Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 349: November 2006


part 5/6


Savage tidings: We continue to set up the basic setting here, with a map of Sasserine's immediate environment, and a whole load of potential encounters for your players to enjoy as they explore it. Plot hooks everywhere they go, they'll certainly have no shortage of. Unfortunately, the poor scan quality makes the key illegible, so this isn't very usable to me. Still, it certainly looks like this section of the adventure has a nice little sandbox set up for the players to explore before the really heavy stuff hits. The sense that beyond the city limits, it's a pretty wild place is well put across. They also have some advice for integrating new characters into the game if starting ones die. Another hint that this definitely is not going to be a cakewalk. Another solid, but not hugely captivating instalment.


Sage advice: Can you activate magic items inside a silence spell (If they don't need a command word)

If you attack someone with a magic weapon from inside an anti-magic field, and they're outside, do you get the bonuses (no)

Can a monk get their unarmed strike enchanted (Not easily)

Do bracers of quick strike grant two extra attacks when fighting two-weapon style (No. Only one. )

Does the circlet of persuasion boost your turning checks (yess)

What bonuses does a dancing weapon get. Does it make multiple attacks (Your BAB + it's enhancement bonus, yess? If you have iterative attacks, it does too)

Can you make an eternal wand of cure light wounds (Yess. Very useful for party without cleric, yess?)

Does being glamered change an item's properties (No)

Does the ivory goat of travail have all the nightmare's special powers (no)

Can a wizard with a metamagic rod choose which spells they apply to on the fly (yess. Very usefull for wizard especially, yess)

Does a monk's belt boost a nonmonk's AC (Only if they're unarmored)

Is a pearl of power use activated (yess, sort of.)

Can a pearl of power restore a lower level spell than it's maximum (no)

is there a limit to the number of pearls of power you can have (no, they don't take up a sslot, preciouss)

Can you use a portable hole to go through a wall (no)

Does a ring of force require you to keep your hand on it (Andy thinkses so)

Do seeking weapons negate AC bonuses from cover (no, just miss chances)

Do you maintain momentum when teleporting (generally, yess. Can get nassty)

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 349: November 2006


part 6/6


Class acts: Adventurers get a Poisonmaking Guide. Getting hold of raw materials and brewing them up is something you often can't trust to other people, especially when it's illegal, so it might be wise to learn if you're that way inclined. Here's a whole bunch of DC's to standardize this process.

Arcane gets Psiotheurgy. Arcane and psionic powers have more in common than most of their practitioners will admit, and are deadly when combined, as Dark Sun's advanced beings demonstrate. Here's 8 more feats that you can use to make a really badass cerebromancer (as even with them, the split spellcasting progression problem will still render most other arcane/psionic builds suboptimal. )

Divine gets Animal Battle Gear. Hee. Tiger spectacles. Yet more ways to spend money on improving your companion, plus a reminder that they did this before in issue 334. Buy it now! :teeth ting: Mutter mutter mutter.

Warriors get Law and Chaos. A bunch of variant class features for Barbarians and Paladins. Yet more options for you to customize yourself with, and possibly twink out if you play your cards right. Get a pokeweapon instead of a pokemount! I can definitely see the use in that.


Nodwick has another long day of dying repeatedly ahead of him. Dork tower reminds us that even the best MMORPG can't replicate a real GM. Zogonia has an attack of culture shock. OotS has an attack of very poor taste. But clever poor taste.


Another issue that takes lots of old things and builds upon them nicely, while not making it inaccessible for newbies. Which makes me happy as the magazine draws to a close, because it gives me more excuses to look back on my journey and see how the old and new things really measure up. And once again, I'm forced to conclude that while they have far less variety these days, the things that they do do, they do better on average. It's just a shame that christmas celebrations probably won't be one of those things. Let's see if they consider 350 a big and round enough number to push the boat out at all.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 350: December 2006


part 1/6


77 (100) pages. They find a new way to cross-promote this issue, with one of their latest minis blown up to cover size and given a backdrop. You can see the expressions still look a little more plastic than they should. Well, at least they are usually doing backdrops again these days, even if they do still zoom in a little too much to represent a scene rather than just a character. Let's see if the contents are as plastic and unrealistic as the cover, and if they can make being unrealistic seem more exciting than low-key realism anyway.


