Dragon Magazine Issue 270: April 2000


part 3/7


Countdown to 3rd edition: 4 months to go. Having covered the other three class groups in the preceding months, now it's Fighters turn. And you can see why they put them last. While they did get upgraded compared to 2e, with substantial increases in their flexibility, they're really still falling behind compared to Clerics and Rogues, and never getting anywhere near Wizards. Plus feats are one of the more radical departures from the previous edition, so they needed to ease in the changes to skills and multiclassing first. Still, you can't say the public didn't take to them pretty enthusiastically, as they became THE primary cross-class means of customising your character, with meeting prerequisites and planning ahead to get a good build crucial if you want to maximise your power. And nowhere is that more important than for fighters, where if you build them right, they might be able to beat wizards in damage output in a busy day with multiple encounters, but they'll still suck at utility stuff. Everyone is better, but some are more better than others.


Revenge of the Sheens: We follow up on last year's Man vs Machine article with another collection of robotic creatures from Bruce Cordell. After all, with only 4 creatures detailed there, going straight from 4 HD to 16, there was a huge mid-level gap which needed filling if you want to make this plot work for a whole campaign. So this is much needed, and pretty welcome. It proved popular last year, so they made sure it got a follow-up before the edition change. Supply and demand in action.

Rollers are another tough as nails giant robot, with massive saw hands that can do quite large amounts of damage. If there were decent roads in fantasy campaigns, they could move quite fast, but over rough terrain, you can probably outrun them. Well, isn't that convenient for the PC's if they're not powerful enough to fight them, or there's lots heading towards a town, and they need to arrange an evacuation. I see the plot possibilities already.

Burrowers stay underground and attack you with their tentacle arms like groundsquid. This means they are a bit tricky to finish off, since they'll just beat a retreat and return later if you take their arms out. Better prepare those digging powers if you want to take them out for good.

Phasers are even trickier to pin down, as they shift dimensionally, grab you, and then do the cheap trick of throwing you into the ground and watching you go boom when you rematerialise. That's a means of instadeath you don't see exploited much, and seems very likely to frustrate players even more than phase spiders. I think some evil laughter is very fitting at this point.

Propagators invade your body and slowly kill you before animating your remains. Zombie Robots! Awesome! Since they're a lot tougher than regular zombies, and their infection and regeneration powers are pretty nasty, they're also one that may scare players who don't know their weaknesses.

Arcanosheen are spellcasting robots powered by the rendered brains of live wizards. They're pretty rare, but easily the smartest and most versatile of the sheens, making them the obvious choice for a big boss, after the players have got used to them being relentless, but limited in quite a few ways.

Power Trees are a bonus monster not designed by Bruce, instead being the winner of the design competition. They're gigantic, slow many-limbed things that recharge other sheens. At 36 HD and AC -8, taking one out is definitely a task for the highest level parties only. Otherwise, you'll have to take the long slow route of attacking the support structures before you can go for the core. Maybe tricking a dragon into fighting one would work.

While they concentrate on the monsters this time around, they don't neglect the player side, also giving us a very interesting new kit, and two new "magical" items. Want to be an angsty cyborg always afraid that your mechanical side is going to take over and turn you into a slave to the hive, but with damage reduction and the ability to command dumber machines? Sounds like a good premise for a trilogy at least to me! But seriously, this builds on last year's article nicely without being dependent upon it, making both of them more awesome by association. It's not quite the equal of the nine hells trilogy or the princess ark series, but it's still some pretty neat adventure building. I think this definitely marks Bruce as a developing writer to watch.


Leaders on followers: An examination of D&D's often wonky system of characters getting followers and a domain automatically when they hit Name level? That's worthy of a parody, certainly. And Robin Laws does not disappoint, taking the bickering sages thing to a new level. A whole convention of high level characters metagaming, riffing off each other and inserting anachronisms into each other? Sounds like fun to me. Absence has definitely made the heart fonder here, as this is the first pure april fool article in a good 4 years, and I do find it genuinely funny. Part of that is because it knows the rules, and the way they often turn out in practice, and does seem to have a genuine affection for them underneath the mockery. Plus despite being rules free, it does have a few cool ideas about what you could do with your minions, who can't really compete in a fight with anything that challenges you. You still need scouts, transport, someone to manage your domain, people to be arbitrarily cruel too, etc etc. So with two great articles in a row, this issue is off to a pretty good start. Will they be able to combine whimsy and usability and go for a hat trick?

Dragon Magazine Issue 270: April 2000


part 4/7


When worlds collide: Ahh, now this is a reasonably influential little article, which got converted to 3e and appeared in Unearthed Arcana with very few changes, when I compare them. The idea of multiverse spanning campaigns where you play different incarnations of the same eternal champion is a pretty awesome one, but something that still needs work to implement well. They tried in in the Amazing System, but that was clunky as hell. They made a small step in Dark Sun, which is repeated and built upon here. But what you really need is a system which allows you to tweak both characters and world physics while remaining balanced overall, and mathematically quantifying those changes. In short, what you really need is GURPS. But the vast quantity of fairly compatible D20 variants that'll spring up in the wake of the OGL are also a big improvement on D&D as it is. So this is an idea who's time is about to come, but still needs a bit more network externalities to really work. Masque of the Red Death, Buck Rogers, and Alternity are all interesting in their own ways, but they do show the limits of the current system when you try and change it too much. Very worthy of note indeed. So that does indeed make a hat trick of significant and very different articles, which is something I haven't said in a long time. If this issue can keep the quality and notability up, it has a pretty good chance to get into the top 10 overall.


The hidden faces of evil: James Wyatt does a second article in quick succession. This one is somewhat less notable, as it's part of their current crop of ones looking back, collecting and summarising information from the tons of supplements the old edition has, with a few little additions. Not that it isn't a pretty compelling read, as it shows how you can get AD&D fiends to be the subtle tempters of mythology. Actually, to be honest, they're overqualified, especially the baatezu, who's array of innate powers lets them deceive and control weak-willed mortals almost casually, and they can expect the rest of the hierarchy to help fulfil and enforce any deals they make. Yugoloths and Tanar'ri don't have it quite as easy, but most of the higher-ups have at least some tricks that let them be more than a supertough engine of destruction. And if they've learned magic or psionics, which they have plenty of time to do, the sky's the limit. And when the time comes to cease being subtle, well, that's what summon cascades are for. Basically, if they focus their attention on your world in any numbers (and don't cancel out each other's machinations with endless plotting and betrayals or attract celestials to clear up the mess) your world is screwed. In the meantime, that gives adventurers plenty to do. So this is a pretty cool article, much of which is going to be invalidated next edition, but the general principles will remain valid. It deserves it's own praise, even if it is looking back more than forward.


Arcane Lore: As befits an april issue, we have a bunch of joke spells from one of our long-hated characters, Zagig Yragerne. Ok, so not all of his worst moments were actually Gary's fault, particularly WG7, but he was hardly blameless in this matter. Anyway, we're finally getting the contents of one of his spellbooks, not that we really want too. As usual, it's been passed from person to person (again, with rather less enthusiasm than usual, as they find themselves eager to get rid of it. ) before getting lost, so your players can find it. Be afraid if you do.

Zagig's Canned Laughter turns your whole life into a badly dubbed sitcom. Yup, this is very much in character with the guy who completely ripped off alice in wonderland. Damnable meta wizards.

Zagig's Amusing Alteration temporarily alters your face in cartoon fashion. Course, he might not let you know it'll be gone by next scene, which would be rather scary. Damn, don't you just want to kick his ass right now.

