Dragon Issue 274: August 2000


part 4/7


Rogues & Royal: Finally, we have the big list of dramatis personae. The Robin Hood legend is very much an ensemble story, with different people getting more or less prominence in different retellings, sometimes being skipped entirely. So there's a lot of ground to cover here, and I'm sure some people will disagree with these stats. Let's get cracking, show them a few more examples of how different characters can be under the new edition.

Robin of Loxley is the most probable historical source for the Robin Hood myth. A middle class small landowner siding with peasants against the upper class? We must make an example of him! Trouble is, everyone loves a good common folk against The Man story, even most of the people who are part of the 1%. Hell, even tyrannical dictators will portray themselves as common folks made good who freed the common people from out of touch aristocracy the previous regime. Anyway, he's split fairly evenly between ranger and rogue, with all his feats enhancing his longbow skills. He should be very capable of shooting you from the trees where you'll have trouble attacking back. (unless you set the forest on fire ) And what knight would do a thing like that?

Robert of Huntingdon is the other big candidate for the Robin Hood mantle. A framed nobleman trying to clear his name, he's not so good at the woodsman part of being an outlaw, but is just as good with a bow, using his fighter bonus feats for all sorts of stunt shooting. We even get an example of how both could fit into the same continuity. Very interesting indeed.

Little John has an appropriately high Str and Con, and specialisation in the quarterstaff. He might be able to beat Robin in a fight, but still follows him loyally. Which makes him very useful indeed. Even a few extra people make everyday life a lot easier in a community.

Maid Marian is rather lower level than most of the men, which means yup, she's gonna need rescuing alright. She actually seems more prone to executive meddling as well, with different authors dramatically changing her backstory and personality. Well, when you're a tacked on love interest, that's the kind of crap you have to deal with. At least you got to be the main star in one TV series.

Will Scarlet is very much the Lancer in Robin's team, capable but sometimes rebellious. Eventually, he pays for that impetuousness with his life. Lieutenants eh? Who'd have 'em. Seems like they're always trouble in stories. Someone ought to make a pill to treat grand vizier syndrome before it gets out of hand.

Friar Tuck is a multiclass cleric/rogue, which means he can keep up quite nicely with the others despite his girth, and leaven his spiritual guidance with plenty of humour. That's definitely a lesson many players of clerics need to learn. You get more worshippers with healings than smitings, and you certainly don't have to hold yourself above your flock.

Alan-a-Dale doesn't play a big part in the story, wandering in and out, and sometimes being the narrator. However much a musician may agree with the general cause, they're still going to be of more use getting the public on your side than hanging out in the forest for months at a time worried about getting caught.

The Sheriff of Nottingham is the villain everyone remembers and loves to hate. Probably because he was the one that was most successful at hunting them down, before he got killed in turn. He sure does have a lot of cross class skills. In fact, I'm pretty sure they don't add up. Tut tut. Shoulda given him a few levels of Expert so he could legally be the well rounded human being you'd like him to be.

Much the Miller's son is the nice but dim guy who pretends to be completely innocent about Robin's whereabouts, but is actually helping him out on the sly. As a perfect example of the common man they're trying to protect, he helps to ground the outlaws. I know several adventuring groups that could do with a similar reminder.

Hugo de Rainaut is the corrupt abbot who actually appears in more old stories than the Sheriff, but somehow fell out of fashion over the centuries. What's up with that? I know Disney can do a decent evil clergyman. (frololololol lololol lololo ) Maybe it's because the conflict's not personal for him, he's just a greedy git. Or maybe it's because abbot isn't as cool a title as sheriff. Who can say.

Sir Guy of Gisburn is the Abbot's own Starscream, an ambitious but cowardly chappie who'd like to be in charge, but to be honest isn't nearly smart enough to pull it off. Like Prince John, even if he did succeed, he wouldn't be able to hold onto that power. Such a tragedy

King Richard the Lionheart is generally represented as heroic, but you do have to wonder about someone who spent so much time and effort avoiding his responsibilities at home to go kill people. Well, it makes for better stories if he was a good guy, just negligent and bound by family loyalty against his own better judgement. Anyway, he's a pretty high level paladin here, so if you can find him, you can probably persuade him to come back and put things right for a while.

Prince John fit the archetype of the weaker scheming brother who'd really like to be in charge, but couldn't handle it when he did get power to a tee. After all, this is the guy who pissed off his noblemen so much they said "Screw this divine right of kings malarkey, we're going to make a treaty saying what a ruler can and cannot do." and started us down the long path to most hereditary monarchs becoming mere sinecures in the modern age. The path to freedom is over the bodies of failed tyrants. Still a battle we have to worry about today, but at least strikes, letter campaigns and DoS attacks don't kill as many people in the process.

Sir Richard of the Lee (partnered with Sir Stuart of the Herring) is a knight who's been stuck in debt to Abbot Hugo, and is sympathetic to Robin's cause. This means he needs helping out. After all, having some friends in higher places makes it much less likely you'll be caught for good.

Baron Isambart de Belame is a dark wizard who was probably tacked on afterwards by people who wanted Robin to have a more supernatural adversary. He'll pull all kinds of tricks to get to Robin and his men. Careful with deals with the devil. You know they'll bite you on the ass in the end.

Sir Roger of Doncaster is his decidedly unpleasant lackey, who almost managed to finish Robin off once. If this were a more supernatural setting, he'd probably have a few levels of blackguard. Guess we'll have to skip the spiky black platemail with glowing red eyes this time.

So this article did take quite a bit of effort to complete, but like the geography article, there was a lot of information here, quite a bit of which I didn't know before. As with arthurian myth, (hmm, playing Robin hood using Pendragon, that's an idea) there's tons of information that the average person doesn't know, and gets left out of many retellings. And since the writers have drawn on sources both old and new, it's obvious they know their stuff. I definitely feel enlightened by this.


Indispensable: In theory, the DM is supposed to be a fair and impartial adjudicator of the fantastical world. If you win you win, and if you lose, you lose. In practice, unless running a tournament module, that is rarely the case. Firstly, when the DM is the person creating the challenges anyway, they will naturally tailor them to the party they're playing with, and most DM's secretly want the PC's to win. You can encourage that by appealing to their sense of story. If they like you personally, you make yourself valuable, or they have long term plans for your character, then they're more likely to fudge to keep you alive, and throw the most interesting plot threads your way. Once again, Robin Laws examines not the rules, but the social contract that underpins these rules, and has become increasingly obvious over the course of 2e as we see more campaigns that want to tell a story, and tell the DM to break the rules to keep the players alive. Essentially what he's doing is pulling what was previously implicit into the light, so we can consciously manipulate it. Which will have all kinds of consequences over the next decade as we see narrativist games designed which include detailed rules for social interaction and the flow of a session, and make relationships more important than physics in how the game universe runs, while causing vast amounts of flamewars in the process. So he's being both exceedingly interesting and rather influential here. While this won't really make it's mark on D&D that much, with encounter based powers, healing surges and action points pacing your adventure more on a scene by scene basis than a real time one being probably the most notable effect on 4e; it's impact on the wider roleplaying world will be quite noticeable. It looks like he's really making his name at the moment, and I'm very interested to see what he contributes to future issues.

