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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6130834" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 318: April 2004part 2/8Zogonia can't even deal with a giant skunk. How do they expect to deal with a dragon? Particularly an intelligent one. They are so screwed. Up on a soapbox: Gary has a very appropriate comedic story this month. The interplay of Gary and Rob was responsible for many things, and one of them was a whole rash of silly names in the characters. Gary started off by giving characters names that were anagrams of his, and reverses of other common names. Rob responded by incorporating Bigby, Zigby, Rigby, Sigby, Nigby and Digby into the adventuring party. And then Gary got revenge by naming his next set of apprentices after disney ducks. Silliness begets silliness, and even the people who roll their eyes at it wind up getting sucked in. Also, this is a reminder that stories have multiple threads running concurrently. These little player dramas were parallel to the dungeoneering bits, taking place over the course of quite a few sessions. Keeping your games multilayered is another way to ensure your players stay interested and stick around. Nodwick is the only person who doesn't give up when faced with ninja pirate dinosaurs. Dork tower has more incredibly stupid relationship problems. Oh, for crying out loud. Have you no common sense at all?The ninja: In 3.0, they steadfastly refused to make a ninja core class, saying that Rogue and various interesting prestige classes in OA allowed you to fill that skillset quite well enough. For 3.5, on the other hand, they've caved to public demand, allowing you to create a character that has supernatural ki powers boosting their stealthiness from 1st level, while not being restricted to lawful alignment like the monk. That is an interesting development. Instead of their various powers being usable a set number of times per day, they have a number of ki charges equal to half their level, and some powers cost more than one, giving them resource management similar to psionics but with fewer powers and points to spend them on. They also have nearly the skill points and sneak attack capability of a rogue (which works in all conditions but flanking, weirdly enough) So I think that puts them slightly above rogues and below bards in overall power and flexibility. Not a position where they'll be causing any balance problems. The important thing is that they'll feel different in play, and will be able to fight magical monsters even if unarmed, unlike boring old fighters and rogues. But will you be able to find them and persuade them to join the party?</blockquote>

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