Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 342: April 2006


part 1/6


74 (100) pages. As we begin the runup to the 30th anniversary, it looks like we have another run of dragons on the cover. First up, a white dragon (that's tinted purple on the cover, and blue on the inside) ensuring that any adventurers who want it's treasure can be stuck with it, permanently. It's not quite genie level of sophistication in ironic humour, but it'll do for a start. Let's see if they have any better gags inside.


Scan quality: Blurry, low res, Indexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Editorial: Erik's editorial this month is once again him wrestling with how much humour to put in this issue. And after way too much thought, he once again goes with one joke article to placate the die-hards and keeping the rest sensible. After all, it's a lot harder to make players take a joke scenario seriously than it is to add a few amusing twists to an otherwise serious adventure. Greyhawk is still trying to get people to overlook the terrible pun names and adventures like WG9, while Dragonlance has so much comic relief baked in that people still debate if it's possible or desirable to reboot it. Do we really want that to happen to the magazine? Probably not. So they will continue their trajectory of gradually becoming more focussed and serious until they can't go any farther in that direction. Maybe if they do it gradually enough, people won't notice. Call me again in 10 years time and we'll see.


Scale Mail: Our first letter points out that Solomon Kane used a magic staff, and he certainly wasn't a wizard. There's plenty of precedent for more physical characters to choose that as their weapon of choice, particularly in the martial arts genre.

The second one is equally nitpicky, complaining about using a lovecraftian phrase when most of the issue wasn't devoted to him. Given how many issues recently have been, I shall give a resounding to that.

We do have a fair number of heavily positive letters though, with two from long-standing players who are very happy with what the magazine has done, and continues to do for D&D as a whole. Since so many of their writers are now part of the WotC staff, they can hardly help taking ideas and reusing them. And this will only become more true next edition, with everything in the magazine going through exactly the same development process as the books.

Finally, they stir the pot by including a letter from someone who thinks the LotR movies were a dull and unfaithful adaptation of the books. Just because they weren't perfect, doesn't mean they aren't technically superior in many ways to the fantasy movies of the 80's and before. I think the extensive behind the scenes documentaries in the extended editions make that very clear.

 

[Erik Mona]

The color of the dragon on the cover was a misprint, and I remember being so frustrated about it that I always referred to this cover as "The Easter Dragon."

The next April issue gets a bit funnier.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 342: April 2006


part 2/6


First watch: Splatbook time again. They've exhausted the core 4 roles, so now it's Psionics turn to get a Complete book adding to them. New classes make an all psionic party viable, new powers help, but still don't catch them up with spellcasters. Plus some slightly iffy errata, the joys of heritage feats, and the obligatory usual prestige classes.

Eberron gets Voyage of the Golden Dragon. An airship's maiden voyage runs into a little trouble. A combination of sourcebook and adventures, this reminds me of the princess ark series, and looks pretty cool. Giving players control of their own flying vehicle always tips the game heavily into the awesomeometer.

Another adventure plus a bunch of physical stuff this month. Fields of Ruin seems to feature a chimera, and other monsters from their new minis set, plus big maps for your minis to fight on. Tie it all together, and hopefully more people'll buy it. We've heard that line before.

Green Ronin continues to be Dragon's most popular D20 company. Mansion of Shadows and the True20 Bestiary are their latest products. Seems like they're almost as prolific as WotC, if not with quite as high production values. Also on the D20 side, oddly, is the latest Dragonlance adventure. The price of Courage. Ahh, yes. The licensing business. Funny what it did to their 2e campaign worlds in this era.

Also on a Dragonlance spin is another redoing of the original novels, this time in comic format. Didn't they already do graphic novels, back in the early 90's. Seems like people keep coming back to the beginning, in a way they don't with the Realms.

Non D20 products that have grabbed their interest this month are BESM 3rd edition, and call of cthulhu's Malleus Monstrorum. Two more gamelines that have produced awesome work in the past, but are now hanging on, and not going anywhere fast. Damn shame really.

