Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 314: December 2003


part 3/9


Dust to dust: Weirdly enough, it's the earth organisation that's most easily presented as an antagonist group here. They worship earth to the point where they're almost a genocidal apocalypse cult, trying to wake a slumbering earth god who'll bring the element to it's proper place of total cosmological supremacy, and wipe out all other elementals and anyone who doesn't give Earth it's proper respect. Very much the kind of credo that comes from someone valuing stability over genuinely making things utopian, and then attaching onto a half-baked idea to create their ideology. And thus it seems all too plausible in a fantasy universe, particularly one where we've already seen the temple of elemental evil put through it's paces several times.

Unsurprisingly, most of their new spells and items are oriented towards defence. The standard resiliency boosts and resistance to things like disarming, knockdown and bull rushes. Not that terrain control can't be turned to offensive ends too, particularly the more powerful ones like the staff with a full array of earthshaping spells. But this seems more likely to make them a bugger to finish off than actually win them the fight. If any group deserves to be the losers, it's this one.


Masters of the four winds: In 1e, Monks had highly restricted numbers of high level characters, with very particular titles, including Master of the X season or direction wind. Those were scrapped for 3e, but no idea dies completely, especially not if it was in the corebook. And so here we have a prestige class for each cardinal direction. Each is designed as a hybrid of monk and some other class, requiring you to be near 10th level and have at least 4 levels of monk to get in (which also means you'll need to plan your multiclassing points carefully) All gain full progression of their basic monk powers, some form of spellcasting, and add the Air domain to their spell lists at some point, which means they all look superficially similar. Hopefully the 4 combined will be well suited for promoting harmony throughout the world, as like the winds themselves, staying still is not their path to enlightenment.

Masters of the North Wind combine monk and druid powers, progressing their shapeshifting and spell powers, and gaining the ability to assume gaseous form, which is always a game-changer. They really can go anywhere and survive there, which makes them very independent indeed.

Masters of the South Wind mix rogue and monk, getting full sneak attack progression and 6+int skill points, plus a decent selection of stealth and air based spells that make them easily the equal of assassins in the stealthy killing stakes, only on the side of the good guys, and hopefully able to resolve problems more mercifully. Enlightenment lets you speak softly and carry a big stick.

Masters of the East Wind mix monk and wizard, predictably enough. With full spellcasting progression and 1/2 familiar progression as well, they look pretty spiffy. They will have to sacrifice 4 spellcaster levels to get in though, which more than makes up for it. Still, stick with it a few more levels into epic and take practiced spellcaster to make up the penetration, and then you can really show off the results of patience.

Masters of the West Wind are the cleric hybrids, completely unsurprisingly, and get exactly the same deal, only with partial turning progression. Since clerics get better BAB, Armor, etc than wizards, this doesn't seem like quite so good a deal. Freedom to use your monk unarmed bonuses, or wear heavy armor makes both slightly suboptimal, ironically.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 314: December 2003


part 4/9


Guardians of the deepest seas: Unsurprisingly, the water based organisation has a pretty heavy emphasis on spellcasting in their prestige class too. Because when you have magic for letting you breathe underwater and ignore pressure differentials, who needs technological research? In this case, it's the need to buy up your Survival and Swimming skills that keeps this from being a no-brainer for a wizard or sorcerer, since it comes with full spellcasting, 3/4 BAB, and a bonus feat every 5 levels plus all the other handy underwater adaptability it adds on. But it still looks like a pretty good deal for a cleric or bard as well, (druid shapeshifting still pwns you, on the other hand) so it's worth going for even if you suspect the game might not be underwater focussed after all.

Also unsurprisingly, many of the spells are updates of familiar ideas we saw in the bumper water spell lists of issues 220 + 235. From basic tricks like holding your breath for longer to 9th level spectaculars like raising sunken ships and smashing areas up with tsunamis, the utility ones are completely familiar. Slightly more surprising are the killing spells that remove the water in your body, or cause it to vibrate in cripplingly unpleasant fashion, but I suppose they have precedents in the Tome of Magic and Complete Necromancers handbook. And James Jacobs can't seem to resist slipping weird and gruesome bits into articles even when they aren't needed. I suppose tentacles keep the boredom at bay, be they suckered, barbed, or comprised of your own mutated bodily fluids.


