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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5943971" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 280: February 2001part 7/7Sage advice: How does a tower shield work (It's a movable wall. It provides the same protection and drawbacks as having an actual bit of wall in front of you. This means it isn't that great in melee unless you make a phalanax and then use polearms to attack over the shield wall. And you'll need quite a few fighters to make squad level tactics like that viable. )Does a tower shield protect you against area effect magic (Sometimes. Depends on size and direction. ) Do you get shield bonuses when flat-footed (yes)How does the shield spell work (Like an infinite barrier that doesn't impede you. Look. Pretty pichures.)So does the shield spell make you immune to attacks of opportunity (From anyone on the right side, yes. Watch out for enemy rogues.) Does shield add to armour bonuses and so forth. (Yes, as per the usual typed stacking rules. A definite step up from the previous editions. )Can you cast two shield spells simultaneously to block in both directions (no) Can a hasted character cast two spells in a round (For the moment. Special offer, good until the next rules revision. Take advantage of it while it lasts.)Can sorcerers learn spells from other spell lists (No. Development errata. Ignore that statement.)Can you fight defensively while casting as spell (Is that an attack? Skip thinks not.)If I cast a ray into melee, do I suffer the attack penalty (Oh yes. Once again, use the artillery before you close. )Does a quickened spell still require all it's components (unless you use yet more metamagic feats. You'll have to be ridiculously high level to do that )Do you have to make a roll for opposite spells to negate each other (no. Special exception. Those are the rewards of being prepared specifically.)Can you share spell-like abilities with your familiar (No. T'aint part of your class features.)How do you compare skills and decide which is better (Higher number good. Higher number always good.)Do Con bonuses, toughness feats, etc add to your familiars hit points (As partially as anything else.)Do you only get one extra attack per round when hasted (Yes. In many ways, it is a step down from previous editions. Still, at least you ain't losing a year from your life every time you use it. )Half orcs charisma penalty makes them crap at intimidating. This ain't right. (Oh, just substitute strength. It works well enough for those froofy WoDites.) Can you cast light on someones eyes (not anymore. Oh, aren't we mean.)When do you use sense motive ( Use your judgement. We can't completely abstract social skills inside the game, however much we'd like to.)How hard is it to hit a figment. How likely are they to realize something's up. (Pretty easy. Depends if it reacts properly or not. )Do monks base and unarmed bonuses stack (Didn't Skip answer this just a couple of months ago. Skip hopes this isn't going to become the new multi vs dual classing or something. Skip'd better waste this sucka just to make sure word gets around, and people don't come to skip with this question again. )Do monks have to use their unarmed bonus when making an unarmed attack (No. As with subdual, they can be deliberately incompetent if they like. )Dungeoncraft: Ray decides that since it's a new edition, he's going to leave behind the campaign world he was working on before, and start a new one. And where that was a pretty straight fantasy world, this one is going to be very dungeonpunk, focussing on the fall of the dinosaurs and rise of humanity, in a world where the two uneasily coexist. Yup, sounds pretty punk anyway, although we have yet to find out where the dungeons come in. This definitely has my enthusiasm, as he's already talking about such radical ideas as leaving some of the classes out, and altering others to fit the environment. Thank god we have spontaneous spellcasters allowing us to leave out the wizards without messing up the whole D&D party dynamic now. This also shows why having two or three campaign worlds active at once is better for D&D than only one. If you only have one, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a generic one (and at this point, I don't think anyone's going to unseat the forgotten realms. ) Having several allows you to intentionally contrast them with one another and win a larger overall fanbase by keeping people's natural tendency to factionalise within a larger tent where they're still supporting D&D whichever world they favour. So I'm looking forward to seeing just how unusual he makes this new world. What's new? Dixie gets cosmic power for the price of some ruined footwear. Now that's a bargain that must be too good to be true. Robin Laws pretty much owns this issue, contributing two strong articles and an ok one. it's been a while since I could say an individual author dominated proceedings like this, so that's worth noting. He's not as prolific as Ed yet, but he is having quite an effect on their overall output. James Jacobs is also proving himself as worth watching in the future. And the fact that they're tackling a mostly new topic makes even the more mediocre articles a little more worthwhile. So not a bad issue at all, overall.</blockquote>

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