Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 325: November 2004


part 7/8


Class acts: Fighters get Tools of the Trade, a bit of advice on choosing your weapon. Will you go for damage, reach, special effects, types of damage, lots of attacks? The choice is yours, and you have the feats to back it up. Yawn.

Clerics get More Faith, less Fight. A bit of roleplaying advice plus a how to on building characters that statistically match their personality. This may involve taking cross-class skills. Oh well. Them's the breaks. Real people are usually suboptimally built, for optimally statted and trained all their life for a purpose people wind up like Michael Jackson, deeply weird.

Wizards get Apprentice tricks, some advice on the clever uses of cantrips. One of those things we've seen before, done better and in greater depth in 2nd ed.

Rogues get The Multiclassed Rogue. What classes would make a good dip to complement your array of skills? A level of barbarian is easily the best choice, as speed and extra dodging makes up for the slight sacrifice of sneak attack, and you can soon bring most of your skills back to max. Fighter and bard can be pretty good too. Interesting thoughts here.

Barbarians get 7 new flaws. All but 2 revolve around their rage ability, making it more of a pain in the ass. Hulk smash indeed. Take a couple of these at 1st level and multiclass out of barbarian at 2nd for much twinkitude.

Druids get Druid Meets World. How does a druid fit in when not in the wilderness? Good question. Here's some possible answers. More fluff and tactical advice.

Sorcerers get Sorcerous Strategies. If you choose nothing but blasty spells, don't be surprised if you suck donkey balls and die. One blasty spell per spell level, making sure they're of different shapes and energy types, is more than sufficient to keep you competitive. The rest should be devoted to defense and utility. You want to get the greatest versatilty out of your limited selection, make sure you don't get caught with nothing useful. Pretty commonsensical, really.

Rangers get Tracking and Trailing. You can learn a good deal about a creature from looking at it's prints, beyond just where it's going. Another reason a few ranks in Knowledge (nature) don't go amiss.

Paladins get Dealing with friends and allies. It's important that your buds know what they can't be permitted to do without the paladin having to punish them. You want a real good guy on your side, you'd better make sure you're at least moderately righteous yourself. Another case of tackling a roleplaying issue that has been done before in much greater detail.

Monks get 4 new magic items. 3 weapons, and a magical belt, each of which has a special ability particularly useful to a monk. Pretty neat stuff to put in a treasure haul.

Bards get Skills and Knowledge. More advice on how to play them thematicly, and assign your skill points appropriately. Knowing what lies ahead is an invaluable asset, so use it and you could avoid an unwanted TPK.


Player Tips: Metagaming is one of those topics that pops up fairly regularly around here. Generally people are against it, as it reduces the verisimilitude of the world. This article takes the opposite approach. Instead of trusting yourself to not metagame, make sure your characters take appropriate knowledge skills so you can justify using your OOC knowledge. Much like saying don't create a character who's an and then say you're just playing your character when it causes problems for other players, this is a solution that will work in many games, but not all of them. It's certainly not that well suited to D&D, where skill points are at a premium, and fairly specific to particular classes. I suppose it doesn't matter who has the metagame knowledge as long as at least one of the characters has the skills to back it up. It'd take a very churlish DM indeed to ban all OOC communication at the table. So this is interestingly different, but I can already see the potential problems in this approach. Still, at least they're trying new things, which is better than just churning out some old canard about building your personality.


Adventurer tricks: This column is also in a modernist mood, as it thinks about what your adventuring party can take from the organisation and tactics of real life SWAT teams. Which mainly means the joys of suppressive fire, good use of stealth and cover, and focussing on the most dangerous targets to take them down fast before they even get a chance to react. Even in 3.5e, there are substantial options which enable you to win fights without putting yourself in danger, especially if you can buff your spell DC's to the point where your save or suck effects outpace the save progressions of your enemies. Just make sure you set divinations up to prevent turnaround being fair play, because being ambushed and pincushioned while trying to sleep will let NPC's kill you despite being lower CR just as easily. Once you go paranoid, it's not easy to go back.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 325: November 2004


part 8/8


Sage advice: It's too bright in here. All that white hurtses andy's eyses, collins collins. Andy hass piled up sskip's books to make niiiccce shadows. Much nicccer.

