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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6178394" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 333: July 2005part 5/7Bazaar of the Bizarre: More Gnome stuff. While they might not get as much love overall as Elves or Dwarves, they actually handily beat both dwarves and halflings in the numbers of magical items they unleash on us. Probably because despite two edition changes eroding the uniqueness of their spellcasting ability, they're still more often associated with magic AND technology. So here we go again, now in 3.5 rules!  Armbands of Prestidigitation boost your ability to be a roguish sort, adding to both mundane sleight of hand and magical trickery. If you're doing several performances a day, matinee and evening, you'll need those extra charges. Battleplate boosts your stealth and acrobatic abilities, and eliminates the usual spell failure chances. A familiar idea, modified for the new rules' primary concerns. Devil's Paste is icky stuff that gives you fire resistance. Remember folks, wear sunscreen. Like most pastes, be sure you don't miss a spot, and don't expect it to last too long. Moonrat's Bane scares the crap out of rats and helps you resist disease. Nice synergy there, especially against wererats. Good luck though. +2 bonuses mean less than they used to. Misleading Necklaces let you survive and fake your death. Ahh, villain survivability aids. A surprisingly rare niche really. People must not really want recurring enemies in D&D. Rings of Gnomekind boost gnomish racial skills, and make any nongnome look like a gnome. So they also have social and disguise possibilities. Nice to see they haven't completely lost their sense of humour too. Tiaras of Shadow Blending don't seem particularly gnomish. (actually, that could be said of most of this collection.) Making you into a menacing shadowy figure who's true shape is obscured? Must have been done by an embittered gnome determined not to be treated as comic relief anymore. That's about as amusing as Scrappy Doo being the villain in the Scooby Doo movies. Spellcraft: Fear themed magic? That's exceedingly specific. Seems more appropriate to an october issue too. Oh well. Plenty of horror for the rest of the year, what with all the maddening monstrosities out there. Glimpse of Fear gives them brief penalties to actions via subliminal messaging. Inescapable Swarm makes you think bugs are crawling over you. Cue the standardised status effects! Phade's Fearsome Aspect makes you scary and glowing-eyed, hard to identify. In this case, the mechanical effects also ironically make it easy for you to pretend to be someone else. Let's shift that blame and spread paranoia through the community! Sphere of Terror is one of our increasingly popular quasi-real attacks. The things in these shadows really can hurt you. Regular illusions just don't have the same bite any more. Vision of Fear lets you find out someone's greatest fear, so as to better play upon it. Another not particularly surprising ability given the theme. No surprises at all here actually. Just another formulaic article.</blockquote>

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