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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5860484" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 270: April 2000part 3/7Countdown to 3rd edition: 4 months to go. Having covered the other three class groups in the preceding months, now it's Fighters turn. And you can see why they put them last. While they did get upgraded compared to 2e, with substantial increases in their flexibility, they're really still falling behind compared to Clerics and Rogues, and never getting anywhere near Wizards. Plus feats are one of the more radical departures from the previous edition, so they needed to ease in the changes to skills and multiclassing first. Still, you can't say the public didn't take to them pretty enthusiastically, as they became THE primary cross-class means of customising your character, with meeting prerequisites and planning ahead to get a good build crucial if you want to maximise your power. And nowhere is that more important than for fighters, where if you build them right, they might be able to beat wizards in damage output in a busy day with multiple encounters, but they'll still suck at utility stuff. Everyone is better, but some are more better than others. Revenge of the Sheens: We follow up on last year's Man vs Machine article with another collection of robotic creatures from Bruce Cordell. After all, with only 4 creatures detailed there, going straight from 4 HD to 16, there was a huge mid-level gap which needed filling if you want to make this plot work for a whole campaign. So this is much needed, and pretty welcome. It proved popular last year, so they made sure it got a follow-up before the edition change. Supply and demand in action. Rollers are another tough as nails giant robot, with massive saw hands that can do quite large amounts of damage. If there were decent roads in fantasy campaigns, they could move quite fast, but over rough terrain, you can probably outrun them. Well, isn't that convenient for the PC's if they're not powerful enough to fight them, or there's lots heading towards a town, and they need to arrange an evacuation. I see the plot possibilities already. Burrowers stay underground and attack you with their tentacle arms like groundsquid. This means they are a bit tricky to finish off, since they'll just beat a retreat and return later if you take their arms out. Better prepare those digging powers if you want to take them out for good. Phasers are even trickier to pin down, as they shift dimensionally, grab you, and then do the cheap trick of throwing you into the ground and watching you go boom when you rematerialise. That's a means of instadeath you don't see exploited much, and seems very likely to frustrate players even more than phase spiders. I think some evil laughter is very fitting at this point. Propagators invade your body and slowly kill you before animating your remains. Zombie Robots! Awesome! Since they're a lot tougher than regular zombies, and their infection and regeneration powers are pretty nasty, they're also one that may scare players who don't know their weaknesses. Arcanosheen are spellcasting robots powered by the rendered brains of live wizards. They're pretty rare, but easily the smartest and most versatile of the sheens, making them the obvious choice for a big boss, after the players have got used to them being relentless, but limited in quite a few ways. Power Trees are a bonus monster not designed by Bruce, instead being the winner of the design competition. They're gigantic, slow many-limbed things that recharge other sheens. At 36 HD and AC -8, taking one out is definitely a task for the highest level parties only. Otherwise, you'll have to take the long slow route of attacking the support structures before you can go for the core. Maybe tricking a dragon into fighting one would work. While they concentrate on the monsters this time around, they don't neglect the player side, also giving us a very interesting new kit, and two new "magical" items. Want to be an angsty cyborg always afraid that your mechanical side is going to take over and turn you into a slave to the hive, but with damage reduction and the ability to command dumber machines? Sounds like a good premise for a trilogy at least to me! But seriously, this builds on last year's article nicely without being dependent upon it, making both of them more awesome by association. It's not quite the equal of the nine hells trilogy or the princess ark series, but it's still some pretty neat adventure building. I think this definitely marks Bruce as a developing writer to watch. Leaders on followers: An examination of D&D's often wonky system of characters getting followers and a domain automatically when they hit Name level? That's worthy of a parody, certainly. And Robin Laws does not disappoint, taking the bickering sages thing to a new level. A whole convention of high level characters metagaming, riffing off each other and inserting anachronisms into each other? Sounds like fun to me. Absence has definitely made the heart fonder here, as this is the first pure april fool article in a good 4 years, and I do find it genuinely funny. Part of that is because it knows the rules, and the way they often turn out in practice, and does seem to have a genuine affection for them underneath the mockery. Plus despite being rules free, it does have a few cool ideas about what you could do with your minions, who can't really compete in a fight with anything that challenges you. You still need scouts, transport, someone to manage your domain, people to be arbitrarily cruel too, etc etc. So with two great articles in a row, this issue is off to a pretty good start. Will they be able to combine whimsy and usability and go for a hat trick?</blockquote>

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