Let's read the entire run

Dragon Issue 287: September 2001


part 4/7


Fiction: Deeper, Deeper dark. An interesting fairy-tale like story this month, telling the tale of how a greedy industrialist took over a town in search of resources, making himself rich while the population suffered, but eventually getting his comeuppance. So essentially a parable for real world industrialisation of the past few centuries, only with a happy ending instead of exploitation becoming the default, and the community being left hollow when their natural resources run out and the company moves on. So this story makes me sad because it's a good story, but also reminds me that you don't get easy resolutions and happy endings like that in the real world. If we did, would we bother to create all these fantastic otherworldly universes anyway? They say stories tell us monsters can be slain, but will capitalism ever be replaced by something better? I think we may be reaching one of those points where we're going outside my remit, so that's enough of that line of thought. Changing the world can wait.


Elminster's guide to the realms: Shadowdark? I wasn't expecting to see that particular portmanteau turn up this early. A little searching turns up earlier examples in Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue, and two Volo's Guides, so it looks like we can definitely blame Ed for it's creation, if maybe not it's becoming ubiquitous next edition. The amount of cheese he's responsible for just grows and grows.

But enough digression about the wider scheme of things. This particular tidbit of realmslore concerns a magic shop, it's cranky old owner, and it's contents. While it may not be standardised, there's a fair number of people who are willing to teach young spellcasters for the right price, and this is a good example one for your low-mid level players to encounter. They've got enough wards up that a casual attempt at robbery is unlikely to work, but clever trickery might do the job. The illustration does a good job of showing that the place is actually pretty small, with tons of magical knicknacks crammed in. This gives a GM plenty of leeway to have players find odd things with unexpected powers for a bargain that may be crucial to a plot later. All seems nicely literary really. Now if he could just do something about that name before people get ideas.


The bestiary: James Jacobs steps away from Greyhawk, and heads off to the planes that are the source of so many of his cthuloid gribleys. The Chaos Spire is your basic roaming corrupted artefact, lost in the astral plane and transforming those who enter it into scary aberrations. If you can get hold of it and clean it out, you can have a hellraiseresque giant fortress that folds into a teeny little puzzle block for your convenience. I think that's a nicely epic adventure for you.

Bonespitters are the basic form you'll be transformed into if this place comes your way unexpectedly. A half alive, half dead, half cyborg, all insane mass of limbs, mouths and eyes? With a surprisingly high hide and move silently scores? It must be a tuesday.

Chaoswyrd are multiheaded tentacled gorillas, the kind of things you'd get if Demogorgon and Cryronax mated. They're prone to fishmalk behaviour, so they may suddenly lose interest or apologise mid-battle if you're lucky.

The Tetramorph is the giant amorphous blob at the middle of all this. It's surprisingly low CR, but I guess we don't have epic rules yet. Touching it'll mutate you, and it destabilises reality in general, so a good cleric is once again vital for after the battle. So the monsters are a little predictable, but the article redeems itself with the unusually good plot hooks and overarching adventure idea behind them.

Dragon Issue 287: September 2001


part 5/7


Faiths of faerun: Looks like Bane is back, because this month we get a prestige class for his speciality priests. The Dreadmaster. Man, that's a name that says taking yourself too seriously and dressing with huge spiked shoulderpads and helmets with glowing red eyes. This is a relatively tricky one to get into, requiring you to be at least a decent way down the evil overlord road before you can even start on it. The benefits seem particularly cool for evil overlords, as you get to avoid the usual leadership penalties for going through your minions like water. This means you can enjoy multiple fights with them before finishing them off for good. And with favored enemies and bonuses to fear effects, they're no slouches in direct confrontations either. They seem to achieve their design ends most satisfactorily, even if they're more likely to be NPC's than PC's.


Class acts: Having skipped a month, Monte is back with another fairly obvious theme. The fiend hunter, dark and brooding avenger who has taken on some of the traits of evil so as to better understand it and fight it. A perfect thematic choice for the fallen paladin, and monte is cool enough to add some mechanical incentives and discounts to them for doing it. (although they aren't quite as good as the benefits for ex-paladin blackguards, but then, continuing to fight evil should be harder than falling to temptation) Like the flame steward and psi-hunter, they get full BAB, and decent spellcasting that should keep them competitive even when not fighting their favored enemies. They also get a +1 bonus to armor per 3 levels, like many of monte's prestige classes. I wonder why it's always that number? Is there a game balance calculation behind it? This tendency has my attention, and I shall see if it continues.


