Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 294: April 2002


part 6/10


Bazaar of the truly Bizarre: Man, it's been ages since we got a selection of joke items in the bazaar. A good 10 years, actually. Man I've missed that. Still, here we go again, albeit with greater attention paid to game balance. Lets see if they manage to be fun in spite of that.

Flaming Shields aren't actually magical, they just have pockets of nitroglycerine attached to the front. This means that they're potentially hazardous to you as well. Hopefully the construction of the shield will protect you, but if this was real life I certainly wouldn't trust something like this.

Ready-drink Helms are another attempt to deal with the potion access problem. With a compartment keeping them safe and a bunch of straws leading down, you'll look ridiculous, but you'll be able to drink them pretty much hands free. Watch out for big maces aimed at your head.

Extension Spears go ka-chunk outwards, once again, purely mechanically. Don't see why this is particularly comical. Like sword-canes, it's a perfectly legitimate equipment mod.

Stilt Boots, ok, I'll admit to a little amusement at them. They have soles that can extend and contract to your taste, adding up to 2' to your height. Get Sarkozy a pair for his birthday.

Extenders are another mechanical device, basically just hands onna stick. We have these in reality as well. I'm not impressed.

Gnome Backpacks let small characters ride medium sized ones. Most undignified for a gnome, but when have they cared about that. It does open up quite a few tricks, so there is some fun to be had here.

False Hooks have an interesting mechanism that means they can collapse behind you, foiling anyone trying to follow you up the rope. Again, it's not really funny, but it is useful. You'll laugh about it in the pub afterwards.


Gamers vs Girlfriends: Ah yes, the good old sexist stereotype jokes. I though the political correctness brigade killed them off for good in the 90's. Guess I was wrong. And of course, putting in jokes aimed at both sides of this argument just makes everyone feel stereotyped and demeaned. So this is a resurgence of old school material that just makes me roll my eyes. There are enough jokes out there that we really don't need to return to this particular tired old wellspring. Find some new ones. There's certainly enough interesting new references being created by the internet. Try pulling some of those out and twisting them in punny directions.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 294: April 2002


part 7/10


Play with your feats: Another short joke article that takes metagame stuff and makes fun of it. Some people just have the knack of always getting the comfy chair or calling dibs on the best share of the magic items. If they had a character sheet in the 3e style, feats like Avoid Bookkeeping, Dodge Food Run or Seat Jocky would be on them. Of course that kind of thing results in complaints that once you have a feat for it, it prevents anyone from trying it, when they really ought to be able too. I think we can survive that in this case.


Dark ages: vampire! Just like vampire: the dark ages, but with extra class struggle thrown in and 100% less definite articles.


Campaign news: Since the mid-90's, conventions have had to be booked and organised a good half a year in advance to ensure they're prepared for the people attending. This definitely applies to the RPGA as well. So here we hear about their big tournament adventure at Origins this year, and what you have to do to get in. There's a qualifying encounter you have to do beforehand, and the way you handle that alters the details of the adventure. If your party all gets killed, you might as well not press on, because you're probably not going to win the main event if you can't handle that. This'll make it harder to cheat, because not every team will face the same enemies in the same way, even if the overall layout remains the same. As with Ravenloft's card reading, this is the kind of idea I approve of, as it's always a battle to keep tournament adventures both interesting and fair, while not being totally closed-ended, which defeats the roleplaying aspect of the game. Anyone have any stories of how this turned out for their party?