What's the difference between ethereal and incorporeal (One iss here but inssubstantial, the other is on another plane. Nassty spying thing can sse you when you can't ssee it. If Andy finds out andy will go there and wring it's nassty neck, collins collins.)

Whats the difference between a manifesting ghost and an ethereal one. (What nassty stuff they can do to you, yess.)

Can a ghost use it's abilities on other ethereal things. Can it see ethereal things while manifested (Only ssome of them. No. Other ghosts can ssneak up on it, yess. )

Can a ghost travel to other planes. (Yess, but it can't go ethereal on them. Sscary for them, teeheeheeheehee. )

Can you target an ethereal creature from the prime material plane (If you can ssee it and have force sspells. Nice force sspells. blast those nassty ghosties)

Can you hurt things on the prime material from the ethereal with force effects. (No. One way only. Have to research other special spells to do that, preciouss.)

Can ghost touch weapons hurt ethereal creatures (no)

What happens when a wall is built on the ethereal plane (Very tricky, yess. No ssolid matter there, so you have to import it all. If you do, its all ssolid, normal cover and concealment rules apply, yess.)

Does an ethereal object block force effects on the material plane. (Yess. If they can't ssee ethereal things, this could result in a nassty surprise for the holder, teeheeheeheehee.)

Can an ethereal creature grapple someone wearing bracers of armor or vice versa (No, collins collins. Not a solid hold.)

How do I keep ethereal characters from wrecking my adventure. ( Nassty sneaky adventurers. Other high level sspellcasters will make defenses, yess. And roll for random encounters that'll eat their brainsess, yess. And at low level they won't be able to do it much anyway.

How does the plane of shadow keep mimicing the prime material when people change it. (It flowss sslowly and ssneakily when you aren't looking. Nassty shadows don't look exactly like the real thing, like evil shadow puppets. They givesses Andy the creeps, collins collins.)


Coup de grace: James Wyatt finishes up this issue with a little piece praising the idea of settings in general, while also talking about what made Eberron the best option for a new D&D setting at this moment in time. It uses all the old stuff, but in interesting new ways, and also adds new things on top of those. Plus it used good ideas from other settings submitted in the search, allowing them to make it more expansive, and less built around the ideas and quirks of one person. If they can only have a couple of settings alive at any one time, they might as well make them really good ones. Once again, this column puts the tensions between the creative and commercial into sharp relief, and shows that when large amounts of money are at stake, things naturally tend to turn into work by committee, as that lets everyone involved claim credit if something is a success, while denying responsibility if it isn't. Yet again this makes it very clear why the 3rd party D20 writers had plenty of clear space to do interesting things WotC couldn't at this time, and it's not certain which actually produces the better game. Oh well, I can liberally use both sources in my own campaign. The more diverse the options, the better.


Once again, this issue is a much easier read than the ones before they changed the format, giving me huge amounts of usable material, much of it good. The novelty may be wearing off, but they're still packing the content into every issue. As usual, let's see if they've been holding anything special back for christmas, or if the new formula will start to bore me by then.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 326: December 2004


part 1/8


76 (108) pages. A proper scene with stuff happening on the cover instead of one character posing! And they've scaled back on all the promotional blurbs so you can see it clearly! What there is looks pretty promising too. Wenches · Tricks · Wandering Monsters · Ale · Traps. That's a proper old school set of themes that I can instantly see the links between. Let's put a little more grime back in our dungeoneering, and see who stays heroic, and who flunks out because they just can't take fighting oozes with a hangover after a night in the local festhall.


