Dragon Issue 297: July 2002


part 3/10


Up on a soapbox: Here we get to hear about Gary's first experiences as a player. Yrag the Fighter was his PC in Rob Kuntz's game. And one of his memorable early adventures was when they introduced the Ring of Contrariness into the game. Because who doesn't love suddenly inverting the obvious aspects of their character's personality and being a pain in the ass to other players when the DM gives them a reason too? Gary certainly did, as it let him stretch his roleplaying muscles, and the others had to do some careful puzzle solving to figure out how to deal with the problem. Another reminder that those were rough and tumble times, where your character was much more likely to die or be screwed over in the course of the adventure, so you learned to roll with the punches, and make fun out of your own misfortune. But I think we already knew that. Now the main draw is the specific anecdotes for all the old school obsessives out there. I think we may be starting to get into diminishing returns territory here.


Everquest D20 Roleplaying game? Feel the circle of conversions go round and round.


Sentinels of the shoal: Time to get down to the meat of the epic level features, and hope some of it's more palatable than the skin. Here's a big feature that's not only tied in with the book, but also a parallel adventure in Dungeon magazine. Gotta collect 'em all, etc etc. From the looks of things, it involves the conflict between two epic organisations, one which is devoted to maintaining the cosmic balance and keeping undeserving people from becoming Epic, and the other comprised of  assassins following the secret orders of a really powerful but imprisoned monstrosity. Classic grey vs black conflict. They give us the usual grab-bag of stuff to fill it out. Scarily high CR stats for the leaders of the two organisations. A prestige class for each group. 5 new epic spells, and 8 new epic feats. Most of these are pretty neat, and valid expansions on the stuff in the epic level handbook that improve your power in interesting ways. Seems like James Jacobs has managed to make the best of a tricky situation, and come up with appropriately epic material to tie in with the release. It may still be unwieldy, but there are good stories in there if you're willing to do the math and play with the big boys. That's a relief to see.

Dragon Issue 297: July 2002


part 4/10


Relics of myth: In the original D&D sets, magic items directly based upon real world ones were pretty light on the ground. Until the master set, where they did include stats for a whole load of real things, generally with interesting drawbacks along with their pretty impressive powers. While that has been eroded since then, with tons of articles converting real world stuff at a rather lower power level, it looks like we're having a callback here. Let's see exactly which items they've picked, and if they're ones that already have D&D versions, or are all new to the game.

The Codex Hammer isn't actually a hammer, it's Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. Reading them gives you a free epic skill focus in something appropriately techy. There's 31 volumes in it, so you can build a whole campaign around collecting the set, and becoming a true renaissance man in a way normally built D&D characters can't match. 31 free extra feats is entirely worth the effort.

Crocea Mors is Julius Ceasar's sword, it's deeds suitably exaggerated by time. It's powerful in combat, and intelligent as well, helping you command armies and govern nations, but if you show weakness, it'll desert you and leave you to die. Sounds about right. These sort of legends always have a tragic ending, no matter how much awesome stuff you accomplish in the meantime.

The Crystal Skulls of Doom have yet to be associated with Indiana jones and the nuke-proof fridge, so I guess they're still cool. They have all sorts of divinatory powers, but will drive the weak willed insane, or even make their heads explode. Pretty powerful, and also exactly what you'd expect. Sometimes playing it straight just works.

The English Regalia gives the wearer +12 to a whole load of ruling appropriate stuff, plus the choice of four +7 swords so you have a good set of options against people who refuse to bend knee and acknowledge your sovereignty. It's pretty devoid of drawbacks, which makes sense, since the english monarchy has been relatively stable as these things go. Individual ones may screw up, go mad, or occasionally be overthrown, but the job continues onwards. That's their failings, not the equipment.

The First Folio is the original version of Shakespear's (nearly) full works. The performance bonus is enough to ensure people'll be plagiarising it for centuries to come. Nuff said.