Dragon Issue 274: August 2000


part 5/7


Plotbending: What a tweest! Yes, it's an article about throwing sudden curveballs in your story, just when the players think they know what's coming. A natural disaster, an alien invasion, an outbreak of war, anything that reminds them that it's a big complicated world out there, and both hero and villain's plans are but leaves in the winds of the universe. Or if you're really cruel, you can do the ghosts & goblins twist and have them think they've almost beaten the villain, only to find they need to go all the way back to get the macguffin, and then do the rest of the quest again, only harder. :devil: Or if you have a REALLY clever villain, they could just be spreading rumors about a secret weakness they don't have, to send would be heroes on a wild goose chase which'll hopefully get them killed or secretly advance their plans. Or would that just be too cruel, even for players that have solved the Tomb of Horrors? I think I'm willing to risk it, just for the amount of maniacal laughter I could wring from the results. All's fair in love and DM'ing, and I like this article quite a lot.


The hero with 1d1000 faces: This article too is pretty useful whatever edition you choose to play, or even if you're playing a different RPG entirely. After all, the last time they gave us a random adventure generator, it was literally a joke. This is much better, although since it only has 10 options in each section of the plot, it will get repetitive and the players will be able to predict what's likely to happen if it's overused. Still, with 7 sections, some of which you roll on multiple times, getting exactly the same plot will be less than one in a million, just like getting the same dungeon using the ancient random dungeon generator. So this is good not only as an article, but as a means of affirming they still care about their old readers, the ones who were there since the start and never entirely bought into shifting characters to point buy and making everything fit into a big neat story arc. Even with all the 3rd party stuff removed, they still have to balance the demands of people who want to play D&D, only with quite different playstyles.


Fiction: Power and glory by Ben Bova. Orion continues to defy his master and do his best to keep Arthur alive, not sure what effect this will have in the long run, but still determined not to be just a mindless attack dog. Although in the process of doing so, this means he probably kills far more people personally than if he were being a good little assassin. That's being a hero for you. Kill one person stealthily and they won't stop hunting you. Kill hundreds publicly and they give you a medal. My now terminal cynicism aside, this is a pretty good entry in this series, making Orion smart enough to make a difference without having the solution handed to him on a plate, but not enough to get out of his predicament entirely. Things are moving forward for him and arthur, but there's still room for quite a few stories before this vein of myths is tapped out, and he'll have to move onto another incarnation.


Nodwick finally stops going after slavers, and follows up on the GDQ storyline. Into the earth we go.


The bestiary loses it's dragon. Now that's a new one on me. Remember, dragons got you famous. Without them, you're nothing, just a second rate imitator. Anyway, our first bestiary under the new rules is a Greyhawk one, reinforcing that it's going to be the default setting for this edition, and it's a while before that objective gets diluted into meaninglessness. A couple of issues ago we went off to Iuz's lands. This time it's the Pomarj, last given lots of love in issue 167. And it still looks like they're trying to integrate them into the surroundings, rather than this just being a nominal home.

Grimorian are basically slightly more proactive komodo dragons. They bite you once, then let the vile stuff in their mouth do the rest. What's wrong with using the real creature if you aren't going to make any particularly large alterations?

Raknakle are creepy looking rock fae with a decent selection of powers to control their environment and make your life a misery while escaping easily if you attack back. Take out their environment to deal with them.

Skerath are another one that showcase their new poison system, that's more lenient than the old one but still no-where near as weedy as next edition's, as well as the handy concentration check mechanic. Little flying insects, they're quite suitable foes for 1st level characters. Well, the MM won't be out for 2 months. Some people'll be trying to play with just the PH and the stuff in here, so they've got to make it useful.

Skittermaw are yet another low level creature with poison effects. Leading with that many creatures with save or suffer powers certainly sends a message. Since this whole thing feels quite calculated in the changes they've made to the format, turning things full colour, playing up their actions in combat, reducing the size of statblocks while still fitting just as much info in, it does feel like an improvement, at least for now. And they're certainly not a bad collection of baddies to have your first battles under the new system against. Now, if they could just revert the name.


The adventures of Volo loses it's new. Reasonable, I suppose, given the amount of time it's been running. The footnotes move to the bottom of the page, and the whole thing gets ink-spattered in a slightly illegible fashion. Can't say I think this is an overall improvement.

Our topic this month dials back the snark and replaces it with a little prurience. The Stag lass is an interesting little Waterdhavian custom which has definite shades of hazing ritual to it, and involves the consumption of large quantities of alcohol by said lass and the other participants. It has slightly hazy origins, but has come to serve as both a cultural celebration, and a way for young women in a bit of trouble to gain some allies and hopefully a way out via an act of chutzpah. This has the strong air of something stolen and adapted from reality, and is yet another thing that can serve as a minor bit of flavour, or the driver for a particular plot. And as with last issue, it's completely system free, so it doesn't matter if you're planning to convert immediately or not. Is there a calendar in any of the books that marks when all these festivals are, as that would be very useful by this point.

Dragon Issue 274: August 2000


part 6/7


Forum becomes pale green. Their new question is obviously what you think of 3e, now you have your grubby little mitts on it. I think the new look is a bit of a legibility hit compared to the last one.

Nathaniel Broyles enjoyed his historical norse campaign, but knows variety is the spice of life. Next time, the players'll be going through something quite different.

Joe Giammarco points out stories other than Tolkien that also used adventuring parties, dungeons, and elves. Yes, but Tolkien put them all together and did them better. It's like saying shakespeare stole most of his plots from older sources as well.

Rich Haton found using books as inspiration worked better when he twisted them round a bit, and let the players take the story in different directions. Without imagination, the best sources can be made dull and constricting.

Jim Castlebury pretty much got rid of resurrection, but still allows reincarnation. That way, death still involves huge changes to your character akin to Dr Who, and is not to be taken lightly. Interesting spin to put on it.

Seanchai! I didn't know our long-banned mod interrogator managed to get a letter published in here! He's purely positive in this one too, heaping praise upon the sorcerer. It's easily the best part of the new edition. You can finally play dumb spellslingers. Woo!

Eric Wessels is bewildered by Scott Wylie's attitude to the rules. It sounds to him like he's had very bad and irritating players. You probably need to fix them more than you do the rules.


PC Portraits: Weirdly enough, although this column isn't in colour, the backdrop is, and it looks like they set the filter to semitransparent when they overlaid the pictures. Since that makes them an odd grey/purple colour, that does hurt their customisability a bit. The artwork is by Todd Lockwood, and is very dungeonpunk indeed. This seems like them consciously trying to make a break, and maybe going a bit overboard. You shouldn't have to sacrifice the practical aspects of the layout just to be different. I suppose like punk sacrificing technical skill on the altar of youth disaffection, it'll only be temporary. The novelty will wear off and people will want to get back to doing practical stuff.


Role models: This column decides to take the edition neutral approach. But it is heavily promoting their new minis, which are 3e flavored (celestial eagle in the first set only makes sense if you know the rules' quirks. ) Ral Partha? Grenadier? Games Workshop? They can take care of themselves. We're doing it for ourselves now. And you still have to put them together yourself. How very Thatcherite. So this is moderately distasteful, and doesn't have nearly the fun factor of the earlier promotional material. Give us all your money, and then get to painting, peasants! Why has this column started sucking so badly? Are they trying to get it cancelled like they have so many other decent ones? Ugh! I don't want to deal with this.


