Sanglorian
Adventurer
Reported spam. I find it interesting that the spambots always copy the same post for their posts.
Let's read the entire run
Reported spam. I find it interesting that the spambots always copy the same post for their posts.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Got it.
Thanks for reporting it. As a general rule it is good to note that you've reported it by giving xp to the spammer after making the report. That means that the fact it is reported disappears when we ban their asses to Saturn.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 296: June 2002
part 4/10
Wing, fang and spell: Course, having powered up dragon hunters, they now have to give a grab bag of stuff to Dragons to keep this little arms race even. And this article is very much a grab bag, seemingly composed of all the various little ideas knocking around the office that wouldn't make up a full article individually. First up is some clarification on Dragon senses, as it's the kind of thing Skip has obviously got repeated questions on over the years. Next, we have 3 new feats which allow them to do new things with their natural weapons, as if they didn't have enough tricks already. Then we have two sample dragons with personalities, combat tactics, and handy magical equipment detailed, so you have more examples of concrete clever tactics they might try with their arrays of abilities. And finally, we get a prestige class specifically for dragons who want to boost their natural spellcasting abilities (although it'd also be pretty decent for half-dragon PC's as well. ) So none of these really merit a full article in themselves, and the whole thing is useful, but rather scattershot. Not really sure what to make of this, as it's a bit of a throwback as articles go, not having the polish of most of their modern stuff. I wonder if any of it will go in future books, as can happen when the staff give us rough ideas to give feedback on.
Worshippers of the forbidden: Oooh, transformative prestige classes. That's one thing that'll definitely become more common as the edition goes on. The first wave of them were all skillsets/specialist organisations, but the idea of your character gradually physically becoming something different and powerful was an alluring one that got plenty of traction and several full d20 books dedicated to it. One of the most obvious theme, of course is becoming more like a particular type of monster. You can get nearly as many prestige classes out of that as you have types of monster. But these are all based on the big iconic options. After all, when you're one of the first, you don't have to worry about diminishing returns yet. But you might have to worry about them being mechanically unpolished and wonky, superceded by later versions. Well, enough waffling, let's take a look.
Sphere Minions are beholder fanboys. Their prestige class runs into the problem that beholders are massively powerful, with 11 attacks per round, several of them instakills, while these have to be balanced with other PC options. So they basically get 1 eye power per 2 levels usable 1/day, each with 1 use/day added to existing ones each time they gain a new one. Even so, they can get access to flesh to stone and disintegrate a level before wizards could, so they might be tempting to some twinks.
Illithidkin definitely wind up being superceded by the 3.5 heritage feats and 10 level prestige class. Telepathy and minor advancement in your psionic abilities really isn't worth the hassle you'll get socially everywhere else. Very much a trap for dumb minions who'll never get respect, just the chance to be the last one eaten.
Snake Servants are devoted to Medusae, not yuan-ti as I first assumed. They gain complete immunity to petrification, and minor resistance to poison, allowing them to safely serve them while not getting particularly impressive powers outside of that. Another one only really good for NPC's.
Wakers of the Beast are tarrasque cultists, and actually do have some rather cool bits in their design which makes them suitable for a long-term plot. Full BAB, permanent strength boosts on top of that, and natural armor, plus a strong incentive to form substantial sized cults mean they make great villains and aren't completely out of the question as PC's. After all, you never know when waking the tarrasque might wind up being the lesser of two evils, as so many Godzilla movies have shown. So this isn't as good overall as the dragon hunter collection, and the prestige classes are a bit weak and wonky in general but isn't completely useless either. You do want adversaries to be beatable, after all.
part 4/10
Wing, fang and spell: Course, having powered up dragon hunters, they now have to give a grab bag of stuff to Dragons to keep this little arms race even. And this article is very much a grab bag, seemingly composed of all the various little ideas knocking around the office that wouldn't make up a full article individually. First up is some clarification on Dragon senses, as it's the kind of thing Skip has obviously got repeated questions on over the years. Next, we have 3 new feats which allow them to do new things with their natural weapons, as if they didn't have enough tricks already. Then we have two sample dragons with personalities, combat tactics, and handy magical equipment detailed, so you have more examples of concrete clever tactics they might try with their arrays of abilities. And finally, we get a prestige class specifically for dragons who want to boost their natural spellcasting abilities (although it'd also be pretty decent for half-dragon PC's as well. ) So none of these really merit a full article in themselves, and the whole thing is useful, but rather scattershot. Not really sure what to make of this, as it's a bit of a throwback as articles go, not having the polish of most of their modern stuff. I wonder if any of it will go in future books, as can happen when the staff give us rough ideas to give feedback on.