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


In this issue:


From the editor: Unsurprisingly, the editorial reminds us that going back to the dungeon was the tagline for 3rd edition, and it should be the default adventure type for most D&D parties. It's the easiest type of adventure to run, and presents the most obvious physical challenges to the players, which makes coming to a decision far easier than a city, where you can go anywhere, talk to anyone, and have no idea who the good and bad guys are. (and even if you do, you can't just barge in and kill them) D&D is not just a straight world simulator, it has a very specific and distinct slant to it's design that pushes you towards tactical site-based scenarios, thanks to it's movement, resource tracking and combat systems. The World of Darkness doesn't give costs for 10 foot poles or torches, or track exactly how much everything weighs, and so people don't worry so much about their inventory when playing it. Runequest makes even non-cleric characters take their religion and culture more seriously than D&D ones. And truly generic point buy games make people obsess over character building to the point where they can actually spend more time creating their character than playing it. If you don't want dungeon-crawling to play any part in your game, you have plenty of better options, instead of trying to fight the system like so many 2e settings did.


Scale Mail: No surprise that the format changes provoke tons of letters, both positive and negative. First up is someone bemoaning the departure of Gary. That was his choice they're afraid, insomuch declining health can be considered a choice. Mind you, given the sheer volume of forum posts he managed right up to a week before he died, many of which were on similar topics, it may have just been being tired of fitting his stories into the one page format instead of being free to ramble.

Similarly, the removal of a regular monthly dose of realmslore causes much distress to it's many fanatics. If it's no longer popular enough to merit an appearance every month that's because you at WotC have actively worked to downplay settings in favor of genericness. The audience has fought you every step of the way on this one, and it's only the fact that they're divided amongst themselves that let you win.

We have another letter from someone who was a reluctant convert to 3.5, but liked it when they did bite the bullet. Releasing new editions too soon is a problem even if their contents are good, it seems.

We also have a letter from someone who doesn't get to play, so they mainly buy the magazine for the fiction and setting stuff. They have to remember to cater to that crowd as well, and they do forget sometimes.

The format changes continue to attract huge amounts of controversy, with another 4 for and 3 against. What they've gained in readability, they've sacrificed in flavour, and there are plenty of people who don't like the new layout or columns at all. Still, at least this shows lots of people still care. The question is if it'll increase or decrease their readership overall, as that's the only metric that really matters in the end.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 326: December 2004


part 2/8


First watch: As is often the case, January means a slump in the number of products released. In this case, not a single official WotC one. How very problematic for them. The only RPG book they decide to promote is Mike Mearls' Book of Iron Might. The precursor to Iron Heroes, and containing quite a bit of the same material, this aims to make fighting more tactical and dramatic. Now there's a thread that will definitely run through the next few years in an interesting way.

A couple of interesting gaming related products as well. Incredibly useful, especially when combined with Tact-tiles, are Dungeon stamps. These allow you to set out landmarks on your grid quickly, reusably, and most importantly, in fairly unlimited number. Much better than faffing about with little models in things like Heroquest.

They're still covering quite a bit of useless peripheral stuff though. Fuzzy dice? Cthulhu themed filks?! (double the SAN loss in one package there.) A documentary on gaming? Dear oh dear. What are they thinking. Don't they even have any novels they could be promoting. A couple of years ago they were releasing more novels than game books, but they haven't mentioned any at all since starting up the previews again. This does have some rather perplexing choices.


Player initiative: Two years into their life, Paizo finally get round to putting up their own message boards so they don't have to rely on the WotC forums or general ones like rpg.net and enworld for feedback. (and can ban people who sign up just to bitch about them ) Will this help them make the magazine better, or will the noise overwhelm the signal? It's a constant danger with the internet, as it lets everyone with any creative skill at all put their work up and potentially reach millions. Which means you have to be your own gatekeeper, instead of just picking a channel or two and sticking to them. This is certainly the case for our other two topics, a deluxe gaming table and a renowned filker. Whether you'll get any entertainment value out of those will be exceedingly subjective based on taste. I'm not sure they know what they want to do with this column, and it doesn't surprise me that they're dropping it when it has so much overlap with First Watch.


Under command: A second article on campaign play in a row for the minis guys. This time, they decide to go back to issue 303, and reuse their ideas on running a gladatorial campaign. This was great fun to read about under D&D, and if anything, it's even better suited to the minis game, where you can build new groups of characters for each round quickly and easily. They spice things up further by making a rule whereby the position of mad overlord (arena designer) rotates from round to round, and you spend money on bribes, equipment & healing and can bet on matches to add a strategic element to play between the actual fights. That definitely seems a good way to fill a few evenings, especially if you've gone to all the effort to build a colosseum on your gaming table and don't want to break it down again too soon. Absolutely no hesitation in trying out this one if I get the chance, like many of the old games they used to put in the magazine.


