In case anyone else was wondering, the DM Screen that's coming out next month will need errata due to the changes that they've made to DCs and Skill Challenges and the like.
I've had it straight from the horse's mouth:
Paul, WotC Customer Service Representative wrote:
When a 2nd print run is done I would assume it will have the corrections.
And that is surprising to you why? The material hits the printers more than a month before its release date. How could something released a day or 2 ago be reflected in something that has been out of their hands for over a month?
Just putting it out there because I've seen people asking the question. Also, we don't know that they only just came up with this errata. It's possible they've had it for a while but that they've only just published it.
To be honest, I'm not sure that I mind all that much because I don't know yet whether I like the changes they've made in the first place. I think they may have gone too far in the other direction with the DCs ... making them too easy instead of too hard.
When a 2nd print run is done I would assume it will have the corrections.
More like if they do a 2nd printing ... What they should do in the meantime (and I have suggested this via customer service) is put out a "patch" on the website that people can print out and paste over top of the bits that need the errata. That way we wouldn't have to wreck their nice design layout by scribbling all over it or using white-out or something (which is what I was doing to my books last night).
Does anyone own it? is it good other than the errata?
It's not out yet. It's due for release next month.
Actually, I read earlier today (I think on Enworld) that someone in Europe already bought one at a game store this week. May have gotten into some channels faster than others.
I was wondering, Pukuni, so thanks for passing on the info. I was holding out a distant hope that they'd known about the changes long enough beforehand, but oh well. I wonder how many tables will be affected? Just Skill Challenges?
I don't know what they'll have on the screen relating to Skill Challenges, but the biggest affected thing is the DCs and Damage By Level chart (pg 42 of the DMG). That thing was going to be 4th Edition's saving grace for DMs as far as I was concerned but now I'm not so sure ... This whole DC-change thing seems so half-assed. They lowered a whole lot of DCs but left others unchanged (traps and hazards). They lowered the Endurance DCs to resist diseases in the DMG but not in the MM -- so there are now two different versions of Mummy Rot in 4th Edition.
It seems to me like it either hasn't been thought through properly or else the errata update was incomplete.
That's pretty cool.
Here's the link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/updates
I think someone might be watching us.
Bravo WOTC, that's how you are suppose to do customer service, right when I was tipping towards the dark side, you bring me back. Good job, keep doing things like this.
EK
So hurts to see the errors, but glad to see the fixes, and glad to see WOTC taking real advantage of the webbertubes. Hopefully this PDF table prints off nicely enough to near-seamlessly cover the broken table in the DM Screen, and doesn't look out of place.
Hopefully this PDF table prints off nicely enough to near-seamlessly cover the broken table in the DM Screen, and doesn't look out of place.
I hope so too. It doesn't match that well with the DMG, but I don't really mind because I'm more likely to be using the table on the DM Screen than the one in the DMG ...
Actually, I read earlier today (I think on Enworld) that someone in Europe already bought one at a game store this week. May have gotten into some channels faster than others.
That would/could have been me!
I bought this thing on tuesday. My first impression, without having used it at the table, is favorable: solid material, decent selection of tables and page references for all the tables on the screen.
I'm a bit sceptical about the constrast of the lines with a green background.
Huldvoll
Baron von Bomberg
(aka Jan van Leyden on EnWorld)
I bought this thing on tuesday. My first impression, without having used it at the table, is favorable: solid material, decent selection of tables and page references for all the tables on the screen.
Would you be willing to give us a list of everything it includes? Also maybe a description of the art?
I'm a bit sceptical about the constrast of the lines with a green background.
That doesn't sound good. Can you be a bit more specific?
I'm not going to get too worked up about this. Between Office and Adobe apps, a color laserjet, and some adhesive paper, I probably have everything I need to create a sticker with the revised data that looks almost unnoticeable when applied to the screen. If I don't do it, I'm sure someone will.
Yep, a big round of applause for the pre-emptive strike! I've lived with errors in books and supps for decades. Used to be: a) there was no errata, or b) you could get the errata, but you had to send a SASE to the company to get it, or c) the errata got published months and months later in some mag or house organ like The Space Gamer.