The ecology of the salamander: Fittingly for our elemental theme, we have a monster that lurks in firey places. Salamanders get a decidedly interesting ecology, with their reproductive cycle and caste distinctions being very different from humans. Being able to absorb your energy directly from the heat of fire has quite substantial benefits. Our new crunch, on the other hand is stats for their larvae, and a trio of feats that enhance their innate abilities. Of course, there's also the usual advice on fighting as them, fighting against them, and using them as PC's. So it's their usual policy of trying to please everyone. Still, a fairly decent ecology, full of usable stuff. They may not be as entertaining as they used to be, but they are more consistently useful.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 314: December 2003


part 5/9


Channeling the elements: If the last 5 articles haven't given us enough prestige classes to satiate you, here's one more for each element, just to roughly keep the balance. No paraelemental stuff or experimenting with possible 5th elements like wood, void or heart then? Oh well. Maybe in a few years.

Earthshakers are all about the tremorsense, gaining an extra 5' every 2 levels, plus full spellcasting progression and bonus earthquakes and geyser blasts on top of that. Fully competitive with remaining a straight cleric, if you can finagle a way of getting into them from an arcane spellcaster, they'll be well and truly broken in power level.

Icesingers give us at least a little paraelemental fun mixed with the straight stuff. Their abilities are mostly a pun on coldheartedness, allowing them to both generate real cold, and remain socially unmoved while manipulating others. Cue Ice Queen jokes, etc etc.

Firestorm Berserkers go the opposite direction, getting full Rage and BAB progression, becoming immune to fire, and then literally bursting into flame and breathing fire when they Rage. I think that's probably worth sacrificing a little damage reduction for, and having the two in the same party makes for a good buddy team.

Purebreath Devotees aren't too hard to get into from a whole bunch of classes, and abilitywise are in the monk/cleric area, with their own spell list, and the ability to survive on air alone. (and as they advance, they need less and less of that as well.) If your adventures take you into hostile environments, that's where they'll really come in handy.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 314: December 2003


part 6/9


Revised Psionics preview 1: With the 3.5 corebooks well out of the way, one of the first things on their agenda is fixing psionics. Unlike the D&D minis articles, which seem to have decided Chainmail is a failure from the past they Shall Not Speak Of Again, here Bruce Cordell freely admits that there were some serious mistakes in their mechanical design in 3.0, and so they're changing things more than they did with the core classes. They're making it bigger, giving a whole bunch of psionic races PC writeups, eliminating MAD, letting you scale powers by spending more points on them, and downplaying psionic combat. Apart from the last of those, these are all things I can be unreservedly positive about. While I haven't been that keen on the changes in approach to settings and articles around this time, I can't deny that most of the rules changes have been for the better, and that continues here. What's also pretty pleasing is that the new crunch isn't something that'll appear in the book, (although it will eventually be published again in the Complete Psionic splatbook in a few years time) adding another interesting race to the mix. This time, they've definitely learned the right lessons from their mistakes.


Under Command: The D&D minis article also takes the form of a grab bag of crunchy stuff, which makes it difficult to stir for it after forcing down 5 articles of elemental crispies. A couple of sample warbands, which can be used nicely both in the minis game, and as antagonists in a D&D one. More interestingly, a mini dungeon for them to inhabit. Hang on, isn't Monte doing one of those this issue too? Dungeon really must be getting as sloppy as the complaining letter says if Dragon is doing not just one but two of those this issue. Moving them to monthly must come with some growing pains for Paizo. They ought to move this Encountersey stuff over there. In any case, the supposed extra variety this column provides is completely negated by the fact that it's written in exactly the same formulaic manner as the rest of the articles. You should get a different writer in specifically to do stuff like this regularly, then give them the freedom to build instead of passing it between the regular staff again. That didn't work for the old minis columns either.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 314: December 2003


part 7/9


Fiction: The Leper's hand by Thomas Harlan. As I suspected in the last instalment, it's time to up the stakes and set in motion a multi-part plot that'll give the characters of Crusader Earth some major development before we say farewell to them for good. Funny how that's become a pattern over the last few years. The stealing of a minor sacred relic sets in motion an action packed plot as the impetuous young paladin and the cynical old witch try to discover who took it and why, and the journey involves kings, assassins and the holy grail itself, which has who knows what powers if all the pieces are reunited. They manage to succeed in their initial goal to recover it, but now they're drawn into a bigger conspiracy, and if they don't seek it out, more waves of trouble will likely come to them anyway. Are they ready for the adventure of their lives? Given the nature of the magazine I can't see them not triumphing eventually, but one or the other might die or have to make serious sacrifices in the process. I guess we'll see in a couple of months time, as we have the usual acceleration in pace of instalments as we reach the finale. Let's hope it's a satisfying ride.


