Let's read the entire run

Dragon Issue 282: April 2001


part 6/7


Forum: Amber Scott points out that there are actually a lot more female lumberjacks around than there are Dragons. Yet which stretches the credulity of certain ranty letter writers more? It's like unrealistic magic systems all over again.

Able DuSable (once again, i blame the parents) brings up the topic of roleplaying after retirement. Another sign that the hobby has been around for decades now, and no-one's as young as they were. Still, D&D looks a lot more fun to play in a retirement home than Bridge.

Amy Dickinson reminds us that the reason elves seem aloof is because they know we'll die all too soon and they don't want to get attached. Given that people do get pretty attached to their pets when there are similar lifespan disparities, this is a rule I can well see exceptions too.

Adam Whitehead (all the A's this time, it seems) thinks people are stupid for complaining just because things don't go all their way. They can't please all the people all the time, but they're trying damn hard. And that means they can't abandon their most popular properties.


Role models: Skin tones are this month's topic. In a fantasy game, you might have a wider selection than with regular humans, but you still need to vary the skin tone a little from place to place on their body in a realistic way, reflecting the light and shade that areas would experience. Once again, you may want to do the hard to reach areas first, and then paint over the stuff surrounding them in lighter tones, so any overspill gets covered up by subsequent layers. We get extreme close-ups of a single ogre from multiple angles to demonstrate this, which once again shows how much better modern photography and editing handles this kind of work. So while the advice isn't that much better than the ones of years past, they're once again doing a better job of presenting it too us visually, and gradually ramping up the complexity. Like Dungeoncraft before it, this column is starting to come into it's own now a regular writer has been there for a while.

Yay, we're finally into issues that I still own. I've been collecting off and on since well before 100, but, in the moves that I've done over the years, my collection has dwindled. It took until around now for me to get back into collecting. Yay nostalgia!

Dragon Issue 282: April 2001


part 7/7


Sage advice: Yo dawg. What's the beef on the polymorph errata. (I heard you like errata so I put errors in your corrections so you need errata for your errata. )

Do repeating crosbows need two hands to use ( if you want to reload them, y'know.)

Do you get specialization bonuses for shuriken (Only at close quarters)

Can you throw three shuriken, or three per attack (three per attack, but only if you have fast reloading powers. You'd better hone your gunslinging skills.)

Are characters who are aware but flanked subject to sneak attack (Yes. It's a much more combat oriented power now. )

When do monks get their wisdom bonus to AC (Any time they can move freely. That means no armor. )

Can multiclass rogues sneak attack with non rogue weapons (Oh yes)

Can you flank with a reach weapon (yes. Skip sees definite synergy possibilities here. )

Can you attack through an occupied square with reach weapons (Yes, but they get cover bonuses)

How does firing into melee work against enemies with reach. ( Pretty good. If they're not next to your target, there are definite upsides.)

Can you make attacks of opportunity while set for a charge (Yes. Fun fun fun. )

How does painful reckoning work (Once they've beaten you down once, you get it every time you meet after that. Vengeance, sweet vengeance.)

Shouldn't ghost walkers space manipulation powers be supernatural, not extraordinary (Y'know, you're right. Skip will have to cast Create Official Errata again)

What's a stunning attack, and what good is making them nauseated as well. (You can never have too many crippling status effects.)

Pain touch has lower prerequisites than stunning fist. What's the point. (Monks get it as a virtual feat. That bypasses this.)

How does circle kick work when you have multiple attacks ( You get to go again if you hit. )

How does dirty fighting work with multiple attacks. (Not that great. It works best at street level games. )

Can rogues stack dirty fighting and sneak attack (No)

How does lightning fist work with multiple attacks ( Man. We give everyone iterative attacks and all they do is whine about interfacing. It's enough to make skip want to take them away again. )

When does expert tactician give you your partial action (Your turn. )

How often can you use snatch arrows (Only once per round. No deflecting automatic fire around here. )

Can you combine snatch arrows and throw anything (no)

How often can you use feign weakness ( As often as you like. People may get wise though. )

Which feats from sword and fist can fighters have as bonus ones (None of them. Oh what a shame.)