On the minis side, we have Hordes, a new wargame from Privateer. Giant warbeasts and risk/reward tradeoff gambling. Interesting. It's all compatible with Warmachine too, so you can mix and match the creature types and their different ways of operating. Curiously, we also get Dracula minis from McFarlaine Toys, based upon the 1992 movie. What an odd conjunction. It's not as if that version was particularly popular.

Another boardgame out now is Grand Tribunal. Loosely based on Ars Magica, the goal of the game is to invent the coolest and most powerful spells and items, and then decide who did the best. You can be backbiting politics will be involved, if I know the Hermetics.

On the game aids side, we have an amusing little entry. D'oh dice. Dice, with the 1 replaced with a D'oh. A good example of how culturally ubiquitous the Simpsons has become. Amusing once, then I lose interest, so probably not worth the purchase.

For computer games, they promote Heroes of Might and Magic V, and Horizons: Empire of Istaria. Both are RPG's and have fairly substantial internet multiplayer options. No change in their priorities there then.

Another book this month is The Art of Ray Harryhausen. The old god of stop-motion gets a big coffee table book. Lots of colour stuff from the movies, plus sketches, and behind the scenes stuff. Sounds fairly neat.

And finally, there's the GOBLIN podcasting network. The new cool thing, as adding Garageband to every mac and various advancements in computer recording and compression technology have made it accessible to the average person. Which means even a market as niche as ours has dozens of people doing it themselves. Just like punk, only with less safety pins. I very much approve.


Domain power: It looks like the real theme this month is deities again, with 5 articles devoted to godly power, compared to just one joke article. Hang on a minute, didn't they do that just 4 years ago in issue 294. Repeating topics I can deal with. Rehashing exactly the same combo of topics when combinatoric theory says you should be able to pick and mix any two or three for hundreds of years without hitting exactly the same ones, that's just careless. I'm exceedingly unamused by this twist of events. My mood is not improved by reading the first article, as it's very much one of those ones where they have a single good idea (spending a feat to improve your domain powers) and then just crank the formula until it covers all the domains in the corebook. (and believe me, you'll have no trouble coming up with similar effects for the many others in supplements.) Booooooooooooooooooooring. Waiter! Next!

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 342: April 2006


part 3/6


Full frontal nerdity weirds out it's players. Who is responsible? Do de do do, do de do do, etc etc. They also have tons of other strips. This is rather disconcerting. Just how popular is Aaron?


Beyond the pale: Now this is a topic that's lain fallow for a little longer. Bringing back the dead last got a big article in issue 210, which did quite a bit to look at the logical consequences of it. This is related, but far more mechanically focussed, as is their wont these days, talking about ways you can tweak resurrection in your games to make it seem more consequential. Most of them are ways to make it harder to do, but some are interesting things that could happen to you mechanically or socially after coming back to life. Overall, i don't think it's quite as good as the 210 one, but the amount of overlap is small enough that they complement each other rather than turning into a rehash, so it's still a positive result in terms of adding to the magazine as an extended body of lore.


Core beliefs: Olidammara. Ah, the laughing rogue. The perfect justification for having a cleric/rogue in the party. And also, if this stuff is read wrong, an entirely reasonable setup for having a character who plays pranks on their companions on a regular basis, for part of their duties is making sure no-one gets too bogged down in habits or takes life too seriously. Damn good thing there's no kender on Oerth, or he'd be a scary powerful deity. Of course, there are certain other pranksterish sorts, and he has a rather interesting relationship with them. Zagyg imprisoned him for a while, but he managed to turn that to his advantage, and they're now more friendly rivals than mortal enemies. And like Boccob, he has his own demigod sorta-servant, Rudd, who's all about the fine line between luck and skill, and so seems another one likely to be popular with adventurers. As with last time, there's plenty of stuff for players to use, including a rather good new spell that gives them limited access to bard spells, while avoiding the twinkery that unlimited supplement access brings, and a slaad proxy who isn't a complete dingbat. It's all rather good. It may have taken quite a bit of perusal to assemble the scraps of info from the old Greyhawk books, but there was plenty of good source material to draw upon in this case, and Sean continues to tread the fine line between reverence and expansion well. The main worry now is that like the Demonomicon, this series may lose it's shine over time through sheer predictability.


