Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 319: May 2004


part 8/8


Dungeoncraft: Monte examines the logistics of making interesting wilderness adventures some more. Remember, just because it's a wilderness to the PC's, doesn't mean it is to the creatures that live there. Also, while it may be neat hexes on a map, it presumably isn't in reality, and the distance you can see will vary hugely. Also, it won't entirely be travelling, fighting monsters and living off the land. You may well have to create temporary base camps to explore particularly interesting areas in more detail. You may stop off at a village for a few weeks to recharge your supplies, and have to spend a load of time learning the basics of the language and culture. You may get hunted by a monster that's too tough to fight, which forces you to run and not have time to keep up your mapping. It's unlikely that a several hour game session will be all just one thing. (and if it is, you should probably work on your pacing. ) So yeah, options and diversion. That's what'll keep players venturing further out to see what's there. That or having no idea where they are and really needing to find a familiar landmark to navigate from. So even if you don't design the whole world beforehand, make sure there's plenty of options and diversions to throw at the characters whichever way they go.


Sage advice: Is damage reduction extraordinary or supernatural (Depends if it's magical or not.)

Do allies of a creature with gaze attacks need to save (Recycled question. What is this? Recycle city. Actually, Skip guesses there's actually fewer recycled questions than when Skip was hustling on the mean shores of lake geneva. But that still doesn't mean Skip is happy about this. The Eternal Sage needs stimulating cases. Give them to Skip!)

Why do ghosts have strength scores when they are incorporeal (because they aren't to ethereal creatures. )

How do you use armor spikes. (As a light off-hand weapon. The real kicker is that you can use them plus a two handed weapon or shield. That and grappling. They're pretty brutal for that. )

Just how much weight can a flying creature carry (No more than their light load. Any more than that, and they don't move more slowly, they just fall and go splat. There are some exceptions. Skip will have to do some more pontification.)

If you have a flying mount, do you need to take fly by attack, or can you still use ride by attack (You'll have to spend another feat. Ground and air attacks are very different disciplines.)

You've nerfed ride by attack so it's nearly useless. Blah blah blah blah worst game evar I want my money back. ( Skip will point out the special case rule that ensures it is not useless, and then Skip will sit back and look smug. The Eternal Sage will not be swayed by your filibustering. Unfortunately, you've eaten up the rest of the magazine, as you took so long, so Skip will have to cut short Skip's cutting reply. Just take it as granted that Skip said something witty, and then made a shaft-esque boast. See you next month, folks. )


With a fairly solid themed section, and the first hints that they're planning a shakeup of the magazine in the near future, this once again shows that the magazine is more interesting when it isn't too bound by a single formula. Seeing what they come out with during these transitional times is less boring, even if it's bad like the red triangle issues. And let's hope they won't be even more formulaic once the've settled down again, because that would not be a good way to end the magazine's run.

 

[jonesy]

Dragon Issue 319: May 2004
Dungeoncraft: Monte examines the logistics of making interesting wilderness adventures some more.

You can never have enough pre-prepared wilderness scenarios. When making them up on the go after a while they all start looking like the same encounter.

It is a bit odd though to have the article under the Dungeoncraft title.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 320: June 2004


part 1/8


90(116) pages. If anyone should reasonably be going raar and having deeply impractical tooth designs, it's dragons, so Wayne Reynolds is a little less irritating on the cover than usual. This year, it's the 30th aniversary of D&D. Which is a rounder number than 28 years of Dragon Magazine, so it gets higher billing. Still, the theme is once again going to be dragons, and in particular playing them. This could well get rehashalicious. Let's see if they can celebrate their past and build upon it, or whitewash it and regurgitate old ideas without adding to them.