Zagig's Gender Shift, on the other hand, is incredibly useful. Finally, switching sex is easier than coming back to life or becoming a whole different species. If you went through the tomb of horrors, you might want to get your hands on this book temporarily just for that. At last, one of AD&D's great practical problems is sorted out, barely in time. Like a few of the demihuman pets of last issue, that is an unexpected gem amongst the vast amounts of dross.

Dragon Magazine Issue 270: April 2000


part 5/7


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Ooh. A whole bunch of nifty planescape artifacts. For a third time in quick succession, it's a collection of decidedly mixed benefits. But when the theme is suits of ultra badass magical armour made by abyssal lords (see, now that's a good highly specific theme they're unlikely to duplicate precisely again.) expecting them not to have drawbacks, especially if you try and do good with them, is a futile task. This seems like the perfect set of items to have for your sentai team of upper-ranking bad guys, given their sadism and variety.

The Battlemonger makes you very popular with gnolls and undead, along with kickass offensive and defensive abilities. The only drawback is a little cannibalism craving that it inflicts. Well, you'll be slaughtering things anyway. Waste not, want not.

The Black Prison removes your biological needs and makes you regenerative, but can't be removed. Of course, it does nothing for the mental strain of this new lifestyle, and eventually you'll go mad. Hey, you'll still be serving the cause of chaos and evil wherever you go, perhaps even moreso, so no skin off their nose.

The Horned Casque is Baphomet's contribution. It gives you the expected minotaurish powers, plus the social benefits in dealing with them, plus gorgon breath, a terrifying bellow, and summoning powers. And all it asks in return is courage and mass slaughter of gnolls. Surely you can show a little confidence under the circumstances.

The Immolator bursts into flame when worn, and wants you to burn stuff. Ahahahahaha! Another curse that'll hardly be a curse unless you're trying to be a good guy.

The Infinite Panoply is as shifty and treacherous as it's maker, Fraz-Urb'luu. It'll disappear when you need it most, but until then it can disguise itself, shapeshift you, and reflect attacks back on the attacker.

The Juggernaut is 12' tall and essentially makes you into a mini necromecha and commander of undead armies. It'll eventually drain your lifeforce and turn you into undead yourself, but there are worse ways to go.

The Lady's Favor is zuggtmoy's fungal protection. As it instantly corrodes any weapons that touch it, it's a very effective one indeed. On the other hand, it's one of the more quickly lethal ones, as it infects you with fuzzy mold. Give to expendable minions.

The Lavashu is basically the venom symbiote, only stickier and harder to remove from the host. It'll probably take control of you, so you really don't want to touch this after beating the previous occupant.

The Pelagic Ageis is Dagon's method to offer power, and eventually turn you into his slave. Along with the expected water powers are tentacles and forcefields. Use with great caution.

The Raptor Cuirass gradually hollows out your bones, as befits it's avian theme. In the meantime, you get flight, talons, whirlwind summoning and bird control. Another position the evil overlord will cycle through regularly in their lieutenants.

The Rime Guard is freezing, both to you and those around. Fortunately, it'll turn you into a were-polar bear after a while, so problem solved.

The Spiderspawn is Lolth's one. Unlike the others, she's quite particular about who wears it. Boys need not apply. On the plus side, spider-powers. Which means you have to be rivals with The Lavashu's wearer. Abyssal politics is fun.

The Wizard Ward is Demogorgon's contribution. It'll gradually transform you into a giant snake, but in the meantime has both magic resistant and reptilian themed powers. Once again, there are worse ways to go and you get to have lots of fun in the meantime.


Dragon's bestiary: Some more official Greyhawk stuff here this month. Iuz may have been beaten back in recent supplements, but he's not defeated by a long way. He's already developing new monstrosities to replace his losses. Do you want to see what they are? Better prepared than not, you know.

Blackroot marauders are corrupt tree creatures. They're poisonous and resistant to plenty of stuff, so they'll rampage happily across a battlefield or just wander and cause devastation as ordered.

Dirtwraiths are an abyssal import. Like Abyss ants, they're doing worryingly well in the prime material plane, taking control of plants and turning areas into wastelands as they spread. If it was anyone other than Iuz, I'd wonder what he plans to do with lands wrecked like that, but we know he's not the most rational of planners.

Hounds of kyuss, like his regular spawn, are horrible disease ridden things that will kill you nastily and use your body to generate more of them. And they make a horrible noise too. Even if you control one, you really really don't want to stroke it.

Murdakus are bizzarely two-faced dragons created by Iuz's magics. They have a number of biological quirks, some useful, and some exploitable. They feel nicely like actual beta technology almost as much a problem as a boon for it's creators, bringing this cool little monster collection to a close. Looks like Iuz is in no danger of conquering the world any time soon if this is the best he can manage.

Dragon Magazine Issue 270: April 2000


part 6/7


The ecology of the gorbel: The immanent edition change seems to have really stepped up the pace of the ecologies. After all, any that use the old rules will have to be heavily rewritten or discarded once 3e arrives, so they want to clear as much of their slush pile as possible. Unsurprisingly for april, we have another monster hunters association one tackling a silly monster. It's also our 5th examination of something in the beholder family, counting gas spores, which Gorbel have quite a bit in common with. So this ecology has quite substantial antecedents. Fortunately, these are some of the weakest of the beholder family, with their tendency to explode when hit, and even these guys can make short work of them with the assistance of a few wands of magic missiles. There are a lot of ecological footnotes on this one, plus a big diagram, which is something we really don't see enough of around here. This is actually rather more serious than the last couple of years entries, but still winds up with lots of quirky bits strewn throughout the writing. Overall, I think he's managed to strike a balance between fun and usability this year.  


Giants in the earth: Oh boy. Nodwick has been a comfortable regular for the past couple of years, appearing several times a magazine and getting into our routines in a way Floyd never quite managed, for all it's ambitions. And now he's getting properly statted out. April Fool. Since he does most of the work, Nodwick has almost as many levels as the other three put together, although the henchman class must be pretty puny, because he still couldn't take them in a fight. In fact, none of the characters really work that well ruleswise, making this purely an entertainment piece, rather than something you can actually use in your game without some more work. So this is really an old fashioned whimsy piece, which I would have groaned at in the old days, but seems more tolerable after a couple of years of excessive dryness. Plus it's something I'm sure many of the audience wanted. I think it has an entirely valid place here.


The new adventures of Volo: A very footnotes and illustration heavy entry here, as Volo's main narrative proves a little insubstantial. Ardeep is one area we've visited before in the magazine briefly. As the closest bit of woods to Waterdeep, it's packed with outlaws, elves trying to get back to nature, low level adventurers looking for a rumble, teenagers trying to find a peaceful spot to make out, harpers having secret meetings, etc etc. So in typical Realms fashion, they're all bumping into one another and somehow missing the hidden tomb in the centre of the forest. It's all a little silly. As usual, Ed has put plenty of history behind the strange creatures and things to be found here, with challenges suitable for all sorts of levels. And the snark is stepped up a notch compared to the first few columns. You really are not expected to like Volo, or take him seriously for that matter, and it really does seem like a miracle he's survived this long. In fact, he may wind up pushing it too far and resulting in me becoming more sympathetic to Volo than Elminster. The cool stuff, annoying delivery approach is delivering interestingly mixed results.


New Frontiers: Alternity takes a leaf from the old school magazine, and converts the races from the second most popular game back then. Traveller! That's a nice turnup for the books. Along with a brief explanation of the setting for complete newbies, we also get stats for Aslan, the various droyne castes, hivers, k'kree and vargr, a couple of new bits of equipment and a psionic power. So it gives you just enough to work from, and then points you in the right direction to get more info if that intrigues you. (which at the moment happens to be GURPS Traveller, oddly enough. ) It is a bit crosspromotioney, but doing that for other RPG's is far less annoying than for computer games or books, and a nice callback to the days where they often had an article or two on a game owned by another company. So there is a bit of nostalgia here as well as general education. I do like this overall, though the illustrations are a bit crap for the current age. Now what they need is a boot hill conversion to make the Alternity system a little more generic.


