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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6208770" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 341: March 2006part 4/6Arcane upgrade: We've gone from little constructs to big ones, and now we're doing the PC ones. Makes perfect sense to me. Warforged have always got unusually good treatment for a non-core race, and it looks like that's continuing here, with a whole load of magic items that they can incorporate into their form. Let's see how many of them are interesting, and how many are merely conversions of existing items. Circlets of the Third Eye let you see invisible things and penetrate darkness. That's always a handy one for dungeoneers, and the only drawback is that it's pretty obvious when it's active, and can be attacked independently of the rest of your body. Being ogled by eyes on stalks just doesn't make you positively inclined towards someone. Disks of Illumination turn you into a living light bulb to penetrate dungeons and dazzle anyone trying to fight you. It's not as impressive a deterrant as nymphs or medusas, but it'll do for a start. Disks of Shadow go the other way, and let you do the mysterious shrouded stranger thing without having to bother with cloaks and hoods. Well, you're a warforged. What use are human clothes to you? Gauntlets of the Deft Hand boost both your crafting and roguish skills, ensuring you'll always have something of value on hand to sell later. Like knives, you can't really ban things like this because they have so many legitimate uses along with the naughty ones. Gauntlets of Excavation let you out-dig any dwarf for an hour a day. I think they might still have the edge in finesse and stamina though, as they're bred for it, while you're only made. Iron-tooth Girdles let you turn your stomach into a giant jagged-toothed maw. Now your eyes will never ever be bigger than your belly again. That's some fascinatingly disconcerting visuals. Jewels of Dazzling Light let you control pretty lights for both combat and social purposes. If you're in the underdark, it'll help you fake being a Drow convincingly too. Shame your body heat'll let you down in making the disguise complete. Scorpion Brands let you sprout a nice stinging tail. That'll put the wind up anyone who's vulnerable to poison. Other warforged can relax. Species Solidarity! Spring-heeled Boots let you go all kangaroo on us, leaping small buildings and outpacing most enemies. Just don't try to stop mid-duration, as they're designed for constant motion, or you'll fall over on us. Hit the road, jack, and don't you come back, no more no more no more no more. Stones of Internal Fire let you heat yourself to boiling temperatures for short periods of time. This will do some damage to you, but if you're any good at grappling, more to the people around you. Just make sure you aren't wearing anything fragile when you activate it, as that would be terribly silly. The Clone Mask is the most powerful of these, letting you split your upper body into two and gain the appropriate extra attacks and vision bonuses. Very cool looking indeed. This collection has managed to give us some decently imaginative additions to our arsenal. The ecology of the Inevitable: Now, if Lovecraft's influence has increased in D&D, the one thing that's decreased is the kind of whimsy that resulted in the Modrons. Man, someone in the development team must really have a hate-on for them. So the formians took their aspect as teeming hive creatures spread across the plane, while Maruts got a whole family of similar creatures created, and the now genericised Inevitables took their job as the exemplars of Lawful Neutral behaviour. Course, they don't mention that, and instead make this another instance where they whitewash D&D's actual history in favour of inventing a new IC one with creatures we've never even heard of before. As with the lizard man one, this does leave a sour taste in my mouth. As they're trying to tackle a whole bunch of related creatures in the same page count, each gets considerably less depth than they would in a normal ecology. So I'm not very impressed by this one. Next!</blockquote>

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