathon at Disney World next month so we'll see how the two events compare. It's another female oriented race so I'm sure many of my current complaints will apply. It may have gotten hopelessly crowded and congested later on but we didn't see any. Of course we had time to finish, return to our hotel room, finish packing, sit around with our feet up for a while and were down waiting for the shuttle to airport when the last walkers crossed the finish line.

Personally I was very happy with my run. I came in 19th once on a 10km race but there were only a total of
500 runners. This race had over 13,000. My 26th place finish would be more impressive if it was a more athletic event but I'm still pretty happy I knocked 5 minutes off my best time. I think some of it had to do with perfect running conditions: temperature about 10C, no sun, no wind, no hills and it is at sea level which makes a big difference (Calgary is at about 1100m elevation).

Review - Mindjammer campaign setting

Last month, I reviewed a FATE-based space opera game called Starblazer Adventures. Well, DriveThruRPGs just had another sale in time for me to buy the first campaign setting, called Mindjammer. The setting envisions a future in which humans have been expanding out into the galaxy for thousands of years using sublight ships. Naturally, contact with most of the colony ships is lost along the way and the ones that do maintain contact with Earth take decades or centuries to send and receive replies. Then, about 200 years in the past, Earth develops FTL capability and expands outward to reestablish contacts with the human diaspora and create the Commonality, a loose association of human colonies. Millennia of divergent development has created a plethora of different cultures and societies, some of which are not too happy to be receiving visitors.

Culture plays an interesting role in the setting. It provides aspects to characters derived from them, as one would expect. However, cultures also have their own rules for interaction with one another. The actions of characters can even result in societal changes, if a particular culture is not equipped to adequately deal with the stresses of making contact with the wider galactic community.

Another aspect of the setting is the Mindscape, a futuristic equivalent of the internet. Taking a page from the Traveller game, space travel is FTL, but interstellar communications are not. Therefore, AI spaceships, called Mindjammers, serve as nodes in the Mindscape, ensuring that all people of the Commonality have access to up-to-date information. Humans access the Mindscape directly via implants. This creates a sort of shared consciousness allowing the sum of all human knowledge to be available, although finding what you're looking for is not a trivial undertaking. The Mindscape also allows humans to display pseudo-psychic abilities.

Overall, Mindjammer is less pulpy than the default Starblazer Adventures setting, incorporating some cyberpunk elements and a more sophisticated approach to alien contact. I'm still not completely sold on the FATE game engine, being a fan of rules-heavy game systems and tactical combat, but it is growing on me and the wealth of good ideas in Mindjammer make it a goldmine for any space opera game.

-Rognar-

Review - Starblazer Adventures

As part of the New Year's sale at DriveThruRPG, Starblazer Adventures by Cubicle 7 was available for a mere $10, so I bought it out of curiousity. For those unaware of this game, it is slightly-pulpy, FATE-based space opera game based on a '70s-era British comic book series. The game setting is enormous, weighing in at over 600 pages, yet still manages to feel a tad light on crunch. I think this may be a function of the modified FATE system used in the game. Actions are resolved by rolling 2 d6s, one designated as a negative die before the roll. The positive and negative dice are added together to give a result from -5 to +5, with the highest probabilities being the closest to 0. Added to the result is a modifier resulting from skills and other factors. This modifier will typically range from +1 to +3, although higher modifiers are possible. In addition to skills, characters also have stunts and aspects. Stunts are a lot like feats (or in some cases, class features) in the d20 system. They typically allow you do something with a skill you wouldn't normally be able to do, or give you a positive modifier to a skill under certain circumstances by accepting a negative modifier on other skills.

Aspects are rather less well-defined. They are brief phrases that describe motivations, personality quirks or background information of a character that can be used under certain circumstances to cajole the GM to allow some benefit. Alternatively, the player can use an aspect to his character's detriment, in order to earn fate points. Fate points are at the very heart of the FATE game system. Spending fate points allows a player to temporarily take control of the story. They can be used for a variety of things from adding an additional +1 modifier to any dice roll to powering some stunts to compelling a negative result from an opponent's aspect. While GMs do have veto power over the use of fate points, they are encouraged not to use it unless doing so would cause serious problems for the story.

Not surprisingly, Starblazer Adventures borrows heavily from the Starblazer comic books, incorporating story arcs, recurring characters and technologies from the comics directly into the game setting. The setting itself is divided into three eras, although other settings are possible. The three main settings are the Trailblazer Era, in which mankind first takes to the stars (think Enterprise or Star Trek), the Empire Era, in which a human empire battles across the galaxy with other great alien empires (more like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Babylon 5) and the Cosmopolitain Era, in which a galaxy-spanning empire made up of many races including humans maintains the Pax Galactica (best analog might be the Old Republic era of Star Wars).

