Dragon 376 - Creature Incarnations: Fell Taints

[Pseudonym]

Or 30somethings, for that matter.

I'm 36, and I instantly thought of the skit from Mr. Show.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

I agree. Particularly CdGing. It smells of someone trying to avoid misspelling a phrase by hiding it with an uncommon acronym.

Come on guys...this isn't texting or twitter. There isn't a character or word limit. It doesn't take that long to type out what you actually mean, so that a wider array of your audience actually understands what you are trying to communicate.

I was actually replying directly to Rechan's post, who I thought would - and who did - understand these acronyms. I should have put in a quote, since Shroomy swooped in before I finished my post.

However, I take your point. In future, I will not employ initialisms like AC or HP when I can write Armor Class or Hit Points, and I will never use Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis or Cha when I can use Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma instead.

 

[JoeGKushner]

No prelisted encounters?

"These creatures do not have mouths and do not ingest solid matter."

Too bad no one told the artist eh?

I'd prefer the art by the creatures as opposed to grouped up.

This would be espeically useful since... there is no description of the creatures. Or at least no description of the individual creatures that matches up to the art.... since you know, they have no mouths and yet do! And it's not like the article is really dense on text. It's very light. Less than a fluff piece outside of the stats.

And no skill checks to know anything about these new creatures? Sloppy.

Minor rants but seroiusly, what's the editor doing? Either put some descriptive text there or get some art that matches the little descriptive text there is. Making the game friendly and easy to use as possible shouldn't be a huge chore. If a new GM who doesn't have the MMII wants to run these things, what piece of art is going with which monster since many of them look nothing like the initial description?

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong or something or haven't read deep enough and those things are there but...

The one huge thumbs up? The lack of a solid bar at the top of the page. That bar there is still annoying and serves no purpose but at least it's not going to be the huge ink hog that the other ones have been.

 

[Rechan]

...you can perhaps see the problem when every instance of the word "taint" has an unfortunate double-meaning. That's what the creatures are called. That's ALSO what a part of your anatomy is called.

Yes, thank you for explaining the obvious. I hadn't gotten the joke until now.

Unless you're WotC and that's a job offer that pays better than my current job, I'm afraid I'll have to turn down that little game. It's not worth my time or effort, really, and it's not my job. It's theirs.

And I'm not talking about whose job it is.

I'm asking for a name that sounds better. It's really easy to complain. It's really easy to say "This is awful" without presenting an alternative that fits.

This thread is full of people saying "I love hte concept, hate the name". So I want to know what names will be used, or if you're going to suck it up and use the name itself.

 

[Asmor]

No prelisted encounters?

"These creatures do not have mouths and do not ingest solid matter."

Too bad no one told the artist eh?

I'd prefer the art by the creatures as opposed to grouped up.

This would be espeically useful since... there is no description of the creatures. Or at least no description of the individual creatures that matches up to the art.... since you know, they have no mouths and yet do! And it's not like the article is really dense on text. It's very light. Less than a fluff piece outside of the stats.

And no skill checks to know anything about these new creatures? Sloppy.

Minor rants but seroiusly, what's the editor doing? Either put some descriptive text there or get some art that matches the little descriptive text there is. Making the game friendly and easy to use as possible shouldn't be a huge chore. If a new GM who doesn't have the MMII wants to run these things, what piece of art is going with which monster since many of them look nothing like the initial description?

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong or something or haven't read deep enough and those things are there but...

The one huge thumbs up? The lack of a solid bar at the top of the page. That bar there is still annoying and serves no purpose but at least it's not going to be the huge ink hog that the other ones have been.

I actually really liked the artwork. I don't think it illustrates the creatures very well (In my mind's eye, I picture them all as floating masses of willowy tentacles, indistinguishable from one another), but I think it's really, really cool.

As for the knowledge checks, they're in the MM2. Creature Incarnations: Kobolds didn't have any knowledge checks, either, and I'm not going to bother looking for the other CI articles.

 

[Zaukrie]

I re-read the article, and it is too lite for a creature incarnation. Very little fluff was added to the MMII information. I wanted a lot more fluff.

I also agree that I like the pre-made encounters.

This creature incarnation seemed more like a MM entry than an article in Dragon.