The Hope Diamond doesn't have any useful powers, it just randomly fucks with it's owner. Sell it on fast, because you ain't resisting this very easily.

The Lamentation stone of the Taj Mahal is also pretty pointless, it's only powers devoted to making itself more impressive and emotionally resonant. Still, I guess that means it'll have no shortage of people hoping to own it.

Rabbi Loew's Golem is suitably epic in physical power, and just smart enough to realise it's not a real boy, and so become problematic. Still, if you can get a castle built in the meantime, you might be able to get some profit out of this.

The Rosetta Stone also gets exaggerated. If you know enough languages, you can gain the ability to understand all of them, and the more you know, the easier it becomes. Here, the only epic thing about it is that the bonus is permanent. Meh.

The Sphinx is a bit of a pain to animate, and a bit slow, but with hundreds of HD, and 300 points of damage resistance, it's pretty much invulnerable to even most epic characters. If a hecatoncheires shows up, you may have to get this to deal with it, because at least you can control and outmaneuver the sphinx, for all it's power.

The Stones of destiny are another one which grants permanent buffs, this time ones that scale with you so be you at first or epic level, the bonuses will be appropriate for the challenges you'll be facing.

Stonehenge and other standing circles let you apply a ton of metamagic feats to appropriate spells if you meet some very specific conditions. When the spells include things like elemental swarm, what's a few bees (not the bees) as a price for dealing with that pesky town that's been upsetting the balance of nature? So while not all of the items here are suitably epic, some of them are, and their powers are distinctive and fun enough that including them in your game will definitely be a memorable experience. I approve.

Dragon Issue 297: July 2002


part 5/10


Rival the GODS: And now for more prestige classes that didn't make the cut in the final book. Exactly why, other than just space in general, I guess we'll see. Sometimes there's hidden gems, and it was merely a matter of taste, class demographics, or office politics. Other times, it's pretty obvious why they were cut. Which'll it be here?

Arcane Lords are have full spellcasting progression, plus at least one extra ability enhancing their spells every level as well. They're strictly better than sticking with Sorcerer or Wizard in every respect apart from skills and familiar advancement, so the only drawback to switching to them and staying is the possibility of running out of places to put your skill points when your int gets too superhuman. And if you're a sorcerer, you won't even have to worry about that. Life can be pretty grand as an epic spellcaster.

Masters of the Order of the Bow are designed to follow on from a specific prestige class in one of their splatbooks, although you can get in other ways, it'll just take a little longer. They aren't that great, because their ranged sneak attack power, which is the main part of their build, is still only usable at 30 foot, so they won't really be epic snipers to rival the blasty powers of spellcasters. Even +20 to hit pales before stuff which works automatically.

Perfected Ones take monk's focus on upgrading their body, and build on it further. They get a whole bunch of automatically activating countermeasures that mean imprisoning them or mind controlling them is unlikely to work. A lot of their powers don't grow indefinitely, so once you get to 10th level, sticking with this one doesn't seem so smart, but if you don't want to spend ages maintaining your basic contingency suites just to stay alive in a game of epic paranoia, there are worse options.

Stalwart Wardens are basically the Epic upgrade for Dwarven Defenders, ridiculously tough, and near impossible to move via force or magical persuasion once they've decide to guard someone or something. Once again, they're survivable at epic levels, but proactively changing the world will remain tricky. Be the rock, not the storm.

Unholy Ravagers are an epic blackguard variant that are so eeevil and corrupt that they radiate an aura that spoils food, makes babies cry, and generally makes all right-thinking people deeply unhappy whenever they're near without even trying. You can kill them and take their stuff and feel absolutely zero guilt about it, for they cause trouble every second they exist and revel in it. Just watch out they don't have evil intelligent magic items that'll take you over and lead you down to the dark side in turn.

World Guardians are another variant on druidic hierophants, eschewing the extradimensional travel and elemental summoning for more nature connected innate powers, which a high level druid could replicate anyway. Once again, it's not so much an increase in magnitude as gradually adding on more of the same kind of resources. I'm completely unimpressed with this article, both in terms of power and flavour. It just doesn't do anything for me at all.