Worshippers of the forbidden: Oooh, transformative prestige classes. That's one thing that'll definitely become more common as the edition goes on. The first wave of them were all skillsets/specialist organisations, but the idea of your character gradually physically becoming something different and powerful was an alluring one that got plenty of traction and several full d20 books dedicated to it. One of the most obvious theme, of course is becoming more like a particular type of monster. You can get nearly as many prestige classes out of that as you have types of monster. But these are all based on the big iconic options. After all, when you're one of the first, you don't have to worry about diminishing returns yet. But you might have to worry about them being mechanically unpolished and wonky, superceded by later versions. Well, enough waffling, let's take a look.
Sphere Minions are beholder fanboys. Their prestige class runs into the problem that beholders are massively powerful, with 11 attacks per round, several of them instakills, while these have to be balanced with other PC options. So they basically get 1 eye power per 2 levels usable 1/day, each with 1 use/day added to existing ones each time they gain a new one. Even so, they can get access to flesh to stone and disintegrate a level before wizards could, so they might be tempting to some twinks.
Illithidkin definitely wind up being superceded by the 3.5 heritage feats and 10 level prestige class. Telepathy and minor advancement in your psionic abilities really isn't worth the hassle you'll get socially everywhere else. Very much a trap for dumb minions who'll never get respect, just the chance to be the last one eaten.
Snake Servants are devoted to Medusae, not yuan-ti as I first assumed. They gain complete immunity to petrification, and minor resistance to poison, allowing them to safely serve them while not getting particularly impressive powers outside of that. Another one only really good for NPC's.
Wakers of the Beast are tarrasque cultists, and actually do have some rather cool bits in their design which makes them suitable for a long-term plot. Full BAB, permanent strength boosts on top of that, and natural armor, plus a strong incentive to form substantial sized cults mean they make great villains and aren't completely out of the question as PC's. After all, you never know when waking the tarrasque might wind up being the lesser of two evils, as so many Godzilla movies have shown. So this isn't as good overall as the dragon hunter collection, and the prestige classes are a bit weak and wonky in general but isn't completely useless either. You do want adversaries to be beatable, after all.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 296: June 2002
part 5/10
Guild secrets: (another nearly illegible title): Straight away, we have another thing that they would work on and add too in 3.5. Rules for building organisations, and the mechanical requirements and benefits you get from joining them. Now why couldn't we have had these before they tried to update planescape factions as prestige classes in an ill-fitting way? As is often the case, these are more DM focussed than their next incarnation, with a greater emphasis on specific numbers, such as membership, who the leader is, and exactly what level they are, while the benefits are relatively flat without the codified reputation system. So this is another article that feels kinda superceded, knowing what I do in hindsight. Still, it is good to see them working out ideas and bouncing them around the office. And it helps us pinpoint who to blame as well if you don't like these kind of rules in your D&D (Andy Collins, in this case. ) That's also useful when it comes to internet flame wars as it's more interesting to accuse particular employees of being the problem and "ruining the game!1!!1" than attack the whole company.
Fiction: The tomb by Thomas Harlan. Our second trip to crusades era Jerusalem, filled with knights, saracens, jews, and various others either trying to gain power, or just survive and gain a little profit. Some are virtuous, some are sinister, and often it can be hard to tell which is which. One thing that no side really looks that favourably on, in sharp contrast to D&D, is grave robbing. While you can find people willing to pay for grave goods, often quite highly, you also have to watch out or get arrested and have all your gains confiscated. So in many ways, this story is an inversion of a normal D&D adventure, where the protagonist is sent on a quest by a mysterious employer to protect someone who's already dead and stop people from taking their stuff. It still manages to have a fair amount of drama and action, and a bit of bickering comedy as well, showing you can flip an idea on it's head and still keep things interesting and challenging. And it looks like this series may well build a little further, as we gain a larger cast of recurring characters. I guess time will tell if it ever gets big enough for an overarching plot to form.
