Is this the final book in the series? Please tell me that there won't be more. Please. I'm so tired. Please tell me this isn't another "Hero" and that this WILL definitely be the last one.

[[ No one knows for certain except maybe Bob and HarperCollins, and I doubt that they’d disclose that information even if they knew it. My guess, however, is that there’s going to be more books as long as people will keep paying for it (and they will keep paying for it) or until Bob dies, after which it’s likely that Geno will continue the line, of he doesn’t already (I address this more in the last section of my Boundless review & analysis). Furthermore, while “Hero” was intended to be the conclusion to the series, for WotC was canning the entire novel line, the entire game changes after Bob went to an external publisher. :\ ]]

scratchedagain replied to your link “Relentless - Harper Voyager”

'the most beloved characters in all of fantasy' is a BOLD claim.

scratchedagain replied to your link “Relentless - Harper Voyager”

*one of

[[ I’ve read the ARC of Timeless. Ask me anything!

The fight scenes are better. They’re shorter, more concise as well as being punchier in general. I’m afraid that I can’t give you a percentage value of how much better they are, because truthfully, my eyes sort of glaze over at Bob’s fight scenes too, especially ones involving drow wielding blades. They’re just so similar between all the books and after 30+ books, it takes conscious effort to not perform what’s become a somewhat ingrained response. 

I guess the fact that my eyes glazed over some during the fight scenes in Timeless indicates that they aren’t like, a revolutionary change better, but I can actually remember that they happened. Heck, for some, I can even remember certain details. However, I would say that there isn’t anything new or original happening in those fight scenes, and Bob’s strategy for changing things up seems to focus on introducing a greater variety of involved weapons rather than fine-tuning the usage of the existent weapons.

The analogy I would use here is that Bob’s fight scenes are like “new mechanics” in World of Warcraft raids. An experienced veteran raider (who I suppose needs to be at least decent enough to recognize patterns) can’t be surprised anymore because, despite the fancy never before seen ground effects, with all of its wide array of colors and being emitted by the latest state-of-the-art 3D models, fundamentally, it’s just all rehashes and re-combinations of existent mechanics. Except with Bob, those “ground effects” are far from things that we’ve never seen, there isn’t all the colors of the rainbow, and the models are anything but state-of-the-art. It’s like if they redid the Onyxia raid again. Again. Again again again. >_>

((Well, that…bodes.

As the series went on, I kept struggling to give him the benefit of the doubt; I wanted to think that maybe he didn’t have much choice in plot or characters, that some things had been mandated to him. Then the last trilogy happened, and even with the benefit of the doubt, it was more than enough to make me draw a line and hop over to the side of headcanon, alternate interpretation, and general denial of Word of Canon.

When I heard of the new trilogy, I was cautiously hopeful and willing to give the benefit of the doubt again. This made me take that benefit back and turn to skepticism. I’ll still read it, but I’m thinking I’ll get it from the library, help their circulation stats, that way at least some good comes out of it.))

[[ That was exactly my experience too. While it’s true that WotC had dictated that certain authors write certain things and certain ways, by and large Bob’s been exempt from much of that. He did have to kill off his characters with the Spellplague time leap, but he brought them back and picked up pretty much where he left off with zero issues. WotC really isn’t the reason for his decisions. 

The impression I get is that Bob’s tired of Drizzt and all of these characters that he fundamentally doesn’t own (WotC has the IP rights to them), and that he’d really rather work on his own world, the DemonWars stuff. I’ve grown less and less fond of Bob over the years, but I genuinely want him to be able to focus on his own franchise, and not because it means that he’ll stop messing with the FR stuff. I really think that Bob would be a lot happier if he gets to do his own thing, but Drizzt is an undeniable cash cow and a visibility generator, so he’s not going to stop milking it either.

What bothers me about the trend with the recent Drizzt books is that, technically, Bob isn’t the Word of Canon, not fully anyway. WotC is, heck, Ed Greenwood is. Sure, Bob’s writing these characters, but the microsphere that they live in doesn’t jive with the world at large, which does not belong to him. I first branched out to learn about the rest of the Realms because I wanted to be as true as possible to the character that I love, and I fell in love with the world as a whole. Even though Artemis isn’t much concerned with his world, he is as shaped by it as any of us are by our surroundings whether we want them to or not. So, when Bob’s corner of the Realms becomes more and more isolated from the truer and bigger world, I can’t help but feel that his word is questionable as far as canonicity is concerned. I still care a lot about canon, and I want to continue to adhere to it, but when FR canon is going one way and Bob canon is going another, I feel like no matter what way I go, it’ll be wrong. :C ]]

scratchedagain

It looks like the bit about his hair not growing back was more focused on him trying to explain what he was talking about in that moment, rather than the idea that it wouldn't grow back. Which is the only positive thing I have to say about the whole excerpt. =/

[[ I do hope this is what that passage is all about. I’m not sure about the specifics of healing in 5e (or if it even matters because Bob has a history of picking and choosing when to adhere to D&D rules and when not), but I’d assumed that this was how Jarlaxle lost his hair for good because of an incident in another FR book I’d read. I can’t remember which one it is anymore, but it was set in the 3/3.5 era, and the scenario involves a girl who had her thumbs cut off. She’s healed pretty much immediately, but all that happens is that the healing expedited the natural course of her body’s regeneration. Her thumbs don’t grow back from the healing magic, but she’s granted a favor from the gods and gets her thumbs back that way.  

P.S. does anyone know why Tumblr is labeling my image as a “panorama”? Is it a new format thingy, or is it because my preview image is so wide? 

