Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 311: September 2003


part 5/9


Changing nature's design: Druids also get a whole load of variant classes with their own names. However, since the main class feature they have to exchange or concentrate focus for in these is their wild-shaping ability, I think they probably come off a little worse from the exchange than Clerics. Wild Reapers concentrate on the deadly side of nature, only able to transform into carrion feeders, but resistant to disease and able to turn undead. Wind Walkers gain flying and the ability to talk to air creatures, but their only transformation powers are into air elementals. Metal Masters gain skills with mines akin to dwarves, and a fair bit of damage reduction, but lose out the worst of all on flexibility. And Winter Wardens get to walk on ice, ignore cold, and use extra cold-based spells at the expense of only turning into arctic creatures. Since these slightly power down druids, while the previous ones slightly power up clerics, I think they put them on approximately equal footing. It's balance …. of a sort. Hey, a party of different sorts of customised CoDzillas is an entirely valid choice for a team if that's the way you want to play.


Musical Masters: Like Rogues last issue, Bards get the selection of 5 level prestige classes, once again rubbing in how formulaic this set of updates is. They don't get the general advice though, making this more limited than that one. I suppose given their flexibility, they ironically need multiclassing less than most other classes to achieve concepts and get into prestige classes, so advice on that isn't so important.

Worldspeakers are all about the Bardic language talents, gaining first the obvious power to speak any language, then adding talking to animals, plants, the elements and the dead. Since those are normally split between the wizard, cleric and druid spell lists, this might actually be a more optimal way of getting all of those than multiclassing and then going for mystic theurge. You'll certainly get more interesting class features, at any rate.

Mourners sing undead back to the sleep of death. As is often the case, this is a definite improvement mechanically on the 2e kit with the same schtick. Spellcasters continue to get cooler stuff than nonspellcasters, even the secondary ones.

Memory Smiths are dwarven bards who enchant items with their keen craftsmanship and magic singing. That's definitely a literary niche that's served better with a prestige class than standard wizard or sorcerer. They also get full BAB and spell progression, so you won't be sacrificing in battle effectiveness if you go into them either. Will you provide the next Sting or Glamdring to your group?

Battle Howlers are the obvious Bard/Barbarian hybrid, getting full BAB, bardic music and Rage progression, plus the ability to use bardic music while raging, which means they can be inspiring while kicking ass on the front line. This synergy definitely works better than the Rage Mage.

Green Whisperers are easy to get into, and get full dual progression in Bard and Druid Spells. This makes them a good intermediate step if you want to build a really twinky Fochlucan Lyricist with near full progression in both spell lists all the way up. Not that it'll be easy to make those skill requirements even so, but every little helps. If only one of the variant druids earlier swapped something out for Evasion, so you didn't have to spend two levels on rogue that really hurt your magical might.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 311: September 2003


part 6/9


Hee. Dead PC Portraits. Nodwick might not see the funny side. Once again, they make me miss dragonmirth, which reminded them every month not to take things too seriously.


Fiction: Guinevere's fate by Ben Bova. Orion's stories in the magazine come to an unsatisfying end with a piece that continues and builds on the previous instalments, but doesn't really conclude anything, which probably means he intended to write more, but never got round to it, or was put off by some policy change in the magazine. Are we going to see another editor switch sometime soon perhaps?

Anyway, as the title says, this is where we finally introduce Guinevere, and Arthur gets close to becoming high king. Which once again shows the liberties he's taking with the legend, as we've got a whole ton of stuff happening before we even get to the meat of the source material. And as usual, he wins the battles, but is left unsure if he's winning the war or not, given all the Creator politics on both sides. So this is pretty decent as a middle to a larger story, but crap as an ending, leaving all the plot threads hanging. Still, Googling shows that Orion and King Arthur eventually came out as a full book in 2011, so I presume he did eventually finish this arc of short stories in a satisfactory fashion. You'll just have to shell out for that if you want to find out where it goes after this.