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


In this issue:


Editorial: Monte and his groups have been playing in Ptolus since before the release of 3e. Now, with the edition drawing to a close, and the official book out, things are finally being wrapped up before they move onto new adventures. And thankfully, the ending was not an anticlimax, letting Erik resolve one of the plot points that his character has been carrying around the whole time and turn it to his advantage. And the best thing is that it happened naturally, rather than being scripted in any way. Monte could never have predicted that he'd pull out a wish spell and use it creatively, and it's testament to their belief that the rules serve the story that he let the cool idea work. This is how you actually win the game, not by playing to 36th level twice. If you come up with an outcome that both pleases and surprises, then the rules have done their job in doing what straight fiction cannot. So this shows whatever crap corporate mandates in the articles, they can't stop the actual play from turning out like this. Play whatever way works for your group. There's still no canon police out to confiscate your out of print books and arrest you for having badwrongfun. And unless they're dumb enough to take down all the 4e online content when Next comes out, that will remain true in the future.


Scale Mail: Our first letter asks for more material from Gary, preferably about what inspired him to write certain parts of D&D. They'll print virtually anything he gives them. it's just a shame he doesn't have the energy to expound on matters with the same verbosity he used to.

Next we have someone disappointed they've cut down on the new core and prestige classes in favour of more joined-up material. As usual, any change will get some complainers, but no change will gradually kill things anyway due to diminishing returns. 3e has so many classes already it's not easy to come up with stuff that's new and different, but not unbalanced.

We have another young person who can't figure out how to put a group together. All it takes it enthusiasm without being creepy about it. As the editorial showed just a page ago, there's no strict rules about it, especially when you're all starting together.

And finally, we have an amusingly articulate from another person who's found roleplaying very helpful in expanding their vocabulary, which has probably helped them get good jobs as an adult. Take that, all you parents panicking over what their kids are doing for entertainment.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 350: December 2006


part 2/6


First watch: Our big D&D release this month is the second Fiendish Codex. So it's the Baatezu's turn to get the spotlight. Lots more devils, plenty new prestige classes to help fight them. I wonder how much of this'll be familiar to old time planescape readers.

Two new adventures as well. The shattered gates of slaughtergarde follows on from the howling horde for 2nd level adventurers to enjoy, while Frostfell Rift is another location with big pretty battle maps to facilitate your minis. This time, they have lots of different encounters using the same locations, so it's useful to more than one range of levels. Very clever.

Speaking of minis, it looks like Anima is getting in on the act with Anima tactics, a minis game. Guess they want to be multimedia right from the outset. If that's not your thing, you can go for Dwarven Forge's latest bit of landscaping. Den of evil? Looks like it'd be pretty good for Ptolus's Jabel Shammar actually. I have no problem with that at all. And if you want something artistic, Kotobukya are your people, with large translucent figurines, including some licenced star wars ones. If you smite them down, they shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

If you don't like minis, but still want to represent positioning of characters in a literal manner, you could get some Conflict Chips instead. They have the advantage that you can put smaller creatures on top of larger creatures to represent riders. (or beneath if they have some kind of crush or swallow attack Once again we see how changing the technology can influence how play goes.

On the D20 side, we have Fallout D20. Another computer conversion that seems a little superfluous in the profit stakes. Maybe the people from the company are gamers and doing it for the love. Wolfgang Baur also starts on a new adventure, and you can get in on the ground floor if you'll just pay a small price. What fanboy could resist?

In other RPG news this month, Ninja Burger gets a new edition. Now with more Career options and obstacles to get in the way of a successful and timely delivery. Still a fun business.

