According to the D&D release calendar, there’s something called “Heroes of the Feywild” scheduled in November. That looks to be a book of “player options”, though: not details about unsettling faerie courts, clashing cliffs, palaces in strange intoxicating clouds, jeweled beaches, and haunting monsters both beautiful and terrible, but classes and feats that you can give your PC. Lame!
There’s a shred of hope: This year, “Heroes of Shadowfell” and “The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond” are both being released. “Heroes of the Feywild” is at the end of the release calender. Maybe the next year will bring “The Feywild: The Court of Stars and Beyond” or some similar book.
I like the idea of rare magic items, which can be more complicated and powerful than the run-of-the-mill, and I was looking forward to a whole book of them. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to keep on coming up with my own.
Following the Joesky rule for following complaints with rules content, here is a rare magic item for 4e:
Dueling Ring (also called the Thunderdome Ring)
Once per day, the wearer of this ring can create a burst 2 zone. The ground within the zone will be covered with roiling smoke, like the dry ice that is used for fog in Broadway plays and low-budget movies. Once created, the zone does not move with the ring’s wearer. If any creature except the ring-wearer is in the zone when the ring activates, the effect fails.
One other person may enter the zone, at which point a transparent force field surrounds the zone. The force field has 500 HP, can be hit without an attack roll, and cannot be hit from inside the zone. The effect lasts until the force field is destroyed by damage, the zone is dispelled by magic, or one of the two people within the zone is killed.
The Dueling Ring has been worn by a string of professional duelists, who entice or shame opponents into the zone with accusations of cowardice and exhortations to “get in the ring, #$%#%@!” Once an opponent has entered the ring, the two occupants of the zone can conduct their duel without outside interference.
The Dueling Ring can also be used by two friends who want to be invulnerable to outside attack, as long as one of the friends doesn’t mind dying to end the effect.
As a rules lawyer, I’m going to try and figure out ways to game the Dueling Ring.
What if I use a power to summon a creature, and have it enter the zone? Am I then protected by the forcefield until the summon ends? That could be handy in a bad fight just to get breathing room for a controller to heal up a bit.
Also fun with the recently-released Minions and Hireling rules!
I’d say, though, that the effect is ended by a creature dying, not a summon expiring. You have to kill your summon. This doesn’t prevent you from gaming the rules; it just requires you to be a little more cold-blooded.
All of my casters are solipsists anyway….
Of course the “Summon Loophole Theory” begs the question as to whether ‘killing’ a summons actually kills them or just returns them to their plane of origin.
If the latter is true, the dome would forever remain intact (until dispelled by other means.) Alternately, if this is the case, this situation may invoke the “Two enter, only one leaves” clause killing or trapping forever the lone individual left in the dome.
Not saying it would, but probably something to consider BEFORE you attempt to game the ring with a summoned creature.
Hm. What happens if the ring-bearer leaves the zone before a challenger appears? I suppose it just makes the zone go away. Otherwise you could abuse it as a way to trap enemies while you go about your business.