Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6279092" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Compendiumpart 1/10264 pages.  Or Dragon Compendium, volume one, as it says down the bottom, as Paizo obviously intended to do more of these before WotC shut down their licence. Still, it's more than it seems at first. Just as the 3e monster manuals were the equivalent of 2-4 2e monstrous compendia, this is 3 times the size of the old best of's, and far bigger than even the largest issue of Dragon Magazine. It would probably have taken them quite a while to put together another one while still keeping up two magazines monthly. Whether my review will be even longer than issue 200, we shall see, but I won't be actively trying to push it. After all, after nearly 6 years, I'm very much looking forward to seeing the end of this.  Into the Dragon's Lair: Erik takes the introduction, unsurprisingly enough. A new series of Best Of's was one of the first things they wanted to do when Paizo spun off from WotC, but it's taken them more than two years to finish the first one, which shows you just how much they agonised over what to include in it, and how they had to squeeze working on it between getting new issues out every month, as all of the credits are staff regulars; there was no-one assigned specifically to concentrate on this project. Still, at least that means it wasn't rushed, unlike the first set of compilations, which did often feel like they were forcing it. And after the last three years of the magazine, I'm reasonably sure Erik's tastes have enough in common with mine that I'll approve of most of his choices. Once more, unto the articles. RACES: As I noted in the previous best of's, it wasn't until the 1996 revamp that they really made regular columns packed with new monsters, spells, magical items, etc a thing, putting several in every issue come rain or shine, and in the process, giving us more than we could ever use. Still, that's 10 years in the past at the time this was published, so they have a LOT to choose from. So it's very obvious that this will involve a lot more little bits of 3e specific crunchy stuff, and fewer general articles, many of which will be from the old school issues anyway. I'm going to be seeing ones I only just redid in the previous best of's a third time in quick succession, aren't I. :sigh: But first up, new PC races! Well, it is one of the first things you pick when making a new character. Why not put it first in the running order as well. Diabolus still seem depressingly nerfed compared to previous editions, making me not particularly enthusiastic to see them again. And they have such cool flavour as well. What price a little immunity when it cuts both ways, and can be a pain in the ass as well as a benefit. Diopsid are one I wasn't expecting to see again, the decidedly quirky beetle-people Jonathan M Richards gave us just before the edition change. Their oddities make them an ECL +1 race, and they do get a fair number of minor tweaks to their racial abilities. They're still different enough to be a good roleplaying challenge, even if they're a little less funny this time around. Dvati are the bonded twin people from the same era. They may seem more superficially human, but they also take a fair bit of work to make sure the edge cases of their nature aren't too exploitable under 3e rules. That's the price of an interesting concept, it seems. Sort it out now, or deal with a bunch of questions in Sage Advice. Lupins, on the other hand, are pretty easy to convert, with the main interesting thing being their sense of smell. It's just a shame they had to fall back to the basic cultural stereotype, when there were several different ones in mystara, making them a lot more diverse than most demihuman races. Tibbits are the oldest of these conversions, and the only one that wasn't already a PC race. Since cat related species are perennially popular, an ECL +0 feline shapeshifter seems like it'll get plenty of use. Just watch out for the kender players looking for another race to cause trouble with, as they do have definite mischievous tendencies. CLASSES: Funnily enough, they didn't do very many new classes in the 2e years, so there's a big gap between the old updated ones, and the all new ones. As with the last chapter, this still means we're getting new rules material, which makes this collection feel less lazy than the old school ones. Whether it's faithful and/or an improvement mechanically though, is another matter altogether. Battle Dancers get the ethnic ties from the original portrayal stripped away from them, and in fact, their requirements and abilities bear very little resemblance to the previous edition at all. A very unfaithful conversion indeed, to the point where I'm annoyed about them using the same name. Death Masters get powered up so they start spellcasting from 1st level, and get as many spells as regular wizards. They're still weaker than regular necromantic specialists in terms of spellcasting power and flexibility, but they do get superior HD, BAB, and familiar to wizards, so they're not a completely idiotic choice. Still, they're definitely tier 2, no competition with the top classes here. Jesters got a prestige class treatment in issue 330. Giving them a core class treatment here as well feels somewhat strange, especially knowing they were probably created concurrently. They lack the ability to kill with a joke at higher level, but they do get a wider selection of magical abilities with which to prank you with, and the agility bonuses the prestige class lacks. Overall, they're slightly less powerful than a regular bard, simply because they don't have as many additional tricks from supplements to choose from, but fill a similar niche in a party. That makes sense to me. Mountebanks: Now this interesting. While Gary hinted at it, we never got full official stats for the Mountebank class back in the day. So this is actually all-new material for the compendium, which is very cool to see. They differ from the Charlatan not only in being a core class, but actually having some magical power (granted by a fiendish patron) to back up their trickery, putting them somewhere between a rogue and warlock in terms of character role, and with their resources handled the same way as Ninjas. Their selection of magical abilities is fixed, and not hugely powerful, but since social manipulation tricks are pretty flexible, I think they can definitely create a niche for themselves in a party, whether the other members like it or not. Savants are another of Gary's potential creations that finally got realised way after the fact. They're another one that gets changed hugely from the previous edition, discarding the split class sage stuff to become a generalist in a similar mould to the Factotum, only not quite as mechanically experimental. Still, you'll wind up considerably better at each class's tricks than trying to be an equal advancement multiclass fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue, so I guess it just about works out mathematically. Sha'ir still seem like a pretty faithful conversion that also smooths out their original mechanical issues. No problem at all seeing them rehashed here. Urban druids also seem like a popular choice that it makes sense to include, since you do have to cater to the powergamers at least a little, and they're one druid variant that isn't nerfed at all. Welcome to the urban jungle boys, it gets worse here everyday.</blockquote>

Verification