Tony Diterlizzi's latest project gets a little love. The care and feeding of Sprites for The Spiderwick Chronicles. Ecology lovers should definitely find something to appreciate, and possibly steal from here.

And now for the weird stuff. Replicas of all the props from the recent Call of Cthulhu film. Penny Arcade's charity collecting toys and video games for sick children. And Peter Adkinson's attempts to get Stephen Colbert to come to gen con. People will keep making choices that you never even realized were an option. I guess RPG's do encourage that obliquely.


Core beliefs: Wee Jas. We've already had profiles here for the god of magic, and a god with a strong undead association here. In some respects, Wee Jas is an odd duck as a deity, having partial dominion over a whole bunch of largely unrelated areas of life. This actually makes her considerably more badass and interesting overall, rather than being some inhuman, utterly predictable exemplar of an archetype, you actually get the sense that you can negotiate with her, even if you might well wind up being denied. Her church is similarly versatile. Paladins may be rare, but they aren't unknown, they can work both with and against undead, and she has no objection to her clergy summoning and exploiting chaotic monsters and energies for their own ends. Plus death & occult = goths. Is it any wonder she's a PC favourite OOC, and her clergy get more action than even ones of Olidammara IC. This is a fairly significant one for me, as I remember reviewing her initial appearance in issue 88, a good couple of years of real time ago, and this really feels like reaching the other end of a huge journey, going from experiencing the past as if it were the present, to looking back on history as filtered through the minds of the new designers. It really is quite a rush actually. I'm also pleased to see the old issue of her relationship with Norebo canonised, despite the fact that he probably hasn't been in official publications for yonks. It feels very odd to have this level of nostalgia for something that I forced upon myself only fairly recently, and have actually found pretty gruelling during much of the process of living through it. But this really is an absolute joy. I guess It's finally hitting me that this will soon be over. Let's hope that this mood'll last.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 350: December 2006


part 3/6


Magical Pollution: We've talked several times about the things high level adventurers do that essentially create dungeons for the next generation of adventurers. Some of them are intentional, like building castles full of traps to protect their wealth. Some are not, like your dumped waste products producing defiled lands and mutants that come back to make your life a misery. Of course, the thing about pollution is that you can rarely predict what long-term effects it will have, save by trial and lots of error, as it involves small amounts of lots of different waste products being thrown together and interacting. So this article is another grab-bag of stuff built around a theme. Three different templates that represent the mutations this might cause: Arcane-blooded, poisonous and stonebones. Two prefab adventure locations for you to put down anywhere, with social and research challenges as well as physical ones to deal with. And three more smaller hazards that are more obvious challenges to be avoided or suffer in the process. So this is for the people annoyed by everything having implied setting stuff, who just want their crunchy material so they can make better campaigns on their own. They're hardly going to neglect them, despite what some letter writers might think.


Creatures of corruption: Continuing directly on from the last article, even though we don't have quite enough material to make Pollution a full theme in the issue. Now there's an idea. We've had war and death themed issues. I'm sure there's more than enough article ideas to make poison, disease and famine themed issues in the future. Hell, on that note, a biblically themed one would be cool if they could get over their fear of causing controversy. But anyway, back to the monsters formed by our own despoiling of nature. Will they be suitably ironic in the deaths they inflict upon players.

Alchemical Undead are your basic shambling monstrosities in eternal torment, only with extra toxic breath and damaging explosion when killed. Pretty familiar really. I'm sure you can visualise this from any number of media properties.

Corrupted is a template that YOU could well wind up with if you fall in the wrong mutagenic slime. You might look ugly, but you also get superhuman strength and toughness, natural weapons, regeneration and poisonous bite. I'm sure you could get an adventuring party to accept you anyway, and if not, there's plenty of precedents for a heroic party composed entirely out of mutants, fighting to get a cruel world to accept them.

