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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6185490" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 335: September 2005part 5/7The Charlatan: They brought back the Jester 4 months ago. now they update another old class from the pages of the magazine as a Prestige Class. Charlatans first appeared in issue 120, where they combined a reasonable selection of thief skills with the ability to fake spellcasting to a modest degree. Since multiclassing and learning magic in general is much easier in 3e, it's hard to see why a rogue wouldn't just take a few levels in wizard or bard rather than going to the considerably harder effort of learning how to fake spellcasting. They'd have to be even better than the real thing in some respects to be balanced overall. And since this is only a 5 level prestige class, but lets you fake a few spells higher than 3rd level (ignoring magic resistance, which is especially nice) I think I can say they achieve that goal. It still can't compete with just going 20 levels in Beguiler, or prestigeing into Arcane Trickster for combining rogue skills with magical versatility, but it at least holds it's own against regular rogues while offering a different set of tricks, and it's definitely better at general social stuff than the 1e version, thanks to the more codified skill system of 3e. Watch out when someone tries to sell you something rare and valuable on the cheap. It could still go horribly wrong, believe me. Bazaar of the Bizarre: Along with the lizardfolk ecology, we have a set of swamp based magic items from the same author. And some fiction too. Been quite a while since we had that around here. Despite the previous article not being great, this still seems promising. The Baleful eye of Bad Juju is your basic curse inflicting evil eye. Duration has once again been substantially reduced compared to previous incarnations of this principle. Black Salt Rods detect supernatural nasties and offer minor protection against undead. Once again Sting is the primary influence, and I'm not talking Don't stand so close to me here. Capotes of Dragonfly Wings keep bugs away and give you insect like reactions. This may make you slightly creepy, but is generally a beneficial thing. A nice contrast to the generally problematic but with a few desirable features ones of recent issues. Eggsucker Staves bring new life, and have very cool visuals. Very useful, but I wouldn't like to be the person who collects all those eggshells that make it up. Mudwalker Rings are probably more useful against lizardfolk than for them. They can already navigate swamps faster than they move on dry land, after all. Shaker Staves of the Quondam give all your allies guidance from their ancestors, and also look really creepy. Typical buff effect with good fluff really as before. Star Tortoise Shields protect you from being decapitated, for some reason. Anyone know the origin of this one? The Visard of Semuyana lets you deliberately sacrifice your intellect to get better connected to nature and your god. Since Knowledge (Nature) is an int based skill, this doesn't work too well in D&D. No wonder lizard men are a dying race. A Vivifying Bacalo animates any corpses that may be hanging around underwater and turns them into temporary ghouls for you to send against the enemy. A surprisingly careful bit of planning. After all, undead breaking free of your control and stinking up the place is always an almighty pain in the butt.</blockquote>

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