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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5889201" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 274: August 2000part 6/7Forum becomes pale green. Their new question is obviously what you think of 3e, now you have your grubby little mitts on it. I think the new look is a bit of a legibility hit compared to the last one. Nathaniel Broyles enjoyed his historical norse campaign, but knows variety is the spice of life. Next time, the players'll be going through something quite different. Joe Giammarco points out stories other than Tolkien that also used adventuring parties, dungeons, and elves. Yes, but Tolkien put them all together and did them better. It's like saying shakespeare stole most of his plots from older sources as well. Rich Haton found using books as inspiration worked better when he twisted them round a bit, and let the players take the story in different directions. Without imagination, the best sources can be made dull and constricting. Jim Castlebury pretty much got rid of resurrection, but still allows reincarnation. That way, death still involves huge changes to your character akin to Dr Who, and is not to be taken lightly. Interesting spin to put on it. Seanchai! I didn't know our long-banned mod interrogator managed to get a letter published in here! He's purely positive in this one too, heaping praise upon the sorcerer. It's easily the best part of the new edition. You can finally play dumb spellslingers. Woo! Eric Wessels is bewildered by Scott Wylie's attitude to the rules. It sounds to him like he's had very bad and irritating players. You probably need to fix them more than you do the rules. PC Portraits: Weirdly enough, although this column isn't in colour, the backdrop is, and it looks like they set the filter to semitransparent when they overlaid the pictures. Since that makes them an odd grey/purple colour, that does hurt their customisability a bit. The artwork is by Todd Lockwood, and is very dungeonpunk indeed. This seems like them consciously trying to make a break, and maybe going a bit overboard. You shouldn't have to sacrifice the practical aspects of the layout just to be different. I suppose like punk sacrificing technical skill on the altar of youth disaffection, it'll only be temporary. The novelty will wear off and people will want to get back to doing practical stuff. Role models: This column decides to take the edition neutral approach. But it is heavily promoting their new minis, which are 3e flavored (celestial eagle in the first set only makes sense if you know the rules' quirks. ) Ral Partha? Grenadier? Games Workshop? They can take care of themselves. We're doing it for ourselves now. And you still have to put them together yourself. How very Thatcherite. So this is moderately distasteful, and doesn't have nearly the fun factor of the earlier promotional material. Give us all your money, and then get to painting, peasants! Why has this column started sucking so badly? Are they trying to get it cancelled like they have so many other decent ones? Ugh! I don't want to deal with this. Sage advice: Skip leaps onto 3rd edition without hesitation. Guess he's already been getting questions based upon the teasers. That or he's fabricated what he thought would likely be some of the first questions. No, Skip wouldn't do a thing like that. Skip is a sage with integrity. That's not going to stop him from adopting a new outfit, with all the belts, pouches and buckles a proper 3rd edition character should have though. Guess he thinks it looks cool too. How does a multiclassed character calculate skill points. (Only multiply by 4 for your first level, not the first level of each class. Yes, that means if you take rogue first, you'll be strictly better than if you did it the other way around. Skip views this as a feature, not a bug, as it encourages twinking. ) If I have a dwarf Ftr6/Rog1 and add a level of cleric, I don't suffer a penalty, do I (no)Why do half orcs have a net penalty to their ability scores. (because high strength is sooo much more important than int or cha. Again, feature, not bug. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> )What exactly does refocus do (you give up this round's action to go first next round. It's not usually worth it. ) Isn't readying an action more useful than refocusing (both have their uses. A tactically astute player should be able to figure that out. )Do full attacks all go off at the same time (yes. It's easier that way, especially now initiative is cyclical. How do you move away without suffering attacks of opportunity (oh, let Skip count the ways. So many tricks you can pull. Tactics are fun.)Do you have to ready an action to disrupt a spellcaster. (No. Ahh, the wonders of attacks of opportunity. Grappling is also very effective, as most spellcasters suck at it. )Do you need to make a concentration check if an attack against you misses (no)How does two weapon fighting interact with iterative attacks (add one at your highest base, then subtract the two-weapon penalty from everything. )Are natural 1's & 20's automatic misses and hits (For some rolls, but not others)What are the new rounding rules (Down, unless specifically said otherwise, minimum of 1. )Why don't empowered magic missiles shoot more missiles (because that's not a variable number)Can you use detect magic or evil to detect invisible things ( Not easily, just like in previous editions. ) Can spell immunity make you immune to detect magic (no) Can you take improved critical in unarmed strike (it would be just mean to nerf monks like that, so no)Why doesn't your movement rate change as much when you're overloaded (Greater realism :teeth ting: We were tired of quarter speed plate fighters keeping everyone else from retreating)Do magic weapons have to be masterwork first (yes. The spirits will turn their nose up at you otherwise) Can you turn a normal weapon into a masterwork weapon (You can shave a pig and put it in a dress, but it's still a pig, no matter how much makeup you put on. )  What level do magic items work at (caster level, or minimum needed to cast the spells into it. Not much change from last time) What skills can you take 10 or 20 on (The ones that don't matter too much. ) Also notable are the power play's scattered throughout this section, by Sean K Reynolds. Here we see more evidence that this time round, the designers explicitly encourage you to search for combos of powers that optimize your capabilities, where a few years ago, they would look down on this kind of rules-lawyerly behaviour. That's a definite sea-change in gaming philosophy, and fuel for people who said 3rd ed was a game for twinks and munchkins. That is interesting to note.</blockquote>

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