Dragon Issue 330: April 2005


part 2/7


First watch: Another return to a fairly popular series from last edition, only more general, and less detailed. Lords of madness does Aberrations, with a particular focus on the ever popular Aboleths, Beholders and Illithids. As usual these days, we also get prestige classes that make you extra good at killing them. And Races of Eberron continues the splatbooking, giving new crunch for shifters, warforged, and all the rest. Since this isn't rehash, I hope there'll be a decent amount of setting expansion.

There's also D&D for dummies. Hoo boy. Not published by WotC, but written by the big writers for the game. Designed to get on bookshelves that the regular books don't, and hopefully lure in some new, or more likely old lapsed players. Interesting business.

Another very cool D20 supplement this month. Hamunuptra. A big boxed set full of egyptian coolness. That's a nice turnup for the books. If only we had more of these. Still, it makes the ones we do get even more special. To think that in the 90's I used to take them for granted.

Two more bits of aid in your visual representation. Another set of wire radius plotters, to help you with your blasty spells and breath weapons. And if you want something a little more solid, there's Worldworks Games' Chunky Dungeons. We've got plenty of tiles, now you can go 3D for extra visual flair. They do seem rather fond of encouraging you to use these. I suppose it helps keep the support industries in business.

Our mini this month ties in with last month's product. Iron Kingdoms is another gameline spinning off in all directions, including this, putting their own spin on classic fantasy tropes and blending them with steampunk. Well, something similar worked pretty well for shadowrun, so why not.

The boardgame they've chosen to promote is Arkham Horror. Cthulhu seems to be pretty popular with the current developers, so that's hardly surprising. Can you save the day like the guy who escaped from Innsmouth, or will your sanity be destroyed and the world doomed.

Steve Jackson games continues it's conversion from a gaming company, to a more general geeky one, with Munchkin getting supplements and t-shirts. I believe this is another instance where I shrug.

And finally, along with the usual cross promotion for their other magazines, they include two competitions here as well. Another thing from a few months ago recurrs, as they give us a chance to win a Genki Gang hat. And Origins has a prestige class competition. I'm sure you have a few of those in your notepads anyway, why not try your luck with them for free stuff. Watch out for the copyright terms.

Dragon Issue 330: April 2005


part 3/7


Enter the far Realm: Bruce Cordell has already given us one classic epic article that has the potential to really change the course of your game, in issue 258's attack of the machines. Now he repeats the trick with a 17 page spectacular on the Far Realm, the non-euclidean universe outside the commonly traveled planar cosmology where pretty much everything is alive. Since this is a Lovecraftian realm which is inherently bad for the sanity of normal creatures exposed to it, visiting and coming back unchanged is as tricky as the most hostile elemental planes, and you really don't want it to leak back into the prime material plane. Like that, there's plenty of material for both people who want to combat the threat to the status quo, and those who align themselves with it for the cool powers that are to be had. Unlike the Sheens, however, the creatures from the far realm are presented as pretty unambiguously bad, which means this isn't quite as flexible as his previous offering. However, the new spells, monsters and magical items are better designed to offer a set of challenges suitable for adventurers of every level, while the Sheens stuff was mid-scooped and needed patching the next year to fully support a full campaign. Still, despite the tradeoff of less originality/more polish, it's a very cool article indeed, and one that again offers the potential of many expansions in the future. Let's hope they can make them good too, and not dilute the theme or grind it into the ground with repetitiveness.


The Umbragen: Since Eberron tries to fit in everything that's in D&D, there was no way they could leave out the Drow. However, that just gives Keith Baker all the more incentive to recontextualise them, make sure they're different from their Realms and Greyhawk relatives in interesting ways. They're nomadic hunters rather than having huge underground cities, which means they might be more individually dangerous, but lack the high-end infrastructure and luxury a place like Menzoberranzan provides. They also favor nonstandard classes, with Warlock and Soulknife being their most common PC classes, which makes them quite distinctive to fight. And like Eberron's new races, they get a nice big chunk of racial feats that allow you to customise them in thematic ways, making them even more connected to shadow and darkness than regular drow. While it does feel like they're including stuff from other supplements to encourage Gotta Collect 'Em All!, this is a case where it feels natural rather than shoehorned in, as they're only picking a few appropriate things. Once again, the care used in designing the world and integrating it with the system is paying off for them.