Nodwick brings life back to a deserted kingdom. Rejoice! Apart from you, icky-bad high necromancer. You need to be punished.


Chainmail: So the gnomes have joined forces with the humans in the new wargame? I wasn't expecting that. Way to avoid the stereotypical pairing. Still, it makes sense in light of the history they're establishing. The humans handle the above ground threats, while the gnomes take the underdark, and they've got each other's backs in a pinch. They also share technology, of course, and that means the human armies have access to technological contraptions that the others don't. So there's some more fairly interesting worldbuilding going on here, making sure each of the armies isn't just a one-trick pony, and hopefully each side will both feel distinct and have proper strengths and weaknesses against the others. I do quite like these columns. Still, I do wonder how much of this information will be repeated in the products themselves. Is this bonus material, or will it be made irrelevant once you've spent the money. I guess I'll have to see if I can track a copy down.


Forum: Jeffrey Ludwig thinks that charisma is better off than it used to be, but is still a bit of a dump stat, and the designers themselves are fully aware of this. Course, you can redress the balance a little by including more social scenes in your game.

Josh Harrison is another person listing the ways in which a wizard may surpass a fighter, particularly out of combat. It's not just magic, their high int means they'll also smoke them skillswise, despite having the same base amounts.

Robert J. Schwalb thinks rangers in the new edition are balanced, and the people complaining are just too used to them being twinky from old editions. You just can't take being equal, you have to be better. Leave it out.

Mark Jackman thinks that psionics has turned out better than the preview watching naysayers said. Once again, we remind you to wait and get the full info before you deliver judgement.

Anthony Gabriel thinks St Cuthbert ought to be lawful good, not LN. The real saint certainly fits that descriptor. You know, Gary did originally make him LG with LN tendencies, rather than the other way around. It is an interesting question why the 3e writers decided to flip that.

Sanglorian said:

Later on, Polyhedron was the magazine that had that excitement for me: pulp heroes one month, planetary romance the next, a battle of the bands the month after. But that would be some years later.

Click to expand...

Not too much later... you are talking about the July 2001 issue, My character sheet I created for Shadowchasers the first of those is dated 7/26/2002

I remember I first tried Shadowchasers becuase 2 players were missing from our dnd game and I didn't want to go on without them.

The dnd game never got picked back up, and the shadowchasers game became a campaign, later tried out every d20 modern experiment they had.

I miss d20 Modern, it needs a good update.

(un)reason said:

Robert J. Schwalb thinks rangers in the new edition are balanced, and the people complaining are just too used to them being twinky from old editions. You just can't take being equal, you have to be better. Leave it out.

Click to expand...

And now this Forumite is designing 5th edition D&D. It's always fun to see future pros pop up as freelancers, D-mailers, or Forumites well in advance of their professional association with the game.

--Erik

(un)reason said:

Dragon Issue 287: September 2001
Dreamlands: We start our planar articles with one emphasising the toolkit elements of the new MotP. [...]


When celestials attack: One problem we've encountered before is trying to make many of the planes good for adventuring in. [...]

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The Dreamlands article is great, and the Fischer illustrations are terrific as well—such a clever way of depicting the planes, and strangely haunting as well. I really like the toolkit approach of four brief takes on dream planes instead of one long article full of boring details no one needs.

When Celestials Attack is probably too long, but it's a great idea since celestials are so underused.

(un)reason said:

Dragon Issue 287: September 2001
Fractious Factions: Yay! Stronger mechanical support for Planescape Factions. [...]

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The factions really highlight the limitations of the 3E class system. The 5E system of themes and backgrounds looks like a better fit; even feat chains would have worked better than prestige classes.

