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Chat Transcript: Chaositech and Other TopicsJanuary 15, 2004 -- 5 p.m. PST
Carthain: Welcome to a Malhavoc Press Chat! Today we are chatting with Monte Cook. The topic of today is Chaositech and other Malhavoc products Monte: Thanks for coming, everyone. It's great to be chatting with you all again. Carthain: Okay, before we start with questions (*nudges people to msg me some*), is there anything either you or Sue would like to say, Monte? Monte: We'll recently announced a bunch of new products and we'd be happy to talk about any of them. Or anything else you want. Other than that, I blather on on the website enough, so why don't we just get to questions? Carthain: All right then. ^_^ From Blueleaf: "How would you describe chaositech to someone who's never played with it before?" Monte: Chaositech devices are things that can make the impossible possible. They are things that should not work, but because they are powered by chaos, they do. But because they are powered by chaos, they come with a price and a risk. Carthain: From Isida: "Monte, what aspects of Chaositech are you using in your own game, if any?" Monte: Virtually everything in Chaositech came right out of my own Ptolus game. Even the mutants and the Galchutt. The PCs faced off against many of the different cults. The web enhancement I did last week with Kinion Luth comes right out of Ptolus too, although his stats have changed some. So, I guess, the short answer is, pretty much all of it. The players in my game just last week learned of a new foe collecting chaositech, in fact. He's a dark elf who stole a bunch from the ruined Dark Elf fortress Ul-Drakkan (if you read the exploits of the Black Lantern, you know what I mean). Carthain: From Valerius: "Why didn't you include rules for creating new chaositech?" Monte: You can create new chaositech using the Craft (chaositech) skill. And the pricing guidelines are in there as well. They're basically statted up like magic items. Carthain: From Taurren: "Do you have plans to redo a Dark Space style setting, and is Chaositech partly based on that setting?" Monte: Chaositech is very much the grandchild of Dark Space. I imagine that if I ever did a science fantasy kind of setting it would be like Dark Space, but not exactly the same. But I have no immediate plans to do that. Maybe someday. For now, Chaositech is my new update to Dark Space. Carthain: From Valerius: "Why did you decide to make chaositech evil?" Monte: Well, it comes from the Galchutt, who are evil in the broadest sense—it's tough not to call something that wants to destroy all creation evil. Chaositech itself isn't evil in the same way that an evil magical artifact is evil, but it is corrupting, and dangerous stuff. It's all a matter of flavor, I suppose. But a non-evil character can use chaositech and get away with it if he's got some wherewithal (good saves) and he's careful. Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed
Monte: If by "Arcana Unearthed Sage" you mean someone to answer Arcana Unearthed questions in an official way, no, not really. I'm not sure about it. Soon we'll maybe make Mike Mearls do it. ;) Carthain: From Caledonian: "Seriously, what will Children of the Rune actually be about?" Monte: Seriously? :) Carthain: Apparently ^_^ Monte: It's an anthology of stories written by different authors. Each story is very different, but involves a runechild in some aspect. It's been fun to see the different takes on the idea from different quality writers. Carthain: From Merganser86: "Can Monte let us know more of the authors with stories in Children of the Rune?" Monte: Sue can... Carthain: From Fontbone: "Can we expect to see stats and/or other future support for characters and events in Children of the Rune, or is this a one-shot thing?" Galhavoc: Perhaps as web enhancements, but game material won't be in the book itself. It will be fiction only. Monte? Monte: None of the events in the stories are world-shattering. They're not that kind of stories, so there will be no need to change anything you'll find in a game product or update anything based on what happens in the fiction. I'd be happy to do stats for the characters in my stories at some point, though. Carthain: From Celestiallord: "Will any future Malhavoc products not specifically made for Arcana Unearthed or the Diamond Throne setting contain rules for adapting them to these rules and settings?" Monte: Yes. The Complete Book of Eldritch Might coming out next week does. The Book of Hallowed Might (revised) will as well, as will Book of Hallowed Might II. Basically, it's our plan that most will when appropriate. Carthain: From Caledonian: "Should Arcana Unearthed