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<blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5686632" data-attributes="member: 27780"><p><strong><u>Dragon Magazine Issue 247: May 1998</u></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>part 3/8</p><p></p><p></p><p>What the hell is a Baatezu? Well, the writing is certainly on the wall for those unpronounceable second edition fiend names. Soon they'll be back to being demonized and treated simply as boring big bads to kill. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Out of character: Peter delivers another solid but unexceptional bit of writing this month. Why did your character become an adventurer? Was he born to it, did he choose it, or was it thrust upon him unexpectedly. The most interesting ones are rarely the emotionless connectionless hyperoptimised monsters. Yeah, this is a familiar one, and all the literary examples given are very familiar ones as well. Definitely an article for the less experienced player, reminding us of the kind of things they do every few years. Meh. Let's move on. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Rakasta of mystara: Oh joy. As he did with lupins last year, Bruce Heard now provides a whole load of subbreeds of rakasta with different ability modifiers and class capabilities. Which means you can have whole teams of cat-men vs dog-men, and still have well differentiated parties. This is useful. As with the previous one, it wouldn't be hard to file off the cultural fluff and transplant them to other worlds. There aren't quite as many subbreeds here as the lupins got, but that's due to the nature of the source material. Instead, most of the variants are clearly derived from one breed of great cat or another. Of course, there are plenty of other cat-humanoid hybrids out there, and this makes for complicated relationships which aren't glossed over here. Suffice to say they aren't very fond of rakshasa, and will get rid of them terminally if they find out one is among them. Just as with lupins, the breeds get special abilities (including the obvious 9 lives one for domestic rakasta) that actually make them a good deal more varied than a standard race party, while also retaining a common set of strengths and weaknesses. (if anyone's going to be shooting for a 15 minute work day, it's a party containing one of these guys) So this is another article that could pretty much take over your game, given the popularity of cats and the amount of cool crunch contained within. Ed may win in terms of sheer quantity of writing, but Bruce manages a density of useful information that far exceeds his page count. I hope he still has a few more contributions to make to the magazine before the end. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The Taltos: Well well, Tom Moldvay's back. Ok, he wasn't gone as long as some of the old guard, but still, we haven't seen him since 1994, when he finished his series revamping the various varieties of undead. And here we see he's a fan of Steven Brust as well, giving a new class which is practically designed to replicate Vlad Taltos. Well, as a real jack of all trades with some distinctive elements, he's impossible to do in AD&D without cheating, as we saw in issue 220. So he gets to join Drizzt as a character so cool that he gets new rules so you can copy him. Even more interestingly, we get a full 7 kits for this new class, instantly giving you a whole bunch of different variants on the general principle of spirit-fighting jack of all trades, and removing my usual problem with introducing new classes at this point. I'm not sure how balanced they are, as their abilities are versatile in some ways, but limited in others compared to regular classes, but they are pretty intriguing and certainly worth investigating further. I wonder if the frequency of new classes is another thing that'll increase now they've got rid of the old TSR rules. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Heroes of cerilia: It's birthright's turn to get a load of Players Option support for their various classes and races, making them more distinctive, but also more twinkable. Elves get even better in in woodlands, halflings get to kick the ass of undead, dwarves can move silently underground, and humans get 5 different racial subtypes, each with their own buyable abilities. It is what it is, and you know by now I'm not interested, so I think this is a case where I shall skip lightly through this article and move on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(un)reason, post: 5686632, member: 27780"] [B][U]Dragon Magazine Issue 247: May 1998[/U][/B] part 3/8 What the hell is a Baatezu? Well, the writing is certainly on the wall for those unpronounceable second edition fiend names. Soon they'll be back to being demonized and treated simply as boring big bads to kill. Out of character: Peter delivers another solid but unexceptional bit of writing this month. Why did your character become an adventurer? Was he born to it, did he choose it, or was it thrust upon him unexpectedly. The most interesting ones are rarely the emotionless connectionless hyperoptimised monsters. Yeah, this is a familiar one, and all the literary examples given are very familiar ones as well. Definitely an article for the less experienced player, reminding us of the kind of things they do every few years. Meh. Let's move on. Rakasta of mystara: Oh joy. As he did with lupins last year, Bruce Heard now provides a whole load of subbreeds of rakasta with different ability modifiers and class capabilities. Which means you can have whole teams of cat-men vs dog-men, and still have well differentiated parties. This is useful. As with the previous one, it wouldn't be hard to file off the cultural fluff and transplant them to other worlds. There aren't quite as many subbreeds here as the lupins got, but that's due to the nature of the source material. Instead, most of the variants are clearly derived from one breed of great cat or another. Of course, there are plenty of other cat-humanoid hybrids out there, and this makes for complicated relationships which aren't glossed over here. Suffice to say they aren't very fond of rakshasa, and will get rid of them terminally if they find out one is among them. Just as with lupins, the breeds get special abilities (including the obvious 9 lives one for domestic rakasta) that actually make them a good deal more varied than a standard race party, while also retaining a common set of strengths and weaknesses. (if anyone's going to be shooting for a 15 minute work day, it's a party containing one of these guys) So this is another article that could pretty much take over your game, given the popularity of cats and the amount of cool crunch contained within. Ed may win in terms of sheer quantity of writing, but Bruce manages a density of useful information that far exceeds his page count. I hope he still has a few more contributions to make to the magazine before the end. The Taltos: Well well, Tom Moldvay's back. Ok, he wasn't gone as long as some of the old guard, but still, we haven't seen him since 1994, when he finished his series revamping the various varieties of undead. And here we see he's a fan of Steven Brust as well, giving a new class which is practically designed to replicate Vlad Taltos. Well, as a real jack of all trades with some distinctive elements, he's impossible to do in AD&D without cheating, as we saw in issue 220. So he gets to join Drizzt as a character so cool that he gets new rules so you can copy him. Even more interestingly, we get a full 7 kits for this new class, instantly giving you a whole bunch of different variants on the general principle of spirit-fighting jack of all trades, and removing my usual problem with introducing new classes at this point. I'm not sure how balanced they are, as their abilities are versatile in some ways, but limited in others compared to regular classes, but they are pretty intriguing and certainly worth investigating further. I wonder if the frequency of new classes is another thing that'll increase now they've got rid of the old TSR rules. Heroes of cerilia: It's birthright's turn to get a load of Players Option support for their various classes and races, making them more distinctive, but also more twinkable. Elves get even better in in woodlands, halflings get to kick the ass of undead, dwarves can move silently underground, and humans get 5 different racial subtypes, each with their own buyable abilities. It is what it is, and you know by now I'm not interested, so I think this is a case where I shall skip lightly through this article and move on. [/QUOTE]
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