Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 280: February 2001


part 3/7


Your sorcerous life: The speed and enthusiasm with which sorcerers were accepted has a good deal to do with the fact that there was a literary niche just waiting to be filled there. They've only been around a few months, but they already have a clear idea of how to make a compelling character that's different from a wizard. And if you don't, here's Robin Laws to spell it out in a clear step by step fashion with random tables. It obviously skews heavily towards them being angsty outcasts, who can't trust anyone, especially not other sorcerers. As such, it's good for people who haven't played one before, playing in standard fantasy campaign, but will rapidly lose utility the further you go from that assumption. Still, as I've said before, everyone is starting 3e on an equal footing, so this is cool for now. But 12 years in the future, it may seem a touch dated. Once you've done the obvious stereotype, you'll probably want to try something different for subsequent characters, and skip the adolescent angst.


Polymorphology: Ah yes, shapechanging. If any power gets a rough ride over the revisions of 3.5 and 4e, it's this one. First they tried nickling and diming it's versatility away and presenting lots of more limited options, before realising that wasn't going to work, and just rewrote the whole magic system without all the versatile world affecting powers. Very much a case where they were put in a no win situation though, with one contingent constantly bitching about them being overpowered, while another wouldn't want to play in a game where you can't do such a basic and common literary concept as flexible shapeshifter. I'm very interested in seeing what 5e will do to bridge this particular rift in the D&D landscape. But anyway, this is one of Johnathan M Richards more playful articles. Because who would know more about the tricks you can pull by shapechanging into various creatures than the ecologist? Even mundane ones have some fairly decent tricks for you to take advantage of and surprise your DM with. And once you get to Polymorph any object and Shapechange, the world can literally be your oyster. In addition to the copious amounts of advice on how to exploit the existing spells to your advantage, there's also a new one called Swarm Form which lets you pull some tricks regular shapeshifting can't because you're limited to being a single creature, and also errata for polymorph other, which means they now keep their mind and skills when they didn't in previous editions. It's a good example of how at this point they're encouraging people to explore the system and find exploits for their characters. After all, there is a lot of fun to be had in simply exploring all the options, especially in a system as expansive as the d20 one.


Magic in the blood: Our second sorcerer specific article covers similar ground to Robin Laws' one, but skips the random bits, and sticks to advice. Where do your sorcerers get their power from? The answer will have a fair amount of influence on how you play your character, and possibly how you build them as well. This has sample spell, skill and feat selections for 5 of the most obvious ones. This illustrates that before 3.5 introduced the Warlock, the Sorcerer has to cover a wider spectrum of power sources, including pacts with supernatural forces as well as ancestry. In fact, that's an interesting matter in general. The introduction of more classes can retrospectively force previous ones into a narrower focus. This has definitely been the case with Fighters as well, who have seen themselves squeezed from covering any primary weapon user to heavy armor melee combatants with few powers for lighter weapons or ranged combat. I think this once again illustrates one of the big differences in design philosophy between 3.0 and 3.5, along with the Class Combo articles.


Better living through alchemy: Alchemy isn't specific to wizards and sorcerers, but it's certainly more common among those classes than others. So including an article on it in this issue makes sense. And for a low-mid level wizard who doesn't have that many spells to spare, having a few alchemical concoctions on hand will increase their versatility a fair chunk. This is an extension of the same kind of thinking that results in adventurers carrying 10 foot poles and vials of oil and messing up the DM's carefully laid plans by making clever use of seemingly minor items. And since it features 19 new low key but generally useful items, along with costs and alchemy DCs for making them yourself, it's one that has quite a bit of utility. If you have a few spare GP, drop them on some of these and you won't regret it. You might well get more bang for your buck than spending the same amount of money on potions and scrolls.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 280: February 2001


part 4/7


Mastering chance: They have a random dungeon generating system in the 3e DMG? I don't remember that at all. Goes to show that it's been quite a while since I looked at the 3.0 stuff. And looking at it, it isn't nearly as random as the old one from the strategic review and 1e DMG, with the power levels of encounters pretty tightly indexed to the character's levels. And of course, the more you reduce the randomness, the more the DM has to interpret and build upon the results before you're ready to play, which will increase the time it takes quite a bit. So really this is saying that even if you do use random generation methods, you should still customise the results afterwards. It's almost as if the designers aren't that keen on them and only included it for old times sake. If you already have plenty of ideas, this is kinda redundant.