The power of faith: From feats that boost the powers of your domains, we go to feats that give you extra powers if you worship a specific deity. Clerics really are spoiled for choice when it comes to buffing themselves up and specialising in particular parts of their portfolio. Unlike the previous article, which was usable right from 1st level, these require you to be a 3rd level spellcaster or better to take, and the tricks they give you are somewhat more powerful. They still follow a pretty strict formula though. One special ability or a buff of an existing power, plus adding 3-4 spells to your regular spell list that are normally wizard ones or domain exclusive. (and in a few cases, are new spells only accessible through these initiate feats. ) Once again, this feels like it would be very easy to expand on, creating similar feats for the many other gods out there in D&D supplements, especially since so many of the spells are merely more powerful variants of existing ideas. I find it very hard indeed to be excited by this. Oh well, let's hope they work out well in actual play, like so many of these articles that don't make great reading, but have solid crunch behind them.

 

[LordVyreth]

First watch: Splatbook time again. They've exhausted the core 4 roles, so now it's Psionics turn to get a Complete book adding to them. New classes make an all psionic party viable, new powers help, but still don't catch them up with spellcasters. Plus some slightly iffy errata, the joys of heritage feats, and the obligatory usual prestige classes.

Really? Because I tried playing a few Expanded version psions. They might not have as much versatility or as many tricks as a regular spellcaster, but they are friggin' DEATH in terms of damage potential. That said, they have a few power/race/feat combos that seem almost obligatory, or at least too useful to not use.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 342: April 2006


part 4/6


The ecology of the adventurer: Our token joke article this year is this little piece by Tony Moseley. Essentially the Scary Movie to the Ecology of the Kobold's Scream, this is a whimsical little IC one in which the kobold shaman of a tribe talks about their experience with adventurers, and the horrible deaths that likely await members of the tribe. A ridiculous scenario is set up, and then used as a way of riffing on all sorts of subjects. We see a parody of the old 1st ed players handbook cover. Morgan Ironwolf returns as a truly ridiculous multiclass character that I'm not sure whether to be scared of, or to laugh at how suboptimal she is for a 20th level character, we get feats that rival last year's commoner entry for sheer stupidity, it's all rather gonzo. While this does manage to raise a few vague smiles from me, what it really does is remind me of the association of monster hunter ecologies, and how much I miss having fiction in here regularly. Their april ones managed to be both funnier than this, and still have more stuff that you could actually use in a serious game. :sigh: You can do better than this.


Wormfood turns into a bazaar of the bizarre. The players have (hopefully) just unearthed the ruins of a secret order, which holds vital clues to the defeat of Kyuss and co. Can they capitalise on this to bring about a suitably dramatic conclusion to the adventure path? I guess that's up to you, but this list of treasures certainly can't hurt.

Amulets of light give you permanent consecration. Isn't that more a landscaping thing than personal wear? Well, if it stops undead walking all over you, you'll thank the designer.

Breathdrinker swords can absorb breath weapons, and then unleash them on the next creature you hit. As usual with something like this, save the effect for something that isn't immune to their own damage type.

Cloaks of the Sorcerer-King give you various dragon emulating powers. How very athasian of you. Enjoy the versatility of being able to choose your aspect and which energy type you're going to enhance today.

Corporeal Lodestones shield you from ethereal screwage. Not useful all the time, but the kind of thing the paranoid delight in packing just in case.

Doomslayer Bows let you emulate Bard the Bowman, and find the weak spot on whatever you're fighting. They're pretty neat in general combat too. Strength bonus on top of the regular enhancement bonus. Someone's been boning up on how to twink the item creation rules.

Dragonbane Scepters help you penetrate draconic SR. What spells you can bring to bear on them is of course up to you, unlike most staves. The kind of thing you only pack if you know you're going to need it.

Elixirs of Draconic Essence also give you powers based upon dragons, with general physical enhancements and a breath weapon appropriate to the colour.

Phylacterys of Protection from Evil give you a permanent spell effect as long as you wear them. Again. Just wear a cross like any good christian.

Quicksilver Cloaks let you get in and out of places with ease, and protect you from paralysis. Another good reason to strip captives before you tie them up.