Wizards Live: In addition to all the various live chats, this month, they unveil the official websites for the various discontinued AD&D settings. The Kargatane was the most well known of these, but all of them stayed around for at least a few years, and gave us quite a bit of material before they too succumbed to entropy. Actually, looking at this shows just how much the net has changed in the past 12 years, and why it's a good idea to download stuff and keep real books around. Information on the net isn't eternal and unlosable, any more than any other medium, although it can seem like it in the short term. It's only the ability to copy it really easily that makes it harder to destroy for good. If not enough people care, it'll still be lost to the waves of time. And if print disappears, then civilisation collapses, it'll mean future generations will find it easier to uncover information about the 20th century than the 21st. Very worth thinking about. This is a very good reason to be suspicious of DRM, cloud computing and closed architecture OS's. The more you take control away from end users, the more things can be removed at the whim of a big company or by a single disaster. So yeah, this little article has given me a lot to think about the way our media is developing, and if it's a good or bad thing overall. Now let's see if I can still download some of these site's material from the wayback machine.


Dungeoncraft: Ray finishes off his last dungeon design article before we get to see the final product by talking about what the player's goals should be there. Go in, explore, Kill everything and take their stuff is cool the first few times, but you do need some variety. And if you have a bunch of side-quests and alternate routes that you can complete in nonlinear fashion, you make your players feel like they have meaningful choices,  even if the final result will be the same once you've done all of them. In addition, you have to figure out what the rewards are, how many of them are automatic for completion, and how many are optional, and will only be found if the players look in the right places and use their brains to solve puzzles. So this really demonstrates how by knowing the formulas, you can actually wind up increasing the variability of your adventures, because you're consciously aware of all the axes that you could adjust to make things different. Let that be a lesson to all those who think that learning the formal disciplines of your craft will spoil your creativity, whatever artform you're working in. It only will if you let it remove your passion.

Dragon Magazine Issue 270: April 2000


part 7/7


Sage advice: A wizard cut a dragons head off with his dagger via a single critical hit and advanced two levels straight away! This can't be right. (If you don't like that kind of thing happening, you shouldn't have introduced the system in the first place. There is a very good reason why we were so reluctant to put critical hits in AD&D, even optionally.)

Can crossbows be used as melee weapons any better than bows (not really)

Can a boulder deflect lightning bolts if it's thrown at just the right time (While this might be a cool visual, Skip will point out what a terrible idea this is from the game point of view. You allow the monsters to do it, next thing you know the players'll be doing it all the time. )

Can you do more damage by using larger increments of holy water (If you pay the price. This will not be as efficient in terms of damage per gold piece as small amounts. )

How much does a human bite hurt (Even less than a housecat's.)

Do you still lose stoneskin charges if you have another form of protection up that negates an attack (Yes. Skip never misses an opportunity to rule conservatively on the stoneskin question! )

Just what can the scarab of protection protect you against (Spells. That's it, albeit a pretty broad it. Don't try to make it even broader, or Skip will make jokes about how broad yo' momma is and how you're always hiding behind her.)

Can an ogre mage teach other creatures how to regenerate (No. Well, maybe younger ogre mages.)

How do you really pronounce Drow (Ten cows in a boat, rowing across a moat, to infiltrate a castle filled with stoats. Och, aye the noo, the cows are fools, the stoat's'll see through the disguise and torture them with tools.)

How do you tell what a potion is by sipping it if it doesn't have an obvious effect (Comedic experimentation. Oh yes. Skip is going to enjoy this. )


Role models: Once again, this column is used as a promotional tool for their advertising partners as much as it is game advice. This time it's the Diablo minis that are getting shoutouts and substantial amounts of photo space. ZOMG they're turning a videogame into D&D, etc etc. The framing device is another mini encounter, with a whole bunch of monsters, and several environmental hazards that are facilitated by the minis chosen. Very much of a kind with the short linear dungeons that would become more common next edition. This doesn't really turn me on, so I don't want to spend much time with it.


Silicon Sorcery: Our other mostly promotional column with a bit of D&D material is drawing on Planescape: Torment. This does have a neat idea. In a lot of 3D action/fighty games, it's possible to trick bad guys into fighting each other by dodging and having them hit each other. This is an awesome idea to implement in your campaign, albeit maybe with a bit more nuance. Likewise, they represent high Charisma and knowledge skills by only having certain conversation options come up if you meet the stat requirements. Again, this is a relatively mechanistic representation, but it's still a lot better than those DM's who effectively make charisma worthless, which in turn results in players always neglecting it in a point buy option. So this does have some pretty good general advice, and shows us that for all the brouhaha about there being some things live DM's will always do better than a computer game, if the game is trying and the DM isn't, the computer game can still beat them. So don't get complacent, and don't be afraid to steal ideas from unlikely sources. Those are both lessons everyone needs reminding of from time to time.


Nodwick gets a four page special mocking star wars, the circle of 8, magic weapons in general, fighting in bars, kittens, and lots of other things. And now we know how badass he really is, he's not afraid to show it. Or something.


Coming attractions: Elaine Cunningham enjoys a triple bill of Forgotten Realms books. After Greenwood and Salvadore, she really must be one of the authors who shapes people's perceptions of the setting. The Magehound is set in Halruaa, and involves a wizard hunter in the top echelons of society. Curious business. Elfshadow sees angsty half-elf suffering from sexual tension. Elfsong is set in Waterdeep, and involves her familiar themes of elves and bards. Once again, there seems to be a strong mystery element to her plots.  

Dragonlance unleashes a new collection of short stories, Rebels and Tyrants. More little perspectives on the war of souls. Take that, Dragon overlords!

Ravenloft finishes rehashing Van Richten's guides. However, this one also features new material, unearthed from the vaults, and annotations by his nieces. Why did he have to be the one to die permanently, while Elminster is still going, a hundred year timeskip later?

Greyhawk gets another adventure that returns to familiar grounds, a generation later. Slavers is of course the new version of modules A1-4. Now with more plot and less screwage. Blaaaaaaaaah.

Alternity gets two StarDrive products. Nightfall at Algernon by Diane Duane completes her trilogy set there. Alien Compendium II: The exploration of 2503 gives you lots of weird flora and fauna to kill and be killed by. Once again, they'll have a fairly complete line before they die.


What's new is unusually hard-hitting in it's humour this month. Guess the thought of religion brings that out in some people. Nice to see Phil was on the scientology is evil bandwagon before it went overground. Oh, and last month's snail hasn't even got off the page yet. So cute.


Well, this has indeed been a really awesome issue, easily the best in quite a few years. There's tons of great serious articles, a decent number of silly ones, a strong theme that hasn't been done into the ground, and lots of cool looks backward and forwards. There are quite a few bursts of odious overcommercialisation, but they certainly aren't enough to spoil the overall picture. It's definitely a good way to celebrate the 3/4 mark of my journey, and has plenty of material I might want to use in the future. Now, will I be able to say the same about the 4/5ths mark? Well, from here on out, those kind of landmarks will come quicker and quicker. I wonder what kind of psychological influence that'll have on my writing.

Well, it's now the 4th anniversary of when I first started doing this. I've now been doing this longer, and written more than you would on most degree courses. Pretty scary thought really. And it's now looking pretty certain that this will see a 5th anniversary, but not a 6th one before I finish the whole print run. Well, I guess now is still not the time to get lazy, so on we go.