Nodwick has another attack of continuity. And fails to get the dragon's hoard again.
Class acts: Monte returns to give us our first monk related prestige class, the Acolyte of the Fist. They focus on exactly that, sacrificing the more esoteric monk powers and resistances for pure offensive badassery. DR penetration, smashing through walls, even hadoukens at higher level. And the power to heal with a strike as well, curiously enough. As with primary spellcasters, the powers you get from advancing to 10th level in this really don't compete with the ones you would get as a 20th level straight monk, unfortunately. Immunity to aging and a whole bunch of effects vs +1d6 to your attack damage? Somehow, I think not. Avoid the false enlightenment, you must. Unfortunately, you can't just dip into this one, as it has a unique restriction preventing you from stepping off it until you've finished it. This may frustrate certain players. Another favourful but weak prestige class, as Monte is prone to producing. He really ought to do something about that.
part 5/10
Guild secrets: (another nearly illegible title): Straight away, we have another thing that they would work on and add too in 3.5. Rules for building organisations, and the mechanical requirements and benefits you get from joining them. Now why couldn't we have had these before they tried to update planescape factions as prestige classes in an ill-fitting way? As is often the case, these are more DM focussed than their next incarnation, with a greater emphasis on specific numbers, such as membership, who the leader is, and exactly what level they are, while the benefits are relatively flat without the codified reputation system. So this is another article that feels kinda superceded, knowing what I do in hindsight. Still, it is good to see them working out ideas and bouncing them around the office. And it helps us pinpoint who to blame as well if you don't like these kind of rules in your D&D (Andy Collins, in this case. ) That's also useful when it comes to internet flame wars as it's more interesting to accuse particular employees of being the problem and "ruining the game!1!!1" than attack the whole company.
Fiction: The tomb by Thomas Harlan. Our second trip to crusades era Jerusalem, filled with knights, saracens, jews, and various others either trying to gain power, or just survive and gain a little profit. Some are virtuous, some are sinister, and often it can be hard to tell which is which. One thing that no side really looks that favourably on, in sharp contrast to D&D, is grave robbing. While you can find people willing to pay for grave goods, often quite highly, you also have to watch out or get arrested and have all your gains confiscated. So in many ways, this story is an inversion of a normal D&D adventure, where the protagonist is sent on a quest by a mysterious employer to protect someone who's already dead and stop people from taking their stuff. It still manages to have a fair amount of drama and action, and a bit of bickering comedy as well, showing you can flip an idea on it's head and still keep things interesting and challenging. And it looks like this series may well build a little further, as we gain a larger cast of recurring characters. I guess time will tell if it ever gets big enough for an overarching plot to form.
Nodwick has another attack of continuity. And fails to get the dragon's hoard again.
Class acts: Monte returns to give us our first monk related prestige class, the Acolyte of the Fist. They focus on exactly that, sacrificing the more esoteric monk powers and resistances for pure offensive badassery. DR penetration, smashing through walls, even hadoukens at higher level. And the power to heal with a strike as well, curiously enough. As with primary spellcasters, the powers you get from advancing to 10th level in this really don't compete with the ones you would get as a 20th level straight monk, unfortunately. Immunity to aging and a whole bunch of effects vs +1d6 to your attack damage? Somehow, I think not. Avoid the false enlightenment, you must.
Unfortunately, you can't just dip into this one, as it has a unique restriction preventing you from stepping off it until you've finished it. This may frustrate certain players. Another favourful but weak prestige class, as Monte is prone to producing. He really ought to do something about that.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 296: June 2002
part 6/10
Elminster's guide to the realms: Sometimes, Elminster reveals all the secrets behind these strange little locations the Realms is packed with. Sometimes not, and you just get what's needed to play, and some options for what could be behind the scenes. Here's another one of those. A dryad, a mysterious floating shield, and a pool of water which may or may not be enchanted. As usual for these, it's designed to exist in a world where adventuring parties are common, so there are pretty substantial safeguards in place to make sure a single party can't just kill everything and take all the stuff, leaving a stripmined wasteland. I guess once more it's a pretty flavour encounter that reminds us how many powerful creatures there are here, and how hard it is to make an impact. If you want to be a real hero or villain, it's going to be a lot of hard work and clever contingency building so you can survive when you get the attention of the big players. I think once again I'm feeling the oversaturation, because I can't get enthusiastic about this at all this month.
