The pre-generated characters for the D&D Open Championship: A Hole in the World are now available for download from Wizards of the Coast. If you’re going to GenCon and you plan to participate in the D&D Championship, then you’re about to get very excited.

Until yesterday we knew very little about the tournament. Now we know just about everything. The characters begin the adventure at level 25. Anyone fortunate enough to advance to the finals gets to use the level 30 versions of those same characters. Wizards of the Coast not only gave us the pre-gens ahead of time, they provided the character builder files. This is a huge relief. I was really worried that they would provide same crappy little truncated cards like they have for almost every other game using pre-generated characters. (If you’ve been reading our weekly write-up on D&D Encounters Dark Sun you know all about the issues with those pre-gens).

The tournament is going to be run like the Ultimate Dungeon Delve. Your party has 45 minutes to complete each encounter with a total of five encounters all together. If you don’t finish an encounter in the allotted time then you’re done. You can take short rests between encounters, but that’s it. If you opt for an extended rest, you’re done.

Having the characters ahead of time gives us about two weeks to review them and try them out. This will undoubtedly give some players a huge edge. Since each encounter is timed, you can’t waste time pouring over your character sheet looking for the best power. You have to know the character. And by giving them to us in advanced, we can get to know them intimately.

The party of pre-generated characters look like this:

• Dragonborn Sorcerer (striker)
• Gith Ranger (striker)
• Gnome Psion|Wizards (controller)
• Half-elf Paladin (defender)
• Warforged Runepriest (leader)
• Download all 5 characters  (zip file)

I’ve been looking them over and they have a lot of powers that play well together. A party that really knows what they’re doing will have a huge advantage when running these five PCs. On a personal note, the Half-elf Paladin is almost identical to the character I’ve been playing in my home game for almost two years. If I get to play the defender in the tournament I’ll be up to speed in no time at all.

Another way to gain a huge tactical edge for GenCon is to put together a full team of players before hitting the convention. This way you can decide who’s going to play which pre-generated character ahead of time. Once you’ve done that, each player only has to know one PC in stead of all five.

With that in mind I want to again put out a call to join the Dungeon’s Master GenCon Championship team. If you’re going to GenCon and want to join our team, leave a comment below or send me an email. We’ve already signed up to play in the D&D Open Championship on Thursday, August 5 at 1:00 p.m. This is the second slot on the first day. The event code is RPGA1016086 (D&D Open Championship: A Hole in the World). We have some open slots in our schedule still, so if we can get a good team together, we’re open to the idea of moving the time slot.

For the full description of the D&D Open Championship: A Hole in the World, visit the Wizards of the Coast website

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