Just the facts, mage: Our second Robin Laws article this month isn't really in theme (despite it's title) but is also fairly interesting. It covers the ways and reasons NPC's might be obstructive when PC's are trying to get info out of them. A fairly quirky topic, but once again, a helpful one. after all, even those who are good at social dynamics may not have sat down and though formally about how to categorise the ways people act in response to particular behaviours. (if anything, if it comes naturally to them, they're less likely too. So once again, this is an article that may seem utterly invaluable, or completely obvious and pointless, depending on where you fall on the social spectrum. Since I'm pretty crap at the whole being human thing, but would like to be better, I'm once again going to have to say this is relevant to my interests, and I approve of him writing this stuff. No-one's covered it in this kind of depth in the magazine before, and it is of use, plus it's good for any game. It's good that they're still finding new things to write about in a roleplaying context.


A little more familiar: Articles expanding on familiars were a fairly regular occurrence last edition. Why mess with a winning formula, especially when you can put all sorts of upgrades as feats now and not worry about it breaking the game. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure how much of a benefit making your familiar undead or a construct is, and if it's worth spending a feat slot. I think that like Toughness, it might be worth it at low level, but will then rapidly become pointless, since you'll soon hit the point where you could have done it manually in play with spells anyway. On the other hand, the ability to poof them away when not needed, (don't a lot of people do that anyway ) automatically share your buffs with them, and have multiple familiars do seem quite worth the expenditure if you're built right. The new spells are pretty handy too. Casting spells through your familiar. Sharing HP with them in a pinch. Teleporting them back to your side. And of course the more tricks and spells you devote to them, the more their effectiveness is multiplied out, in classic quadratic wizard fashion. An excellent example of how you should pick powers that'll remain useful at higher level, not just now, especially as they haven't instituted retraining yet.


Reel Heroes: Our longest promotional article yet for the D&D movie stats out all the major characters, and has an interview with Zoe McLellan, the wizard of the party. Unsurprisingly, the PC's are completely outmatched on paper. A bunch of 3rd level characters vs a 10th level fighter and a 15th level wizard? That isn't even on the xp award tables. Similarly, there's no way they could put a price on the rod of Savrille, so that's relegated to artifact status. Game balance? CR appropriate challenges? Does that make a good movie? Good question. You almost definitely could make a better movie than this using only CR appropriate challenges, and building the heroes up for the final climax. The interview is fairly informative, particularly about her earlier life, and the fact that she's not worried if this fails, because she's signed up for a development deal with WB studios. And since she has had fairly continuous TV roles since then, I guess that confidence was justified. It must be nice being part of the in crowd. Since this actually has game information, it's obviously more useful than the previous articles, which were purely promotion, but it still feels unjustly smug, especially since the film has been out for a while now. It might be time to cut their losses and move onto the next project.


Fiction: The opal of nah by J Gregory Keyes: Fool Wolf's story continues directly where last month left off, as he tries to figure out who or what is calling him, preferably without being trapped by their manipulations. And since nearly everyone from his previous stories who survived seems to be here, it's obvious that the stakes are pretty high. In fact, we're escalating all the way to world threatening monstrosity. They're not going to be able to continue the series in the same way after this is over. And indeed, it looks like there's another instalment next issue, and then that's it, so I seriously hope there'll be a decent payoff after two issues of ratcheting up the tension.

 

[Orius]

Fiction: The opal of nah by J Gregory Keyes: Fool Wolf's story continues directly where last month left off, as he tries to figure out who or what is calling him, preferably without being trapped by their manipulations. And since nearly everyone from his previous stories who survived seems to be here, it's obvious that the stakes are pretty high. In fact, we're escalating all the way to world threatening monstrosity. They're not going to be able to continue the series in the same way after this is over. And indeed, it looks like there's another instalment next issue, and then that's it, so I seriously hope there'll be a decent payoff after two issues of ratcheting up the tension.