Sage advice: Skip leaps onto 3rd edition without hesitation. Guess he's already been getting questions based upon the teasers. That or he's fabricated what he thought would likely be some of the first questions. No, Skip wouldn't do a thing like that. Skip is a sage with integrity. That's not going to stop him from adopting a new outfit, with all the belts, pouches and buckles a proper 3rd edition character should have though. Guess he thinks it looks cool too.

How does a multiclassed character calculate skill points. (Only multiply by 4 for your first level, not the first level of each class. Yes, that means if you take rogue first, you'll be strictly better than if you did it the other way around. Skip views this as a feature, not a bug, as it encourages twinking. )

If I have a dwarf Ftr6/Rog1 and add a level of cleric, I don't suffer a penalty, do I (no)

Why do half orcs have a net penalty to their ability scores. (because high strength is sooo much more important than int or cha. Again, feature, not bug. )

What exactly does refocus do (you give up this round's action to go first next round. It's not usually worth it. )

Isn't readying an action more useful than refocusing (both have their uses. A tactically astute player should be able to figure that out. )

Do full attacks all go off at the same time (yes. It's easier that way, especially now initiative is cyclical.

How do you move away without suffering attacks of opportunity (oh, let Skip count the ways. So many tricks you can pull. Tactics are fun.)

Do you have to ready an action to disrupt a spellcaster. (No. Ahh, the wonders of attacks of opportunity. Grappling is also very effective, as most spellcasters suck at it. )

Do you need to make a concentration check if an attack against you misses (no)

How does two weapon fighting interact with iterative attacks (add one at your highest base, then subtract the two-weapon penalty from everything. )

Are natural 1's & 20's automatic misses and hits (For some rolls, but not others)

What are the new rounding rules (Down, unless specifically said otherwise, minimum of 1. )

Why don't empowered magic missiles shoot more missiles (because that's not a variable number)

Can you use detect magic or evil to detect invisible things ( Not easily, just like in previous editions. )

Can spell immunity make you immune to detect magic (no)

Can you take improved critical in unarmed strike (it would be just mean to nerf monks like that, so no)

Why doesn't your movement rate change as much when you're overloaded (Greater realism :teeth ting: We were tired of quarter speed plate fighters keeping everyone else from retreating)

Do magic weapons have to be masterwork first (yes. The spirits will turn their nose up at you otherwise)

Can you turn a normal weapon into a masterwork weapon (You can shave a pig and put it in a dress, but it's still a pig, no matter how much makeup you put on. )  

What level do magic items work at (caster level, or minimum needed to cast the spells into it. Not much change from last time)

What skills can you take 10 or 20 on (The ones that don't matter too much. )

Also notable are the power play's scattered throughout this section, by Sean K Reynolds. Here we see more evidence that this time round, the designers explicitly encourage you to search for combos of powers that optimize your capabilities, where a few years ago, they would look down on this kind of rules-lawyerly behaviour. That's a definite sea-change in gaming philosophy, and fuel for people who said 3rd ed was a game for twinks and munchkins. That is interesting to note.

Dragon Issue 274: August 2000


part 7/7


Dungeoncraft: This column goes black and red, making it indeed look like a dungeon where a certain amount of torture has taken place. But the writing isn't torturous at all, as this is one of those issues where he gives several subjects short essays rather than going on about one. First, there's the basic question of whether you'll run your game in 1st person or 3rd person perspective. Now that's the kind of obvious question that most people'll simply answer unconsciously, when learning to control it could make a real difference to the tone. True genius. It's something you can do instantly at virtually no effort. The other two parts, timekeeping and pacing, are more complex and connected. Coming up with a way of keeping track of time, particularly if the party splits up, is always a good idea. And keeping things moving at the right speed to engage the players is crucial. We've had articles giving advice on both of these before, sometimes quite good. Ray uses a fairly simple method of marking the amount of time each action takes as you go using a scratch pad, which works pretty well when the party is all together, but as I've said, you'll need to push the envelope a bit if the party separates for an extended period of time. Still, two simple, unambiguous and easy to implement solutions to problems in one article? That's worth the price of admission. Why waffle when you can get things done instead.


Silicon sorcery: Our topic this month is a problem that's fairly specific to D&D and the CRPG's that descend from it. Inventory bloat. Something about the structure of D&D and the way it awards treasure and XP leads players to acquire ever growing lists of stuff that many players wind up never using, and sometimes struggle to keep track of at all. You never see that in Vampire, even if the characters do have hundreds of xp. Fortunately, there are ways to manage this a little better. And computers certainly do help. When everything is automatically in one place, alphabetised and searchable, it instantly makes referencing way faster than thumbing through a whole bunch of supplements, trying to find which actually has the item and tells you what it does. This provides several other methods to speed play as well, which gives you a decent amount of choice. And then it backconverts a bunch of new magical items from the new Pool of Radiance game. Most of them are combat based, but they do have some quirks to them, based on what monsters you're likely to be facing in the game. And at the moment, we need magic items and monsters badly. So this is another article that covers a couple of topics in a small space, and that'll be handy both in the long and short term. This magazine is really proving itself valuable again.


What's new also covers robin hood. Man, it aint easy being a hero in D&D land. The snail is also back again.


I'm not that keen on the new visuals, but most of the articles this issue are very good indeed, striking a good balance between showing us the new system, and providing system free material that'll still be useful for any game. Plus the general feeling of grind that pervaded the last few years of the magazine is gone, with the writers being genuinely enthusiastic about the new edition and all the things they can do that they couldn't before. Even knowing about the flaws in 3e that only became apparent with longer play, it's hard to not be swept up by that enthusiasm. So here's me hoping that takes a few years to wear off, and heading off to the next issue with a whistle and a spring in my step.

Dragon Issue 275: September 2000


part 1/7


132 pages. The price drops back, but not quite all the way, to $4.99. Sneaky. How much more are you going to get from those 4 cents an issue? 50-60,000 copies an issue, that's maybe a couple of thousand dollars, less when you consider the subscribers won't feel the raise until later. But anyway, it looks like this issue'll be show off how much better fighty types have it under the new edition. Or at least how many more options they have, which is almost the same thing. Let's enjoy our Half-Orc paladins and whatnot while they remain novel, before people slip back into the habit of sticking with classes their racial ability modifiers synergise with.


Scan quality: Good, unindexed.


In this issue:


Wyrm's turn: No surprise that defying cliches, and the new edition's support of this is the subject of the editorial. You have vast amounts of new shinies! Take advantage of them! But seriously, it's not just about the powergaming. 3e offers opportunities to make your characters different from other members of the same class and race and subvert stereotypes in a way previous editions simply couldn't. And they're going to keep working to make sure the visuals match that mood. Basically, they're playing up the punk aspect of dungeonpunk this month. All you prog rock dinosaurs can go off and play with your flowers, maaan. Your story has totally been told already. Well, this certainly looks like it could be either amateurish or contentious, both of which are fun for me to look at. And if they can produce good stories while avoiding stereotypes, then they'll definitely deserve praise.


Scale Mail: Our letters this month are pretty much unanimously in praise of the new edition. The first one praises pretty much everything but the reduction of ecology info in the monster statblocks, but particularly the back to the dungeon attitude. They say there'll still be plenty of ecologies in the magazine to make up for this. And the old notes continue to be useful whatever edition you're playing. It's the new players who never read them you'll have to watch out for.

The second one is all about how awesome the new rules look. They can't wait to collect ALL THE RULES! Who are we to stop them?