Dragon Magazine Issue 271: May 2000


part 1/7


134 pages (132, plus two extra where the answers of quizzes are turned upside down and magnified for our convenience) Well, this is a particularly well composed cover, even if it is a bit puzzling. Those adventurers are acting like they can't see that dragon at all. Is it invisible or something? Well. that certainly fits the issue's theme. Puzzles and riddles. Last given serious attention in issue 175, and that was only two articles. Give several different writers this theme and they could definitely find different takes on it. Let's try and unravel the enigma of this issue.


Scan quality: Excellent, unindexed.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Several times, this magazine has complained about easy resurrection cheapening death. Here we demonstrate that after doing that, if you do introduce an enemy who has attacks that will mess up the body, cause energy draining, or inflict some other harm that the usual methods of recovery can't handle, it'll shake them right up. And the fun thing is that these are often save or die effects, meaning you can go from fine to out of play with a single roll.  Muahahahaha. This is basically a troll piece to try and cause more forum debate, making it fairly amusing reading. Gotta keep that fanbase at least slightly enraged, because nothing but positive comments gets oh so very dull to read. I see the value in that. Ohohohoho. Ohohohoho.


Escape to cybertown? Ahh, the lameness of some MMO's. Is this one still around?


D-Mail: At this point, our letters are entirely made up of people talking about various aspects of 3e. First up, we have someone miffed that the priests spell compendium will be invalidated almost as soon as it's released. They assure him that conversion will not be particularly tricky. This of course makes it much more likely that people will convert, as it means they can continue to play the same characters in the same campaign, which you certainly couldn't say for 4e.

Secondly, we have worrying about counterspelling. Once again, there are subtitles to the new rules that they haven't explained yet, since they're concentrating on showing us the cool stuff first. Your worries are founded on assuming everything not specifically mentioned as different is the same.

Then we have someone annoyed that what's in the teasers isn't strictly accurate. That shouldn't be a problem now, as the books are likely rolling out the printers in vast quantities as we speak.

And finally, we actually have someone who really likes the new art style, and would like to see a book devoted to their sketches and design notes. Well, they've done it for Dragonlance. If they think it would sell, they might well do it.


Nodwick's party continue take the choice to kill him only once instead of dozens of times. Be thankful for small mercies.


Wizards Live: Having introduced us to the idea that we can talk to our favourite developers, this column now devotes a little more attention to the other segments of the company. The Pokemon and M:tG card games. Which are probably the more profitable parts of the company anyway, but it never hurts to get a bit more crosspromotion in. Actually, to be honest, they could have been a lot worse with that. They never did convert the M:tG gameworld to D&D, or vice versa. Still, it does seem like they're slipping into the bad habit of blatant promotion again. I wonder if I can continue to find anything new to say about this column if it continues for an extended period.


Everquest! Now there's a familiar face. Rather disconcerting to realize it's been around that long.

Boris Vallejo goes into sculpture. His subject matter remains the same. $295? Gor blimey guv, you could feed a family on that for a month.

Well, it's now the 4th anniversary of when I first started doing this. I've now been doing this longer, and written more than you would on most degree courses. Pretty scary thought really. And it's now looking pretty certain that this will see a 5th anniversary, but not a 6th one before I finish the whole print run. Well, I guess now is still not the time to get lazy, so on we go.


Dragon Magazine Issue 271: May 2000


part 1/7


134 pages (132, plus two extra where the answers of quizzes are turned upside down and magnified for our convenience) Well, this is a particularly well composed cover, even if it is a bit puzzling. Those adventurers are acting like they can't see that dragon at all. Is it invisible or something? Well. that certainly fits the issue's theme. Puzzles and riddles. Last given serious attention in issue 175, and that was only two articles. Give several different writers this theme and they could definitely find different takes on it. Let's try and unravel the enigma of this issue.


Scan quality: Excellent, unindexed.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Several times, this magazine has complained about easy resurrection cheapening death. Here we demonstrate that after doing that, if you do introduce an enemy who has attacks that will mess up the body, cause energy draining, or inflict some other harm that the usual methods of recovery can't handle, it'll shake them right up. And the fun thing is that these are often save or die effects, meaning you can go from fine to out of play with a single roll.  Muahahahaha. This is basically a troll piece to try and cause more forum debate, making it fairly amusing reading. Gotta keep that fanbase at least slightly enraged, because nothing but positive comments gets oh so very dull to read. I see the value in that. Ohohohoho. Ohohohoho.


Escape to cybertown? Ahh, the lameness of some MMO's. Is this one still around?


D-Mail: At this point, our letters are entirely made up of people talking about various aspects of 3e. First up, we have someone miffed that the priests spell compendium will be invalidated almost as soon as it's released. They assure him that conversion will not be particularly tricky. This of course makes it much more likely that people will convert, as it means they can continue to play the same characters in the same campaign, which you certainly couldn't say for 4e.

Secondly, we have worrying about counterspelling. Once again, there are subtitles to the new rules that they haven't explained yet, since they're concentrating on showing us the cool stuff first. Your worries are founded on assuming everything not specifically mentioned as different is the same.

Then we have someone annoyed that what's in the teasers isn't strictly accurate. That shouldn't be a problem now, as the books are likely rolling out the printers in vast quantities as we speak.

And finally, we actually have someone who really likes the new art style, and would like to see a book devoted to their sketches and design notes. Well, they've done it for Dragonlance. If they think it would sell, they might well do it.


Nodwick's party continue take the choice to kill him only once instead of dozens of times. Be thankful for small mercies.


Wizards Live: Having introduced us to the idea that we can talk to our favourite developers, this column now devotes a little more attention to the other segments of the company. The Pokemon and M:tG card games. Which are probably the more profitable parts of the company anyway, but it never hurts to get a bit more crosspromotion in. Actually, to be honest, they could have been a lot worse with that. They never did convert the M:tG gameworld to D&D, or vice versa. Still, it does seem like they're slipping into the bad habit of blatant promotion again. I wonder if I can continue to find anything new to say about this column if it continues for an extended period.


Everquest! Now there's a familiar face. Rather disconcerting to realize it's been around that long.

Boris Vallejo goes into sculpture. His subject matter remains the same. $295? Gor blimey guv, you could feed a family on that for a month.

Dragon Magazine Issue 271: May 2000


part 2/7


Forum: Lance Goetz praises almost everything he's seen so far about 3e apart from the new initiative system. Looks like all the talking we've done in the forum is paying off.

Brian Moran finds Co-DMing has produced a campaign better than either could have managed on their own. Healthy competition plus learning from each other is a pretty potent combination. Don't take on the weight of the universe alone.

Brian Corvello points out just how often sci-fi and fantasy actually cross over. The lines are very blurry indeed. Particularly in comic books, which mix magic, technology and aliens casually and screw the cosmology. The only real limit is the writer's imagination.

Rhian Hunt points out how much of D&D is directly derived from tolkien, but at the same time totally lacking in the same kind of depth and meaning. Hey, we're trying! Not all of us are literary geniuses able to stick to a single imaginary world over the course of decades.

Roger Cox put three rust monsters in a giant floating pig, and relied upon the player's curiosity to seal their own doom. Well, it was the 70's. Everything was a lot goofier back then. Only the most sadistic of wizards would do something like that IC though. I wonder if Zagyg approves.