Dragon Issue 297: July 2002


part 6/10


Children of the cosmos: In issue 293, we got conversions of the Genasi to 3e. Pretty soon for a follow-up, don't you think. They must have sent this in straight after, or maybe even before that was published. Yup, it's another symmetry filler, detailing lawful and chaotic planetouched, plus 6 para and quasielemental Genasi types. (not the complete set, but I'm sure someone else'll handle the other 6 too. ) All of them are LA+1, making them approximately balanced with the existing variants, and the way their abilities are arranged is pretty similar too, with modest resistances to appropriate elemental types, a bonus to a couple of skills, and a low level spell-like power that might save your hide. So this is competently done enough to blend in seamlessly with existing material, and would be much the same as if I'd written it. Not sure if that's good or dull. Done well enough to make it look effortless is harder than putting no effort in, so I can't actually object to this. Now, will they publish letters asking for the rest before they actually finish the series?


Fiction: And all the sinners, saints by Paul Kemp. Hello again, Erevis Cale. Starting to wish you'd never got involved with this adventuring lark, because now you're going to spend your life going from one annoying mission to the next, at the behest of a god who does not have your interests at heart, and definitely doesn't have a good retirement package in his benefits. And what seems like a simple assassination job rapidly turns into a big convoluted political mess that forces former enemies to work together (with the intent of betraying each other at the end) and finishes up with Erevis choosing to be good in the face of adversity again, and just about getting away with it. So this is entertaining enough, and gains a little extra weight because all the interwoven political stuff is in the Realms, which has enough built up history that convoluted webs of scheming no-one can keep track of feel completely natural and organic, rather than just created for a single story to fit the current plot. There are good ways and bad ways to tell a story in an established universe, and this is one of the better ones.

Dragon Issue 297: July 2002


part 7/10


Class acts: Monte finally gives us a spellcasting prestige class that can stand up to a straight spellcaster. The Master of the Secret Sound. Quite a tricky one to get into, your best options are as a straight bard, or a wizard with a couple of levels of rogue, and mastering it before epic levels will require some seriously finicky character building. (bard/ur priest combo for the win again.) However, doing so will be worth it, as it lets you replicate the effects of 9th level spells without the components or costs. Daily Wishes without your XP being drained? Not to be sneezed at. The other characters'll have to do some serious optimizing to keep up with that. It's also generally useful before then because it's effects don't require somatic or material components, so if you're captured and all your stuff taken away, you'll be way more effective than a standard wizard, still able to pull plenty of tricks. So before 10th level, it's a fairly flavorful and balanced class.You'll have to consider carefully if you want to nerf that pinnacle power a bit, so it still requires you to at least pay the XP and expensive material component costs of the spells you replicate.


Guild secrets: This looks like it's going to be a regular column for a while, and gets in the themes as well, with a guild that's small because it has fairly stringent entry requirements. On top of that, their entire purpose is making sure only "worthy" people get to epic level, as if it's an in setting conceit rather than just a system one. While that can work in some settings, like the forgotten realms, where the system and setting are pretty tightly integrated, I'm not so sure I want that in my generic D&D. I think it's more the implementation than anything, as they managed to sell Druids only having limited numbers of top guys in earlier editions. But the layout here is just reams of text in not very appealing colour combinations, and the red on brown headers aren't very easy to read. There might be room in D&D for a world spanning organisation that preserves the balance and looks kickass while doing so, but this ain't it, especially as we got a better one just a few articles ago. The editor should have junked this and sent them back to come up with a different idea to prevent rehash within the same issue.

