Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 328: February 2005


part 2/7


First watch: Halflings? In Races of the Wild? Specious. As. . Categorisation. Raptorians? Right up there with Shadowdark, Wilden and Razorclaw as a crap name. Skip Williams still can't do fluff to save his life, apparently. Anyway, another splatbook series winds it's way merrily onward. Seems like more than half their releases these days fit into that category.

Lost empires of faerun, of course, takes us back to all those places that went through their own personal apocalypse. As we've seen repeatedly, especially in the late 90's, they certainly do have a lot of them. I'm betting that gives plenty of room for magic items, and quite possibly unearthable prestige classes. Just the thing to give your players rope to hang themselves with.

Also getting quite a bit of attention are White Wolf's licenses of old D&D properties, Ravenloft and Gamma world. One an ok-ish continuation of the existing setting and metaplot, the other a reboot that changes lots of things and tried to make them more serious and community focussed, with painful results. It's odd to have them supported, but not appearing in the official magazine. Wonder who was responsible for that decision.

Two more handy dandy game aids this month. A bunch of markers that you can use to track status effects without scribbling on your sheet every damn time. And a line of molds, providing another solution to the problem of never having enough pieces for your big dungeons. Guess quite a few people are experimenting in this area.

Boardgames as well? Seems like every month, they're covering something new. Navia Dratp seems to be a mecha oriented variant of chess. It's certainly pretty. Can you find the time and space to give it a shot? And a card game too. Grave Robbers from Outer Space. Cheesy B-movies get affectionately lampooned. If Munchkin is losing it's shine, perhaps this will make a good replacement.

Videogames also get in on the action. Devil may cry 3 brings the bishiness and the huge swords with aplomb. And the cut-scenes. Gotta have the extensive cut scenes. And on top of that we see that computer games are experimenting with the subscription based model, rather than buying games individually. The internet really does change everything.


Paragons of the Kindred: Using Kindred as a collective term for the demihuman races? Sorry, doesn't work for me at all, since both incarnations of Vampire have so thoroughly appropriated it as a euphemism. A collection of prestige classes based upon racial stereotypes doesn't sound particularly appealing to me either. If they tried that with real world ethnicities we'd never hear the end of the flamewars.

Chimeric Champions of Garl Glittergold let gnomish clerics also become exceedingly effective illusionists, gaining more deceptive spell-like abilities and the ability to create magic items with illusionist powers so all your buds can get in on the gag. As the only one of these with full spellcasting progressions as well, they're easily the most powerful of these, presuming they don't make so many items that they never advance in level, and kick ass if extended into epic levels.

Itinerant Warders of Yondalla mix priestly spellcasting with roguish agility and halfling sociability, making them pretty flexible, but almost definitely drifting towards a support role. Many players may wind up passing them by because of that.

Justice Hammers of Moradin gain some buffs to their combat abilities and general spell-like tricks, but with only 3/4 BAB and 1/2 spellcasting progression, they won't be able to make the best use of them overall.

Mystic Keepers of Corellon Larethian also try to mix priestly progression with elvish stereotypes and general protective powers, which means they don't do any one of those particularly brilliantly. Once again, trying to be a generalist is shown to be suboptimal in 3e. Not particularly impressed with this collection.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 328: February 2005


part 3/7


Dwarves at war: When you're short and stubby, you have to use somewhat different combat tactics to be effective in battle with humans and even bigger creatures. For dwarves, this is compounded by their low breeding rates, which mean they can win most of the battles against goblinoids, but still lose the war if they're not careful. It's no wonder that they have to specialise in asymmetric warfare and move underground, where small size is an advantage if they want to survive. So this justifies some of their stereotypes, like wearing heavy armor as standard, and undercuts others, like the idea of them fighting honorably. That makes it pretty cool reading, as it shows how much the 3.5 rules do and don't reflect the source material. Plus the tactics here are good for adventuring parties in general, especially in a dungeon environment. I think it manages to balance the various demands on their writers at the moment quite nicely.


Nobody's perfect: They've scrapped Heroic Feats, but this article reads like a condensation of 6 of those, with 4 flaws for each of the core demihuman races. Since they can fit 24 of them over 3 pages, this makes this article more efficient than that column, but it is another one that revels in the very worst of stereotypes, and doesn't leave me with much to say. They seem to be about equal with existing Flaws, so twinking out by taking several at 1st level won't be particularly easy, as you'll nearly always lose more than you gain. Once again, the shallow skimming leaves me pretty bored here, showing that being too general results in no-one getting a particularly great treatment.