Sneak preview: The D&D movie! It's finally on! Oh frabjulous day, that we live to see such sights. And then we gouge out our eyeballs, so we may never see such glorious horrors again. I mean, really, blue eyeshadow? A thief called Snails? The lamest beholders evar? Even Jeremy Iron's scenery chewing can't save the day. And it looks like we have at least 6 months of promotions to mock before they can even begin to give a realistic opinion of it's merits. This should be fuuun. :devil: Anyway, here we get shots of all the main characters, and several of the sets. Ironically, the outside bits look faker than the inside shots, which were filmed in cool real world eastern european buildings. Another demonstration of how practical effects date less than CGI. Most of the clothes don't look too bad at this resolution, aside from the Dwarf, and the Wayans ridiculous earflaps. And hey, at least they'e trying for a bit of racial diversity. I still wonder why they didn't include a cleric on the team though. Did they really think that would be too uncool or a hard sell to a wider audience? But those are small nitpicks compared to the ripping other people have already given this. We shall have to see if I can build up to that kind of frothing fury.


ProFiles: Steve Miller looks decidedly not amused at the thought of being profiled. He joined TSR with the intent of working on Mystara, just before it was cancelled, leaving all the stuff he was working on unpublished. Not a pleasing experience. He's persevered though, continuing to do AD&D work when he'd really rather be doing D&D stuff. And with the coming of the new edition, it looks like he's got his wish. Well, they would say that, since they're designing it. If they didn't like what they were creating, they'd change it. He certainly seems to have pretty broad tastes in reading and viewing, which the flexibility of the new edition better suits. He'd rather like to do more fiction in the future, which is interesting to note. My memory fails me as to what he gets up to over the next decade, so I'll have to do a little research, see if that wish pans out.


Up on a soapbox: Gary's latest rant is somewhat less challenging and divisive than the last few months. Roleplayers aren't all stupid and socially retarded. It's a hobby that requires both reasonable literacy and regular interaction with other people. That's obviously going to skew things towards the upper end of the intelligence spectrum. Given that he's preaching to the choir here, I don't think many people are going to want to argue with that. So I have less to comment on here than the last few. Just remember to wash regularly. It's not pleasant for your friends, it's not pleasant for strangers, and if you live in a 1st world country, very unlikely you can't afford it, even in the current economy. So no excuses.


Countdown to 3rd edition: 3 months to go. I think it's been made fairly clear for a while that Monks were coming back in 3e. After all, the Greyhawk revivalists at WotC were big fans of them. So they're back, revamped for the new rules, but with essentially the same kind of powerset. And here we have an opportunity to talk about several interesting rules issues. 3e's multiclassing system, and the linear warrior, quadratic wizard problem. Now, 3e multiclassing is probably better than the two systems used in previous editions, particularly the clunky dual-classing humans had to put up with. And for the fighty classes it works pretty well, mixing and matching levels in fighter, ranger, rogue, etc isn't a huge problem (actually, due to the front-loading of rogues and rangers, a good build in another class could often involve taking a level or two in them. ) But for the spellcasters, you just couldn't compete with a straight single class one, and the patches, such as dual advancement prestige classes, only mitigated the problem, not solved it. Still, some of the many experiments in d20 games did better, often by using completely different magic systems that don't scale in the same way, or are more linked to your character level than your class level. And didn't short-circuit the issue by stripping down your options to only a dozen or so even at high levels like 4e did. Of course, you do have to ask the question if it's possible to create a truly balanced system without removing meaningful choice, and if you want flexible multiclassing anyway, or if it's a poor compromise between having strong archetypical characters, and point buy systems which let you build exactly what you want (as long as you have enough points. ) There really is a lot to think about here, and more questions than answers. Still, it's not as if you can't have fun with any edition of D&D, so the rules can't be total failures. Let's see what elements they reveal next month.

Dragon Magazine Issue 271: May 2000


part 3/7


Power word Baffle: Well, here's this month's special feature, as advertised on the front. Time for a good 10 pages on cryptograms, crosswords, word searches, quotation puzzles, and general word games. Of course, the frustrating thing about these is that they're pretty strongly tied to the specifics of the language they're written in, and thus may not translate to a fantasy campaign, where it may be assumed that the characters aren't actually speaking english. Still, it worked in the Hobbit, so you can probably incorporate them into your game a few times. Personally, I'd prefer more practical and mathematical based puzzles that do translate universally, but that's just because I'm better at solving them. I suppose we do already have several articles on deviously sadistic traps that require pretty convoluted actions to avoid. So this is fairly well done, but as it's a subject I'm not very keen on, it leaves me feeling that this is a topic they ought to have covered for completenesses sake, but doesn't really encourage me to use it. Hopefully it'll be more use to you.


Riddles of the rhyming sphinx: Our second theme article is much shorter, presenting us with a bunch of sample riddles for creatures like sphinxes to challenge the players with. Most of them are new ones, so players won't be able to answer them purely from memory. Quite a few of them are based around D&D specific creatures and ideas. Many are word plays, with the obvious answer being wrong, and so not translating well into other languages. They get increasingly tricky as they go on, with the final one in particular requiring players to be very careful if they want to avoid being set up to fail unpleasantly. So this could cause your players more than a little amusing frustration, and will eventually drive them to just try and kill the riddlers rather than fighting them. This stuff never works for long when confronted by brutal realists, does it. Someone always pushes things too far and makes it no longer a game, spoiling it for everyone else. So much for that game.


The totem deck: How long is it since we got expanded versions of the deck of many things? Issues 26, 77 and 148? Yup, seems about the right time for a revisiting, given their current policies rounding off the edition. And this doesn't directly repeat any of them either. Instead, it selects 54 creatures mundane and supernatural, and then maps them to a basic deck of cards. If you want, you could instead cut out the supplied cards (although you'd have to photocopy them or print out the scans to really make this work, since they're on regular pages rather than blank on the back.) for something with a bit more flavour. As with any of these decks, it's an amusingly mixed bag. 28 of the effects are positive, 16 negative, and 10 could be either, depending on your point of view and cleverness. They generally aren't as extreme as the original deck of many things though, and many of them are merely temporary or one use, rather than transforming your character forever. Which if your players know this, may mean they're a little more likely to make the gamble of trying a draw. The fact that this isn't a centrepiece special feature just shows how much they're packing into these last few issues. But even if the presentation isn't as good as it could be, it's still a great article. If it appeared 15 years ago, people would still be citing it as a classic.


Lock, stock & Barrel: We had an article on magical locks fairly recently. (issue 239. ) Now here's one on mundane ones. Another fairly old school feeling article, this is all real world technical info of the sort that gives you a primer on the subject, but you would be better served by going to the library and finding a full book on the topic. As has often been the case recently, the visual aspect is a real treat, well formatted, and making a real difference to the atmosphere and ease of learning. But it doesn't stop the content from being a bit boring. If you have a rogue heavy game, you may well want to to use it to keep them feeling challenged, but I doubt you'll want to make locks and traps the focus of your entire campaign. Well, at least it fills another little niche the magazine hasn't done before.


Fiction: By the job by Paul Kidd. We've seen quite a bit on the conflict between Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil over the years, but pretty few concrete examples of disputes between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good. Well, we have one here, although the goodness of the Paladin involved is questionable, falling more into the lawful dick category. There's a very interesting combination of humour and straight characters in this, and it doesn't shy away from showing violence, and asking tricky moral questions before interjecting some whimsy again. It turns out at the end that this is another prequel to a full novel that's coming out soon, but this one works as a standalone story, so it doesn't feel like it was thrown in purely as a promotional tool. I could definitely stand to see some more stories with these characters.


