Let's read the entire run

[Orius]

I wasn't really impressed by the Realms article myself. Not surprising that the FR got an entry in this issue, but this was kind of dull to me. I don't really like FR drow to begin with, and when it's FR drow that worship Eilistraee, it's even worse. So of course an Eilistraee-themed PrC is not going to be interesting to me at all.

If anything, the sidebar on the background of the FR was more interesting, particularly Ed's assumption that Lorraine-era TSR already owned all the FR IP he'd gotten published in Dragon already.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004


part 3/8


Defilers of athas: Drow may be unpopular, but they still have a reasonable amount of glamour as well. Defilers, on the other hand, are not glamorous, because they make a big, obvious and unsightly mess wherever they go. In 2e, their big balancing factor against preservers was lower XP costs, and a slightly easier time socially in the big cities controlled by the sorcerer-kings. In 3e, everyone has a standardised XP cost, so you need to offer them other benefits to make up for the problems they cause. The solution here? Throw out the distinction between defilers and preservers as a class, and let any arcane spellcaster get free metamagic feats if they're willing to tap the environment a little too hard. When the enemy is pulling out quickened spells every turn because they don't give a damn, the temptation to pull a little more just to keep up is pretty strong. Only the threat of turning into an undead creature if they take too much in one go now keeps a selfish sorcerer from overtapping. Which means that the results in play will be pretty different from 2e, (but then, there were two quite different systems there already, depending on if you were using defiling at the casting or memorising point. ) and probably more dramatic, making defilers very scary villains. So i think the question will be if reshaping old campaigns is a good thing, or if you should try and keep them consistent, and only make changes if they move the setting and rules closer together. In this case, I remain ambivalent, as it is a pretty drastic change.


Angry dead gnomes and sinister walking sharks: Now that's a good title. Taladas always did have some cool stuff that got overlooked because regular Dragonlance was so irritating. Death obsessed gnomes, and shark cultists who like to wear shark skins and act in an appropriately predatory and bloodthirsty way. Each get their own prestige class, with appropriate transformations taking place over the course of 10 levels, culminating in becoming undead, or being able to go into a blood frenzy on a whim. They both definitely tend towards the darker end of things, but at the same time aren't always outright evil. It's a good example of the slightly greyer morality there compared to Ansalon. I'm not even sure if this is new material or a direct updating of old stuff, unlike most of these, but the material is pretty good and it reminds me that even after all these years, my knowledge of old D&D settings isn't completely encyclopedic. This is why settings should stay alive and moving forward. If you stop, it's much harder to get going again, because people complain more if anything changes.


Bozak Draconian characters: The actual Dragonlance article is pretty self-explanatory. PC stats for said draconians. With 4 HD and an LA +3 modifier on top of that, they're pretty expensive, but since they automatically get 4 levels of sorcerer and dragon HD and skill points for their racial HD, they're definitely worth at least a level or two more than their HD, unlike many monsters. Question is what classes you should take after all your racial levels to remain competitive. I think a good bit of abjurant champion'll do the job. Surprised they didn't do the other two draconian types as well though. It's like they're inviting further submissions by leaving things open this issue.

 

[Orius]

The Dark Sun article was pretty good, and it presented the mechanics in a way that the DM could borrow the idea for a homebrew campaign, which is always a bonus with the sort of thing.

The two Dragonlance articles weren't overly memorable to me, though PC rules for a draconian is of course useful for vanilla DL. Probably only one draconian was done because of space. The Taladas PrCs I kind of don't remember that well, but I think they came off as setting-specific PrCs that may or may not port well to a DM's homebrew.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004


part 4/8


The exiled factions: The factions have already got a partial 3e updating in issue 288. This continues, but doesn't complete that process, with prestige classes for the Harmonium and Revolutionary League. The Harmonium Peacekeeper is a fairly straightforward 5 level paladin variant, with a particular emphasis on the mount and the smiting parts. The Anarchomancer is a somewhat stranger one that sacrifices three spellcasting levels for some extremely powerful and flexible magical rituals that do things even 9th level spells can't pull off. The nearly undetectable cover identity power at 1st level alone is very tempting, because it lets you do a "and now, I will reveal my true form!" moment with great ease and real mechanical impact. Meanwhile, the Athar, Guvners and Doomguard each get a couple of new magical items, and the Fated get stats for their current factol. As it has both updatings and new material, this is pretty cool, if very incomplete. The planes have got more attention under WotC than most of their old settings, and it's good that they're still providing new, non rehashed information as part of it. Let's hope there's some more to come.