Gaining prestige: Force Missile Mage? That's a very narrow specialisation indeed, more suited to a feat than a whole prestige class. Indeed, they can only find enough tricks enhancing it to make it a 5 level one, and since you have to be at least 6th level to get in, it'll never be the primary component of your build. You sacrifice one spellcasting level at the start, which means you can still get 9th level spells and blow stuff up with far more impressive spells. Since being known to specialise in one energy type, even one that's relatively tricky to resist like force spells is an invitation for enemies to concentrate on nullifying your best tricks, and direct damage-dealing isn't the best use of a spellcaster's valuable time anyway, I think other wizards are quite justified in looking down upon them. Basic blasty spells might be a good way to start your career, but you really ought to be thinking bigger and working on controlling the whole situation once you have a few levels under your belt.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 328: February 2005


part 4/7


The ecology of the will-o-wisp: We've already had this one, way back in issue 99. And you ma'am, are no Nigel Findley, may he rest in peace. In many ways, it's the opposite of that article, matter of fact where it was dramatic, vague on their origins and history where Nigel was very specific, parthenogenic where the original gave them three genders, pessimistic about their lack of manipulative organs where the original was transcendent, it's as if the writer was deliberately trying to make it different in as many respects as possible. About the only thing that remains is the memory sharing. A very curious decision. It's not actually that bad, but it does throw into even sharper relief just how formulaic these entries have become lately. Curious. And rather displeasing. No, I don't think I'm happy with this one.


Winning Races: This column comes to the end of it's short run on a relative high, with a cool new racial variant for Eberron's Shifters. While they gain aspects of various mundane animals, Saurian Shifters gain dinosaur traits, which is inherently more awesome, but also makes them even more feared by common people. They can also purchase regular shifter feats, which means they'll be far more expandable than most races introduced in an article and then never seen again. Why should elves get all the fun when it comes to variants for every situation? They're obviously better suited to the fighty classes, since all their transformation buffs are physical ones, but since they're an ECL +0 race, their bonuses and penalties aren't too high to be crippling if you go against type. I think they deserve to be reprinted again in a proper book.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: More elven magical items? No, Can't think of anything clever to say this time. Can't even muster sarcasm, I'm afraid. Elves and magic are just another day at the office by now.

Armor of the Long Journey is full plate that doesn't encumber you when walking. Combat is still a pain, but that's only a tiny part of your day. One of those nice lifechangers for an adventurer used to discomfort.

Boots of the Woodland not only help your stealth capabilities, but also protect you from the elements. Which means you can get another cloak which does something completely different. Maybe a robe of stars or something. In any case, this is pretty handy.

The Cape of the gerbil General gives you a charisma bonus, and those around you a morale bonus. This is not as useful as it would have been last edition.

The Hand of the Creator is just an elven-blessed dagger that gives you a permanent case of faerie fire when hit. This is actually rather irritating, and'll really put a crimp in your dungeon delving. Hit each enemy once for maximum effect.

Quivers of Plenty are actually better than the previous edition's equivalents, as you don't need to keep one arrow in as a template, and they can produce all sorts of different materials. Since that'll help you penetrate annoying DR, this is pretty useful.

Rods of Revealing get rid of illusions. As charged items, they won't last as long or be as unobtrusive as the similar glasses. Meh.

Shields of Obstruction spread out into walls of thorns which'll break up the whole battlefield. Use it before they get near, then you can shoot arrows over it and bombard them while they fight through the thorns.

Thespians Masks are another one-form transformation device. What they turn you into is fairly obvious when you look at them. Another attempt to give us stuff weaker than what we can manage with basic 1st level spells.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 328: February 2005


part 5/7


Silicon sorcery: God of War! If any video game character is an inspiration to D&D PC's, it's Kratos, who is the very model of a modern angsty omnicidal maniac. A conversion of his signature weapons, the Blades of Chaos, seems like the kind of thing that'd get the players either drooling or quaking, depending on which side of them they're on. With near indestructibility, the ability to bypass any kind of damage reduction, a free whirlwind attack feat, and as a neat little cherry to top things off, resistance to grappling attacks that would disable their use, they're a pretty substantial power-up to anyone who can use them, even taking into account the ability score sacrifices to attune to them. If you want to take on old school munchkin players who insist their characters have weapons like Stormbringer or Excalibur, this should let you play in the same leagues and result in much amusing fanboy bitching about which is more badass. The article is worth it for that alone.


