Dragon #323 came in today.

[thalmin]

Dragon #323 arrived on Wednesday. No specific theme this time, but this has the new format. Layout is now 3 columns, like the new Dungeon. Here are the contents:

Features:

Samurai vs Knight by John Clements. One fought for honor, wore cool armor, wielded finely wrought weapons, and struck fear into the hearts of those who opposed him. Oh wait, so did the other one. Find out who would win in this historical deathmatch! John looks at the scenario, the armor, the shield, the weapons, and the swordsmanship. Then he makes some educated guesses.

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone by Wesley Schneider. Hollywood talent and epic storytelling unite to redefine the Realms. Check out never before seen images and an exclusive interview with R.A. Salvatore. Mostly about the Xbox and PS2 game (5 1/3 pages), Demon Stone is a real-time game where you play a 3-character party all at once. Two full page-columns are devoted to Salvatore's part in the game, with some of his comments.

Seven Deadly Domains Spells For Sinners by Hal Maclean. Greed, envy, gluttony, sloth, lust, pride, wrath - the seven deadly sins presented as cleric domains, including new spells. Gives the granted powers and nine domain spells for each sin, including 4 brand new spells (Sticky Fingers, Rhino's Rush, Treasure Scent, and Swallow). A sidebar lists which gods from the Core, Eberron, or Forgotten Realms gods might offer each of these domains.

See No Evil Alternatives to the Detect Evil Spells by Michael Tresca. What if your paladin couldn't detect evil? What if nobody could? Check out the spells that give you the new options in games that blur the line between black and white. New spells include Detect Attitude, Detect Guilt, Detect Heresy, and Detect Violence.

Table Talk

From the Editor Dragon Unleashed Unleash the wyrm! Matt welcomes you to Dragon's new format.

First Watch Preview, Notes, and News For Gamers highlights a few new products, not all from WotC.

Scale Mail

Player Initiative The Scoop on Gamer Life Info on GenCon and the RPGA.

Under Command Command and Control by Mike Mearls. About commanders in the D&D Miniatures Game.

A Novel Approach Secret of the Spiritkeeper by Matt Forbeck. About the new kid-friendly book line.

Silicon Sorcery Final Fantasy by Wesley Schneider. Big. Yellow. Different. Final Fantasy's chocobo comes to D&D, with stats.

Comics Zogonia, Nodwick, and Dork Tower.


Familiars

Ecology The Ecology of Chokers Learn the secrets of the choker. by Eric Cagle

Spellcraft Force Spells Use the force, Luke! New force spells. New spells include Chain Missile, Emerald Planes, Force Chest, Force Ram, Mage Armor, Mass, Shard Storm, Tenser's Floating Disk Greater (this one you can ride!) by C. Wesley Clough

Gaining Prestige The Spirit Keeper Call on a spirit to guide you with the Spirit Keeper prestige class. by Monte Lin

The Magic Shop Treasures of the Dwarven Holds Magic items include Armor of Thror, Breastplate of Hardiness, Gauntlets of Bashing, Mug of Clear-Headedness, Ring of Spelunking, Statuette of All-Father. by Richard Farrese

Heroic Feats Mastery of the Sand and Seas New feats to survive both sand and tide. All are General feats: Desertborn, Natural Dowser, Pirate Luck, Polyglot, Sandstep, Savvy Swimmer, Shipborn, and Sailor Will. by Dean Poisso

Winning Races Cyclopeans Know the future and fight the past as a cyclopean. A new PC race. by Eric Cagle

Class Acts Tips and tricks for your favorite class. Covers The Thane (a fighter variant), Heed Your Calling for clerics, Specialst Familiars for wizards, Wilderness Rogues for the rogue, Civilized Barbarians for barbarians, Teach Your Old Companion New Tricks for the druid, Beyond Blood for the sorcerer, Gear For Greeners for the ranger, Not You Father's Do-Gooder for the paladin, School of Hard Knocks for the monk, and Instruments of the Masters for the bard. by Paul Leach, Mike McArtor and F. Wesley Schneider

Player Tips Give Your Character Culture Define your character with culture. by Paul Connolly

Adventurer Tips No Rogue? No Problem! Surviving without a rogue in the party. by Joshua Cole

Sage Advice answers questions about fighting with multiple weapons and unarmed strikes. by Andy Collins

Coup de Grace Bringing a D&D Book to Life The design, development, and editing of an rpg book. by Ed Stark

Bonus Section

Dungeons and Dragons Buyer's Guide A look at the August, September, October, November, and December rpg releases.

 

[thalmin]

The Preview for Dragon #234:

The Shadows Over D&D H.P. Lovecraft's creations have been creeping into D&D for decades. Find out which of your favorite monsters sprang from the mind of the master of supernatural horror.

Living Nightmares Keith Baker, creator of Eberron, describes nightmarish monsters from Eberron's realm of dreams. Sleep tight.

Exorcising Equipment There's more to keeping the dead down than wooden stakes and holy water. Find out what you need to bring next time you try tomb robbing.

Building a Better Zombie Learn what every necromancer knows by heart. Find out what monsters you should kill to get the best undead minions.

A Chill In The Bones Take comfort from fears of these chilling creatures by reading the secrets of these cold-based monsters.

