Dragon #347

[Shroomy]

I bought the issue at Borders last night and I loved it. I buy Dragon for four reasons: Class Acts, the Demonomicon, Campaign Specific material (whether it be campaign classics, Greyhawk including "Core Beliefs," Forgotten Realms, or Eberron), and monsters. I loved the archomentals, the paraelemental monoliths, the paraelemental creature template, and finally the return of the original water weird (though it does seem a bit stronger than what I remember from the earlier editions). Good stuff.

 

[BOZ]

i too was quite pleased to see the return of the original weirds.

 

[Shade]

i too was quite pleased to see the return of the original weirds.

That whole Ecology rocked on toast. Kudos for including the snow and ice weirds from Frostburn.

While I'm dishing out the kudos, add some to the authors of the Inner Planar Hazards. That was a great idea for an article, and one that will immediately find use in my game. Love that fyrite.

Lotsa love for the Bazaar of the Bizarre and Spells of Elemental Evil, as well.

And big props to the Dragon staff for putting together such a cohesive issue. I felt like I was thumbing through the "Elemental Supplemental", or whatever they'd call an elemental-themed Draconomicon/Libris Mortis/Fiendish Codex. I'm honored to be a part of such a great issue.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I liked the Archomental artical, nearly perfect timing.
Last Saturday (before i had magazine) my players ended up at Ogremoch's palace. There to confront his steward, a earth elemental sea Drake, but not Ogremoch himself. They firmly resloved not to try and take "Big O" on, as they are afraid of the ramifications of the power vacum. They also doubt thier ability to do so (as 18th lvl charaters) I was using a pargagon advanced elder earth elemental, with spells as a 1/2 elemental tacked on. But it does not look like stats will be necessary.

Cyroax is also long time foe, although they have only delt with his worshipers (fitting neatly in with the descriptions of methods in the artical)
I was less than satisfied with my physical version of him, and will be using the artical instead should he manifest.

As concept beings, the powers in my world cannot be slain, but they can create very powerful Avatars, and the loss of which can really set them back. Several hundread years back Ebon Maw (hunger demon lord) took over a large part of 1 contient with an Avatar, which was eventually slain. He has not recoverd from this loss. This is well established history, and the PCs fear Cyroax manifesting similarly.

Unfortunatly the planar challanges were much to weak to use, but they may show up as flavor. Ice and Magma Monoliths have a good chance of showing up, depending on player actions.

 

[Shade]

A few minor bits of errata for the Paraelemental Paragons article:

Ice Monolith:

• should have 36 HD like the rest
• DC for chill should be 2 higher due to Ability Focus feat
• it has one feat too many (drop Weapon Focus, reduce attacks by 1)

Since regular paraelementals don't have icewalking, I'd recommend either dropping it from the monolith or granting it to the other ice paraelementals. Honesty, I don't see why they didn't have it in the first place.

Magma Monolith:

• Special Atk should be changed from chill metal to burn

Ice Element Giant Squid:

• Add low-light vision to senses

Ice Element Creature:

• Water subtype should not be added if you want to mimic ice paraelementals faithfully. Once again, I don't see why they didn't have it in the first place.

Ooze Element Behir:

• BAB should be +9/+25

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm miffed that one of the letters this issue mentions that Demogorgon is a villain in the next Dungeon adventure path. Way to spoil the ending. If I were running that campaign, I'd be frustrated if one of my players read this issue of Dragon and saw the spoiler.

 

[Stone Dog]

I'm miffed that one of the letters this issue mentions that Demogorgon is a villain in the next Dungeon adventure path. Way to spoil the ending. If I were running that campaign, I'd be frustrated if one of my players read this issue of Dragon and saw the spoiler.

Could be worse. They could have no idea what you were talking about.

I had a cult dedicated to Pazuzu in one game, but nobody knew who Pazuzu was and snickered when the cult leader invoked his name. They were good and freaked out right up until the name came up. And these are well read long time D&D players too.

 

[JustKim]

I'm not running or playing the adventure path, I have no interest in it, haven't looked into it at all, but I've heard at least a dozen times that Demogorgon is in it.

It's been pretty well spoiled by now.

 

[James Jacobs]

Spoilers and adventure promotion are often at cross-purposes. You might have an incredible adventure, but if you're trying to promote it without spoilers, it's very difficult to get people excited about playing it. For home-brew games, this isn't a concern (yet another example why home-made adventures are so cool), but for pre-packaged adventures, we sometimes have to edge into spoiler territory. Cover lines on magazines tread a similar dangerous grounds (as do the illustrations on the cover of Dungeon themselves).

In the end, the fact that Demogorgon's a major part of the new adventure path is a fairly minor spoiler, along the same lines as revealing that the main bad guy of Ravenloft's a vampire, or that the bad guy in Queen of the Spiders is Lolth, or that Kyuss is involved in the Age of Worms. The true mystery is instead WHAT the bad guy is up to, how he's up to it, and what the PCs will have to do to stop him. A little bit of insider knowledge might spoile some aspects of the adventure, but the anticipation and excitement of that knowledge is generally more than a fair tradeoff.

All that said, the letters column of Dragon probably wasn't the best place to mention Demogorgon's presence in the adventure path. We'll try to keep a tighter reign on spoilers in areas like that in the future.

And if my players laughed at Pazuzu's name in my game, I might just break down and cry.

 

[BOZ]

not knowing that Demogorgon is the main bad guy in Savage Tide is kind of like not knowing the end of the Crying Game.