Next we have one looking back instead of forward, praising issue 272 and most of the articles therin. They must admit the new Bahamut & Tiamat look a bit daunting though. Muahaha. Yes, they are pretty powerful. Set a bunch of optimised 20th level PC's against them and they'll still go down in a few rounds.

And finally, we have a lengthy and verbosely written letter about the study of history. One that thinks ancient people might have been smarter than modern ones, which is a bit amusing. There is still a lot we don't know about history though. That much is true. Best thing we can do is record as much as we can now, hope future generations learn from our mistakes.


Up on a soapbox: This month Gary celebrates two things that I'm sad to say the new edition cuts down on. Low level fragility, and support for long term play. If you have it too easy from the start, you'll never learn how to play it smart and not throw tantrums when you lose like a responsible adult. And if you always win at combat you'll never learn that negotiating or running away can often be better solutions. Plus if you get rewarded too easily, you'll get bored with the game sooner and move onto another one. So this is half valid life lesson, half darn kids, gitoffa mah lawn, and very worth thinking about. Teaching your kids that the world is often hard, and you have to work for unreliable rewards is a better life lesson than handing everything to them on a plate, and then suddenly forcing them to sink or swim at some point when you can't or don't want to support them any longer. And adventures that have multiple solutions, including leaving things open for trying tricks the writers didn't think of are more engaging in play than linear ones that break if you don't follow the rails, and offer more learning opportunities that can be applied to real life. Course, you don't have to make all your play training for reality, especially after you're an adult, and deal with that crap day in day out, but still, better to use time efficiently than not. I approve of this message.


Profiles almost completely decapitalises. Monte Cook is another of the primary architects of the new system, and is obviously full of praise for it. Plenty of familiar elements are hinted at here. His desire to produce a campaign world based on The Land from Stephen Donaldson's books, which would become Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. That he runs two games a week in his own setting, which was used as one of the primary playtesting places for 3rd edition, and is of course Ptolus. And the usual stuff about his history working for I.C.E, and then on the Planescape line. Unlike some of our employees, who are too busy working to play the game they're actually working on, he's got plenty of actual play experience to help him hone his rules design skills, develop his settings in useful ways, and keep his enthusiasm going. It's a formula that works for Ed Greenwood, and it's one that works for him. There must always be time for fun, no matter how hard you're working. If there isn't, you're in the wrong job.

Dragon Issue 275: September 2000


part 2/7


Nodwick comes this close to snapping.

Once again, a huge chunk of adverts are put near the front, before we get to see any actual features. This is a rather silly development. We're just going to skip through them.


Previews: You know what's first up this month. The Dungeon Master's Guide. Essential corebook and all that. No need to go into detail on this one. Also unsurprisingly, this month's peripherals are connected to that. A DM's screen. And our first official 3rd ed adventure. The Sunless Citadel. So now it gets a little easier to actually play the game, particularly since you have at least all the monsters in there statted out. Hopefully that'll keep you from going mad 'til next month.

Our various settings also get a reasonable amount of love. Greyhawk gets reaffirmed as the core setting for this edition with the D&D Gazetteer.  Course, it's done by Skip Williams, and if you've been reading this thread, you know what crap he's put in here before. No more comedy relief gargoyles, ok? The Realms and Dragonlance enjoy their usual quota of novels. The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey and Children of the Plains by Paul Thompson & Tonya Cook. Things continue to get set up for the rules changes in the game. Baldur's gate II also gets novelised. Surprised they haven't done a module based on it too. Probably too big and combat heavy if strictly converted.


Dork tower takes advantage of the edition change to upgrade their characters.


Unusual suspects: So all classes are open to all races now? This is a fairly substantial change, and needs some following up. So they take what used to be the most restricted classes - Barbarians, Paladins and Rangers, and give us a wide range of concepts for all the various demihuman races to show how they could fit into the classes if you so desire. They're being consciously inclusive and can-do, inviting us to try things they would have sneered at officially a few years ago, and unlike the introduction of Power Plays and character optimisation as a game in itself, this is entirely to be welcomed. It may not seem like such a big deal now, but it was resisted for quite a while, so they do need to make that extra effort to get everyone on board. Down with fantasy Racism! Up with equal opportunities! The punk aspect seems ever more appropriate here. Which means this is entertaining, and needed at the time, but not so useful in retrospect.


PC Portraits: We've already had some fighter centric portrait collections, such as issue 257. But of course it's a new edition, and new art stylings. Which means people have more asymmetrical outfits, tattoos, piercings, braids, straps, and similar interesting adornments that will make them stand out, but not necessarily be practical. So once again, this is oh so very of it's time, and reflects that they did feel the need to exaggerate the break from what came before and establish a new identity for themselves. The characters will remain useful whenever you feel the desire to add a little dungeonpunk to your setting. Only you can decide if you want that though.


How to design a feat: Ah yes, feats. One of the most contentious parts of 3e design. The point buy character design method attempted in Skills & Powers had proven not too popular, and maybe took the focus away from class archetypes too much. (as well as being an open invitation to min-max the hell out of the game. ) Yet they did want to make 3e characters more flexible customisable and balanced than old ones. So feats occupy a kind of middle ground in terms of complexity. You don't have to worry about crunching vast numbers of points or saving up to buy an expensive ability, it's always one feat per slot. And they aren't class specific, although many will be useless unless you are a particular class, like the metamagic feats. But some are almost definitely better than others, and you will have to do quite a bit of planning ahead to get hold of the ones with complex prerequisites. But those are my thoughts in hindsight. Their discussion of what you do with feats, how you create them and how you balance them has some different concerns, such as designing it with the most abusive cases in mind, not the average player, and making sure something isn't better just because it's more specific. This is very high density, and there's a lot to analyse, cite, and use as fuel for internet arguments. Plus it includes two new feats that will make it into future books. So it's a good peek into the thoughts of the official writers, and like the last two articles, valuable as a historical artifact. It's very worthy of noting for later reference.


The right tool for the job: No surprise that we have an article on exotic weapons, now the distinction has been introduced. Of course, to justify spending a whole feat slot on one, they need to be more useful in some reasonably significant way than regular simple and martial weapons. And taking a look at these, it's mixed bag. Boomerangs only come back if they miss the enemy, Sais are great at disarming, Scourges do three little attacks per round, great scimitars extra damage compared to 2 handed sword will add up quite a bit over time. They are useful, just maybe not useful enough. This illustrates another thing that would evolve over the course of 3e. Realising that 7 feats over 20 levels just isn't enough, more and more classes included bonus feat selections, and many D20 variants increased the progression to 1 per 2 levels, or even faster in the case of True20. In the meantime, we have quite a few speedbumps and newbie traps to work though, some unintentional. Quite a bit of this fits that bill, I'm afraid.

Dragon Issue 275: September 2000


part 3/7


Miscellaneous mishaps: We've delved into the intricacies of the new rules enough for one issue. Now it's time to cater to the people who want general articles suitable for any edition, or even other games. And if you guessed from the title that this is another random encounter table then you are absolutely right. This one is a fairly mundane one, giving you two tables, one for travelling along roads, and the other for rivers, and all the encounters are people of various classes or natural animals and phenomena. Probably the most interesting part is the bits to determine what's in a random barrel or crate, which can stump a DM who's otherwise well prepared for an adventure on occasion. This seems like a good one for a DM who wants a few more mundane encounters to break up the monsters, and make a place seem less deadly. After all, you can't have a sustainable civilisation when the chance of meeting man-eating monsters on the road is more than 25% per day of travel. Everyone would stick to grotty walled cities which tried to be as self sufficient as possible. Which doesn't sound like my idea of fun.


