Let's read the entire run

[Ed_Laprade]

Dragon Issue 321: July 2004

Can you make slashing attacks with a rapier at a penalty (Have you seen a rapier in real life. They're pathetic bendy things with no edge at all. They really aren't designed to seriously hurt people, just look cool. You can do it, but with a -4 penalty to hit and damage. )

As I've mentioned before, I really disliked Skip's attitude and a lot of his answers. This is a typical example of him just plain being wrong! While modern rapiers are as he describes them, the original versions very definitely were edged weapons, as well as having a sharp pointy bit. If he'd ever bothered to watch a Three Musketeers movie, or similar, he'd have know that. (Grumble, name-calling, cussing!)

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 1/8


80(108) pages. Last issue, they chased the rainbow. This time, it's back down into the darkness, which most D&D monsters can see through, but you puny humans still have good reason to fear. That's a strong yet flexible theme, and I certainly hope they can fill it with some truly scary boogeymen. Let's see what happens when we turn out the lights tonight, and how easy it'll be to write about it.


Scan Quality: Moderate, lots of adjacent page bleedover, unindexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Wyrms Turn: One mistake 3e definitely made was making darkvision default for entire swathes of monster types. It puts humans in a position that simply isn't borne out by our real world capabilities, especially when you include all the near-human races that do have some form of low-light sight. We have better night and distance vision than a whole swathe of animal types, even if our colour perception isn't the greatest. Of course, IRL humans are also one of THE toughest and smartest creatures in the world, rather than an average which most monsters exceed handily, but that doesn't fit the plucky underdog image we somehow still instinctively project ourselves into. I certainly haven't been afraid of the dark in a long time. Will this issue bring back any of that, or will it only demystify it further?


Scale Mail: Our first letter is a request for chromatic dragon PC progressions to mirror the metallic ones. Since they're quite keen on sequel articles these days, I can see that happening fairly soon.

Since they've been making hints about big changes for a while now, people are obviously curious, and maybe a bit worried. They're planning on moving their regulars around so Dragon is more player-oriented, while Dungeon gets the DM-specific columns, among other things. Whether that'll increase overall sales, we shall have to see.

They try to prime us for the change a little more by including another letter from a person who was pleased by the 3.5 changes. Hopefully these ones will be to the positive as well.

We also get reassurance that many people do want more unusual topics covered in the magazine. You never know when something that's currently niche is going to take off and become a huge hit spawning it's own imitators and subgenres. And even if it isn't a hit this time, at least you produced something different and interesting.

As they do every year or two, we have someone asking how they break into the RPG industry and make a living from it. Getting writing or artwork gigs isn't that hard if you're persistent and respond well to editors. Getting enough to live on as your primary job is another matter altogether. Remember, there's all sorts of other behind the scenes jobs you can take. See if your talents lie in any of those areas if you don't absolutely have to be a creator to make your life worth living.

Another fairly common request is for their best bits of art to be made into a poster. You might just get your wish this time, presuming your favourites are the same as theirs.

And finally, we have a request for a setting where monsters are common and integrated into general society. That's much harder than it seems, especially when they have superhuman mental stats and at-will mind reading/control powers that make dealing with them as equals completely impossible. Lifespans and breeding rates would also cause serious long-term instabilities and logistical problems. But that doesn't mean there can't be specific monster nations, and indeed, they're putting a fair few in Eberron. All their official settings have to have humans as the most dominant/frequent race overall because that's what people buy. If you want otherwise, you have to do it yourself.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 2/8


Zogonia has to deal with a fallen paladin. This splits the party somewhat.