Can you get up for free with prone attack if you don't actually attack (If you attack the darkness.)

What classes can combine their attack bonuses with their monk BAB ( Red avenger, Weapon master and Drunken Master.)

How many 5 foot steps can you take while supreme cleaving (Just the one, Skip is afraid.)


Dragonmirth gives us a retro joke. Man, the cutoff between 2nd & 3rd was way sharper than the one between 1st & 2nd.


Dungeoncraft: Last month we found out what races Ray was going to exclude. Now we see how he's using the ones he has kept. Elves are the most technologically advanced, and the only ones with a written language, which combined with their lifespan makes them the ones with the info. Dwarves are ex-slaves who've withdrawn from the world after getting elven help to break free of their lizard masters. Half-Orcs are reskinned into half-Lizardfolk, while retaining the same stats. (and he really ought to swap out the low-light vision, since reptiles aren't very active during the night. ) The humans are divided between savage tribalists, and slightly more peaceful wanderers. Both are getting secretly manipulated by other forces, which gives you a whole load of plot hooks, and room for conflict between them. So there is a fair chunk of stereotype breaking, and the lack of written language as standard is definitely a big change from the 3e default. He could be even more adventurous, but this is a start. I'm still interested to see how much further he's willing to go.


What's new makes both it's protagonists, and all of the guest stars, suffer. But not the snail. That's just oozing along quietly.


Well, this was more wacky than recent issues, but nowhere near as odd as some of the 80's april ones. They're unable to completely shake the urge to be helpful, with only a couple of articles having no game use at all. Which I suppose from another PoV is a positive thing, as there is lots of stuff that's good for your game here. As much as they'd like to pretend otherwise, they're grown-up sensible professionals now. At least, most of the time. They'd have to pick weird stuff out of the bottom of the slush pile if they truly want to recapture the feel of the old days. And it doesn't look like that's happening anytime soon. Oh well. On we go then.

(un)reason said:

Well, this was more wacky than recent issues, but nowhere near as odd as some of the 80's april ones. They're unable to completely shake the urge to be helpful, with only a couple of articles having no game use at all. Which I suppose from another PoV is a positive thing, as there is lots of stuff that's good for your game here. As much as they'd like to pretend otherwise, they're grown-up sensible professionals now. At least, most of the time. They'd have to pick weird stuff out of the bottom of the slush pile if they truly want to recapture the feel of the old days. And it doesn't look like that's happening anytime soon. Oh well. On we go then.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the issue was pretty funny overall, but doesn't come quite close to some of the crazy wazoo stuff of the old days. Might be the structure of 3e's rules too, the old stuff accomodated the crazy insane stuff better when there was less structure.

Dragon Issue 283: May 2001


part 1/7


116 pages. It's clerics turn to get their first themed issue of the new edition. Everyone will get a turn eventually, since we have years of material to make up, but the order it happens in is significant. And as one of the more altered classes in the new edition, they still need the publicity, so people can realise just how utterly awesome they are. Let's see what cool stuff they'll be given this time round.


Scan Quality: Medium, small text somewhat blurry and hard to make out, oversaturated blacks, indexed.


In this issue:


Ahh, Baldur's gate. so good it got a sequel. And they're still basically using 2nd ed rules. Well, development times are getting longer and longer. Can't scrap everything just because the licence has changed beneath you.

She's back, and this time, she's legal? That's a somewhat dodgy way to advertise.


Wyrms turn: As we're dealing with clerics, Dave talks about the amusing possibilities inherent in playing characters with high wisdom but low intelligence. Your familiar may wind up smarter than you, but at least you'll have the common sense to take their advice when it's good. Yeah, this is another one of those editorials reminding you that having a low stat or two makes your character more interesting, especially when you have teammates around to shore up those weaknesses and bounce off in terms of roleplaying. When everybody is average or above at everything, it can all be rather bland by comparison. Tell it to the people who decided the default point buy system wouldn't let you have stats below 8. This is overdone and a little dated seeming now. Nothing new here.