Dragon Issue 297: July 2002


part 8/10


Elminsters guide: Most of these guides are illustrated in friendly nature tones, greens, blues, yellows and browns. This month we go for a rather starker palette, a snowbound cavern in the far north. Given the hostility of the surroundings, you might well take shelter in it on the way to somewhere else, which leads to more complicated adventures. Especially if your players take the prophecies delivered by the cryptic oracle at the bottom seriously. That will only have funny results for they are very much false. Once again, the fact that Ed is the only one with enough detail in his worldbuilding to hide amusing red herrings amongst the significant parts of his world and have it feel natural is fairly significant really. What other settings have managed this kind of detail. Maybe I should look into the more obscure supplements for Glorantha or Tekumel, since it's been a long time since either of them appeared in the magazine, and I know they've had tons of development over the years. Surely someone else is managing the same kind of detail, albeit with a different flavour, and I think I'd like to sample that for the variety.


Campaign news: They continue to tweak the Living Greyhawk rules, in some ways becoming more restrictive, and in others less. The rules on living in a particular real world region to run an adventure in a particular Greyhawk one are causing problems, so they won't be strictly enforced for large conventions. However, magical items are now a bit trickier to make, requiring you to actively collect appropriate ingredients in your adventures, and the number of adventure formats is being reduced. Shows once again that they don't always get it right, and a living game needs constant adjustment to stay functional. For the moment, the overall trend is towards more rules. Will that ever reverse? Looking at most governments, it seems unlikely.


Champions of vengeance: Our other greyhawk article this month is another prestige class, along with the extra history and sample characters they can get away with thanks to it being anchored in a specific world. The Knights of the Chase are basically chaotic good rangers (although it's pretty easy for other classes to get in too) who specialise in tracking and punishing miscreants when they catch them. Basically divinely empowered bounty hunters, they gain two appropriate animal companions, enhanced throwing skills, and the ability to magically enforce their punishments. They seem decent enough, especially since their spellcasting at 10th level is equal to a 20th level paladin or ranger, giving them plenty of room to get a few levels into another prestige class before hitting epic levels. After all, every group hates it when an adversary repeatedly escapes and becomes a recurring villain, especially if they use cheaty tricks to accomplish it. I can definitely see players wanting to specialise their builds in making sure that doesn't happen again.

Dragon Issue 297: July 2002


part 9/10


Command points: Chainmail is missing this month. However, we're still getting some minis coverage, with a bunch of new scenarios, using the extra rules in their latest release. Yup, it's the usual tie-in thing. The interesting thing is that with advancement rules, and the option of troops coming into a scenario injured and fatigued, they further narrow the gap between the RPG and the minis wargame. This further increases my interest in buying it, as it shows they're pushing the boundaries of what they can do in the format, and making it even easier to blend the two. The individual scenarios are pretty sketchy though, and don't really grab my attention. Mixed feelings, but at least some of the stuff is again proving cool. Could be a lot worse, as the mid 90's showed.


Nodwick becomes a third wheel as Yeagar goes epic. At least, until Phil Foglio shows up. Now there's a real epic level character, even without his hat.


Silicon Sorcery: Ico! Now there's a distinctive game to steal from. Minimal design, stark visuals, and a small selection of monsters that nonetheless present some very interesting challenges, especially as the primary objective is not fighting them, but getting the princess to safety over various obstacles, rearranging the landscape so she can reach the door to the next area. The shadow creatures from the game are slow, but resistant to normal weapons and inflict lots of knockback. So this is another instance where converting as directly as possible from a video game results in a creature that doesn't play like any D&D monster pre 4e, which is very interesting to note indeed. Powers which cause knockback/shifting open up a whole load of interesting tactical considerations, that can definitely make for a fun game, and it's nice to see them implement the idea in an easy to understand and use form here. Whether this is actually one of the influences for the greater emphasis on powers that move you around in the next edition I'm not sure, but it is a good foreshadowing of that.

Dragon Issue 297: July 2002


part 10/10


Sage advice: Can an oozemaster bring their equipment with them when they malleate ( Yes indeed. This may not be pretty. )

What can you do while in ooze mode (Normal speed, squeeze through 1 inch cracks or greater, normal senses, lack of manipulators may be a problem.)