Instant heraldry: Time for another returning topic. Issues 53, 154, and 199 had articles on heraldry of various kinds. Now it's this decade's turn to shine the spotlight on a small but significant part of medieval knighthood. Hell, everyone apart from rogues enjoys having a good logo, and even they can have gang symbols they spray on a joint when they aren't being all secretive. Since it's been 7 years, we're starting off with one of those articles aimed at absolute beginners, getting them involved as quickly and easily as possible. How to accomplish this? Pregens! Yup, it's 48 basic backdrops for you to select from, and some random tables to determine what creatures and objects go on top. That'll get you in the game in just a couple of minutes, especially if the players just inherited their coat of arms from their parents, rather than getting to pick an appropriate one for themselves. Plus it'll give them extra motivation to get out and make a name for themselves. Can't go letting the family down, can we? So this is another article that'll be instantly useful for any edition of D&D, and quite a few other games (especially Pendragon or WHFRP) as well. They're definitely getting the balancing act right so far.


Historical Heraldry: Having done the quick-play article, we have a second, rather longer and more involved heraldry article. This is definitely an instance where their greater degree of colour and printing precision helps them do better than the previous articles decades ago, letting them not only explain all the various patterns, shapes and adornments, but clearly illustrate them all in full colour and quite a bit of detail. It shows how coats of arms will be altered based on your deeds, and your position in the family. I definitely found this more interesting than the previous attempts at covering this topic, quite a bit of which can be attributed to the artist, but also to the comprehensiveness of the research. Despite being a fairly long article, it still feels very densely packed indeed, trying to tell us as much as possible. (after all, they're probably trying to condense several books worth of information. ) Between the two articles, I definitely think we have a more solid grounding in the topic than we used to. And now back to the fantastical stuff.


Hooked: Robin Laws encourages you to blur the roles between player and DM a bit more. Why should the DM decide what the adventures are? Create characters who have a mission, who's desires are more specific than kill things and take their stuff, and simply by pursuing those goals, they'll make things easy for the DM because all they have to do is set suitable obstacles in the way. The main problem then comes if characters have desires which conflict with one another, or one player winds up getting most of the spotlight because their character is simply more interesting and proactive than the rest. I think this illustrates pretty well why some types of games work better with small groups, and others with large parties, possibly with players playing multiple characters. And once again, what he's saying here will be influential, with indie games (and exalted) where your character's motivations are actual stats on your character sheet and you have mechanical effects for following, fulfilling or going against them. So for several issues in a row, he's been hitting it out the park now and this continues that run of thought provoking influential articles. It's great to see how this stuff got introduced into the mainstream. (or as mainstream as roleplaying gets, anyway)


The definitive D&D soundtrack: An article combining music and roleplaying? Aww hell yeeeeah. This is relevant to my interests. I really am very surprised that for all the many mentions of music in the past, they never did one one on just using it as a background to your game. And it is no surprise at all that Led Zeppelin are right on top of the recommendation list. While there is a definite emphasis on music of the 70's and 80's here, which I think shows the age of the author, they do talk about both older classical music, and modern electronic music as well. With a two page colour coded list of all the artists recommended, and where their music would be most appropriate, this does feel like quite a bit of though and effort was put into it's design. The fact that they have a column just for hellish music, along with the general lighthearted tone of the article makes it entertaining as well. So this is another rather cool article that's suitable for either edition, and isn't rehashed at all. I'm starting to think they were intentionally overdoing that in the last few 2e issues so it would come as more of a relief when they stopped.

Dragon Issue 275: September 2000


part 4/7


Fiction: Songbirds by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. As we've found before, the problem with powerful inscrutable supernatural creatures is that they often do have motivations other than just dicking around with humanity, and idiosyncratic weaknesses that we don't share, it's just that they aren't particularly inclined to explain themselves. And given what resourceful bastards we can be, that's quite justifiable. So it proves here, in a story when humans are entirely deserving of what's being done to them (or at least, their ancestors were, and arguing matters of collective culpability between species that have dramatically different lifespans is another interesting moral issue that has a lot of interesting stories in it.) and the fact that they don't know why this is happening means they're all the more likely to make the same mistakes again. The result is going to be a tragedy for someone, possibly everyone. And since this does go for the harsh ending, while dropping hints all through about what's been going on, I think it is pretty well written. I find myself wishing it was longer, so it had time to build the message up a bit more subtly, which is definitely a good sign.


Nodwick & co make it down to D2, the home of the drow. Things get worse from there on in. All they can do is press onwards, and hope they wind up in D3, not D02 know no limit. The abyss doesn't know what's going to hit it.


Arcane 7ore is another column suffering from the new attempts at cool, in the process looking ironically dated. The individual spells look like they've been torn out of a book, which does make them easier to distinguish, but also makes it feel more like a scrapbook than a professional product. It is a bit iffy. Since this is a new edition, it's back to the basics without shame in topic. Combat spells! Forget fashion, let's kick ass muthafunkers!

Mass Strength is bear's strength for your whole party. Seen you before, and going to see you standardised in the future. Finally, they're connecting back up to the big threads.

Weapon Shift is another updating. Slashing bad against your current enemy? Go bludgeoning instead. Simple and easy.

Rapid Strikes is a cut down version of haste. You get extra attack. That's it. A reminder that haste was only really nerfed critically in 3.5. Enjoy your revamped capabilities while you have them.

Burning Sword is one of your basic energy type damage adders that'll be so popular in neverwinter nights. More power! Bypass those annoying damage resistances!

Diamondsteel adds to your equipment's AC and Hardness. It's actually fairly unimpressive for it's level, but since it's on your stuff rather than you, it'll likely stack, which is pretty important now. For the dedicated defence specialist then

Lesser Spell Immunity is another one fairly unchanged from the old edition. ignoring one 1st or 2nd level spell? Not to be underestimated, but requires very careful choosing.

Shieldbearer makes the shield float around you, allowing you to get the full bonus of even a massive one, while still using both hands for weapons. Yeah, you really can have your cake and eat it. Wizards can cut through the knottiest impasse.

Heroics gives you a bonus fighter feat. This means they can smoke an unassisted fighter in terms of targeted versatility. Wizards might be supreme, but a party of multiple classes working together still smokes a monoculture.

Battle Hymn isn't a particularly impressive buff for it's level. Ought to have made it properly synergistic if they join in, like old versions.

Dolorous Blow gives you better crits. The making this subsystem a default opens up a whole new avenue for overlapping buffs to exploit. Yay.

Bristle gives your armor nasty spikes. This is actually scarier than last time, as they attack as well as defend. As they're pretty low level too, that's quite a nice one to add to your repertoire, especially for a multiclass fighter/mage.  

Indomitability gives you a temporary reprieve of death. Make sure you have a good cleric in the team if you don't want it to be a noble sacrifice eventually.

Hurl lets you boomerang your daggers and stuff. Invaluable if you have expensive magic weapons. One that could become a staple if you use thrown weapons at higher level. Yup. I think the back to basics approach worked this time round, even if I can spot where the spells have been done before last edition.