Artifacts of Oerth: Artifacts in RPGA play? Oh, that's a huge can of worms. I do not see them putting things like that in official adventures and letting your PC's keep them beyond the end of the plot arc. So this is for those of you who are playing Greyhawk in a personal campaign, not organised play. And it reads like they're trying to update the 2e book of artifacts, with some of these familiar, if a bit nerfed from their 2e versions. They retain the same format, with plenty of history, drawbacks along with their powers, and methods of destruction at the end. So this is a fairly old school feeling article, with an amount of fiction stuff and setting integration a lot greater than most articles these days. It's another reminder that there's tons of stuff still unconverted, and after avoiding it last year, they're starting to work on that in earnest, so I'm going to have to get used to regularly seeing rehash again. Could be worse. At least they're trying to make the math all add up this time round.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 294: April 2002


part 8/10


Chainmail: The western side of Oerth, on the other hand, isn't wallowing in the past, but instead eagerly trying to loot it so all the sides can get an edge in their current war. Want to go to the site of one of the main battles in the ancient gith/illithid war, or see what's inside a fallen meteor? Or would you rather strike at their homebase while they're out treasurehunting so they come back to a burned ruin and feel the whole thing was futile, and then nick anything of value while they're tired and low on supplies from the trek back? As usual, they're trying to make sure the material here is good for both players of the wargame, and people who want to try actual D&D games set in the western continent, with mechanics for fighting in the new locations that make them quite a bit more hazardous than regular solid ground. Fighting over a gaping chasm is particularly dangerous, with instadeath immanent if you're hit and fail your save. Well, it's a wargame, so you're not as invested in individual units, so they can still get away with that here. As before it seems that this is both more forward looking, and more willing to embrace some old D&Disms than current 3e writers, presumably because it's a smaller department and they have more freedom to experiment. And as before, I can definitely see myself using some of these ideas to fun ends, so this column remains welcome in the magazine.


Command points: Our tactical advice this month focusses on builds good for games with lots of players at once. The victory conditions have been simplified, and it's quite possible to win without defeating all of your opponents. So these groups generally have smaller numbers of more powerful creatures that'll hopefully be able to get the drop on an enemy, and kill enough for a win before everyone else can gang up to stop whoever takes the lead. So it seems a fairly significant consideration here is making sure games don't become long and unweildy as you add more players, and everyone gets round to their turn fairly quickly. This is helped by the fact that there's no really powerful monsters with abilities that can lock down the entire battlefield in one go. So this demonstrates that you can have game balance providing you bound the playing field tightly enough. The problem is then that roleplaying games by their nature encourage you to try things that don't fit into neat slots, while wargames don't. And if you try taking away too much flexibility in the name of balance you get something like 4e, which it turns out doesn't please everyone after all. Still, you can definitely get solutions for many situations, as this article shows. Just don't fall into the trap of thinking one size can fit everyone.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 294: April 2002


part 9/10


The play's the thing: Robin Laws manages a third article this month. talking about the benefits of keeping a log of play. Course, the format is important. You do not want to write up an elaborate poetic account while in the middle of the action, (unless you have a big party and it takes ages to resolve every single round, in which case you might want to take notes while you wait for your character's turn to act again. ) But you don't want to forget important detail either, especially if your game only runs monthly or less. Curiously, this isn't aimed at DM's, but at players, and encourages you to write IC, and tailor your account according to their agendas and biases, with the intent that this'll make your character seem more prominent in the overall narrative, and the DM is more likely to focus future plot hooks on you, because you have more personality detail to hang them on. So there's a certain degree of competitiveness here, although he warns agains outright alienating the other players. What may seem like a healthy amount of teasing and jockeying for advantage to you might wind up being taken personally if they're too sensitive. That wasn't exactly what I was expecting from him, and is pretty interesting. I've always encouraged a certain degree of PvP competition to keep the game surprising to everyone, (and so I don't have to do so much work building plots, because they'll generate hooks themselves) but I'm surprised to see him encouraging it. I guess that's part of the reason he wants mechanically codified social conflict mechanics. It makes it easier to have IC conflict between players that gets resolved with a definite winner but doesn't turn lethal or get taken personally. There's your thought for today.


Silicon Sorcery: Two little articles for different games, and by different writers this month. This column obviously continues to be popular amongst the magazine's writers. The first is three new spells adapted from Nightcaster, giving you some more options for inflicting large amounts of typed damage on enemies plus interesting secondary effects. Jet of water, entrapping spikes of lava or stunning bolts of positive energy, these'll all make decent alternatives to fireball and lightning bolt if your spellcasters grow bored of them.