Colossus: Ooh, shiny! A minigame! We haven't had one of those in SO long, and for the last couple they forgot to scan in the board anyway. Once again, they're making cool and thoroughly unexpected callbacks to the old days without actually repeating themselves. It doesn't require you to cut out any pieces that you're then likely to lose anyway either. It's a pretty short and simple game where you build a monster, and then use it to fight the monsters of the other players. It has both elements of skill and luck, but given the large number of tactical choices available each turn, you'll definitely improve with repeated plays. As with many of the old games, it also introduces some optional rules to keep your game interesting and increase the complexity a bit once you've got the basics down pat. I can definitely say I'm happy to see this kind of material in the magazine again. Why did they stop doing it in the first place anyway? This is the kind of stuff people really remember.

Dragon Magazine Issue 271: May 2000


part 4/7


Arcane Lore picks itself up to get back to delivering a decent quantity of spells. Quality, of course, may be a different matter. This time the focus is on defensive magics. You know, abjurers still haven't got a special on them. And with only two of these spells being an abjuration, (and more being alterations) they're still unpleasantly underrepresented, and can even be edged out at their own job by other specialists. Diviners and necromancers have got their fixes, but it looks like Abjurers will have to stay the scrappy, overshadowed even by elementalists, wild mages and sha'irs.

Clayskin is a weakened stoneskin. Now you can annoy your DM like hell right from 1st level. Those goblins are going to be really scared if you stock up on this one.

Heat Wave surrounds you in shimmering, protecting you from missile weapons and cold. A good one for your low level fire elementalist who doesn't want to be all offence all the time.

Innocent Bearing makes people not suspect you. Another one we've had before, albeit at higher level. There does seem to be a bit of power creep going on in this article.

Shadow Shield is an illusory defence that works just fine as long as no-one disbelieves it. Or you don't get attacked by inanimate objects. Not too hard to get around, really.

Skullhelm is your typical bit of necromantic forebodingnes. It's benefits are pretty minor. Who's going to try a called shot to the head when you're wearing something like this?

Wild Swing is another way of saving a low level wizard's life by reducing damage. Well, if you want to live to 2nd level, it might be a good idea.

Vapor Guard is another one that does something similar to previous spells seen here, only better, particularly when level is taken into account. This is becoming a definite pattern.

Bone Block gives you a pair of extra skeletal arms, parrying attacks for you. Just the thing for an up-and-coming necromancer who wants to make the right impression.

Dancing Shield fairly reliably blocks the first attack on you in a round. In one-on-one battles against people, this is of course particularly effective. Poor fighters have no chance really at this stage, do they.

Protection from Curse is yet another variant on one we've seen very recently. Once again, with the sloppy editorial filtering. Throw it out, dudes.

Battle Augury yet again makes me yawn. Momentary precognition to give you AC and save bonuses? Very familiar idea.  

Protection from Polymorph seems a little too specific to use a spell slot on most days. Just stock up on dispel's, that'll be more likely to be practically useful.

Iron Shirt lets a wizard give themselves all the benefits of armor without impeding spellcasting. Cheesy monkeys.

Rary's Defensive Spell Enhancer adds 1 to the protection granted by whatever other spell. Probably not worth it, like too many other current metamagic tricks. Roll on next edition where they reach maturity, and all this built up crap gets swept away.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another last burst of magic-free setting heavy frippery before edition change squeezes that stuff out of D&D for the foreseeable future. Eat, drink and be merry, for in 3 months time, there will be only war.

Cockles in Laminari are shellfish preserved in thick glutinous kelp. That's several different food groups in one package. A bit of steaming would probably be a good idea to get rid of the excess salt.

Djekul is fishy cheese that works well half-melted and with vegetables dipped in it. Damn, now you're making me hungry. Don't say I'm going to actually try a recipe from a fantasy game. Oh, the shame.

Goldenseed nuts are basically fantasy peanuts that come presalted. Mmm. You can bet they'll be pretty moreish.

Karafruit Sweetchews are little cubes of dried fruit to serve as sweet trail rations. Once again, I find myself salivating. It's really rather worrying.  

Karispa is peppery watercress. That requires no stretch of the imagination at all. Basic reskinning is boring.

Molvarti is goat cheese. Ironically, it works well served with lamb, which feels a bit wrong. Oh well, can't be squeamish about exploiting things every way possible.

Pilac are dryable noodles that swell to 3 times that volume once water is added. Again, a good one for adventurers.

Tusham is a particular variety of smoked boar, made rare by Iuz's depredations. Do you want to fight to preserve ancient cultural foods? Or is that too mundane for your party?

Villosa are red mushrooms. :plays super mario bros theme: They're pretty versatile. Raw, cooked or used to make a dye.  I wonder if eating too many gives you orange pee.

Wickler is marbled cheese. Once again, they include a mouth-watering recipe in the description. Looks like there'll be enough to make a whole day's meals in here.

Ambierre is apple wine with a bit of grapes. The precise formula is a secret, to keep it selling well. Do you want to make this into a plot hook?

Bejl is a herbal mix that becomes a medicinal tonic when you add boiling water. Probably smells pretty pungent. No thanks.

Frinnecre is mixed fruit cider from elven territory. The description reads like an advert from inside the setting. I mildly disapprove.

Galda fruit brandy on the other hand is for the common folk, with nobles turning their nose up at it. This is nothing to do with it's taste. Silly fashionistas.

Gauglathiir gets into full-on Jilly Goulden territory in it's description of alcohol. This is becoming almost comical. Who though publishing this stuff was a good idea?

Heathen is Dwarven berry wine. What, you thought they bought it all from humans. You can't trust them to properly age it to a dwarf's discerning standards. Down the hatch.

Iriador is an elven made wine that has a strong human market. Should make a pretty moneyspinner for them.

Kaffet is Oerth coffee. Obviously their characters just couldn't survive without it, so they had to find an excuse to insert it. Woe for the sleepless!

Mist Mash is another case of modern technology being introduces to oerth. Stronger sprits? That stuff rots your brain. Next thing you know we'll have renamed absinthe.

Shamarit is iced wine from up north. Once again, they review this one as if they were working IC.

Silaurey is from the farmlands around Greyhawk city. It seems to be a good middle of the road option.

Skyrss barely qualifies as beer, but at least it doesn't leave you with a hangover. Is this a snide commentary on stuff like budweiser? In any case, it brings us to the end of another of their most inconsequential articles ever. I'm glad to have got through it.

Dragon Magazine Issue 271: May 2000


part 5/7


Dragon's bestiary: This column has been relying a little too much on the contribution of the regular writers recently, probably to it's detriment. Not this month however, as we see the results of their recent competition. Will the contributions of amateurs be fresher than the usual suspects? They'd better be, given the number they had to choose from.

Visceraith are another form of undead created by wizardly experimentation into transhumanism. They're a bunch of semi-substantial organs that use other people's bones like a hermit crab. They can also control bones other than the ones they're occupying, to unpleasant effect. Man. Bones, blood, worms, cobwebs, there's a lot of weird transformations you can go through, but probably wouldn't want too. What other variants on this theme will they come up with?

Soul masks are greek stage masks that feed off the emotion they represent, and encourage it in those around them. Now there's something that has a short story about it somewhere, probably with people dying as a result of it. Makes me think of Vampire princess Miyu in particular, which is no bad thing.

Dvati are a variant on the bonded twin principle also employed later by Mike Mearls in Iron Heroes. They act as one, and if one dies, the other does too. They have pretty good class abilities, and are all ambidextrous, so I can see quite a few cheese monkeys wanting to play them.

So it seems I can pick out parallels for all of them, showing there can't have been any truly great original ideas amongst the entries. That is somewhat disappointing really. Still, they do all look perfectly playable. But merely average is still not quite good enough, really.