Silicon sorcery: World of Warcraft is finally out! The MMO that would dwarf all other MMO's and still dominates the landscape and makes Blizzard ridiculous amounts of money a decade later. Since WoW isn't that different from D&D in general design principles, right down to the alliterative name, the material they convert fits right in here. Two feats which boost your ability to have monstrous pets and animal companions, which most nature based characters consider taking once in a while. One that makes you inflict more damage on creatures that just hurt you, which is neat but not world-shaking. And one that increases ALL your movement speeds by 10 when wild-shaped, which is pretty awesome, given how hard it is to increase your movement rate, and how much wild-shape already increases your mobility and combat options. Like the ability to cast spells while wild-shaped, that seems like a no-brainer to an optimisation-loving druid. Be afraid.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 326: December 2004


part 3/8


A novel approach: This column goes for the lazy option of promoting their own Forgotten Realms books again. Time for another metaplot event which is too big for you to make a real difference too, apart from maybe saving whatever village you're in at the time. The dragons have all woken up at once and they're swarming again, like locusts, only even more ecologically devastating. You wonder where they all go, don't you. Unsurprisingly, our mechanical conversions are two of the heroes who will actually get to solve the problem and let them get back to sleep. A Song Dragon who's halfway between age categories, and has a few other little statistical quirks to fit the books. And an embittered dragon slayer who lost limbs to one, and will probably have to go on an emotional journey along with the physical one to learn to accept them and judge them as individuals. Neither could quite be replicated using the RAW. They may have decided to skip this in Eberron, but that just leaves them freer to indulge in the Realms, because that's what people have got used too and they'd complain if they stopped. Mind you, people complain about the metaplot events as well, but I suppose that just means they still care. No matter how busy the Realms gets, they have to keep adding to it, and at least with stuff like this they can kill a few NPC's and raze a few villages in the process to make room for more developments.


Zogonia has a deeply worrying development. Giger would be amused. Nodwick reaches the very bottom floor of the deepest dungeon. There are easter eggs contained within. Dork tower ought to realize computers are a lot more expensive to replace than dice.


The dungeon delvers guide: Not too surprisingly, we kick off the theme with basic advice on the procedures of dungeoneering for those who think they can just charge in and kill stuff until a place is cleared out. (and may well have been getting away with it if the DM's an amateur as well) There's a whole bunch of stuff on marching order, equipment, mapping, making sure all your party roles are covered, tactics, dealing with traps, etc etc. It demonstrates that 3e isn't actually badly suited to this playstyle at all, even if characters are likely to level up several times in the middle if you make a dungeon complex too large. (and you can slow that by re-instituting the training to advance levels rule from 1e, or making the situation lethal enough that hirelings seem like a very good idea) It still has all the gear, nearly all the monsters, all the traps, and now you have solid skills to find out if they're screwed in a situation or not. All it needs is the right kind of DM, and hopefully this has reminded both new and old players just what D&D was originally intended to be. Many of the tricks are familiar, but a few aren't, which lets me give this a positive result overall, as it's not just for the newbies.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 326: December 2004


part 4/8


Down the drain: Sewers are a perfect source of dungeons, even if they're a bit more grimy and cramped than people in plate mail would prefer, as they're full of life, and the organic way they're built up over time along with the settlements above gives you plenty of room for hidden or collapsed bits that no-one knows the layout of, regardless of what the maps in the town hall say. I'm very surprised indeed that they haven't done an article on them before, with the closest thing being a collection of sewer monsters in issue 238. So this is another one they can afford to be fairly system-light on, going into both historical detail, and how to make sewers fantastical for a D&D campaign. In a world which has plenty of ruins from magical civilisations past, you have plenty of freedom to make them both bigger than the surface town they abut, and very weird to PC's ignorant of engineering principles. (watch out for the one that feeds all the pipes to a sphere of annihilation deep beneath the city. It may seem like a good idea, but it'll ruin the ecosystem in the long-term. ) There's tons of adventuring hooks you can get from this, both the obvious ones while down there, and the less obvious ones where you travel through the sewers as a means to an end. (quite possibly using shrinking magic to come up someone's toilet at the other end) Any adventurer who's afraid of getting a little stinky is definitely missing out on a prime source of XP. Are you going to be that party who falls behind or fails the quest because they weren't willing to hold their nose in the pursuit of good deeds?