Silicon sorcery: Once, long ago, (issue 213) we had an article on items with synergistic powers, becoming more than the sum of their parts when you have more than one piece of a set. While exceedingly cool, these take a lot of work to design, both in and out of game, so you don't tend to see that many of them around. Well, it looks like Heroes of Might and Magic IV has some more of these to get players excited about the thought of an extended treasure hunt to collect them all and gain ULTIMATE POWER!!!!! Even better, this is one of those cases where they've substantially improved on the formatting of previous attempts, making it really easy to figure out how much power you gain with each addition of a new item. There are three sets detailed here, a 3 item set each for sorcerers and bards, and an extra powerful 5 item set for wizards, reinforcing as usual that they're the ones most able and inclined to make elaborate equipment that boosts their power and versatility above it's already high baseline. So while there are the usual balance issues 3e suffers from, this still manages to be an exceedingly cool article, with stuff that can really spice up your game if introduced. You've just got to make sure the other classes have similarly cool synergistic sets of items to seek out should they so desire.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 314: December 2003


part 8/9


Dungeoncraft: Monte may be running his lessons on a more compressed timescale than Ray, but having completed them, he provides a sample dungeon putting them into practice in a similar way. Since he only has 3 pages to work with, it's pretty small, with only 9 areas, and all the monster stats left out, but there's still a fair number of challenges in there. He also doesn't neglect the worldbuilding side, letting us know why it was built the way it was, and what used to live there before the current selection of monsters moved in. I can't see it lasting more than a session in actual play, probably less, but once it is cleared out, the way it's set up gives you a good excuse for a new set of things to move in, so it remains interesting when revisited. And despite it's small size, it uses multiple terrains and a degree of 3D thinking in it's construction. I think he's done about as well as he can without asking for extra pages or splitting this up between multiple articles.


The play's the thing: When he was running this column, Robin was all about the quirks and catchphrases, revisiting the idea multiple times in his tenure. Mike also decides to do a filler article about the personality traits particular character builds are likely to possess, and the spells that are good for achieving their goals. The kind of thing that's only really useful if you're not that good at mechanics. Zzzzz. I think we can skip this one without consequence.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 314: December 2003


part 9/9


Sage advice: Do animal companions get bigger as they gain HD (Do you? No, you don't. They're more badass from skill, not physical bulk. )

Can you do nonlethal attack with a sneak attack (Only if it would do nonlethal damage anyway. A good cosh is a great addition to a rogues arsenal, especially if you fancy a bit of kidnapping.)

Surely that means rogues ought to be proficient in the sap, despite it being a martial weapon. (Correct! We have already erratad that, so worry ye not! )

Can you sneak attack while raging (Yes, weirdly enough. )

Do prestige classes still ignore multiclassing penalties. (Oh dear. I guess that like the point buy system, we forgot to keep that in. It's still an Official Rule though. You'll just have to keep your 3.0 books around to be on the safe side, in case the incompetent updaters missed anything else important out.)

What happens if you try a coup de grace with nonlethal damage (It knocks them out if it would normally kill them. )

Many animated objects have hardness affect, if any, will an animated objec on spells used against the animated example, an animated wooden table nes wou affec fire bol arre and (I'm sorry man, you're breaking up. Skip can't answer your question now. Call back later. You will still be charged the full cost for this call.)

If you suffer a mishap using a scroll, is it used up (Yes. Talk about adding insult to injury)

Can you take 10 or 20 when casting a scroll (No, neither are applicable. This is what happens when you mess with forces beyond your ken.)

How does Rary's Mnemonic enhancer work (If you're retaining, straight away. If you're adding, you've still got to take a time out. Does anyone use retainers these days? Skip will laugh at you if you do. Retainers are soooo 80's. It's almost as bad as shoulderpads.)


Dork tower messes up and prints the same strip twice in a row. Nodwick goes oriental adventuring. Nothing changes but the names. It's the circle of life.


