She’s about to provide the studying of a lifetime. Wizards of the Coast
Simply in time for the vacations, the brand new spells are right here! This week sees the discharge of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, a brand new supplemental e-book from Renton-based Dungeons & Dragons masters Wizards of the Coast. And ohhhh boy it’s a enjoyable learn—clearly, D&D gamers will get essentially the most out of it, however any fantasy fan, author, or informal nerd will discover themselves gasping with pleasure as they flip by the e-book.
Amongst its greatest bits: an entire slew of recent magic spells, a system for adorning your characters’ our bodies with enchanted tattoos, steering for creating new complete species, and puzzles puzzles puzzles galore. There’s additionally a bit on operating an efficient Session Zero and discovering new methods to have enjoyable that can completely remodel the way in which you run a sport, whether or not it’s D&D or Pathfinder and even simply sitting down for a pair rounds of Scrabble. There’s heaps to understand on each web page—together with the stunning artwork—however right here’s a number of issues that leaped out for me:
New subclasses for barbarians, druids, monks, wizards—nearly each class will get fascinating new choices with cool new tips and spells and specializations. Bards get a brand new School of Eloquence, which will probably be nice enjoyable for gamers who like to speak their manner into and out of bother. Barbarians get a brand new Path of the Beast that permits you to go wild with an animalistic transformation, an exciting deal with for werewolf followers and anybody who enjoys TF Tuesdays. Druids get a brand new Circle of Spores, offering magic based mostly on fungal decay—arghhhhh it’s all simply so extraordinarily extraordinarily cool.
Additionally nice are the brand new patrons. The e-book suggests a variety of figures who’re rich, or highly effective, or mysterious, or all three who might need a job for the celebration whereas additionally pushing their very own sinister agenda. This has the potential to rework previous campaigns and settings; in case you’re losing interest of Waterdeep, for instance, simply flip open the e-book and throw an expertly-written Historic Being into the combination.
The brand new tattoo magic is tremendous enjoyable, and the mechanics look fairly intelligent. There are magic needles, you see, and once they’re used to create a design on a personality’s pores and skin, they imbue fabulous new powers. But when the character ever loses attunement, the ink disappears, remodeling again right into a needle for use by another person. I can’t wait to see D&D spell tattoos showing on nerds’ pores and skin IRL.
There’s additionally a bit for including sidekicks to your group—eventually, you possibly can port your cute feline Palico from Monster Hunter. There’s recommendation for parlaying with monsters, in case your group want to attempt to befriend an enormous owlbear. And a side that’s not getting as a lot consideration as I feel it deserves is the Magical Phenomena part, which describes methods to include Flame Storms, Necrotic Tempests, Primal Fruit, and Magic Springs into your world.
However the puzzles part—ohhhhh the puzzles. Certainly one of my greatest ache factors with writing an journey is developing with enjoyable recent puzzles to menace gamers with, and this e-book has a slew of inspiration that can work for teams of various pursuits and skills. I like the letter-tile puzzle; there’s additionally a field with mysterious keyholes and symbols; and there’s a really enjoyable wizard-workshop puzzle that feels identical to one thing out of an previous Sierra sport.
And in case you’re on the lookout for extra brain-benders, I can’t advocate extremely sufficient the world of native DM Celeste Conowitch, whose Puzzle Master e-book is now out there on the DMs Guild.
Each time Wizards publicizes some new supplemental e-book, I’m initially skeptical—D&D is already so huge, how far more magic do we want? After which inevitably, I discover myself nodding alongside and imagining how these sensible new concepts will be integrated into future fantasy adventures. Properly finished, you stunning nerds, properly finished certainly.
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