Overall, the game is pretty good, especially if you are looking for a bit of pulp or campy feel to your space opera campaign. The FATE system tends to encourage a bit of whimsy on the part of the players, so serious or gritty campaigns probably won't work as well unless the GM and the players are all on the same page. I would never use the FATE system for my space horror campaign setting, but if you're looking for "a wee bit o' fun", this might be just the thing.

-Rognar-

The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.8

With the end of the Star Wars Saga Ed. coming soon, I actually have the opportunity to own the entire game, every hardcover published in the product line. To that end, I picked up Galaxy of Intrigue, the penultimate sourcebook in the SWSE series. I knew before I bought it that it would be one of, if not the weakest product so far and in that regard, my expectations were realized. However, it does have just enough crunch, combined with my inherent collector's obsessive-compulsiveness, to compel me to buy it. The main selling point is updated stats for a number of fairly important alien races, such as the Bith, the Defel, the Gotal and the Neimoidian. Although these races had been described in past releases, they had not been given the full treatment. No doubt, the SWSE braintrust had been saving them up for just this reason.

There are some new feats and talents, as well as equipment and droids, but Galaxy of Intrigue is, without a doubt, the fluffiest book so far, knocking The Rebellion Era Sourcebook off that pedestal. Still, some the fluffy bits, like the numerous mini-adventures, are not completely devoid of merit. A seasoned group of SWSE players probably won't find much that's indispensible in Galaxy of Intrigue, but new players and GMs, especially those with an interest in "cloak-and-dagger" gameplay will find a lot of useful material.

-Rognar-

Further note: With only The Unknown Regions remaining to be released, a lot of the "Expanded Universe" stuff will not get covered in SWSE. One notable omission is the Yuuzhan Vong. Although there have been fragments of info about this race scattered through several books, it has never gotten a sufficiently detailed description to create a campaign centered on the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. My suspicion, however, is that few tears will be shed by diehard Star Wars fans.

My charitable donation to WEG

The seemingly endless saga of misery that is West End Games has taken another turn. As I mentioned some time ago, WEG was looking to make a rebound. They had a new product, Septimus, a space opera rpg by reknown game designer Bill Coffin, and a new publishing model, Open d6, which would allow the venerable d6 game engine to become OGL. Along came GenCon. Eric Gibson, the current owner of WEG, arrived with a stack of Septimus softcovers and a plan.

Then he disappeared...

Rampant speculation followed. WEG's forums were abuzz with speculation, as the fans (who by this time, number in the tens) debated the future of the company, its owner and the game system. Fans created Open d6 Resurrection, Antipaladin Games created a clone called Mini Six and pretty much everyone felt they'd seen the last of West End Games.

Well, Eric Gibson has resurfaced and he's busily doing what he can to put to rest any rumours of his (or WEG's) demise. Problems with his overseas printer have made him unable to get his hardcover Septimus books into stores, while GenCon softcover and pdf sales have been weak. The Open d6 project is not dead and he's not too happy about these non-WEG efforts to create reasonable facsimiles.

So, partially out of sympathy for a struggling company that has given me a lot of joy over the years and partially out of curiousity about a product that seems increasingly unlikely to ever see the light of day in stores, I bought a pdf copy of Septimus. It is quite a tome, weighing in at a hefty 364 pages. The first 95 or so pages are dedicated to describing the world of Septimus, a Dyson Sphere on the very edge of a dying galactic empire. This description is quite detailed, and yet, there are some glaring omissions. Several things are mentioned repeatedly, but never clearly explained. For example, a particularly traumatic event, known as Steel Helix, is mentioned repeatedly as the source of much of the destruction currently seen on the surface of Septimus, yet no explanation of Steel Helix is given in the text. A free quick-start pdf of the Septimus game released months before the full game mentions a rebellion and describes a rebel military action called Iron Helix, which is presumably the same thing, but anyone without a copy of this earlier release would have little idea about this most important event in recent history of the game world. Other unexplained things include the Seven Cities (presumed to be other settlements outside of the capital that have been cut off by Steel Helix) and ZPG (some sort of disease which may be related to corruption of the advanced technology used to control the inhabitants of Septimus).

Beyond this criticism, Septimus is actually a pretty solid game. The d6 rules are fully presented, so no other books are required to play and the number of game and character options are quite extensive. The game is not as polished as Eclipse Phase or CthulhuTech, but it is certainly easier for inexperienced players to understand. It has a lot of potential, but at this point, I don't think West End Games has the resources to get this game off the ground in any significant way. Pity!

