Let's read the entire run

[Erik Mona]

To provide a bit of background on behind-the-scenes stuff going on at this point in the magazine's history, here are a few bits of information people may find interesting.

At this point the day-to-day operation of the magazine business had transitioned completely to Paizo, with some editorial coordination with Wizards of the Coast and a monthly "approval meeting" where WotC reps would look over every page of every issue, and make sure that the D&D brand was being represented well.

At this point in Paizo's history the company had already burned through its first publisher (Johnny L. Wilson), lost the Star Wars magazine license, and transitioned to a second office. Editorially speaking, a lot of stalwarts from the periodicals division had left the company, either through layoffs or by accepting offers from WotC to join their editorial staff. Dragon's editor at this time, Matthew Sernett, had replaced Chris Thomasson (who left for WotC), who had replaced Jesse Decker (who left for WotC). Matt himself would leave about two and a half issues later for (you guessed it) WotC.

Around this time Paizo brought in its second publisher in the form of Keith Strohm, a brand manager who had run D&D and (briefly) Pokemon for WotC, and who went back to the old TSR days in terms of editorial work. Although experimentation still moved forward with the general gaming magazine Undefeated (an attempt to replicate the formerly very successful TopDeck) and a brand-new edition of the venerable Amazing Stories (with the venerable Mr. Dave Gross at the helm), it was starting to become clear that Paizo would likely soon become "the Dragon and Dungeon Company," in Keith's words. As part of that, and in an effort to actually launch Amazing Stories and breathe some life into Undefeated), Keith initiated a plan whereby all of the company's magazines would conduct a "relaunch" (or an actual launch, in the form of Amazing Stories), drawing more attention to the titles and giving the editorial teams an excuse to shake things up.

Both magazines got a new logo, which notably dropped the "subliminal" 3 that had been there since the beginning of the edition. Both magazines were given a cleaner, more modern graphic design style.

#323 was the Dragon "relaunch" issue.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 324: October 2004


part 1/8


108 pages. So it's time for another price increase, to $6.99. Seems like they're coming more frequently these days. Funny that they tend to happen the issue AFTER a format change. Anyway, halloween has rolled around again, and that means undead and other monsters that are billed as scary, even if mechanically they're not as nasty as some others that aren't getting the same publicity. (maybe their next april issue can combine badgers, mushrooms and snakes, since all of those have truly terrifying D&D variants) Once again, let's see if there's anything new to say on this topic.


Scan Quality: Slightly blurry, oversaturated blacks, unindexed.


In this issue:


From the editor: So the D&D movie sucked. But somehow, it's still getting a sequel. (even if the two only share one character and no actual plot threads) It's vaguely baffling to me. I suppose there's several considerations beyond short term profit at work here. One is the sheer number of D&D based books and computer games that have become bestsellers. Surely someone ought to be able to crack converting it to the big screen. Another is that as long as D&D is around, any movies based on it will enjoy a fair amount of long tail sales, even if they're known to be crap, because gamers want to rubberneck. And finally, there's doing it as a loss leader to raise the profile of gaming as a whole. D&D flourished in the 80's thanks to the people spreading negative publicity about it as much as anything. A little more of that might be just what we need to fix the ageing demographics. Well, they've got to have hope, otherwise they wouldn't be working here.


First watch: Our generic D&D book this month is Libris Mortis. Undead continue to be one of the most popular adversary types, and so a splatbook focussing on them, both as adversaries and PC's seems likely to sell. New monsters, new spells, new prestige classes, all those crunchy jubblies they know work.

The forgotten realms reintroduces The Shining South for the new edition. High temperatures, high magic, and airships in the sky. They point out that Eberron did not originate these tropes. Ahh, the horrors of having to fill newbies in on the past.

Speaking of which, they also release 30 years of Adventure, their latest retrospective on the history of the game. They aren't making as big a deal about it as they did for the 25th anniversary, but they're still feeding off nostalgia quite a bit. I do wonder how well things like this actually sell compared to new gamebooks. Do they get into shops that the actual rulebooks don't?

Also on the nostalgia trip, we get an odd situation where the UK is getting DVD's of old kids shows before the US. He-man and the D&D cartoon are both getting these first for a change. Bloody region coding. It really has no place in the modern world where you can order stuff from any country easily. This stuff really irritates me.

They also decide that computer games are now within their remit, promoting Dundjinni, a map making program. Another thing that's useful, but hardly essential, as they point out that drawing stuff by hand still works just fine.

