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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dendread" data-source="post: 1471357" data-attributes="member: 4604">First let me speak to the concerns about magazine production noted above. Posting a complaint on ENWorld about an issue being misprinted is not an effective way to communicate with Paizo. When you receive an issue that is misprinted, poorly cut, or badly bound, please contact our customer service. They’ll ask you to mail the issue to us so we can replace it; they’ll also add an issue onto your subscription. We need the physical copies of the issue so that we can give them to our printers and figure out how to prevent such problems.As editors of Dragon and Dungeon, we also have the task of developing articles. Wizards of the Coast has a development department that makes changes to the work written by both in-house and out-of-house authors. On the magazine, we have a smaller staff and have to wear both hats. All of our editors are also designers. Check out our credentials on <a href="http://www.pen-paper.net" target="_blank">www.pen-paper.net</a>.We developed Dark Sun to suit 3rd edition, not to stick to all the various constraints and design philosophies of 2nd edition Dark Sun. First and foremost, Dragon serves the wider D&D audience, and a series of articles that occupies roughly 30% of the magazine must be easily accessible to that audience. The “What Has Gone Before” section of the first article specifically states that the articles use material from the Expanded Psionics Handbook (ala the half-giant) and are set 300 years in the future of the setting. Setting the articles far in the future was David Noonan’s idea, which we wholeheartedly supported as a means to explain the changes the articles presented. That section also notes that what happens in the setting is up to you.People have noted concerns about many changes made to the setting. Please understand that we did not in development or editing change many of the details some folk have complained about. The principal concerns (sorcerers, monks, paladins, bardic spellcasting) were changes made by us to suit 3rd edition as I noted above. The descriptive text for those classes goes a long way toward explaining how they could be included in Dark Sun, why they might not have been encountered before, and how easy it would be for a DM to ignore those elements. While we understood the reason why  paladins were not included in the original setting, it seemed better to err on the side of inclusion as not all areas of Dark Sun are so harsh that you must kill a stranger (or your friend) for water. The much berated text that about sorcerers hiding as wizards comes after text about them usually disguising themselves as psions and notes that very brave sorcerers hide as wizards because of the freedom wizards have to operate around Tyr. The inclusion of monks necessitated changes to armor and weaponry, and the extra steps required to use the breakage rules added complication that we felt most players would not like. The weapon’s weakness are inherent in their materials, and DMs control both wealth in the campaign and what equipment is available. Lastly, heat dangers are described in the DMG, and it’s our general design philosophy not to change basic D&D rules. If a DM wants them to be more dangerous, it’s a simple matter to make it hotter. We would have discussed all these issues with David, but deadline constraints prevented us from doing so.In the future, if you have comments about any article in Dragon, we’d love to get an email to <a href="mailto:scalemail@paizo.com">scalemail@paizo.com</a>. It’s the best way to give the magazine feedback. As yet, we’ve gotten only two emails about Dark Sun (both positive).ThanksMatthew SernettEditor-in-ChiefDragon</blockquote>

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