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<blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5968580" data-attributes="member: 27780"><p><strong><u>Dragon Issue 285: July 2001</u></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>part 2/7</p><p></p><p></p><p>PROfILES drops back to a single page, and returns to covering writers. David Noonan is a fairly recent arrival, but has already worn the writer, designer and editor hats on various projects. His most prestigious work to date is the new manual of the planes, but really, he's just part of the big team. And he seems to prefer it that way, bouncing ideas off the other people in the office, everyone being energized by everyone else. Seems like another one where they try and promote their big </p><p>new thing, and play up how much of a big happy family the current WotC team is, at least as long as you're working 12 hour days for them. Not our most interesting profile. I think this feature is on it's way out again, as they seem to be running out of current big names to cover. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Dork tower gets back to the shop. And the useless geeks. No wonder they avoided it for so long. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The secret life of halflings: In the attempt to make halflings more exciting, it's time to completely rewrite the setting stuff. Gone are the good old tolkien style shires full of stay-at-home gossipy folks, replaced by semi-nomadic commonwealths where social class is largely irrelevant. There are still a fair amount of holdovers from the old representation, including Roger Moore's gods, and their love of riddles, so this doesn't feel like a total departure, but it does feel like changing things for the sake of change, or quite possibly a craving for greater commercial success, or just to make sure their IP is distinct from Tolkien's. Who knows for sure. But in any case, it's quite telling that I can think of more negative reasons for them to change things around than I can positive ones. And I'm reminded of the old adage that the harder you try to appear modern, the more dated you'll seem in a few years time. So I'm not sold on this at all. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Little wizards: So yeah, in 3e, halflings make really good wizards. This wasn't planned, but an emergent property of the rules governing size changes, their ability modifiers, and facility at staying out of the way. Meanwhile elves actually make better rangers than wizards, despite their default favoured class. It's a good thing we have the CharOp board to examine this stuff, so next edition's classes and races can be much more focussed on one thing. Or maybe it isn't, as it destroys the organic feel of the game if all their features are focussed towards a single goal, leaving them definitely suboptimal at everything else, at which point you might as well have the restrictive class selections of earlier editions anyway. It's definitely one of the more thorny questions the design team has to deal with. So this shows how much they've learned already since 3e was released, and how much they'll change the game in response to it in the long run. They may not release new editions as quickly as M:tG, but the era of it being years between significant new books and rules revisions is now over. Mind you don't get left behind in the moves. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Four in darkness: Ah yes, a tie-in article for their new product. Not a great surprise. The creatures of elemental evil aren't THE most iconic or expanded upon of D&D's creations, but they retain their own reasonably solid fanbase, thanks to the classic module. (and persistent eaten by a grue meme) This is definitely worth maintaining and building upon. So Monte updates their stats for the new edition, and also gives us a template for corrupted elementals, and 8 new spells giving elementalists lots of options to grief you, whatever your resistances and weaknesses are. So lots of useful material here, and a little bit of advice on how to use it. Evil creatures don't generally get along, so you can play one off against another, and maybe get a little extra profit for yourself into the bargain. A no-nonsense, well balanced article, providing some updated old stuff, some new stuff and some advice on how to use it? Sounds like a pretty decent combo to me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(un)reason, post: 5968580, member: 27780"] [B][U]Dragon Issue 285: July 2001[/U][/B] part 2/7 PROfILES drops back to a single page, and returns to covering writers. David Noonan is a fairly recent arrival, but has already worn the writer, designer and editor hats on various projects. His most prestigious work to date is the new manual of the planes, but really, he's just part of the big team. And he seems to prefer it that way, bouncing ideas off the other people in the office, everyone being energized by everyone else. Seems like another one where they try and promote their big new thing, and play up how much of a big happy family the current WotC team is, at least as long as you're working 12 hour days for them. Not our most interesting profile. I think this feature is on it's way out again, as they seem to be running out of current big names to cover. Dork tower gets back to the shop. And the useless geeks. No wonder they avoided it for so long. The secret life of halflings: In the attempt to make halflings more exciting, it's time to completely rewrite the setting stuff. Gone are the good old tolkien style shires full of stay-at-home gossipy folks, replaced by semi-nomadic commonwealths where social class is largely irrelevant. There are still a fair amount of holdovers from the old representation, including Roger Moore's gods, and their love of riddles, so this doesn't feel like a total departure, but it does feel like changing things for the sake of change, or quite possibly a craving for greater commercial success, or just to make sure their IP is distinct from Tolkien's. Who knows for sure. But in any case, it's quite telling that I can think of more negative reasons for them to change things around than I can positive ones. And I'm reminded of the old adage that the harder you try to appear modern, the more dated you'll seem in a few years time. So I'm not sold on this at all. Little wizards: So yeah, in 3e, halflings make really good wizards. This wasn't planned, but an emergent property of the rules governing size changes, their ability modifiers, and facility at staying out of the way. Meanwhile elves actually make better rangers than wizards, despite their default favoured class. It's a good thing we have the CharOp board to examine this stuff, so next edition's classes and races can be much more focussed on one thing. Or maybe it isn't, as it destroys the organic feel of the game if all their features are focussed towards a single goal, leaving them definitely suboptimal at everything else, at which point you might as well have the restrictive class selections of earlier editions anyway. It's definitely one of the more thorny questions the design team has to deal with. So this shows how much they've learned already since 3e was released, and how much they'll change the game in response to it in the long run. They may not release new editions as quickly as M:tG, but the era of it being years between significant new books and rules revisions is now over. Mind you don't get left behind in the moves. Four in darkness: Ah yes, a tie-in article for their new product. Not a great surprise. The creatures of elemental evil aren't THE most iconic or expanded upon of D&D's creations, but they retain their own reasonably solid fanbase, thanks to the classic module. (and persistent eaten by a grue meme) This is definitely worth maintaining and building upon. So Monte updates their stats for the new edition, and also gives us a template for corrupted elementals, and 8 new spells giving elementalists lots of options to grief you, whatever your resistances and weaknesses are. So lots of useful material here, and a little bit of advice on how to use it. Evil creatures don't generally get along, so you can play one off against another, and maybe get a little extra profit for yourself into the bargain. A no-nonsense, well balanced article, providing some updated old stuff, some new stuff and some advice on how to use it? Sounds like a pretty decent combo to me. [/QUOTE]
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