Regional feats of Oerth: One problem Greyhawk has had ever since being brought back in 1998 is the feeling that it's trying to play catch-up with the Realms, providing the same kind of nearly generic information in similar formats, just in smaller quantities. Not for lack of trying though, since apparently these 38 feats are only half of what Erik Mona wrote for this issue. As with the Realms regional feats, the benefits from these are slightly more powerful than equivalent regular feats, many of them providing multiple semi-connected benefits around a theme. Many of them are applicable to more than one nationality, and the various demihuman races don't get ignored either. It's all pretty high density. I'm sure someone'll get a use out of this, particularly if it gets allowed in the Living Greyhawk campaign, but I somehow doubt I will.


The bloody swords: Ghostwalk? I don't even remember them mentioning that in the releases, let along getting any articles. Googling says it was only released 6 months ago, after they stopped doing previews in the magazine, and as one of the last things released for 3.0, it probably got lost in the cracks for most people. And meanwhile Savage Species was getting follow-up after follow-up ad nauseum. I am nonplussed and vaguely irritated by their promotional decisions.

The new material here is a cult of Orcus pretending to be just a regular bloodthirsty mercenary group. They aren't particularly big, but they do have a nice line in zombie servants to make up the numbers, and some custom magic that lets their undead regain hit points by cannibalising others in classic zombie movie style. Makes more sense for a chaotic evil cult than spending tons of time on preservative and enhancing spells. It also means things are less likely to spiral out of control, as you can't both eat someone and turn them into another undead creature in classic spawn cascade stylee. Oh well. It still means players have plenty of reasons to run into them, get annoyed by their antics and try to kill them. Once again, while there may be a few setting specific easter bits, this is usable pretty much anywhere there's undead and demon lords. They may be trying a little too hard to keep everything modular.

 

[Orius]

The Planescape article was kind of a mixed bag, though it's one of the few settings that doesn't need a lot of 3.5 material, because the Manual of the Planes updated a good chunk of basic planar material already.

The Greyhawk article is pretty crunchy on the feats. From what I remember, it took some of the FR feats and applied them to Greyhawk, while adding some new ones. Even if a DM isn't running Greyhawk, there's probably at least a couple of feats he could yoink for his own game.

Ghostwalk is the first artice that probably doesn't belong here. Even if it's 3.0 and it apparently got ignored in the 3.5 update, it's not really that classic. Nor do I get the impression that Ghostwalk was intended as a discreet campaign setting. Not that this article is bad by itself, but it probably could have been put in a different issue. I'd rather have seen something on Spelljammer instead.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004


part 5/8


Ancestor feats and martial arts styles: While Greyhawk is trying to put a little more emphasis on where you're from, Kara-tur remains firmly focused on who your ancestors were. And like the western Realms, the new feats are just that little bit more twinky than the generic D&D material. Rokugan? Bunch of pikers. Our courtiers are more refined, our nomads are tougher, our monks are more enlightened, and our traitors are more backstabbing. The new martial arts styles vary widely in power, with the 5 Stars one easily the most powerful, and the Southern Fist really deadly if you're willing to plough all your feats into it. So this definitely falls into the use with caution category of articles that are actually pretty rare these days. I suppose with the large number of settings they have to cover, they take what they can get.


Cinnabar, red steel and the red curse: Oriental Adventures was pretty twinky even back in the 1e days. Red Steel, on the other hand, was curiously non twinky despite offering quite substantial extra abilities to players, because the price was high, ongoing, and continued to be an issue even if you left the savage coast and lost the powers you gained while there. And since they actually double the ability score cost for powers here, so each new legacy you gain comes with a concrete reduction in mundane capabilities, that continues to be the case in 3e. While somewhat abridged, this is a pretty straight conversion, giving rules for legacies, including becoming an inheritor (which is a lot less restrictive under 3e) or afflicted, and racial stats for Tortles for good measure. This manages to put the weird aspects of the setting front and centre, so I'm pretty happy with their treatment of it this time. Obviously I'd prefer it bigger, but oh well. That's just what you've got to live with here.


