Thursday, January 29, 2015

D&D Dice Masters Preview: The Beholder and Dimension Door Revealed!

It's been less than a week since we got our first real look at D&D Dice Masters, and Evan covered it both expertly and thoroughly here.  Today, however, our benevolent Dice Masters' err...Masters have revealed another pair of cards from the set on .  I want to take a minute to draw your attention to them and give my thoughts about them.

First up we have the dreaded Beholder!  Now, anyone who's played D&D will immediately recognize this guy as an iconic and dangerous adversary.  If you've read the Return of the Archwizards trilogy by Troy Denning, you'll remember that these bad boys can wreak some serious havoc on a societal level if left unchecked.  Obviously I like these big, floating, eye-stalk-spell-slinging-toothy-mawed overlords.

This version of the Beholder - labeled an Apprentice Aberration - slots in as a 6-cost Mask energy character.  I think that's appropriate thematically.  Sure, Beholders can sling around their weight in a fight...but they are predisposed to intrigue and leading from the shadows.  They're adept slave masters and subjugators of many adventurer's poor Will Saves, so I dig it.  The stats are pretty 'meh' for a 6-cost, coming in at 6/5 on the Beholder's highest level.  Keep in mind that this is an apprentice and the card text is really where this guy shines.  Fielding cost seems about where it should be so that this guy rarely costs you more than 6.

Let's talk card text.  Wow - I like this ability and it oozes theme.  It reads, "When fielded, move up to 2 of your fielded NPCs to the used pile.  For each one moved, you may purchase a basic action die at no cost."  I love this on so, so many levels.  It's actually an AWESOME ability - trading your mooks for "more power."  Could you imagine swapping two of your NPC/Sidekicks for two Power Bolts?  Seriously?  Also, this is SO BEHOLDER!  I know I'm gushing here, but like I mentioned above, Beholders are known slave masters and notorious subjugators.  What a perfect way to show that - sacrificing minions for UNLIMITED POWER!

The Global is...interesting, I guess?  Here's what the text reads: "Pay 1 energy.  Move a die showing an action face from your reserve to your prep area.  Do not roll it next turn."  Now, I'm not a perfect strategist by any stretch of the imagination, but this has me perplexed.  Essentially, from my understanding for his Global, you'll pay 1 energy now to seed your next next turn's roll with an action die.  Interesting...I guess.  If you have a trash energy and an action die that you can't/don't want to use this turn, I could see this being viable. But really that strategic?  I don't know.  Another interpretation I've read about on Facebook would be that you do not roll this action die on your next turn - it would just go straight to your Reserve Pool during the Roll and ReRoll Step.  I'm not so sure that makes any more or less sense to me.  It feels like there's some missing text there to allow the card text to interfere with the Roll Step - not just "don't roll it next turn."  The jury's still out for me.  Let's move on to the next card.

We get a good look at a basic action card - Dimension Door.  Now, Evan already covered this because we got a look at it in the book, so I'm not gonna dwell on it for very long.  I think this card could see some limited use, although I will say that there are enough characters with an "unblockable" effect that I don't see myself reaching for this BAC instead of, say a Canucklehead or whatever the D&D equivalent will turn out to be.  Let's get to the fanboy part, shall we?

Beautiful card art here - beautiful!  This comes straight from the original cover of the 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and it is one of my very favorite pieces of art for that series.  I absolutely love this picture and it takes me back to my old gaming group and the dog-eared corners of the many pages I flipped through when we ran our old 4th edition campaign.  It's that kind of nostalgia that this entire set is bringing me back to, which is a good thing.  It's also this kind of card design that had me pre-order a Starter Set and Gravity Feed immediately from my FLGS.

That's all I've got for you today - until next time!
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , ,

3 comments:

  1. In reference to the Beholder's Global ability:

    "Pay 1 energy. Move a die showing an action face from your reserve to your prep area. Do not roll it next turn."

    I'm going to guess that there are cards that trigger off dice in your Prep Area in the D&D set -- possibly ones that key off the number or type of dice there. Mystique from Uncanny X-Men is a good example of an existing character who would benefit from the Beholder's Global:

    Mystique - Ageless (Common)
    Mystique gets +1A and +1D for each die in your prep area.

    If you don't roll the die and it just stays in your Prep Area, that's a nice boon for Mystique. She wouldn't lose all her bonuses when you roll the dice from the Prep Area.

    ReplyDelete