Rings of Death Ward give you the effect of that spell as long as you wear them. Meh. Do we need stuff like this for every spell in the book?

The Shield of the Sun looks good and unleashes sunbeams on command. That'll make having a cleric in the team slightly less essential.

The Shroud of Undeath makes undead fail to notice you. But you do have to wear it on the outside and look stupid to any living people around. Yawn Seen stuff like this before. And really, who's going to call adventurers on their stupid outfits these days when they're all wearing them.

Skulls of Dragonform are yet another draconic transformation device. Have the PC's just been fighting dragons in the actual campaign? Are they about too? This definitely seems like a pretty pointed hint. Better watch out, given how scary dragons can get these days.

 

[(un)reason]

cDragon Issue 342: April 2006


part 5/6


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Healing? We haven't had a bazaar devoted specifically to items that cure you before, curiously enough. Although we have had several Arcane Lores. But of course they're mostly for your clerics and druids, while items are often usable by any class. And many people do want to decrease their reliance on the healbot, so this is all to the good. Let's finally fill this niche.

Amulets of Preservation stop you rotting, and pause the clock on your raising time limit. Better hope you don't have too many in the party at once then.

Bolts of Healing, like the old arrows from the 80's, heal damage instead of inflicting it. Watch you don't shoot the enemy with this one by accident, as if you needed warning again.

Calming Stones are better than a slap on the face for dealing with hysteria. Course, like most items these days, they only work a few times a day, so mass panic'll be a bit of a problem. No scaling, that's the big problem with magic these days. Get offa mah lawn!

Detoxification Orbs are another one that'll save a few lives, but then give up the ghost. Still, poison is a problem, so you want to get it treated ASAP, but might not always have the appropriate spells memorized.

Gems of Poison Detection don't run out, on the other hand, and are cheap enough that most adventuring parties could afford one. They even work at range. This should help you ensure a whole banquet is safe before tucking in.

Healer's Masks help keep the doctors alive in a plague situation. And don't look as freaky as the real ones, hopefully. God, those beaked things can be nightmare fuel and a half.

Medic Hats formalize the red cross agreement that medics are not to be attacked by either side. Saving lives is important! Otherwise we would be just monsters. Yeah, it's hard to create rules of war that stick in these parts. No wonder they need magical enforcement.

Rods of Disenchantment do for people what the old ones do for magic items. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on if it gets rid of all your buffs, or removes a nasty curse. Either way, profit for the user, hopefully.

Tholveg's Final Prayer are little marbles that you smash to release the healing. Quicker and easier to use in a pinch than drinking a potion, if a bit messier. But if it's a question of my life or a bit of broken glass on the floor, I know which one I'm going to take.


Spellcraft: Another nostalgic magic collection here, including spells from deities who are now out of favor in the official books. The campaign classics stuff seems to be creeping into the other issues. Not that that's a bad thing. Many of them are cool ideas well due updating and maybe even expanding upon.

Black stench of Laogzed makes standard troglodyte stink seem somewhat anaemic. Behold the power of epic fart! You can't see through it, and it'll eat through your clothes too. Why isn't there a god of frat-boys? They'd make an absolute killing with stuff like this.

Brain slave of Illsenine lets even a non-illithid remotely extract brains for their later use. This is quite brutal, and certainly makes a decent alternative to regular death spells.

Nails of Luthic are also fairly brutal, mainly due to dex draining poison. At higher levels, this seems like a decent one for incapacitating without killing.

Throwing arm of Iallanis isn't too impressive for human spellcasters, but becomes more so for giants. I think I'll stick to the regular blasty spells.

Touch of Blibdoolpoolp gives you a big claw. This isn't too impressive damagewise, but does have reach, which does make it tactically handy after all. Think carefully before selecting and casting.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 342: April 2006


part 6/6


Sage advice: Can you read in the dark with darkvision (yess. Not like ssilly old infravision. Andy hated using that in cold caves, collins collins. It wass still hard to tell where the walls was, because things were all nearly the ssame temperature.)