The play's the thing: Of all the basic character classes, fighters are probably the most flexible?! :Jaw Drops: ………… Excuse me for a moment. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahem. So yeah, Mike Mearls engages in a bit of epic fail this month, either completely not knowing how 3e turns out in actual play, or lying through his teeth to try and convince us to keep playing fighters despite all the better alternatives. 10 bonus feats as their only special abilities, and a crap skill selection means they actually have the least amount of selectable widgets by 20th level. Even Paladins and Monks have more if you use the ability to swap out class features, and the ones they do have scale far better. And to top it off, the advice he gives about fighter archetypes is very similar to the specialist fighter ideas last issue, only with fewer of them covered, in less detail, and without the mechanical backup as well. So this article really does fail on both the writing and the editorial levels, and never should have appeared in this issue so close to the other one, where all it's failings are thrown into really sharp relief. Screw that noise.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 311: September 2003


part 7/9


DM's toolbox: After looking at the specific topic of guides last issue, Johnn decides to elaborate on hirelings in general. Yet again they're trying to stem the outward flowing tide towards a small unit composed entirely of PC's by pointing out just how much more interesting the game is when you manage a full rotating cast of helpers and hangers-on, many of whom need regular paying, which forces you to regularly deliver the goods or see the gang disband. Did you take out a mortgage to get that equipment and employees, did you go round the universities and hire eager young interns for free. ( and now they've levelled up a bit they want paying or they'll head off to start their own adventuring groups which might grow up to rival yours. ) Do they all follow you on adventures, or are a big chunk of them employees that maintain your castle, run your businesses and investments, sell off your excess treasure etc etc? As with last month, this shows you just how many plot ideas you can get out of adding to your party if you run it right, and that you shouldn't let it put you off if it doesn't work all the time. If it's a challenge to the players as well as a benefit, (and the benefits exceed the costs) you're doing it right. As usual, there's plenty of solid little bits of advice on how to implement this more smoothly, and what kind of hirelings you might benefit from, but never realised you need, as well as the fluffy personality advice we've seen a thousand times before. Johnn is still one of their most reliable columnists.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 311: September 2003


part 8/9


Dungeoncraft: Having given us a location, this month Monte is all about keeping the damn thing active, talking about a bunch of different models you can use to make the inhabitants seem intelligent and active with a little less effort. You can create if/then contingencies that predetermine what'll happen if the players do something. You can give monsters a schedule that determines where they are at different times of day. And then there's the full plot model where if the players don't do anything, X, Y, & Z will go off at particular points and ruin people's days. All will take more effort than just plopping a monster in a room with no idea how it survives, but should still be less stressful than just making stuff up as you go along. If you're running an extended campaign, you should probably think about employing all of them in various combinations, as that'll keep things interesting for both the players and you. As with Johnn's advice, this manages to pack in a few new things, and remind us of a whole bunch of old advice as well, which may not be the freshest, but it's still a good idea for you to follow it. Realism may get boring occasionally, but you have to keep coming back to it, otherwise your work will lose emotional resonance and be overthrown by the next generation of creative sorts who use different techniques and trappings that aren't so stale.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 311: September 2003


part 9/9


Sage advice: How does feeblemind interact with int enhancers. (It bypasses them. You have int 1 no matter how much they try and make you smart.)

Can you cast permanancy from a scroll. Who pays the cost (Good question. Best if you split the price. Can't be having sexist arguments these days. )

How many bolts of lightning can you call with call lightning. Can you save them up (1 per round. No. The clock keeps ticking. If you ain't smiting, you're wasting that powah. )

What kind of action is it for a cleric to spontaneously convert spells (Not an action. It's inherent in the spellcasting. )

Can you cleave when you hit mirror images. (Yes. With great cleave and whirlwind attack, you can take that pesky spellcaster DOWN! )

What squares do mirror images occupy (the same as the caster)

Can you improve your mirror images AC (only by boosting your dex, or providing miss chances. All else does nowt.)

What happens if a mirror image user goes incorporeal, blinks or goes extraplanar. (They come along for the ride. You can still disrupt them if you can see them. )

Do burst weapon powers work on things that are immune to crits (Yes. The special powers still trigger, even though they don't take extra damage. )

How do the Flaming, frost and shock powers work. Do you need to activate them every single bloody time. (Nooooooo! Juuuuuuusssssst Theeeeeee Ooooooonceeeee! )


What's new goes on vacation. Just in time, because the snail is back, and my hasn't he grown!


