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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6152924" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 324: October 2004part 7/8Class acts: Fighters get From battleground to background: 5 new backgrounds, each of which grants a +1 benefit to a specific roll. Power creep, but such a tiny amount that it's not really worth mentioning. Clerics get Peace Out: Some advice on playing a pacifist cleric. You can still make a valuable support member of the team while eschewing violence. Just don't try to get the rest of the team to do so as well. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Wizards get a new variant class, the Filidh. A tribal wizard variant, they sacrifice a wizard's bonus feats and familiar for slightly better weapons, bardic knowledge, and the ability to cast divination spells at a higher caster level. Once again, they're the ones getting the kickass crunch. Rogues get A rogue of a different color: Just like last issue, this is advice on the skills and feats to select if you want your rogue to fill a slightly different role. But no actual new stuff. Barbarians get Barbarian Culture: What kind of tribe does your barbarian come from? Once again, it's pure roleplaying advice for these guys. Meh. Druids get 9 new Flaws. Another variant on illiteracy. (ahh, for the days of 2nd ed, where illiteracy came as standard) personality traits and origin effects. As with last month, these are useful for other classes as well. Sorcerers get some advice on picking feats and prestige classes. If you take the right one, you're essentially getting something for nothing. Nothing new, but if you aren't the optimizing kind, it might help.Rangers get the Wild Defender. They sacrifice favored enemies, stealth, and their weapon feats for rebuking nature, smiting evil, druid's nature travelling powers and slightly increased spell ability. Curious. Not sure if that'll be an overall increase or decrease in power, but it'll definitely be a quite different character. An excellent example of UA style feature switching. Paladins also get a spread of 8 flaws. Most of them are pretty specific behavioural restrictions that wouldn't make much sense for other classes, and some of them encourage being an irritant to the rest of the party. Definitely ones to consider carefully before taking. Monks get the Wild monk. They sacrifice a load of the usual monk abilities for druid wild shaping. Unlike the ranger one, I don't need to go over this to know that this is a good deal. Exchanging a load of powers from one of the most underpowered class for the most powerful class feature of the most powerful class? No brainer, really. Bards get yet another 8 flaws. Now these are tremendously irritating. Coward. Loudmouth. Fool. Just the thing if you want to be rewarded for acting like a jackass. Put the annoying paladin and the annoying bard in the same party and you have a perfect comedy duo. Player tips: Teamwork, mutha<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />as, do you use it? Yup, it's another one of these, giving you basic advice on how to work together, and beat groups of the same individual power levels that don't have the same co-operative skill. Communicate with one-another, pick classes and character concepts that fit together, rather than making trouble or filling the same niche repeatedly, and know how the mechanics of your own and other people's powers work so you can make valid suggestions on what to do mid-combat. Completely common-sense stuff that ought to be one of the first things taught in the player's handbook. After all, can't have bickering in the middle of deadly dungeons, can we? So from one perspective this is perfectly good, if a little basic advice, from another, it denies a huge chunk of the roleplaying experience, the pleasures of interpersonal machinations  and disputes. Either way, it's a bit unsatisfying. Adventurer tricks: This column continues on from last month, talking about traps, and how best to deal with them without a rogue. First up, detect magic will show up a huge proportion of things you might want to examine closely, particularly at higher level. Then you can figure out if you're going to try a careful disarming, or buffing up and ploughing through the problem. In fact, you can use magic to help with that too. In fact, the whole thing seems designed to show just how quickly and easily spellcasters can take that job and do it better once they've got a few levels under their belt. Oh well, it's their game. If they want to point out the flaws in it, more power to them.</blockquote>

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