-Rognar-

(Edit: Upon further reading, I have a clearer idea about the Seven Cities, although a timeline and a more detailed history would certainly help to elucidate the various political relationships within the game setting.)

Power to the Droids

Next Tuesday, the Scavenger's Guide to Droids makes its long-awaited debut and if early reviews over at the SWSE forums are any indication, it has the potential to be one of the best supplements yet. Droid characters are getting a complete overhaul. Different droid types, like astromech droids, medical droids, battle droids, are being presented as races. This sounds interesting. In the past, droid statblocks included a statement as playable or non-playable. It tended to be rather arbitrary and not always very intuitive. I don't know how the new rules will play out, but the thought of playing a droideka (previously verboten) will be sure to excite every red-blooded Star Wars fan. Sentry Box, here I come.

-Rognar-

By the way, fan support from WotC for the Star Wars RPG is reaching new lows. Less than a week before a new release and there is still no mention of this product on the website, except from fans in the forums. Fans have to get their info from Amazon.com. I'm beginning to think rather than seeing a new edition of the game next year, they may simply stop publishing new products, the d20 Modern model of product line support.

The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.7

After the disappointment I felt towards Damnation View, the most recent sourcebook of the CthulhuTech game, my enthusiasm for future releases was greatly diminished. Happily, I didn't give up on the game because I am pleased with the new book, Mortal Remains. The new release is much more like a traditional sourcebook than Damnation View. It has tons of useful information and crunchy goodness. By far, the best part is the large section on all things Migou. There are new mechs, new weapons, new magic and rules for creating Migou characters for people who really want an intense role-playing experience. There is also lots of interesting fluff on Migou life, history and motivations. All told, there are about 45 pages dedicated to the Migou. This is good, since the rest of the book, which contains large, fluffy sections on the New Earth Government and the Nazzadi, is pretty weak. Oddly, the adventures which made up the bulk of Damnation View, are almost completely absent in Mortal Remains. Only about ten pages at the back of the book are dedicated to adventure hooks and there are no full adventures at all.

-Rognar-

OT: Halloween was less busy than past years, as one would expect because of the swine flu. We tried a couple of times to get our yard apes vaccinated, but the queues were just too damned long. This whole vaccination program has been a massive clusterf*ck!

The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.6

Today is my birthday, a characteristic I evidently share with James "Grognardia" Maliszewski (although I am 4 years older). It is unlikely JM reads this blog (or is even aware of it), but if you are reading James, Happy Birthday! Anyway, as if on cue, the much-awaited Pathfinder Bestiary arrived at my FLGS this very day. Grasping a handful of shekels generously provided by my family for this very purpose, I headed downtown and bought myself a copy. The Pathfinder Bestiary delivers everything we've come to expect from Paizo. The artwork is, for the most part, top-rate and in some cases, truly outstanding. All the important monsters are presented, except for the well-known non-OGL creations like the beholder and the mind flayer. There are some surprises. Some monsters have undergone significant changes in appearance (the troll being the most significant) or design (the ogre mage is now an oni, a type of outsider). There are also a few new monsters. One in particular had me picking my jaw up off the floor, that being the SHOGGOTH! Holy crap! An iconic Cthulhu Mythos monster is in there. My first question is, "How did that happen?" Chaosium is notoriously protective of its rights to the Mythos. Did this just slip past or is it indicative of some sort of arrangement that may allow future Mythos entries into the Pathfinder campaign setting? You cannot imagine my excitement if it turns out to be the latter.

I do have a couple of minor complaints. There is precious little in there on playing monstrous races such as gnolls as PCs. This is certainly something that can be adapted from D&D 3.5, but it does some odd that the designers don't seem to feel this is a priority for players. The other obvious omission is advancement guidelines for monsters. Again, this is easily adapted from 3.5, but I don't understand the reason for leaving it out. Still, despite these minor issues, the Pathfinder Bestiary is excellent. Go out and buy it.

-Rognar-

One more thing, the medusa is hotter than the succubus. That just ain't right. Also, dryads apparently now wear Prada.

Edit: Upon further reading, I see that monster advancement rules are to be found in the appendices and they seem pretty similar to those in D&D 3.5.

The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.5

The Star Wars Saga RPG design team continues to squeeze every last drop out of the franchise with its latest release, Galaxy at War. Surprisingly, Galaxy at War is somewhat crunchier than the previous sourcebook, Rebellion Era Campaign Guide, with new rules on martial arts and cybernetics, several new races (all quite obscure, and some actually extinct) and a host of new feats, talents and equipment.