Toxic Oozes are as hard to kill as most of their relatives, eating away at any weapons or armor (or your flesh) that touches them. In addition, they emit toxic fumes that'll do slow con damage even if you don't touch them. You probably want to kill them with cold rather than fire if possible, as it'll be more pleasant smelling afterwards. So these monsters are once again going with the obvious and archetypical, rather than unique spins on an idea. Well, they were dealing with newbies again in the letters.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 350: December 2006


part 4/6


Planetouched of Faerun: Virtually everyone knows that the forgotten realms pretty much is generic D&D, and has been for most of their lives. So branding an article like this a FR one means little, it just lets them give specific examples of how these new creatures can fit into an existing setting. And since we're dealing with new Planetouched here, it's particularly easy to get them into whatever world you want, even if they're not native to it. The important question is: would you want too?

Azerblood mix dwarves with azer, which is fairly obvious combination. Adding fire resistance and the ability to zap foes with heat metal let you be extra effective both in the forge and on the battlefield, making it easy for other dwarves to look up to them. I'm sure they'll have no problems getting hot in the bedroom either.

Celadrin are crossbreeds of Elves and Eladrin, which is such a no-brainer combo as to be amusing, especially knowing what they'll do to eladrin in 4e. They trade wizard for bard as a favored class, and get appropriate bonusses on their social skills. If all else fails, they can burn you with their eyes once a day. Also seems fairly typical for a Planetouched's power level.

D'hin are a mixture of Djinni and halflings (and god is that a terrible pun name) Their halfling skill with stealth and ranged weapons combines pretty well with the low level wind control powers from their magical side, so this makes more thematic sense than first impressions show. Shame they don't get a boost to their move speed so they can do a little better at hit and run.

Worghest are what happens when Barghest breed with regular goblins during their prime material jaunts. As LA+2 natural shapeshifters, they have some quite handy tricks that make them handy for a party, from both their goblin and barghest sides. Just preventing enemies from being resurrected alone is worth the price of admission at low levels. These four can definitely have a place in my game.


The ecology of the clockwork horror: You are imperfect. You will be assimilated. Well, your metal would be anyway. These are the ultimate army, who's sole purpose is killing everyone and taking their stuff to make more of them, so they can kill and take more stuff faster. Now that's automation. Guess even adventurers can lose their jobs through mass production doing them better. Can you be the John Henry who fights the tide, and proves that the personal touch is to be preferred by monsters, when it becomes time for them to lose their life and property? I think I like my version better than the one in here, which tries to play the unstoppable force trope straight, and doesn't really manage to build the needed atmospherics. It also makes the newly introduced variant integral to their society and more common than the existing types put together, which seems a bit of a bait and switch. So it's another solidly written ecology, but one that makes some stylistic choices I disapprove of. I can live with that.


Savage tidings: The action moves up a notch as our heroes set sail for the isle of dread. With a name like that, you know there's going to be trouble. If you have any grounding in D&D history, you also know there's going to be some serious nostalgia triggered. Originally appearing in the expert D&D set, the isle of dread was the grain of sand that the entirety of Mystara grew up around. Somehow, it has now transplanted itself to Oerth. Well, I guess they already have Blackmoor in their common history. It's not too surprising that other bits of geography are also duplicated. This'll both grab people's attentions, and up their standards for the handling of this adventure. Once again we get a whole grab bag of stuff. Histories, advice on incorporating new characters (admittedly tricky in this section since you're mostly trapped onboard a ship. ) some sample cohorts, 4 new regional feats, a new affiliation, and a bit of errata. A bit random out of context, I can certainly see how this stuff would be useful. But now my appetite is whetted, and I really want to keep moving and see how they handle the isle of dread. In it's original form, it was one of those 32 page modules that somehow contained enough cool bits and pieces to allow for months of adventuring, with loads of choice in how you tackled it. How will that translate to the 3.5 style? Hopefully all will be revealed next month.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 350: December 2006


part 5/6


Bazaar of the Bizarre comes to an end with another collection of items to aid wizards in their spell research. Make stuff to help yourself, and you can do more to help others in the future. Or crush them under your high-heeled jackboots better instead, if that's the way your tastes run.