Scan Quality: Good, unindexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: As we seem to be in a retrospective mood this month, it's no surprise that Matthew Sernett decides to give us his first gaming experience. But he also takes the time to point out that people won't become roleplayers unless they already have an interest in imaginative play. If their bedtime stories include dwarves, monsters, wizards, mighty heroes and explosions, they're more likely to become roleplayers than ones who's preschool media are comprised of very hungry caterpillars and daytime soaps. You shouldn't wait until they're teenagers, especially since these days there's so much competition from computer games and the internet. Pay attention to what your kids are consuming while they're still receptive and the chances of them growing up healthy and well-balanced improves quite a bit. And then they'll be able to get decent jobs while hopefully maintaining an imaginative internal life as well. Presuming we don't wind up in a world where automation leaves most of the population perpetually un or underemployed. But hey, given modern technology, if you can afford dice and a laptop, roleplaying is perfect for a group of people with tons of time but limited money. The world will change, and D&D will have to change with it, but roleplaying will survive in some form. There is very little to fear on that front as long as human nature remains the same.

 

[Zaukrie]

Some highs and lows in these issues....but mostly good, if I recall correctly.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 320: June 2004


part 2/8


Scale Mail: Time for the opposing opinions bogaloo again in the letters section. First up is someone who was initially annoyed at having to update to 3.5 just a few years after 3e, but pleased with the changes once they did, followed with someone who's so pissed off with the edition churn that they aren't going to spend their money on it anymore. You can't afford to rush these things, as it only costs you more in the long run.

Second, we have one person who thinks fantasy staples like ninjas, pirates and dinosaurs are too niche for the magazine, and they should get rid of the comics for yet more game material, while two others love them. I think I'll go for the option that doesn't result in them running out of "suitably wide appeal" topics within a couple of years.

Next, we have someone who thinks Gary's ramblings have had their day and become repetitive, so they ought to figure out a way to gracefully retire his column. Whether they published this because they were already planning to do so, or the decision to quit was Gary's, I'm not sure, but I'm certain it's not a co-incidence.

And finally, we have one person who hates fiction in the magazine, while another loves it, but is frustrated by multi-part stories where they don't have all the pieces. These days, it shouldn't be too hard to fill them in with a quick internet search.


Zogonia strikes out. What a surprise. Seems like there's a lot of that going round.


A retrospective of the best game in history: Just 20 issues ago, we had a retrospective on the magazine. Given how tied up with D&D in general the magazine is, it's kind of inevitable that they wind up repeating themselves a bit. And yes, they do whitewash the bad bits more than they did in issue 300, acting as though even the darkest bit of the late 90's was just a brief stumble on the way to bigger and better things. However, while that was limited to the magazine editors, and not even all of them, this casts a wider net in terms of both the products it celebrates, and the people it brings back to reminisce about them, so there are some good points about this. In the end though, it's just back-patting self promotion, especially as it devotes a fair chunk at the end to promoting their current and upcoming products, including a new basic set, and a 352 page book filled with even more reminiscing stories from those who were there. Like most retrospectives of still alive properties, this now seems more dated than the things it was looking back on. And we'll probably be seeing another one in just 2 years for the magazine's 30th anniversary too. I hate it when they spend too much time looking back.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 320: June 2004


part 3/8


Dragon Player Characters: As we've seen in many articles in the past couple of years, Racial level progressions are a headache to design. Some creatures may have powers that make them more impressive than a PC of equal HD, but not all of them do, and if you overcompensate, characters wind up really fragile at lower levels. Plus you can be stuck without any real character choices to make for most of your adventuring career. Fortunately, this is not a mistake this article makes. Dragon's age categories give you a good excuse to jump off midway through and take regular character levels. The approximately 1/3 of levels in which they don't gain HD, skills, etc are spread fairly evenly, and dragon's D12 HD, high skills and full BAB mean they remain solid all-round wherever they choose to develop their talents. All the basic 5 metallic types gain 20 level progressions, which take them between 3 and 4 age categories, and it shouldn't be too hard to extend them to epic levels either. So this article is far better than I feared, actually making a baby dragon in the party seem like a viable option. What a relief.