Without a doubt, the best part of Galaxy at War is the expanded martial arts rules. There are eight new martial arts feats representing different unarmed combat traditions including Wrruushi (Wookie martial arts), Stava (Noghri martial arts) and the famed Teräs Käsi. In addition, there is a new Martial Arts Master prestige class.

Obviously, a sourcebook about war is going to have a lot of weapons and armour, and this book doesn't disappoint, but I think even more valuable are the new cybernetics. They even include rules for total replacement cyborgs like General Grievous, although these rules seem a bit thin, so I'm not sure if you could actually reproduce all the capabilities of Grievous using them. However, a cyborg similar to Darth Vader would be possible. There are also a bunch of other gadgets that no well-equipped rebel commando would want to be without.

The crunchy bits of Galaxy at War comprise about 70 pgs of the book. Beyond that, there is a large section describing various famous military units such as the Senate Guard, the Mandalorian Protectors and Wraith Squadron. There's also a section on battlestation design, which doesn't seem all that useful, and about 50 pgs of adventures and hooks. All-in-all, it's a decent release, not as meaty as Jedi Academy Training Manual or Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide, but certainly better than I was expecting.

-Rognar-

The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.4

CthulhuTech markets itself as a "storybook" game and GMs are referred to as "storytellers". To support this conceit, a series of storybooks are being published, the first of which is Damnation View. Storybooks are basically a set of adventures set in different parts of the game world with different themes. For example, one series of adventures is set in China, on the front lines against the Rapine Storm. These ones are obviously very combat-heavy and oriented towards mecha. Another set pits government agents against Dagonite cultists seeking ancient artifacts to aid them in their efforts to awaken their god, Cthulhu. This series is much more oriented toward cloak-and-dagger roleplay. Each storybook has a section advancing each of these story arcs through a much larger story arc encompassing the entire Aeon War, with each release representing one year of the war.

I picked up Damnation View and while I must say, the product is top quality, I think it is over-priced for what it offers. Anyone who knows me, knows I hate paying for a lot of fluff. I want crunch and unfortunately, Damnation View offers little. There are three new character classes, all related to a super secretive government agency simply known as Special Services. Good stuff there. There are also a couple of new mecha designs....and that's it. Nothing else with so much as a single number associated with it. The adventure hooks are useful and the associated short fiction do a good job of immersing you in the story lines, but for a hardcover book over $45 Cdn, I want more than that. Now, I am something of a collector and a bit OCD when it comes to completing games, so I suspect I will buy the remaining storybooks (I believe four more are planned and the next one, Mortal Remains is expected in stores next month). Having said that, I wish they were either a bit cheaper (maybe less artwork or not hardcover) or a bit crunchier.

-Rognar-

The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.3

I picked up the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide for the Star Wars Saga Edition. As I feared, it's a bit thin on crunch. There are no new races and only a sprinkling of new talents, feats and prestige classes. The unfortunate fact is, this game is reaching the point of being complete. They are running out of material and with several more books in the pipeline (with themes of war, intrigue, droids and unexplored space), they are really going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Expect to see a new edition sometime in 2010.

So, what does it have? Well, it has racial feats which are kind of neat. Each race from the core book (except humans) has three feats associated with it. There are two new prestige classes, the Improviser and the Pathfinder. They seem decent enough. There's the usual list of new equipment, ships, vehicles and droids as well as stat blocks for different types of rebel operatives, soldiers, stormtroopers, etc. There are also stats for many of the minor characters from the original Star Wars trilogy such as Wedge Antilles, Biggs Darklighter and Wicket. Beyond that, it's mostly flavour text on Alliance and Imperial military structures and adventure hooks. A worthwhile purchase, but definitely not as meaty as most of the previous sourcebooks.

-Rognar-

Midnight campaign setting

Fantasy Flight Games is offering its Midnight campaign setting (2nd ed.) in pdf form for a mere $10. At that price, I'm prepared to buy an interesting-looking product that I otherwise wouldn't bother with and I'm glad I did. The 2nd edition of Midnight has been adapted for D&D 3.5, unlike the previous edition which was d20. I would describe the setting as Middle Earth if Sauron had won. The Gods were forced to cast down one of their own, the dark god Izrador. Unfortunately, they accidentally closed the heavens to the world of men, elves and dwarves in the process. In effect, they locked mortals in a cage with an evil god who was defeated, but by no means dead. It was only a matter of time until Izrador regained his strength and conquered the world. Now men serve Izrador, either willingly or as slaves, while his orcish armies hunt elves and dwarves to extinction.