be considered a completely different cosmology from D&D? Monte: Yeah, as much as D&D has a cosmology. It's probably easier to say Diamond Throne as a completely different cosmology than Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. Carthain: From Celestiallord: "Can you describe more about the intended cosmology to be used with Arcana Unearthed?" Monte: Uh. I'm not sure where to start. The idea for Arcana Unearthed is to actually step a bit back from the heavy reliance that D&D puts on planes and contact with other planes. Not a lot of spells, for example, deal with planes in Arcana Unearthed. Thus, the cosmology as described in the Diamond Throne is fairly ephemeral. No one knows a lot about the planes (unless you live in Thartholan). Like Beyond Countless Doorways, however, the idea is that there are limitless worlds out there. Carthain: From Caledonian: "Any thoughts about what happened to the Transcendent verrik from DT?" Monte: Vnaxians? Well, they are all gone, except Xyphon, who's sort of a god now. They could come back, though--that would be a cool adventure hook. Carthain: From Wareden: "Would it be possible to get an update on the data sets coming out from Code Monkey for Arcana Unearthed? Thank you." Monte: I think we're really close. They sent us some stuff to look at that was almost finished for PCGen a while ago and we gave feedback. I think we're just waiting for them to finish making a few changes. Carthain: From Taurren: "Will Malhavoc be publishing any more material on the Diamond Throne setting?"
Carthain: From Fontbone: "Will Legacy of the Dragons be designed to be a replacement for the MM, if the DM desires, or is it designed solely as a supplement?" Monte: It's a supplement, in that it doesn't have stats for animals or basic monsters that you might still want to use. Carthain: From Celestiallord: "Can you describe some of the new rules that will be presented in Mystic Secrets?" Monte: I'd love to, but I can't. :) Mike Mearls is writing that book, and so we'll have to have an online chat with him sometime. You can bet that there will be new ceremonies, new runes for runethanes, new types of witches, and create some all-new cool stuff as well. And new spells and stuff too. Carthain: From Inviolate: "Where can more in-depth maps for the Diamond Throne setting be found? i.e. cities, ruins, etc..." Monte: Well, you can check out the published adventures set there, Plague of Dreams and Siege on Ebonring Keep, as well as those that are coming from Mystic Eye and Necromancer Games. However, they best ones will be on your own sheet of graph paper. I specificially and intentionally made Diamond Throne a setting that DMs could make their own. Like the old World of Greyhawk gazeteer from back in the 80s. Carthain: From Caledonian: "Can you tell us about how many entries were received for the recent NPC contest?" Monte: There were over 100 entries. We're going through them now and they're great. It's a hard contest to judge. Carthain: From Isida (follow-up question): "Is that more or less than you expected?" Monte: Both, in a way. It's fewer overall entries than I thought we'd get, but they're almost all serious entries done with a lot of care. There are more GOOD entries than I thought there would be. Usually, when you run a contest like this, you get a lot of entries that aren't so good. Carthain: From Caledonian: "Any chance you could give us an official ruling for the mysterious and puzzling Sturdy feat?" Monte: If you normally would gain a +2 bonus to your hit points at 3rd level, and take the feat, that level you get a +4 bonus to your hit points instead. I guess I don't know what's puzzling. Carthain: Caledonian could you expand the question a bit more? Caledonian: There's a whole five-page thread in AU rules about it. The uncertainty was about whether the feat replaced the normal Con. bonus hit points or whether it added the hit points on additionally. Monte: It replaces it. Caledonian: Some interpretations held that people with a +3 bonus gained less than people with a lesser bonus and others wanted to know why it wasn't just a straight +4 hit points. Monte: It's not a straight +4 hp bonus because people with a higher Con will get more benefit this way. (So it's a good feat for even tough people.) Carthain: Caledonian: satisfied? Caledonian: Excellent. Thank you for the clarification, Monte. Beyond Countless Doorways
