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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6127882" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 317: March 2004part 3/8Urban druids: The memory of the update issues, where they gave us tons of class variants in quick succession is still fresh in my mind. So I can't help feeling a little relief that this time they're going to give a whole article to a single variant instead of cramming a load down to a page or two each. And indeed, urban druids also get a somewhat more radical reworking than most of those, which is pleasing. Also pleasing is that the flexibility they lose in terms of shapeshifting into animal forms is made up for by the ability to assume the shape of humanoid races and inanimate objects, which makes them slightly less powerful offensively, but even better at spying and infiltration. At 20th level, they can even turn into a house, which is both amusing and has many possibilities for an ingenious player, and their bonusses at fighting within a cramped space, affecting buildings and dealing with various races make them better suited for dungeoneering than a regular druid. So this is pretty tightly balanced with regular druids overall, making it a viable option, but not a no-brainer, and the two are sufficiently different to co-exist in a party and have wacky debates about nature unfettered vs cultivation and civilisation. I've definitely seen far worse. Truenames and fetishes: Ah yes. Here's a literary tradition that D&D hasn't done enough with yet. Fiends may have several weaknesses that key off someone knowing their truename, but it's not a common thing for PC's to use. Here's an article that aims to make taking a truename a cool option for PC's, that has both extensive benefits and risks, and keep it all mechanically balanced. A pretty tall order really. But one they come far closer to pulling off than I would have thought possible, with a whole bunch of little mechanical nuances like the process to change your truename being incredibly costly, but offering benefits beyond just resetting the clock on the number of people who know it. The difficulty to puzzle and research someone's truename is suitably tricky, and the benefits suitably devastating, becoming more so the higher level they are. Since on rereading this I find a bunch of design nuances that contribute to the effect, I hope this one will work out in actual play, as incorporating this stuff into a storyline will still take a fair bit of work. I'll let myself be optimistic for a change though. Using power components: This old chessnut, on the other hand, will be pretty easy to incorporate into your campaigns, since It's quite possible you're doing it already. It's basically a list of monster parts that are good for making magical items, and how much money and XP you'll save by going out and hunting them down yourself instead of abstracting things away and just crossing the money and xp off your sheet. Since many PC's part with their stuff only slightly more readily than a tiger parts with their teeth, and going out to hunt monsters will get them even more XP and treasure, most parties will take to this with great enthusiasm. It also includes some similar components that are good for spells and nonmagical items, and plenty of advice on how to create your own, setting scaling guidelines for how much a creature of a certain CR will benefit you. This seems like one you can pull out and use again and again, far more than articles with new monsters or magic items, so It's a second one in a row I strongly approve of.</blockquote>

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