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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5940825" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 280: February 2001part 4/7Mastering chance: They have a random dungeon generating system in the 3e DMG? I don't remember that at all. Goes to show that it's been quite a while since I looked at the 3.0 stuff. And looking at it, it isn't nearly as random as the old one from the strategic review and 1e DMG, with the power levels of encounters pretty tightly indexed to the character's levels. And of course, the more you reduce the randomness, the more the DM has to interpret and build upon the results before you're ready to play, which will increase the time it takes quite a bit. So really this is saying that even if you do use random generation methods, you should still customise the results afterwards. It's almost as if the designers aren't that keen on them and only included it for old times sake. If you already have plenty of ideas, this is kinda redundant. Just the facts, mage: Our second Robin Laws article this month isn't really in theme (despite it's title) but is also fairly interesting. It covers the ways and reasons NPC's might be obstructive when PC's are trying to get info out of them. A fairly quirky topic, but once again, a helpful one. after all, even those who are good at social dynamics may not have sat down and though formally about how to categorise the ways people act in response to particular behaviours. (if anything, if it comes naturally to them, they're less likely too. So once again, this is an article that may seem utterly invaluable, or completely obvious and pointless, depending on where you fall on the social spectrum. Since I'm pretty crap at the whole being human thing, but would like to be better, I'm once again going to have to say this is relevant to my interests, and I approve of him writing this stuff. No-one's covered it in this kind of depth in the magazine before, and it is of use, plus it's good for any game. It's good that they're still finding new things to write about in a roleplaying context. A little more familiar: Articles expanding on familiars were a fairly regular occurrence last edition. Why mess with a winning formula, especially when you can put all sorts of upgrades as feats now and not worry about it breaking the game. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure how much of a benefit making your familiar undead or a construct is, and if it's worth spending a feat slot. I think that like Toughness, it might be worth it at low level, but will then rapidly become pointless, since you'll soon hit the point where you could have done it manually in play with spells anyway. On the other hand, the ability to poof them away when not needed, (don't a lot of people do that anyway <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> ) automatically share your buffs with them, and have multiple familiars do seem quite worth the expenditure if you're built right. The new spells are pretty handy too. Casting spells through your familiar. Sharing HP with them in a pinch. Teleporting them back to your side. And of course the more tricks and spells you devote to them, the more their effectiveness is multiplied out, in classic quadratic wizard fashion. An excellent example of how you should pick powers that'll remain useful at higher level, not just now, especially as they haven't instituted retraining yet.  Reel Heroes: Our longest promotional article yet for the D&D movie stats out all the major characters, and has an interview with Zoe McLellan, the wizard of the party. Unsurprisingly, the PC's are completely outmatched on paper. A bunch of 3rd level characters vs a 10th level fighter and a 15th level wizard? That isn't even on the xp award tables. Similarly, there's no way they could put a price on the rod of Savrille, so that's relegated to artifact status. Game balance? CR appropriate challenges? Does that make a good movie? Good question. You almost definitely could make a better movie than this using only CR appropriate challenges, and building the heroes up for the final climax. The interview is fairly informative, particularly about her earlier life, and the fact that she's not worried if this fails, because she's signed up for a development deal with WB studios. And since she has had fairly continuous TV roles since then, I guess that confidence was justified. It must be nice being part of the in crowd. Since this actually has game information, it's obviously more useful than the previous articles, which were purely promotion, but it still feels unjustly smug, especially since the film has been out for a while now. It might be time to cut their losses and move onto the next project. Fiction: The opal of nah by J Gregory Keyes: Fool Wolf's story continues directly where last month left off, as he tries to figure out who or what is calling him, preferably without being trapped by their manipulations. And since nearly everyone from his previous stories who survived seems to be here, it's obvious that the stakes are pretty high. In fact, we're escalating all the way to world threatening monstrosity. They're not going to be able to continue the series in the same way after this is over. And indeed, it looks like there's another instalment next issue, and then that's it, so I seriously hope there'll be a decent payoff after two issues of ratcheting up the tension.</blockquote>

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