Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5933595" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 279: January 2001part 5/7Class acts is in on this month's theme, with the Ancestral Avenger. For elves who really really hate the drow and want them exterminated. They're a fighter/ranger type which get lots of bonuses not only against drow, but against their partners in crime spiders and demons. This does mean that like clerics, they'll be less useful when their favoured enemy isn't around, but if you're playing one of these guys, you should be proactively seeking out adventures where you fight Drow anyway. They seem both fairly solid mechanically and flavourwise, with no obvious foul-ups in their design, requirements or powerset. You will have to select your skills carefully though, as they have a pretty good set, and only 2+int to choose, which may be frustrating if you're coming off from ranger. Can't have everything, as usual. Giants in the earth: Ha. It's an article on the greek-persian war, as seen in the comic book and film 300. That's quite fitting for a fantasy magazine that's trying to up it's badass quotient. They did heroic stuff, that has since become magnified by stories until it's fairly legendary. And none of this CR equivalent opponent stuff either. Real heroes don't let impossible odds stop them from trying. Roll the dramatis personae. Xerxes is the persian king, proud and commanding, determined to make his country into a world power. He did indeed assemble a pretty impressive army, and got quite a long way before finally being stopped. He is a straight fighter though, when as a hereditary ruler, he ought to have at least one aristocrat level for the social skills. Leadership is not all about who can kick the most ass on their own. Miltades is the old but still badass guy who beat the persians last time, leading Xerxes to hold a grudge and come back with a bigger force years later. Things like this don't happen in a vaccum, and it can be hard to say where they truly start and end. Leonidas does indeed look quite like he did when yelling THIS IS SPARTA! He's buff, has a badass beard, and is quite capable of inspiring loyalty in an army. Having a decent supply of smart one-liners definitely helps with this, as does being willing to die for your men. If anyone's the hero in this story, it's him. Epilates sold out to the persians for money, and spent the rest of his life paying for it. Your basic out for himself weasel, he's no real threat physically, but don't trust him with any secrets or you'll regret it. Still, this is a good example of how being trustworthy is generally more profitable in the long run. Megistias is the oracle that advised Leonidas & co, trying to interpret the visions of the gods as clearly as possible. He didn't survive the battle, and indeed, knew he was going to die, but went in anyway. He got pretty high posthumous praise for that bravery, which makes sense. Artemisia is another ruthless mutha who switched sides repeatedly during the war. Somehow, she managed to keep her respect anyway. It's not easy for a woman to become a military commander full stop, so she must be a pretty smart cookie. Themistocles is the guy who finally stopped the Persian invasion for good, although the methods he used to win made him pretty unpopular afterwards. Such is the life of a politician. If you're too clever, people won't appreciate it, even if you are acting in their long term best interests, because life is complicated, but people secretly want a leader who offers simple solutions and tells them what they want to hear. And overall, this collection reminds us that in real life, events are rarely as neat as they are in stories, despite our attempts to force a narrative on things. It's quite interesting for that. PC Portraits: No beards on the elves this time round, and in general they look a good deal more alien, with oddly shaped faces and very noticable pointy ears. In fact, they're sufficiently uncanny valley that I'd have a hard time finding myself attracted to creatures that looked like this, which is a definite change from the fetishised sexy elves. Plus they look like they had more work in general put into them than the collection in issue 251. I think this is a case where the newcomer definitely wins against the incumbent, having a more distinctive aesthetic, while also presenting us with plenty of variety in character concepts. Not all rehash is bad. Dragonmirth dices with death and mind<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ing again. Nodwick starts revisiting dungeons. Plant things and mecha, what a curious combination. How do they get along? I couldn't say.</blockquote>

Verification