Does going malleable provoke an attack of opportunity (no)

Can you share malleability (If you have the share spell power)

Are animal lord companion HD restrictions lifted (no)

Do tamer of beast levels stack with druid and ranger ones (oh, very much so. )

Do druid shifters get any more animal companions (no)

Can shifters change type before 10th level (no)

What abilities does greater wildshape grant (physical stats, natural and extraordinary powers. Not brilliant, but still highly abusable.)

Can you mimic a particular person with greater wildshape (not perfectly, but you can get a pretty good disguise bonus with it.)

How familiar is familiar for the purposes of shifting. (Any complex action where you get a good all over look at their body, like fighting, or the other F word. )

If I morph into an orc, do I get their standard equipment (No, but your regular gear reskins itself to fit in. If you have greater wildshape, you can get playful with what melds and what doesn't.)

If you use greater wildshape, can you lose body parts and not have them revert. Does this let you use poison (Yes and yes. This has it's limits though.)

Does faster healing actually penalize you if you take complete bed rest (No. God, Skip wishes someone hadn't nicked his Create Official Errata spell from his spellbook. )

Will infusions with long casting times take ages to take effect (No. Preparation kicks ass.)

How much money can you save by growing your own herbs (All of it. Given the money you can make adventuring in that time, this may not be a long-term saving. )

How does languor work ( Verry brutally. At high level, this is a quick path to incapacitation. )

What damage does thunderswarm really do (A total of 16d6. Probably not to everyone though.)

Can forsaker inherent bonuses stack with others or exceed 5 (no)

Does rancor work on ranged weapons (Yes, at any range. Sniper rifles ahoy! )

Can you stack foe hunters SR with other items and inherent bonuses (Yes, with some awkward restrictions. Go go mathematical weirdness. )

Can geomancers use spell versatility to help them prepare spells (No, only casting them is aided by that. Skip will have to be strict with you on this one. )


What's new shows us what changes, and what stays the same as you advance in level. Thankfully phil got reset, so he can enjoy the climb all over again.


Well, that issue was definitely a struggle, with a few good bits and cool ideas weighed down by the sheer weight of numbers. Appropriate really. It's very frustrating to see them trying really hard, and sometimes succeeding, yet still failing overall because of the flaws in the framework they're working within. And of course, the closer the problem is to the core of the system, the harder it is to fix. Guess they'll have to live with it for the next 5 years, and do what they can. Or just try and keep things below 20th level in 99% of their articles. Suppose I'd better read on, and see just how often they reference and add to the epic material in the rest of this edition.

Dragon Issue 298: August 2002


part 1/10


116 pages. The dodgy covers continue. Man, those dark elves have been whitened up even more than Beyonce. Can't a sista get a realistic positive role model these days? Yup, it's time for another themed issue on the ever-popular drow and their underdark homes. The various core demihumans have been updated to the new edition with various degrees of grimdarking. Will drow be left unchanged, since they're already fairly dark and have a full wardrobe of fetish gear, or will they try and go even further to make them interestingly eeeevil. Guess I'd better turn the pages and be thankful they can't make razor edged ones on electronic books.


Scan quality: Slightly fuzzy, unindexed,


In this issue:


Wyrms Turn: This column is still shrunk to the point of inconsequentiality, and gives us another piece on the joys of reskinning. Change the name and colour palette, and you can make even the most played out monsters seem fresh, at least for an encounter or two. This certainly applies to Drow, who have enough unusual fiddly bits that changing, say, their spell-like abilities or giving them tremorsense instead of darkvision will make an actual difference to the way they play. I guess as usual, the devil (or maybe the demon ) is in the details. But there's not enough detail here to make this satisfying reading. Jesse's editorials don't seem to be improving with time at all. If anything, they're getting worse. You know, you could just skip them if you don't have anything to say a particular month. You don't have to bind yourself that tightly to formula if you aren't being forced too by upper management.