A Novel Approach: American Gods Neil Gaiman's novel of modern myth provides inspiration for D&D games.

Plus! The Ecology of the Nighthag, Spellcraft: Illusion Spells, The Magic Shop: Cursed Items, Winning Races: Grippli, Gaining Prestige: Sworn Slayer, Player Tips, Adventure Tricks, Class Acts, and more.

 

[Krug]

Hmm looks like lotsa crunch..

 

[MerricB]

Coup de Grace Bringing a D&D Book to Life[/COLOR] The design, development, and editing of an rpg book. by Ed Stark

That's an article I've been waiting to see! Fantastic!

Urrgggghhhh.... how long is it before this issue arrives in Ballarat?

Cheers!

 

[Dark Jezter]

Samurai vs Knight by John Clements. One fought for honor, wore cool armor, wielded finely wrought weapons, and struck fear into the hearts of those who opposed him. Oh wait, so did the other one. Find out who would win in this historical deathmatch! John looks at the scenario, the armor, the shield, the weapons, and the swordsmanship. Then he makes some educated guesses.

Bah. It's so obvious that the Death Star would win.

 

[demiurge1138]

So Issue 324 has Lovecraftian monsters and more quori? Sold.

Although "Samurai vs. Knight" sounds kinda goofy, if done well (I'm thinking like the history of warfare like in Dragon 310) it might be interesting. Overall a good-sounding issue.

Demiurge out.

 

[Zulithe]

Chocobos? Haha, this I gotta see I'm surprised they got the rights to feature them (I assume some sort of rights would be necessary?)

 

[frankthedm]

Chocobos? Haha, this I gotta see I'm surprised they got the rights to feature them (I assume some sort of rights would be necessary?)

I just derived stats from the axebeak

As a mount, not having the quadraped bonus on carrying capacity hurts.

Desert warbird
Large animal
Hit Dice: 3d8+9 (22 hp)
Initiative: +3 (Dex)
Speed: 60 ft
AC: 14 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +2 natural)
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+9
Attack: bite +5 melee,
Full attack: bite +5 melee, 2 claws +0 melee.
Damage: bite 2d6+4, Claw 1d4+2
Face/Reach: 10 ft / 5ft
Special Qualities: low-light vision [orc strain: scent]
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +1
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 16, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 10, Cha 11
Skills: Listen +3, Spot +3
Feats: Endurance, Run or [orc strain Endurance, Die hard ]
Climate/Terrain: arid to temperate desert
Organization: Solitary, pair, or flock (3-6)
Challenge Rating: 2
Treasure: None (eggs are worth 50-80 gp each)
Alignment: Always neutral
Advancement: 4-5 HD (Large); 6-9 HD (Huge)

The Desert Warbird is a mount bred from an ancient species thought to have gone extinct ages prior. It is a flightless, omnivorous bird that resembles a 8-foot tall ostrich. Like its ancestor it has a strong, thick, flexible neck and sharp beak.

The immense head and body is covered in dense feathers with a lighter underbelly and tail. The long neck and legs are covered in dark scales . The feathers natural pigmentation is a bright yellow and remains this way if fed on grains, but this changes to assorted hues if fed primarily on fruits or to a dark red black if the creature is forced to feed on meat. The Desert Warbird makes a sharp screech “Warrrk!” that can be clearly heard up to one-half mile away.

Carrying Capacity: A light load for a Desert Warbird is up to 200 pounds; a medium load, 201–400 pounds; and a heavy load, 401–600 pounds. A Desert Warbird can pull 3000 pounds, provided it can be kept from biting through whatever is attaching the load to its body.

COMBAT
The Desert Warbird attacks by biting with its beak and kicking with its clawed feet. While trained to fight, the bird prefers to enter combat only when mounted and can be counted on to remain behind should it be dismounted prior to battle. However once in battle it is a natural instinct for this creature to be protective of weaker allies and shield them from stronger foes. As such they do not need to be trained to use the “Aid another” action or to interpose themselves between friend and foe.


Orc trained strain: Almost always dark black feathered from a diet of carrion, this strain is a very aggressive and will often run down its foes should an opponent flee. If hungry, annoyed or angry, this strain will attack until it or its prey is dead. The orcs do not train them to run as fast as other races but make up for that by beating them half to death and then training them to fight in such a condition [replace run feat with die hard].

Scent: From enduring generations of scarce food, their sense of smell has reawakened. This lets them sniff out small prey, underground edibles, and fleeing foes.

It is not unknown for these birds to turn on their riders and their rider’s allies and attack them without mercy. Non orcs receive a +4 circumstance bonus to wild empathy checks to have the orc strain warbird attack its rider.


3.5 work derived from the d20 D&D 3.0 conversion of the 1E AD&D Axebeak by Gary Gygax 1977

enworld.org/cc/converted/beast/axebeak.htm

 

[LeapingShark]

Is there alot of space devoted to all that stuff for "Class Acts"? Each of those 11 sections sounds like they could (should?) be fleshed out into multi-page features.

 

[thalmin]

Is there alot of space devoted to all that stuff for "Class Acts"? Each of those 11 sections sounds like they could (should?) be fleshed out into multi-page features.

Each takes one page.