Arcane Fences are another way of setting up a guarded perimeter so you can have a good snooze. They can even play you a lullaby if that's what you need. Your adventurer friends may laugh at you, but then they'll have to deal with mr tedddikins coming to life and ripping their throats out.

Containment Cloths are instant summoning circles you can then just rub down and use as a tablecloth. Don't let the kids realise this, and don't try and summon Rilmani with them. Business as usual here.

Failsafe Rings cast a buff on you as soon as you get hurt. It might be better if they could do it just before, but we're wizards, not miracle workers. That'd take permanent foresight, which would be very expensive indeed.

Occulus are goggles with instant identify spells up to 5 times a day. And if you're getting magic items more frequently than that, your DM is probably a serious monty hauler. I think this'll save your wizard many days of tedium and expensive material components.

Researchers are little scuttling eyes on legs that act like an internet search engine for your library. Only slower and with a smaller pool of info to draw from. Sigh. Fantasy just doesn't seem very fantastical when it's doing things reality does better I'm afraid. These writers really have got to get that through their heads.

A Thaumatoscope is a spyglass with permanent detect magic. Rather more portable and unobtrusive than the old mirror which does the same thing, but still not paradigm shaking either. A bit of a limp ending after the last few columns really.


Spellcraft also comes to an end quietly as they prepare to do a few lineup reshuffles for the new year. This month's theme is Chronomancy. Given their current degree of drawing on old products, I wouldn't be surprised if many of them are updates from the old 2e book of the same name, but I'm currently unable to check that supposition. I'll just have to judge the spells purely on cool & power, rather than comparisons.

Aging Touch may age you temporarily, but it wears off. You'll have to wait for the epic version to get that kind of power as a PC these days.

Skillful Moment allows you to take 20 without taking 20 times as long. This is about equal to the +10 bonus similar spells of the same level have granted in the past, but more reliable. The choice, as ever, is yours, as one method may be more advantageous than the other, given the situation.

Temporal Jolt inflicts fairly minor damage on living things,but really does a number on your items. Muahahahaha! Always love it when they do that.

Temporal Repair is the obligatory counterspell. If they kill your granddad while this is up, then you're fine. Ha. The duration isn't that long though, which means any superparanoid wizard'll be making an advanced version a priority, right after preventing teleportation, scrying and extraplanar screwage.

Time Shield halves the duration of spells within it. This is really quite brutal, assuming your fights last more than 2-3 rounds anyway, which I know some parties don't usually. I guess so much of that is up to the DM. Can't say I have a problem with this selection at all. Just wish it was longer, like so many of the articles these days. 5 spells in 3 pages still feels both slight and inefficient compared to the old days where they could sometimes put a dozen on a single page.

 

[Alzrius]

Celadrin are crossbreeds of Elves and Eladrin, which is such a no-brainer combo as to be amusing, especially knowing what they'll do to eladrin in 4e. They trade wizard for bard as a favored class, and get appropriate bonusses on their social skills. If all else fails, they can burn you with their eyes once a day. Also seems fairly typical for a Planetouched's power level.

It would have been amusing if they'd tried to tie this into 4E's eladrin in terms of powers (e.g. being able to dimension door).

 

[(un)reason]

One again, merry christmas and happy new year.

Dragon Issue 350: December 2006


part 6/6


Sage advice: How many ranks of tumble can I get when my multiclassed character reached 3rd level (6)

Can you delay a choice until later level (no. You can retrain now, though.)

How do you know if you can take 20 or not (Look at the criterea, masster. Itss all in the bookses. )

When you tumble, do you move at half speed for the whole move, or just the squares you're tumbling in (You can choose. Besst to be carefull. Ssilly acrobatics get you killed, collins collins.)

Does the armor check penalty for nonproficiency stack with the normal armor check penalty (No. Ssimpler that way.)