Dragon Issue 298: August 2002


part 2/10


Scale Mail: Thomas Harlan's new short story gets some attention first off, with readers curious if there's any more to come. Why absolutely, my dears. Go buy his full books and stuff, and we'll see if we can get any more little stories out of him.

Our second letter isn't so positive though, being very pissed off at the mechanics of a particular prestige class. Requiring Rage and Expertise is a suboptimal and stupid requirement, and it's too specific for the concept. They remind you that more than one prestige class can fill the same concept in different ways, and the DM is also free to houserule mechanical details. This will not stop by the RAW obsessives, of course.

Two more letters think that the people getting upset about beefcake are silly and insecure. Like putting the odd bit of swearing in, there's a few people who are outraged, while the vast majority simply don't give a damn.

Rather more annoying is yet another sign of their slowly closing horizons. It used to be that they had fiction in the magazine virtually every month. Now they're cutting out even that little bit of non D&D material, and only publishing stuff set in their own campaign worlds, or by already published authors. And so the magazine will again become that little bit harder for me to push through without getting bored. At least there's still the minis stuff ...... for the moment.

Another reminder than nearly anything could be given the chop is a request to bring back Role Models. They've moved it to the web where it's easier to find everything at once. Whether that's the real reason it was removed is another matter.


Zogonia shows at least basic competence this time. I guess they're learning.


D&D Previews: No D&D products this month, only novels. Once again, it's obvious where the company's priorities lie. Dragonlance gets two of these. The day of the Tempest by Jean Rabe and The Lioness by Nancy Varian Berberick. It may be a new age, but authors are still going to do quite a bit of prequeling in the previous ones. There's also The Living Dead, another straight D&D book, also by T. H. Lain. Is he a ridiculously fast writer, or is this a pseudonym or something?

Dragon Issue 298: August 2002


part 3/10


At the table: Well well. So this is where Paizo are created to take over the magazines. I was wondering. This is definitely one of those cases where they try to sell as a positive something that must have been tremendously worrying and stressful for all involved. Spinning off the magazine side of WotC into it's own company, so their successes and failures are now all their own puts them in a rather more precarious financial position. Which I suspect might have been the point. Given the rise of the internet, and the way the OGL has worked out for them, the idea of wanting to licence out the risky parts of the operation, keeping only the most profitable in-house does make sense. Of course, the interesting thing is that if that was their intention, it kinda backfired, given Paizo's success with Dragon, and the way they kept the 3e fanbase afterwards when WotC didn't. If this hadn't happened we wouldn't have Pathfinder as we know it, and whatever group did try to keep 3e going wouldn't have the legitimacy gained from years of monthly content and having once been part of the official WotC umbrella. Looking back, I can definitely say that this is one of those forks in history where things could have gone very differently if a few people in the right position had made different decisions. This is one of those cases where there was almost definitely some serious behind the scenes political stuff going on, and I'd be very interested to find out about that - what led up to this decision, how long it took, who was for and who was against it. Because after all, it shouldn't just be about the articles, but how they got there as well.


Flesh for Lolth: In which Robin Laws goes completely over the top in his description of drow society, making the degree of unpleasantness in the old Drow of the Underdark book and various FR novels seem tame. They aren't just evil, they're Eeeevil from before birth, with killing and eating the other foetuses sharing their mother's womb standard procedure! They need to make sacrifices equal to 1% of their city's population a week to keep Lolth happy! (which means they're always on the lookout for new supplies of slaves and traitors) Treachery is essential to advance in their society! (but it has to be the right sort of treachery) If they do manage to live long enough to die of natural causes, this is shameful, not respected. The whole thing goes through grimdark and out the other end to become funny, and I'm not absolutely certain if he's in on the joke and trolling the other magazine staff and readers or not. Funny how the cultural differences of 10 years ago can sometimes be more jarring than those of 30 years ago, because you don't expect them.

