Dragon 331 has arrived
- Thread starter Glyfair
- Start date
Mouseferatu
Hero
eris404 said:Plus, holy cow, I really liked the article on polearms. I know what kind of character I'm playing next.
Thank you.
I've always felt that pole arms kinda got the shaft--pun only partly intended--in D&D. I mean, it's true that they were among the easiest weapons to make, and their basic use was easy to learn. OTOH, there were reasons beyond those why they were so commonly used, and a well-trained spear fighter was a terror. I wanted to do something that would make pole arms more attractive, and to inspire people to use them more frequently (and, to some extent, more as they were used historically and less as the Simple Weapon-wielder's alternative to the longsword
).That, and one of the characters in the longest-running campaign I ever DMed wielded a bec-de-corbin, and a bec is one of only two pole arms I actually own in my weapons collection, so I had to bring them back into the game.
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
diaglo said:
It's scary. Once again, something in common with diaglo. Now about that Dragon 331...
Let me also put in a word for themed issues. I really liked the development of a campaign idea in #329 and #330, with articles linking to each other and giving very different points of view on a topic (several interlinking topics, in #329, which I think will rank as one of the quality issues of Dragon for a long time to come).
#332 feels coherent in the same sense. I'm looking forward to what the writers bring in to the Dragon Below and kobold articles.
In contrast #331 doesn't seem to hang together and too many of the articles look as if they just missed submission for April. Beholder globe? Uses for a bedroll? An editorial about ninjas? edit: I may have been harsh earlier about pole arms. Without having read the article, it sounds as if its aims are laudable though I'm not convinced it can be shoehorned into D&D assumptions. It's not a good enough reason to buy the issue though.
I'll pass on this.
Can I make a request regarding the cover? Please, resist the art critics and title-fondlers (or maybe give them their richly detailed cover painting, text-free except for a mysterious arty logo - reprinted on the back of the mag) and bring back the dense cover text from about 2001 that actually gave me some idea of what was in the magazine. There is absolutely no reason that the cover can't communicate as much information on the issue as was given in Glyfair's last four paragraphs.
The current amount and content of text conveys no useful information or attraction to buy. Quite the opposite, it's sufficiently annoying to give me an aversion to looking at the otherwise excellent covers.
Well done on the commoner Class Act. In all seriousness (subject of course to submissions) I think a non-repeating Class Act each month on one of the less exposed classes would be a fine idea.
#332 feels coherent in the same sense. I'm looking forward to what the writers bring in to the Dragon Below and kobold articles.
In contrast #331 doesn't seem to hang together and too many of the articles look as if they just missed submission for April. Beholder globe? Uses for a bedroll? An editorial about ninjas? edit: I may have been harsh earlier about pole arms. Without having read the article, it sounds as if its aims are laudable though I'm not convinced it can be shoehorned into D&D assumptions. It's not a good enough reason to buy the issue though.
I'll pass on this.
Can I make a request regarding the cover? Please, resist the art critics and title-fondlers (or maybe give them their richly detailed cover painting, text-free except for a mysterious arty logo - reprinted on the back of the mag) and bring back the dense cover text from about 2001 that actually gave me some idea of what was in the magazine. There is absolutely no reason that the cover can't communicate as much information on the issue as was given in Glyfair's last four paragraphs.
The current amount and content of text conveys no useful information or attraction to buy. Quite the opposite, it's sufficiently annoying to give me an aversion to looking at the otherwise excellent covers.
Well done on the commoner Class Act. In all seriousness (subject of course to submissions) I think a non-repeating Class Act each month on one of the less exposed classes would be a fine idea.
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jasper
Rotten DM
Editorial - Only a Ninja can kill a Ninja I older than you but remember the ninja hordes of 80’s.
The Point of Pole Arms - liked it but I already allow you do some of stuff without the use of feats. Ex Unless the weapon is really long I allow you to threaten a 5 feet. But would have no problem with a dm using the article as written.
Alchemical Charms - Didn’t finish due to background print. But love the artwork with kid.
Fast, Furious and Fantastic - new magic vehicles. Includes the beholder globe, chariot of sustarre, smuggler's wagon, et. al. Nice idea article but some of stuff is laugh to me.YHMV (Your humor may vary).
Bedrolls, Bottles and Bells - additional uses for standard equipment (using a bed roll to smother flames, a wine bottle for quick "caltrops", etc). Good ideas if I wasn’t an old fart.
The Ecology of the Green Hag nice to include artwork.
Insidious Items - intentionally cursed items. Love this one great 1e goodness. I suggest icky nasty DMs add the ideas as curse item with normal description. Ex +2 cloak with ghost mantle curse after x days. Breathing Water curse added to ring after 10 uses.
