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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6059778" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 301: November 2002part 4/10Campaign components: Ah yes, swashbuckling. Since that was the theme of their very final 2e issue, this is a fairly quick revisiting, and shows it remains a pretty popular game style. Unfortunately, they don't have Robin Laws providing the genre emulation ideas this time around, and a dry, point by point listing of all the core classes and races, and how you get get them to fit into a swashbuckling campaign, is not a good way to get me in the mood, as well as eating up a good 10 pages with the kind of waffle you could probably come up with yourself if you felt like it. Guess even with the cut in setting material, they still have writers padding things out because they're being paid by the word. The second half of the article is more interesting to me, with a pretty decent selection of new feats and equipment, and a few new adventure ideas involving putting D&D monsters in the swashbuckling milieu. But still, we have another case where this material is so 3e specific that it doesn't have much utility anywhere else, while the previous special has quite a lot of adventure ideas that would still be good when applied in 3e, or indeed any other system. It makes me think that I might enjoy those mammoth issues in the first half of 2000 all the more in hindsight, since they did cram so much in to make sure we had a good store of material. In the meantime, I have far less to say about this than I should for a 19 page article that eats up a good 6th of the magazine, which irritates me. That's the problem with being dry and competent, but also highly specialised. It means I can't even slate it interestingly. Let's hope Gladiators is more interesting. At least I won't have a previous themed issue to compare it too, so it'll have to have more unfamiliar material simply by necessity. Meter and measure: Or new shiny crunch specifically for Bards, as if they weren't already one of the most flexible classes in the game. Masterpiece performances are a way for them to gain new uses for their bardic music at the cost of a fair chunk of time and money, plus a small permanent investment of skill points. As a way to balance the permanent acquisition of new powers, it makes sense. But it does mean they're never going to challenge the tier 1 classes who can get an unlimited selection of spells if they can find the time (and OOC supplements) to do the research. Still, it is a good diversion from yet another collection of new spells, and both the performances and their creators are pretty amusingly described. If it was a standard Arcane Lore I'd still like it. It's just it throws into relief another problem with their attempts at making the game more balanced.</blockquote>

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