Let’s hope they get around to adding Artemis eventually!

[[ I have mixed feelings about this. xD Yes, I’d absolutely love for Artemis to make it into the game, if they implement him well. It would be especially cool if, as per the suggestion of another player during one of Idle Champion’s streams, Artemis and Jarlaxle buffed each other from both being in the formation at the same time, like what’s been done with Drizzt and the Companions of the Hall. Although, more likely would be that Jarlaxle would be buffed by members of Bregan D’aerthe being in the formation at the same time, but hey, one could hope that there’s some in-game mechanic that offers synergy between Artemis and Jarlaxle. XD

The thing I’m worried about of course is that they’d get Artemis all wrong and make him look like a white person, which is how he appears in far too much fanart and pretty much all non-Lockwood official art. I’ve been pretty pleased with what Codename Entertainment has done with racial representation (fantastical and human ethnicities) in the game so far, but it’s hard to get a feel for how thoroughly they know their source material. For instance, the two dark-skinned human champions so far, Hitch and Nayeli, hail from Durpar and Daggerford respectively, although Nayeli mentions living in Calimshan in one of the campaigns. I couldn’t find any information about Nayeli’s specific birthplace and I don’t know if it’s ever discussed in the Force Grey podcasts since I don’t listen to them, but it’s conceivable that she’s a Calishite native who found her way up the Sword Coast to Daggerford where she served her role at Duke Maldwyn ‘s side. In any case, Nayeli’s skin and hair color are spot-on for one of Calishite ethnicity, and while I could accept something a bit lighter in skin tone as also Calishite, from Nayeli’s appearance it’s clear that she’s a brown person and not a white one, which should be true of Artemis as well. ]]

sunshinedoomguide  replied to your photo “idlechampions: We would like to officially welcome Drizzt Do'Urden,…”

((It was probably inevitable, and it'll be nice to have a different option for that slot. Granted, I've never used the character already in that slot...))

[[ I agree that it was inevitable, I was actually really surprised at launch that the nod to the Drizzt books that Idle Champions included was Jarlaxle and not Drizzt. XD I haven’t done any number-crunching myself, but the consensus thus far out there seems to be that, barring special weekend buffs and other conditions, that Makos far outstrips Drizzt in strength, because of Makos’ Dark Blessing ability. This will likely change as more Companions of the Hall are released and of course is also dependent on those hypothetical champions’ strengths. If they’ve got an awesome buff like Bruenor has, the game might very well become Idle Champions of The Legend of Drizzt. ;P 

As it stands currently however, Drizzt is a pure DPSer while Makos is a buffer, and like pretty much all pure DPSers so far, they fall really short in utility compared to buffers. I haven’t gotten Drizzt yet so I don’t speak from personal experience, but from what I’ve read, Drizzt is indeed pretty lackluster at this point in the game, although his ultimate in which Guenhywvar mirrors each of his attacks is pretty overpowered. 

The way they colored his nose makes it look like he's been drinking, which is honestly really funny to me.

[[ I agree, and I’m honestly not sure why that particular artistic decision was made. I can see Jarlaxle getting a little buzzed accidentally, but it seems like he’d have to make a conscious decision to be totally smashed, and it strikes me that he wouldn’t much fancy being anywhere on the unattractive spectrum in any state. XD In my opinion, the way his nose is depicted in this art is pretty unflattering. >_> ]]

sunshinedoomguide replied to your photo “idlechampions: Introducing our next Champion: Jarlaxle! Find out who...”

I mean...who else would have a hat so magnificent it can be seen in a silhouette?

[[ I was thinking that too, but was afraid to be certain because it seemed so unlikely that there would be a Forgotten Realms drow character featured both before and without Drizzt. :OOOO I mean, the novelty of that move is shocking to me, even though I do quite approve of the choice, but I doubt it’ll remain that way for too long. While it’s certainly the case that another LoD character, Bruenor, was revealed before Jarlaxle (and also without the inclusion of Drizzt), dwarves are pretty under-represented and since they wanted a popular dwarf character, Bruenor does make the most sense to be picked (I mean, he has his own character art and character creation example in the 5th edition Player’s Handbook after all). 

Not surprising he thought this was gross - Limburger tastes like the floor of a cattle barn! And that’s just the start…

That’s honestly more positive than I was expecting! My resolve against buying this book is wavering and I’m not sure how I feel about that. :P

[[ If the monetary expenditure wouldn’t be a noticeable hit to you, I would endorse buying the book eventually. Hardbacks are expensive and unnecessary, and $15 for an e-book is rather silly. It is true that how successful Timeless is will affect whether HarperCollins takes on contracts with other Forgotten Realms authors, but one can only guess at how much effect that will have. So, it couldn’t hurt to support Timeless in the interest of supporting the potential of FR novels from other authors, but at the same time, I’m not sure how much help it would be either. 

Looking at this from a different perspective, if you’d sworn off giving Bob money because you disapproved of his increasingly lazy and sloppy writing, not to mention the increasingly problematic messages that he was espousing and lauding in the context of his stories, you wouldn’t be supporting that in this book, at least, not to the extent that you would’ve for some of the previous ones. That said, I’m not sure that Timeless is enough to absolve Bob of what he’s already done, so it’s really a personal call on your part. 

My hope is that by the end of the trilogy, it would’ve absolved the past issues and set the pace for a brighter future, but it’s still too early to tell. I’m still afraid to see what he’ll do to Artemis. That aspect, Timeless has not made me hopeful about.