Fiction: Coming home by Matt Forbeck. Their new Eberron novels get a double whammy of promotion, following on from last month, with a little story using the same characters and set immediately before them. It's not particularly substantial as a story in itself, being about half character banter, and half action scene, charting the course of a single encounter as our heroes try to clear out an area of Living Fireballs. But it does serve to establish their personalities pretty decently, and hint at what might be coming in the future for them. I think that once again, their desire for self-promotion is coming ahead of their desire to tell stories that are really good in and of themselves, which is disappointing. The magazine may be improving again in some ways, but this department is still a pale shadow of what it used to be.

Dragon Issue 330: April 2005


part 4/7


The ecology of the Chuul: Mike Mearls takes the reins here, providing us with some fiction in the ecologies for the first time in 4 years. Nice to see them allowing a bit of that again. This is mildly in theme, tackling one of the more recent aberrations in the monster books. As with the choker, the fiction portrays it as new in the world IC as well as OOC. Sure, the explanation is basically a wizard did it, but it's done with style and finesse, putting his own distinctive spin on the idea. And now they've escaped into the wider world, and spread their depredations ever further. Strong heroes are needed to stop this, with muscles of steel, and wills of iron With several bits of fun such as the random trophies table, this is a considerable improvement on most of the recent ecologies. Makes me wonder if Ed is ever going to come back to doing these articles. In any case, this demonstrates that a good writer can take this format and make it shine, which is pleasing to see.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Assassins get their turn this month. Easily the most popular prestige class, they might not get regular monthly attention like the core classes, but they still get plenty in all sorts of supplements. Once again, you can have a little more here.

Bolts of Arcane Penetration go through any cover the victim has. This is useful for nearly anyone. Unless you're trying to kill normal people, in which case you really won't need this.

The Mask of the Reaper is a big help in becoming a scary legendary killer like Jason or Leatherface, while not being recognised in everyday life. The illustration provides a pretty good example of the kind of thing it looks like.

Quiet Daggers not only grant the expected stealth bonuses, the more powerful ones give you free silent spell metamagic. Since D&D assassins are spellcasters, but not brilliant ones, this'll be a lot more worthwhile than burning a feat on this.

Requiem Jars are an easy way of disposing of a victims remains permanently, while ensuring you still have proof you killed them. Very neat and well-tailored. I like this.

The Ring of Stalking lets you track people anywhere. It isn't totally unobtrusive though. But all sorts of things glow in D&D land. How are you supposed to figure out they're a stalking assassin just from that?  

The Rod of Deadly Function is a cool multipurpose device that'll be useful both for getting into places and killing things there. Like any swiss army knife, this'll save you quite a bit of space on your belt, which is important for stealth guy.

Goggles of Scrutiny reduce the time needed for you to make a death attack. Not that much though. Since this is almost purely a mechanical conceit, I can't get too worked up about it.

Wraithblades turn your soul into the eternal slave of the dagger's owner. This is subject to usual undead control limitations, preventing you from amassing an army. Still, you can kill first and ask questions later, as well as using them to scare their relatives. Perfect for the more sadistic assassin.

Dragon Issue 330: April 2005


part 5/7


Spellcraft goes up to 4 pages, but remains just as light on actual content, with lots of extra space taken up by reiterative sidebars and illustrations. Our theme is new though. Snaky spells, courtesy of the Yuan-ti. That's an idea that has plenty of flavour and prospects for variants. So it's certainly not bad content, just inefficiently formatted and padded out.

Crushing Coils teleports a snake around the poor victim, to die unpleasantly. The victim, not the snake hopefully, although you can never be sure with adventurers.

Fang Blade is one we had a variant of ages ago in Elminster's Notebook. Still, a snake in the hand is more intimidating than a dagger, and poisonous too. That's an idea that deserves updating, even if poison ain't what it used to be.

Mershaulk's Kiss buffs your snakes. Morale bonuses, for some reason. Don't see those too often round here, so they should stack with most other buffs too.

Serpent Storm is the obligatory AoE damage spell, doing ongoing damage, plus poison and terrain obstruction. I'd like to see the monster that's specifically immune to this one.

Snake Shield is similar to the last one, only tightly focussed around you, and only affecting those who attack you. Again, you won't be immune to this one, but poison immunity (which certainly isn't rare) will help quite a bit

Spitting Cobra is a nasty one who's effects should be obvious. It can not be stated enough. Get poison immunity if you're planning on fighting Yuan-ti. Keeping your distance won't help when they have spells like this.