In addition, along with the usual previews on what's next in Dungeon, they add Amazing Stories to the roster. Once again they try and relaunch it, make it relevant to a modern audience by putting hot celebrities on the cover. Unfortunately, this is going to prove about as effective as your granddad trying to rap. Sigh.

 

[(un)reason]

Although experimentation still moved forward with the general gaming magazine Undefeated (an attempt to replicate the formerly very successful TopDeck) and a brand-new edition of the venerable Amazing Stories (with the venerable Mr. Dave Gross at the helm), it was starting to become clear that Paizo would likely soon become "the Dragon and Dungeon Company,"

Of course, if Paizo had managed financial success with their non D&D magazines, it wouldn't have been as critical to produce Pathfinder when the licences were pulled. It's very interesting to wonder what else would have gone differently if they had done better.

 

[LordVyreth]

From the editor: So the D&D movie sucked. But somehow, it's still getting a sequel. (even if the two only share one character and no actual plot threads) It's vaguely baffling to me. I suppose there's several considerations beyond short term profit at work here. One is the sheer number of D&D based books and computer games that have become bestsellers. Surely someone ought to be able to crack converting it to the big screen. Another is that as long as D&D is around, any movies based on it will enjoy a fair amount of long tail sales, even if they're known to be crap, because gamers want to rubberneck. And finally, there's doing it as a loss leader to raise the profile of gaming as a whole. D&D flourished in the 80's thanks to the people spreading negative publicity about it as much as anything. A little more of that might be just what we need to fix the ageing demographics. Well, they've got to have hope, otherwise they wouldn't be working here.

Also, the D&D movie sequel was a direct to DVD release. I'm not sure how these things are considered in the UK, but America treats direct DVD movies as a wasteland, where interminable series go to die. This was probably less about hope or raising the profile of gaming, and more about getting a bit more of a profit out of the whole concept. The budget was probably MUCH lower for the sequel, for one thing. That being said, I'm sure the people tasked with making the movie probably tried to do the best they could with limited resources.

 

[Hussar]

Yay. After following this thread since the outset, we finally get back to the point where I started subscribing again.

I have to admit, I LOVED Dragon for the next few years, to the point of getting an overseas subscription. Great stuff.

Hats off to Erik Mona and Co. who all did a great job with the magazines.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 324: October 2004


part 2/8


Scale Mail: We start off with a goofy request for a swimsuit issue. Issue 144 sorta does what you want. To be honest, they're closer to doing it than they were in the 90's. But it'll still take a fair bit of fan support to get off the ground. Send in your, err, sample artwork now!

Completely unsurprisingly after last issue, we have a complaint that they're putting too many blatant tie-ins and shill pieces again. We're already customers, you do not need to push it in our faces like you're desperate, and find it off-putting. As long as they're owned by WotC, there's not much they can do about that.

In contrast, we get a short letter from someone who thinks 3.5 is a substantial improvement over 3.0, and people are right to stick with WotC through the years.

Flipping back to the negative, we have someone who is seriously cynical about the relaunch, and wishes they'd cover older editions as well. They say as long as the majority of people play the most recent edition, they're going to stick with that. They're going to have to eat those words, 10 years later.

The huge map in issue 322 gets praised. Great, another cool feature I didn't get to see. :sigh:

And finally, we have another request for Chromatic Dragon PC progressions. Probably next birthday, given their current leadup times. Oh well, 8 months will seem far shorter for me than people waiting at the time.


Player initiative: This column looks at girls in gaming again. Despite the proportion of female roleplayers remaining fairly low, there are more games aimed at a female market now, and they're getting more attention in mainstream media. And of course, they're forming relationships. They detail two geeky weddings, complete with photos, which is very amusing. Life goes on, and people raised on RPG's and video games show few signs of abandoning them as an entertainment form as adults. And if they have substantial amounts of purchasing power to make big statements of their fandom like this, that's definitely a positive sign for the future. So it looks like this column does have interesting things to say about gaming that aren't just self-promotion after all. Knowing where we are as a hobby isn't just about what's being released this month. It's about who we've become as people, and a society. (and if you don't understand that, how can you hope to sell successfully to us) )


Under command: Time for a good old round of power escalation here, as they release a set of monsters that can beat 100 point warbands singlehandedly, and give you the option for 200 point games as a result. Now you can incorporate things like Vrocks, Erinyes and (medium sized) Elementals into your team. Which still means you're only seeing the mid level monsters, not really impressive guys like pit fiends, great wyrm red dragons or the tarrasque. Maybe next year, if people keep on buying the game and the minis. There's a lot of D&D monsters in the books, and they could gradually add new figures for years to come without hitting diminishing returns if they pace it right. Just got to make sure you mix up the themes and power levels from one pack to the next. I wonder what's next on their agenda.