Dragon Issue 287: September 2001


part 6/7


Silicon sorcery: A trio of amusing items from Age of Wonders get D&D conversions this month. The most notable of these is the chicken shield, which boosts your AC and reduces falling damage by animating and flapping it's wings frantically. The benefits to making your enemies laugh mid-battle should not be underestimated as well. Stones that turn into boulders when thrown, and boots that make you untrackable and generate magical darkness aren't quite so innovative or funny, but they're useful and interesting, and haven't appeared in this edition yet. Seems like there's definitely some cool ideas worth stealing here.


Sage advice: What's the base DC on spot and listen checks (There are none. This isn't like 2nd ed. You have to pay much more attention to the specifics of the situation. )

Which should you use to avoid surprise. Entirely situational, blah blah trolls blah blah, tactics, light conditions and cover blah blah, line of sight blah blah.
How does hiding work (Opposed checks strike back! )

Why are there no rules for rate of fire (None is needed. We are unified. We need not exception based rules applied only to ranged attacks. Do not try to add more pointless crunch to the system. )

Can you make multiple grapples in a round (Only if your base attack bonus permits it. This ignores bonuses and creature natural weapons. Once again we ignore exceptions in the face of realism. Ha ha!)

Can you carry things away once they're grappled (What a good idea. Skip will pioneer a system for this! Truly, you are a visionary. )


The play's the thing: People change. Characters should as well, not just get more powerful or broad in their skillsets. So Robin's advice this month is on when you should break established character because you're changing, or adding extra nuance to their personality, rather than leaving it behind. Will it be a sudden one due to a traumatic event, or a gradual one as they're repeatedly exposed to situations formerly outside their ken. Will these changes be in personality alone, or backed up by spending XP in a new way as fast as the system allows? Just watch you don't get pulled into a cycle of ever-increasing trauma and grimdark, as is happening to far too many properties as the moment, and seems to be a particularly difficult change to reverse without doing an outright reboot. So the advice here isn't quite as topical as it used to be, as grimdark is finally starting to fall out of fashion again, but it's still quite useful, and hasn't been presented in this way before. This is an above average example of his work.

Dragon Issue 287: September 2001


part 7/7


Dungeoncraft: Still filling out that homebase, Ray makes sure that there are several places to provide adventures and secrets without leaving the relatively safe confines of Janda's Valley, thus once again making room for survivable low level adventures before they venture out to face full-sized dinosaurs. It also tells us exactly what's available in the shops round here, and a big secret that you'd better hope your players haven't spoiled themselves on if they plan to play here. So there's a pretty high density of information here. Even with all these instalments, Ray only has about as much room to play around with as the village of hommlet. Like those old modules, you've got to make every bit count, keep the whole thing tight and accessible, because there's a lot of casual readers that you can convert or alienate here. Still, I think with this performance we're winning more people than we're driving away.


PC Portraits: Our theme this month is characters with a low Charisma. Which gives the artist carte blanche to make their pictures interestingly unattractive. Ugly dwarves, ugly elves, ugly halflings, a half-orc with pigtails, and plenty of acne, boils, and scars to go around. I can certainly see some players blanching about having characters that ugly, while others will love the idea. As usual, if you mix and match, the contrast may work to both sides benefit. So this is quite a fun collection really, and the dungeonpunk bits fit in well with the character's overall appearance.


Role models: Closely tied in with the Chainmail column, this also looks at the human & gnome faction, and talks about their colour scheme. Blue and white clothes, and light brown skin is the order of the day, to suit a mediterranean climate. Well, that's mildly informative as well, and gives them an easy set of things to do to fill out the next 5 months. After all, each of the factions will have their own identifying features, and they wouldn't want to be accused of favouritism. A good bit of continuity like that'll let them get a bit of depth in, even in these tiny little columns. This tie-in continues to be better handled than the ones in the past.


DM's Toolbox: This column seems to be rapidly settling into a pattern of giving us crisp, bullet-pointed advice that's easy to follow, covering similar ground to Ray's column, but in a different writing style. How do you make a villain interesting and powerful? Figure out what they're trying to do, what they've got to do it with, how they'll keep themselves from losing it, and how they intend to get more. As is often the case, it seems easy when you phrase it like that. It also concentrates quite a bit on the noncombat aspects of building an enemy. After all, even if you are evil, a sensible creature will still see the value in having allies rather than enemies where possible, and the profit to be gained by clever negotiation. As this is focussed on political thinking rather than hack and slash, and presents it in an interesting way, I rather like this. It'll give you a chance to actually roleplay your villains before they get beaten.


