Just got my Dragon Compendium - Pretty!

[Angel Tarragon]

I just learned that scifigenre.com has packed my order and it will be shipping shortly. T minus 2 weeks till I got my paws on this beauty!

 

[kilamanjaro]

Anyone feel up to doing a brief compare and contrast monk vs battle dancer?

I'm at work, so no books to compare them directly, but from memory:
Similar unarmed damage, AC bonus (but charisma based for the BD), and unarmored speed bonus
Battle Dancer gets the best BAB progression and good reflex saves only. No flurry of blows but can take two weapon fighting.
The Battle Dancer also gets some special abilities based on level and ranks in tumble.
I really like the Battle Dancer because it's an unarmed warrior that's actually going to be able to hit in combat.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Would the unarmed damage from the Battledancer stack with that of a Monk if you multiclass them?

 

[ruleslawyer]

Yay!!!! {Does happy dance!}

A DUNGEON Compendium would be one of my MUST HAVE's every year, along with the DRAGON Compendium.

I have to confess that if someone were to 3e-ify every single adventure ever published in Dungeon and reprint it in $40 books with four to six adventures per book, I'd buy every single one. Instead of a car. Or paying my rent.

The more bite-size adventures I can have, the better.

Seriously, Erik, if you do start that project, I have a request. (Probably won't get anywhere, but here goes.) One of the following would be great:

1) Campaign-setting-themed books. If you wanted to get REALLY fancy, combined Dungeon/Dragon content would be great. I'd buy a Dungeon/Dragon compendium themed around FR, Planescape (or 1e/3e extraplanar adventuring), Greyhawk, you name it. (I'm envisioning a larger, multifaceted version of the Incursion thing you guys did two or three years ago.)

2) Adventures by level. This'd be a killer for me. To date, the only high-level adventures I've enjoyed running, starting with an old favorite from Dungeon #10, have come from the pages of that magazine. A set of books compiling adventures grouped by level (Low/Mid/High, to use the current Dungeon grouping), would be AWESOME.

Just a thought.

 

[kilamanjaro]

Would the unarmed damage from the Battledancer stack with that of a Monk if you multiclass them?

It doesn't say, so I imagine that means no. The arguement could be made that their fighting styles are just too different. Or you could house rule it. I don't see that as being a strong combo. I'm pretty sure Battledancers have to be chaotic, so with the alignment change that combo would require you're going to lose a lot of your class abilities.

 

[Matchstick]

Yeah, I'd be all the heck over a Dungeon Compendium of any kind, but there are a lot of cool things that could be done with the format.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

It doesn't say, so I imagine that means no. The arguement could be made that their fighting styles are just too different. Or you could house rule it. I don't see that as being a strong combo. I'm pretty sure Battledancers have to be chaotic, so with the alignment change that combo would require you're going to lose a lot of your class abilities.

Right--the alignment restrictions keep this from being a combo in the RAW. One of my players was contemplating the chaotic variant of the Monk from Dragon a few issues back.

 

[Nikosandros]

I got my copy yesterday... overall a very good impression.

I'm a bit surprised by the take on the Mountebank. Not that I don't like the class, but I believe that Gary orginal idea had nothing to do with fiendish patrons.

 

[Stone Dog]

Okay, since I am a weak impulsive minded spendthrift I went out and bought the thing. I'll do a rough breakdown of the Monk vs Battle Dancer here.

Skills, no real difference.

As mentioned the BD's BAB is better and only Ref is good. The monk takes out mooks like nobody's business (flurry) where the BD does better against single opponents or small groups (Dance abilities).

AC and Unarmed Damage are the same, but as mentioned the big bonus is based on Cha for the BD.

Monks get bonus feats.

Dancers don't get evasion.

The monk is faster, but the BD can work around opponents better and can walk on water.

The BD gets the equivilant of Ki strikes later than the monk, but has more options as to what form it takes. Oh, and the BD's Ki (Dancer's Strike) fades after a while and needs refreshing.

The high level BD can fly. All the time.

I'm guessing that the Dance of the Vexing Snake allows the BD to avoid AoO pretty effectively, but it doesn't really seem clear.

It seems a pretty even trade off at the surface. I look forward to having both of them in play at the same time to see how they really match up.

Might be fun to run a small dungeon with 2 20th level characters ala X-Crawl and see who "wins."

 

[MulhorandSage]

That would be "Setting Saintly Standards," by Scott Bennie (who often posts at EN World). It's one of my all-time favorite Dragon articles.

Incidentally, Gary Holian has name-checked a couple of these beings in his death knight two-part opus from Dragon 290 and 291.

One of the death knights named in that article also appeared in "Lost Temple of Demogorgon," in Dungeon #120.

So yeah, that's a good one.

--Erik Mona

I'm glad it's still loved.

It'd be ironic though, that of all the work I've done, that this crude (by today's standards) article would be the one that endures the longest.