Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 333: July 2005


part 1/7


73(108) pages. They never look up, and that will be their downfall! Fraz-Urb'luu reminds us that when you have wings, and you live in a universe of chaos and evil where everything is out to get you, it makes a good deal of sense to use them, and any other advantage you can get. Will this issue grant more new tricks to the players or the DM? Well, let's see. I'll be using the 10 foot poles from a few issues ago to test the way though.


Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed, ad-free scan


In this issue:


From the Editor: Up until the latest revamp, we'd had at least one Forgotten Realms article virtually every single issue for nearly a decade, and they weren't exactly uncommon before that either. It was born from the magazine, and consequently it's fanbase has always had a huge intersection with Dragon's readers. Their attempts to remove it for yet more generic material has led to a huge outpouring of letters. Thankfully, Erik's more sympathetic eye means it's time to reverse that again. So really, this is another reminder that the Realms got to be the biggest setting because it was introduced gradually, rather than with a big fanfare, and got frequent, small updates as well as full sized books to cover all sorts of minor details. People feel comfortable with it, unlike some settings that are cool, but also intimidating to get started with like Wraith or Tekumel, and also feel comfortable sending in new articles, so it's not just the property of it's original group of writers like Dragonlance or Dark Sun. You can't stop the signal. Here's to it's continued triumph through sheer popularity in the face of office politics.


Scale Mail: We start off with an amusing letter by a ninja who refers to himself in the third person. Googling shows that this guy is a Paizo board regular, so the editor is in on the joke and responds appropriately. All hail The Koga!

We continue with a whole bunch of further assessments of the last few issues. They're generally positive, but wanting more Forgotten Realms stuff is a common thread amongst them. As the editorial made clear, it's you the readers that keep the Realms alive while other settings fall by the wayside. Be ever vigilant, for they may try to kill it again.

And finally, we continue the sexism debate, with a letter pointing out that die-hard fans who lack social skills are toxic to gaining a wider audience because they drive girls off by being patronising, lecherous and elitist. Which is a self-perpetuating problem, as by driving them off, they reduce the chances of getting into a relationship with someone with the same interests. And really, what is the point of that?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 333: July 2005


part 2/7


First watch: Weapons of legacy is our generic offering. A whole bunch of magic weapons building upon the ideas in Unearthed Arcana. Course, they have to balance them with fairly substantial "sacrifices" to attack bonus and hp which mean they're hardly worth the effort after all. There may be the problem that if everyone's special, no-one is, but it really doesn't work the other way around.

They also go back to Waterdeep for what, the dozenth time or so in City of Splendors. Another rules revision, another chance to make money from the same old rope with a few timeline advancements.

Meanwhile, Eberron gets it's own DM's screen. The completist in me wants to get this. The rest of me says a whole 4 page gatefold of people going Raar? I think not.

On the D20 side we see Mike Mearls' ideas for revamping martial characters bloom dramatically, with Iron Heroes. His star is very much on the ascendant, and this is where he really became a high profile designer. Our other D20 products are big glossy book conversions. Guardians of order are releasing A game of Thrones, and rereleasing tekumel using D20 as well. Green Ronin are going back to the Thieves World setting as well, which is another one that has a long healthy gaming pedigree, and has made quite a few appearances in this magazine. The names responsible for writing these are pretty familiar as well. On top of that, we see our own Paizo release the compilation for the Shackled city adventure path. Since they went on to do this again, I'm betting this was pretty successful.

Minis seem to be going strong, both official and third party. And occupying a somewhat indeterminate position between those are Darksword Miniatures conversions of old Larry Elmore paintings. Interesting idea, and one I can definitely see selling. I wonder if Alias'll get a mini

In novels, they prove that Harry Potter really is an impossible to ignore juggernaut around this time. The 6th book is out just then, and it's another doorstopper. Don't tell me you didn't buy it anyway.

And finally, they're nice enough to give Peter Adkinson's new company and creation, Clout Fantasy, some screentime. Throw your pogs around. Sounds like it could be fun. Certainly puts a different spin on the CCG game model.


Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Halfway to 666, how appropriate for a demonomicon. This month, we get to see Fraz-Urb'luu, prince of deception in the spotlight. Not a position he's very happy to be in. Don't look at me, I'm hideous!! He's one of the least prestigious demon lords, having been imprisoned by a mere human for the past few centuries, playing a bit part in a bunch of adventurer's module experiences. Now he's back, and maaan is he pissed off. Demons are well known for holding grudges, and now he's got one against the entirety of humanity. Enough of that wussy misdirection , the hairless monkeys have gotta go! Course, he's still quite happy to have cultists with his special prestige class, use them against the rest of the world. They'll just be last on the chopping block. Another mammoth entry in this series, spanning 14 pages, and giving us stats for the big guy, his aspects, his realm, a new monster, and the prestige class. Once again, they've taken something from the very earliest days of gaming, and progressed it's timeline forward logically while remaining fairly faithful to the underlying concept, and giving you lots of stuff to help you get it into your own game quickly and easily. This once again looks like a good deal of fun could be had with it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 333: July 2005


part 3/7


Noble born: Keith Baker gives us a non-Eberron article for a change, just to prove he can. In literature, many heroes are nobility, even if they aren't aware of their lineage at the start of the story, or have lost their title, and have to fight to regain it as a large part of the plot. The main issue with this in D&D is of course balancing it with the other characters. Starting off with substantially greater wealth and social connections without any corresponding drawbacks and getting to hog the limelight plotwise is the kind of thing which may piss off other players. And taking the Aristocrat NPC class at 1st level to represent this goes a little too far the other way, leaving you slightly underpowered. Representing it by a feat instead, or using the slightly more powerful Noble class from the Dragonlance book seems to do the job. Still, the mechanical aspect of this is pretty understated compared to the discussion of plot options, so this is suitable for any system, fantastical or grounded in realism. Will your noble blood drive you to protect the land, or send you off on mad quests to change the world. Do you have older or younger siblings, and have to worry about all the inheritance backstabbing that comes with that? Do you have any cool heirlooms that you'll hopefully pass down to your own family? A pretty pertinent set of questions, and surprisingly enough, not rehashed either, which is especially odd since you'd think Birthright would go into detail about the plot hooks inherent in being of noble blood. Goes to show what they can miss out even after covering this ground a few times in the past.


The relics of faerun: So here's the first new Realms article in a while. Not too surprisingly, it's a tie-in with their latest book, and uses the same system, forcing you to devote yourself to an appropriate deity and sacrifice a feat or spell slot to gain access to an item's powers. As a balancing mechanism, it can wind up making having these items irrelevant to your overall power level, which I'm rather iffy about. Let's see how imaginative these are, and if they keep up with the realms' long-standing tradition of items with quirky powers.

The Rod of Clenched Fists is made by followers of Bane, and lets you control minds and drain life force. As a god of tyranny, you need to be able to keep yourself on top. Curiously, they can still make them even while he's dead. Given what an ass Cyric is, keeping a little hope that your original god will return somehow seems entirely reasonable.

The Pouch of Black Essence gives Gond worshippers a steady supply of explosive material for their guns and cannons. Prosaic, but handy when you're far from home and the shops don't sell any of that unfamiliar techie stuff.

Ribbons of the Twice-Martyred bring you back to life once if you die in the course of heroism. Once you've got the benefit, pass it on to someone equally deserving, and hope you have a priest to do a conventional raising next time.

The Ashen Staff of Inevitability reminds people that to not worship gods in the Realms results in an afterlife of agony and boredom inside the wall of the faithless, so you'd better pick an allegiance and get praying before it's too late. Repent, Repent! Anything you do is a sin to some god!

Legendmaker gains plusses that scale with the user's level, and also talks. A LOT. Well, it certainly makes sure that the deeds of it's past users are remembered, even if they eventually met untimely ends. Why shouldn't the group's exposition guy be a sentient sword?

The Amulet of Perfect Night lets you create darkness, see through it, and blind people on top of that. Multilayered vision obstruction just to make absolutely certain you have the tactical advantage. Makes sense to me.

Rings of Firehair give you a pretty basic charisma & reaction roll bonus. Meh.