The bestiary gets it's The back. Well, it's something, anyway. This birthday has yet another variant on dragons, as you would expect. Wurms? Well, Wyrms is already used, and worms just sounds mundane. Warms is already a word, and werms and wirms would look even closer to not just scraping the barrel, but taking it apart and using the planks for firewood. Still, they're not going for the brainless rampaging monster archetype this time, but the more connected to nature one. And rather than having individual stats for every variant, they use a cross-matrix of ages and types, with Wurmlings, adults, Greater Wurms and Elder Wurms, and Forest Wurms, while the environments they favour are Tundra Wurms, Sand Wurms, Swamp Wurms, Sea Wurms, River Wurms, Grassland Wurms, Hill Wurms, Lava Wurms, Storm Wurms, Cave Wurms and Mountain Wurms. Thats a relatively elegant bit of design, which isn't too overused, so I don't mind this one after all. It can't be easy finding decent non-rehashed dragon articles every birthday for 25 years, but somehow they keep on doing it. All credit for the many writers who make that possible.
Hackmaster presents The Spellslingers guide to wurld domination. Because that's what every wizard wants, isn't it?
Living Greyhawk Gazetteer Index: This section doesn't have the usual pair of articles, instead devoting a full 12 pages to an index of Greyhawk material. Want to know who's what, where, and how high level quickly? Here's a high density alphabetical listing of page references. I strongly suspect that this is why the scanner went to the extra effort to make this issue searchable when the rest of the post-archive ones aren't. And kudos to them, as that makes this index even quicker and easier to use. This article is a good example of fan power in general, showing that the official writers are willing to take and use things that the fans do for free at the moment, which is of course a big change from the 90's and part of the same idea that produced the OGL. Let's hope it lasts a few years longer before WotC start trying to claw back control and do everything in house again.
part 6/10
Elminster's guide to the realms: Sometimes, Elminster reveals all the secrets behind these strange little locations the Realms is packed with. Sometimes not, and you just get what's needed to play, and some options for what could be behind the scenes. Here's another one of those. A dryad, a mysterious floating shield, and a pool of water which may or may not be enchanted. As usual for these, it's designed to exist in a world where adventuring parties are common, so there are pretty substantial safeguards in place to make sure a single party can't just kill everything and take all the stuff, leaving a stripmined wasteland. I guess once more it's a pretty flavour encounter that reminds us how many powerful creatures there are here, and how hard it is to make an impact. If you want to be a real hero or villain, it's going to be a lot of hard work and clever contingency building so you can survive when you get the attention of the big players. I think once again I'm feeling the oversaturation, because I can't get enthusiastic about this at all this month.
The bestiary gets it's The back. Well, it's something, anyway. This birthday has yet another variant on dragons, as you would expect. Wurms? Well, Wyrms is already used, and worms just sounds mundane. Warms is already a word, and werms and wirms would look even closer to not just scraping the barrel, but taking it apart and using the planks for firewood. Still, they're not going for the brainless rampaging monster archetype this time, but the more connected to nature one. And rather than having individual stats for every variant, they use a cross-matrix of ages and types, with Wurmlings, adults, Greater Wurms and Elder Wurms, and Forest Wurms, while the environments they favour are Tundra Wurms, Sand Wurms, Swamp Wurms, Sea Wurms, River Wurms, Grassland Wurms, Hill Wurms, Lava Wurms, Storm Wurms, Cave Wurms and Mountain Wurms. Thats a relatively elegant bit of design, which isn't too overused, so I don't mind this one after all. It can't be easy finding decent non-rehashed dragon articles every birthday for 25 years, but somehow they keep on doing it. All credit for the many writers who make that possible.
Hackmaster presents The Spellslingers guide to wurld domination. Because that's what every wizard wants, isn't it?
