More Complete Champion Goodness

Wizards has posted a lot of other previews for Complete Champion, including an art gallery! One of the things that I've always loved about writing is seeing my words transformed into art. I'm one of those guys who has trouble making sure the sticks are straight when I draw stick men, so I've always been awed by artists.

I'm sure I've talked about this before, but let me refresh those of you who might not know about a little thing called an art order. I never knew about art orders, back when I was writing my own game stuff and using it to make my players miserable. Since I've been fortunate enough to delve into the freelancer's lifestyle, I've probably done scores of art order entries. Maybe more.

So what's an art order? Simply put, it's a description for an artist to use a springboard for a piece of art that will appear in a product. It should be relevant, and it needs to be highly detailed without being overdone -- you've got to give the artist some leeway, after all.

Now, having done a lot of art orders, I can say that it's not often that I see a piece of art in a product I've worked on that I can look at and say, "Hey, I wrote that!" With Complete Champion, though, I can honestly look at these pictures and say, "Wow, that's my art order! And that one! And that one, too!" It's awesome to see these pieces of art and know that I contributed to them in my own limited fashion.

As for the previews of the product itself, you can check them out here. The spell lists and new feats are especially interesting to me, as I helped design some of the entries. So go and check them out!

I've got a good feeling about this book. A lot of folks tend to poo poo the Complete line of sourcebooks. To me, each one provides a toolbox for players and DMs. I don't think they can be all things to everyone, nor should they be. I'll always get more use out of some than I will out of others, but that doesn't bother me. Then again, maybe I'm biased.