New Dragon Article: Ecology of the Fire Archon

[withak]

"Cool" article, but I really wish they'd just come out and give us some real 4e stat blocks, instead of just 3e-izing them first.

 

[Shroomy]

"Cool" article, but I really wish they'd just come out and give us some real 4e stat blocks, instead of 3e-izing them first.

That would be nice, but giving us 3e stats does avoid the problems of the "Ecology of the Death Knight" article, which was a nice read, but useless in terms of current play. A little bit of utlity for the current system is not a bad thing IMO.

 

[JoeGKushner]

"Cool" article, but I really wish they'd just come out and give us some real 4e stat blocks, instead of 3e-izing them first.

Why not both? It's not taking up any extra paper so they don't have to worry about page count. Best of both worlds. A living 'review' of the new system and some current game mechanics for those who will be playing for the next six (or more) months.

 

[withak]

Why not both? It's not taking up any extra paper so they don't have to worry about page count. Best of both worlds. A living 'review' of the new system and some current game mechanics for those who will be playing for the next six (or more) months.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. (Looking back at my post confirms this; oops.) I'm asking for more, not less.

I'd prefer to see actual, real 4e crunch, in addition to the 3e-ized versions of the same creatures.

 

[JohnSnow]

Why not both? It's not taking up any extra paper so they don't have to worry about page count. Best of both worlds. A living 'review' of the new system and some current game mechanics for those who will be playing for the next six (or more) months.

That's easy. Since we already have a pretty good idea of how all the numbers in the system scale (+1 per 2 levels), I imagine that 3 levels of one monster would be enough to reverse engineer the game. And they're not quite ready to have us do that just yet.

Did everybody notice that this article is a late-posted entry from Dragon #361, rather than the first article from Dragon #362? The article is dated December 24th.

 

[catsclaw227]

Why not both? It's not taking up any extra paper so they don't have to worry about page count. Best of both worlds. A living 'review' of the new system and some current game mechanics for those who will be playing for the next six (or more) months.

I am guessing that they aren't ready or willing to give a 4e statblock yet (of any creature).

Personally, I liked the article. It was well structured, with "why these kinds of archons", some knowledge (planes) info, basic ecology stuff, and three scaled samples. I liked the part about creating fire archons and their weapons and armor. I wonder how a fire archon blade will fare in the hands of a PC? or an enemy NPC that has stolen one?

Theres some good idea mining stuff in here.

 

[catsclaw227]

Did everybody notice that this article is a late-posted entry from Dragon #361, rather than the first article from Dragon #362? The article is dated December 24th.

I wonder if someone from their content management department forgot to press "push live" before going on vacation.

 

[IanB]

I assume from the reference to horse-headed angels we can infer that guardinals are gone too.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

Nice article, but it's the art that really impressed me. Great design, very evocative and cool, and executed in an interesting style, not the cartoony figures floating in the void of 3e art.

 

[JoeGKushner]

One of the areas I hope the DI proves it's utility in is in making older material useful.

For example, when 4e comes around, if the Death Knight isn't in the Monster Manual, how about updating the ecology article with stats for it? If it is in the Monster Manual, how about stats for unique Death Knights?

By making the older material useful and updating it, it adds utility to the back list and provides ongoing reasons even for fans of the 'original' material. (Assuming such a beast exists already.)