Fostered: Having just made baby dragons seem viable as PC's, an article on how to roleplay baby dragons being fostered by other races is excellent synergy in writing. You can use it both as a player and a DM, and there's plenty of scope for both drama and comedy. Unlike last article, they cover the regular set of both Chromatic and Metallic dragons, and how their natural tendencies are likely to be a pain in the ass to whoever has to raise them. Even the good ones have issues with greed and arrogance, and will rapidly become a physical match for you, so if you don't have enough knowledge and attention to keep them interested, they'll leave if they think there's a better option out there. Unsurprisingly, this is far more useful, but less whimsical than the similar article in issue 36, and completely specific to D&D dragons rather than generic fantasy ones, so it's another good example of both the good and bad changes in their policies over the years. It's another solid addition to the roster, but doesn't give me a huge amount of entertainment in and of itself. The fun will have to come from actual play, I suppose.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 320: June 2004


part 4/8


Dragon kingdoms: The dragon material this year continues to be more player-friendly than previously. Council of Wyrms detailed a whole continent where dragons were the dominant species, with small clans dominating countries full of demihumans. We also saw giant dragons take over large areas of Krynn for a good few decades. Given even a young dragon can be an army-buster, with their intelligence, mobility, breath weapon and array of magical tricks, why do they not play the role of near-immortal god-king more often? Partly lack of inherent sociability, partly arrogance, and partly need for large amounts of sleep make them good at commanding, but not so great at economics and mundane day-to-day affairs of state, so even dragons will have to learn to delegate if they want to rule anything bigger than a single settlement. Some dragons are more sociable than others, and they certainly express it in different ways. (brass dragon's gossipy nature vs silver dragon's tendency to go native, for example. ) Red dragons might be more individually powerful, but it's the blue and green ones that are more likely to pull off a long-term tyranny with several of them working together to control a kingdom. This stays consistent with all the various subspecies' previous characterisation, and takes their particular powers into account, so it leaves me pretty satisfied. They come up with plenty of reasons why and how a dragon would engage politically with people, and that means lots of adventure hooks for players to get stuck into. That's very much for the positive.


Dork tower die again. This is what happens when you don't remember your CR ratings.


Fiction: New in town by Richard Lee Byers. An Avariel? Iiinteresting. They've decided to have a bit of Forgotten Realms fiction in here again. It's a swashbuckling tale of fish out of water getting tricked into being the patsy for a bigger plot, but managing to learn fast enough to turn the tables by the end. It stays pretty close to straight D&D rules, apart from exaggerating how dangerous bears are under them. It definitely feels like it wants to lead on to further stories, but then, doesn't everyone. Doesn't mean its going to happen, especially with them gradually cutting down on fiction as they are. I guess it's just another minor thread in the massive tapestry the Realms has become.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 320: June 2004


part 5/8


Elminsters guide to the Realms: It can't be easy to keep coming up with fresh material for a world that has literally hundreds of sourcebooks and novels. Case in point, what we get here is yet another tavern. A rowdy place with overpriced drinks and lots of gambling, designed to keep adventurers away from "decent folks" and make sure their sudden influxes of money don't destabilise the economy. The Realms being fairly adventurer heavy means any authorities that last develop ways to keep them from causing too many problems without presenting an obvious target to overthrow. The illustration is particularly good this month, really making the place look simultaneously impressive and debauched, and detailing the various games and sports you can blow your money on. And as he has done before, Ed also provides details on the games which make the world feel like a real place where people do things other than adventure and whatever is needed to survive and make a living. Looks like he still has plenty of variants on the theme of living, breathing adapting world to give to us.


Dragonmarks, dragonshards and dynasties of power: Eberron is out now, so they drop the teaser format and go to regular articles. Last month we heard about how magic is integrated into the setting, despite PC class wizards not being hugely common. Magewrights were one part of that, letting the working man use magic routinely without the vast flexibility and offensive power being a wizard would give them. The other is Dragonmarks, which represent the advantage you have being born into a bloodline of power, and feel like an attempt to synthesize the disparate themes of Red Steel and Birthright while also making the result more robust and balanced in terms of rules. As most of the members of a particular house gain a consistent set of spell-like abilities, this means they have a natural advantage at appropriate businesses, and since they already have relatives in the field, it's easy to get in, make money and stay on top. Nice to see they're not afraid to deal with real world issues of nepotism and guild legbreaking. If you want to focus on these powers, you can spend feats or take a 5 level prestige class to get more, more powerful, and more frequent related powers. This is another article that feels pretty cool, showing you just how many new options the new setting gives you to build interesting characters with, while also keeping it from being a prejudice free utopia where everyone gets along regardless of species. Some people being born with a big head start in the race of life is a strong motivator for plots, whichever side your characters are on.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 320: June 2004