The ecology of the bag of devouring: Wait a minute. This is a magic item, not a monster! Or is it? Maybe it's both. In any case, it's well worthy of study, assuming you can survive the experience, or have magical means of tracing the path of it's extradimensional throats. For the first time in a while, we have a new writer handling things, and a story in which the protagonist grows and changes substantially as a result of his adventure. A monster, dungeon, and hugely exploitable adventure hook all in one, this shows how what seems to be a cursed item is actually a strong opportunity if done right. And it also shows just how alien alternate prime material worlds can be. Guess it's another excellent and thought provoking ecology then. We are spoiled these days.


The new adventures of Volo: More secret societies? When we're just about to get a whole book on them? I smell cut material. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone in the Realms was a member of multiple simultaneously. WoDesque conspiracy exaggeration aside, this isn't about the usual subjects, but another up-and-coming new secret society, just itching to get a new branch in YOUR hometown. Another reminder or two that the Realms is a living and constantly developing world, and you can drop new things in, and take old ones out (where are the Horde or Maztican incursions now? ) as you go along to keep things interesting and it'll feel perfectly natural if you do it right. Plus they're a good adversary for players, as they're the right size that a determined group could wipe the whole lot of them out and make a real difference for the better, unlike the Red Wizards or Zhentarim. This all seems very playable with, and designed to tackle with the accusations that the Realms is hard to play in because there's too much built up canon. Looks like he's still listening to the complaints and adapting his style to compensate. I guess that's another reason for his longevity as a successful contributor.


Top Secret: A second nostalgic callback this month, as we talk about doing espionage stuff in Alternity. Another one of those things that really makes it feel like they're trying to hit as many bases they can, make what we have feel as complete as possible for years more of play before they drop it all for good. What we get is moderately unusual as well. While we do get some new skills and equipment, the majority of this is devoted to 11 new careers, to help you build and differentiate suitable characters right from the outset if you know espionage is going to be a campaign focus. It doesn't particularly stand out as good or bad after a couple of readings, so I shall shrug and call it average. It does it's job, and I guess that's enough.

Dragon Magazine Issue 271: May 2000


part 6/7


Dungeoncraft: 16 months in, and it's only now you think about recruiting players and doing character generation? If we were running in realtime, that could definitely be called either sluggish writing or over-preparation. Actually, that raises some very important questions. Should you design the world, and then look for players, or should you get the players, and then agree on the system and setting with them? And if you do have the players first, how much time is reasonable to prepare without actually playing before they lose interest? I suppose this is the kind of thing that will be very different depending on if you're friends with them beforehand, and regularly socialise with them outside gaming or not. Still, either way, unless you're using a published campaign setting, you'll need to create some basic information about setting and character options for them to work with. Keep it to 2-3 pages though, otherwise many players might not bother to read it all. This is an area where there are multiple right ways to do it, but there are also quite a few wrong ways as well. Keeping momentum is probably a better idea than slowly crafting in meticulous detail, but one size won't fit every player anyway. So this is one area where many campaigns fall by the wayside, and some advice is rather helpful. I think he could definitely stick at this topic for a few months more before moving on.


Sage advice: Can vampires mentally command people with their charm or not (Skip recommends or not. Remember you have to see the creature for gaze attacks to work, so no charming while invisible or scrying)

Can a vampire run around with a blanket over their head to avoid frying in the sun, buffy style (no)

Van Richten's guide to vampires says oceans and seas don't count as running water (Skip disagrees with that ruling, and strongly recommends you ignore it. Skip will also completely ignore your primary question.)

Can a vampire diffuse their mist over a whole house (Only if they were as big as a house to start with. You'd better hope yo momma doesn't get turned into a vampire.  )

How much can a vampire take with them when they mistify (Encumbrance limit. This still slows them down)

How much damage does violet fungus do. ( Insta-limb loss. Bet you wish you were facing vampires instead now. )

Does Con based regeneration let you regrow limbs (Recycled question. The answer's still no. )

What are Sidhe's level limits (same as elves)

What happens to an energy drained undead's equipment (Nothing. It stays right there. If they're corporeal creatures, they can still use it. Yet more reason to loot your fallen comrades)

Are dragons completely helpless while pinning creatures (Keeping things pinned takes up all their attention. They will try and escape, you know.)

Can you hurt a molydeus with holy avengers (By RAW, no. They're designed to be utter bastards who can protect the Abyss from virtually anything. )

Does having fiendish hide make you obviously fiendish looking (not necessarily. )

Do undead have strength scores (sure!)

What's the beguile spell (see the rod of beguiling. Duh.)

How many attacks does a beholder have (1 bite, plus one shot from each eye-ray. Pretty scary, huh.)

How powerful are pixie illusions (see the spell permanent illusion)

Can you destroy a tarrasque by acid or petrification (No. It may turn to stone, but that certainly won't stop it forever. It'll just set you up for a plot several years along the line where a bunch of insane cultists want to free their god.)

Can lycanthropes be hurt by natural disasters (recycled question. The answer's still yes.)

How long does it take to die without food (Depends on your Con score. It can take a while. )

If you teleport within another plane with teleport without error, do you suffer failure chances (No. It's the planar boundary crossing that makes things tricky. )

Just what do elves sleep and charm resistance protect them against (This one again? Skip is so bored right now. )

Does a thief need to be able to write to use their read languages power ( Not officially, but you are free to house rule it like that. )

Dragon Magazine Issue 271: May 2000


part 7/7


PC Portraits: Investigators are this month's theme, to fit with the puzzles of earlier. This means that you can see their hands a lot more than usual, as they examine some object, or merely rest their chin on it in contemplative fashion. There's more miscellaneous objects as well. Less variety of expressions though. Don't want emotions getting in the way of our logical deductions, do we?


Role models: The old question about illusion adjudication combined with minis? I fail to see how these two topics intersect. Well, it turns out they do have a few ideas here, but they're ones that'll only work a few times before players get savvy to them, like having the real ones painted, but the fake ones left bare. I suppose that's accurate. Anyone exposed to illusions regularly is rapidly going to become savvy to the obvious cues, especially when the illusions all come from the same source, so they have the same flaws in terms of composition and missing sensory elements. And to be honest, you don't want to use illusions too frequently, or they lose their edge. Use for one scenario, then shelve for at least a couple of years.


Silicon Sorcery: Nox is this month's game. Since this has a lot of emphasis on it's spooky atmosphere ad clever traps, it makes sense that this is what they want to help you emulate in your games. And remember, just because you're using traps doesn't mean you have to give the monsters a rest. Combine monsters with traps, and you can make both more deadly, but also open up opportunities to play one off against the other, making otherwise unsolvable challenges resolved via the hubris of the enemies. After all, that's how it works in virtually every Mario game, and an absolute ton of other ones. And along with the examples, they give us an exceedingly versatile new spell that'll let you chain together several other ones in a trap, like contingency, only on an area rather than you. The screenshots don't work particularly well in this case, but everything else is pretty fun. They chose good source material to work with this month.


Nodwick fights the slave lords series. But he's still working like a slave himself. Oh the irony.


Coming attractions: The Forgotten Realms enjoy more than half of this month's releases, with an adventure and 2 novels. Dungeon of Death sees old skool dungeoncrawling return to the realms as well, finally mapping out a place mentioned ages ago. So much for maintaining the differentiation between Toril and Oerth. R. A. Salvadore's Cleric quintet gets it's third book reprinted, so they can make some more easy money. And Mel Odom finishes off their recent trilogy involving horrors from the sea. Now, how will they handle this edition change IC?

Dragonlance gets Downfall, part one of The Dhamon Saga by Jean Rabe. He ended his last trilogy a hero. Now he's just a schmuck again. It doesn't get any easier, second time around. If only the writer were actually using D&D rules.