So hurts to see the errors, but glad to see the fixes, and glad to see WOTC taking real advantage of the webbertubes. Hopefully this PDF table prints off nicely enough to near-seamlessly cover the broken table in the DM Screen, and doesn't look out of place.
The only thing that could have made it better was to have the document forced size to print and force the printing methods, so people having some "Fill entire page" setting don't get screwed over because they forget to set it back "don't screw with the scale of the document just print it as is".
But that is not limited to WotC online documentation. I would like to see an actual image for things like this as well. to further the good this update to the DC system does. So people can choose which format they want to use, and maybe for those who might want to house rule can edit the image file with the changes they make to the table without having to find a way to print to an image file to edit it.
Either way, as has been said, great to see the errata being prepared and utilized in advance of a forthcoming product so that people will have up to date products from the start!
I hope for those using things like this WotC does this for ALL future products and makes things like this available for them as well in case something changes after printing to at least give those people the chance to include the errata on those products as well.
So again for WotC doing this:
Would you be willing to give us a list of everything it includes? Also maybe a description of the art?
Okay, here we go. It's a four-panel screen, with the panels being in landscape orientation. The actual length of the thing is more than 1 m.
From left to right we have:
Panel 1: Experience point reward (DMG 120)
Food, Drink, and Lodging (PHB 222)
Light Sources (DMG 66)
Character Advancement (PH 29) - now, this is not needed...
Damage by Level (DMG 42)
Panel 2: Actions in Combat (PH 286)
Attack Modifiers (PH 279)
Panel 3: DCs to Break or Burst Common Items (PH 262)
Target DCs (DMG 42)
Fall Severity by Character Level (DMG 44)
DCs for Commonly Used Skills (no reference; this info has been compiled for the screen)
Cover (PH 280)
Concealment (PH 281)
Panel 4: Conditions (PH 277)
Healing a Dying Character (PH 295)
Death and Dying (PH 295)
The art is essentially on piece spanning all panels. It is a rather dark dungeon vista with monsters approaching: beholder, bat swarm, mind flayer, a black dragon, drow, and so on. There's nothing in the art which really catches the eye, the whole atmosphere is somewhat mencaing.
That doesn't sound good. Can you be a bit more specific?
I've tried to set up a situation akin to my normal use, and it looks like it might be okay. Although a better contrast would make things definitely easier!
Huldvoll
Baron von Bomberg
Okay, here we go. It's a four-panel screen, with the panels being in landscape orientation. The actual length of the thing is more than 1 m.
Thanks for that! Sounds like a pretty useful collection of tables and things. I can't think of anything I would want added to that list (although I agree that the character advancement table isn't really needed). I find it interesting that they broke the table from pg 42 of the DMG into two parts and placed them separately on the screen. I would've preferred them to stay together but whatever ...
The art is essentially on piece spanning all panels. It is a rather dark dungeon vista with monsters approaching: beholder, bat swarm, mind flayer, a black dragon, drow, and so on. There's nothing in the art which really catches the eye, the whole atmosphere is somewhat mencaing.
Is it anything like the first full-page illustration in the Monster Manual? That's got a pretty dark vista with 3D computer-generated characters facing off against a bunch of baddies including a drow, a grell, a red dragon, and a carrion crawler.
I've tried to set up a situation akin to my normal use, and it looks like it might be okay. Although a better contrast would make things definitely easier!
Are you saying that the design makes the screen hard to use? Has the DM side not got a white background?
Is it anything like the first full-page illustration in the Monster Manual? That's got a pretty dark vista with 3D computer-generated characters facing off against a bunch of baddies including a drow, a grell, a red dragon, and a carrion crawler.
The style is similar, but remove the adventurers and pull down the yellow and red color channels a bit.
Are you saying that the design makes the screen hard to use? Has the DM side not got a white background?
The page background is white font on a erd background, the table rows black font on a green (sorry, don't know the correct english term for this color) background very much like the tables in the rulebook. The rows' background alternates between very light and a somewhat darker tone.
