Are you buying Dragon Magic?

[johnnype]

I'm trying to figure out why I should buy this book. I saw a clip of the seminar the people at Wotc had at Gen Con about their upcoming releases. When it came time to discuss Dragon Magic they said something about (and I'm paraphrasing here) noticing how any book with either Dragon or Magic in the title sold well. As a result they decided to combine the two words and write a book about it.

I don't know about you guys but in my opinion that has to be the lamest excuse for a book I've ever heard. Hardly a selling point or something worth bragging about. It makes me wonder how important or at least useful the book can be if that is how it was conceived.

Now, to be fair, I've only paged through the book and read some comments on this an the WotC message boards so I can't really pass judgement just yet. that's why I'm turning to you. Are you buying it? Why or why not? Is it just another bunch of skills, feats and prestige classes? Haven't we had enough of dragons yet?

 

[Crothian]

Are you buying it?

Yes I did

Why or why not?

Because of the authers who wrote the book.

Is it just another bunch of skills, feats and prestige classes?

No, it has those but it has a lot more to it then just that. It has a lot of player options and campaign options that deal with a general theme of dragons.

Haven't we had enough of dragons yet?

No, in fact we've had very little on dragons.

 

[Jon Potter]

I like it a lot, but:

1) I have a half-dragon sorcerer in my campaign, and

2) I'm one of the oddballs who liked a Races of the Dragon. (As you might imagine, the two work really well together.)

YMMV.

 

[NiTessine]

Huh. I consider the title a bit lame, actually. I still bought it, though, but I'm a collector so I buy everything, anyway.

I do like the book, though. While I don't think the drakken are a very good idea and the dragonfire adept feels redundant, the book works as a whole. It embraces WotC's recent philosophy of giving something to everyone, and there are new psionic powers, new incarnum soulmelds, and even a new vestige. And most of the spells and feats and prestige classes are cool, too.

So yeah, while it is yet another collection of feats, prestige classes, and spells, it's a pretty good collection. And this is coming from a guy running a Planescape campaign without so much as a pseudodragon in it.

I think we won't be seeing so much dragon-oriented stuff for a while, now that the Year of the Dragon is drawing to a close and they'll need a new marketing gimmick (Year of the Dungeon? Year of the Pig?). At least most of the dragon stuff has been good, with the exception of Races of the Dragon, which I just plain disliked.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've ordered it from Amazon but haven't received it yet. (Amazon seems determined to lump it into a shipment with Cityscape, so I may not see the book for a while.)

Dragon-worshipping kobolds are important in my campaign and will be the big antagonists in a plot to wipe out the local gnomes, dwarves and humans, so having a new bag of draconic tricks is always welcome.

 

[Gold Roger]

There's a bunch of things that are first on my "to buy" list (for example Complete Mage), but it will sooner or later find its way into my collection.

I actually like books that offer lots of feats, spells and alternate class features. The one's from Dragon Magic seem to be very well done. Add in a bunch of interesting looking monster, PrC's and campaign advice and I'm game.

 

[diaglo]

i bought it last Friday. it sat in a pile of books that didn't get used this last session. i imagine it won't get used in the coming session either.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I might get it some time in the far future. Right now, I have little interest in anything "dragon"-themed.

 

[Felon]

This is the book where WotC shamelessly admits that the entire basis for its existence was that the words "Dragon" and "Magic" are the two most commonly-occurring words in their top-selling D&D products? Reminds of the movie version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". It's got the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, and Beatles music...how can't it be a hit?

The premise of the book is good enough--make dragons more of an active component in the world--because it deals with what makes a dragon a crashing bore in most campaigns: they don't do much of anything except sit around complacently on their hoards. But I don't think there's a lot of material to be drawn from that premise alone.

So no, I'm not planning to get it.

 

[megamania]

I am hoping Santa has me on his "good" list