Dragonmirth is captionariffic. What's new is affirmatively demonic.


Well, this was a pretty kickass issue. It's not often that I give every single article a neutral or positive result, but this managed it, with even the non-themed bits coming out pretty strongly. Silly that that would happen just as they change editors, and that might make me remember Dave a bit more positively than otherwise. So once again it's time to embrace that sting of uncertainty, see how long it takes the new guy to get the hang of things, and what changes they'll make.

(un)reason said:

PC Portraits: Our theme this month is characters with a low Charisma. Which gives the artist carte blanche to make their pictures interestingly unattractive. Ugly dwarves, ugly elves, ugly halflings, a half-orc with pigtails, and plenty of acne, boils, and scars to go around. I can certainly see some players blanching about having characters that ugly, while others will love the idea. As usual, if you mix and match, the contrast may work to both sides benefit. So this is quite a fun collection really, and the dungeonpunk bits fit in well with the character's overall appearance.

Click to expand...

I suspect that even most players who use Charisma as a dump stat imagine their characters as pretty average-looking, even attractive. They just have enough social weaknesses to make up for it. Hence all the rude barbarians, aloof mages, naive monks, and so on.

LordVyreth said:

I suspect that even most players who use Charisma as a dump stat imagine their characters as pretty average-looking, even attractive. They just have enough social weaknesses to make up for it. Hence all the rude barbarians, aloof mages, naive monks, and so on.

Click to expand...

Yep, the artists obviously don't know what the CHA stat is supposed to represent. Looks may, or may not, have anything to do with it. I expect letters to howl!

Dragon Issue 288: October 2001


part 1/7


114 (116) pages. Well, here we are at the 4/5th mark. Still feels like a pretty substantial time since the last landmark like this, and the big 300 and 5/6ths will also take a good few months to get too as well. Still not the time to get overconfident and try to rush for the ending. And there'll certainly be a few more horror themed octobers as well, so this issue doesn't feel particularly special from looking at the contents. Let's see what the new guy in charge does differently with a familiar idea.


Scan Quality: Good, indexed.


In this issue:


The table of contents becomes the temple of contents. Hee. You might even get some use out of that layout. Very neat.


Wyrms turn: Looks like the new guy in charge is Jesse Decker. He spent a little while as assistant editor in 1999, then moved sideways in the company, while still contributing a few articles to the magazine, and now he's been brought back to take on the heavy responsibilities of the big seat. Well, it's not as obvious a choice as promoting the current assistant upwards, but at the same time it's not a complete leftfield recruitment either. And since he was probably working in the same offices most of that time, he'll know the culture of the magazine already. We might actually get through this without the quality control slipping for a bit. His storytelling style already works better for me than Dave's did too. So far, so good.


Scale Mail: First off is another letter of praise for their cities of the ages series. It seems to be rapidly building a decent fanbase for itself.

Greyhawk also retains a fanbase that's smaller than the Realms, but just as enthusiastic. And they want MORE! Apparently, next year will bring exactly that. After all, it is supposed to be this edition's official setting. They ought to act like it.

The Shannara issue proves contentious, with one letter that really likes it, and another that's very skeptical about that kind of cross-marketing. The compromise they come too here is saying they'll only do one or two themed issues like that per year. After all, they have a busy schedule of classes, races, and the inevitable april fool, birthday and horror themes to fill out the other months. Surely they can keep from repeating themselves until the 3.5 revision at least.

The new format also gets some complaint, although not nearly as much as last year's change. Once again, it's made very obvious that you can't please everyone. Blueprint style is a bit sterile, it has to be said.

Their puzzles get erratad. Careful. Criticise these too much, they'll just take their ball and go home.

And finally, we have some nonstereotypical halflings. With millions of people playing D&D, some were bound to come up with pretty oddball ideas.


Nodwick meets his zombie clones. Quite a lot of them. Guess who's fault it is.