If you permanently change your type, do your BAB, saves and skills change (no)

Do monsters ability scores change with aging (Probably, but it's not worth making aging tables for every mortal race and tracking it. Ssave it for named NPC's)

Do undead apply aging effects (Andy thinkses not. They don't sseem to get any smarter when they hang around a few centuries, jusst more insssane and pretentious. )

If you're swallowed, do you treat the monster as flat-flooted (Yess. This is why you don't eat rogues. They'll ssteal your heart from inside you and cut their way out.)

Do you get XP for killing summoned monsters (Only prexisting ones, not temporary one ssummoned in the heat of battle. Stupid resource management system counts them ass part of their summoner.)

What happens if your int is damaged when you gain a level (Nothing. Only innate permanent changes affect your skill points. Otherwise things would get ssilly.)

How do you determine starting gold for a 1st level monster PC (ssee what class they're mosst suited too.)

If your familiar dies and you raise it, do you get the XP back (No. Sstupid ssentimentality. Jusst get a new one. Much cheaper and jusst as powerful.)

If you're multiclassed and raised, which class do you lose the level from. (Andy thinks the mosst recent one, yess? )

YOU HAVE MADE MISTAKES AGAIN!!! DO NOT CONTINUE TO DISAPPOINT US!!!
Ssorry, collins collins. Andy promisses. Andy won't mess quick draw up again.


Class acts: Adventurers goes oriental this month, with the Art of Kuji-in for Ninjas. Learn how to channel your ki in new and devastating ways with these feats. Shatter armour, change your appearance, and make swift escapes. Once again, they become more able to specialize in their abilities, helping them keep up with the core classes. The line between being under and overpowered is a precarious thing, and every new supplement redefines it for the classes given new stuff within.

Arcane gets Subtle Spells. This is basically the same as they did for the divine classes the last couple of months, only applied to the assassin and bard class. Guess we're still gonna have some formulaic rehash in these entries.

Divine gets The Wild Hunt. The horned lord who rides abroad on nights of fog with his devil dogs. Or something. Join his priesthood! Meet new and interesting people, strip them naked and chase them through the woods at night. Fun team building exercise for all the family. Even if you don't, you can still make use of the new domains and feat introduced here. Definitely one of their more interesting new creations, even if we've seen this fluff before.

Warriors get Tribal Halflings. As anyone who's played dark sun knows, this can actually be pretty scary. Here's a trio of substitution levels for the discerning halfling barbarian, letting them overcome that size prejudice with aplomb, while still retaining the good aspects of their small size. Not that anyone with any brain would underestimate someone who's teeth are at groin level, but some people need safety warnings with everything.


Nodwick solves another problem by creatively looking at the facts. Dork tower try to protect the rights of their characters. I don't think the GM is going to sign this magna carta. Zogonia has more PvP. They really ought to get a stable of recurring NPC's.
Order of the stick once again run into the oddities of their universe.


After a year in which the formula was constantly being tweaked, this sees them settling into a routine again, and consequently, starting to become less interesting to me as well. That or they're putting most of their effort into the big birthday issue and let this one slide a bit. Once again, I guess I have to accept that they're not getting funnier anytime soon. So let's see if they can get cooler.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 343: May 2006


part 1/6


81 (100) pages. A mummy dragon and lots of little baby dragons. That'll make adventurers feel a little less heroic about their brutal slayings. Once again, it looks like monster hunting is our focus this issue. And well they ought to return to it, as it still supplies the majority of our XP, as it has since 1e ended. As usual, let's see if it's advantage players, advantage DM, or all love in here.


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


In this issue:


Editorial: Erik's editorial is once again about the 30th anniversary issue, and his ambitious plans for it. Twice now, his plans for landmark issues have been mired down in office politics and compromise, and now he's in the big seat, he's hoping it's third time lucky. Which is reasonable enough. If you've seen your artistic vision crushed several times as you work your way up, a little self-indulgence seems completely understandable. It shows your spirit hasn't been beaten into submission by day-to-day life. So let's hope he'll be able to reminisce positively about this time in his life, rather than with frustration. Sometimes, it would be nice to have things just work out for a change without working yourself so hard to make it happen that you don't really get to appreciate it anyway.