And we also get an idea we've seen a few times fully fleshed out. Reverse Dungeon. Muahahahaha! Ahh, turning the tables and playing the monsters. That's usually pretty fun. They are still coming out with a few cool things this late in the product cycle.


What's new covers riddles as well. And provides the answer to every one of them.  


Once again, there's the definite feel that they're using up all their old material in preparation for the edition change, and this results in rather a lot of interestingly old school material, some of which they actually haven't done before. After a couple of years in which I've often felt the update couldn't come soon enough, I now find myself wanting them to hang on a few months longer. If only they could have stayed this good the whole time, then we would never have had these company problems in the first place. So 2 more months to go. Let's hope they continue to have plenty of quality articles as well as quantity.

Dragon Issue 272: June 2000


part 1/7


130(2 pages missing) They lose the magazine again at this point, having been fluctuating for a bit. What's with that. You've had it for more than half your life now. I guess it's like middle-aged people getting rid of their tattoos or something. The cover is pretty impressive again. That is one absolutely huge dragon. And it looks like they still have quite a few more dragon based articles for 2e in the time we have remaining. Let's see if these are the finely matured wine of articles, or the absolute dregs.


Scan quality: A few pages missing, slightly faded.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: This month, Dave covers the amusing topic of people attempting to claim seniority as a gamer by saying they've been playing longer, started with an earlier edition, have had longer running characters which got to higher levels, and so forth. This is particularly funny if they claim to have started with books that are older than they are. Some people never stop jockeying for status, do they? It's a game. Can you not just concentrate on having fun, and maybe recruiting more people so it's not so hard to find a group? New players who aren't jaded, and concentrate more on playing a role than gaming the system can be more fun to play with anyway. So this is another trap for the experienced player to be aware of and avoid, for unless you're Gary, that kind of pomposity will only make you risible. What really is the value of playing the same elf for 40 years? (Well, if you're Leonard Nimoy, a good few million. ) Is it worthy of respect? Does anything really matter in the long run? Damnnit, I'm getting into existential crisis mode again. Let's embrace the illusion that what I'm doing matters on any level for a little longer, for quitting past the 3/4 mark would be a terrible waste that would nag at me for the rest of my life.


D-Mail: We start off with a letter from someone who's decidedly worried about the drastic changes it looks like 3e is making, and is rather leery about switching over. As usual, they do their best to convince him, and by extension, all the other readers that are still on the shelf, for their livelihoods depends on it.

We then have one from someone who wasn't particularly keen on their latest annual, but likes issues 267 & 268 a lot. They should try harder for their special issues, not get bogged down in messing around.

After that, Skip's rulings on paralysis get picked at. Any errors are because he's trying to hold two rulesets in his head at once, and may premptively put out some of the fixes the next edition makes. Trust his wisdom, for he knows where the problem areas are and wants to solve them even more than you do.

And finally, we have some grumbling about the guy from issue 268 who scared his players with a real tarantula when their characters encountered giant spiders. That's so not fair! Well, no, but life isn't fair. You still have to deal with it, one way or another.


Nodwick is still the smart one in the team. Maybe. If he was really smart, he'd have quit by now.


Forum: Scott Wylie Roberts gives his opinion on the 3e previews so far. Many of them are not positive. Iterative attacks in particular come under fire for looking like a hassle to remember and apply. He also wants the bloated Forgotten Realms killed and Greyhawk to get plenty of supplements next edition. I'm so sorry.

Krag Kadera (perfect dwarf name) wants energy drain made temporary. It annoys the players far less to do so. No shit sherlock. The big question then becomes if you want to really scare and annoy your players sometimes.

Steve Hammer thinks weapons having different damages to different size creatures is pointless and illogical. That should definitely be on the chopping block for 3e.

Keely Markham tells us about his parties draconic employer, who may also have them for dinner sometime soon. They're taking to undermountain to try and get some xp before that happens. Good luck leveling up quick enough.

Dragon Issue 272: June 2000


part 2/7


ProFiles: Andy Collins is another one of the new recruits, who would go on to be the old guard by the time of the next edition change. He actually joined WotC shortly before they took over TSR, and so got into the biggest gaming company by the back door. He doesn't seem that interested in talking about D&D at the moment, having gone straight from working on Alternity to the new Star Wars d20 game. Still, there's plenty of time for that. Like several of our newer writers, the shock from working with industry giants hasn't quite worn off yet, and he's amazed he got this far. Well, if he were actually an egotistical twat, they'd hardly say it in this magazine, would they. Another pretty solid entry that would still turn out very different if they were writing it today.


Up on a soapbox: We've already stood up for the much maligned hack and slash playstyle here. The next logical step is doing the same for Dungeon Crawling. This is somewhat easier to excise from your game than combat. Even in the most political of games, the threat of danger and the possibility of succeeding or failing at your plans is what gives your games real excitement. On the other hand, a site based challenge that you clear out and then don't return too is very much a D&D thing. But since Gary popularised the idea, of course he's going to present it as an essential part of your roleplaying experiences that you should never entirely outgrow. Yeah, once again he's being intentionally polarising largely as a way of provoking debate. I have a sudden urge to dub the trololo song over his appearance in Futurama. Still, as with Ed's perverseness, it's a lot more interesting than most of their writers, and shows that a culture does need elder statesmen who can get away with saying stuff a lot of people are thinking, but are afraid too. And since getting back to the dungeon was one of the 3e taglines, there's still plenty of ground roots support for this playstyle. You do need to recognise when a fashion has been taken as far as it can go and switch to the next wave or wipe out.


Countdown to 3rd edition: 2 months to go. Things are really heating up now, as they cover two classes this month. Barbarians have been pretty much completely rewritten for 3e. Their old nature survival themed powers have been exchanged for RAGE and the toughness and agility to survive as a frontline fighter without heavy armor. Eventually they get damage reduction, which was an exceedingly rare power before, but many monsters and a reasonable minority of characters will now be able to shrug off an infinite number of scratches. They're definitely a lot more combat focussed than they used to be. Rangers haven't changed as much on a conceptual level, but the implementation of their powers has been remixed quite a bit. Their spell selection is slightly bigger, their favored enemy power now scales nicely, and they're no longer restricted by alignment. They're just getting the general upgrade all of the classes are. This isn't as interesting as the last few, because it doesn't reveal some big aspect of the new rules, just little details. Next month's teaser, on the other hand? Brand new class ahoy. The readers have a full month to speculate about that.


Bahamut & Tiamat: The 3e teasers escalate with our first full monster statblocks. And pretty significant they are too. After all, the big bosses of the good and evil dragons took a break for an entire edition, only showing avatars in Monster Mythology. But since 3e is pushing the player empowerment in a fairly significant way, you once again have a chance of killing gods. Not that it'll be an easy fight, even at 20th level though, for their stats are in numbers you simply didn't see in earlier editions. The players may be stronger, but the monsters are beefed up too. So this gives you a pretty good warning of just how big high level statblocks get in 3e, and how they've changed the general format for monsters. The teasers may have shown us bits and pieces, but this gives you a far more complete picture. It is indeed a pretty significant step. Shame we won't see any letter responses to it before the actual books are out, given their response time.


PC Portraits: Last year we had dragonslayers in this column. This time it's dragonriders. Another of those cases where you put characters from the two groups in the same party, they will probably end up fighting. They're all pretty heavily armoured, and a couple of them are protecting their eyes as well. Well, full-grown dragons are generally more than strong enough to carry a whole party without seriously reducing their speed. And if you're fighting other dragons or similar high level threats, you need all the protection you can get. You can still adorn yourself with bright colours and precious jewelery, and do spectacular stunt flying, but without some pragmatism, you won't last many fights.