Venomous Volley is a good one to lead with, which makes it's position at the end of the article ironic. It does minor damage, and seriously penalizes further fort saves. That'll have nasty synergy with these other spells. One that's full of flavour, but definitely better for lurking monsters than adventurers, due to the inconvenience of moving the "material components". After all, you can't just shove a portable hole full of snakes and expect them to be ready to go when needed. Unless you use one of those ones that has automatic temporal stasis when closed, which are very expensive and rare indeed. What are the odds of that before you're 17th level and able to custom craft this stuff yourself.


Gaining prestige: Yes folks, the Jester is back. For whatever reason, they were one of the first new classes thought up for the magazine, and easily the most followed-up, getting material in issues 3, 60, 120 and 134. They pretty much skipped 2e, but here we go again. Only this time, they're actually welcome, because the world around them has grown darker and we could use a few more laughs in our lives. They can still be fairly scary though, as they gain a bonus to perform checks equal to their class level, and can substitute perform for several other skills, which means no matter how suspicious you are, you'll still wind up falling for their jokes on a regular basis unless considerably higher level. They even gain the ability to make you laugh to death as per the old version at 10th level, which is very pleasing to see. They aren't actually that great on the acrobatics front though, and have saves no better than a regular character, so if you can resist their mindfuckery and get into combat with them, they'll be easier to kill than an average character of their level. I think that helps take the sting out of them for other players who still aren't so keen on seeing them in their campaign. The writeup includes a sample character a la their later splatbooks, which is an interesting development, and further makes this column stand out from previous instalments. All in all, I think this is pretty cool. Let's hope that isn't just the mind-control talking.

Dragon Issue 330: April 2005


part 6/7


Sage advice: Andy wass getting lonely answering your questions on hiss own. So Andy's got a pet. A nice little mousey to play with. Andy will sstroke him and ssqueeze him and feed him and teach him how to fetch bookses and call him Geraldine. Yess, precious. Now go on and fetch the books. Andy hass quesstions to answer.

Do druids lose their abilities when wielding non druid weapons (Not in 3.5. We've taken away that restriction, and made them even more twinked, yess.)

Can a druid carry prohibited armour or shields without using them and not lose their powers (Yes)

What happens when a dire animal becomes a druids companion (Nothing special)

Can a druid have an animal companion not listed in the PHB. (Yess, yess, :Skips around: Very good idea, preciouss.)

When a druid's companion animal reaches maximum HD for its race, does it stop growing (No. It doesn't go up in size anyway. )

Can you cast Awaken on a plant that isn't a tree. (No. It would be very nassty to cast it on a flower that would die in a few days anyway, collins collins. You'll make Andy cry, collins collins.  )

Can you awaken an already awakened tree (Yess. Reroll its mental scores, yes?)

Are an awakened creatures additional languages based on your or it's intelligence score (Its, but only if you know enough languages to teach it.)

Can you take an awakened creature as a cohort (Yess. Need to determine its ECL though, preciouss.)

Can you turn an awakened animal's type back to animal, and use it as a animal companion or familiar (No. Nassty person, get out now! )

If a creature with DR 10/Adamantine or good enters an antimagic field, doesn't it end up even tougher than before (Yess. Tricksy abilities. Not very likely though. )

Dragon Issue 330: April 2005


part 7/7


Class acts: Barbarians get The Implacable. Essentially a core class Dwarven Defender, they exchange speed and irrational rage for a rigid determination to crush their enemies no matter what. A tiny crunch change, but a huge one in terms of flavor. Nice thought.

Bards get Songs of peace. If you want to play a pacifist character, they really are the best class, just as monks are most suited to twinking out via Vow of poverty. With your social skills and spells, you are well suited to settling conflicts without bloodshed. Doesn't that deserve a little kudos?

Clerics get the multiclassing advice this month. As usual, it's a few levels in the primary fighter classes that offer the greatest benefits. Work that buffed up tank build and shake your enemies bodies down to the ground.

Commoners get a little love this issue, in their other halfhearted attempt at april foolery this year. 11 joke flaws, which you probably shouldn't use in an actual game, for stupidity may result. (although I find myself curiously tempted to use Pig bond played straight as an ancestral curse on a line of peasants to keep a demon imprisoned, but that's just my twisted mind. ) Well, it's better than nothing.

Druids get Boosting your animal companion. As they generally aren't quite as powerful as you, it might be a good idea to buff them as well if you don't want them to die horribly. Here's some of the best spells to use.

Fighters get The Celtic warrior. The perfect rival to the roman legionnaire. A new feat helps them with their spear fighting. But do you have the bravery to go into battle naked?