Eric van Lustbader thinks Dragon readers will buy his novel enough to put a 6 page spread of advertising in?! Oooookay then. Man, at this rate, I see why Paizo decided to do ad free scans. There hasn't been a single actual RPG advert here in months. This is not healthy for the hobby.


Scale Mail: Having seen what's happened to the other campaign worlds, people are writing in to keep the Realms in the magazine. It continues to prove it's huge popularity, so they will continue to give it regular columns every issue, plus maybe a few extra on top of that. If only people would share the love around a little more.

A letter reminding you to enforce encumbrance when the players try to carry large impractical stuff around. Solutions to one problem create their own problems in turn. That's the way of the world, and what assures there'll always be something interesting happening somewhere.

Fool Wolf gets another letter of praise, in which they promise to get on Greg's case and try and get him to write some more. Why did this not happen again?

The Sorcerer themed issue gets two conflicting letters, one very happy with it, and the other annoyed that they're all represented as outcasts despite their high charisma. When the only social skill you have in class is Bluff, you wind up using it for all your problems, and this catches up with you sooner or later. That nail you tried to hammer will turn out to be a miniature rust monster occasionally.

Speaking of themed issues, we have requests for barbarian and drow themed ones. Both get put on the list for sometime next year, which is a good reminder just how far ahead they plan things these days.

We make the tragic discovery that they've stopped keeping back issues in stock for great lengths of time. Another lesson they've learned from the TSR days. Sometimes, warehouse costs are greater than any potential profit you may make in the future, so it's better to just pulp any leftovers.

And finally, we have some nitpicking by the greek contingent about some historical inaccuracies. Like clockwork every time they do a historical article. No escaping it. As is often the case, I wonder why they bother.

Dragon Issue 283: May 2001


part 2/7


Nodwick and dork tower get compilation books! Buy them now!


Countdown to the forgotten realms: One month to go. Oh my god, they changed the map! You Bastards! :shakes fists: Ok, so it's not as bad as they did in 4e, where they moved whole continents around, as they're merely shrinking some big areas where there's not much detail. I still don't think that's wise. Given how overcrowded the Realms can seem at times, we need those blank areas to work with. Plus given that the real world has places where there's hundreds of miles of desert or ocean with -all landmarks and minimal living activity, it definitely makes a game world more realistic to have a few of those breaking up the landscape. I disapprove of this particular teaser. This is short term thinking that makes the world less real, and more like a theme park with various areas for various types of adventures. Plus it's once again ignoring Kara-tur, Al-Qadim, Maztica, and all the other expanded stuff they introduced in the early 90's, and then lost interest in. Surely they could merit one book each updating the rules and showing how the setting has evolved in the last 20 years?


Up on a soapbox: Interestingly, while having a consistent story and setting is important to most players, actually staying within character and doing actual acting to better represent them to the other PC's and DM isn't so much. I suspect that if this wasn't aimed primarily at D&D players, that part would get higher marks. Despite a long time passing, D&D still has more wargaming in it's genes than amateur dramatics, and LARPers find themselves more attracted to White Wolf. And with the settings being shut down and the books concentrating on the return to the dungeon, that will be even more the case in a few years. As with the editorial, the writers for the magazine may actually be a little behind the company trends. It'd be funny if Gary started saying we need more roleplaying in RPG's in a few years time. So the results are all in, some are expected, some aren't, and we should get a good round-up next month. This all seems to have gone fairly smoothly, although the turnout could have been better. It's important to know who your audience are.


Dork tower reveals why the new character is the Last in a long line. That's what happens when you don't play them appropriately.