Shadow's city: In issue 305, we got a city set on the astral plane, to give us both a good homebase there if you're planning an extended extraplanar campaign, and plenty of opportunity for political adventures as well as physical ones. Here, they try to repeat that trick with the plane of shadow. Of course, while the astral plane is a quiet place where you don't need to eat, and very little happens unless you actively seek it out, the plane of shadow is far more slippery and hostile to nonnative life. This is especially the case here, because instead of trying to blend in, they've chosen to fill the city with light as much as possible, shouting I to a dark uncaring universe, and having to deal with regular hordes of undead pissed off about this disturbance. It takes a fair bit of work to gain citizenship here, but not nearly as much as on the astral plane, as we aren't dealing with strictly limited living space and no breeding. I would wonder how they provide food for themselves, but since a big chunk of the population is underground races like drow and dark ones, I assume the tricks that work in the underdark also provide here. I also wonder just how they keep a stable population with 7% mind flayers, as their appetites would deplete all the other races pretty damn quickly. So the demographics and ecology don't really hold up to sustained examination, but this does look like a very adventurable place, as it's filled with dark alleys, competing organisations, opportunities to get your hands on magical items, and an obvious physical threat to disrupt the whole shebang whenever you run low on ideas. Raymond Chandler would have a field day, and hopefully you can too.


Who's afraid of the dark: When your players are stuck in an area of darkness, it's an interesting challenge describing their experiences in terms of their other senses, so they have enough information to make some choices about what to do, but not so much that it's no harder for them than it would be in a well-lit environment. There's a whole load of things that are effortless when you can see what you're doing that suddenly become very tricky indeed. Any change in the environment, like say a moving wall or pit trap can separate the party without them realising it until it's too late. Ranged attacks are pretty much pointless when you're aiming blind, and that includes non AoE spells. This is a fairly straightforward outliner of both the problems and solutions that show up when the lights go out, with plenty of attention paid to the existing 3.5 mechanics. You can dial up the difficulty based on the cleverness of the enemies and pull some very unfair tricks. This is the kind of primer that's drier than I'd prefer but has enough fun sadistic ideas for actual play that I can forgive it. After all, that's what really counts, not all the research and preparation that come before.


Ecology of the dark ones: After another pretty lengthy gap, the ecologies return with another of our interesting paired creatures. The Dark ones, like the Firenewt & Giant Striders, first appeared in the fiend folio, and have got relatively little love in modules since then compared to drow & illithids, with their limelight hogging ways. Still, as the ecology says, that's probably exactly how they like it, because it means pesky adventurers are less likely to come hunting for them specifically, and they'll be more vulnerable to their tricks and traps. Despite being physically fairly close to human, they have a rather alien mindset that leads them to extreme isolationism, and some rather interesting behaviours amongst themselves. While this illuminates some of these details, it raises just as many questions as it answers, giving GM's plenty of leeway to decide what their real origin is. Along with the now usual tactical advice and ideas for pairing them with other creatures (not in that way, although I suspect Dark Stalkers are one iconic character away from becoming a yaoi fangirl favourite. After all, they even explode when killed like anime monsters. ) we have Savage Species rules for making them available as PCs. This is probably the one sour note in this ecology, because as usual, they'll wind up rather underpowered, particularly the creepers, which have 5 racial levels, but only a single hit die, which as we know from pixies, results in very fragile characters. Oh well, can't fix the systematic problems. Other than that, it's a nicely atmospheric and usable ecology here.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 3/8


Collaborative campaign building: Robin Laws has moved on from the magazine, but it seems his influence continues to reverberate, with this little article on blurring the player-DM boundary. The main benefits to allowing your players to join in on the worldbuilding are that it reduces the amount of effort you have to do, and increases the amount of investment and general knowledge they have, allowing them to play off the setting straight away, rather than starting off as wandering marauders each time. Plus if they have particular talents, you can take advantage of that expertise by splitting the labor in an appropriate way. Course, if you're experimenting with stuff like this, you might well be experienced gamers who don't need that crutch to immerse yourself in character, but that won't stop you from doing it for fun. After all, it's not about need, it's about trying new things so gaming doesn't get boring, and having enough trust in your players to not ruin things by metagaming or suggesting silly ideas that'll mess up the setting if implemented. Sometimes too many cooks may spoil the broth, but better to try and see if it works than stay stuck and limited by your own creativity.


