"People, please sit tight and hold on to your loved ones, we are about to dock in approximately three weeks to a month."

Hey all,

The month of August is nearing. There are many interesting dates to note during that period, like Singapore's National Day, Revenant/Divine Powers update on DDi Character Builder, my birthday (cough), and most important of all - The long awaited return to Caen for our Heroes of Maya.

As promised, from this week onwards until the start of the adventure proper, relevant background history of the immediate region will be published. I have also finalized official custom character powers/abilities for Guy, Fel, Trogdor, and Drefonis. This will be further touched on in its own home-brewed article down the road.

Watch out for all these and more!

For the past few days, the 9d20 site is going through a "growing pains" change. An additional sidebar has been placed on the right so that more information can be displayed efficiently without the need to scroll down all the way to the next lunar year.
With the expectation of new columns/previews/polls in the future, this change was necessary to prevent congestion and constipation of the various articles.

Do feedback comments to me regarding this, either in RL, sms, tweet, or shoutbox so that I know what the readers like/dislike. The different monitors and browsers used may also impact personal experience, so do let me know if my site is unknowingly providing grief to anyone.

On to something quite extra I read in the forums recently...

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The Stormwind Fallacy, aka the Roleplayer vs Rollplayer Fallacy Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.
Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same game. Many read 'optimizes his characters mechanically' to include more generally playing in an optimal way. Whether you do or not, Stormwind does not always hold. As we are discovering, you will sometimes reach moments where the choice indicated by roleplaying differs from the choice indicated by optimization, and you cannot choose both. Accordingly I would revise Stormwind as follows: Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not at all times mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.
Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor at all times infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same game.
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The entire thread can be read here. He just needed to write that the statement is not entirely true all the time and he saves like ten minutes of his life writing all these lawyer-aspirant stuff. Hey, maybe he does want to grow up to be a lawyer in real life.

DnD 4th Edition does make the roll-players want to optimize mechanically, as the game does away with the random stats generating of yesteryear and replace it with the default 22-point buy system.

The stat-mongers now have the ability to prepare a character from the get-go, and build it all the way to the upper levels, without needing to worry about "what if I cannot roll the charisma for the paladin that I wanted to make, and still score decent stats to meet the other pre-requisites?" or "whyyy did not have the luck to roll a half-decent rogue? I should have washed my hands before throwing the dice. I hope I get to play another game soon."
All these stuff are dealt away with the 22-point buy system and keeps them happy, but at a cost of lower numbers in the other "not-important" stats.

But think about it for a moment.

The role-players get a nice bite of the cake too. In the past, when they want to roleplay, they usually have to put a really high stat they rolled onto the roleplaying stat (aka Charisma) and the rest of their stats might be crap due to the luck of the other rolls.
Now with the 22-point buy system, no longer. They can have both role playing stats while maintaining decent stats, due to the ability to shape the characters themselves. These "balanced" characters are definitely playable and do not require much number-crunching. More people can thus enjoy 4th Ed in general, and get into the thick of the action immediately.

However, most turn their noses at such builds as they are not "optimized". However, it is not entirely true. There are several "balanced" stats character-builds that start to shine at 11th and beyond; which shows that with a bit of patience + the right group, you eventually get to have as much fun as Mr "Level 1 20 Strength Barbarian."

ELAMUSA. My recent Goliath ranger ("Staff" Diskount) in Shell's game might have to be shelved for a more well-balanced party setup. He does really well in the DPS department, and roleplaying him and his pet lizard was a serious blast. But Diskount + a melee pet is sometimes rather extra with the other 4 melee characters in the party.

Shell does put effort into maintaining an arcane presence in his world and my new character would fit into that mold, although he is a little bit unorthodox.

This versatile character maintains a close-combat feel while being able to shoot spells from far (20 squares). He can work just behind the spear fighter and the paladin, or go toe to toe once in a while when the time is right. He does not do mad damage like Diskount, but he fills the arcane void in the party, does decent damage, and will improve as time passes by.

He is an Eladrin, who lives to perfect the magic missile and swordmagery. His name? "Magicman". His origins? Found on his character sheet and in DDi.