Dragon Issue 298: August 2002


part 4/10


The bestiary: Our bestiary this month is more an article, with a few incidental monster stats tacked on. It's not just Driders that are created when people fuck up Lolth's tests, they're just the most famous stage. There's also Arachnoloths, the low level spider hybrids formed by random spot checks on your ego. And that's just the start. In order, the various tests are:

A test of ambition, which failing doesn't result in transformation, just cursing.

A test of dishonesty, which removes your ability to lie if you fail.

A test of sacrifice, which you have to do the opposite of the previous ones to pass, just to be arbitrary, and if you fail you get transformed into a giant mass of writhing spider legs.

A test of betrayal, which will end in death for one of the two chosen individuals for sure.

A test of dominance, which will see you transformed into an endlessly spawning Brood Mother queen spider if you fail.

A test of Vengeance, which once again pits Drow against Drow, TO THE DEATH!!! Only a few ever get to rule, and you will not be amongst them, starscream.

And finally, if you do all that, you get to personally fight a proxy of Lolth, once again to the death. If you pass that, and continue to be a correctly bad Drow, you might get to be a proxy yourself. It's all more than a little over the top, just like the previous article, and seems likely to send their population into terminal decline if applied strictly. Course, given her chaotic nature, that's unlikely to be the case, but it's still not really that usable unless you play scheming Drow in a city campaign, and doesn't quite work for me as worldbuilding. Needs more care in straddling the line between evil and EEEEEeeeevil.

Dragon Issue 298: August 2002


part 5/10


Sinister tools: Drow do love their poisons. With save or die mostly gone in 3e, that means they have to get a little more inventive if they want to stay as scary as they were when we first saw them. So along with new magical items, they give us a fair number of new chemical and mineral concoctions here that have various ways of making your life interesting. Some they take themselves, some they put on weapons and traps, and some they just sprinkle liberally into the environment to ruin it. As chaotic evil creatures, often short-term pleasure and destruction takes precedence despite their potential long lifespans. So the items here are entirely in keeping with their established personalities, with spider stuff, torture stuff, tentacle stuff, and vanity stuff all catered for. Unlike the previous two articles, this is both highly useful for players and DM's, and not silly at all. The harder and more interesting the challenge of killing them and taking their stuff is, the more players will value it once they have it.


VS Drow: This column gets a complete repurposing, dropping the usual terse tactical advice for fighting as and against them, and instead providing a specific organisation devoted to killing Drow, along with a bunch of prestige classes, feats, spells, and items that'll hopefully make things a little easier. Feels a bit like cheating really, compared to learning how to use your existing tools to their fullest potential. But I suppose that's the thing. Increasing the size of the pie will make you more popular than telling you you ought to carefully make the most of the slice you have. And like any race that can gain class levels fairly freely, Drow are a pretty difficult challenge to prepare for. You need a combination of being able to survive, navigate and blend into the underdark, which is a pretty big challenge in itself, and then bring the blinding light that'll put them at a disadvantage when you do find them. And since a party is only as stealthy as it's noisiest member, that means everyone in the group needs to have some skills in that area. Fortunately, even the spellcasting prestige class here gets an emphasis on silent spellcasting and blindsight, so that's covered. And spells that not only affect the visibility, but also the earth around you so you can hem them in or create pits in the ground quickly might give you an edge, as Drow wizards don't often become earth elementalists, weirdly enough. So this is another indicator of their changing direction, towards providing lots and lots of new specific crunch every month, rather than giving info and advice that could be applicable to any RPG. It's not that it's not useful, but it's only useful in a far more limited and specific situation, and I guess it's up to you to make sure those situations come up, as they're less likely to do so naturally.