The second part is the more significant though, as it's a teaser for Neverwinter Nights. Just as the OGL is letting people publish D&D compatible material fairly freely, this creates a sandbox that you can use to build your own adventure locations and custom monsters and items, within the limits of the framework provided. This certainly showed people how to build more cost effective magical items, with stuff like a +1 weapon that also added 1d6 each of fire, electricity, acid and sonic damage each hit being considerably nastier than a straight +5 one. The sample items backconverted all fit firmly within this mould, granting bonuses to AC, specific skills, saving throws, etc, in addition to their primary bonuses. It shows how you can get a fair amount of design flexibility even within a computer game by boiling things down to a sophisticated formula. Ok, you're never going to be able to jump, ride, fly, or summon more than one or two monsters at a time, but there's still enough permutations to keep people playing and designing new scenarios for years. So this is a fairly exciting little preview, that I think accurately demonstrates what the game encourages in terms of design. And unlike the one for Deities and Demigods, what it reveals is pretty encouraging.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 294: April 2002


part 10/10


Sage advice: Can monks mix weapon attacks and unarmed attacks. (sure)

Can monks headbutt people while using weapons. (yes)

If monks are holding an item, can they attack at full effectiveness with their other limbs. (Not quite)

Are monks assumed to have improved grapple (No. All that close quarters stuff is undignified and not part of their basic training.)

Does wearing a gauntlet make you Armed (not unless it's spiked. Spikes make everything better.)

Can a monk wear gauntlets and attack unarmed at full effectiveness (no)

Can you do a touch attack through gauntlets (yes, but not with the extra damage.)

Can you deal subdual damage with gauntlets. (At the usual penalty. Much suck. )

Does proficiency in bastard sword and katana overlap (Same thing. Of course. )

Do all shugenja spells need ofuda scrolls (yes)

Table 6-2 is messed up. (No it isn't. There are no inconsistencies at all. Do you question the wisdom of Skip! )

Can you use Karmic strike when striking defensively. ( If you're, like, dumb.)

Can anyone use sense motive to detect level (yes. Pretty cool, huh.)

What powers do you get outside duels from Iajutsu mastery (extra damage in first strikes. Handy, but not a game-breaker)

Are allies of things with gaze attacks affected (yes. It's why they're usually solo monsters. )

Do swords with special powers count the extra plusses for penetrating damage reduction (no)

Do items that give you damage reduction let you penetrate other things with the same type (no)

Can you use one cure light wounds on multiple creatures (no)

Does precise shot negate cover penalties (no)

Can you use weapon finesse to add your dex bonus to damage (no)

Do you need to use a full attack to get the benefit of cleave (no. Mmm. Skip loves the smell of negativity in the morning. Skip thinks this is a new record for consecutive no's)

When doing opposed attack rolls, do you automatically fail on a 1 (yes. Always end on a positive, kids.)


What's new splits in two. Guess Phil and dixie still aren't getting along. The snail is almost at the end of the page now. Will this joke ever end? It's cycled from being funny to not funny to funny again several times now.


Hackmaster revolutionizes the concept of game screens. Or so they say. Anyone have any comments on this one?


Splitting the issue between three big topics means it feels rather unfocussed, even though it is rather more adventurous on the rules front than most issues, and does have some pretty cool ideas for your game. But none of the humour bits really hit the mark, and Robin Laws is once again taking on more articles than he really should, hurting the quality control. I think that once again, they need to rebalance their freelancer to staff writer ratio to keep from tapping out the ideas of any one writer.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 295: May 2002


part 1/10


116 pages. A man's home is his castle. If you're an adventurer, you can reasonably expect to take that literally, if you can survive enough adventures to earn a decent amount of cash and settle down. So here's a revisiting of one of the many topics they haven't updated since the edition change. Let's hope they manage to improve on the rules, just as they did with vehicle combat last month. After all, why go through the hassle of updating if at the end of it, you can actually do less?


Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: This is longer than usual, and tackling an important subject they haven't done before. Roleplaying has pretty much survived and moved on from religious wingnuts calling it satanic and trying to get it banned and the books burned. But there's still one important holdout where roleplaying books are regularly banned, and playing games like that is treated with great suspicion. Prisons. Now whether you think prisoners should be allowed to read books and play games during their communal time really hinges on one thing. Do you see prison as primarily a place for punishment, or rehabilitation? If punishment, then yeah, random dickery like that is entirely justifiable. On the other hand, if you're at all serious about rehabilitation, then something that promotes reading, writing, math, problem-solving and teamwork in one entertaining package is a very good option for building life skills that might keep them out of trouble once they're released. There's always going to be a few people who act like dicks no matter what advantages they're given in life, but so much of this can be fixed by better education and social support networks, that make it easier to create jobs and find people suitable to fill them. And the fact that the US has easily the highest proportion of people in prison of any country, while also having vastly more expensive education & medical care and weaker social security programs than most developed nations is probably not a co-incidence. Goes to show, some things, you don't want opened up to private competition and profiteering, because if you do, you get poorer quality services that still wind up costing several times more, and then when they fail, they get the government to bail them out, because the idea of letting them break down entirely and starting anew seems unthinkable. So 10 years later, the problems raised here still seem incredibly relevant, maybe even worse. We should probably do something about that, because punitive punishment of people at the bottom, while letting off the guys at the top is costing us all money and making it harder to get out of this economic slump.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 295: May 2002


part 2/10


Scale Mail: Our first three letters are all about ECL/LA, and how that has become an annoying mess that actually leaves most things underpowered. They admit they were maybe overconservative, and may tweak things at a future date. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Or perhaps not.

More positively, we have a comment that with good LotR, Harry Potter, spiderman, etc movies, and computers ubiquitous in everyday life, things are definitely looking up for geeks. Not arguing there. Special effects have come a long way recently, which makes maintaining immersion in a fantastical universe easier.

They're still struggling with people miffed by the edition change though. The new emphasis on tactics and crunchy bits needs to support the story, not replace it, or the people who liked 2e may desert. This definitely seems like an area where it's impossible to please everyone. Just keep the variety high, as I've said before, so even if one issue doesn't have what someone wants, they know next one likely will, so they'll keep on buying.

An easier to resolve question is why some prestige classes are 10 levels while others are 5. That's just for starters. We've already seen a couple of 15 level ones, and 2-3 level mini ones will also come into use. It all depends how significant a part of your overall career it should be.

The cavern tiles get a positive result, as that's good whatever your edition preferences, unless you're vehemently anti-minis. They hope this month's ones will get a similar amount of praise.

And finally we have another complaint about the amount of skin they show on covers these days. They make no comment on this, so who is to say what the future holds. Still, I wonder why they're complaining now. It's not as if the 90's was completely lacking in cheesecake.


Nodwick faces yet another humiliation. At least this one isn't actually painful.


D&D Previews: Having converted the brown books from last edition, they do one of the blue books instead. The Stronghold builder's Guidebook seems pretty self explanatory. How does this one compare with it's 2nd ed equivalent?

The Realms follows closely in Deities & Demigod's footsteps, with Faiths and Pantheons. Once again, huge inconvenient deity stats, plus new domains, spells, and other stuff that may be useful.

Dragonlance gets Sister of the Sword by Paul B. Thomson & Tonya Cook. Another novel from one of our long established pairings.


At the table: Another set of tiles that makes up a complete location as a special feature. As this forms a tower, with each floor having specific connections to the ones above and below, it's rather harder to take the parts and repurpose them to make a different adventure. It's also fairly cramped, so if you're using default size minis, you'll have lots of choke points where you can only fight one on one. Whether you can use this to your tactical advantage remains to be seen. Guess the DM still has free reign to choose the enemies you face in there.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 295: May 2002