Bloodlines for 3.5: Red Steel has fairly substantial balancing factors for the extra powers it gives characters. Birthright, on the other hand is very much built around the idea that some people are just better than others because of an accident of breeding, and to try and balance that out goes against the whole theme. They try though, playing up the idea that it is possible to work up your bloodline score by killing your way up the ladder, highlander style, and encouraging DM's to start everyone out at the same rating. So this is definitely one of their more frustrating update attempts, as the setting and the ruleset are even more in conflict than 2e. The highly limited list of bloodline powers also leaves me unsatisfied, with only 7 options to take, as unlike Red Steel, they have to scale each of them with bloodline strength as well. Needs more work.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004


part 6/8


The return of the Sha'ir: Ah yes, one of THE most inconvenient classes to fit into the 3e mold. Sha'ir in 2e could only cast one spell every few turns, but could go on like that all day, and access a far wider variety of spells on the fly than regular wizards, including cleric ones if they were willing to risk it. In combat they were pretty , but in exploration and social situations, they were the wiz with the shiz. And actually, I expected a more severe rewriting than the one we get. Unlike psionicists, they're still very much the same as they were, only with two key differences: their total spells per day is limited in a more conventional manner, and they can "hold" more than one retrieved spell at once, allowing them to be conventionally useful in a fight if they have the chance to prepare. They still have a short list of spells they can get quickly and easily, and can then get their mitts on any other wizard spell they want with slightly more difficulty, and a small number of priest spells if they're willing to wait hours and face a high DC check. The real benefit they have over both standard wizards and sorcerers is still in being able to pull out utility spells and appropriate metamagic with just a few minutes free time. And probably in having a maxed out Diplomacy rating, since their powers key off that, so they'll also be pretty handy as a mundane face for the party. So this is actually usable, yet not completely stripped of it's old flavour. I'm fairly happy with this, even if that skill dependency feels like a bit of a tax. Better not give them an int penalty, otherwise they'll have to choose between Diplomacy or Concentration, and how viable a spellcaster will they be then?


Guardians of the Docrae: Like Ghostwalk, Blackmoor has had hardly any mentions, and no actual articles in the magazine before this. Actually, it never got properly detailed as a setting back in the old days full stop, with only 4 adventure modules and no real corebook. The d20 treatment is both bigger and mechanically more different from straight D&D, which is mildly pleasing. Also fairly pleasing is that this article decides to give halflings some love, showing how they're different from regular ones. As they haven't had comfortable lives like Tolkien hobbits, they've spent a fair bit of effort developing a combat style that works well against bigger enemies. It seems to owe a bit of a debt to capoeira, as it's a dance style as well as a martial art, and gives them much needed bonuses with trips, throws and grappling, as well as a nice instadeath strike at 10th level. It seems pretty decent for a monk prestige class, which means it still isn't the most flexible, but gets lots of neat looking tricks, and doesn't make you reliant on equipment. It's also nicely nongeneric, which counts for quite a bit in my book. I think this is another one I can give a positive result too.


Return to the lost city: Ah yes, B4. Unlike B2, this didn't get revisited in the silver anniversary nostalgia trip, and still has enough obscurity to seem fresh to me. And interestingly, Mike Mearls tries to expand on it rather than just rehashing it, despite not having much room to work with. He gives us a map of the immediate surroundings of the pyramid, and tries to add a bit more ecology to the melange of competing cults so even though the population may be drugged out and declining, regularly ravaged by sacrificing to a giant monster, there's still some degree of stability there, and it'll last a few generations more if left alone. Zargon itself is thoroughly upgraded, gaining a batch of spell-like abilities that makes it the equal of most powerful Fiends, and making the conditions to kill it permanently considerably stricter. It may be a little too sensible, but at least it gives us new material that's useful for converting back to basic D&D, which you can't say for most of these. Don't just feed off nostalgia, give something back to it as well.

 

[Orius]

Cinnabar, red steel and the red curse: Oriental Adventures was pretty twinky even back in the 1e days. Red Steel, on the other hand, was curiously non twinky despite offering quite substantial extra abilities to players, because the price was high, ongoing, and continued to be an issue even if you left the savage coast and lost the powers you gained while there. And since they actually double the ability score cost for powers here, so each new legacy you gain comes with a concrete reduction in mundane capabilities, that continues to be the case in 3e. While somewhat abridged, this is a pretty straight conversion, giving rules for legacies, including becoming an inheritor (which is a lot less restrictive under 3e) or afflicted, and racial stats for Tortles for good measure. This manages to put the weird aspects of the setting front and centre, so I'm pretty happy with their treatment of it this time. Obviously I'd prefer it bigger, but oh well. That's just what you've got to live with here.

Not a bad article, as it updates the most important mechanical aspects of the Red Steel/Savage Coast setting, and gives us a conversion for one of the setting's races. The lack of twinkiness though may come from Lorraine's heavy hand though; as the setting history sidebar notes, the original concept of the setting sounded too much like drugs to management (oh noes!), and that was just as welcome in 2e as demons, devils, and assassins!