The War Widow lets you resist disease, poison and traps as long as you fight regularly, thus making it more likely your death will be in battle rather than via the messy logistical problems of war. You win worshippers by selling them on the glamorous bits of your portfolio, and playing down the day-to-day challenges that come with them.

Trueword Bucklers are made from pieces of his (exceedingly tough) skin, and allow users to detect lies. Somewhat grody, but I guess god callus is less unhygienic than human callus. And I must indeed conclude that constantly having balancing costs has resulted in this collection being less inventive than Ed's old efforts.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 333: July 2005


part 4/7


The ecology of the behir: Rehashed ecology number 4 (see issue 156) You haven't done real blue dragons yet, couldn't you have tackled them instead? I don't know. Curiously, this is the first rehash that is actually smaller than the original, at least in word count, as while it may be a page longer, the font size has increased since then, (55 lines per page as compared to 71 back in 1990.) So not only are issues smaller in page count than they were back then, they have less content per page as well. Very curious to realize that. They also have less crunchy advice than last time, which is very unusual given the current trends in the magazine. It's moments like this that make you realize that while not terrible, in some ways, the magazine is a hell of a lot worse than it used to be. Eh, there was plenty of crap back then as well, and the visuals are considerably better this time round. I shouldn't get false nostalgia. But this particular article is definitely worse overall than it's precursor.


Wormfood: Welcome to the start of a new Adventure Path. Shackled City got a few adverts and editorial mentions in here, but all the real action was over in our sister magazine. But to achieve maximum sales, we must make readers of one desire the other. You know what that means? Crossover material! Well, it worked so well in the 90's Hopefully they've learned the lessons from that unpleasant era. In any case, I shall not be looking at the parallel Dungeon sections, at least until I've finished my trek through this magazine series. So it shall be interesting to see how these articles stand up separately.

We kick off with a bit of a whimper really. An old abandoned house that might make a good base for our heroes in the low level section? That's a good bit of bonus content that doesn't require any knowledge of the main plot at all. But still, the implementation is rather mundane. No monsters in the cellar, not even rats and bats in the attic to fight. Just a lot of info on how much time and money it takes to rebuild a ruined house. Which is pretty useful in a worldbuilding sense, and also as a way of making sure players use their vast treasure hauls, but also rather dull. Curious business really. So no great spark here, but they've still got a full year to go up the gears. We shall see what they come up with next time.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 333: July 2005


part 5/7


Bazaar of the Bizarre: More Gnome stuff. While they might not get as much love overall as Elves or Dwarves, they actually handily beat both dwarves and halflings in the numbers of magical items they unleash on us. Probably because despite two edition changes eroding the uniqueness of their spellcasting ability, they're still more often associated with magic AND technology. So here we go again, now in 3.5 rules!

Armbands of Prestidigitation boost your ability to be a roguish sort, adding to both mundane sleight of hand and magical trickery. If you're doing several performances a day, matinee and evening, you'll need those extra charges.

Battleplate boosts your stealth and acrobatic abilities, and eliminates the usual spell failure chances. A familiar idea, modified for the new rules' primary concerns.

Devil's Paste is icky stuff that gives you fire resistance. Remember folks, wear sunscreen. Like most pastes, be sure you don't miss a spot, and don't expect it to last too long.

Moonrat's Bane scares the crap out of rats and helps you resist disease. Nice synergy there, especially against wererats. Good luck though. +2 bonuses mean less than they used to.

Misleading Necklaces let you survive and fake your death. Ahh, villain survivability aids. A surprisingly rare niche really. People must not really want recurring enemies in D&D.

Rings of Gnomekind boost gnomish racial skills, and make any nongnome look like a gnome. So they also have social and disguise possibilities. Nice to see they haven't completely lost their sense of humour too.

Tiaras of Shadow Blending don't seem particularly gnomish. (actually, that could be said of most of this collection.) Making you into a menacing shadowy figure who's true shape is obscured? Must have been done by an embittered gnome determined not to be treated as comic relief anymore. That's about as amusing as Scrappy Doo being the villain in the Scooby Doo movies.


Spellcraft: Fear themed magic? That's exceedingly specific. Seems more appropriate to an october issue too. Oh well. Plenty of horror for the rest of the year, what with all the maddening monstrosities out there.