Once again my worst fears are realised, with a formulaic flip through the classes, with the spellcasters getting better toys out of the deal than the warriors. The only real light here is the introduction of Eberron, which hints at changes to come. I guess it's onto part 3. At least they didn't do a whole year long class themed set, which wasn't completely beyond the bounds of possibility. Let's see what they have to offer for october.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 312: October 2003


part 1/9


108 pages. Assassins · Mind Controllers · Necromancers · Blackguards. This time last year, the book of vile darkness was unleashed upon us, plumbing new depths in evil, or at least badness anyway. Now they're back, only this time, they're a little classier. Hopefully they've learned something from last year's slatings, and come back with a decent selection of material that'll make the game more sadistically fun for both players and DM's. Or maybe it'll be just more bland crunchy stuff like the last couple of issues. At least the classes they've picked aren't the same old core ones, so we've got a chance they'll give us some new ideas. Let's give them a chance for redemption and hope they don't stab us in the back and laugh maniacally even when it's of no profit for them to do so.


Scan Quality: Excellent, unindexed.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: Another editor change only 2 years after the last one? Well, I can't complain too much. While Jesse's tenure started out strong, it came with a sharp decline in setting material and increase in repetitiveness of topics that made it often a real slog to plough through. Let's hope Chris Thomasson brings us a little more flexibility instead of keeping everything all generic all the time. I guess we won't know for a few issues, if past changeovers are anything to go by. His writing style certainly doesn't illuminate much beyond what the current issue is going to contain, with no drastic change from Jesse's there. I'm sure certain subtleties will make themselves apparent in time.


Scale Mail: The first letter is a plea for help finding online D&D games. By no great co-incidence, they have an article on that this month. Is it really mind reading when they can cherry pick predictions and only use the accurate ones?

Then we have someone pleased that Larry Elmore is back on the cover. Does the new edition mean the end of ridiculous dungeonpunk outfits? Not if the next issue sidebar on the same page is any indicator. The surplus belt store still has plenty of stock to sell to eager young adventurers.

A request for comics with continuity. Sorry. That idea is no longer in fashion, and has not been for some time. They're not saying no categorically, but it'd have to be a pretty good submission to change their current policy.

A cautionary tale about leaving stuff on view in your car instead of in the boot. Any bag could contain a laptop, which is one of THE things thieves love to swipe. Roleplaying books may not have the same ease of fencing, but they're of a similar size, and you don't generally hang around to count your spoils if you want to stay out of prison.

And finally, we have a complaint that Spot is a class skill for so few classes, when it's invaluable for all of them. Value is created by scarcity. D&D is a game built around teams of specialists. If you want an all-rounder to be optimal, play a game with quadratic xp buyups.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 312: October 2003


part 2/9


Zogonia blows their recruit paladin roll. You're better off without her anyway. They then kick the head off a gnome. What is this writer on? Something's not right here.


Up on a soapbox: Once again Rob Kuntz gets the lions share of the attention. Not only was he one of the first DM's, he was one of the most dominant players as well. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't contribute more to the actual books. Also once again, it's the funny stories that have stuck in Gary's mind all these years. Rob getting himself an awesome orc henchman was not some big quest, it was an emergent thing that built up into a story via a bunch of cool co-incidences, piled on opportunistic profit seeking, topped off with a terrible in-joke. The kind of stuff that seems perfectly reasonable at a game table, but got treated with great disdain when it appeared in official supplements like Castle Greyhawk or Gargoyles. Which really makes me wonder if those adventures are actually truer to the spirit of the original Greyhawk game as it was played around the table than any of the newer reboots of the campaign that try to recast Oerth as this serious, gritty, war-torn place. Even if Gary was no longer with the company at that point, the rest of it was still heavily comprised of people like Skip, Jim and Rob who had their formative gaming experiences in these games. Maybe it is time to reassess that period, and ask if a few more goofy plots and pun names might actually improve your campaign, make it last longer, and give the Serious Dramatic bits more impact by contrast.


BLACKGUARDS!: So as everyone noticed straight away, they only covered the non-evil paladin types in issue 310. Heeere's the rest of them. As with the previous article, they completely ignore the versions from issue 106, letting us know that those strange names and design quirks are not in style at all, and that we'll be dealing in standardised class structures with a few powers swapped out, maintaining the appearance of balance even if some of them are vastly more useful than others. Sigh. Looks like this is going to be much the same as the last two issues.

Anti-Paladins are pretty much the exact inversion of regular ones, detecting and smiting good, causing fear and disease, and getting a fiendish mount. The only real difference is that they trade off curing with a touch for a bonus to attacking creatures weaker than them, incentivising being a petty and cowardly bully. That's a considerably better idea than just inverting that to cause wounds, as they would do with the Paladin of Slaughter in UA.

