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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5524878" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 229: May 1996part 4/8A wizards' three: Not to be confused with THE wizards three, which I did when I first looked at the contents page, and I suspect is a misconception they encourage, for there are some people for whom the presence of an Ed Greenwood article is a real tipping point in deciding to buy. But no, this is another variant specialist type and a couple of kits instead. Not as impressive, but still nice for those players who crave more crunchy options when designing their characters. Frost wizards are para-elemental specialists, following in the footsteps of Athasian clerics. They are extra good at ice spells, above average with air & water, and forbidden to use fire & earth ones. Since there aren't that many ice spells, they may have rather limited tactical options, but that is solved by collecting more supplements. They don't seem particularly under or overpowered really. Fiend slayers are one of those kits where the bonusses seem to outweigh the penalties, but as they're very focussed upon lower-planar monstrosities, and since such things are well above average in their offensive capability, they'll need all the help they can get to avoid a quick (or slow, which would be worse) death. Like paladins, it's a hard life being a hero. Spiritualists are also mostly benefits, with the penalties for their profession purely social and roleplaying based. Since their benefits are more widely applicable, they are one that is definitely better than just not having a kit. Whether you allow that is of course up to you as a DM. Rogues Gallery: Skip Williams chooses to remind us that while Ranger/Druids are technically an illegal combination, they're such an obvious choice thematically that they had a loophole built in for them. Thanks Frank. :teeth ting: There are other interesting aspects of this that stem from the game's rules quirks, such as the fact a half-elf would grow up slower than humans, but way faster than elves, and thus struggle in a standard schooling system either way, and the way his magical items synergise and their effects are factored into the statistics. The personality stuff is pretty typical, but then, he's never been great at that, has he. So overall, I think that balances out to an average entry for this series. AD&D Triviathalon: For a third month in a row, this competition and it's associated hotline get promoted. Time is running out fast! Take this chance to give us more money! Nothing new here, I'm just surprised how hard they're promoting it. Curious and slightly annoying. The dimensional wizard: A second new specialist wizard in one issue. I feel rather spoiled. This issue isn't doing too badly with it's theme at all. And specialising in planar manipulating magic is the kind of thing I would love to do. Like wild mages, they don't actually have any forbidden schools, although they do suffer a fairly substantial penalty when attempting to learn spells outside their speciality. With the usual bonus spell per spell level, bonuses on saves and penalties on enemy saves, plus a few nifty extras at high level, they seem quite decent, although like necromancers, they have a serious shortage of low level spells that means they may be rather squishy and a third wheel initially, but become really awesome later on when groups actually want to go planehopping. I shall have to invent a few low level spells to compensate for that if I ever get the chance to use this, but I do strongly approve of this in principle. Campaign Classics: Zeb returns to his own writing of a decade ago, and updates the Wu Jen for 2nd edition. In fact, this isn't so much an updating as it is a complete reimagining, trying to create another type of wizard which spends hit points to power their spells instead of forgetting them after casting. While a little tougher and more capable physically than a standard wizard, they're still pretty fragile, which means they'll only be able to cast a few spells before having to rest even if they max out their constitution. And since they're resistant to magical healing, over an extended campaign, they'll wind up using dramatically less magic, or resting for weeks between adventures. Combine that with the fact that their spell selections are tiny, and they're vastly underpowered to even the most cursory mechanical examination. Sorry, as much as I love some of the stuff you've produced, I'm not using something like this with a 10 foot pole. The core idea isn't bad, but it needs some serious revising to work in a game with ordinary classes. So this somehow manages to be the only big failure in an otherwise very good themed section.</blockquote>

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