Get Lost: Labyrinths are a more classical inspiration for D&D dungeons. Unlike sewers, mines, or ruined buildings, they're intentionally created to be challenging to navigate, by tricks like making everything look the same, layouts that naturally tend to draw your movements back to the way out, subtle slopes throwing off attempts to map by actually having multiple levels, and the ancient greek method of making sure people are hopped up on drugs before they can even enter in the first place. Unlike sewers, where adventurers might balk at first, but'll soon find plenty of stuff down there to occupy their attention, they'll probably jump at the the chance to explore a labyrinth, but might well find themselves getting bored once there, particularly if the place is low on landmarks and wandering monsters. As with the Tomb of Horrors, you really do have carte blanche to be as sadistic as you like with the design of these places, as mundane considerations like living spaces and toilets don't apply, and there are some people with ridiculously huge budgets and twisted senses of humour out there, who know how to set things up so trying obvious solutions lands you deeper in trouble. If you want to make the dungeon impossible, you can do so easily. The question is, can you make it seem impossible, yet remain interesting enough that the players will press on and solve it anyway, and will you fudge things if it looks like they're having it too hard or easy, or let the dice fall as they may and watch them slowly starve to death if they can't find the way out again?


The ecology of the rakshasa: Hmm. Technically, we haven't had an ecology on this creature before. However, in all but name, we almost have, in Scott Bennie's article in issue 84. Still, this does take a quite different tack to that, leaving their origin mysterious, and engaging in the usual focus on their psychology, society and combat tactics. Seems like they have rather more societal variants than most creatures, adapting to different worlds and even planes almost as well as humans do. Since they're yet another monster for whom sneakiness is paramount, the tactical advice is once again focussed on outmaneuvering your foe on both sides of the battle, with half the war even figuring out what you're facing. This does throw into relief the fact that since the revamp, the ecologies have been increasingly metronomic in their hitting of particular beats, and very precisely bounded page count, going from one topic to the next, always in the same order. With a creature like this, which could definitely stand a more detailed examination, this is a serious flaw. If all the subsequent ecologies are like this, I'm definitely going to start struggling for new things to say about them.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 326: December 2004


part 5/8


Spellcraft follows immediately after the ecology, as it has every issue since the revamp. Once again with the metronomic nature of the magazine's design. This is another selection of cantrips. Since we last had these exactly 2 years ago in issue 302, I shall glare disapprovingly. Surely you could have at least picked a topic from 2e years to rehash instead.

Fleeting Fame is another skill buffer we had a pretty much exact analogue of last time. Meh.

Groundsmoke makes smoke from a fire fail to rise normally. The kind of low key comfort and potential lifesaver cantrips should be used for.

Necrosurgery isn't the awesome Exalted stuff, but just a roundabout way of helping you resist disease. Once again with the meh. Wizards are supposed to suck at healing.

Nosy Neigbour boosts your listen skill a bit. Once again, superceded by issue 302's general skill booster cantrip.

Seeker's Chant is yet again superceded and worse than last time. Bonus on search checks? Already covered.

Shadowplay lets you do impressive looking but harmless stuff with someone's shadow. Another potential cantrip staple to frighten those with no knowledge of magic.

Vengeful Mount makes the victim unnerving to animals. You don't want to turn someone into a vampire just for that, do you. I thought not. No, this collection isn't nearly as big or good as the last cantrip collection.


Magic shop is also repeating a very familiar theme, nature based magic items. As long as two core classes key off magical connection to nature, there'll never be a shortage of people inventing variants on this theme.

Acorns of Clarity give you an instant connection to nature as long as you're holding them. Better not drop them, because it'll be a bigger finding them again in the woods without that extra skill.