Dragon Issue 298: August 2002


part 6/10


Shades of death: Another thing that gets switched around is the idea of articles on class combinations. Wheras before they were relatively simple, this article goes for complex builds with multiple prestige classes from various splatbooks over the 20 level progressions. That's a very interesting change and one I approve of, as it'll give us a much better idea of what they consider good tactics at the moment. As you may have guessed, this is about various types of necromancers, both wizard and cleric. Not all of them are evil, but very few of them are fully trusted, and let's face it, having a plentiful supply of perfectly obedient (albeit smelly) servants can turn even someone who started with good intentions into a lazy spoiled diva who can't relate to normal people at all. There are a few new feats as well, but they're pretty weedy, and serve to emphasise that animating large numbers of undead servants really ain't what it used to be. So I do have mixed feelings about this, as it shows us that while necromancy is still cool, it isn't the most optimal character choice in 3e, and can take some serious work to do tricks they could pull casually before. Conjurer seems a better choice now.


Campaign news: Whoa! The RPGA has dropped all it's membership fees! Like the creation of Paizo, that speaks of some serious restructuring going on in the WotC offices. And if they're no longer funding the RPGA from members fees, then exactly how is it being supported now? Obviously in the short run that's good for them, as they've lowered the bar to entry considerably. But it does make me wonder why. Was the membership dropping and they wanted to do something radical to turn things around. Did the ease of distributing adventures over the internet cut their overheads dramatically? Does someone in the WotC offices secretly want to kill them, so they're cutting them loose and setting them up to fail? So many ways to spin this, both positive and negative. This issue is turning out to be a real turning point in their business structures, and once again, I'd really like to know what went on behind the scenes to cause these changes.

Dragon Issue 298: August 2002


part 7/10


The vault of the drow: Our other Greyhawk feature is also bigger and more significant than usual, as well as being in theme. A 16 page return to D3, the first place many people saw them. Last time we went there was back in 1997, when Monte sent us there as one of the subplots in Dead Gods. And since we're not busy adventuring, they can give us more information on demographics, history (which includes the events from both of the previous two appearances) day to day life, and general setting detail than either of those did. It is possible to come there without instantly being attacked and enslaved, especially if you're one of the evil underdark races, but you should still watch your back at all times. There's lots of districts in the city itself, plus a reasonable sized fungus forest which they use for food, and which you can hide in and hope something doesn't make a meal of you. So this is an article that gives you a real sense of history, evolved in real time with attention to continuity. If you're looking for a nostalgia bomb, this definitely fits the bill, as both a special feature on it's own, and an expansion on past events that's system light enough to be useful if you go back and play them again. I strongly approve, which is a definite relief after first couple of articles were so risible.


Chainmail: Even this column is in theme, reminding us just how popular Drow are amongst the office as well as the fans. They even find a way to tie it into the existing metaplot from the other continent, as referenced last article. What happened to the Drow who turned to Kiaransalee after the fiasco of adventurers invading D3 and causing tons of havoc? They were eventually beaten and exiled (for as long as Lolth is the core deity, they have to give her priority in new material) and decided to GO WEST! Life is warlike there. GO WEST! In the enclosed air. GO WEST! So many foes to choose. GO WEST! You only have your lives to lose. Which neatly gives us a reason why A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS! in the Chainmail game. It's all very well tied together, and shows how much better co-ordinated the company is than TSR, hitting us with stuff in the books, wargame, and magazine all at once.

Along with the pretty neat setting stuff, there's two drow-focused prestige classes for your game. Bloodsisters are female fighters who specialise in the kind of dirty fighting that works well underground. Crossbows, poison, sneak attacks, all that good stuff that you use to hit dumb people who can't see in the dark with, and kill them quickly without putting yourself at risk. Sounds pretty unpleasant to fight, but what did you expect from the Drow? The other one, the Nightshades, are a roguish relative of Arcane Archers, requiring spellcasting to get into, but not advancing it, just getting some supernatural innate abilities that make sneaking around and playing the thief and assassin easier. With their spider themed powers, they're also pretty appropriate for their niche. These both seem pretty appropriate for your game, even if you're not playing in greyhawk. As long as the drow fill basically the same niche, there'll always be plenty of room for sneaky poison wielding bitches amongst them.