I had no problem with contrast on most layouts, even when you had color background but good contrasting print. Or the opening page having a background and the rest of article having a border. However I did notice Erik Mona ran the range of plain white paper, multiple color boxes, full background first page follow by border, colored pages with great contrasting print, to background makes the print hard to read. Stay with this format. And keep alternating between theme issues and buffet issues.
The Point of Pole Arms - liked it but I already allow you do some of stuff without the use of feats. Ex Unless the weapon is really long I allow you to threaten a 5 feet. But would have no problem with a dm using the article as written.
Alchemical Charms - Didn’t finish due to background print. But love the artwork with kid.
Fast, Furious and Fantastic - new magic vehicles. Includes the beholder globe, chariot of sustarre, smuggler's wagon, et. al. Nice idea article but some of stuff is laugh to me.YHMV (Your humor may vary).
Bedrolls, Bottles and Bells - additional uses for standard equipment (using a bed roll to smother flames, a wine bottle for quick "caltrops", etc). Good ideas if I wasn’t an old fart.
The Ecology of the Green Hag nice to include artwork.
Insidious Items - intentionally cursed items. Love this one great 1e goodness. I suggest icky nasty DMs add the ideas as curse item with normal description. Ex +2 cloak with ghost mantle curse after x days. Breathing Water curse added to ring after 10 uses.
I had no problem with contrast on most layouts, even when you had color background but good contrasting print. Or the opening page having a background and the rest of article having a border. However I did notice Erik Mona ran the range of plain white paper, multiple color boxes, full background first page follow by border, colored pages with great contrasting print, to background makes the print hard to read. Stay with this format. And keep alternating between theme issues and buffet issues.
DungeonmasterCal
First Post
Most importantly, fix the shipping issues your printer has. I have yet to receive my subscription copy of #329, and had to have a replacement mailed to me. This has happened several times this year alone, and it's VERY frustrating.
As far as articles go, I could totally do without Forgotten Realms (Eberron, too, for that matter). I would like more articles like the one on polearms. In the past, Dragon had great articles on weapons from other cultures (my favorite being the one on Indian arms and armor--the number of which escapes me). Tie them into articles like the one done on adventuring in a Slavic setting. That remains one of my favorite 3.x articles, as does the one on adventuring in Sherwood Forest.
As far as anything else goes:
More crunch, such as spells, feats, magic items. I can make up my own fluff, and the tons of setting sourcebooks handle this well enough without forcing those settings on those of us who have no interest in them.
Variant and new base classes, like Dragon did way back in the day.
More psionic articles.
Short articles featuring skills and their uses.
I guess that'll do for now. Thanks for continuing to ask your readers what we want to see, Erik. It's the best thing you can do to insure a great future for the magazine!
As far as articles go, I could totally do without Forgotten Realms (Eberron, too, for that matter). I would like more articles like the one on polearms. In the past, Dragon had great articles on weapons from other cultures (my favorite being the one on Indian arms and armor--the number of which escapes me). Tie them into articles like the one done on adventuring in a Slavic setting. That remains one of my favorite 3.x articles, as does the one on adventuring in Sherwood Forest.
As far as anything else goes:
More crunch, such as spells, feats, magic items. I can make up my own fluff, and the tons of setting sourcebooks handle this well enough without forcing those settings on those of us who have no interest in them.
Variant and new base classes, like Dragon did way back in the day.
More psionic articles.
Short articles featuring skills and their uses.
I guess that'll do for now. Thanks for continuing to ask your readers what we want to see, Erik. It's the best thing you can do to insure a great future for the magazine!
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
More psionic articles would be a great thing.
Some alternative core class or even class acts would be slick. How about a Soul Knife PrC for exmaple or some thing along those lines?
Some alternative core class or even class acts would be slick. How about a Soul Knife PrC for exmaple or some thing along those lines?
eris404
Explorer
Mouseferatu said:Thank you.
Ah ha! I thought the name of the author looked familiar! Congratulations and good work!
Mouseferatu said:I've always felt that pole arms kinda got the shaft--pun only partly intended--in D&D. I mean, it's true that they were among the easiest weapons to make, and their basic use was easy to learn. OTOH, there were reasons beyond those why they were so commonly used, and a well-trained spear fighter was a terror. I wanted to do something that would make pole arms more attractive, and to inspire people to use them more frequently (and, to some extent, more as they were used historically and less as the Simple Weapon-wielder's alternative to the longsword
That, and one of the characters in the longest-running campaign I ever DMed wielded a bec-de-corbin, and a bec is one of only two pole arms I actually own in my weapons collection, so I had to bring them back into the game.
I really see your point. While reading the article, it occurred to me that I can't remember the last time someone in my group played a character with a polearm of any kind. That really got the wheels in my head turning and with the new feats, it just seemed like a really great idea for a character concept (or for one of my nasties in my new campaign
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
). That's what I buy Dragon for.BTW, is bec-de-corbin pronouced the way it looks? I'd hate to create a cool character only to embarrass myself by mispronoucing her weapon of choice.