Despots are obviously the lawful evil ones. They too have abilities better suited to their role & goals than the Paladin of Tyranny from UA. When you consider how many of the articles in the last two issues will be recycled and improved upon, I'm very annoyed these ones won't be. What were the UA writers thinking, missing tricks as basic as this?

Corrupters fill the neutral evil slot, and have the clear goal of subtly tempting people into depravity, as opposed to dominating or killing them. They could really do with sacrificing the full BAB for more skills and spells in that case. The powers they do get are quite suited to the cause, including a really nifty new spell which does actually subtly tempt people into doing bad things. But they could do with more of them. I guess this way, they'll still be able to give you a really good fight when found out as well. So while not as quirky as the 1e paladin types, this has been a fairly interesting article, with some actual thought put into designing new abilities. They just needed a bit more courage to break out of the existing framework to really make suitably diabolical villains.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 312: October 2003


part 3/9


Among the dead: Necromancers have always been pretty popular villains, even when the mechanics didn't back up their effectiveness. In a way, that makes them the inverse of clerics, which is fitting. As with the last article, we get three variant classes, each trading the standard familiar and bonus feats for other things. Whether they'll be better than the stuff you could buy with those slots, well, that is definitely worth seeing.

Deathwalkers trade off their bonus feats for gradually becoming undead. Since there are definitely better ways to do that when you're a wizard, this is a pretty lazy move really. Once you've made it to lichdom, you'll really want that extra versatility in making magic items, as you've got eternity to build stuff, but also eternity to get bored in and regret your suboptimal choices earlier.

Fleshcrafters are rather more interesting, gaining the ability to create cheap flesh golems and disgusting hybrid creatures by sewing together limbs. They also gain the ability to perform fake doctoring so they can get more materials to work with, and perform coup de graces without leaving themselves vulnerable for a round. Not sure you want them on your side, because if you go, you know you'll be used in their experiments too. I think flavour and mechanics wise, these ones are a success.

Soul Reapers are a bit half-assed as a variant, only trading half their bonus feats and familiar for special abilities involving binding the spirits of the dead. So I guess that's one strike out of three. Not a very impressive record. I'm still more afraid of a smart transmuter or diviner than I am a necromancer.


Assassin specialty prestige classes: Unsurprisingly, Assassins get similar treatment to Rogues and Bards in the previous issues. However, they do at least get 10 level prestige classes which you can really dedicate yourselves too, instead of just dabbling in. Like Ninjas, there are many different skillsets you can develop to accomplish the same end. But will they be cross-compatible enough that you can multiclass between them without losing effectiveness, or will it be best to pick one until you max it out? Since all of them gain a die of sneak attack at 1st level, there's that possibility at least.

Oppressors eschew subtlety and fulfil all the very worst stereotypes about the police. They smash into a place, beat the crap out of people in public, and intimidate everyone watching into doing what they want. This obviously only works if you have a government system that encourages this behaviour, or organised crime strong enough to laugh at the law, so they're far more likely to be part of a group than regular assassins. I'm sure any Despot from the earlier article would love to have one as a lieutenant.

Poisoners are more regular sneaky sorts, sacrificing the general magical abilities of a regular assassin for concentrated poison creation and resistance. Since they don't need tools, and at the highest levels can kill via touch, breath or gaze, they can be pretty subtle and even locking them up naked won't save you. Just be thankful there's plenty of ways to make yourself completely immune to their schtick.

Replacement Killers are the subtlest of all, because if they do their job right, you won't even know the person is dead until quite some time afterwards. Unfortunately, in terms of actual disguising, they're not as good over 10 levels as the doppleganger fanbois from issue 300 were in 5. Still, they're no slouches at the kidnapping and killing stuff, with plenty of stealth and sneak attack. Let's see now. If you dip in the right order, I think you could get at least +13d6 by 20th level, while retaining near full skill progression. That's not to be sniffed at. Shame your BAB'll be barely better than a Wizard's. Oh well, It's not as if you were planning on a straight fight anyway.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 312: October 2003