Silicon sorcery: This month's computer game conversion is the Rune Magic system from Gothic II. This is basically an enhanced version of D&D scroll creation, encoding spells into one-shot symbols that can be put on any object and used by anyone, rather than being limited to the appropriate class and anyone who stacks up on Use Magic Device. Which also means they're slightly more expensive to make, but I suppose that's an appropriate balancing factor under the 3.5 rules. (as well as the greater possibility of your enemies stealing your stuff and turning it against you. ) Since you can encode pretty much any spell you know, the tricks you can get up too with this are limited only by your imagination. I can definitely see the value in buying this one, as it'll let you give appropriate spell-like abilities to each member of your party to maximise their effectiveness. Form factor and accessibility does make a real difference, and sacrificing a few xp in the short term will let you earn more faster in the long term.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 324: October 2004


part 3/8


A novel approach: American Gods! That's a pretty cool one to see covered, especially in light of the recent TV show announcement. And since gods generally have some pretty nifty tricks and gear, even if they're weak ones with not many worshippers left, there's plenty here to convert. From the prosaic stuff like Chernobog's warhammer, which is only magically enhanced at night, to weird tricks like a lapel pin that turns into a tree, there's some neat stuff here, most of which is not combat focussed for a change. Like many of the computer game conversions, this is a cut above because it doesn't stick to their usual rules, which gives it far more value than backconversions of their own games and novels. It's just a shame that the nature of the nature of these columns means they can't mine short story collections, which can have even more concentrated amounts of awesome to draw inspiration from. Then they could really get a ton of mind-blowing stuff from Neil's work.


Zogonia faces the dread snow golem. Beware it's chilling touch. Nodwick faces the paranoia of his own party. If they kill him, they're doomed. Dork tower faces whatever was in the randomised mini's set. That really isn't a good way to generate a challenge.


The shadow over D&D: H.P Lovecraft has been a perennial good seller all through the lifetime of D&D. It's not at all surprising that ideas from his works have bled through into D&D. Indeed, the very first new monster in the magazine, mindflayers, have a fairly strong cosmic horror vibe if used correctly. And it's even less surprising that James Jacobs is hugely influenced by his works, looking at the monsters he's written for the magazine over the years. What's also interesting is the parallels between the mythos and the D20 licence. Instead of suing anyone who mentioned their creatures and backgrounds, they actively worked to build up a common set of references, which gave individual books more resonance, and encouraged people to seek out works by related authors to get the whole picture. Which both makes you better liked by your peers, and contributes to the longevity of your work. (there's tons of pulp writers and characters who are long forgotten and very hard to find these days, while new cthulhu stories keep on coming, and even if they aren't all great, they still add to the stature of his legend. ) Of course, D&D had it's issues with this, as the 1st edition Deities and Demigods showed, so it's not all free sharing. But with the old stories firmly public domain now, and Cthulhu D20 out, those problems seem to be nicely in the past. This is another look at the influences surrounding gaming that feels both refreshing and very welcome after the past few years. By talking more about where we came from, and giving newer readers a sense of history, they definitely help us help ourselves more than highly specific bits of pure crunch that actually constrain creativity when delivered in large amounts. Read it, grok it, add to it, make your literary ancestors proud.


Living nightmares: Directly following the last article, Keith Baker has definitely been taking influence from Lovecraft's Dreamlands in this one. Dal Quor is Eberron's plane of dreams, inhabited by all sorts of weird creatures that can make your nights pretty nightmarish. Fortunately, most of the time, that's all they can do, merely waking you up unsettled if they kill you in the dream. But there are some things that are all too real, and want to feed off you or manipulate you into doing things in the waking world. The most dangerous are those Quori who actually possess people, who can get at you in both worlds and do some real long-term mischief. This is another article that reminds us that Eberron manages to have everything and the kitchen sink and then some, yet still manages to have a flavour of it's own, and it's easy to incorporate at any point in your campaign, or just ignore as you choose. Sometimes the scariest things can be those that are inside your own mind, and that certainly applies to adventurers who are used to fighting things head-on.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 324: October 2004


part 4/8


Exorcising equipment: We've had plenty of helpings of undead related magical items over the years. Here's another helping of things to help you hunt them. Some are purely mundane but ingenious, such as blood thickeners to ruin a vampire's evening, or a reinforced weapon sheath that lets you switch from slashing to bludgeoning easily at no extra weight. Others are mildly supernatural, such as a holy candle that boosts your turning attempts, and little mites that can strip the flesh from dead things in rounds while ignoring living ones. All are cheap enough for you to buy and use in quantity after the first few levels. Similarly, they have some advice on how to get the most out of existing equipment like fire, mirrors and rotted meat, which seems pretty cogent. If you can't make the best use out of mundane tools, do you deserve to get the really cool magical goodies? I think I approve of this one.