Shady characters: One thing that's notable about shadows is how gradual and insidious they can be. As the sun sets, they lengthen and deepen, and you don't notice until a sudden chill creeps across your spine. Why shouldn't transforming into a creature of shadow if you spend too long in the plane be a similar process? So this article showcases another rules experiment, breaking up templates in the same way as monster racial classes, and allowing you to develop their powers one level at a time instead of suddenly becoming overpowered and then gradually trending back towards the mean. It also gives us a better idea of exactly what they consider appropriate compensation for a level, when you aren't gaining hit points, skills, BAB, or any of the other basics, and means you can hold off taking all the levels in them until you do have enough regular levels that you don't wind up simultaneously fragile and game-breaking due to your idiosyncratic special powers. So while they may still be a mechanical problem, this makes them less so, and gives players greater freedom still to customise their character, becoming only partly shadow-tainted and maybe deciding to turn back IC as they discover the consequences. Now we just need the retraining rules to fully support that kind of character arc mechanically.


Shadows of Undrentide: Even the new computer game is in theme with the issue, which is amusing. Did they plan that well in advance, or did it just happen to turn out that way? The new material is fairly appropriate for the stealth theme, detailing a whole bunch of ways to make your poisons more effective than simply increasing the numbers. Like the disease one three months ago, this sees them recognise that maybe they nerfed this a little too much in 3.5, and there is some serious plot drama involved in having a progressive, hard to fix problem that will only get worse if you don't act fast. The tricky thing is allowing both PC's and enemies access to tricks like this without it feeling unfair or making the game too lethal, for which it would be a very good idea to enforce the cost multipliers they list here strictly. That way, the big plot point poisons can only be pulled out occasionally, rather than resulting in escalation ruining the game.


Dork tower deal with the emotional fallout of gaming infidelity. So tragic.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 4/8


Sneaky, stealthy & Stylish: Since stealth is one of the most common things characters strive for, there's always a big market for magical items that boost it. They probably didn't even have to specifically solicit for it. Still, I doubt your players will turn these goodies down if they run across them in a treasure pile.

Armor of the Woodland gives you moderate travel and stealth bonuses in forests, including teleporting from one tree to another, which is a huge boon if you're playing Robin Hood. Appear suddenly, and don't let them follow you, and your secret lair will remain undiscovered.

Bracers of Blocking make fighting defensively a little more beneficial than usual. Long-term turtling is still probably not a good tactic though.

Daggers of Torment give people hit by them hallucinations and flashbacks, which is one of those tricks that's only really useful if you plan to leave them alive for a while afterwards. Since sadism tends to get it's comeuppance, I think I'd bury that one with it's owner.

Rapiers of Disarming are pretty self-explanatory and somewhat rehashed. Swashbucking is a fun business, and good guys have their own reasons to not kill the enemy a lot of the time.

Saps of Stunning are also a one-trick nonlethal pony. Knock out those guards, and get in and out before the alarm can be raised. Meh.

Swords of Murder, on the other hand, are all about the gruesome cascade effects. The more you kill, the better you can kill. For a little while, anyway. You're bound to run out sooner or later, and the comedown'll be a bitch.

Amulets of Good Fortune are your basic boosts to saving throws. Nothing particularly in theme about these.

Brooches of Alertness let you see in the dark and get general bonuses to your perception skills, so they're most useful to sneaky sorts by a narrow margin.

Drums of the Shadow Hound are made from the skins of shadow mastiffs, and offer a wide range of shadow based powers, depending on how you play them. Have fun figuring out how to get the best use out of them.

Fey Flutes are also made out of the bodies of their namesakes, and give you appropriate magical powers when played. Careful using them around actual fey, because you know what they're like for lengthy vindictive revenge campaigns.


Lord of darkness: Looks like the demon lord format in issue 312 was neat enough to inspire another entry. Only this time, it's an evil godly native of the plane of shadow rather than the abyss who wants to destroy the world, and has minions of all power levels for you spend a campaign foiling. And he doesn't want to do it because of hunger, but because he's from the time before light and noise and tons of living creatures crawling around breeding, eating, pooping etc etc, and just wants to go back to when the universe was dark and peaceful. So basically, he's the ultimate cosmic embodiment of the grumpy old man who thinks everything sucks these days and just wants us all to gitoffa his lawn. Since he's an actual god, you don't get stats to fight him with at the end of the campaign, but you do get domains, a prestige class, new spells, a new feat, and new monsters to throw at your players. I'm fairly entertained by this, and it looks open-ended enough to sustain a campaign. Shadows can come in many shades and depths, and sufficiently advanced ennui can be just as dangerous as genuine hate.