part 3/10


Up onna soapbox (wouldya like fries with that luv?): Co-incidence is a funny thing. You make a path intentionally difficult to discover and follow, and then suddenly, three different characters independently discover it. Goes to show, people love a challenge, and often, all it'll take is a tiny hint to have them chase it down way beyond the point of common sense. It also reminds me of the pleasure of putting down a puzzle in your game without creating a solution, just to see what the players'll try to get to the bottom of it, or remove the obstacle from their path. So Gary's contribution this month reminds us how differently he used to play the game, with a loose pool of players that all played in the same dungeon, but not always in the same parties, rather than a fixed set of people who turned up each time, except when sick or whatever. He got to see how multiple people handled the same challenge, which you can't say for most DM's, and almost definitely helped when tweaking the rules in response to playtesting. On the other hand, he didn't know how people were going to use D&D once it was taken away and played in thousands of homes around the world. I guess that this once again proves it's the bits that surprise everyone that get remembered the most, and that's one of the big reasons we roleplay in the first place. As soon as everything goes according to plan the whole time, it's not an adventure, it's normal life.


Zogonia tries to figure out the most efficient scouting policy. It still involves the substantial risk of horrible death.


Epic level countdown: The teaser on epic magic items and spells really hammers in that it's going to be mostly just lower level play, but with bigger numbers. Sure a +20 bonus to something rather than a +5 one is nice and all, but it's not exactly mind-blowing or game changing in the way adding teleportation or the ability to breathe in space is to your game. The new spell system is slightly more impressive, but it's still vastly less so than either version of Mage or ARS Magica, and your ability to construct spells to spec instead of relying on a list in those. Still, at least you don't have to worry about paradox here, just your ability to twink out your spellcraft rating to hit those hundred+ DC's. You don't get people not believing in monsters that often in D&D universes. Still, this is a good reminder that the game changed more between boxed sets back in the days of BECMI than it does between epic and regular levels in 3e. That's a bit disappointing given how hard they're working to sell it here.


Dork tower finds that perfection is short-lived. Everything must change, often for the worse.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 295: May 2002


part 4/10


Fit for a king: As is often the case at the moment, they start off the themed section with a basic system light recounting of the historical details. Now that's something that's very rehashed indeed. Just a brief search reveals articles on this topic in issues 45, 80, 121 & 201 plus part of the previous full special in issue 145. Curiously, this is one area where the busier and more colourful format of the 3e issues is less useful than the old line drawings that give you a nice clean image of the various castles out there. Like the old ones, this does a good job of reminding us that castle building was very much an evolutionary process, as they were built to deal with attackers, and both sides had to change tactics along with the technology to stay competitive, until castles were made mostly pointless by explosives and artillery outpacing the ability to build stronger, thicker walls. Unlike the old ones, it covers both eastern and western fortresses, and also points out the cross-pollination between them, making it a more well-rounded introduction than the old articles, if not with the same depth. So it looks like they're quite aware that they have a whole issue to play with and are pacing things accordingly. That's always pleasing to see, and hopefully means we'll be comprehensively done by the end of this, and good to go on this topic for an edition or so.


Every home a castle: Another way this is very similar to issue 145 is this article, which gives us three sample stronghold layouts for you to use in your game. So we have a perfect opportunity to do a like for like comparison.

Instantly noticeable, of course is the fact that the newer maps are gridded, and considerably closer scale, so they can be used with minis much more easily. Combine that with the fact that the newer buildings only have 2-3 levels, while the old ones go up to 7, and the overall size difference between them is huge. Of course, this is made up for by the newer ones having greater detail, with what's in each room keyed in individually, and a lot more D&D specific setting information. Also very noticeable is that the new stuff has detailed information on how much everything costs, which definitely makes it more accessible from a players point of view, especially if they take over a place after killing the current inhabitants, and want to do some renovation. Overall, it illustrates that they're now far more interested in working out the fine details of rules and tactics, and focussed exclusively on D&D games, rather than catering to other RPG'S, and the idea of generic fantasy stuff as well. So if you want to play D&D, the new stuff is massively superior. If you want to play anything else, stick with the old issues. Pretty easy to make the decision, when you look at it like that.