Arboreal Armor grows it's own berries, letting you hide out in the wilderness as long at you like in addition to it's actual protective value. Careful how you sleep, as you don't want to wake up in a puddle of wasted jam.

Briar Staves control plants, and intriguingly, can be recharged by burying them for a few months, which is definitely a good way to teach PC's about conservation and crop rotation. Cycle your resources, and you won't be so predictable to enemies either, as they can never be sure what tactics you'll be using this time.

Deluge Rods summon acidic mist, fiendish sharks, and generally chill the area. They also make the wielder feel perpetually cold and clammy though, so many people will consider them not worth the bother. Even liches have to look after their bodies, for bits dropping off is a pain in the ass.

Eagles Cry Bows do indeed make a sound like an eagle when you use them, which makes them pretty obvious to everyone around. If you're not a friend of the elves, you can expect parties of them to come along soon to retrieve it by force. They can be even worse than githyanki at tariffs and protectionism.

Rods of the Wild let you pick from a bunch of different animal types and gain themed buffs. Choose wisely, as you can only have one at a time.

Sylvan Cloaks are updatings of your basic elven cloak as owned by every LotR reader at some point. No real surprises here, apart from the greater ones that let you teleport through trees or bring them to life to fight for you, which'll put a crimp in any orc's day.

Thornblades are another one that you can't really get by killing things and taking their stuff, as they whither away once separated from their bonded owner. So much for the adventurer's circle of life then. Hypocritical elves.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 326: December 2004


part 6/8


Heroic feats: This column only gives us 4 feats this month, but they're longer than usual. We've had full books on the paragons of good, and evil, and the cool feats, prestige classes and spells they can purchase. Similar stuff for lawful and chaotic characters seems entirely logical. Of course with chaotic characters, you don't want the actual abilities they get to be too boring and logical, and unfortunately, that's exactly what we do get here. 2 feats which work like Practiced Spellcaster for Barbarian or Bard class features, the ability to always have certain skills as class ones, and a seriously nerfed version of the old Wild Mage ability to control magical items with random effects. Very disappointing and rather formulaic. Surely you can come up with something better than this for your champions of chaos.


Gaining prestige: When taking a prestige class, you always need to ask if the abilities you gain from it are better than the ones you would get from staying in your regular class. This is particularly the case with partial spellcasting progressions like this one, which cause you to give up your 9th level spells. The Shaper of Form is a specialist in shapeshifting magic, both organic and inorganic. This does give them a sufficiently different niche from the druid that both could fit into a party. They also get permanent body changes, including the ability to easily change race or gender, which is obviously a good target for people who want to play trans characters, and don't want to revert to their birth biology every time an enemy casts dispel magic on them. Overall, I think this probably comes out slightly suboptimal, since they give up 4 levels of spellcasting, but still only have an 1/2 BAB, so they won't be able to take full advantage of their physical enhancements to compensate for that.


Winning races: This column introduces another set of gradual progressions for templates, to reflect gradually picking up a connection with other worlds rather than being born with it. This time, it's the half-elemental ones. Each of those 4 CR+2 templates becomes a 3 level progression, gradually boosting the degree of elemental resistance and number of spell-like abilities you can access. Like the bloodlines in UA, these work best if you take them gradually alternating between regular levels, with the final one somewhere in your early teens, rather than all at once in a way that makes you fragile at low level. As this definitely makes it easier to take these thematic abilities while remaining balanced overall, I have to approve of this particular bit of mechanical development.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 326: December 2004


part 7/8


Class acts: Fighters get Two Swords are better than One. Given their number of feats, a fighter who specializes can actually end up better at this combat style than rangers. Don't discount it just because Drizzt made it thematic for another class and everyone was dumb enough to copy him.

Clerics get 7 new flaws. Some interesting, and rather brutal flaws that really cut at the heart of their class features. I definitely approve of anyone brave enough to take these and deal with the consequences.

Wizards get The Necromancer's Primer. Unless you have supplements, there aren't nearly enough low level necromancy spells, so you have to choose carefully or wind up underpowered. Such a hassle. Here's a little advice to take the sting off it.

