Friday’s 4e Freebie: Kobold Quarterly #10 – A FREE Download!
“You can’t beat the price. Free is in my budget!” ~ Brittany Lincicome
This Friday 4e Freebie won’t be around much longer, but while it’s here, it’s certainly worth mentioning.
So until January 31, 2010, you can get a free download, in pdf format, of Kobold Quarterly #10! You just have to visit the KQ Store and when you check out, enter the Coupon Code KQ10Free, and you’ll get your very own copy.
Now this particular issue is about six months old, and was released in Summer 2009, it’s still a darn nice D&D Gaming Magazine, and I’m actually a big supporter. I check the KQ site daily, looking for articles to add to my RPG News Page, and the Kobolds have done some great work with their Humpday Hazards and particularly the King of the Monsters Contest, which gave the 4e community ten shiny new critters to mangle, er, challenge our adventurers.
So I wanted to devote this Friday’s 4e Freebie to Kobold Quarterly Magazine #10, and give it a review:
Kobold Quarterly Magazine, Issue 10
(Volume 2, Issue 6)
- Editor: Wolfgang Baur (Kobold in Chief)
- Illustrations: Malcolm McClinton (cover)
- Publisher: Open Design LLC
- Year: 2009
- Media: PDF (90 pages)
- Price: FREE (until Jan 31st) – normal list price $5.99
Kobold Quarterly #10 (pdf) is a magazine devoted to the play of Dungeons & Dragons, in all its recent incarnations: D&D 3.5 edition, Pathfinder, and D&D 4e. The production quality of the magazine is excellent, with great layouts, illustrations, and awesome full-color advertisements. Hey, I like reading gaming product ads!
So here’s a run-down of the contents in the 10th Issue of Kobold Quarterly Magazine:
The Cover by Malcolm McClinton: Gorgeous piece of fantasy art there of a red-draped sorceress releasing two ravens. Or perhaps casting Summon Attack Crows?
Editorial by Wolfgang Baur: Enjoyable read about Mr. Bauer’s feelings on loot and Characters with ethical concerns about robbing the dead. Great points and well worth considering.
Letters to the Editor – Interesting for about 3 seconds, as the first letter was a rant by a gamer over KQ’s decision to include more 4e content, and angst that 3.5 would suffer loss. Boring! Will D&D fans ever get over the 3.5 vs. 4e argument? By the way, KQ’s Editor responds with:
It’s a great question, Kim. KQ is first and foremost a magazine for the world’s most popular roleplaying game, Kobolds & Dragons. We might have that name slightly wrong, but the point is, we do support the editions in current use. The 3.5 content will only shrink if 3.5 subscribers disappear.
And yes, we’ve upped the page count this issue so that the 4E material really doesn’t take away anything. This is a BIG issue at 88 pages – our biggest ever, in fact. As long as gamers see it as valuable and advertisers support it, we’ll fight to retain the larger page count.
Honestly, I empathize just a smidge with the letter-writer, Kim, who claims that “…none of my gaming group has ANY intention of trashing our $1,000s of dollars of 3.5 stuff and switching to 4E…”, because until about a year ago, I had the same attitude. But seriously, if I took that attitude regarding D&D versions, I’d still be playing Advanced D&D (ie. first edition), and never known the pros and cons of the other editions.
Revering Ninkash by Ed Greenwood: Great article here about the priesthood and worship of Ninkash, the female dwarven goddess of ale and partying. And although actually designed for the Open Design World of Zobeck Setting, any DM worth his salt could readily adopt this article to their own setting… like say, the Forgotten Realms.
Sneak Preview of Pathfinder by Jason Buhlman: A good article about Pathfinder and converting a 3.5 campaign to PF – interesting, but I play 4e. But not a complete loss, because the Shadowdancer class looks neato and it’s probably something I could make into a very nifty Paragon Class. Next!
Chaos Magic of the Proteans by Todd Stewart: Here’s another Pathfinder article – dealing with a race of snakey creatures that seem to fill in the same “ecological” niche as salads, called proteans. They look pretty nasty, and this article has mention of magic items and spells created by these “heralds of Chaos”. Again, not exactly a 4e article, but I’m not above stealing cool ideas for my own game, and some of the items are “shiny”.
Challenges in the Deep – Swords Against Darkness Dungeon & Underground Skill Challenges: Yeah, finally more 4e stuff! Three Skill Challenges here for use in underground adventures, such as dungeons, sewers, or even the Underdark. Pretty cool stuff and finally geared toward 4e – particularly the one about traversing through a clockwork device!
We Need A Cleric – A Conversation with Jeff Grubb by Jeremy L.C. Jones: A really nice interview with one of the all-time great D&D writers/creators, Jeff Grubb. If you’re new to D&D, it’s a great historical perspective article, seeing how far the game has come in all this time. Makes me feel old though <sigh>.