Spellcraft has kept it's new name, unlike the Bazaar, and is still rather insubstantial compared to the old Arcane Lores. The pages seem to go by a lot quicker these days, thanks to the double-spaced lines and larger borders. This month, we get a load of bardic spells, drawing upon the more spooky, haunting side of music. That seems quite familiar from Halloween issues past, albeit not as overdone as it could have been.

Fugue of Tvash Prull is a variant on Confusion using music. Drive them mad with your organ playing, so they never get a chance to get near enough to attack, and are distracted further dealing with their companions.

Love's Lament makes you broooooooooooooood about your romantic failures. This has typically prosaic mechanical penalties in 3.5. I guess it's up to your own roleplaying skills to make it interesting.

Symphonic Nightmare is another music based variant on familiar spells. Disturb their sleep, with the usual problems to healing, spell refreshing and sanity. Well, I guess Bards have to work around their limited spell selections however they can these days.

Tvash Prull's Bonefiddle passes through your flesh and saws against your skeleton, causing hideous pain, neat visuals, and unpleasant sonic damage. Awesome, and another reminder that Sonic is really becoming one of the hot new attack types.

Undersong lets you substitute Perform for Concentration checks via soothing music. Take this as a 1st level spell straight away, and you can effectively free up a full set of skill points to max out something else interesting instead. This collection definitely increases your bard's versatility by a decent amount.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 328: February 2005


part 6/7


Under command: This column comes to an end as well, with another ambitious attempt to make it more flexible. We've had campaign play and random generation, now we have nonlethal competitions, which is also a pretty neat idea. After all, Blood Bowl did pretty well for Games Workshop in the 80's as light relief from a universe where there is only war. Sooner or later your players are going to feel the same way, and want to try something that isn't an all-or-nothing battle to the death. Competing in races, football games, and capture the flag can still be interesting, especially since you're still allowed to use your various special powers to hamper and knock out the enemies. As with the removal of Chainmail, it's definitely a shame to see this go when they're really starting to get used to it and push it's limits. I don't think we'll really notice 3 pages more D&D stuff, but the loss of minis coverage will make a real difference to the diversity of the magazine.


Sage advice: How long does it take to draw a projectile weapon (Same as melee weapons, yess)

Does drawing a wand provoke an AoO (Andy doessn't think so, especially if you have quick draw. Very useful, collins collins.)

Why does it take a full move action to switch a weapon from one hand to another. (Nassty chaotic combat, yess. Even that takes several sseconds if you don't want to drop it and have to sscrable in the dirt. Ssimple things can be very complicated. Try programming a robot to pass things from one hand to another and you'll ssee)

Can you only fire a crossbow every other round (No. Reloading iss a move action. You can sstill shoot once each round, even without special featss. )

How much effort is it to catch a boomerang. How about other things (Good question. It's Andy's firsst chance to make up some new ruless, preciouss. Andy is very happy about that, collins collins)

Can you take a standard action plus a free action as part of a readied action (no)
What happens when you do an epic tumble check to stand up as a free action and fail (It takses the normal amount of time, preciouss. Acrobatics is tricksy.)

Can doing an attack of opportunity provoke another attack of opportunity (Yes, collins collins. It can all get very confusing if theress lots of people in a fight. )

How long does it take a normal person to apply poison to a weapon (A standard action, yess?)

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 328: February 2005


part 7/7


Class acts: Barbarians get Barbaric mounts. They may not have a special power enabling it, but they can still train something thematic. Snow apes! Komodo dragons! Giant vultures! This is one that's useful for any class. Who wouldn't want to have some cool animal to ride everywhere.

Bards get Heavy Metal. Take a single level dip in fighter, and take still spell as a feat, and bards can be pretty effective in full plate armour. They have lots of abilities that aren't affected by it anyway, and the extra AC will make up for the slight drop in magical power. Plus it's a great route into Blackguard

Clerics get Peripheral beliefs. If you follow your god's traditions above and beyond the basics, you get a minor benefit. Essentially less stringent relatives of Exalted feats, this is a pretty neat idea. Are you willing to pay that price?

Druids get The Storm Druid. They replace their animal related special powers with weather themed ones. Since this involves giving up wild shape, this is probably a step down in power overall, but they're still exceedingly cool, and entirely competitive with all the other primary casters. I'd have no objection playing them.

