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Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! New One D&D playtest document, new release for Shadowrun, more info in Fallout: Winter of Atom, The Walking Dead RPG gets a Kickstarter launch date, and more!
For a quick summary of the week’s news, Jessica Hancock will bring you up to speed with EN Live’s This Week in TTRPG every Friday.
Don’t forget, you can keep up with all the week’s gaming news in detail with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk. This week, Morrus, Peter, and Jessica talk about in-character versus out-of-character roleplaying.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
EN5ider, the EN Publishing Patreon e-zine featuring content for 5e, just released their 500th article, the megadungeon Vault of Splintered Souls. This adventure features over 100 pages of content in a 14-level megadungeon for a 6th level party that will take them all the way to 10th level by the end. Based on a survey of Patreon backers, the design focuses on “an ancient, reactive dungeon that heavily figured in a randomizing deck of cards and had a classic feel.” If you’re curious how Mike Myler and the team accomplished this, Mike posted a preview of the dungeon earlier this week describing the design process and talking about some of the unique mechanics. Subscribers to the EN5ider Patreon get immediate access to Vault of Splintered Souls along with 499 other articles for as little as $3 per month.
Wizards of the Coast released the second playtest for One D&D covering the Druid and Paladin classes. Among other changes to the class, the Druid’s Wildshape ability has been completely redone. Rather than turning into a specific list of creatures, the Druid chooses between three stat blocks of Animal of the Land, Sea, and Sky that covers any Terrestrial, Aquatic/Semiaquatic, and Winged Animal respectively. The animal can be of any type with a list of examples given and they can be any size between Small, Medium, or Large, but the stats and abilities don’t change based on the animal chosen or size. In fact, the description specifically states that animals don’t need to match their original sizes so you could have a Small Elephant or Large Rat. The Paladin class received more minor changes from the base game comparatively. They gain the ability to use cantrips and their casting starts at 1st level with a spell progression similar to the Artificer.
The playtest document also has more feats and some clarifications on material from previous playtest documents. For example, the Channel Divinity/Channel Nature abilities for the Paladin and Druid are based on class level rather than proficiency bonus. This will be changed for the Cleric going forward as well so all Channel abilities will be based on the levels in the class with the channel ability rather than based on the character level to prevent exploiting multiclassing rules. The Epic Boon feats have also been updated to feel more epic. The Rules Glossary has also gotten an update with a handy sidebar discussing the changed, added, and removed entries.
The playtest document is available now on D&D Beyond and the feedback survey on the new update will open on March 20.
WizKids is expanding its offering of life-size Dungeons & Dragons replicas with a mimic. This foam pre-painted figure is a 1:1 scale Mimic in the form of a treasure chest in the midst of an attack (so you’ll need your own chest-only version to swap it out with). The figure stands twenty inches tall and joins the Quasit, Pseudodragon, Demilich, and Hand and Eye of Vecna in their life-size licensed D&D replicas. The new mimic figure is expected for a Q2 2023 release with a retail price of $375.
The new Shadowrun sourcebook Astral Ways explore the mysterious metaplanes and the strange magical beings that live there. Normally only available to the highest caliber of magic users in the Sixth World, gates to different metaplanes have begun to appear across the world giving more people access to the worlds beyond. The 186-page book is perfect for groups who want to delve deeper into the mysteries established by the plot books Cutting Black, Slip Streams, and The Third Parallel or who just want to add more magic in their game. This sourcebook gives guidelines on how to use the metaplanes in your campaigns, provides a few examples of metaplanes to visit, and describes how what happens to tech and augmentations when brought across the boundaries into other realms. The hardcover is set for a March 8 release with a retail price of $49.99 while the PDF is available now on DriveThruRPG for $19.99.
Modiphius has one new release and more details about an upcoming one. Starting with the latter, a new blog post from Samantha Webb discusses the new factions appearing in the Commonwealth for the Fallout Roleplaying Game campaign Winter of Atom. Mirage is a huge moving casino pulled across the frozen Commonwealth by a herd of Brahmin, the ghouls calling themselves The Freeques have settled in a decrepit circus tent called the Big Top, the Beats have taken over a large scrap heap they call Beatsville as they attempt to drag the Commonwealth out of the dark ages through art and (of course) poetry, and the blacksmiths called Sisters of the Forge have taken over a church to serve as the Mechminster Abbey”. The Winter of Atom campaign is set for a Q2 2023 release.
Fans of Star Trek Adventures don’t have to wait for their new release though as the new mission Eight Layers Deep is out now. This adventure is set in the Enterprise timeline before the formation of the Federation for a crew of a Starfleet vessel (though it includes advice on adapting it for other campaigns). The crew is sent to resupply the USS Colotario and prepare a report on the Colotario’s ongoing research. However, troubling anomalies call the research into question further complicated by first contact with a new species requesting help. The 20-page mission is available now for $4.99.
The pre-launch page for Free League’s The Walking Dead Universe is now live on Kickstarter with a launch date of March 14. The game set in the world of the AMC television franchise will use the Year Zero Engine (the system that powers multiple Free League titles ranging from Tales from the Loop to Alien) while exploring new story elements while drawing inspiration from the current series and upcoming spin-offs. You can sign up for notifications when the Kickstarter goes live at the link above and find out more about the game at the Walking Dead Universe official website.
Larian Studios announced the release date for Baldur’s Gate 3 via a trailer during the Playstation State of Play event: August 31, 2023. While the game has been in early access since October 2020, the early access only covered the first third of the game’s storyline and has only slowly released new classes and races. The trailer also features voiceover from J. K. Simmons (Spider-man, Invincible) as the voice of antagonist General Ketheric Thorm. There will be cross-platform progresson between PC, Mac, and PS5 along with full controller support and split-screen co-op play. The game will be released same day on PC, macOS, and Playstation 5. So far, no information is available about Xbox systems, but PC and macOS users who previously purchased the game during early access will be upgraded to the Digital Deluxe Edition which will include exclusive in-game items as well as digital rewards such as an artbook, original soundtrack, D&D character sheets for each Baldur’s Gate 3 origin character, and more. Pre-orders are open now on the Larian Studios website.
That’s all from me for this week! Don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at [email protected], and you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitch to get notifications when I go live, follow me on Mastodon for RPG chat and general nonsense, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube for videos on gaming history, RPG reviews, and gaming Let’s Plays, or you can listen to the archives of the Gamer’s Tavern podcast. Until next time, may all your hits be crits! Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