Yes, this was a decent trilogy of short stories that took the elements of the previous stories and wove an interesting plot with them. I especially like how Keyes took some of the key players from most of the previous installments and made them part of the big master plot here.

 

[Hussar]

Just did a quick google. WOW that is one seriously hideously ugly cover. Holy crap.

Looks like someone's Elfwood picture.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 280: February 2001


part 5/7


Vs Sorcerers: Ooh. This column is getting in on the issue's theme for a change. And is twice as long as usual. This is interesting. Since Sorcerers are new creations as well, they have to figure out the tactics from scratch. And in the process they highlight several ways 3e differs from 2e. The most important one is that you will be more likely to fail when rolling your weaker saves against an opponent of similar level as you advance, whereas before you were always more likely to succeed. This makes save or suck spells a more viable way of taking down enemies than hit point attrition at higher level. Of course, he who lives by the save or suck dies by the save or suck, and with tons of spells but only one good save, sorcerers are both the most able to dish out spells like this repeatedly, and one of the classes most vulnerable to them. Counterspelling is also much easier when the enemy has a limited spell selection that you can learn in advance with a bit of research. The other advice, of closing fast so they can't use AoE attacks to devastate the party, grappling, and using silence to disrupt their spellcasting is really just as applicable to any spellcaster, including ones from previous editions. Really, your big advantage will likely be that you're part of a party, and one person can devote their action to locking them down while the others dish out the serious damage. So this is a definite improvement on previous instalments of this series, while also highlighting system quirks that the current crop of writers thinks are good, and encourage character building exploits and tactical play, but the subsequent ones will dislike and try to stamp out in late 3.5 and 4e. It's quite worthy of note for that.


The adventures of Volo: A third instalment of Cormyran treasures and geneaology here it seems. They'd like to hang on to this stuff, but it keeps on disappearing, with the records and stories becoming decidedly sketchy as well. I guess it's just a smaller scale version of the same process that resulted in the destruction of all those magical empires. And without that kind of stuff, the realms wouldn't be able to support a fraction of the adventuring population it does. So here's some very fallible legendry indeed, involving magical harps who's precise powers have been lost to the mists of time. Once again, this feels like casual musings Ed couldn't find a place for in any of his books, flitting between several, semi-connected subjects. I wonder what his notebooks look like, and if deciphering them gives editors headaches. Trying to find the connections between various articles he's done over the years is certainly starting to give me headaches. Not nearly as enjoyable as most of his output.


Class acts: Another slightly awkward prestige class this month in the Eldrich Master. This seems to be designed for sorcerers and bards who want to know lots more lower level spells at the cost of slowed advancement in higher level ones. A wizard could theoretically take this class as well, but it'd be rather suboptimal. Still, this is a massive improvement on earlier magical prestige classes, with full caster level advancement, and 1/3 spell level advancement meaning they won't fall too far behind. With their various extra abilities factored in, they might be able to just about hold their own against a straight primary caster at upper-mid levels, though it'd be touch and go. However, this prestige class can really be made to shine at epic levels. As so many of it's powers scale regularly, and are stacked on top of your regular spellcasting abilities, it's perfect for a 20th level sorcerer frustrated at their limitations on spells known. You effectively get the equivalent of 2-3 epic feats per level by advancing in this, plus full caster level and better skill points. You might even be able to compete with epic level wizards. Of course, Monte wouldn't have known this at the time, but hey, finding and exploiting these tricks is a big part of the fun of playing 3rd ed. So if you want to play one of these guys, have a little patience.


Invaders of the barrier peaks: Oh, S3, you have become infamous over the years. Not quite as much as the GDQ series or tomb of horrors, but if you want the playful, genre bending side of old school D&D, this is one you go to again and again. And it looks like James Jacobs is continuing his policy of tying his new monsters into established places, while also making them alien and scary. Well, since these ones are literally from another world, he has pretty free rein to make them as bizarre as he likes. And as his imagination has proven pretty fertile before, I'm quite keen to see what he does with this theme.