Fighters get The Roman Legionnaire. This is basically an equipment list for anyone who wants to model their fighter on one of these guys. A good reminder just how ridiculously heavy soldiers packs are. Jesus H. I'm exhausted lugging around 2 stone of music equipment. How do they handle marching with packs more than half their own weight.

Monks get the multiclass advice this time. Starting off as a Fighter, paladin, or rogue before moving into the meditation business can give you valuable assets. A single level of arcane spellcasting focussed on maneuverability spells can also prove surprisingly effective. Interesting idea. Seems like it would combine well with Halfling as a race.

Paladins get Paladin domains. Sacrifice your turning ability for some other power more thematic to your god. As with the storm druid, these are probably a slight step down overall, particularly if you factor in divine channelling feats. But as undead turning is an often useless ability anyway, if you're not planning to go down that route, an ability that you can use proactively in lots of situations could be an improvement.

Rangers get advice on the best spells to pick. No great surprises here.

Rogues get Rogue Law. Rogue skills can be applied to a whole range of ends. Here's a few of the ways you could reskin this class.

Sorcerers get Not your typical spellcaster. Since they don't need to study for their powers, or owe loyalty to any cosmic force, anyone could find they have the Gift, regardless of personality. Annoyingly, the sample descriptions are still all slanted towards the mysterious arcane badass, which contradicts the previous statement. I roll my eyes. They get bluff for a good reason people. Showing off when you don't need too is not a good idea.

Wizards get wizardry 101. More explicit focus on choosing your role. Yes, tactics are a very good idea. We get that by now.


Nodwick fails his save vs flashback. Dork tower has an adventure where miniatures really don't seem a good option. Zogonia does what everyone dreams of doing to their ex.


With an exceedingly unimpressive themed section, and the demise of many of the regular columns, including ones introduced just 6 months ago, this issue manages to be both dull and worrying, which is not a good combination. It makes me hope Erik Mona knows what he's doing, because changing things up this quickly is a bit unsettling. Oh well. At least it keeps me wondering, which is better than knowing I'm going to get basically the same thing every issue. Done, Done, onto the next one.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 329: March 2005


part 1/7


107 (108) pages. Still going back to their roots this issue, but a different set of them. Instead of dungeoneering or demihumans, it's the original mythological sources of their monsters. We've certainly managed entertaining articles on that in previous editions. I hope they can repeat that feat without sucking out the sense of wonder, now that feats are a formal thing.


Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed.


In this issue:


From the editor: Time for Erik to do the "Let me tell you about my characters" thing that all the editors do at one point or another. (apart from Kim, who of course didn't game) And just like Matthew's editorials, the good practice and teamwork they try and preach in the articles is nothing like the drama driven, PvP loving, bad joke cracking actual play sessions in his past. It would be amusing to read about if it weren't so very consistent, and thus all the more baffling that they try to get new gamers to play in a style so different to the one that got them on board. I fully agree with him that characters should change and develop, not just get more powerful as they level up, and it's hard to do that when they're all built with a 20 level plan and work together in a team perfectly the whole time. Now perhaps you should accept some more articles based on that assumption.


Scale Mail: We kick off with another letter from someone who found the magazine delivered exactly what they wanted, when they needed it. It's good to be in tune with the secret desires of the public.

Of course, there are still quite a few old-school things they don't do. They haven't done cardboard inserts that you assemble into castles or vehicles in a long time. Since doing so again requires both approval from the WotC higher-ups, and a careful calculation of how to do so economically, it's an idea they can't do very often.

No surprise that there's already someone bored by the bite-sized, highly formulaic columns of the new format. Since they're already in the process of changing that, Erik can be fairly relaxed about this. However, the idea of bringing back Dragonmirth seems to be a rather trickier subject. Are artists really that much more expensive than writers for the amount of space they fill? Is a picture literally worth a thousand words?

Somewhat off-topic is a request for info on a long out of print book. I think internet forums would definitely answer this one more quickly and effectively, and maybe even save you the expense of paying for a physical copy from ebay.

Since the cover blurbs will be staying for the foreseeable future, they get asked to bring back the clean cover images inside. Since this saves them money coming up with more content anyway, that's one they're quite happy to grant.

Somewhat more amusing is a letter about always ensuring you have a gaming group by chaining them up in the basement. The attic will do perfectly fine too if you live in a place that doesn't have basements.

