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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5931256" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 279: January 2001part 3/7Revenge of the spider queen: Well, this is different. Enough monsters, spells and magic items presented in isolation. How about a team of bad guys designed to work together, so the PC's can face them as a unit, complete with lots of tactical notes. We hardly saw any of those in 2e, and their rise is one aspect of 3rd and 4th edition that I quite approve of. They take a lot more work to build right than individual monsters, so some good examples are welcome. So let's start off with one of Lolth's personal strike forces, dispatched throughout the multiverse to fulfil missions for her. Which means you have a good reason to encounter them nearly anywhere, particularly in the underdark. The individual members are scary enough on their own too, making them suitable solo foes for lower level parties. Plenty of use for this then, and it should be a while before we reach saturation point if they do articles like this regularly. Sierona is a succubus rogue, and sneakiness combined with demonic spell-like powers makes her very capable of getting that sneak attack bonus damage. She's very much into a little bondage and torture, which means the highest cha male of the party might be spared for a fate worse than death. Course, at the level you'll be facing them, that gives you a chance to escape and raise everyone else. That seems like an appropriately tricky second chance. Phauman is a drow Fighter/Wizard who uses his spells primarily for buffing in combat. He thinks he's a ladies man, but with a mediocre charisma and wisdom, and no ranks in appropriate skills, he's really not. Catch him before he has time to power up and get him angry, and your chances of winning are massively improved.  Vinter is a Drider cleric, showing that Lolth can be forgiving on occasion, if it annoys someone else enough. He's very much the support character, buffing and healing the others, making them even harder to take down. A party that hasn't mastered the same kind of tactical efficiency will struggle even if they are higher level. Krad is a half-fiend Dragonne. As he's part of a party that are vulnerable to it, his roar isn't so useful, but he will give you a good blast of horrid wilting to soften you up before melee. And as he has by far the most HP, he might well be the last monster standing, at which point that consideration goes out the window. Knowing your enemy and being prepared definitely seems like a good idea again. Berkurt the Corrupter is a fiendish Stone Giant, and while big, is actually the weakest member of the team, with no real magic or particularly cool items. Still, a 30 strength is not to be sneezed at, especially when combined with smite good. He could still smash up a low level party all on his own. Jaggedra Thul is easily the most powerful here, a Vampire half-dragon Drow Cleric who's stacked templates bring her up to CR 22. Monte is really enjoying exploiting the system he created here, and her statblock is as large as I'd expect for a high level character like this. More than half of her description is devoted to the buffs she'll use in combat as well. She's going to be an almighty pain in the ass to fight alright. This party could well beat even a group of 20th level PC's if they aren't careful. Monte definitely deserves some credit for doing the first 3e article really aimed at high level players. The elven marketplace: While elves are well known for their magical skill, they can also produce quite a few notable nonmagical items too, such as lembas, and elven chain. While not as technologically minded as dwarves, they do have a long time to get good at whatever they choose to do, and so their craftworks tend to be very elegant indeed. This is another short article, and manages to squeeze in 5 new arrow types, 5 bits of general equipment, and two variant armor types made from natural materials. All are somewhat superior to regular ones, but way more expensive. Which is a way to maintain balance I suppose. No surprises here. The myth of elves: Or here, which is another 3 page article that does exactly the same as it's counterpart last issue, recounting stories from centuries past, and how elves have changed in them. Really, they're not particularly nice a lot of the time, and even when they are, they're still inscrutable and magically capable. (except when they're reduced to comic relief) Trusting them doesn't seem like the best of ideas. But at least you have tons of quite different sources to draw upon, including quite a lot of books I've never got round to reading. Yet again, I can see the use of this, but don't find it very enthralling. I can once again say I generally prefer the longer articles to the short ones.</blockquote>

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