Bloodlines for 3.5: Red Steel has fairly substantial balancing factors for the extra powers it gives characters. Birthright, on the other hand is very much built around the idea that some people are just better than others because of an accident of breeding, and to try and balance that out goes against the whole theme. They try though, playing up the idea that it is possible to work up your bloodline score by killing your way up the ladder, highlander style, and encouraging DM's to start everyone out at the same rating. So this is definitely one of their more frustrating update attempts, as the setting and the ruleset are even more in conflict than 2e. The highly limited list of bloodline powers also leaves me unsatisfied, with only 7 options to take, as unlike Red Steel, they have to scale each of them with bloodline strength as well. Needs more work.

I didn't think it was too bad an article. At least the basic idea about using feats for bloodline abilities looked like a useful idea to steal for my own games, but for an actual Birthright player, it possibly might have been a bit thin.

The return of the Sha'ir: Ah yes, one of THE most inconvenient classes to fit into the 3e mold. Sha'ir in 2e could only cast one spell every few turns, but could go on like that all day, and access a far wider variety of spells on the fly than regular wizards, including cleric ones if they were willing to risk it. In combat they were pretty , but in exploration and social situations, they were the wiz with the shiz. And actually, I expected a more severe rewriting than the one we get.

This was another of the good articles, the shai'ir conversion looked like it worked pretty well without offering too many restrictions.

Guardians of the Docrae: Like Ghostwalk, Blackmoor has had hardly any mentions, and no actual articles in the magazine before this. Actually, it never got properly detailed as a setting back in the old days full stop, with only 4 adventure modules and no real corebook. The d20 treatment is both bigger and mechanically more different from straight D&D, which is mildly pleasing.

Yes, it's a shame the magazine didn't bother to give us any real background on Blackmoor here. After all, it started out as Dave's setting and it's where a lot of D&Disms were born. Dave never seemed to get as much credits as he deserved. I suppose it didn't help that Blackmoor never had an official setting back in the old days and was counted as part of either Greyhawk or Mystara.

Also fairly pleasing is that this article decides to give halflings some love, showing how they're different from regular ones. As they haven't had comfortable lives like Tolkien hobbits, they've spent a fair bit of effort developing a combat style that works well against bigger enemies. It seems to owe a bit of a debt to capoeira, as it's a dance style as well as a martial art, and gives them much needed bonuses with trips, throws and grappling, as well as a nice instadeath strike at 10th level.

It's certainly an unusual approach for halflings, which is probably a good thing for people who are tired of the Tolkien hobbits. And if I'm not mistaken, [MENTION=1288]Mouseferatu[/MENTION] wrote this particular article.

Return to the lost city: Ah yes, B4. Unlike B2, this didn't get revisited in the silver anniversary nostalgia trip, and still has enough obscurity to seem fresh to me. And interestingly, Mike Mearls tries to expand on it rather than just rehashing it, despite not having much room to work with. He gives us a map of the immediate surroundings of the pyramid, and tries to add a bit more ecology to the melange of competing cults so even though the population may be drugged out and declining, regularly ravaged by sacrificing to a giant monster, there's still some degree of stability there, and it'll last a few generations more if left alone. Zargon itself is thoroughly upgraded, gaining a batch of spell-like abilities that makes it the equal of most powerful Fiends, and making the conditions to kill it permanently considerably stricter.

It comes off as a quick plug-and-play sort of feature much like on of the old-school modules.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004


part 7/8


The new (fantasy) World: Kara-Tur and Al-Qadim can be transplanted to other game worlds without too many problems. Maztica, on the other hand, was heavily built around the fact that the old world discovering it was the Realms, and the metaplot of invasion and exploitation would have gone differently if it wasn't the priests of Helm leading it. Disappointingly, they decide not to progress the timeline those 20+ years forward here, but simply update the Eagle and Jaguar Knight kits to 3e prestige classes. Both have their spellcasting and shapeshifting accelerated somewhat compared to their 2e counterparts, while retaining full BAB progression and 4+int skill points, putting them on the same kind of level as Rangers, Paladins or Assassins. Since the original separated out the Knights and the specialists in hishna & pluma magic, this is one case I don't really feel they captured the spirit of the old setting. Still, at least I can't say they nerfed them this time around. Instead, they've turned things up.


The light in the darkness: In the late 90's, James Wyatt was the guy still submitting Red Death articles to the magazine when it seemed no-one else gave a damn. Looks like that's still the case even now. Well, at least it keeps the tone consistent. This is our shortest article, at only 2 pages, and it's another prestige class. La Lumiere were one of the cabals trying to fight the Red Death and bring peace and enlightenment to Gothic Earth. Their update takes that fairly literally, letting them inspire themselves and others to take down monsters with their intellect, despite their distaste for violence. Being a pacifist is a mugs game in D&D, as we've seen so many times before, and it's interesting that people are still trying to fight against that in-setting. So I guess the ex-pastor is still swimming against the tide here, and not making much headway. Will roleplaying as a whole ever escape the need to kill things and take their stuff?