Do-it-yourself Deities: While they have reduced the overall amount of rehash a fair bit since the edition change, advice on building your pantheon is one topic that's very very overdone indeed. (Issues 29, 54, 77, 140 just on a cursory search.) And the fact that Ed did a pretty definitive one early on in the magazine's history that also went on to be historically significant leaves anyone else trying their hand with exceedingly daunting shoes to fill. Still, Stephen Kenson does manage to make his attempt more logically written and clearly edited, and the improvements in layout in the past couple of decades are also very apparent. But at the same time we aren't seeing the same kind of enthusiasm and DIY inventiveness that we used too. So you can make the same kind of comparisons that you could the 1e and 3e DMG's. One spills cool ideas onto the page as they occurred to the writer, while the other is cleaner and easier to use, but also more sterile and less memorable in itself. That's progress for you.

Dragon Issue 283: May 2001


part 3/7


Champions of virtue: A whole wodge of prestige classes devoted to specific deities is our next feature. This of course means if you want to get into them, you'll need to plan right from level one, or at least your first level in cleric. So these will mainly be of use to characters created after checking your options, rather than preexisting ones. 3e can be a pain sometimes.

Shining Blades of Heronious sacrifice half their spellcasting progression for enhanced smiting ability and other weapon enhancements, and gaining the celestial template at 10th level. For Paladins, this seems no great loss. For clerics, it doesn't sound like such a great idea.

Radiant Champions of Pelor are like Loremasters, a no-brainer choice if you're playing the right kind of character, because they get full spellcasting and turning progressions, plus some extra abilities, making them strictly better than regular clerics with no drawbacks at all, and don't have particularly challenging prerequisites either. If you want to play clerics as stereotypical healbot and undead smiter, it'd be hard to do better.

Fleet Runners of Ehlonna seem like they'd be best combined with Ranger, with boosts to their mobility and ranged attacks, and one of those odd progressions that grants extra spells, but not extra spell levels.

Mighty Contenders of Kord are all about the strength boosts, but still only get 3/4 BAB, which means they won't be that great as fighters, and even the huge strength bonus at 10th level won't make up for the loss of 8th and 9th level spells. As neither fish nor fowl, they don't seem that appealing. So with two prestige classes you'd have to be dumb to take, and one you'd have to be dumb not to, this definitely isn't one of their better balanced articles.


Playing the priestly part: When you want advice about how to properly roleplay your clerics, who ya gonna call? If you guessed the ex pastor, have a cookie. Course, the interesting thing about priests that a lot of people forget is just how social a job it is. Servicing a congregation means you regularly talk to tons of people, and are perfectly positioned to know all the gossip, give a little sensible advice to troubled souls, and generally keep them happy. (or at least functional in line with your god's portfolio) Similarly, even when your god is demonstrably real, that doesn't mean your faith is always perfect and unwavering. You can wonder if you're doing the right thing by following them, if the things they're commanding are actually sensible, how much your life is controlled by their dogma or direct commands, and indeed, if you're interpreting what they're saying right anyway. It can be a life filled with introspection and philosophical thought, and a good deal of self-doubt. Or you could just be a swaggering demagogue convinced of their own righteousness while also enjoying all the luxuries of their position. (cause jesus he knows me, and he knows I'm right. ) So this is the kind of roleplaying advice that's good because it's solidly grounded in real life experience. Sure the spells part may be fantastical, but the rest isn't, and reminds us that a job can work very differently to people's perceptions of it. If you can't walk a mile in someone else's shoes, at least ask them what it feels like.


Realistic religion: While Mr Kenson is concerned with creating a coherent pantheon that'll makes for a good game, this article is more about making one that feels like a good story. A realistic mythology doesn't build up the pantheon and then create the stories around them, but the other way round, coming up with the stories, and then inventing new gods as needed. Course, in a fantasy universe, this runs into the problem that if the deities are both real and active in the world, you can't get away with the same kind of mythological inconsistency you can in reality. Plus there's the issue of small sample size. The reason many real world myths have similarities is because we all live on the same planet, and come from common stock less than a million years ago. Many things are far less universal than people think, and would not be the case on another world. I think as usual, they're putting the less good articles at the end of the themed section, as I don't agree with this approach.