 

[Erik Mona]

Pretty major editorial "relaunch" coming in the next issue, followed by an editor change three issues after that.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 5/8


Patterns of shadow and light: We've had a magical item collection. Now for a spell one. This is also only partially in theme, with light-based spells as well as darkness ones. I suppose we need the contrast, just to make the darkness seem a little deeper. Let's see if these are worth adding to the many existing flavours of D&D magic.

Cone of dimness makes people believe everything has gone black instead of just extinguishing the lights. Since it's way higher level than regular Light and Darkness, that seems a little pointless at first. I guess this way, your side can be prepared and attack normally by using illusion countering spells, which definitely has it's upside.

Ebon Eyes let you see in the dark, and also look obviously sinister, which may or may not be a plus depending on your character. I'm sure you can finagle at least a +2 bonus to intimidation rolls for the synergy effect with a nice DM.

Lightwall illuminates the area and dazzles anyone who passes through it except the caster, making it good for setting up ambushes. Still, I don't think it's as good as wall of fire, and at the same level, you'd only want to use this if you know the enemy is resistant to fire.

Lucent Lance absorbs all the light around you into a single focussed blinding blast that'll leave some serious afterimages. But if you're lost in the dark, that's no use at all. Seems like a fairly exploitable weakness, since you're already in trouble when the lights go out.

Luminous Gaze gives you eyes that glow so brightly anyone meeting them is dazzled. This is both handy for combat and seeing in the dark, but not for subtlety. A really arrogant god-king will make the effect permanent, and relish the fact that all must avert their gaze.

Radiant Assault is similar to Prismatic Spray, only not as interesting, as all it's different colours merely do different types of damage. How tedious. At levels where this comes into play, you should be able to deal with petrification or being teleported to another plane, even if it does divert the adventure for a little while.

Rainbow Beam is basically a combo of colour spray and a low level attack spell like chill touch or burning hands, both dazzling and inflicting a random type of damage. Why wait until you have 5th level spells and quickening when you can effectively deliver a 2-in-one whammy at 3rd level with this?

Rainbow Blast does a little bit of damage each from lots of energy types. If you're not sure exactly what a creature is resistant too, hedge your bets and at least you won't waste your efforts entirely.

Shadow Phase is kind of the reverse of those annoying shadow monster spells, making an existing creature slightly unreal, and thus able to ignore attacks some of the time. Like Blink or Blur, this makes them lengthy and frustrating to fight. And since it's twice their level, it shows this collection is definitely being overconservative in terms of power levels. I guess you can get twinky stacking them.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 6/8


Heroes of the war of the spider queen: In the past couple of years, the Rogues Gallery Column slowed to a trickle and was taken over by stuff from the War of the Spider Queen series. Here, we conclude that plot thread, as we are many others. Lolth has been away for a while, but they can't kill her off for good. Let's see what stories her absence has enabled.

Halisstra Melarn remains the same level, but has switched from neutral to good, from worshipping Lolth to Eillistrae, and had some changes in equipment. Being a protagonist gives you plenty of chances to consume moral fiber, even if it may take a while to pass through your system.

Danidae Yauntyrr, on the other hand, remains resolutely on the side of evil, just waiting for a chance betray her mistress. Enforcing loyalty through magic may work for centuries, but something will go wrong eventually, and it won't be pretty when it does.

Nimor Imphraezi is a half shadow dragon assassin who might be chaotic evil, but also wants to see Lolth worship shattered because it's not beneficial to him personally. Which is evil all over, isn't it, even if some good comes out of it in the long run because they're too busy backstabbing each other to take over the world. It's a perfect opportunity for adventurers to go in and make some changes by choosing their alliances wisely and betraying first.


Nodwick has to suffer friendly fire again.


