[Dragon] Dragon #307

[WayneLigon]

The big Westros Issue...

House Rules: Cultural Bias; variant reaction modifiers plus a discussion on the effect of house rules and their effect on the game.

Open Skies: The Silver Strike Guild. An organization that deals with freeing oppressed flying mounts. Half-Air Elemental template, Air Element template, Air Gensai race, Feats: Born In The Saddle, Guided Spell (Metamagic), and Transfer Spell (metamagic). A few new spells, the organization Code Of Conduct, and the organizational stat block.

Monsters in the Alley. Magical creatures that deal with thieves

Risen Dead II. Bodak, Ghoulish Creature, Ghastly Creature, Scion of Kyuss templates.

Heroes Of Cormyr. A number of prestige classes related to the Forest Kingdom. Battlepriest, Council Mage, Noble Adventurer, Moon Drover and Royal Scout.

The Haunted Bridge; Elminster's Guide to the Realms

The 3.5 Update. Discusses the whys and changes to Harm, Haste, Hold Person and Poly Other.

Silicon Sorcery: ShadowBane; two PC races from the game

Prestige Classes for cultists of Good monsters: unicorn, coatl, dryad, lillend

Westros! I didn't even read this too deeply, because it's Spoiler-rama and I have not read the last book yet.

The Saga of Westros: Brief history
The Ice Wall Campaign: NPC Stats, Ranger of the Night's Watch PRC.
The Royal Campaign: More NPC stats, discussion on how the setting differs from the generic D&D setting.
A Song of Dice and Fire: interview and bio for Martin
Large included poster map

DM Toolbox: how to deal with Monster PC's.

Power Plays: Move and Spell combos

Sage Advice: focus on class abilities

This issue also marks a return of 'Give Wayne A Blinding Headache' as he tries to decipher pink text on blue and white background.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The 3.5 Update. Discusses the whys and changes to Harm, Haste, Hold Person and Poly Other.

Could you say a bit more about this? I dunno when I'll ever see #307 in the UK

 

[Aitch Eye]

Harm is the only spell where the full write-up is given. It does 10 points of damage per caster level (to a maximum of 150), reduced to half by a successful Will save, but cannot bring the target's hit points to less than 1. It's not listed as being available to druids.

Hold person, etc., now work much like the "unconscious but dying" rules, as the subject gets a saving throw each round to end the effect.

Haste no longer grants an extra action. It increases movement by 30 feet, gives a +1 bonus to attacks, a + 1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves, and only allows an extra attack when using the full attack action.

Polymorph other and polymorph self have been replaced with polymorph and baneful polymorph.

Polymorph works on any willing creature touched, turning it into another creature of its type or of a selection of other types ("basically, living creatures"), granting the physical characteristics and extraordinary attack forms of the chosen creature, but otherwise none of its extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities. It lasts one minute per level.

Baneful polymorph affects unwilling subjects, and has a saving throw that gets a +4 bonus if the new form would be fatal. There are other "minor restrictions". It's permanent.

 

[Davelozzi]

I haven't looked at all 5 of them, but at least a few of the PrCs in the "Heroes of Cormyr" article seem pretty unbalanced to me. Particularly the Noble Adventurer - minimal requirements, fighter BAB & bonus feats every other level, 6 skill points per level, and two good saves - that's too good to resist for a fighter.

The Royal Scout has similar problems but wasn't quite as bad.

 

[JeffB]

Open Skies: The Silver Strike Guild. An organization that deals with freeing oppressed flying mounts....

Interesting submissions for articles in Dragon must be pretty scarce right now...

Rest of it sounds pretty decent.

 

[JoeBlank]

Westros! I didn't even read this too deeply, because it's Spoiler-rama and I have not read the last book yet.

Thanks for the advance info, WayneLigion.

Could someone who has finished A Storm of Swords review the Westeros section for spoilers and let the rest of us know how bad it is? I am about 2/3 of the way thru the book, so I may have to save this issue, along with the earlier excerpt from A Feast for Crows, until later.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Hold person, etc., now work much like the "unconscious but dying" rules, as the subject gets a saving throw each round to end the effect.

Haste no longer grants an extra action. It increases movement by 30 feet, gives a +1 bonus to attacks, a + 1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves, and only allows an extra attack when using the full attack action.


Polymorph works on any willing creature touched, turning it into another creature of its type or of a selection of other types ("basically, living creatures"), granting the physical characteristics and extraordinary attack forms of the chosen creature, but otherwise none of its extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like abilities. It lasts one minute per level.

Thanks for the additional information, Aitch!

I particularly like the sound of Hold Person working in this way. I wonder if they have extended it to other paralysation effects like Ghoul Touch too?

Regarding Haste, was there any confirmation or otherwise of the rumour that it now affects multiple targets (like Slow does)?

The polymorph sounds interesting... allowing the polymorphee to use the extraordinary attack forms of a creature makes sense - it is what I've planned for a house rule for some time and after all - I'd expect a snake-shape to be able to constrict etc!

Regards,

 

[JPL]

I haven't looked at all 5 of them, but at least a few of the PrCs in the "Heroes of Cormyr" article seem pretty unbalanced to me. Particularly the Noble Adventurer - minimal requirements, fighter BAB, 6 skill points per level, and two good saves - that's too good to resist for a fighter.

The Royal Scout has similar problems but wasn't quite as bad.

That's a shame...sounds like a good idea for a prestige class --- a more viable version of the aristocrat [although I suppose you could just plug in the Noble from Star Wars, too].

 

[Gez]

Noble adventurer -- does it gain a whole lot of bonus feats ?

 

[thundershot]

The polymorph sounds interesting... allowing the polymorphee to use the extraordinary attack forms of a creature makes sense - it is what I've planned for a house rule for some time and after all - I'd expect a snake-shape to be able to constrict etc!

Or a bat to have blindsight? It's about time they gave the (Ex) abilities like the updated Druid wildshape did.

I noticed that it said "creature touched"... I assume you can "touch yourself"? Also, if you wanted to take on a permanent new form, the PC could use baneful poly on himself, I presume?

Hmmm....


Chris