For a decent impression see the screen's errata, which have already been put up here. But note that it looks much brights on screen than on the real thing.
With some experience working in printing preparation, it could be a printing error like not using the correct color space. This may be also the reason for the delay of the release and I may just have ercieved one copy send to distribution before the precess was stopped.
Oh well, sort of puts me into the limelight...
Huldvoll
Jan van Leyden
This may be also the reason for the delay of the release
I didn't realize there had been a delay. As far as I know, the release date as always been in August. I was actually quite surprised (and more than a little jealous) when you said you already had a copy!
I'm probably going to wait for a 2nd print run or revised screen.
Honestly, WotC should just bite down and reprint the batch and delay it by a month rather than release an inferiour or flawed product.
DM Screen will require errata
that's hilarious
It sounds so useful and great... but there's no way to paste the correction without making the screen look messy or unprofessional.
I'm probably going to wait for a 2nd print run or revised screen.
Honestly, WotC should just bite down and reprint the batch and delay it by a month rather than release an inferior or flawed product.
But then they wouldn't be WotC.
Seriously though...With all the problematic things I wish people would provide pictures of these things. Not just you, but people mention the books bowing and one or two provided a picture.
I would like to see pictures of these things to see how bad the quality is and/or what the addition of things like this errata block is, or even the full contents of the character sheet thing.
I think a lot more people would be able to discuss actual flawed products if they could see the contents and such without having to waste their own money.
Does anyone have any pictures other than the stock sales image of these products to show their contents?
Also, I'm impressed with customer service.
Also, The Jester, your sig makes me cry on the inside.
CS probably just sent the message along to meet with the one Gamer_Zer0 had probably already sent about the DM Screen needing new errata, and various people that actually read the forums probably already knew. So CS was just a drop in the well probably if they did pass information along.
Either way the errata was a good thing and done fairly quickly!
I was impressed with WotC, which might be scarier than me being impressed with CS.
And, if there's a ton of problems, it's real easy to make my own.
i am a little confused, what was the reason behind the change to that table? so now a hard level 1 athletics check is 15? that is 10 less than before being hard 20+5 for a skill. it seems like a big change, but at the same time a hard lvl 30 check is the same as before without the +5 to skill DC's.
Unfortunately, WotC isn't in the habit of explaining the reasons for errata changes ... but as far as I am aware, it's because the fans told them the DCs were too high so they lowered them. Now, though, it seems the fans are saying they're too low (although some people seem to think they're just fine). I'm going to use the new numbers, but I'm tentatively going to keep the +2/+5 footnotes as well ...
According to some guys over on ENWorld, there are a number of other errors on the screen:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4436412&postcount=290
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4437928&postcount=292
I am really disappointed. If my order hadn't already shipped, I'd cancel it. Instead, I'll just have to deface the screen to make it useful. Way to go, WotC.
I am so not going to deface my GM screen by applying the errants and make it look ugly. I'll just wait it out for the updated screen to come out and use the fixed notes on a piece of paper. Either way WotC should have done a better job with proof reading their work.
My guess is you'll be waiting a long time ...
Either way WotC should have done a better job with proof reading their work.
We've been saying that since 3.0 was first published. It didn't happen then and hasn't happened since, so chances are it will never happen.
Either way WotC should have done a better job with proof reading their work.
I hardly think proofreading is the problem. Looks more to me like they have a lead time of 2-3 months, which makes including errata that pops up during that timeframe problematic.
I hardly think proofreading is the problem. Looks more to me like they have a lead time of 2-3 months, which makes including errata that pops up during that timeframe problematic.
Actually, I have the feeling that the DM Screen was done before the rules were even finalized (hence the errors relating to the Heal skill). I seem to recall reading somewhere in the weeks leading up to the release of 4e a comment by Chris Perkins that the DM Screen had arrived and it looked awesome. Unless that was just a test run printing or something, then I think they must have printed the things ages ago and were just holding them back so as not to release too much at once (and remember, originally the three core books weren't going to be released all at once, so by the time this screen came out, you would've only just gotten the third book).
Whether or not they should have pulled all the screens and reprinted them with various corrections is another matter ...