Dragon Issue 275: September 2000


part 5/7


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Earlier this year, we had armour made by abyssal lords, intended for the foulest of mortal villains to wear. To redress the balance, here's some suits intended for the use of Paladins. They aren't as interesting unfortunately, but at least they don't have maddening or lethal side effects.

Drachensgaard is for those paladins who would also like to be dragonslayers. Bonus to saves vs breath weapon, climb bonuses, and the ability to speak Draconic. (which won't quite compensate the heavy armour penalty. ) All seems pretty logically themed.  

Hellshield helps you resist both the temptations of fiends, and the privations of their home planes. Once again, the benefits of the new skill system are very apparent. Course, if the character hasn't put points into it, they still don't have much chance of resisting a specialist monster.

Humillianthir is a paired set of armour for you and your horse. It lets you teleport straight into the saddle. Ready for action! Brupapa pa pa dum diddydum diddydum.

Praesidum Luminata sheds magical light that buffs your buds and reveals invisible and shapeshifted creatures. As I have said many times, that's an invaluable power.

Spellcease absorbs enemy spells, although it has a fairly easy to exhaust limit. Still, you only need a few rounds, really unless they've artificially boosted their AC and hp. It'll be a lot more effective against wizards than sorcerers.

Truedeath is of course designed to kick the butts of undead. That's still one of their core competencies, so they'd be remiss if they neglected it. Still, no great surprises here. They aren't helping paladins break out of their mold much.


The adventures of Vo7o also gets 1337153d. It's all very lame. Ed gives us another quirky adventure seed for you to flesh out this month. It's pretty close to waterdeep, too, giving it yet another reason to be adventurer central, and a big city despite being miles from other civilised places. The crumbling stair is yet another abandoned place with a few monsters to kill and mysteries to plumb. The fact that many of the ghostly inhabitants are whimsical, sometimes just watching from a distance, sometimes leading you into trouble, and only occasionally attacking allows you to scale this one easily, and make revisiting it be a different experience each time. And the fact that many of the treasures encountered here are faulty or incomplete means that players may well leave behind much of what they find, keeping it a vibrant dungeon ecology. In an adventurer heavy world, the dungeons that survive and become really renowned are the ones that don't give it all away to the first schmucks who come along. Draw romance analogies as you will. Once again, despite the format change, there's no real difference in writing or usability. This could have been done any time in the past decade really.


Class acts: Our second instalment in this series drops the preamble and gets straight into the crunch, with the Duelist. Swashbuckler is always a popular archetype, and none of the base classes do it brilliantly. This is a fairly easy one to get into, with multi-classed fighter/rogue being the quickest option, but you could go  single classed if you're willing to drop a load of cross-class skills to getting in, or wait a few levels longer. While not brilliant, it makes being a fast-witted mobility fighter or more combat focussed rogue a pretty viable option. It would seem a bit redundant in a campaign which included the swashbuckler or unfettered core class, but it's certainly way better than the mystic. Remember, you've got to control which classes you allow into your game to influence the tone and style of it.


The ecology of the darkmantle: Our first proper 3e ecology is a very fitting one. A creature that's new to 3rd ed, but harks back to the very first ecology in the nature of it's biology. A creature that steals liberally from many real world things. A creature that would really annoy hundreds of starting characters with their seemingly endless ambushes in region A of the Worlds Largest Dungeon. The bloody darkmantle. They fly! They stalk! They envelop! They're a hell of a lot scarier than the piercer ever was. But they're still dumb enough to make suitable foils for Javorik and Shandrilla. Johnathan takes considerable care in tying this ecology to the old stuff, showing that not everyone is throwing out all the old stuff for the new and shiny. And once again, the heroes and the monster spend quite a bit of time being described separately, only meeting up near the end. Seems like his formulas are still working in the new era. And they've improved the artwork a bit as well. Quite pleasant reading.


Vs Go6lins: This, on the other hand, is pure powergaming tactical advice completely specific to 3e. Not that goblins are that hard to fight in any edition unless the DM is playing them really smart, but they are tougher now than they used to be. This is only a single page long, and is blunt, no-nonsense stuff that's primarily aimed at fighty sorts, since they're the ones that need extra help getting used to being able to customise your character. And since even with whirlwind attack and great cleave, they won't be able to wipe them out as fast as a good fireball, I'm still a bit meh about this. Your optimum build choices will also rapidly once we have a few supplements up as well, so it's reusability is dubious. It's a sign of their shift in priorities that I'm not to keen on.

Dragon Issue 275: September 2000


part 6/7


Dragonmirth goes from happy to angsty on the spin of a dime.


Forum isn't !££7, but is grey, which hurts the readability even more than green. Contrast is important people. Bleah.

Thomas W. Overton is hocked and shorrified at the new edition. I've been stabbed in the back by Wizard$ of the Co$t! This isn't AD&D! Well, I knew there would be some. Good to see them getting front space airtime in the magazine.

Christopher Chung, on the other hand, is all like mmm, :Drools: Third edition. As usual, they have to put opposing viewpoints next to each other to help your decision making process.

Andrew Brown hopes that most of the old material will eventually get conversions to 3rd ed. Including Chronomancer. Good luck with that.

Jeff Herrin hopes the new edition means going back to publishing great adventures like temple of elemental evil or white plume mountain. Well, technically correct, but not in spirit. Splatbooks still reign supreme.

Russ Junkin isn't amused that so many players don't know how to play halflings & gnomes properly. Short ≠ comic relief, goddammnit. Give them their dignity back and stop irritating the other players.


Ro73 Mod375?! Honestly. I never expected you of all people to start writing in 1337speak. What kind of role model do you think you're being? Goblins have never been known for good literacy, and Volo has always been intentionally annoying, but you? I am disappoint. :shakes head: This is a really insubstantial article too, with the margins moved inwards to make it seem a little less so, talking about reskinning minis. You don't have to call them what the manufacturer does. That's only an issue if the manufacturer include a name and backstory with the minis anyway. Which you only just started doing with the D&D miniatures. So basically you're solving a problem you created yourself in the first place. That's the kind of thing that makes me want to not bother. They're really straining to come up with anything to fill this column that isn't just straight promotion.


Sage advice starts to have questions on the DMG slip in as well. It'll still be another month or so before the new core rules are complete. As enthusiastic as the changeover is this time, they're still held up by logistics.

Do you get strength modifiers when set against a charge (Hell yeah. Skewering something heading straight at you takes quite a bit of strength. )

Can a charging character make attacks of opportunity (sure)

Can a tripped character make attacks of opportunity (at the normal penalty)

Can you take and ready an action in the same round (only a move action. )

Can you ready an action to do a coup de grace. (No. You should be ashamed of yourself, trying cheap shots like that. )

How much temporary ability damage can you heal in a day. (Depends how many abilities you have damaged. )

Can you swim while affected by freedom of movement (Yes. Another thing that hasn't changed with editions, despite weasel rules lawyers wishing it had. )

Can you deflect arrows when surprised (no)

What skill do you roll to recognize monsters (None. You use your characters knowledge. This is 3.0, not 3.5.)

What's the difference between a craft, profession and knowledge ( Good question. Depends how theoretical or practical your knowledge is. )

Does death touch have a saving throw (no)

What's the use of quickdraw. (getting a full attack out on the first turn can make a lot of difference. You'd be amazed. )

Does it matter which class I take first if I multiclass (Not at all :stifles sniggers: Go right ahead.)