Bonetrees destroy and consume your bones while leaving the surrounding tissues unharmed, and then use the bone to create armor and quills to deal with any still mobile companions to their victims. That's a pretty inventive bit of body horror. If D&D was a more realistic system then the harm would be rather more permanently crippling than a bit of Con damage. I can definitely see an awesomely gruesome movie being made out of these.

Ragewings are scavengers that drive other creatures into frenzies, and then feed on the losing side, whichever that may be. This means they're one you might not be fighting directly, but will nevertheless want to take out. Still, since they don't have any stealth skills and look pretty bizarre, it shouldn't be too hard to spot them flitting around the edges of the battle.

Razortails look like something from the deep sea crossed with a displacer beast, and attack with their multiple barbed tails. They can also shoot beams of radiation, which certainly doesn't sound pretty. Just be thankful it still counts as heat damage for purpose of immunities.

Treeleg Stranglers look like mangrove trees, then drop on your head and eat you when you pass underneath. If that's not enough, they release bursts of radiation to weaken everyone else around. They make good use of environmental features, and take a lot of hacking to finish off for good. Nothing good lives in swamps, except maybe flumphs, and they don't have much hope in a fight against any of these guys. They more than fill my sadism count for this issue.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 280: February 2001


part 6/7


Dragonmirth makes both ancient history and brand new developments look silly. Nodwick gets elemental. Elemental evil! :jazz hands: Just can't get the budget for good jokes these days.


Forum: Julie Ratiff jumps on the statements about gender pronouns in the new edition. The company has become much more progressive in the past 10 years, and this is to be lauded. I guess we haven't seen any sexism wars since they turned the forum into a vehicle for free edition change advice. It's almost refreshing to see this old canard back again.

Anonymous writes in, as it sometimes does, to directly contradict the last letter complaining about WotC's politically correct agenda. Looks like these'll be flaring up again now the edition change is mostly over.

Allen Cohn is furious at the lack of compatibility with the old edition. It's as if microsoft released a new version of windows that all the old programs were incompatible with. Um, that is still standard with consoles, and I don't see many people complaining about upgrading those.

Juan Calle reminds us that most people have substantial neutral tendencies. Whether good or evil, they can have some contradictory traits and get on with people very different than them. Look to both reality and literature for examples.


PC Portraits: Since Sorcerers don't have to spend nearly as much time studying as wizards do, they have more time to work on their fashion accessories. And this lot truly are dungeonpunked up TO THE MAX!!!! The sheer amount of piercings, tattoos, and high maintenance hairstyles is rather amusing, and drives home again that these are not your father's wizards. They might have long beards and wear big hats, but even if they do, they'll do so with more style and verve than most wizards can manage. They're also freer to be lazy, since they don't have to work as hard for their power, as the fat elf demonstrates. This is quite amusing, even if I can't see myself creating a character that looks like these portraits. Ah, dungeonpunk. You did make yourself easy to laugh at.


Role models: Our painting advice this month is pretty familiar. Advice on how to handle your shading better, so it looks like a real thing scaled down? Yeah. we've done that before a few times. The trick of course, is layering and planing ahead. Go for the most significant colour first, then wait for it to dry before moving on to the finer details. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it. The tricky part comes in getting into those little nooks and crannies. In cases like that you may want to add the shading first and layer the colours on top of that, doing the easy bits afterwards. If those two bits of advice seem contradictory, then you have the right idea. You'll have to use your brain to figure out which takes priority in a given situation. Once again I am reminded how tiresome advice aimed at newbies can seem to everyone else.