part 6/8


Silicon sorcery: Warcraft again in this column, with The Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft III. Last month, we reexamined Dark Sun's variant races and the possibility that you might do something similar for your campaign. This takes it a step further, talking about the idea of entire races being transformed mid-campaign due to magical weirdness or severe environmental pressure. This can go very wrong, (you might well get kender, for a start ) and leave players feeling cheated or railroaded, especially if the changes to their abilities are detrimental to their build. Still, high stakes, high risk, high potential rewards as well, and if it looks like your game is gradually losing people's interest, better to have it go out with a mind twist ending than a boring one. The sample changes to the PHB races are all based around the theme of the magic going away, making the world a little darker and more desperate, which isn't the most original of themes, but it does serve to ramp up the drama. Well, this is certainly an improvement on the 2e days where they would pull big game-changers in the metaplot, but turn around and forbid us from doing the same or going off the rails in the adventures and fighting the screwage. I'm once again happy to see more heavy-duty rules experimentation in the magazine.


Under command: Ugh. One consequence of a minis heavy game is that it gives the writers even more incentive to nerf shapechanging. So here's a big attempt to distract you from regular polymorphing with a load of specific spells that transform you in only one way for a short duration. This means they're intended pretty much exclusively as combat buffs, apart from one, as you won't have the time to keep up a disguise. They do gain a few abilities that you won't get with regular polymorph self, but really, this is the kind of stuff that sucks all the wonder out of the game, and I find it consistently annoying to deal with. So much for minis providing a little variety to the magazine when they're instead using it to push an agenda that also applies to regular D&D, and isn't pleasing to me at all. Screw that noise.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 320: June 2004


part 7/8


DM's Toolbox: Johnn is in the mood to cut the crap this month. Sprawling dungeons that are mostly just multiple levels of grey underground tunnels? Not this time. Take all the important rooms and themes that you would then pad out with filler, and condense them down into a best of that has all the excitement in just half a dozen rooms. Of course, putting them right together means you have to think even more about how the monsters interact, and what their body shapes and powers mean for the environment. Ironically, this seems like the kind of advice that's most useful at high level, especially in 3e, where high level monsters take a lot of work to create, and this can cause battles to really drag out, so you need to reduce the number of encounters if you don't want them to be stuck wandering around the same place for months on end. So learn how to prepare and edit before play, and you'll have to do considerably less work in the actual session. Isn't that always the way. Do your work at a time of your choosing, or you have to do it in a rush right before it's needed. As usual, Johnn's advice is solid and sensible, while also having enough of an individual spin to not be boring.


The play's the thing: Mearl's contribution this month is another one that he would reuse in an actual book in a couple of years time. Unlike the previous one, which was just fluffy filler advice, this is actually quite interesting, especially as this is another case where I get to examine the rules and see how they refined them before broadcasting them to a wider audience. So yeah, teamwork abilities. These are a cool idea, but have some serious issues, especially if they cost irreplaceable character resources and only work with a specific set of other people. And oh god does he make that mistake here, folks. You've got to have a reasonably high level leader to get in at all, and then everyone has to permanently sacrifice precious skill points to the pool and negotiate exactly what you want to spend them on. This is pretty much the worst possible way to do it, especially in a class and level based game where every level counts and if you fail to optimise at any point, you pay for it aaaall down the line. By contrast, the approach in the PHB II does require some investment in skill points, but they're investments you might well have made anyway, and you aren't bound into a single person always being considered the group leader. So this once again shows that while he might like to play with mechanical design, he really isn't actually that good at it, and needs a good editor to filter out the good ideas from the bad. Still, as both a good idea, and an interestingly bad implementation, this is very worthy of note.