Living Greyhawk Gazetteer Index: This section doesn't have the usual pair of articles, instead devoting a full 12 pages to an index of Greyhawk material. Want to know who's what, where, and how high level quickly? Here's a high density alphabetical listing of page references. I strongly suspect that this is why the scanner went to the extra effort to make this issue searchable when the rest of the post-archive ones aren't. And kudos to them, as that makes this index even quicker and easier to use. This article is a good example of fan power in general, showing that the official writers are willing to take and use things that the fans do for free at the moment, which is of course a big change from the 90's and part of the same idea that produced the OGL. Let's hope it lasts a few years longer before WotC start trying to claw back control and do everything in house again.
Well, 'Wurm' is a German word (simply the English 'worm'). It's also used for certain kinds of dragons, e.g. in 'Tatzelwurm' and 'Lindwurm'.
Fafnir in the Nibelungen saga is probably the most well-known example of a Lindwurm.
The Norwegian spelling 'Linnorm' was also used for a 'family' of dragons in D&D at some point.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 296: June 2002
part 7/10
Chainmail: So far, the Chainmail game has been fairly low powered overall. This month, they reveal some of the more high powered stuff in it's history, an artifact built by the god of war to kill dragons. Although in a big irony, they only give D&D stats for it, not Chainmail ones. This is probably because an item that takes you over and wipes your memory to turn you into a relentless dragon-killing automaton is a serious wild card that'd make rather a mess of a tactical skirmish game. Still, it is exceedingly good at killing dragons, as it enables you to fly, dodge breath weapons, shut down their spellcasting, and generally mess up their common tactical options. So even if it's fairly risky as an artifact, at least it's good for it's stated job, so people'll actually want to seek it out, unlike too many 2e ones. Once again, Chainmail sometimes has more old school elements going on than regular D&D, and that's actually quite cool.
Command points: Another article full of builds for your units this month. The connecting factor is the commander, showcasing the Hobgoblin Adept, and the various ways their magical abilities can support their troops. With both exploitable spells and a good few command points, they can buff, blast from range, and get their followers moving when needed. So high strength things, and cross-faction monsters that are resistant to fire synergize well with them. Some of these monsters aren't even released yet, making this more sneaky teasers for their upcoming products. Another article that's interesting, but so very specific as to be useless if you're not actually playing Chainmail, unlike say, the pieces on playing Kobolds cleverly over the years that could be applied to any tool using humanoid. Still, at least they seem to have no shortage of followups coming, including whole new factions to play with. I guess it's really a question of how long people want to keep buying.
part 7/10
Chainmail: So far, the Chainmail game has been fairly low powered overall. This month, they reveal some of the more high powered stuff in it's history, an artifact built by the god of war to kill dragons. Although in a big irony, they only give D&D stats for it, not Chainmail ones. This is probably because an item that takes you over and wipes your memory to turn you into a relentless dragon-killing automaton is a serious wild card that'd make rather a mess of a tactical skirmish game. Still, it is exceedingly good at killing dragons, as it enables you to fly, dodge breath weapons, shut down their spellcasting, and generally mess up their common tactical options. So even if it's fairly risky as an artifact, at least it's good for it's stated job, so people'll actually want to seek it out, unlike too many 2e ones. Once again, Chainmail sometimes has more old school elements going on than regular D&D, and that's actually quite cool.