And finally, we finish with two general opinion pieces. More stuff where people talk about their gaming experiences, and more horror stuff seem to be the big lessons to take from them, and seem easy enough to provide, given the number of submissions of that sort they get.

 

[Erik Mona]

Dragon Issue 328: February 2005
With an exceedingly unimpressive themed section, and the demise of many of the regular columns, including ones introduced just 6 months ago, this issue manages to be both dull and worrying, which is not a good combination. It makes me hope Erik Mona knows what he's doing, because changing things up this quickly is a bit unsettling. Oh well. At least it keeps me wondering, which is better than knowing I'm going to get basically the same thing every issue. Done, Done, onto the next one.

Looking over some of my own issues, I think #330 is the one that really starts to show articles that I actually purchased for the magazine, rather than stuff that was more or less queued up for me. I was able to make some immediate changes to things like the title of Bazaar of the Bizarre and I was the one responsible for running virtually no coverlines on #326 (literally my first act as editor-in-chief), but I still had a lot of inventory to burn off before I could claim that the issues really reflected my "take" on what I thought Dragon should/could be.

I'm not saying you'll like any of that stuff more, necessarily, but yeah, it takes a few issues before a new editor's decisions really make their way into the meat of the magazine.

 

[Erik Mona]

That said, #329 did have the first installment of the Demonomicon of Iggwilv series that I midwifed with James Jacobs. Lots more of that sort of column coming, so here's hoping it's up your alley. If not... well, you've only got a couple years left to go before the end!

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 329: March 2005


part 2/7


First watch: The climate splatbooks continue, with Sandstorm. The harsh desert produces some badass race variants and prestige classes. Just the thing for if your DM's a hardass who likes tracking rations and water.

They also give substantial promotion for various minis, including official ones based upon the recent MM3 creatures. On the third party side, Todd Mcfarlaine's representation of Conan, and a rather large dragon seem pretty decent, but it's Rackham's black paladins that get their top marks. Seems like everything comes prepainted these days.

Quite a few cool D20 books this month too. The best of Grimtooth's traps gives you another chance to get your sadist on. Now if there's one thing this magazine hasn't done enough of in terms of crunch, it's traps. Monte Cook does everything a little more refined, in Arcana Evolved. A whole new set of classes and magic, feats and worldbuilding, all fitting together a bit more neatly than regular D&D. I do rather like this. There's also another epic book. Full metal fantasy: Iron kingdoms world guide. Another world comes into the OGL fold, so you can crossover with ease.

Another game aid designed for quick ease of play. Green Dragon release not only more stamps for marking objects on your battlemaps, but little rollers as well. So cute! I can see why they picked this one to promote.

Our computer game this month is another D&D one. Dragonshard brings Eberron to the screen. Mass combat as well? Interesting. Don't remember hearing much about this one. Was it any good?

And finally, we have a movie. A Sound of Thunder. Ray Bradbury provides the inspiration for a tale of time traveling weirdness. Only spun out quite a bit. And not done very well, if reviews are to be believed. Oh well, the original story is still here.


The beasts of beowulf: Beowulf is definitely very good source material for D&D, as it showcases not only adventuring material, but also the other stages of the adventurer lifecycle, cascading plots as the consequences of your actions come back to haunt you, and settling down with a realm of your own at high level. (until an even bigger threat comes along to finish you off for good) It surprises me little to learn that this particular set of myths was dug from the archives and repopularised by none other than a certain J. R. R. Tolkien in the early 20th century. Being a teacher at a prestigious university and a cunning linguist lets you have access to rare source materials like virtually no other position, and it makes me wonder what else is lying forgotten in those dusty halls, ready to be liberally stolen from and repurposed, since it's all well in public domain by now. I certainly know there's quite a few cool stories in the bible that get neglected compared to the same old set of adam, noah, moses and jesus that get brought up again and again. But anyway. This article gives us pretty straight mechanical conversions of Beowulf, and his three biggest adversaries. Beowulf is a 15th level fighter, and they set Grendel so he's a challenge, but not an extreme one, Grendel's mum so she's a tough but achievable challenge for him, and of course the dragon so he can't really beat it by brute force on his own. That's pleasingly joined-up thinking by the writer and editor, and a huge improvement on old-school articles full of sample NPC's with illegal abilities. He would be more optimal mixing a level or two of ranger with his fighter ones so he could get those wilderness skills without going cross-class though. Oh well, can't expect miracles of charop every time, can we?