The play's the thing: Robin does some more amusing and very specific advice, as he talks about naming your weapon. And completely misses the idea of giving it a woman's name. (what? It seems common for ships and guitars.) He does favour short, snappy, easy to remember ones though, which makes sense (especially if you're going to use them in battle cries ) He also favors a certain aggressiveness and descriptiveness in his naming, which may not suit warriors with a pretension towards combat as an art form like swashbucklers and samurai. This very straight presentation is punctured by a rather amusing John Kovalic illustration though, which is worth the price of entry. So while this is probably the weakest of his articles this month, it's not actively terrible, just doesn't catch as many tricks as the other ones. Funny that it would be the one in his regular column then. What's with that?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 280: February 2001


part 7/7


Sage advice: How does a tower shield work (It's a movable wall. It provides the same protection and drawbacks as having an actual bit of wall in front of you. This means it isn't that great in melee unless you make a phalanax and then use polearms to attack over the shield wall. And you'll need quite a few fighters to make squad level tactics like that viable. )

Does a tower shield protect you against area effect magic (Sometimes. Depends on size and direction. )

Do you get shield bonuses when flat-footed (yes)

How does the shield spell work (Like an infinite barrier that doesn't impede you. Look. Pretty pichures.)

So does the shield spell make you immune to attacks of opportunity (From anyone on the right side, yes. Watch out for enemy rogues.)

Does shield add to armour bonuses and so forth. (Yes, as per the usual typed stacking rules. A definite step up from the previous editions. )

Can you cast two shield spells simultaneously to block in both directions (no)

Can a hasted character cast two spells in a round (For the moment. Special offer, good until the next rules revision. Take advantage of it while it lasts.)

Can sorcerers learn spells from other spell lists (No. Development errata. Ignore that statement.)

Can you fight defensively while casting as spell (Is that an attack? Skip thinks not.)
If I cast a ray into melee, do I suffer the attack penalty (Oh yes. Once again, use the artillery before you close. )

Does a quickened spell still require all it's components (unless you use yet more metamagic feats. You'll have to be ridiculously high level to do that )

Do you have to make a roll for opposite spells to negate each other (no. Special exception. Those are the rewards of being prepared specifically.)

Can you share spell-like abilities with your familiar (No. T'aint part of your class features.)

How do you compare skills and decide which is better (Higher number good. Higher number always good.)

Do Con bonuses, toughness feats, etc add to your familiars hit points (As partially as anything else.)

Do you only get one extra attack per round when hasted (Yes. In many ways, it is a step down from previous editions. Still, at least you ain't losing a year from your life every time you use it. )

Half orcs charisma penalty makes them crap at intimidating. This ain't right. (Oh, just substitute strength. It works well enough for those froofy WoDites.)

Can you cast light on someones eyes (not anymore. Oh, aren't we mean.)

When do you use sense motive ( Use your judgement. We can't completely abstract social skills inside the game, however much we'd like to.)

How hard is it to hit a figment. How likely are they to realize something's up. (Pretty easy. Depends if it reacts properly or not. )

Do monks base and unarmed bonuses stack (Didn't Skip answer this just a couple of months ago. Skip hopes this isn't going to become the new multi vs dual classing or something. Skip'd better waste this sucka just to make sure word gets around, and people don't come to skip with this question again. )

Do monks have to use their unarmed bonus when making an unarmed attack (No. As with subdual, they can be deliberately incompetent if they like. )


Dungeoncraft: Ray decides that since it's a new edition, he's going to leave behind the campaign world he was working on before, and start a new one. And where that was a pretty straight fantasy world, this one is going to be very dungeonpunk, focussing on the fall of the dinosaurs and rise of humanity, in a world where the two uneasily coexist. Yup, sounds pretty punk anyway, although we have yet to find out where the dungeons come in. This definitely has my enthusiasm, as he's already talking about such radical ideas as leaving some of the classes out, and altering others to fit the environment. Thank god we have spontaneous spellcasters allowing us to leave out the wizards without messing up the whole D&D party dynamic now. This also shows why having two or three campaign worlds active at once is better for D&D than only one. If you only have one, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a generic one (and at this point, I don't think anyone's going to unseat the forgotten realms. ) Having several allows you to intentionally contrast them with one another and win a larger overall fanbase by keeping people's natural tendency to factionalise within a larger tent where they're still supporting D&D whichever world they favour. So I'm looking forward to seeing just how unusual he makes this new world.


What's new? Dixie gets cosmic power for the price of some ruined footwear. Now that's a bargain that must be too good to be true.