Can you raise elves (yes. They no longer get special soulular exemption. )

Can a paralyzed person hold their breath (yes)

How the hell do you use instantaneous touch based spells (hold the charge, luke)

How long does strength loss from chill touch last (same as any other temporary ability damage. No more tracking different monsters with their own arbitrary effects. Isn't 3rd edition great. )

What happens if you're webbed and someone attacks you. (You're in trouble. Nuff said.)

How does poison interact with magical healing (It keeps on pumping through your veins, and you just can't seem to break these chains. )

If an enemy scores a crit with a poisoned attack, do you need to make two saves (no)

Can you counterspell a spell-like ability (No, nor can you be counterspelled by one)

Can I read my own sepia snake sigil to attack someone else (What? No. That's one poorly written spell. Skip will use his new sagely powers to create Official D&D™ Errata! Tah Dah! Bow chikka wow, etc.)

Do you lose control of summoned monsters in the last round of combat (no)

Does a robe of the archmagi and holy aura's SR stack (no. Best only. Stacking rules, remember.)

Dragon Issue 275: September 2000


part 7/7


Dungeoncraft: Have you been making notes on everything Ray's been telling you? It's time for your examination! A mixture of true or false, multiple choice, and open questions, this is an easy way to remind us of what he's told us over the past year and a half, and will help you get a good idea of just how much you agree or disagree with his views. Most of it is to do with playstyle rather than the rules themselves, and once again is suitable for any roleplaying game, not just D&D. As a format change, this is a nice break from the regular, and quite a few of the things here do jog my memory, so I think it still has value. When so much of the game has just changed, it's important to be reminded what remains universally applicable. And retaining and applying information is more important than just learning it for a short period. I think this was timed about right. Now let's see if he still has new information to give us next month.


Silicon Sorcery: Another D&D based video game gets it's good ideas stolen and transplanted back to the original game. Icewind Dale makes use of your race and ability scores to determine how characters react to you, limited visibility and terrain complications, and forces you to pay attention to character movement rates as a result of encumbrance and positioning in combat. All things you could do anyway, but seeing a computer game handle it automatically is a good reminder of the difference basics like that make. This doesn't give us any new crunch, so it's just a reiteration of basic DM'ing advice. Not terribly written, but rather repetitive, and in definite contrast to the large amounts of new stuff elsewhere in the issue. Well, the game is 2e as well, so I guess this is another sop to the holdouts for this month.


What's new decries the overemphasis on violence of D&D.


What's this guy's story? Hmm. D&D 3rd edition isn't even cooled down yet, and they're already releasing star wars D20. And they're still doing the whole "You'll never be as cool as the stars of the movies" thing. Hmm and hmm again.


Even more than last issue, this epitomises the Punk aspect of their new direction, combining fresh and exciting articles with strange and often impractical stylistic choices. The bouts of leetspeak are particularly amusing in retrospect, and remind me just how far internet culture has progressed in the intervening decade. So if there are some dodgy bits, much of that can be attributed to growing pains. So let's see how they do once all the corebooks are out. After all, punk was a pretty short lived movement. This air of freshness and inexperience is unlikely to last long either once people get some serious playing time in using the new rules.

Dragon Issue 276: October 2000


part 1/7


116 pages. Someone's been near death's door a few too many times. In the circumstances, paranoia is entirely advisable. Especially as it's October again, and the energy draining creepazoids'll be out in force, protesting that PC's now get saves vs their attacks. Affirmative action for monsters! Well, the Monster Manual is out this month, so they ought to have at least something that's good for the DM's playthings. But will it be enough to truly challenge the players, or will all their preparation have been a waste of time? Let's get through this issue and do some discovery. Solid knowledge is often the best way to remove fear, even if the results aren't the ones you wanted or expected, because then you can plan to deal with the problem with a bit more confidence.


Scan Quality: Good, unindexed, game board missing.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: Using the contents of your dreams (and nightmares ) as game plots? Yup, I think that's a pretty cool idea, if rather unpredictable in effectiveness. Desperately trying to stop up all the cracks in the room because you're terrified the cold giraffes will get in and suck the life out of you makes perfect sense in dream logic, but lacks a certain something if you let the players tackle it with their rational minds. And trying to remember your dreams is also pretty unreliable as well, although like anything, you can practice and get better at it. So this is something I encourage you to try, but make sure you have a more mundane backup plan just in case your subconscious refuses to co-operate, and you get something inappropriate or irrelevant.


Scale Mail: The way the letters are stretched across lots of pages makes this seem longer than it used to be. First up, we have someone happy that humour seems to be back in the magazine. Just wait until you see next year's april issue. They have a doozy planned. I look forward to it.

Second, we have someone grumpy about the dungeronpunk stylings of the new edition. They will turn it down a bit, but D&D will never really look particularly medieval again. Unless they do decide to go purist in 5e, of course. What are the odds of that?

Thirdly, we have a no catches straight complimentary letter. Ain't nothin' worth sayin' 'bout that.

Fourthly, someone who thinks the new layout looks like a crappy webpage. I dispute that! Even the worst webpages don't have this much horizontal scrolling, you know.

Then we have someone who likes the look, but didn't like the content. Contrary buggers. No pleasing everyone, is there.

We follow with someone peeved that they put adverts on the other side of the sherwood forest map. You won't see them once it's stuck up. And they really needed the money, honest! It's a hard life, trying to keep the magazine profitable.

And finally, we have a complete, article by article rundown. Only not as comprehensive as mine. But more likely to influence their future direction. It's all about being timely.

Dragon Issue 276: October 2000


part 2/7


Up on a soapbox: Gary does the grognard grumbling thing again this month. We need more roleplaying of day to day life, and less epic hero saves the world stuff that removes meaningful choices beyond succeed and fail for the players. Oookay. I think this time the cantankerousness is outweighing the useful advice portion of his column. Not that there isn't something to be said for learning the ropes with smaller scale stories, and moving up as you gain experience as both a player and a character. But the experienced DM teaching a bunch of less experienced players can often be less fun than everyone learning together. I suppose it's probably different if Gary's the one doing the teaching, since he pretty much does this professionally by now. But this isn't the most coherent of his complaints. Not everything he's produced was gold, and I think this is worth ignoring, and moving onto the next article.


profiles (no capitalization at all this time): Since our first two profilees in this new era were the other two primary designers of 3e, it's no surprise that Skip Williams is the third. Starting to work in the industry way back in 1976, he's worked his way up until he's one of the most all-round experienced people in the company. He got the job of being the point man for the new monster manual, choosing who made the cut, who didn't, and who was subsumed into the nifty new template system. Finally, you can mix and match classes, races, and erm, crossbreeds with other races with wild abandon. And despite his senior position, he still finds the time to be the same badass sage he's been for 13 years now. Unfortunately, he doesn't make the time to do any actual gaming, and his fingers look kinda stubby, but I guess no-one's perfect. He still has plenty of awesomesauce to pour into the pot of gaming in the next few years.


Tim Hildebrandt gives us another collection of expensive limited edition jeweled miniatures.

Nodwick has some amusing role reversal.


Previews: Say goodbye to detailed ecology and full page spreads in the new monster manual. Instead, get ready for high intensity badassedness, scaling, templates, and tons of things ready to be used as PC races from go. Get ready to customise! If you do it right, your players'll never know what to expect from their opponents again.

