Crothian
First Post
It is nice to sit back and do a review of a book I bought and just really liked. This one did not get sent to me nor did the writers request I review. This is for the fun of gaming and the desire to tell people of the things in the book I liked. The book’s name has gotten some odd reactions. It seems Wizards said the words Dragon and Magic are good for sales so they came up with the Title Dragon Magic that way. I have no idea if that is a reason people buy the book. I do know it was not the reason I bought it. I bought it for other words on the front cover: Owen K.C. Stephens and Rodney Thompson. They wrote the book and that was all I needed to know before I bought it.
Dragon Magic is one of the newer Wizards of the Coast books. This is the year of the Dragon according to them and thus we get a book called Dragon Magic. It is about one hundred and sixty pages long and hardcover. A book this size does not really need to be hardcover but it seems everything not a small module Wizards makes hard cover these days. I also think a thirty dollar price tag is a bit much. The art and lay out of the book are all well done. Wizards of the Coast has always had the resources to get good art and get a good layout. As I noted above the book is written by Owen K.C. Stephens and Rodney Thompson. I like their writing and I think these guys work well together.
Dragon Magic is a book that takes the themes and ideas of Dragons and brings it to everything. If one does not want lots of dragon inspired bits in their game, this book is not for you. The book is a bit of a tool kit. There are lots of gaming options in here for D&D. The book is not expected to be used all at once. OF the past few months I have made use of some of the options in here but this is far from a complete play test review.
The book starts with race variations. These are a lot like the new races found in Unearthed Arcana except instead of being environmentally themed, these are dragon themed. I was not a fan of the race variations in UA and I am not a fan of the ones here. So I imagine someone who liked those will also like these. I would have perfered seeing a more toolkit approach that shows how to take any race and make them fit to having Red Dragon or Silver Dragon inspired abilities. Instead they just have one example for many of the types of dragon. For example there are Fireblood dwarves. They have a history with Red Dragons and a few changes to their mechanics. They get a dodge bonus verse dragons instead of giants and gain fire resistance instead of their save bonus verse poison.
Next the book gives one Draconic Class Features. These are simple and small ways to alter the basic core classes to give them a little more dragon theme to them. I like these options because they are simple to do and usually mechanically sound. And it adds a nice bit of flavor to make the classes appear and feel more different. Rogues can sacrifice sneak attack to make a Dragon delay using his breath weapon. Druids can get Dragon aspects instead of Wildshape. There are different familiars, mounts, and animal companions. Barbarians and rogues can become immune to dragon fear. Instead of turning undead clerics and paladins can rebuke or command dragons.
The feats are pretty standard. I like that there are now plenty of different types of feats. There are ceremony feats that allow someone to give abilities to people for a short while. There is a divine feat and they are alternate uses for turning abilities. There are Draconic feats for races with dragonblood and most are for sorcerers. I do like that they build off of each other. And then there are Initiate feats. They grant a follower of a certain good new spells known and some ability like that. I like the feats and find the ones in here to be more interesting and more fun then the more purely mechanically ones in other books. I think books like Dragon Magic that have a tight theme really help in that regard.
There is one new base class in the book the Dragonfire Adept. The class is like a Warlock in that it has an ability it can do once a round as often as it likes. In this case it is a breath weapon. They also get Draconic Invocations and Breath effects to give them more powers and they have a nice range of abilities. I like this class better then the Warlock. I feel the powers of the class fit the theme much better and the background for the class seems more thought through. I have played both classes and they are very similar.
There are plenty of prestige classes in the book as well. Seven new prestige classes are presented here. The Diamond Dragon is for psionic characters. Dragon Descendant is for a monk of Chromatic dragon heritage. Dragon Lord is really easy to get into only requiring ranks in intimidate a base attack bonus. Hand of the Winged Masters is for characters with sneak attack, sudden strike, or a skirmish ability. I like that the book has support for things outside the core books in small ways like this. Pact-Bound Adept is cool class that takes advantage of dragon pacts that I will discuss later in this review. The class is for arcane casters. Swift Wing is for clerics though paladins could eventually gain access. Wyrm Wizard is of course for Wizards. The classes are very interesting and continue heavily on the dragon theme. It does seem like too much space these days is being given to prestige classes. It just makes me wonder how much is too much?
It took a while but we get to the actual magic part of Dragon Magic: the spells. There are spells for everyone in here. Well, almost everyone. Hexblade Shugenja, and Wu ?Jen get some support here in addition to the usual core rules classes. Only one spell seems really powerful and that is Arcane Spellsurge. It allows spells to be cast fast and it is a seventh level spell. It is powerful and a properly prepared caster can really be impressive with it. I also like that some pells now give little bonuses depending on who casts them. In here dragonblooded creatures can cast some spells faster or get a little better bonus from the spell, or a caster level increase. Other spells if one learns them they get cold resistance or bonus to a skill. I also really like the four Primal spells These four spells each are of the buff variety and if one has two or more cast on them they get an additional bonus. If one has all four on at once they get something else. I like that kind of spell synergy. The section also has new psionic abilities, the breath effects for the Dragon Fire Adept, Invocations for the Dragon Fire Adpet and the Warlock, Draconic Soulmelds for meldshapers from Magic of Incarnum, new Vestiges for Binders from Tome of Magic, Dragonpacts, magical items, and Legacy items. Dragonpacts are for arcane casters. They offer a spell slot to a dragon and in exchange get spell like abilities. I really like to see options from a lot of different books sup[ported here.