Chilled to the bone: A helping of arctic monsters? We haven't had one of those this edition, so this might not be original, but comes as welcome. Let's see if they're appropriate to the month by being chilling in both senses rather than just one.

Black Ice Golems are infused with negative energy by gruesome sacrifices, letting them drain levels on top of their already inconvenient cold aura and immunity to most magic. You can outrun them, but you can't outclimb them, making getting away a dicey business as well. Combine that with Reach and a decent grapple score, and they can really generate the lockdown if given smart orders.

Icy Prisoners are undead created by drowning in freezing water. They lurk underneath the ice, and then break through and drag you under to join them forever. Sounds like a pretty dull unlife. At least these ones won't be able to take over the whole world with their spawn cascading, given their environmental restrictions.

Steaming Soldiers also died from the cold, but go the other way, venturing out into the world to feed off the heat of the living. They too spawn cascade, and their ability to screw with visibility makes them a pretty scary antagonist in groups. You wouldn't want to stumble across a whole converted village, that's for sure.

Winterlings are mischevious fae that like to cause avalanches, snowstorms, fog, and similar cold-based environmental ery to annoy travellers. With flight and very high hide scores, it'll be fairly tricky to have a straight-up fight with them. Muahaha. These lot all feel pretty iconic, which is a good thing, as it lets you get more than one use out of them before they get boring.


Get more bang for your bones: Before we get to the regular columns, we have another article that's basically a single idea stretched to just over a page. How do you get the most bang for your buck when casting animate dead, since you can only control a very limited number of them at once in 3e. The answer seems to be larger monsters with lots of multiple attacks. While they might lose intelligence and spell-like abilities, things like hydras, dragons and mariliths still retain the ability to chew through large amounts of lesser enemies in a single round. And if you add templates that boost their abilities without affecting their HD you can cheat a bit to add even more power. Now you just need to figure out how to kill them without ruining the bodies. I suppose since you can only have so many, you've got no incentive to stockpile, throwing waves of zombies at enemies and then raising their replacements as you go makes more sense than spending months gravedigging. A fairly amusing little bit of charop fun, good for both players and DM's.


The ecology of night hags: Ahh, hags. We had greenhags way back in issue 125, which touched on night hag mating habits a little. This does take a slightly different tack, making it surprisingly difficult for them to create offspring, or at least new night hags, as who could say what their children might become if they can't complete the ritual transformation described here. Still, that's probably for the best, since they are fairly powerful, and utterly selfish, with no trick too foul in their eternal struggles to get more larvae and dominate other creatures. Quite flavourful, and with plenty of ingenious tricks to help you make the most of their powers, this is a fairly good ecology, encouraging mobile scenarios full of tense negotiations, hit and run attacks, and similar evil fun. Should make for some good adventures.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 324: October 2004


part 5/8


Spellcraft: Another book of illusion spells, courtesy of a gnome illusionist. I thought we'd outgrown that since 3.5 arrived. Evidently not, as no less than Rich Burlew gives us a typically mischievous bit of history design. He's managed to make a whole university the suckers with this book.

Chalkboard is another handy cantrip for making your point better, via visual ornamentation. Keep finding uses for those 0 level spells, people. I guess teaching archmages have to keep on going back and relying on their low level spells to get through their day's classes.

Delusions of Grandeur makes you complacently overconfident and smug. Seems slightly better suited to enchantment than illusion, but there's always these edge cases, aren't there.

Phantom Foe manipulates the flanking rules in a very specific manner. You might have seen spells with visuals like this before, but the mechanics are new. Another sign of their greater attention to those kinds of details these days.

Sensory Deprivation is another one that stretches the limits of the illusion school. All senses removed? That's a bit powerful for a 3rd level spell. It may only have a short duration, but this seems like the kind of brutal battle ender they're moving away from now.

Shadowy Grappler is another one that removes all the fun ambiguity of general illusions, and just goes for a very specific effect. Curious business.