And so with a 5th issue of shallowly skimming formulaic crunchy stuff in a row, I'm forced to conclude 2003 has just won the title of most boring and formulaic year in the magazine's history away from 1998. Hopefully it'll hold onto it for a few years, not surrender it straight away to 2004, but I'm not making any bets. In any case, Paizo either are not enjoying any more creative freedom than they did as part of WotC, or are still too busy finding their footing running the practical aspects of a business to be properly adventurous with their article topics and stylings, and it really makes reading multiple articles in one go an absolute chore, even when individual ones are good. More Incursion, less 6 flavor in one breakfast packs please.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004


part 1/8


100 (116) pages. Even Strahd says raar and forgets to cut his hair in 3.5. So much for all the cunning and dignity he aspired too when written by P. N. Elrod or Tracey Hickman. Plus this graveyard is ridiculously cramped. I see the art of setting things a little further back so we can get proper scale and perspective is still a lost one for the magazine art department, despite the issue's theme being the revival of old campaign settings. One that definitely inspires mixed feelings in me, as while it's more exciting than the class collections, it still makes this the 6th issue in a row where they're shallowly covering a whole load of topics that more than merit entire issues to themselves. Maybe this'll remind Paizo and WotC that just because they were never as popular as the Realms, doesn't mean plenty of people didn't love them, and still do to this day. They ought to give them a little more love if they want to avoid doing sequels to splatbooks just a year or two after the originals.


Scan Quality: Good, Unindexed.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: The editorial makes it very clear just why settings got such short shrift last year. While WotC originally killed them purely on economic grounds when they took over, there's now a substantial crop of newbies (and 1st ed comebacks who missed that era) who have no real knowledge of or attachment to them. This includes our current lead editor, who is shocked just how enthusiastic people were when given a chance to write some new official material. This explains a lot about why I've been so bored since he took over. With no finer appreciation of the many weird settings their past contains, it's no wonder the material he picked for publishing got samey faster than any editor before him. Let's hope this is a turning point for them then, not some cheap updating that completely fails to capture the varied spirits of the originals.


Scale Mail is very short and homogenous this month, with every single letter apart from one being unstinting praise of issue 313. Why is it the eras I hate the most that get the most sycophantically positive letters in the magazine itself? The only critical one that gets through is an editorial double-booking they didn't follow up on. So instead they'll just cancel it for the forseeable future, reminding us again that Paizo really doesn't have the easy access to interdepartmental resources TSR or WotC did when they want to run a competition or put out a special. It's going to be a long hard fight for them to get to the point where they start challenging WotC in sales, and right now, they still aren't quite up to it.


Campaign classics: Ironically considering they're covering more settings than any other issue, including many that have never got an article in Dragon before, they start off by apologising they couldn't fit in everything. Since a good chunk of the missing settings are licensed ones that have expired like Lankhmar, Conan and Diablo, I don't think anyone's going to be sending in vitriolic letters for them. Similarly, those "settings" that were just a single boxed set or sourcebook, in many cases covering a part of some larger campaign world anyway, I find it hard to count as full campaigns, so I'm not surprised if they couldn't find anyone to write for them. The only one that feels like a big loss is Spelljammer, which apparently they did a 50 page 3e update on in Polyhedron a year and a half ago, so it's already properly catered for mechanically. Still, this is a positive start because it shows just how incredibly comprehensive they're being in their research. Now I just hope the individual articles won't be too small and shallow because they're trying to fit so many in.

 

[Orius]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004

And this is the very last issue of Dragon I read. After my previous subscription ran out in 2001, I never got around to renewing it, mainly because I couldn't afford it with other expenses I had. And of course by this point, we're into the 3.5 revision which kind of irked me, because it changed too many little things here and there.

100 (116) pages. Even Strahd says raar and forgets to cut his hair in 3.5. So much for all the cunning and dignity he aspired too when written by P. N. Elrod or Tracey Hickman. Plus this graveyard is ridiculously cramped. I see the art of setting things a little further back so we can get proper scale and perspective is still a lost one for the magazine art department, despite the issue's theme being the revival of old campaign settings. One that definitely inspires mixed feelings in me, as while it's more exciting than the class collections, it still makes this the 6th issue in a row where they're shallowly covering a whole load of topics that more than merit entire issues to themselves.

This topic is exactly why I searched out a copy of this issue at a local bookstore. And when I first picked it up, I was certainly excited by that picture of Strahd, as well as Lord Soth clawing his way out of the earth behind him.