Glimpse of Fear gives them brief penalties to actions via subliminal messaging.

Inescapable Swarm makes you think bugs are crawling over you. Cue the standardised status effects!

Phade's Fearsome Aspect makes you scary and glowing-eyed, hard to identify. In this case, the mechanical effects also ironically make it easy for you to pretend to be someone else. Let's shift that blame and spread paranoia through the community!

Sphere of Terror is one of our increasingly popular quasi-real attacks. The things in these shadows really can hurt you. Regular illusions just don't have the same bite any more.

Vision of Fear lets you find out someone's greatest fear, so as to better play upon it. Another not particularly surprising ability given the theme. No surprises at all here actually. Just another formulaic article.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 333: July 2005


part 6/7


A novel approach: Robin Hobb. One of the most reliable doorstopper producers of the last decade. I'm really not surprised to see her here. While the magic in her books isn't as easy or flexible as D&D spellcasting, it can do some pretty cool and scary things, like creating sentient ships or completely stripping away a person's capacity for empathy in one fell swoop. Unsurprisingly, they choose to convert the one that doesn't render your character an unplayable always chaotic evil monster. Liveships may be immortal, and able to propel themselves to some degree, but they still need people around for maintenance and company, and can't go anywhere they want. Having one will be nice, but not a complete world-changer like the Princess Ark, and restrict your travels to waterways. (which actually makes it far easier for a DM to only design parts of a world without it feeling constraining) Like intelligent magical weapons, this can effectively add an extra character to the group without completely derailing proceedings, and creating or seeking one out is a suitably challenging goal for an adventure. Just try not to pad out the traveling sequences as long as she does and you can have plenty of fun with this idea.


Sage advice: Can my stonechild increase his fullblade by a size category and still use it (No, you is breaking the rulsess. Andy will report you to the canon police if you don't sstop.)

Does powerful build change the damage you do unarmed (no)

How do you determine cover if you take up more than one square (Pick a square. This can get tricky.)

How do reach weapons of a different size to the user work (If they're too ssmall, they won't exsstend your range after all)

What counts as adjacent for a large creature wielding a spiked chain (5 or 10 feet)

If you have a longspear and spiked armour, can you make two AoO's every time someone provokes one (no)

Can you get an AoO if someone provokes one, but you can't reach them (no)

Which square is a rider on when riding something (all of them. It's absstrackt, preciouss. Thiss may get ssilly if you're riding a dragon or ssome other gigantic creature.)

Can a wizard carry their familiar if it's too large to share a space (yess. That rule only applies to enemies in combat. )

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 333: July 2005


part 7/7


Class acts: Barbarians get Change of Environs. Three new feats to reflect being raised in harsh climates. Could the writer have just read Iron Heroes, and wanted to imitate that in D&D? Certainly not beyond the bounds of probability.

Bards get Temple serving Bards. Or is that the other way round? Anyway, music and religion have always had plenty of connection in the real world. Why should that not be the case in D&D? Here's some ideas of how you could fit into the core faiths. It also features a new feat to make multiclassing between cleric and bard more attractive. Just the thing to help make a party more cohesive.

Clerics get The Rage Cleric. Sorry, it's just not as funny as the rage mage. Anyway, exchange your turning and domains for barbarian rage. Yer basic UAesque feature swap. As with most CoDzilla feature exchanges, it's probably a step down, as it doesn't synergize as well.

Druids get The Mounted Druid. Another syngergistic build you may not have considered. Includes stats for Elk, of all things. Don't mess with the elk. They'll mess your day right up by biting your sister.

Fighters get Cultured Combatants I. 4 rather interesting feats based around applying perform skills aggressively. Just the thing for your heavily armoured fighter/bards. More coming soon, obviously.

Monks get Monks in the City. Not needing weapons to be at full deadliness, they make the perfect comedic foil for the bard. Another of those cases where the rules produce fun emergent effects that are also surprisingly good for a story.

Paladins get Preferred Prayers. The usual advice on choosing the best spells from a limited selection. Needs moar supplements.

Rangers get Ranger lore. Just what does a particular roll mean in terms what you can find out about the stuff you just saw? Seems to be an idea who's time has come. Before you know it, they'll be including tables like this with every monster description.