Monks get Monk styles. More real world fighting styles you could model your character's attacks off. Ho hum.

Paladins get A Paladin by Night. Sometimes, you have to stop being a shining armoured warrior to get the best long-term results, because killing everything will definitely lose you your paladinhood. You might not be able to break your code, but you can bend it a little in the name of the greater good. Maybe. Depends how your DM is feeling. Also includes a feat to allow paladins to multiclass, which is nice.

Rangers get Flights of Fancy. Arrows with style. A cool idea that offers minor statistical benefits, but is very thematic, and good fun, especially if you're playing a swashbucking sort who likes to toy with their enemies.

Rogues get Merchant rogues. With their huge range of class skills, going legit and still making good money is entirely an option for many of them. You can still have a little fun on the side, if you get bored.

Sorcerers get their own system for specializing. Instead of schools, they can specialize in descriptors. The benefits are less extreme than wizardly specialists, but it's still another neat way to customize your character.

Wizards get Verbal Components. Would you feel stupid deciding on catchphrases for particular spells, and loudly declaiming them when your character casts the spell, anime super attack style? Well, this one isn't for you then More amusing fluffy advice.


The nodwick crew tell each other how they really feel about each other. And then decide to never do it again. Dork tower uses Bigby's grasping purple nurple on a mind flayer. Oh, the humiliation. Zogonia needs reminding they're not high level enough to kill a whole village single-handedly yet.


For a second month in a row, I'm amazed at how quickly they're changing things around again, mostly for the better. Replacing the little columns with an epic special feature, reintroducing fiction to the ecologies, and managing to slip a proper april fools joke in are all very pleasing shifts in tone for me. The question is just how much Erik can change things with the inertia of the WotC managers and their general writing stable still in place. Still, it's nice to know one person can make a real difference if you put them in the right place.

Dragon Issue 331: May 2005


part 1/7


69(108) pages. Once again, they choose a different set of basics to go back too. Dungeoneering equipment? Polearms, flaming oil, torches, and all that jazz? Intriguing. Their delving into increasingly esoteric nonmagical equipment grew a bit tedious in the late 90's, but hopefully absence has made my heart grow fonder, just as it did with the joke articles last month. Let's hope they've had enough time to prepare, and high enough encumbrance limits to pack everything they need to get through this issue without running out of resources and resorting to padding.


Scan Quality: Medium, unindexed, Ad-free scan.


In this issue:


From the editor: Last year, they had a themed issue on ninjas. They remain perennially popular, but Erik isn't that keen on them anymore, as cheesy products like ninjaerobics or the TMNT musical ground the idea into the dirt in the 90's, and his childhood love for them turned into disillusionment. The fact that other people still were was vaguely surprising. That's how breakups work. You have to go through the grieving and bitterness phases before you can look back with an objective eye, and accept the good while leaving behind the bad. And maybe then you can do better next time. His other issue with including them in a Greyhawk campaign, that there isn't a place for them, I can instantly refute. The Scarlet Brotherhood is filled with Monks and Assassins. I don't know about you, but if Martial Artist + Assassin does not = ninja then you are using a very different mathematical system to me. It doesn't matter that they're blonde and blue-eyed under the clothes, because hopefully they won't get caught and unmasked. Again, this is a case of taking things that fit, and discarding the rest that isn't so helpful, and hopefully winding up with something better. Hopefully we can apply the same philosophy to all the big old dungeoneering gear.


Scale Mail: We start off with another bit of sycophantic praise. Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along.

An actual interesting request is one for Class Act articles on ones from the supplements. Warlocks and Ninjas are certainly popular enough to merit it. Maybe at some point in the future, especially if people send stuff in.

Looking back a bit, we have a question about what Dragon Annual 6 was, and where to find it. The name is synonymous with the D20 special. And since it's quite recent there are still a fair few back issues in stock.

Another request that they don't have any plans for, but don't rule out if someone sends good stuff in is more Epic level material. As with previous editions, they'd rather cover the levels people are most likely to play at more. This does create a vicious circle, as the less you support it, the more likely people are to give up when they get to 20th level instead of continuing the campaign.

More lighthearted is a haiku inspired by a brutal convention dungeon crawl. Don't let Acererak hear about that or he'll incorporate poetry into his next masterpiece of idiot slaughtering.

The sexism in gaming issues continue. Removing the forum just means it winds up spilling over here. It's very exasperating that we still can't fix it after 40 years.

Also continuing is the talk about after-school gaming groups. Roger had his Army days reminiscences. Erik has this. Doesn't have quite the street cred, but since it's gaming we're talking about, are any of us in a position to judge?

