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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5953866" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 282: April 2001part 5/7Class acts: The orky warboyz get to kick some more ass this month with the blessed of Gruumsh. Designed largely for bad guys, you have to pluck out your own eye to get into this one, making it unlikely PC's would choose it even if they were of a more questionable moral character. They get lots of good once per day effects, further reinforcing that this class would be deadly when applied to monsters, but not such a huge benefit when a PC takes the class, due to the nova effect. Ahh, the old LA vs ECL issue that plagued 3rd ed, and was part of the reason 4th reined back what races you could have as PC's. Also notable is that they've started organizing class skills by key ability in little boxes, which does look nice and save space. So not a brilliant class, but still perfectly serviceable, and it's good to see them refining their format as well. The ecology of the purple worm: What would an april be without the association of monster hunters making an appearance? Especially now they're statted up. They've become quite the fixture. And they're having lots of fun, traveling the world and killing things for science and profit. The addition of a warrior to the team has improved their tactical acumen, and the conversion to 3rd ed rules has even let them do a little multiclassing, it seems. But that doesn't stop battles from being frantic scrambles where no plan survives contact with the enemy. The comedy is dialled back a little this time for a genuinely cinematic battle, and most of the humour is in the dialogue and interplay between characters. The format for the footnotes is changed again, with this succumbing to the current fashion for sidebars. They also add a bit more colour to the illustrations, as befits the theme. All pretty good. This series seems to finally be maturing. Let's hope that doesn't mean it's about to be canceled. :Checks ahead: It does? Totally weak. How are we ever supposed to have any character development if we cancel things just as they're starting to genuinely change in an interesting way? VS Elves: If it's tricky coming up with good countertactics against psychics, against prettier than thou mary sues who now have access to any class they like, it seems almost impossible. Fortunately, that only really applies to PC's. NPC elves are still the good old woodland dwelling, bow shooting, spell slingers, and that's a skillset you can anticipate and counter. Spot them coming, use protection from normal missiles to keep yourself from being turned into a pincushion, blast them with effects that require Fort saves, and then close en masse for slicing and dicing fun. In the longer term, wars of attrition are pretty effective, as most races can replenish themselves considerably faster, forcing them to retreat or negotiate even if you're suffering more casualties. Get a tribe of goblinoids, then when they get killed, animate their bodies and send a second wave of zombies to further wear down the tree-huggers. And don't forget to cut the trees down while you're at it, reduce their ability to hide and shoot from cover. Actually, it looks like if you want to win, you need to think strategics and logistics rather than tactics of an individual fight. And that's definitely something this format doesn't do enough of, focussed on an adventuring party that doesn't use hirelings and camp followers as 3e is. Once again, it's a bit of a disappointment, and I'm left feeling I could do better. PC Portraits: April Fool comes to the portraits too this month, with Phil Foglio puncturing the format in a similar way to his april fool centrefold in issue 60. The individual images are funny, and they're laid out in an amusingly meta way as well. I think we can safely say he's still got it when it comes to funny one-liners, (well, one panel jokes) with each image managing to tell a story in itself. Bravo, dear boy, bravo indeed. :claps: WWF: Elminster vs Raistlin. Aaron gives Nodwick a break from the spotlight, (although not from suffering horrible pain) to do a comic on this amusing rivalry. It's not really a fair fight, as by the rules Elminster outclasses Raistlin so badly it's laughable. And indeed, it looks like he's more likely to win until Raistlin pulls some dirty trickery to turn the tables (which is also pretty in character) and the whole thing is stopped due to rulesbreaking. Despite the fact that the Realms has been beating Dragonlance in popularity pretty much since it was released, they still can't show it THAT much favouritism to allow it a conclusive win. Plus it wouldn't be as funny anyway. So the debate will continue in other forums. The play's the thing: As is becoming standard for Robin Laws, the bit of advice in his regular column is less consequential than the earlier article. In fact, it's really just a single line of advice stretched out to two pages. Instead of spending ages writing or drawing a description for your character, just cast an actor as them and everyone will be able to instantly imagine roughly what they look like. Just saying they're X, or X crossed with Y, or X if Z change was made will save you substantial amounts of time. Which you can then use on getting straight into those convoluted multiperspective plotlines. <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" /> Simple and easy. I could have told you that, although probably not in as much style. Whether this will blow your mind or be so obvious as to not be worth mentioning will once again depend on how experienced you are and how much time you spend hanging around game forums. I suppose that once again marks it as a good invention.</blockquote>

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