Command points: Another article full of builds for your units this month. The connecting factor is the commander, showcasing the Hobgoblin Adept, and the various ways their magical abilities can support their troops. With both exploitable spells and a good few command points, they can buff, blast from range, and get their followers moving when needed. So high strength things, and cross-faction monsters that are resistant to fire synergize well with them. Some of these monsters aren't even released yet, making this more sneaky teasers for their upcoming products. Another article that's interesting, but so very specific as to be useless if you're not actually playing Chainmail, unlike say, the pieces on playing Kobolds cleverly over the years that could be applied to any tool using humanoid. Still, at least they seem to have no shortage of followups coming, including whole new factions to play with. I guess it's really a question of how long people want to keep buying.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 296: June 2002
part 8/10
The play's the thing: Sometimes, a game just isn't working, for whatever reason. Now, you can try to fix it on your own, but in an inherently social pastime like roleplaying, things will probably be a lot easier if you learn how to negotiate. No matter what mechanics you put in the game to mitigate it, the simple fact is that you'll have far more success roleplaying if you also develop your real life social skills, whether you measure that in fun, xp, or just the best magical doodads of this adventure's haul. Fortunately, there are plenty of books you can read to help you out with this. Yup, Robin's digging into the Dale Carnegie self-help ouvre to teach you how to get along with people and have a productive and long-running campaign. Surprise surprise, you're more likely to get what you want if you make a genuine effort to understand other people and satisfy their desires as well. Hell, even just asking people what their problems are, nodding and looking interested, and then going back to doing things exactly the same can often work, for quite a while, as often all people need is to feel listened too and appreciated. Being confrontational and aggressive, on the other hand, can turn even a minor problem into a huge argument that results in everyone being more polarised at the end than they were at the beginning. Keeping the violent conflicts strictly IC is the way to go. Yet again, Robin shows us the value in looking to outside sources, and how seemingly disparate ideas can be combined to great profit.
DM's toolbox: Johnn tackles a very similar topic to Robin, once again showing how different people can look at the same puzzle from different perspectives and come up with different solutions. Of course, as the DM, you do have rather more options at your disposal to alter the way a campaign is run if problems are cropping up, and this column assumes that you're the guy in the viking hat. This means you can introduce subplots if some of the players are stumped or feeling underutilised, have sudden unexpected encounters if they're bored or faffing around, redescribe the area with more detail or pointed clues so they're more likely to figure out a solution. Basically, while Robin is talking about the OOC methods, Johnn is about watching the signs and adjusting the pacing and details of the game to compensate. After all, stopping everything to have a detailed discussion of everyone's feelings will really break the mood of a life or death situation and cause problems in itself. Too much therapy just keeps emotional wounds open long after they would have faded away if you'd sorted out the problem and moved on. Since I spend more time DMing than playing and suck at talking about my feelings, I think I'd find these methods rather easier to implement than Robin's. Which isn't to say it's a better method. Robin's advice is certainly more applicable to social situations outside of gaming. Some tools are very good at one thing, others are harder to use but more versatile. A lot of the time you're going to need both to get the job done really well.
part 8/10
The play's the thing: Sometimes, a game just isn't working, for whatever reason. Now, you can try to fix it on your own, but in an inherently social pastime like roleplaying, things will probably be a lot easier if you learn how to negotiate. No matter what mechanics you put in the game to mitigate it, the simple fact is that you'll have far more success roleplaying if you also develop your real life social skills, whether you measure that in fun, xp, or just the best magical doodads of this adventure's haul. Fortunately, there are plenty of books you can read to help you out with this. Yup, Robin's digging into the Dale Carnegie self-help ouvre to teach you how to get along with people and have a productive and long-running campaign. Surprise surprise, you're more likely to get what you want if you make a genuine effort to understand other people and satisfy their desires as well. Hell, even just asking people what their problems are, nodding and looking interested, and then going back to doing things exactly the same can often work, for quite a while, as often all people need is to feel listened too and appreciated. Being confrontational and aggressive, on the other hand, can turn even a minor problem into a huge argument that results in everyone being more polarised at the end than they were at the beginning. Keeping the violent conflicts strictly IC is the way to go. Yet again, Robin shows us the value in looking to outside sources, and how seemingly disparate ideas can be combined to great profit.
DM's toolbox: Johnn tackles a very similar topic to Robin, once again showing how different people can look at the same puzzle from different perspectives and come up with different solutions. Of course, as the DM, you do have rather more options at your disposal to alter the way a campaign is run if problems are cropping up, and this column assumes that you're the guy in the viking hat. This means you can introduce subplots if some of the players are stumped or feeling underutilised, have sudden unexpected encounters if they're bored or faffing around, redescribe the area with more detail or pointed clues so they're more likely to figure out a solution. Basically, while Robin is talking about the OOC methods, Johnn is about watching the signs and adjusting the pacing and details of the game to compensate. After all, stopping everything to have a detailed discussion of everyone's feelings will really break the mood of a life or death situation and cause problems in itself. Too much therapy just keeps emotional wounds open long after they would have faded away if you'd sorted out the problem and moved on. Since I spend more time DMing than playing and suck at talking about my feelings, I think I'd find these methods rather easier to implement than Robin's. Which isn't to say it's a better method. Robin's advice is certainly more applicable to social situations outside of gaming. Some tools are very good at one thing, others are harder to use but more versatile. A lot of the time you're going to need both to get the job done really well.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 296: June 2002
part 9/10
Judge Dredd is back. And this time he's D20. Remember, adventurers are all lawbreaking scum and he has a big gun. Crossovers are a bitch.