Yet another ongoing issue is with the jokes. By dropping Dragonmirth, they removed the base of artists that submitted to it, and now they can't start it up again even if they want too. It's the same thing that happened with coverage of other RPG's before it. You've got to use it or lose it, and the less variety you have, the harder it is to add or swap out elements without people complaining.

And finally, we have two cases of the subscription blues. One because they're not that keen on the magazine at the moment, but can't be bothered to actively cancel it, and the other because they don't have the money to renew at the moment. Since we're now at the stage where you can find .pdfs all too easily within a month or two on the internet, I can't work up much sympathy.

Dragon Issue 331: May 2005


part 2/7


First watch is cut this month, as whoever made the ad free scan decided this counts as adverts. While I may not totally disagree with that assessment, it's still rather annoying.


The point of pole arms: Back to this topic again huh? Although actually, articles on polearms are far less common than either guns or gods, or even Elf-made magical items for that matter. It's just that the articles we did get were so front-loaded that anyone perusing the magazines from the beginning gets a distorted picture, with ones in Strategic Reviews 2 & 4, and Dragon 22, 64 & 178. They haven't done one since the 3e edition change, so this is well worth revisiting. The real advantage of polearms in 3e isn't the high damage scores, but that most of them have Reach, so if you have a well built party, you can get in more attacks without making so many party members vulnerable, and have lots of fun with attacks of opportunity when the enemy tries to retreat. Of course, this works best with groups considerably bigger than 4, and requires working on tactics as a group, so you can see why it isn't as popular an attack method as it should be. Along with talking about existing polearms, including collecting quite a few from various supplements, there's the obligatory new feats, some of which are cool, and some which are thoroughly banal and you ought to be able to try anyway, albeit at a penalty. While you might be able to have some fun in actual play with these tricks, it doesn't make for particularly interesting reading, showing that some things haven't changed since the old days. I wonder if they'll find room to squeeze in a similar article in the 4e issues.


Alchemical Charms: Unlike polearms, holy symbols & water, wolfsbane and garlic remain fairly entrenched in the public consciousness. The idea that some monsters are vulnerable to particular things that regular humans can just shrug off is an important step in teaching children that monsters can be beaten, you just need to use your brains instead of just brute force. It makes sense to extend these kinds of vulnerabilities to other creature types. Unfortunately, they choose to go the route of padded out formulaic waffle, taking 4 pages to say what they could easily have done in one by having a whole bunch of types of charms with identical effects, only against different creatures, and repeating the full text in the description of each. If there was one old school virtue they conspicuously haven't brought back with the revamp, it's using their limited space in the most efficient manner. Which is a real shame when you're dealing with equipment, as knowledge of ergonomics is invaluable for packing as many things at once without it impeding you too much, and in a way that makes them easy to get out again when needed. It's also disappointing given the reminder of many real world mythological monster's idiosyncratic weaknesses just a couple of months ago. So yeah, they should have either cut the crap, or made the effort to make each subtype's implementation interestingly different to make this a good article.

Dragon Issue 331: May 2005


part 3/7


Fast, furious and fantastical: Vehicles may have trouble fitting into dungeons, but they're a very important part of your equipment indeed, with even one making a huge difference to the whole party and the tone of their adventures. Just the difference between trudging on foot, and using horses is significant. When you add flying, ranged magical attacks and protection, cloaking, etc, it becomes even bigger. So let's see just how awesome these are for your high level characters to save up and add to their collective collection.

Adamantine Carriages are quite heavy, which means they take a fair amount of pulling and aren't the fastest, but the important thing is that they're tough. Basically the D&D equivalent of a presidential limo, for when getting somewhere safely is more important than getting there quickly.

Beholder Globes get one of the coolest illustrations in the magazine. Hollowing out a dead beholder and then flying around going pew pew with their eye lasers is truly an epic dream for an ambitious gnome. Of course, keeping those eye beams functional is very difficult indeed, and by default, only the weaker ones stay usable in this.

Chariots of Sustarre are a permanent version of the iconic old spell, letting you fly around bombarding people with your flaming weapons, and generally making a battle very asymmetrical indeed. Course, many fiends are both fire-immune and can fly, so watch out for them.

Dragonfly Longships are primarily good for scouting, but can also fling balls of acidic goo from their tails at a pinch. It's not eating entire planets, but it'll do for now.