The last sections deal with monsters and ways to bring draconic elements into one’s campaign. There is a sidebar with some affiliations, an option presented in the Players Handbook 2 I believe. The book presents a lot of different options and support for many other things. It is book that I read through different bits for different characters. I really like the tight central theme of dragons and I think it works really well. The writers did a great job of not limiting themselves and really showing creativity in both the flavor and the mechanics of the game. For anyone that would like a little more dragon flair in their campaign this book is for them!!
Dragon Magic is one of the newer Wizards of the Coast books. This is the year of the Dragon according to them and thus we get a book called Dragon Magic. It is about one hundred and sixty pages long and hardcover. A book this size does not really need to be hardcover but it seems everything not a small module Wizards makes hard cover these days. I also think a thirty dollar price tag is a bit much. The art and lay out of the book are all well done. Wizards of the Coast has always had the resources to get good art and get a good layout. As I noted above the book is written by Owen K.C. Stephens and Rodney Thompson. I like their writing and I think these guys work well together.
Dragon Magic is a book that takes the themes and ideas of Dragons and brings it to everything. If one does not want lots of dragon inspired bits in their game, this book is not for you. The book is a bit of a tool kit. There are lots of gaming options in here for D&D. The book is not expected to be used all at once. OF the past few months I have made use of some of the options in here but this is far from a complete play test review.
The book starts with race variations. These are a lot like the new races found in Unearthed Arcana except instead of being environmentally themed, these are dragon themed. I was not a fan of the race variations in UA and I am not a fan of the ones here. So I imagine someone who liked those will also like these. I would have perfered seeing a more toolkit approach that shows how to take any race and make them fit to having Red Dragon or Silver Dragon inspired abilities. Instead they just have one example for many of the types of dragon. For example there are Fireblood dwarves. They have a history with Red Dragons and a few changes to their mechanics. They get a dodge bonus verse dragons instead of giants and gain fire resistance instead of their save bonus verse poison.
Next the book gives one Draconic Class Features. These are simple and small ways to alter the basic core classes to give them a little more dragon theme to them. I like these options because they are simple to do and usually mechanically sound. And it adds a nice bit of flavor to make the classes appear and feel more different. Rogues can sacrifice sneak attack to make a Dragon delay using his breath weapon. Druids can get Dragon aspects instead of Wildshape. There are different familiars, mounts, and animal companions. Barbarians and rogues can become immune to dragon fear. Instead of turning undead clerics and paladins can rebuke or command dragons.
The feats are pretty standard. I like that there are now plenty of different types of feats. There are ceremony feats that allow someone to give abilities to people for a short while. There is a divine feat and they are alternate uses for turning abilities. There are Draconic feats for races with dragonblood and most are for sorcerers. I do like that they build off of each other. And then there are Initiate feats. They grant a follower of a certain good new spells known and some ability like that. I like the feats and find the ones in here to be more interesting and more fun then the more purely mechanically ones in other books. I think books like Dragon Magic that have a tight theme really help in that regard.
There is one new base class in the book the Dragonfire Adept. The class is like a Warlock in that it has an ability it can do once a round as often as it likes. In this case it is a breath weapon. They also get Draconic Invocations and Breath effects to give them more powers and they have a nice range of abilities. I like this class better then the Warlock. I feel the powers of the class fit the theme much better and the background for the class seems more thought through. I have played both classes and they are very similar.
There are plenty of prestige classes in the book as well. Seven new prestige classes are presented here. The Diamond Dragon is for psionic characters. Dragon Descendant is for a monk of Chromatic dragon heritage. Dragon Lord is really easy to get into only requiring ranks in intimidate a base attack bonus. Hand of the Winged Masters is for characters with sneak attack, sudden strike, or a skirmish ability. I like that the book has support for things outside the core books in small ways like this. Pact-Bound Adept is cool class that takes advantage of dragon pacts that I will discuss later in this review. The class is for arcane casters. Swift Wing is for clerics though paladins could eventually gain access. Wyrm Wizard is of course for Wizards. The classes are very interesting and continue heavily on the dragon theme. It does seem like too much space these days is being given to prestige classes. It just makes me wonder how much is too much?
It took a while but we get to the actual magic part of Dragon Magic: the spells. There are spells for everyone in here. Well, almost everyone. Hexblade Shugenja, and Wu ?Jen get some support here in addition to the usual core rules classes. Only one spell seems really powerful and that is Arcane Spellsurge. It allows spells to be cast fast and it is a seventh level spell. It is powerful and a properly prepared caster can really be impressive with it. I also like that some pells now give little bonuses depending on who casts them. In here dragonblooded creatures can cast some spells faster or get a little better bonus from the spell, or a caster level increase. Other spells if one learns them they get cold resistance or bonus to a skill. I also really like the four Primal spells These four spells each are of the buff variety and if one has two or more cast on them they get an additional bonus. If one has all four on at once they get something else. I like that kind of spell synergy. The section also has new psionic abilities, the breath effects for the Dragon Fire Adept, Invocations for the Dragon Fire Adpet and the Warlock, Draconic Soulmelds for meldshapers from Magic of Incarnum, new Vestiges for Binders from Tome of Magic, Dragonpacts, magical items, and Legacy items. Dragonpacts are for arcane casters. They offer a spell slot to a dragon and in exchange get spell like abilities. I really like to see options from a lot of different books sup[ported here.
The last sections deal with monsters and ways to bring draconic elements into one’s campaign. There is a sidebar with some affiliations, an option presented in the Players Handbook 2 I believe. The book presents a lot of different options and support for many other things. It is book that I read through different bits for different characters. I really like the tight central theme of dragons and I think it works really well. The writers did a great job of not limiting themselves and really showing creativity in both the flavor and the mechanics of the game. For anyone that would like a little more dragon flair in their campaign this book is for them!!