Elminster's guide to the Realms: Several times in the past, we've had articles on what to do with dragon parts once you've killed them, and how much you can make by selling them to enterprising wizards. The Realms being a high magic place with plenty of wizards and dragons, it's not surprising that someone would take the job of middleman, setting up a shop which can take a dragon carcass, strip apart and preserve all the useful bits, and then sell them on at a profit when someone comes in, which is more convenient for everyone than lugging it hundreds of miles around to potential buyers. Equally unsurprisingly, a place like that needs a fair bit of magical security, both from thieves and pissed off relatives of the deceased dragons. Prices fluctuate wildly as stocks come in and deplete, and whether the owners know and trust the customers or not. As usual, Ed has plenty of fun with both the nature and personalities of the owners, and the layout of the shop, making it both useful for players and an entertaining read. It certainly doesn't seem like he's running out of ideas. Will he continue to be as frequent a contributor after this column goes, or is his 25 year reign finally at an end? Guess we'll find out soon enough.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 7/8


Faiths of Faerun finishes off as it started, with a double bill, as the revamp approaches, and evidently they don't want to waste already written material before giving it the axe. Since it was never particularly regular, nor really settled on what it wanted to actually do with itself, even though it did manage to come up with some cool stuff along the way, I suspect this is one of the less mourned of the departed columns, along with The Current Clack and Dastardly Deeds & Devices. We only have a limited page count, so it goes to those who push hard and regularly to ensure they're included. No time for the shy and reticent, even if they do often have better ideas.

Our first article is Nether hounds of Kiaransalee. Hang on, didn't she get killed by Orcus after he came back to life? Death for gods is an awkward thing, especially now the Realms is in a different cosmology, despite sharing a lot of the old gods and events. Continuity becomes such a headache once retcons come into the equation. It's too much bother for me to unpick at the moment. Our new crunch is a vicious new template, for turning things into said Nether Hounds. Slavering undead monstrosities, they're the kind of thing that relish ripping you apart with their bare hands, and with terrifying yowls, excellent senses, and high movement rates, they're well suited to hunting you down over a desolate moor or labyrinthine dungeon. Since it's a template, you could add them to anything from ghouls, to frost wights, depending on how scary you want the encounter to be. Not the most ground-breaking idea these days, but pretty well implemented.

Our second one is for another prestige class, the Deathstalker of Bhaal. Now he's definitely dead. It's a big plot point actually. Yet ironically, in some ways this has actually increased his popularity, and there's a worrying number of people who want to see him back and are willing to devote themselves to this prestige class to see it happen. It's only a 5 level one, but it culminates in them become exceedingly difficult to finish off permanently, with autoraising as standard. For a solitary villain without a party or villainous organisation to back them up, that's a huge advantage, normally only achievable by wizards with complex contingencies set up. The other abilities put them midway between cleric and assassin, which makes sense, but may require a bit of careful management for optimum power. I'm sure you're used to it by now. Ironically, it's quite an impressive end to this column, which could definitely have gone on longer if managed better. Oh cruel fate! :wipes forehead: Why must you taunt us so with unfulfilled promises, yet punish us so harshly if we fail to fulfil ours!


Dungeoncraft is off to Dungeon, appropriately, but at least Monte finishes off this particular topic here so he can start a new one there, and not confuse people who only read one magazine or the other. Having spent two issues on building personalities, he asks the question: Does a character still have a personality if they aren't interacting with anything? Which is pretty deep, really. People are very much defined by their relationships to others, and most change how they act depending on who they're with. You can spend ages designing some platonic ideal of their personality, only to have in-game events push them in a very different direction. So when you make a character, think about the other people you've already designed in the area, if they'd know them, and what their relationship with them is. A few distinctive relationships transform a cardboard cutout into a unique character with surprising speed. So having slightly fewer characters, but thinking about them more will make each more interesting, and hopefully they won't get killed off so quickly. As is too often the case, the longer a series goes on, the more distinctive it becomes, and I'm irritated that they're ending here just after telling us something new for a change.

 

[Nellisir]

Pretty major editorial "relaunch" coming in the next issue, followed by an editor change three issues after that.

Spoilers....