part 4/9


Thieves of will: Unlike the previous three articles, mind controllers don't have an iconic class associated with the concept. So instead of a whole bunch of variants, we get a load of talk about how well various classes fit into this mould. While Wizards specialising in Enchantment are the obvious choice, they're probably not as effective as Bards or Sorcerers with an appropriate spell selection, as they'll find it harder to get the mundane Charisma to back up their talents when their spells fail. Clerics and Druids may find it a little harder, but they can still get their claws into you if they choose the right spells and feats. Paladins and Rangers, not so much, given how small and specialised their spell selections are. As the shortest and least crunchy of the articles, this does feel like they did struggle for a bit trying to make up the theme, but it does have a decent number of new feats and spells to round off the general advice. Since mind control effects often don't work that well in pitched combat, anything which gives you an edge in speed and difficulty resisting makes a substantial difference. Not that I can escape the feeling that if it comes to that, you've already lost. On the other hand, someone is going to make their save sooner or later, and then you need to be able to defend yourself, and you can't always be surrounded by minions if you want to be a subtle controller. I'm sure you'll manage. 3.5 may have nerfed mind control a little, but It's fine compared to the absolute gutting next edition will bring.


Holier than thou: In sharp contrast with the themed material, we also have some stuff on celestial monster PC's. Asuras, Bariaurs, Holyphants, Leskylor, Moon Dogs, Quesar, and Rhek all get Savage species style racial progressions. Bariaur and Rhek are the only ones you're likely to finish in and add on additional class levels, with the others being well into the teens, with only around half the levels actually granting new HD and skill points. Ok, the skill points and BAB still aren't completely terrible, since they're outsider levels, but they're still going to be a little fragile. I remain dubious about actually playing them. Better get good at making sure those spell-like abilities and resistances remain relevant, and enemies don't target your weaknesses. I don't think many people will be picking these.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 312: October 2003


part 5/9


Faiths of Faerun returns after more than a year off, with a complete change of focus. Well, I suppose the first one never really took off in the first place. Instead, it becomes a divine focussed Arcane lore, providing a whole bunch of new spells aimed at priests of Auril, but of course adaptable to any god who's portfolio includes freezing people's nuts off. And indeed, they do make an effort to ensure it's genericness, unlike the earlier articles. Which is probably a positive step overall. We've seen more than a few complaints about overly specific stuff making large chunks of the magazine unusable in the letters pages.

Auril's Flowers educates us on one of the many eskimo words for snow, with a fairly distinctive weather effect. You really don't want to be standing around when this signature move sprouts from the ground.

Cold Fire makes mundane fire burn cold. Perfect for casting on your bonfire on a sweltering summer night, ironically. Remember, contrast is good. Turning things to the x-treme just becomes noise after a while.

Cold Snap is a moderately nasty weather manipulation spell. It'll take a lot more practice before you can coat an entire country in eternal winter, but at least it's a start.

Corona of Cold both protects you from heat attacks and hurts anyone near you. Any wizard with half a brain'll step back and attack with a different energy type. Warriors may not have that luxury. It's good to have secondary options, even if you are a specialist.

Freeze combines damage and paralysis in a way that should be fairly nasty if you have buds to put them in an even more disadvantageous position once they break out. Freezing can get pretty cartoonish, but it still hurts in D&D.

Frost Breath is your basic AoE cone zappy spell. Niche protection is maintained, it isn't nearly as dangerous as similar wizard spells of the same level like fireball. Padding, really.

Frostbite is your basic single person zappy spell, notable mainly because it inflicts a mixture of regular and nonlethal damage due to it's numbing effects. So as long as there's somewhere to warm up after the battle, it'll wind up less serious than it seems.

Heat Leech isn't too deadly in terms of damage inflicted, but not only heals the caster, but keeps any excess as temporary hit points. Cast in the middle of your foes, this'll really turn the tide of battle in quite scary fashion.

Ice Axe reminds us that clerics are no longer generally restricted to bludgeoning stuff. It's a reasonable conjured weapon, nothing special, should work well for slaughtering yugoloths though. And if you haven't got a magic weapon yet, this kind of thing in your arsenal is a lifesaver.

Ice Gauntlet doesn't add too much to your damage, but should last a whole combat, even at low levels. It may result in a disadvantage if in slippery terrain and climbing, but them's the choices you make. Can't expect a 1st level spell to do everything.

Snowshoes is one of the few that actually makes things easier for players in cold climates. It even comes in a mass variant, allowing your cleric to assist their whole party like a good support character once they get a few levels under their belt. Seems a wise utility choice if you're expecting this kind of trouble.