Rogues get Unseen Sisters. Another intriguing case of reskinning, as they are turned from thieves to hidden guardians. Includes a feat to help you out in this.

Sorcerers get Knowstones. These little bunnies impart knowledge of a spell to spontaneous casters, allowing them to increase their rather limited number of spells known, but not cast any more per day. With judicious sharing (and way too much money) sorcerers could become almost as versatile as wizards. They quite rightly recommend that you use this variant with caution.

Wizards get 6 new flaws this time. Nothing hugely surprising here.


Nodwick is summoned by demons to do their bidding. No worse than a regular day at the office, really. Zogonia makes a really bad pun joke.


The pendulum continues to swing back towards setting material in this issue, with quite a few articles that integrate it well or even put it above the mechanical information. This doesn't mean it's all good, and the ecology in particular makes it clear they're still a far cry from their 90's heyday in that respect, but it is still an improvement. Let's hope they can keep building on it, as after all, settings don't really come into their own until they reach a decent size. Let's see if the next issue will have any continuity with the current one.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 334: August 2005


part 1/7


80(100) pages. From cosmic horror, to the slightly more prosaic one of monsters from the deep ocean. Whether that's more or less scary to you will depend on what experiences you have with the sea, and how many pictures you've seen of of those grotesque creatures that live down there. Are we safe on land, or would it be best to make a pre-emptive strike to demonstrate our heroism? Let's see if we're equipped to take the pressure again and avoid getting the bends afterwards.


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


In this issue:


From the editor: While the cover is focussed on the watery part of the issue, Erik's editorial goes completely the other way and talks about the fun to be had in city campaigns. Part of that is to promote their new series of city articles, and part of that is due to the compilation of the Shackled City adventure path that's coming out soon. With plenty of recent experience, they can safely say that it's possible to run an entire campaign from 1st to 20th level without ever leaving the city, and have plenty of fun doing so. And it's a lot easier to design a single city in high detail than it is a whole campaign world, where players will always be able to wander off the map and force you to improvise no matter how many years you slave over the details. In such a case, less may well seem like more, because it's all compressed into a smaller area and is easier to access. Just be careful you don't cram everything into too small an area and end up with a rats nest like Kowloon. (unless that's your intention of course ) Going too far the other way has it's own problems too, as we've seen in recent issues.


Scale Mail: Our first letter is yet another young gamer wondering how he can start writing for the magazine. Only this one has a somewhat better chance of making it, since they're the cousin of one of the editors. No matter how big or small an industry, nepotism is a serious help in getting you started in it.

The internet continues to grow, and people want to know if they'll sell magazines and .pdfs in one convenient package for a little extra. They don't have any big objection to the idea. Can they sort out the logistics before going all-electronic makes the point moot anyway?

Two more letters on sexism continue to pound away at the problem. It's slow going, but you've just got to keep at it if you want to change people's views.

And finally, we have a letter from a girl in the UK to remind us that things aren't all bad out here. Plenty of us are just getting on with enjoying gaming and not trying to exclude people. Exactly how much the demographics of that varies from country to country could well do with a little research, as we could learn a lot about how to improve it in other places.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 334: August 2005


part 2/7


First watch: Stormwrack is our latest climatebook, an attempt to make sea adventuring sound as badass as it can be. Seems slightly more focussed on ship based stuff than underwater adventuring, which is a change from last time. Can you handle the ocean waves and not be swept away?

Eberron releases the Explorers Handbook. New continents, new crunch, new shiny vehicles to get you from here to there. That was quicker than most of their previous worlds managed to do this.

On the D20 side, we have Compleat Encounters. Paizo combine a whole bunch of elements to make a satsfying prefab adventure package, good for an evening. Oh, you're spoiling us, you really are. We also have the announcement of Ptolus. Ahh yes, they gave us a year's lead-in to this mammoth product, including the option of spreading your costs over that period if you preordered. That was a pretty neat move. And the final product was more than worth the cost.

Rather late arriving is another RPG product. Mage: The Awakening finishes off the core 3 of the NWoD, albeit 6 months later than they said they would. And they continue to be the most controversial gameline too, with stuff like atlantis cheese, hard to read gold leaf, and enormous tedious rote lists. Man. What is with that?