Dune Yachts can sail through sand courtesy of a bound efreeti. Like all bound efreeti, it's cranky and will take any chance to twist your instructions to escape or annoy. Don't take it for granted.

Juggernaut Chariots grant a minor buff to your trample attacks. Meh.

The Longship of Dread Shade has an undead crew that only appears at night, and require regular deaths to keep them happy, making them a bit of a pain to deal with, and not a saving on resources like undead servants should be. Still, at least it's good for villains.

A Palanquin of Beguilement gives you yer basic social bonuses to anyone reclining in them. No surprises there.

Smugger's Wagons are also unsurprising, projecting the illusion that there's nothing illegal stored in here, no siree bob. I think the extradimensional compartments in the 2e version were a safer bet.

Sniper's Carriages let you do drive-by shootings in safety, once again bringing up real world parallels. Will people start conspiracy theories about why they did it and who was behind the job? Do goblinoids even bother with conspiracy theories, when they know for a fact the whole world is out to get them?

Worm Rafts are an awesome variant on the same kind of magic that produces Worms that Walk, giving you squirming but surprisingly comfortable transportation on land and water, and able to disperse into their constituent bugs to escape destruction or use as a weapon. I can see this general idea being applied to all sorts of items with valid and interesting results. A mixed bag here, but more than enough good ideas that i can see myself using.

Dragon Issue 331: May 2005


part 4/7


Bedrolls, bottles and bells: Mike Mearls gives us another reminder of basic stuff that was in nearly every adventurer's backpack back in the day, and still appears on the PHB's equipment lists. Most people will immediately figure out the utility value of food,10 foot poles and flaming oil. Things like bells, chalk, mirrors, rope, pulleys and whistles are slightly less obvious, but actually make a huge difference when dealing with environmental challenges in the dungeon or wilderness. It would be a shame to have to abandon a promising lead because you reach a cliff you can't climb or run out of light too soon. And the trick of using differently pitched whistles so everyone can keep track of each other in a fog and do coded communication while still leaving the enemy somewhat confused is genuinely cool and new to me. So this is a case where including lots of tricks means they have some overlap with previous times they tried this, but it's not complete, so each article still retains value in itself. That's acceptable to me.


The plunderers handbook: We finish off the themed section with another collection of advice that is mostly familiar to me, but has a few new tricks as well. How do you get treasure out of the dungeon and make maximum profit from it? If you have unlimited time or carrying capacity, you just throw everything not nailed down in your bag of holding, including the dead bodies of your enemies, (which can be very valuable indeed, and also makes sure any survivors don't raise them) and offload it at the nearest MagicMart™ for half it's store price when you have the chance. if you're playing a grittier game, you'd better get the mules and hirelings out to strip the place and start working on your tax-avoiding tricks. Somewhere in the middle, you'll need to memorise your unseen servant and tenser's floating disc spells to lighten the load a little, and raise your fallen foes as zombies to help carry their stuff around. Basically, this is another reminder that the adventure doesn't have to end when the enemy is defeated, and the process of getting home and selling stuff can be full of interesting challenges as well. And that once you've accumulated enough stuff, you become targets for the next generation of adventurers, as you have to build castles or dungeons to hold your treasure and set up guards and traps to protect them. It's the adventurer's circle of life. Let's hope a full themed issue on name level shenanigans is in the pipeline at some point.


The ecology of the greenhag: Hmm. The third recycled monster, and it's the second time someone's decided to redo a Nigel Findley one. (issue 125) He must be spinning in his grave. And while the writer tries gamely with his florid prose, he's not even slightly as successful at evoking genuine horror. Unlike the will-o-wisp one, which did at least offer a different distinctive perspective, this has no great insights or fresh spins on the creature covered. We've seen this all before in fairy tales. Hell, it doesn't even have the race spanning cross-breed cycles that interconnected the various hag sub races in the previous one. About the only thing it does better is the combat advice and the illustrations. Fail.

Dragon Issue 331: May 2005


part 5/7


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another array of cursed items and mixed benefits this month. The ideal format for the sadistic DM to stretch their muscles. As usual, whether you can turn them to positive ends or not is largely up to you. Ready with those remove curse spells.

Arrows of Bursting explode in your face just before you shoot them. This is more painful and less pleasant than in the cartoons. Tee Hee.

Ghost Mantles make you into a ghost. Take them off pronto or you'll become one permanently. You probably won't enjoy this, no matter how awesome being a ghost may seem at first.

Masks of the Sun's Radiance empower you while in sunlight, but weaken you out of it, and cant be taken off. A pain, but one you could probably live with.