Mortar & Stone: We continue to price up all the upgrades you can get for your castle. These have high costs commensurate with their scale, which means low level characters are pretty much out of the market, and higher level ones will have to think hard about if they want to upgrade their crib, or their personal gear. If you're not planning on going out anymore, then a moat filled with everlasting fire, plus walls enchanted with a fear spell (so even if they make it over the moat one way, they fall in anyway when they panic and run away) might be a worthwhile investment to get some peace and quiet. Of course, for a DM who has an unlimited budget, the sadistic tricks in this article could fill up your dungeons quite nicely. Dungeons like the tomb of horrors, where the traps outnumber the actual adversaries, may be rare and getting rarer, but that means they'll be more of a shock when you do pull them out. There's still some old school in there, amongst the careful attention to pricing and what you need to construct these things.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 295: May 2002


part 5/10


Building a better rogue trap: And if the old school touch was evident in the last article, it's even more so in this one, where we have a whole bunch of sadistic traps framed by a narrative in which the salesman gets double-crossed by his would-be employer, only to be fully prepared to cross him right back. With fiction in general having nosedived this year, that kind of fun comes very welcome indeed. Still, even if they've got the flavour, the degree of lethality and inventiveness certainly isn't anywhere near those old 70's traps. The deadliest one on offer is only CR 10, and that's because teleportation requires a high level spellcaster to use rather than the ingenuity of where it teleports the victim too. Once again, their new mandate to try and keep the game balanced and fair keeps them from really cutting loose with their most sadistic ideas. The writers can make stuff that looks good, but how would they fare against an enemy who doesn't play fair at all?


The cosmo-knights get their own splatbook for rifts. Man, they've been doing a lot of power-creeping when we weren't looking.


With and without pity: Assigning an alignment to a person can be contentious enough at times. Applying one to a whole community is very much an exercise in fuzzy logic, especially when you're dealing with millions of people. Could you apply an overall alignment to New York, or possibly it's individual districts? Probably not. But Robin Laws can, because that's the kind of thing he does. Unsurprisingly, this shows how likely a community is to go along with it's ruler, particularly if they're of a dramatically different alignment to the average, and what a community of a particular alignment is likely to look and act like. Whether lawful communities are likely to also be more prosperous than chaotic ones I'm not certain, but it certainly doesn't seem impossible. Is there any data that shows the correlation between taxation percentages and crime rates? Basically, this feels like part of a continuing attempt to sneak back domain management into D&D via the magazine. Only the irony is that because the various bits and pieces are written by different writers, they interlock even more poorly than the old stuff if you were to try and use it all in one game. This is the kind of thing that really really needs a full book dedicated to it, because the magazine format just makes a mess of it.


The way of the fist: As we saw in issue 289, there's tons of different concepts you can fit under the name Ninja. Similarly, there's a wide set of different disciplines you can fit under the umbrella of unarmed fighter, not all of which a D&D monk is appropriate for. So a trio of prestige classes that boost different types of unarmed fighting is a very valid niche to fill, as trying to build an unarmed brawler from a single class fighter will result in a very weak character indeed. Let's see if they can make the concepts nicely effective, or will merely be a minor band-aid to the system.

Primal Ragers let barbarians grow claws when they rage, so they can do the Hulk Smash thing far more effectively than before. With extra damage reduction, and a quirky little power that lets them take a short break mid-rage without losing it entirely, they seem like a pretty valid diversion for a mid-level character who wants to reduce their vulnerabilities.

Fierce Grapplers get the ability to do regular damage rather than subdual a little earlier, and their pinnacle power lets them knock out creatures if they can get a firm grip on them, so they may not have the flexibility of spellcasters, but they'll be good at neutralising them if they can get close. Some ranks in stealth skills would probably be helpful there.

Brawlers are only really suited to an urban campaign, where their skill with improvised weapons and absorbing subdual & bludgeoning damage would be useful in the majority of encounters. Their other power, a substantial bonus when facing multiple opponents, is more universally applicable, but still likely to diminish in usefulness at really high levels. I don't see that many people taking them, to be honest.