A whole bunch of card games get promoted this time. Berserker halflings from the Dungeon of Dragons, and the more prosaically named Dungeonville both turn the tables on fantasy gaming in tongue in cheek fashions. Meanwhile, Hecatomb has you bringing about the end of the world with 5 sided cards. Ew. Do you know how hard those things are to stack neatly? 6 is much neater if you're going nonstandard.

Boardgames aren't doing badly either. World of Warcraft gets adapted to a boardgame, just as it did an RPG (which is also getting updated to 3.5. ) Seems a lot of work for a tiny amount of extra money. I guess they don't know what'll work until they try. And Avalon Hill get a half-page of general promotion. Seems like they're still going with products new and old.

WotC continues to do other stuff to cash in on their properties. Both Drizzt and the Dragonlance chronicles are now getting comics based on the old books. They've become valuable IP semindependent of D&D.

And finally, on the televisual side, we have The Gamers 2: Dorkness rising. Cheap and cheesy just got a little less cheap, and a lot more connected to the world it pays homage to, with designer cameos aplenty. Another consequence of cameras and video editing software becoming ever more accessible to normal people.


Crimmor, city of Caravans: Ed Greenwood's may have been absent from the magazine over the past year, but that has evidently not stopped the flow of his creativity. In fact, it's given him time to produce some larger articles rather than the bite-sized chunks we mostly saw since 1996. 13 pages on the Amnian trading hub and the possibilities of adventure therein. Actually, a lot of the individual adventure hooks could be cut out and delivered to us independently as smaller packages, but that doesn't make them any less fun to read, although it does illuminate his work process and how he binds together little inspirations into a much larger whole. The illustrations aren't quite as good as his last regular column, but the writing continues to be top-notch, with Ed's distinct talent for names and amusing turns of phrase definitely something I've missed in these days of crap names like Wilden and Redspawn Berserkers. It's a pleasure to have him back, even if this still doesn't display the kind of ambition he did in the early days. Get your ass down there and follow up some of these threads, maybe he'll add a few more to replace them. Got to keep the world moving forward or it'll end up like all the rest.

 

[LordVyreth]

First watch: Stormwrack is our latest climatebook, an attempt to make sea adventuring sound as badass as it can be. Seems slightly more focussed on ship based stuff than underwater adventuring, which is a change from last time. Can you handle the ocean waves and not be swept away?

I'm guessing a certain series of movies helped with that. Were the Pirates movies as big with you guys as they are here?

And finally, on the televisual side, we have The Gamers 2: Dorkness rising. Cheap and cheesy just got a little less cheap, and a lot more connected to the world it pays homage to, with designer cameos aplenty. Another consequence of cameras and video editing software becoming ever more accessible to normal people.


Crimmor, city of Caravans: Ed Greenwood's may have been absent from the magazine over the past year, but that has evidently not stopped the flow of his creativity. In fact, it's given him time to produce some larger articles rather than the bite-sized chunks we mostly saw since 1996. 13 pages on the Amnian trading hub and the possibilities of adventure therein. Actually, a lot of the individual adventure hooks could be cut out and delivered to us independently as smaller packages, but that doesn't make them any less fun to read, although it does illuminate his work process and how he binds together little inspirations into a much larger whole. The illustrations aren't quite as good as his last regular column, but the writing continues to be top-notch, with Ed's distinct talent for names and amusing turns of phrase definitely something I've missed in these days of crap names like Wilden and Redspawn Berserkers. It's a pleasure to have him back, even if this still doesn't display the kind of ambition he did in the early days. Get your ass down there and follow up some of these threads, maybe he'll add a few more to replace them. Got to keep the world moving forward or it'll end up like all the rest.

Huh, I forgot that The Gamers movies got a mention in Dragon. And I didn't know it was eight years between films. Let's hope the fourth one doesn't take so long.

I used Crimmor in my otherwise homebrewed game. Things ... didn't turn out so great for it. First, it was used in my Silent Hill-inspired Halloween game, and then the town and all of its inhabitants were disassembled by one of the campaign's big bads.