Rings of Breathing Water let you breathe water, but prevent you from breathing air. This will likely put a crimp in your social life. Same old story here.

Rods of Animated Dead raise 'em, but don't let you control 'em. Have fun trying to turn this to your advantage. I suggest flight and a planed escape route.

Rods of Delusions are one of those items that makes you paranoid by delivering false positives along with detecting actual enemies. You'll be attacking your buds thinking they're dopplegangers in no time. Oh the shame.

Singing Ioun Stones are near impossible to get rid of once you put them in orbit, and totally distract both your rest and spellcasting. Amusingly nasty, these are another rather likable cursed item.

A Spellbook of Dissolution not only wastes your time scribing, but also ruins other spellbooks left near it. Just the thing for if your wizard has a few too many broken options to choose from.

Walking Staves have plenty of useful movement related powers, but also give you rather high odds of being struck by lightning. This isn't too bad for experienced druids, as they'll probably have the HP to soak it up, but let the buyer beware, as usual  


Spellcraft is going desert themed. Surprised they haven't done that before, particularly since Athas and Al-Qadim were so desert centric. They were too busy obsessing over the elements to really spend time on the nuances of the prime material environments. I suppose releasing environment books has alerted other writers to this exploitable niche.

Camel's Tenacity is the typical spell allowing you to survive without food/water for a bit. We've had plenty of variants on this before and deservedly so, for food is an important concern for people.

Desert Burial traps people in the ground with only their head exposed, leaving them helpless unless rescued. Not quite as nasty as the one that sucks you down to suffocate, but I guess this one prefers a lingering death. They also point out a bunch of ways it can synergise with preexisting conditions. Muahahahaha, etc.

Dust Storm is the now obligatory ongoing damage + environmental penalty inflicter. They do seem to be becoming fond of those lately. I suppose it makes for more interesting fights than when villains wipe out your party first round with quickened maximised double fireball whammys.

Crown of Dispair is the old mummy standby, paralysis via terror. With typically nerfed 3.5 duration.

Sand Spiral is another, more rapid effect AoE damage + penalty inflicter. You don't want that sand in your lungs, no siree bob.

Screen of Heat gives things on the other side concealment. You can make it one-sided, giving you a big advantage in missile bombardment. To victory! And all the enemy's beer!

Touch of the Pharaoh is another one that allows you to imitate mummies. At this level, it may well be more practical to simply become one, if you want this regularly. After all, immortality is always in vogue. Unlike the dance style, which is so out by now. This is made even more the case by an interesting bit of setting building, whereby these spells are cursed, and using them may attract the attention of their disseminator. This is an interesting trick by Mike Mearls to make magic more mysterious and dangerous that feels like it's cut from the same cloth as Iron Heroes magic items. On the whole, I think this is a particularly good, and well tied together collection.

Dragon Issue 331: May 2005


part 6/7


A novel approach: Huh. The Spiderwick Chronicles. There's a real turnup for the books. Tony Diterlizzi may have left RPG's behind for the FAR more lucrative world of children's books, but it's good to see him keeping in touch. This means that this column is both bigger and better illustrated than usual, and includes an interview with him and Holly Black, the writer. (who it turns out is also a gamer) It also means there's room for more setting information, with only a relatively small amount of statistics at the end. (after all, D&D already has a quite copious selection of fae for you to use) It also talks quite a lot about he overall themes and how to apply them to your game. When your protagonists are kids, you have to balance a whole extra set of social challenges with the physical ones of dealing with monsters, especially in a world that doesn't even believe in them. This once again shows the benefits of not having the same columns every single issue, so the ones you do include are bigger and better. It's a definite shame that they aren't producing D20 modern material in the magazine, as this would have been a perfect opportunity to cross over a little of that. Still, even as it is, this gives you quite a few cool ideas to alter your game in ways that are common in fiction, but rare in D&D.


Sage advice: Can antimagic field be detected by detect magic (Only if a magic item goes into it and suddenly goes off your radar. Very tricksy.)

Can detect magic locate an invisible creaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghackhackslump!. (Andy remembers that sskip got asssked this loads of times. Andy wishes people would remember the answer too. )

Can detect magic detect supernatural effects (yes)

What kind of damage does a slashing or piercing wooden weapon do (You jusst answered your own question, preciouss)

Do the bonuses granted by spikes and brambles stack (Only the untyped parts, yess)

How can the DM alter the effects of entangle based on the local plants (Usse your imagination, yess?)