What qualifies as aware (not flat-footed. Ssimple.)

What's precision based damage (Hitting vital sspots. Ssneak attack, ssudden sstrike and sskirmissh. Lotss of sssssss's, yess.)


Class acts: Adventurers get Rogue Guide. Another of our clear-up sessions in which they pull together stuff from all over multiple books for our edification. Nothing very interesting here.

Arcane gets Beast Soulmelds. Three new Totemist soulmelds to choose, based off monsters from later monster manuals. Just the thing if you're feeling that sting, of not enough options to make the character you're wanting. The squicky brood keeper, the spectacular chaos roc, and the mischievously deadly gravorg. Which do you feel an affinity too?

Divine gets The Oversoul. An attempt to shoehorn a vaguely taoist monotheism into D&D worlds that are provably and actively pantheonistic. There could be a supreme god we're all part of. It just doesn't do anything. Ooooooh. Everybody's invited. Because it's all encompassing, you don't have to worry about losing your powers for doing something against it's tenets. Yes, yes. :waves hand: Very good dear. You just want to have your cake and eat it too godwise, don't you. You'll get your desire made standard come next edition.

Warriors get The Archers Art. 4 more feats to aid you in skewering things from a distance, plus a list of feats from their various sourcebooks, in another attempt to lure you into buying them. The more splatbooks you have, the more awesome characters you can create! Gotta collect em all!


Nodwick engages in corruption and graft in the name of dealing with icky people. Dork tower gives people what they really want for christmas. Zogonia fails to take a joke well. Order of the stick is well random, innit. Pass it on, mate.


Well, this year wasn't as dramatic a change as last year, but they still made a fair few tweaks to the formula as Erik pushed for more articles with setting material and joined-up thinking. Which makes it extra ironic that this issue moved the other way again a bit, showing he's pushing up against the limits of what the audience will accept in terms of rapid change. Oh well. 9 more months, and since they're getting rid of some more general columns for regular setting specific ones, there should be some more worthwhile material for lovers of any edition. Time to count down the last 3% of my journey, and round this off for good.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 351: January 2007


part 1/6


87 (104) pages. (counting the big isle of dread map. ) Lord Soth retains all his decorum in the 3e update, unlike Strahd or the Lady of Pain. Welcome to the third and final campaign setting themed issue. There might be plenty more to say on all these worlds, but we won't be seeing much more of it in the magazine for a long time. So let's see if they can develop them a bit further, or if it'll be just another round of rules conversions.


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


In this issue:


Editorial: Having done two of these already, Erik has a good idea of the problems you face covering lots of different settings in one go. Principal amongst these is making them accessible, which isn't always possible or appropriate when you already have an existing campaign going. You can solve this by making them explicitly part of a larger multiverse with canon crossovers, but this creates it's own problems when it comes to maintaining theme, and forces the writers to be extra careful when it comes to cosmology and continuity. In the 90's they tried to tie everything together to boost sales, and look where that got them. Now they're keeping their active settings well apart, with Eberron not getting even a hint of crossover with their other worlds, and the others playing down what happened in the past. (especially with Dragonlance and Ravenloft unable to mention other worlds in their 3e incarnations due to their licensing terms. ) This is another thing a setting wonk like Erik doesn't agree with, so he's once again pushing for crossover and creating a transplanar framing device for this year's articles. This makes me squee in delight, and it's certainly been a long time since I could say that. Two years of working hard at this have made a genuine impact with the rest of the staff and freelancers, and this is the big payoff. His ambition once again continues to impress.


Scale Mail: The october issue gets it's usual praise, with two letters very happy with the overall result. They just want more flavour, and maybe a non D&D article every now and then. Is that such a hard request to grant?

The Realms prove similarly beloved, with the country profiles from recent issues also getting two letters of praise. Whether they'll keep doing them now along with the new Volo's Guides remains to be seen, but you won't have a chance to build up a serious jones for it anymore.