Kingdoms of Kalamar! An officially licensed D&D setting by kenzerco. At last, we're starting to see RPG adverts in here again.

Dragon Issue 283: May 2001


part 4/7


The D&D player's movie marathon: A little while ago, we looked at appropriate music to soundtrack your games. We continue that new interest in multimedia by looking at fantasy movies to draw inspiration from. Of course, there's the problem that a lot of these old movies are pretty cheesy, and even the ones that looked good at the time have not all dated well. And that tastes are very subjective. So this devotes as much time to going over the bad as it does the good, with films that you'll want to laugh at, or maybe with, as well as the serious epics. The two writers disagree with each other on numerous points, especially Highlander, and use this rivalry to make the article all the more interesting, adopting a conversational style that the simple but expressive art style reinforces. If this was done now, the list would be very different, given the number of high budget fantasy films that have come out over the last decade. (although not as much as the upswing in films based on comic books) So this is a little dated, but still a very entertaining article indeed, that adds a lighthearted touch to the magazine even though April is over, and reminds us that we really do have it better than we did a few decades ago in terms of media. Now the real challenge is finding the time to watch everything good that's out there, which is hardly a tragedy at all.


My character would do that!: Once again Robin Laws encourages you to metagame to make your play experience better. Don't just decide what would be in and out of character for your character in vacuum, and then be obstructive when the plot doesn't go your way. Talk to the DM and other players, and figure out a compromise that satisfies everyone. And that doesn't mean just figuring out a reason to follow the DM's plot of the week. It means making clear what you characters would like to be doing beforehand, so they can have appropriate material prepared next week. It means knowing the other players, and what they're likely to do in a situation. And yes, it will mean accepting you can't have it all your way all the time. Basically, it's about accepting that a few OOC spoilers won't enjoy your enjoyment of the plot, and may actually enhance it, and that resolving things through rational discussion is usually preferable to being a pretentious auteur with an Artistic Vision that you're not willing to share for fear or ruining the mystique. Put that in your swine pipe and smoke it. Once again, he's got some pretty good ideas you ought to pay attention too.


Fiction: Garden of souls by Richard Lee Byers. One way the 3e realms will differ quite a bit from it's 2e incarnation will be a greater interest in what happens to people after they die. This is one of those stories, where an evil force is hijacking souls from their natural destination and trapping them in a demiplane for it's own nourishment, and the protagonist has to solve that, despite being underpowered, without equipment in an alien landscape. This means there's plenty of drama and high emotional stakes involved, cool action scenes, and a moderate amount of philosophical stuff too. So this is one of those cases where I'm suspicious of the overall design direction, knowing how much drama the wall of the faithless caused later on, but won over by the writing. Codifying what happens in the afterlife for a setting closes more plot avenues than it creates, but those ones can be more interesting than the generic ones we deal with in stories set on earth.


Class acts: Another odd duck here, with the flame steward, another primary fighter and spellcaster with their own spell list, that really requires you to dip through another spellcasting class first to get into it. (although you could theoretically avoid it if you played a ranger or paladin and sucked up the cross class skill ranks. ) Like with the psi-hunter, this is probably worth it, as not only do you get lots of thematic flame based powers, you also get to turn half your fire damage into divine damage, so your theme doesn't get ruined by the many monsters that are immune to fire based attacks. Which is an important trick, and one we'll see over and over again. Another pretty decent entry, albeit still not one that can compete with a fully buffed CoDzilla. Then again, people would probably complain if it was, so there you go.

Yeah, it's hard to imagine a "movies for gamers" list these days before the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which probably still sets the standard. The Avengers would be another good choice for portraying the party of adventurers meeting and learning to work as a group, though it's for a different setting. Good on them for being early proponents of the Miyazakis. These days, you'd have to include Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky at minimum for one of these types of lists.

But it was odd how much they ripped on the original Clash of the Titans. I remember it getting a lot more affection when the remake came out.

To be fair, the movie article does mention the then-upcoming LotR films in passing near the end, of course no one at the time knew if they would be good or if they would bomb.