In a world as dangerous as the one in Midnight, even heroes are rarely up to the task of resisting the power of the Shadow. Only those with some sort of special heritage can survive in such an environment, and so all characters have a heroic path, similar to a bloodline which gives them special abilities. These heroic paths come in several varieties, some are true bloodlines such as dragonblooded or feyblooded, while others are more of an inherent aptitude so potent, it gives the character supernatural abilities.

Other than heroic paths, the only other significant change from the standard D&D 3.5 rules is how magic is handled. There is only one spellcasting class, the channeler, although there are three subclasses, the charismatic channeler (who casts bardic spells), the spiritual channeler (who casts druidic spells) and the hermetic channeler (who casts wizard spells). There is no spell preparation, rather the channeler has a pool of spell energy points to spend to cast any spells he knows. In general, a channeler will know fewer spells than a standard D&D 3.5 wizard, but more than a bard.

Besides the channeler, the other core classes in Midnight are barbarian and rogue, both of which are largely unchanged, defender (which greatly resembles the monk class), wildlander (which is similar to ranger) and fighter (largely unchanged from D&D 3.5, but much rarer except among dwarves).

I do have a couple of minor complaints. There are a couple of places where the page design was messed up, resulting in the loss of some text under some of the interior art. Also, the quality of the maps is a bit substandard for a product of this quality. Still, for the most part, I am greatly impressed by what I have read of Midnight so far. It adeptly captures the feel of a conventional D&D campaign setting in which events go horribly wrong.

-Rognar-

The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.2

Star Wars Roleplaying Game Jedi Academy Training Manual - Rodney Thompson, Eric Cagle, Patrick Stutzman and Robert Wieland (Wizards of the Coast)

The Jedi Academy Training Manual is the latest release for the Saga Edition of WotC's Star Wars rpg and it is one of the better ones to come along in quite awhile, particularly if you like crunch and the Force (and really, who doesn't?). The recent formula for Saga Ed. books has been a few new races, most of which are exceedingly obscure, a section with some new talents and feats, another section with some new force powers and one or two new prestige classes. Combined with some new equipment and ship designs and it would typically work out to about 60 - 80 pages of crunch in a book with about 220 pages. The JATM is a somewhat slimmer tome, coming in at 160 pages, but it has a much higher crunch coefficient. It has 28 pages worth of new force powers, talents, feats and related goodies, 19 pages worth of new equipment (especially lightsabers), 18 pages of alternate Force traditions and 16 pages of new beasts. I find that last section to be particularly interesting because it includes a lot of Sith alchemy creations which allow a GM to get some use out of the D&D miniatures collection, some of which bear a striking resemblance to certain Sith beasts.

All-in-all, I would say the JATM is a must for any Star Wars campaign involving Jedi, Sith or other Force-using traditions. My only complaint is that they still haven't fixed Force Surge to allow Mace Windu to survive the jump he made in the arena on Geonosis.

-Rognar-

The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.1

The Collected Book of Experimental Might - Monte Cook (Malhavoc Press)

Basically a compilation of house rules for Monte Cook's D&D campaign, the CBoXM represents a significant revision of D&D ed.3.5 which is remarkably compatible with original game. The number of changes packed into the slim hardcover is impressive and I will not enumerate all of them here, but I will discuss the big ones.

Probably the biggest change involves feats. Every class gets a feat at every level, so needless to say, the number of available feats has been expanded dramatically. Fighters still get bonus feats and they also get sole access to two classes of extra powerful feats called Double Feats and Uberfeats. The former requires spending two feat slots, which can't be saved up from previous levels. Since only fighters get bonus feats in the CBoXM, they are ones that get two feat slots in the same level. Uberfeats are super powerful feats which are only available to high level fighters. To qualify, the character is required to retire a selection of previous feats.

Another major change is that the spell lists have been expanded to 20 levels, so that the highest spell level available to a spellcaster is equal to his caster level. Spellcasters also get disciplines, which replace class features and act more like spell-like abilities. All the class features of spellcasters, such as Turn Undead or Wild Shape have now been redone as disciplines. The core abilities associated with each discipline can be improved by spending feat slots to buy upgrades. For example, Turn Undead, which now allows a saving throw and only affects a single undead at a time, can be upgraded in terms of range, damage, save DC and types of monsters that can be affected. Rangers and Paladins, which no longer have spellcasting ability, also have access to a limited number of disciplines.

There are other rule changes related to spell effects such as polymorph and resurrection, fighter domains which resemble schools or styles of combat and the introduction of a new base class called the Runeblade. All the changes and additions make a very coherent and workable package, although the Runeblade seems like a bit of an add-on.

-Rognar-