Silicon Sorcery: Want to play Drizzt in an an official D&D computer game? Well now you can, thanks to Baldur's Gate: Dark alliance. All you need to do is finish the game, do a killer time trial, finish the game again in extra hard mode, and bingo bongo, your sweet scimitars are swinging low! You've got to love it when they more than double your playing time with the same material to get a few special unlockables. Still, that information only makes up a small part of this article. The real meat of it is backconversions of the 7 big bosses. Going from CR 7 to 19 for the very final one, all but two of these are unique individuals with class levels, magic item arrays, and often prestige classes as well. Since that's the kind of stats that'd take a fair amount of time to build from scratch in 3e, stealing them for your own campaign doesn't seem like a bad investment at all. Just watch out for the Blackguard at the end, who's spell selection is oh so very illegal by 3.0 rules, and was obviously expanded for the purposes of the game to make fighting them more interesting. You wouldn't want the final boss to be just a slugfest, would you? Instead, she's teleporting, climbing the walls, disappearing into mist, and generally being a pain to keep up with. I suspect in the game itself, she may be one of those delightful sorts you can only hurt at a specific point in their movement pattern. Now there's something that doesn't convert to D&D very well. Still, this article has provided me with some useful information, and made me thing about the differences between computer and P&P roleplaying. I guess they're continuing to inform and entertain then.
part 9/10
Judge Dredd is back. And this time he's D20. Remember, adventurers are all lawbreaking scum and he has a big gun. Crossovers are a bitch.
Silicon Sorcery: Want to play Drizzt in an an official D&D computer game? Well now you can, thanks to Baldur's Gate: Dark alliance. All you need to do is finish the game, do a killer time trial, finish the game again in extra hard mode, and bingo bongo, your sweet scimitars are swinging low! You've got to love it when they more than double your playing time with the same material to get a few special unlockables. Still, that information only makes up a small part of this article. The real meat of it is backconversions of the 7 big bosses. Going from CR 7 to 19 for the very final one, all but two of these are unique individuals with class levels, magic item arrays, and often prestige classes as well. Since that's the kind of stats that'd take a fair amount of time to build from scratch in 3e, stealing them for your own campaign doesn't seem like a bad investment at all. Just watch out for the Blackguard at the end, who's spell selection is oh so very illegal by 3.0 rules, and was obviously expanded for the purposes of the game to make fighting them more interesting. You wouldn't want the final boss to be just a slugfest, would you? Instead, she's teleporting, climbing the walls, disappearing into mist, and generally being a pain to keep up with. I suspect in the game itself, she may be one of those delightful sorts you can only hurt at a specific point in their movement pattern. Now there's something that doesn't convert to D&D very well. Still, this article has provided me with some useful information, and made me thing about the differences between computer and P&P roleplaying. I guess they're continuing to inform and entertain then.
Last edited:
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 296: June 2002
part 10/10
Sage advice: Does pyro grant extra damage on all fire spells (No. Only ones that set things on fire. That's a surprisingly small portion of them. )
Can you take dash more than once (No)
Can you hamstring a creature more than once (no)
Why can't you hamstring things with lots of legs (Waste of time, really)
What does quicker than the eye actually do. (Keeps people from noticing what you're doing. Very handy, but not some magic bullet.)
Can you combine quicker than the eye and expert tactician (If you like. This can get pretty nasty. )
What's a stabilization check ( Your odds of stopping bleeding to death. )
What's a language dependent effect. (Non comprende enchante, parlez-vous. Haw de haw de haw de haw de haw.)
Do virtuoso levels combine with bardic music (yup. Same thing.)