Robin Laws pretty much owns this issue, contributing two strong articles and an ok one. it's been a while since I could say an individual author dominated proceedings like this, so that's worth noting. He's not as prolific as Ed yet, but he is having quite an effect on their overall output. James Jacobs is also proving himself as worth watching in the future. And the fact that they're tackling a mostly new topic makes even the more mediocre articles a little more worthwhile. So not a bad issue at all, overall.

 

[stoloc]

necrothread is necro

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 281: March 2001


part 1/7


116 pages. Here comes the psionic issue. It's popularity may not have been the greatest ever, but it did have more than enough fans that it was near the top of things they wanted to revive for 3e. Course, they made some pretty substantial changes in response to the many people saying psionics was unbalanced before, in the process rendering them much closer to ordinary spellcasters. As with the sorcerer special, that makes it very unlikely the contents of this issue will be rehashed, because even if they do return to topics, they'll have to implement them in very different ways. Once again I can go into this issue feeling fairly positive about the outcome. Don't let me down.


Scan Quality: Excelent, unindexed.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: Unsurprisingly, the editorial tries to sell you on the new psionics system by talking down the old one. It was unbalanced and didn't interface well with the rest of the system. Which is entirely true. But it was also far more distinct from magic than the new one, able to do things magic couldn't while not doing quite a few things spells handled easily. And if you don't make new classes different from the current ones, there's little incentive to buy the books they're in. Balancing acts are hard work, and sometimes a game is more fun if you don't bother with them at all. I am left suspicious again. This sales pitch is all too familiar, and I can see the strings behind it.


Scale Mail: Our first two letters see Monte Cook and Tracey Hickman pitted directly against one-another, trying to sell the case for their playstyles to the general public. They're actually in agreement about far more things than they are conflicting, but that doesn't make a good headline, does it. And in the process it definitely makes for a good story. Who will you side with? The current new hotshot, or the one who created Dragonlance and Ravenloft. Both have fairly substantial fanbases, so this could get ugly.

We have another request to convert some more stuff from the old edition, particularly old races and the siege engine rules. Yeah, we could do with some decent mass combat and domain rules for 3e, couldn't we. No arguing there.

Similarly, some generic bits of setting, like taverns, castles, shop etc would be quite handy. They may well have something in the pipeline. Got to keep variety up in the content they give us.

And finally, we have a rather interesting elaboration on the rudiments of the dwarven language they gave us. With a sufficient vocabulary, you can construct compound words that fill all your other descriptive needs, except perhaps brevity.


PROfILES: James Wyatt is a pastor turned D&D writer. Another reminder that for all the accusations of satanicness, both the founders of D&D were Christians, and plenty of it's other important writers have been over the years as well. He had a tricky job getting into the company, as he tried to join up just as TSR went up, but persevered, played the freelancing field until he'd built up enough respect to get in. And now he has a whole bunch of projects in the works, including the second splatbook, the FR monster book, and something top secret (although not actually Top Secret) that he can't talk about yet. He's one of those people who delights in breaking stereotypes, and is very pleased by 3e's massive increases in flexibility. And he's another person who's best work is still to come. We'll be seeing him around these parts plenty more these next few years.


Up on a soapbox: Last month, we had a fairly clear delineation between the common and rare elements in people's games. This selection muddies the issue a bit. Exploration and Intrigue both get fairly high marks, while Economics gets a low one, but Politics is somewhere in the middle. Seems to me that is't pretty difficult to do politics without including elements of intrigue and economics as well. After all, if there's nothing to gain or lose, then you're just engaging in social sniping for the hell of it, which even vampires have reservations about. Once again, it shows that going out and seeking adventures in odd locations is still the core play experience, despite all the diversification that's taken place. An adventurer might settle down temporarily, but as long as there's life in the old dog, part of them'll still itch to leave it behind see what's over the next horizon. Of course, if the country you're in tries to restrict travel, that makes adventuring inherently political. But how many DM's put their players through highly realistic problems like that? So once again, Gary's ruminations have been the spur for a fairly interesting chain of thought. It's good to have things to debate about.

 

[(un)reason]

necrothread is necro

Not even slightly, considering that the longest it's ever been inactive in over 4 years is 3 days.