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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6149421" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 323: September 2004part 6/8Heroic feats: Feats are generally the shortest bits of crunch, so this new column is correspondingly compact at only a single page long. It crams in 8 feats associated with being from a desert or oceanic region, that'll let you deal with both the environmental and social problems, and also have combat applications as well in many cases. Whether they'll be better than more general ones will depend on what happens in the campaign, so I probably wouldn't take them very often. Winning races: We've seen the writers put a good deal of effort into producing interesting LA+0 golems, dopplegangers and lycanthropes recently. Now they apply themselves to creating an LA+0 cyclops variant that still captures the mythological feel of the race. In the process, they highlight an aspect that previous D&D versions have pretty much ignored, the oracle part of their nature. Their depth perception may be lacking, but they compensate for that with a slightly unfocussed temporal sense. (plus the obligatory darkvision that they give nearly everything ) They come in both savage and civilised variants, each of which get plenty of cultural description. They're just ever so slightly too small to get Large size and all the mechanical stuff that comes with it, which makes sense, but also feels very artificial. Once again, this is finely tuned, putting quite a bit of effort into both mechanical design and creating an interesting yet generic backstory so you can slot them into your world easily. It succeeds in making me want to play them and make them my own, so I think they're onto a winner here. A fresh coat of paint on an old idea can make all the difference in the world. Class Acts is radically retooled as part of this changeover. Instead of providing new prestige classes (which lets face it, we already have thousands of, more than any group could conceivably play. ) they give us an array of stuff for each of the 11 core classes. As we've discovered, putting all the cool stuff in the prestige classes annoys people because they have to wait quite a few levels to get them, and plan way in advance to meet the prerequisites. So by introducing new core classes, and variant abilities for the existing ones, they make the kewl powers more accessible to encourage people to buy the new books. Whether this is a good change or horrible lowest common denominator pandering power creep is a matter of opinion. Fighters get the Thane: A very slight variant where you swear fealty to a lord and get a few new feats added to your bonus list. Given the plot annoyance this can present, probably a slight drawback, really. Clerics get Heed your calling: A bunch of roleplaying advice encouraging you to make up reasons for why they chose the specific domains they did. You can deconstruct every choice, can't you. Ho hum. Wizards get Specialist familiars: 8 new familiars, one for each school, with a special benefit of particular use to that school. Another case of wizards getting the best tricks, this is pretty useful stuff.  Rogues get Wilderness Rogues: Some mechanical build advice showing you how you can make your rogue more suited to the wilds by proper allocation of your skill points. Why should rangers and druids get all the forest walking fun? Barbarians get The civilized Barbarian: Remember, classes are really just collections of powers, and you can refluff them if you choose. There are a bunch of other concepts that you can use for your character, from spoiled nobleman to frankenstein-esque amnesiac. Interesting. Druids get a whole bunch of new tricks they could teach their animal companions. This is of course useful to anyone else with Handle Animal as well. Sorcerers get Beyond Blood: As with barbarians, this is a bunch of other reasons why they could have spontaneously developed magical powers. If you've read comic books, you should be familiar with most of these. Rangers get Gear for Greeners: A bunch of new equipment, that as with the druid's entry, seems useful for anyone with a wilderness slant to their tricks. If you have a few hundred gold to blow, these would be valuable additions to your pack. Paladins also get a load of dull concept building advice. We know, we know, they don't all have to be knights in shining armor. Monks are also on the concept building advice path. This is even less impressive than the last couple. Bards get Instruments of the masters: Some instruments are better for various kinds of bardic music abilities than others. Reflecting that mechanically isn't a bad idea. It's only a minor benefit, but a nicely flavourful one. This is definitely a case where the idea of the change is better than the execution. Most of these articles really do feel like filler ones, made to fit a hole, and fill out the page count, rather than from any real imagination or desire. And the best ones are for the classes that are already the cooler ones, pushing them even further ahead. Not a very auspicious start.</blockquote>

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