Monte: If you mean "the great wheel cosmology," it's pretty different. However, all the planes in Beyond Countless Doorways are very modular and self contained. Any of them could make a very cool demiplane or a layer of an existing Planescape/Manual of the Planes plane without any trouble. If you mean will they be designed with the same level of wild creativity and big ideas, like Planescape had, then, I'd say yes, that's the goal. Carthain: From Caledonian: "What cosmological setting will Beyond Countless Doorways use?" Monte: Beyond Countless Doorways offers its own cosmology that you can use in your campaign if you wish. It's basically set up to be very open ended and adaptable. You can also chuck it and just use the individual planes, which make up the majority of the book. In flavor, I suppose the cosmology is a little like what's described in The Diamond Throne, or what Michael Moorcock offers in his books. A limitless number of worlds and planes to visit. There's more to it than that, but that's it's main difference from the Planescape "there are these planes and no more or less and they all fit together in this exact way" method. Carthain: From sigmundk: "Hey Monte! What sort of planes are included in Beyond Countless Doorways?" Monte: Well, the book's still being worked on, but right off the top of my head there's a cool plane that's kind of a parallel world where an apocolypse occured brought on by an invasion of formians. There's another called the Mountains of the Five Winds that PCs can try to reach to find Father Storm and learn his secrets. There's a cool one that's kinda like Dinotopia (a little). It's a big book, with four imaginative authors so we're going off in a lot of cool directions with it. Carthain: From Merganser86: "Are the 'Countless Doorways' a nod to Sigil?" Monte: Not really. The title refers to the fact that the book's premise is that there are an infinite number of planes and worlds and each one of them has at least one doorway to get to it. Carthain: From Merganser86: "Are there going to be notes on where to place portals from Book of Eldritch Might III's Nexus in the Beyond Countless Doorways planes?" Monte: The Nexus will work really well with the Beyond Countless Doorways planes. There will be direct tie-ins. Wrapping Up
Monte: Not on my part. I have enough things to read. There are great email lists out there, though. I used to read the main D&D one, but not anymore. Carthain: From sigmundk: "Could you also tell us a bit more of Hyperconscious?" Galhavoc: We're trying to take some of our more popular 3.0 books and update them for the 3.5 revision. You see we've already done so with The Complete Book of Eldritch Might. One of the goals of Hyperconscious is to do the same for the psionic rules material Bruce Cordell's published in If Thoughts Could Kill and Mindscapes. In addition to these updates, Hyperconscious also contains a new adventure from Bruce, for 7th-level PCs. The scenario concerns the Sundering of the Seven Seers, as Bruce describes on the product page. Carthain: From Kraah: "You're probably tired of hearing questions about your view on this and that about the new edition. However, I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on the new damage reduction system? Improvement, unneccesary, etc?" Monte: Personally, it might be one of my least favorite aspects of 3.5. You'll find that in all upcoming Malhavoc products, we'll provide both. So a monster that has DR 10/+1 will have DR 10/magic listed with it. That way, people can use whichever system they prefer. Carthain: From SkidAce: "As a homebrew campaign designer, how do you deal with new products that parallel ideas you had ages ago..and new players who think you are copying?" Monte: Well, great minds think alike. It's just a fact of life. It happens all the time and there's no way to prevent it. All you can do is assure your players that what you've created is your own. If they're your friends, they should believe you. And in the end, as long as you're having fun, what difference does it make where they think it came from? Carthain: From CD8D: "Will Sean K. Reynolds or Skip Williams be doing any more products for Malhavoc in 2004?" Monte: We are working with Skip on a new book, but we don't have a release date yet. We're talking with Sean about some ideas, but they will probably be for 2005. Carthain: From Blueleaf: "Does Malhavoc Press has any plans to release a DM's computer tool/organizer?" Monte: Not really. We don't have any plans to release any kind of utility software. It's just not our thing. I think there's some good stuff out there, though. Carthain: Well, that's the end of the questions that we have time for tonight. I'd like to thank everyone for coming, and for giving us your questions. ^_^ Monte: Yeah, thanks everyone. Good questions. It's always cool to find out your thoughts on things. Galhavoc: It was great to see you all here! * Transcript edited for style and clarity. Related Products
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Chaositech |