Soliptism is nothing like the ToM spell of 2e of the same name. Instead of imagining stuff into existence, this makes the victim believe nothing is real, again leaving them vulnerable to whatever you want to try, in a manner that will really frustrate their mates. This is an interesting collection, both in descriptive terms and in tracking the progression of rules trends.


Magic shop: This column also gives us a previously seen theme. items that are beneficial, but have a price or drawback attached to their powers. One that always makes for interesting play, whether the players accept the price of doing business, or look for some rules exploit that'll enable them to mitigate or bypass it. Either way, it increases their investment in the character and setting more than getting cool stuff for free.

Heironius's Mercy gives your basic healing others by transferring the damage to you trick. A problem, but definitely a surmountable one, thanks to other effects like a ring of regeneration.

The Ring of the Mystical Elite gives you impromptu specialisations, boosting the number of spells you can cast per day, but giving you a random different forbidden school each time you put it on. Once you get one you don't use much anyway, best to stick with it to get the most out of this.

The Skin of Kaletor is a poorly preserved bearskin that boosts your wild-shaping abilities, but inflicts a huge social penalty against anything with a sense of smell. You can only get so close to nature before it starts to mess you up. Balance in all things.

The Fool's Plate is both a shield and a serving tray, and can confuse both you and your opponent. Better buff up your will save so the joke is more likely to be on them then.

Shadakhar's Swift Wind are cheetah-print sandals that boost your speed, but reduce your dexterity due to constantly being on edge. Well, with a tacky fashion statement like that, I'm not surprised it eats at your confidence

The Mantle of the Winter Witch gives you cold resistance and fire vulnerability as if you have the subtype. Better hope your wizard isn't so enamoured by the cool new force and sonic spells to forget to put fireball in their spellbook then.

Agustinius's Folly lets you give inspiring speeches, but has your basic 10% chance to backfire, and do the opposite of what it was intended too. Every performer chokes sometimes. You've just got to figure out how to survive it and try again.

The Mask of Fury requires you to smear your blood on it to activate it's powers. If you aren't already bleeding, this'll hurt a little bit. If you are, go right ahead and Rage, as you've paid your dues.

The Hammer of Skill gets more annoyed with you each time you miss, subtracting from your further chances to hit, but adding to your damage if you do connect. This either forces you to shape up fast, or it'll rapidly become too unwieldy to use at all. Definitely sounds like a frustrating one to have in the backpack.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 324: October 2004


part 6/8


Heroic feats: This one also returns to a previous topic, that of feats that represent inherent traits from birth, that are slightly more powerful than other feats, but balanced by the fact that you can only take them at 1st level, which means unless you load up on Flaws or find some other cheaty exploit, you'll only ever have one. Funnily enough, most of these aren't actually specific to a particular race, instead being things like unusual fatness or thinness for your race, acute senses, or minor innate magical abilities that make sense for anyone. It's all pretty basic, and I must admit I find it a bit grating that only 2 issues into the new direction, they're already filling up the regular columns with tons of rehashed topics.


Gaining prestige: We've had several prestige classes already that are focussed around hunting a particular monster. Here we get the generic version. The Sworn Slayer, a 5 level class for those of you who feel Ranger isn't letting you slaughter your nemeses fast enough. At 5th level, you'll have an extra +8 to damage and skill checks against them, and +4 to saving throws to resist their powers, plus full BAB progression as normal. As usual with these sorts of things, whether it'll be worth specialising to that degree is very dependent indeed on the campaign and DM. But since they're a primary fighter sort that's pretty lacking in noncombat powers, I'm not that enthusiastic about taking it. You may win the battles, but you'll lack the tools to really engineer an extinction level event and finish the war. Maybe you can use your buffed bluff and gather information to infiltrate and trick them into destroying themselves, which would be pleasingly ironic.


Winning races: Grippli! There's an old race that well deserves a PC writeup. Indeed, they did get one last edition in issue 262, along with a load of other little races. As there, despite not being stupid, they aren't particularly technologically minded, and this is represented by automatic illiteracy despite class choice. As small creatures, they gain the usual bonuses to stealth and more besides, which is further enhanced by their froglike bonuses to climbing and jumping. They may not be the fastest on level ground, but in trees or mountainous terrain, they can handily outmaneuver their enemy and pepper them with missile weapons. in addition, they're mildly resistant to poison, and gain attack & AC bonuses against vermin, which were not in their old writeup, and makes them seem more similar to dwarves and gnomes. So this isn't the most faithful of conversions, but is interesting to see nonetheless. They can indeed have a valuable position in your team if they use their natural talents wisely.