No school like an old school – “Or school’s been blown to pieces” by Monte Cook – Very cool “Game Theories” article discussing his Dungeonaday.com project, and how he looks at “old school” ideas versus new school ideas. Nice pairing of articles too, alongside the Jeff Grubb interview. It’s like a D&D class reunion.
Back and Better Than Ever -Death is Never an End by Michael Kortes: Another 3.5 edition article here in the Astounding Feats series. Deals mainly with feats for resurrected characters, including some detriments called Flaws to balance the feats against. Not bad, actually, but not 4e either. Although certainly adaptable to 4e with a little creative thinking…
Ecology of the Hill Giant by Richard Pett: One of the Kobold Ecologies and written in terms of 3.5 edition again. But not entirely a waste, because the half-giant stuff is potentially a new monster template, although, I have an awful lot of stuff to convert now from this mag.
Ask the Kobold by Skip Williams: Wishes and Werewolves answers two burning 3.5 questions. Ok… so is there any 4e content in here?
Whispering Enigmas by Mario Podeschi: Well here’s a 4e article. Subtitled A Warlock Field Guide, it is essentially a “fluff” article about roleplaying your pact. Great material and character development ideas for warlocks – no real substance.
Haffuns: Seeming Servants by John Wick & Jesse Heinig: Hmmm, here’s a 3.5ed and 4e article combined, and an amazing one at that. It’s a completely new take on the Halfling PC race – a racial offshoot perhaps? These Halfling-like beings, called Haffuns, are very fey, and remind me a bit like “little people” from some Celtic myths. And contains statistics for playing Haffuns in both OGL (3.5/Pathfinder) and GSL (4e). An Excellent article! Now, this is more like it – why doesn’t KQ do this with other 3.5 content?
Book Reviews – All Tomes Read by Candlelight by Cynthia Ward & Neal Herbert: Always good to check out some nice book reviews. I think I really need to find those R. Scott Bakker books.
PCs without Backgrounds by Amber E. Scott: Here’s a good general D&D article, on resolving an issue that troubles many gaming groups – Characters without backgrounds and the problems that can cause for roleplaying. Very useful suggestions here.
Ticking Hounds & Clockwork Hunters by Ben McFarland: And yet another 3.5 ed article. This one is also designed for the Zobeck Setting. But it does contain some definitely adaptable stuff, if you don’t mind converting monsters from 3.5 to 4e.
On the Care and Keeping of Gelatinous Cubes by Jonathan McAnulty: A Monster Rancher article dealing humorously with the idea of Player-Characters raising their very own Gelatinous Cubes. At least I think it is a tongue-in-cheek article?! Although written in terms of 3.5 ed (or Pathfinder) stats, it is a great read. I lol’d at least three times.
The Halberd: Chopping your way to Gold and Glory by Brian E. Shefveland : – A very nice historical fantastical discussion of the Halberd and its uses in combat. Very good for roleplaying consideration if you have a penchant for your Characters to like polearms.
Ruyintan Caravanserai (or the Sand Dragon Inn) by David Schwartz: Here’s another Pathfinder/3.5 article, but it’s written so generally about this inn on a desert caravan route that it’d be easy to use in 4e. It’s got great ideas and a sweet map, so we 4e fans can steal it easy.
Elven Lust and the Green Gods – This is a World of Zobeck article, but readily accessible information on one type of Midsummer Festival, involving a lot of umm fertility rites.
Overall, Kobold Quarterly #10 is packed with a ton of material, but regretfully very little of it is “directly” written for D&D 4e. But I would have to say that it’s still worth a download, since there is some great material that could be readily adapted to 4e play. Given what I saw in here, it makes that Letter to the Editor from the ranting 3.5 Player seem almost funny in retrospect.
Sadly, based upon Kobold Quarterly Issue 10, I don’t think that KQ is going be getting too many 4e subscribers, as it seems that D&D 4e is just an afterthought in a Kobold’s mind.
However, I do know that in recent months, KQ has been showing more signs of 4e support, and as I mentioned earlier, I always make sure to add their 4e releases to my daily news-gathering and include their links on my site and in my newsletter. So maybe as time goes on, there will be more 4e content, as promised in the response from the editor.
It’s too bad they don’t do more articles like the Haffun one, by giving both sets of stats for 3.5 and 4e, so that everyone can enjoy a good idea. But I know that GSL has some pretty strict rules about “double-dipping” ideas in multiple game systems.
Then again, Kobolds are crafty critters, and I’m sure they can work it out.
Editor’s Note: Shameless Plug Warning!
Oh, and while we’re on the topic of Friday Freebies: if you haven’t downloaded a free copy of Neurglyph Games’ first release, A Curse on the Old Inn, what are you waiting for?! Please check out the Release Announcement, and get a copy and try it out!
So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!
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