Soldiers of the last order: As we draw to a close, a welcome surprise is that they've decided to count the Chainmail setting in the continent west of Oerth as it's own thing, like all the FR and Mystara regions that got their own independent treatments. In the process we get to find out that this was another case where the setting was originally intended to be its own independent world, but was bodged onto Oerth for marketing reasons. The days of upper management issuing orders that cause big headaches and sudden changes in direction for the creative people isn't over, and even the Realms will be subject to that dickery again next edition change. (and the one after, and who knows after that) And now it's gone, probably never to be revived at the current rate. So I'm left feeling a little disappointed that all we get is yet another prestige class in an issue that's been ridiculously heavy on them. The Boge of Nomog-Geya are leaders of a hobgoblin cult that's grown tired of sharing with those undisciplined lesser goblinoids, and wants to exterminate them so they can better conquer the world. Since the smaller goblinoids breed faster, this seems like a tall order, but at least it's a different one with interesting flavour. And since they get full cleric spellcasting plus favoured enemy bonuses and a fairly powerful social buff at high level, I wouldn't put it past them completely if they can get the help. Plus it creates a very interesting enemy of my enemy situation where the players may have to decide which side is the lesser evil to support for now. If you're going to overload us with prestige classes, better interesting ones like this that come with strong plot hooks like this.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004


part 8/8


Countdown to Eberron: Having provided articles for so many old settings, they would seem a little remiss if they forgot to keep in the teaser for their next one. So while they have cut out most of their regular columns, this remains to keep the fires burning. They're still being pretty damnably vague about actual specific NPC's, monsters or geography, but they're very specific indeed about the tone and inspirations. The influences are largely cinematic rather than literary, with pulp and swashbuckling dominant, but not forgetting the medieval stories. After all, even if the world has advanced to this magitech place with huge cities and bullet trains connecting them, it's still built on a D&D fantasy world, with a corresponding history. In fact, that's a good encapsulation of their approach in general. It's not only everything in the house including the kitchen sink like the Realms, it's everything and the kitchen sink, and then they raided the toolshed afterwards on top of that. Mechanically, this is the case as well, with all the regular classes, spells and monsters being there, plus new stuff like action points from d20 modern, and a class devoted to handling magic item making better. Like Shadowrun, 40k or Rifts, this is going to be an expansive setting that you can fit all kinds of stories and playstyles into, rather than a tightly focussed one. The time for specialisation is over. They've got to try and please everyone or go home. Which means we leave this issue with me pretty certain they won't be returning to those days of many settings supported simultaneously, no matter how well this gets received. As long as their marketing department prizes unity over diversity, that's how they'll have to market things.


Sage advice: Can you cast beneficial spells on a golem (Not if they allow SR. They aren't smart enough to let down their immunities.)

Can you dispel Evard's black tentacles (Yes, thankfully. Always remember your safe word, kids. )

Do the tentacles have miss chances. Where are they. (Not from cover or concealment, because they're everywhere. Fear the eruption)

Can you use metamagic feats on spells from a staff (No)

Can you use high arcana powers on staff spells (Not in general. There is one little exception. Course, if you're an archmage, you can build your own custom staff with automatic inherent metamagic. Don't be lazy. Customize your build. It's so much more satisfying.)

Does damage from Harm risk the massive death rule (Skip recommends no. The whole point of the spell is to leave them barely alive and at your mercy. If they're dead, then you can't torment them further so easily. Where's the fun in that?)

Do you have to pay 5,000 xp every time you use a wish (At the very least. Wishes are like horses. Always look them in the mouth, because they do not come cheap, and a wish is a terrible thing to waste. )

Can clerics use spells in items from domains they could have chosen, but didn't (Nein. Das ist Bloody Stupid, ya. You are crap rules lawyer, ya. YOU VILL GROVEL FOR FORGIVENESS ON YOUR KNEES BEFORE SKIP, YA?! Mmmm. Das ist Gut.)


Dork tower can't switch off the gaming urge.


Well, this issue was certainly a substantial improvement on the last 5, with a considerably more interesting theme and quirky articles, but it was still very much a mixed bag, much of which was frustratingly shallow. Still, it shows both ambition and variety, both of which are very welcome indeed, and it reminds us just how many fans these settings have. Overall, it's a good start to the year. Let's see if the rest of it is also an improvement on last year.