Campaign classics: Ironically considering they're covering more settings than any other issue, including many that have never got an article in Dragon before, they start off by apologising they couldn't fit in everything. Since a good chunk of the missing settings are licensed ones that have expired like Lankhmar, Conan and Diablo, I don't think anyone's going to be sending in vitriolic letters for them. Similarly, those "settings" that were just a single boxed set or sourcebook, in many cases covering a part of some larger campaign world anyway, I find it hard to count as full campaigns, so I'm not surprised if they couldn't find anyone to write for them. The only one that feels like a big loss is Spelljammer, which apparently they did a 50 page 3e update on in Polyhedron a year and a half ago, so it's already properly catered for mechanically. Still, this is a positive start because it shows just how incredibly comprehensive they're being in their research.

Yep, I didn't particularly miss the licensed stuff, and the only loss here seems to be the lack of a Spelljammer article. This is especially true, when some of the articles cover more recent stuff that's less interesting. Some of the stuff like Council of Wyrms and Jakandor aren't really campaigns to themsleves anyway, they were material for the DM to put into an existing campaign whereever he saw fit (and honestly, 2e probably should have done more of this stuff rather than release boxed set after boxed set of too many different worlds.)

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 315: January 2004


part 2/8


The return of Strahd: Ravenloft's problem was always the conflict between the weekend in hell style players, and the ones that wanted to make an internally consistent setting that just happened to be ruled by and filled with horror monsters who were themselves prisoners in their own way. In the first, the PC's can roll through and beat the Darklords before rolling out again. In the second, metaplot bogs everything down, and the writers wound up making many of the darklords either literally unkillable or only defeatable by complex and obtuse weak points. Funny that it's the second style that gained supremacy in the full books then. But here, they're going for the toolkit approach, giving us both I6 style stats for Strahd and souped up Lord of Barovia, second biggest and most powerful darklord in the Domain of Dread ones as well. They also provide the map for Castle Ravenloft too, which virtually lets you play the adventure. (who cares about or remembers all the other monsters in the module? ) So this is pretty pure rehash, giving us nothing new apart from 3e stats. Since this is one of the easiest modules to find online or second-hand, I can't really get excited about it.


Sundering Ka: The Hollow World, on the other hand gets all-new material that examines some of the assumptions of the setting. As it's essentially a preservation zoo for the destroyed cultures of Mystara, and they're magically forbidden from advancing technologically, that means newer cultures have serious tactical advantages against the older ones. If it weren't for the same immortal interference preventing them from being wiped out entirely, this static setup would not be viable at all. But that doesn't mean they can't cheat a little, as this article shows. By stealing a little bit of Immortal essence, they transform themselves into dinosaur hybrids, which offers a pretty substantial power boost while not violating their cultural restrictions. Goes to show how change is inevitable, and even gods can only do so much to prevent it in the long term. A lesson every setting designer should keep in mind. So this is a pretty interesting article, that reminds us just how weird they got in the past, and what you can do when you build on odd premises logically. Maybe this issue will be worth it after all.


Sin eaters of Eilistraee: Even in this issue, the Realms is effectively going to wind up with more than it's fair share, since they're counting the other continents as whole settings in themselves. Nice accounting trick if you can pull it off. What's the betting Earth'll do something similar if we ever get extraplanetary colonies going, since even if we do, it'll be centuries before it's population isn't bigger than everything else put together.

But anyway. Here we have an attempt to put a bit of pacifism into the Realms. The Silverhair Knights are followers of Eilistraee who try to convert other drow by being living examples of the benefits of not being a backstabbing bastard, and refusing to kill them no matter how annoying they are. This means any special powers they get which make it easier to survive and convert people are very much needed. Ironically, they still get full BAB, even if they'll be mostly using it to deal nonlethal damage. (which they get sneak attack-like boosts if they use that are not to be sneezed at.) They also get 3/5 spellcasting progression, and magic which inflicts guilt overloads on enemies, making them more amenable to alignment changes. It's fairly heavy-handed in achieving it's goals, but at least they're trying something different. Even most of the Exalted Deeds prestige classes are still all about the killing. The only problem will likely be getting the rest of the party to play along. Even Paladins will tend towards killing drow after the third betrayal. Good luck trying to overcome racism in a world where it's entirely justified.