Looks like the realms aren't really taking a break after all. Into the Dragons lair gives you a new adventure, and a whole load of hints as to how things will change. Another attempt to snag the impatient impulse buyer wanting to buy more stuff along with the corebooks. R. A. Salvadore also releases a new Drizzt book. Sevant of the Shard. Actually, it seems like this one features Entreri more, but hey, Drizzt'll probably make some appearances.

Dragonlance stays system free on the other hand. Bertrem's guide to the age of mortals helps fill in more setting details for novel readers and gamers alike. Like leaves from the inn of the last home, much of this is sorta IC, and may be fallible if your DM is feeling sadistic.

And it seems like Alternity still hasn't finished winding down, with Xenoforms, the Dark Matter monster manual. Hey ho. Looks like this one goes into rather more detail on each creature than it's D&D counterpart.

Dragon Issue 276: October 2000


part 3/7


Countdown to the forgotten realms: We had so much fun with the countdown over the last year that of course we have to do it again until diminishing returns mean it loses all impact. And as the most popular D&D setting by a reasonable margin, especially in the novel department, this is first on the list for updating. Now, they have a few issues that they need to tackle. First, they need to make sure the new corebook encapsulates the years of timeline developments and provides a good point for new people to jump on without feeling intimidated by what has come before. Second, they need to make the old obscenely powerful characters fit into the new system, rather than being completely exception based, which also means players have a much better chance of being able to imitate and match them in coolness. Thirdly, they need to update the artwork and move the timeline forward, but not so much as to alienate people. It's a pretty complicated balancing act, and once again, it'll be interesting seeing the changes broken down into little pieces so I can comment on how much I like them individually. And at least it keeps the promotional stuff from spilling out too much. Question is, what will come after that?


Dork tower presents a horrific case of gamer breakup. Harsh, man.


DEAD and Breakfast: Another minigame even after the edition change. I wasn't expecting this! And it's another one illustrated by John Kovalic. Schweeeeeeet. Unfortunately, I won't get to play it, because they missed out the board again. You take the role of ghosts, trying their best to scare the guests of a hotel as much as possible, while not pushing them too far and ruining the whole gig. It seems to be relatively low on tactics, about the kind of level as Monopoly or less, as you do have a bit of influence on how to move and play your cards, but everything comes down to randomness in the end. It doesn't seem like the kind of game which'll sustain too many repeated plays, but should be fun for a halloween one-shot. And hopefully by next year you'll be able to take it out and do it again. Hey, it's not great, but it's more variety than I was expecting this far in. I still hope they do a few more of these.


Black cats and broken mirrors: I'm rather surprised they haven't done an article on real world superstitions in here before. Guess this something that would be perfectly suitable for the old edition, that's only going to get the spotlight under the new rules. Mind you, it does seem pretty exception based, so chances are it was submitted months ago and converted to 3e rules by the editors. At 4 pages, it only has space to cover the fairly basic superstitions, which most people will know of to some degree anyway. So it's main value is in the good/bad luck rules it adds to them, and the way it presents them, with plenty of interesting quotations breaking up the information. And they're interesting, but not too brutal, which means they're probably going to do the job. Another fairly decent article then.


How to create a monster: The Monster Manual is out this month, so no surprise we have a promotional article connected to it. And here they go into all the formulae that you build monsters by, that are useful in the short term, and very cool for players, as it means any monster can be advanced like a PC, even the ones that just gain more hit dice and size as a default;  but become a pain in the ass eventually, as they can force you into skill and feat selections that really aren't optimal for the monster's concept, and need to be compensated for with huge inherent modifiers. Plus, in contrast with the PC classes, the different monster types don't even attempt to be balanced, with Dragon and Outsider quite substantially superior to any of the others, and undead and construct suffering for their lack of Con bonus at higher levels. So this shows up the fact that while 3e might be better balanced and more flexible from a player point of view, it's quite a bit more work for a DM at higher level, and much easier for you to do it wrong if you aren't good at maths. One of their less pleasing promotional articles. Now hopefully they can cut down on them a bit, since we have all the corebooks now.

Dragon Issue 276: October 2000


part 4/7


Fiction: Kang's command by Margaret Weis & Don Perrin. Draconians have received a fair amount of humanising characterisation over the years. This makes that retroactive, with a story set shortly before the war of the lance, when they were still team evil's big secret. And it is a pretty strong indicator that their unpleasant nature is a result of nurture as much as nature, since they were treated as monstrous troops right from the moment they were hatched, only educated just enough to do the job needed at the time, and encouraged to be vicious and competitive. Breaking out of that kind of abusive setup is never easy, especially since they are vicious, greedy artificially created carnivores when you get right down to it. So yeah, fantasy racism is an awkward issue, especially when there are huge actual differences in capabilities and lifecycle, but you can make fun stories out of these problems. And indeed, I do find this story fairly interesting, and very D&Dish indeed in the group interactions, with tons of bickering and a good party dynamic where everyone gets to exploit their particular talents. You can play the monsters in the new edition, and have a lot of fun doing so, without the strict class and level limits you had to face before.


Nodwick gets the last laugh at Lolth. Have they run out of classic modules to mock? We shall see.


The ecology of the sheet phantom: Ooogie boogie boo. An amusingly schlocky monster from the fiend folio gets a stab at credibility, and an update to the new edition. Just the thing for a halloween issue. Formed when someone dies in bed, but wants to carry on existing rather a lot, they're a sheet of ectoplasm that then envelops you, suffocates you, and possesses your body. Not a nice way to go. Johnathan gets brutal for a change, killing both the heroes of this little story, and leaving the monster happily at large to haunt and kill some more, which definitely helps make it seem more of a credible threat. It'll never rival vampires for sheer cool, but as long as they're really easy to do as a costume, I guess they'll never truly die. Once again they use a strong, yet largely monochromatic art style that works pretty well for the subject. Nice to see the magazine helping to polish up old stuff that could well have got lost in the cracks.


The adventures of Volo: The artwork improvements manage to penetrate in here for a change. Elminster, on the other hand, takes a break, as Volo also takes a break from exploring dungeons and weird locations, and goes intriguing and partying. An area our great sage has little interest in, so while this might still be unreliable, he isn't going to correct him. So we get to enjoy 7 not entirely flattering character sketches of people who hang around the Cormyran courts. You can bet some of those'll be out for his blood when this gets around. A reminder that this is yet a bloody nother thing he does really well (after all, the nine hells articles were chock full of this, especially issue 91's follow-up instalment) but hasn't really concentrated on in a while. Envy envy envy. Stop making everyone else look boring and one-dimensional by comparison! Goddamnnit, I know I should stop eating so much cheese, but he keeps on making me fall in love with him all over again.


Class acts: Ahh, the hunter of the dead. Another prestige class that you can fit easily into most campaigns. After all, undead are a pain in the ass, especially if you don't have a specialist. Here we run into another problem with 3rd edition. CoDzilla is far better than nearly any prestige class, especially when you consider the tradeoff between 20th level casting vs 10/10 in two different progressions. So this is a perfectly serviceable option for a paladin who wants to concentrate on undead splatting, or a fighter who dips a level in cleric to qualify. But if you want to be a primary spellcaster, this is a bad idea. Also notable is that it doesn't progress your turn undead ability at all. Still, if you're an undead hunter, you don't want to just make them run away, you want to kill them. But like the blackguard requiring stealth to gain, but not having it as a class skill, this does result in another suboptimal ability. How very irksome.