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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6156929" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 326: December 2004part 2/8First watch: As is often the case, January means a slump in the number of products released. In this case, not a single official WotC one. How very problematic for them. The only RPG book they decide to promote is Mike Mearls' Book of Iron Might. The precursor to Iron Heroes, and containing quite a bit of the same material, this aims to make fighting more tactical and dramatic. Now there's a thread that will definitely run through the next few years in an interesting way.A couple of interesting gaming related products as well. Incredibly useful, especially when combined with Tact-tiles, are Dungeon stamps. These allow you to set out landmarks on your grid quickly, reusably, and most importantly, in fairly unlimited number. Much better than faffing about with little models in things like Heroquest. They're still covering quite a bit of useless peripheral stuff though. Fuzzy dice? Cthulhu themed filks?! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> (double the SAN loss in one package there.) A documentary on gaming? Dear oh dear. What are they thinking. Don't they even have any novels they could be promoting. A couple of years ago they were releasing more novels than game books, but they haven't mentioned any at all since starting up the previews again. This does have some rather perplexing choices. Player initiative: Two years into their life, Paizo finally get round to putting up their own message boards so they don't have to rely on the WotC forums or general ones like rpg.net and enworld for feedback. (and can ban people who sign up just to bitch about them <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> ) Will this help them make the magazine better, or will the noise overwhelm the signal? It's a constant danger with the internet, as it lets everyone with any creative skill at all put their work up and potentially reach millions. Which means you have to be your own gatekeeper, instead of just picking a channel or two and sticking to them. This is certainly the case for our other two topics, a deluxe gaming table and a renowned filker. Whether you'll get any entertainment value out of those will be exceedingly subjective based on taste. I'm not sure they know what they want to do with this column, and it doesn't surprise me that they're dropping it when it has so much overlap with First Watch. Under command: A second article on campaign play in a row for the minis guys. This time, they decide to go back to issue 303, and reuse their ideas on running a gladatorial campaign. This was great fun to read about under D&D, and if anything, it's even better suited to the minis game, where you can build new groups of characters for each round quickly and easily. They spice things up further by making a rule whereby the position of mad overlord (arena designer) rotates from round to round, and you spend money on bribes, equipment & healing and can bet on matches to add a strategic element to play between the actual fights. That definitely seems a good way to fill a few evenings, especially if you've gone to all the effort to build a colosseum on your gaming table and don't want to break it down again too soon. Absolutely no hesitation in trying out this one if I get the chance, like many of the old games they used to put in the magazine. Silicon sorcery: World of Warcraft is finally out! The MMO that would dwarf all other MMO's and still dominates the landscape and makes Blizzard ridiculous amounts of money a decade later. Since WoW isn't that different from D&D in general design principles, right down to the alliterative name, the material they convert fits right in here. Two feats which boost your ability to have monstrous pets and animal companions, which most nature based characters consider taking once in a while. One that makes you inflict more damage on creatures that just hurt you, which is neat but not world-shaking. And one that increases ALL your movement speeds by 10 when wild-shaped, which is pretty awesome, given how hard it is to increase your movement rate, and how much wild-shape already increases your mobility and combat options. Like the ability to cast spells while wild-shaped, that seems like a no-brainer to an optimisation-loving druid. Be afraid.</blockquote>

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