Scale Mail: First up, we have a request for more Realms based stuff, templates in particular. Oddly specific, but I suppose that just makes it all the easier to satisfy.

Second, we have some talk about the proportion of adverts in the magazine. Those cheap yet glossy magazines you're comparing with are often more than 50% adverts, particularly the women's beauty & gossip ones, which can go over 75% and are basically just mouthpieces for their sponsors, since they're so dependent on them financially. As the DDI shows, Dragon is quite capable of surviving without adverts from other companies. (although they wouldn't be able to pay their writers as much)

The issue from 2 months ago gets high praise, as is their habit these days.

Also praised is the dragon compendium, along with a request to do more similar stuff in the future. Since it sold out and got reprinted very quickly, they certainly intended to do more. It's just a shame the licence got pulled before they got the chance.

They reprint the Valley Elf filk at the request of a reader that barely remembers it. It's funnier than anything they've managed since 2001. I really can't see a similar request for the ecology of the adventurer to be reprinted in 20 years time, unfortunately.

And finally, we have another request for them to update not only the mechanics of old settings, but also the timelines. They might slip in a few hints, but solid geopolitical shifts? That'd be too dangerous for them. After all, metaplot is what killed Dark Sun and Planescape, and caused Greyhawk and Dragonlance huge amounts of grief when people disagreed with the changes. These days, they want to play it safe.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 343: May 2006


part 2/6


First watch: After the fairly substantial success of the DMG 2, we get the Players handbook 2. 4 new core classes, a ton of new feats, including quite a lot specifically for beefing up high level fighters, plenty more bits and pieces, and yet another riff on the original PHB cover. Most. Imitated. Artwork. Evar.

D20 modern gets Critical Locations. No, not a gruesome critical hit system. Just a load of maps of likely places for you to adventure. Well, you can't use all those dungeons, can you?

Also on the D20 side, from third party companies, we have quite a bit. A players guide to Ptolus is out, teasing things a little more for the big release, while not spoiling the big secrets. Plus a bunch of miniatures representing characters from the city, and a comic series. Monte really went all out to make this his masterpiece, and it shows. They also promote DCC 30: Vault of the Dragon Kings, and Green Ronin's Dragon Fist. Plenty of small stuff to tide us through 'till the big releases.

Lots of computer stuff too. Campaign Cartographer 3 keeps this series up to date with advancing technology. Conan gets it's own MMO. And dozens of websites do things that the official products don't, including indexes that would be out of date in no time in a paper format. They're proving their value again and again. (I say, typing on my own laptop)

WotC is also happily licensing stuff out to other companies. Official D&D t-shirts, with more snappy sayings for your enjoyment. And more comic adaptions of old Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms stories. Drizzt & co continue to justify themselves even if the new stuff isn't coming as fast as it used too.

On the minis side, we have lots more bits of landscape to build your dungeons with, courtesy of Dwarven Forge. Very appropriate name, really. And a big box designed to neatly contain your minis. Nothing much to say about these.

On the other hand, Sean K Reynolds' hubby's little venture, where she puts dice inside translucent soaps, has me wanting to say a lot, but not sure where to start. It's ....... different, I'll give them that. Not sure if it's a brilliant idea, or just utterly inane. But it's certainly memorable. Wonder if it actually made much money, or it was just a whimsical art project.


Take Cover!: Huh. An article on dealing with monsters that have forms of movement the average PC lacks. Well, it certainly makes sense, as mobility and reach is one of the things that hugely changes your tactics, and enables weaker things to beat stronger without even getting hurt. Flying, swimming, and burrowing are the most well known, but climbing, jumping, web movement and extradimensional movement are also interesting options that add to an encounter, and can really scare people if used effectively. They start with the more mundane options, and then move up to finishing with monsters that can teleport at will, which are near impossible to finish off if you lack magical tricks of your own. They then detail 5 new feats which will help you counter more mobile creatures, either by enhancing you, or reducing the effectiveness of their special powers. They're probably not as good a use of your resources as learning a spell which lets you fly, climb, turn invisible, etc, though. It's all pretty interesting, as they do think of tactical tricks and considerations I haven't realised before. It's important to keep fights interesting, and this article does it's fair share.