Rogues get 6 new special abilities to choose at higher level. Now this is more like it. Just what you need if you've played the game to epic and want some more tricks to fill out your set or surprise the players with. I particularly love Swift Kick. Great way to make your trap disarming more cinematic.

Barbarians get Strong Strategies. Hit em fast, hit em hard, and remember, you can afford to soak more damage than anyone else. Some very 4e-esque advice we have here. How curious.

Druids get The Wild Side. Ahh, the joys of wild shape letting you outclass any warrior or rogue. And who needs wizard spells anyway? Do we really need another reminder just how awesome 3e druids were?

Sorcerers get a load of advice on their equipment. Their probably low strength and need for mobility means overloading them is a bad idea. Choose carefully.

Rangers get 5 new fighting styles. Just the thing for when the fighter's just taken the 2 weapon fighting schtick. Wrestling, mounted fighting, piscator, throwing weapons, these are pretty neat, and should help you avoid getting stereotyped.

Paladins get a bit of fluff on their historical antecedents. Charlemagne's peers and the knights templar. Yet again, they are reiterating stuff tackled before in more depth. These really are dreadfully shallow a lot of the time.

Monks get A Matter of Style. Talk about martial arts styles, and real world examples of such. More shallow reiteration. I pity the people who have to write these.

Bards get Magic & Music. Bards really shine as a social and support character. So use them like that! Don't try and be the big solo combatant. Help people out, and you'll both be much happier. Another bit of advice they would code into the next edition much more strongly.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 326: December 2004


part 8/8


Sage advice: How many HD does a 1st level pixie rogue have (2. He's at a big disadvantage in an ECL appropriate party, yess. You stab him, he goes splat, teeheeheehee)

If a spectre hits him, does he lose 2 ECL's, or does he die (He dies. Ssserves him right, collins collins.)

How do you deal with the LA from gaining a template mid game. (You won't gain any more levels until you pay it off. But you get to be stronger than your friendses for a while.)

Do creatures with special powers increase their DC's when they gain class levels (No. Less and less useful, collins collins. Thats why there's the buyoff option in unearthed arcana)

If you shapechange into a creature with special powers, how do you calculate the DC (Usual creatures HD, collins collins. )

Can a half celestial gain the dragon type from dragon disciple (No, its lower on the type hierarchy, collins collins. Still get all the special powers though.)

Why do things get ECLs higher than their CR. (Many abilities are more useful when PC's have them. Very annoying, collins collins)

How do CR's for traps work. Why don't they go above 10. (ssame challenge as similar monsters, yess. Hard to make traps above CR 10 without making them instantly deadly, or too easy to a prepared party. Too much swinginess bad in encounters, yesss? )

How much XP is a EL 5 encounter worth. (Depends what's in it )

Should you increase a monster's CR if it has powerful magic items (Maybe, collins collins. Not too much, though. )


Coup de grace: Player Tips and Adventurers Tricks breathed their last last issue, and this column ironically gets the coup de grace delivered to it this one, showing that they're already starting to struggle to maintain the same set of little columns every single issue. Maybe they're regretting showing what's behind the curtain, because this is one by Mike Mearls on how he became a professional writer. Basically, there's three steps. Treat it like a real job, sit down and write a certain amount every day, no matter how rubbish it is, and then clean it up in editing. (or put it in magazine articles anyway and let it cause massive nerdrage ) Remember to make time to actually play, as it'll stoke your creativity, and make sure the new stuff you come up with gets stress tested. And make sure you submit your work to anyone who's remotely likely to be able to use it, and then pay attention to their feedback and try again regularly even if they turn you down. As with most of the other times they've talked about this, they make it quite clear that natural writing talent is secondary to drive, persistence in the face of adversity, and ability to connect with the right people, and that getting on the first rung is probably the hardest part of getting a job. Whether that gives you hope for your chances or not is very much up to you.


Looks like things are already starting to change again around here, as they react to feedback on their new format, just as they did with the more dodgy fonts and layout choices immediately after 3e's release. That gives me hope that even if the individual columns remain hit and miss, and often very formulaic, the overall presentation of the magazine will continue to improve, so they can go out on a high. Let's see what surprises the last three years hold for me, if any.