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: 5947608" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 281: March 2001part 4/7The adventures of Volo: Our Cormyran treasure tales finish off with a ton of additional people to add to our genealogies. And the mysterious Hullack Hawk, which sounds deeply risible, but was the cause of some nasty conflict between Cormyr and Sembia in the past. I don't think he's given his gains back to the poor, but this does have some shades of robin hood. Elminster seems to have completely lost interest, just letting Volo ramble on, mixing exposition and story in a not hugely coherent fashion. This fails to sustain my interest as well. My brain just can't seem to take the information in and assemble it into a proper structure. I do believe I need a break. Rogues Gallery: A conversion of a Troy Denning Forgotten Realms novel? That's nothing new here. What is different, however, is the illustration style. They've returned to full colour, and adopted a soft-focus portrait style that makes them look like IC sittings of the characters rather than purely photorealistic action shots. It's interesting as a change of pace, and quite aesthetically pleasing as well. I can go with that. Galaeron Nihmedu is an elf with a beard. And no pointy ears. Wait, what? So did the artist actually get commissioned to do this, or did they just take some stock paintings. You lose several marks again for this cock-up. He's another instance of sorcerers cropping up everywhere, fighting with the wizards they're trying to get formal training from because neither side understands the other. Suddenly we find out that it's been happening for years under the radar, just because the rules have changed in game now. I do so hate retcons. Melegaunt Tanthul is a 20th level diviner who does actually look fairly close to his description. He's one of those mysterious, seemingly immortal wizards who just showed up one day from nowhere, and has spent ages laying inscrutable plans in motion. Not the kind of person you want to get involved with, for you never know when you'll be sacrificed for the greater good. Takari Moonsnow is an elf who does have proper pointy ears. But they do get the eye colour wrong, it has a definite purple tinge when the description says it's merely brown. She's another one who takes the long view on things, although she can seem lighthearted. But then, elves take their extended lifespans for granted. What's a few years partying when you have centuries to do serious stuff later? Vala Thorsdotter once again sees them completely fail to match colours with the description. This artist was totally not paying attention to the brief, despite obviously being talented. Editorial fail. So what seems promising initially winds up pissing me off by not paying attention to the bigger picture. So much for this column. Class acts: The psi-hunter is Monte's offering this month. I think you can guess what they do. They're one of those classes you'll have to do a bit of inconvenient dipping to qualify for, as they require you to have some spellcasting ability to get in, but then give you an independent spell list that means a primary caster will rapidly become very weak by branching into this. On the other hand, for a fighter, that single level dip into wizard will pay for itself well, as they have full BAB, decent spellcasting, with a spell list that seems well suited to buffing a primary fighter and countering enemy screwage, plus a full suite of special powers against psionic opponents. They're not even that bad against enemies outside their speciality either, since their spells will still be useful, and they'll still have full primary fighting capability. There is a minor write-up error, where they confuse spells known with spells/day, and the artwork frankly sucks, especially in close-up. But overall, this is a pretty useful and well designed prestige class, with benefits commensurate with it's cost.</blockquote>

Verification