Can you cast spells through a wall of force. (You might be able to see things, but you don't actually have line of sight. Isn't that so confusing to your poor little minds.)
Does antimagic field prevent you from casting spells within it (No, just means they don't manifest while in the field. You can use this to surprise people who don't know the finer points of their metaphysics.)
Does antimagic suppress from the point or the area (generally, just the area. It may impede progress as well.)
Does antimagic suppress magically locked and warded doors (Yes, but it doesn't go through them. It's not an emanation, to use what we in the business call a technical term.)
What happens if you cast a prismatic wall spell into an anti-magiced area. (Poofles. No go, dude.)
Are undead immune to external illusions or not. What's with invisibility to undead if they aren't (No. There's a funny story behind that. It's all to do with necromancers and the forbidden schools they had back in 2nd edition. Ha ha ha ha. Laugh? Skip nearly split Skip's sides.)
Can you hold the charge on ranged touch spells (no)
Do you suffer spell failure on scrolls when in armor ( No. This has it's uses. )
Phil is getting fed up of Dixie's evil ways in What's new. So they also have a serious attack of continuity. Guess that little editorial restriction is being relaxed at last. Phil also finds the time to illustrate an advert for Gen Con 2002. Watch out for Ted Raimi and Jonathan Frakes. Man what.
While the last few issues have seen an uptick in rehash, this one has an increase in things that are new, but will be improved upon and reprinted in future books. That's definitely a welcome change and throwback to the old issues, as it's good to see the creative process midflow. However, the themed bits are pretty lackluster, showing they don't have many new ideas for the game's actual namesake this year. I guess it's swings and roundabouts as usual then. The next issue'll probably have an entirely different mix of good and bad bits.
part 10/10
Sage advice: Does pyro grant extra damage on all fire spells (No. Only ones that set things on fire. That's a surprisingly small portion of them. )
Can you take dash more than once (No)
Can you hamstring a creature more than once (no)
Why can't you hamstring things with lots of legs (Waste of time, really)
What does quicker than the eye actually do. (Keeps people from noticing what you're doing. Very handy, but not some magic bullet.)
Can you combine quicker than the eye and expert tactician (If you like. This can get pretty nasty. )
What's a stabilization check ( Your odds of stopping bleeding to death. )
What's a language dependent effect. (Non comprende enchante, parlez-vous. Haw de haw de haw de haw de haw.)
Do virtuoso levels combine with bardic music (yup. Same thing.)
Can you cast spells through a wall of force. (You might be able to see things, but you don't actually have line of sight. Isn't that so confusing to your poor little minds.)
Does antimagic field prevent you from casting spells within it (No, just means they don't manifest while in the field. You can use this to surprise people who don't know the finer points of their metaphysics.)
Does antimagic suppress from the point or the area (generally, just the area. It may impede progress as well.)
Does antimagic suppress magically locked and warded doors (Yes, but it doesn't go through them. It's not an emanation, to use what we in the business call a technical term.)
What happens if you cast a prismatic wall spell into an anti-magiced area. (Poofles. No go, dude.)
Are undead immune to external illusions or not. What's with invisibility to undead if they aren't (No. There's a funny story behind that. It's all to do with necromancers and the forbidden schools they had back in 2nd edition. Ha ha ha ha. Laugh? Skip nearly split Skip's sides.)
Can you hold the charge on ranged touch spells (no)
Do you suffer spell failure on scrolls when in armor ( No. This has it's uses. )
Phil is getting fed up of Dixie's evil ways in What's new. So they also have a serious attack of continuity. Guess that little editorial restriction is being relaxed at last. Phil also finds the time to illustrate an advert for Gen Con 2002. Watch out for Ted Raimi and Jonathan Frakes. Man what.
While the last few issues have seen an uptick in rehash, this one has an increase in things that are new, but will be improved upon and reprinted in future books. That's definitely a welcome change and throwback to the old issues, as it's good to see the creative process midflow. However, the themed bits are pretty lackluster, showing they don't have many new ideas for the game's actual namesake this year. I guess it's swings and roundabouts as usual then. The next issue'll probably have an entirely different mix of good and bad bits.
Similar Threads