Is Balance needed to stand up in the area of a grease spell (no)

Does casting detect magic count as an attack and break invisibility (Yes)

Does counterspelling (yes)

Does casting flaming sphere and using it non-offensively (no)

Does sanctuary. (no)

Do clothes cleaned by prestigitation get dirty again after the duration wears off (no)

Can you ride your own tensers floating disk. (No. If you can't move, it can't follow you, preciouss)

If you tie Cause fear to an Unhallow spell, does it work every round (No, only when the nassty intruders enter, collins collins. )

Does the bonus from practiced spellcaster apply before or after other bonuses (Whichever iss most twinky, yess. They're still underpowered, so they need all the help they can get. )

How does practiced spellcaster interact with wild magic (Pretty well, yess. )

Dragon Issue 331: May 2005


part 7/7


Class acts: Barbarians get Archaic Armaments. Because lets face it, one of the hallmarks of being a barbarian is not having as good a set of weapons. But they can make up for it with special features, and you can make up for it with sheer savagery. Not one for the pure optimizer.

Bards get the multiclass advice this time. Once again, the fighty classes combine best, with ranger being particularly good at adding new tricks without diluting your current ones. Split spellcaster, on the other hand, sucks as much as ever.

Clerics get Tokens of faith III. 7 new holy symbols for your enjoyment and optimization. Woo.

Druids get Environmental weapon lists. If they're not from a forested agricultural area, scythes, staves and scimitars may not make sense. Seafarers need nets and tridents, mountaineers need climbing and digging stuff, etc. A nice callback to the 2nd ed druids handbook.

Fighters are also venturing onto the high seas with Marine Munitions. A bunch of mundane and magical items to make a seafarers life easier. This is pretty useful stuff for any class in that situation.

Monks get The Sidewinder Monk. They emulate the snake, becoming deceptive, fast striking, and rather scary. A really rather cool variant from both fluff and crunch perspectives.

Paladins get Knightly Effects (which really should be Affects, given the context, rassenfrassen editor. ) More variant equipment that really could be pretty useful to any warrior.

Rangers get Rangers Militant. If you look at modern army tactics, the skillset of the ranger is somewhat closer than that of the fighter (although neither are really that realistic, but that's more a matter of the underlying system. ) So treating your rangers as special ops military types rather than badass wandering loners is an entirely viable character concept. Once again, they are honing their reskinning skills for the next edition.

Rogues get Be a Lover, not a Fighter. Like bards, rogues are well suited to solving problems without straight combat. And you'll probably live longer if you try it.

Sorcerers get Familiarity Breeds. Another way to upgrade your familiar and yourself by taking feats. Another pretty useful set of tricks.

Wizards get Wizard Affectations. Why do they dress in the way they do? What does it symbolize? The answer, in your campaign, is up to you.


Nodwick's team do another advert for some quick cash. They really ought to invest their money better. Dork tower comes a cropper from encumbrance. Zogonia needs to do some resurrecting again. Well, they've got a better track record than Nodwick has.


They might have chosen a very old-school topic, but the implementation wasn't quite up to old-school snuff, and fairly rehashed as well, leaving me not particularly excited through most of it. Even with an editor who's more interested in the same things I am, there's still going to be substantial month by month fluctuations in how interesting the material is. And of course, next issue is the birthday one, which is particularly tricky to find new things to say about due to the specialised topic. What more can they add to the magazine's namesake? Time to find out again.

Dragon Issue 332: June 2005


part 1/7


75(108) pages. Look ma, I'm an adventurer! I'm just going to glance back at the camera to pose and go raar before I try to kill the monsters, because my family would never let me live it down if I didn't bring back snaps of my heroic deeds. Once again, the zoomed in nature of covers compared to the old days makes the world the adventurers live in seem less significant and threatening, even when the danger should be a pretty big one like, say, a goddamn dragon. Maybe it will beat the adventurers after all, but I'm not making any bets, especially as the articles inside seem more focussed on creatures around them, such as cultists and kobolds. Let's see just how much familiarity has bred contempt after 29 years then.


In this issue:


From the Editor: After a decidedly unimpressive cover, the editorial immediately reminds us of one of the most awesome ones of the past, the dragon vs fighter jet one from 1989. One that was obviously done before the Code of Conduct, and TSR deciding it was institutionally against LARPing in all it's forms, as the associate editor talks about the spectacular convention adventure they set up that year, with visual representation of all the rooms in the dungeon. Just the thing to really open a young gamer's eyes and make them go wow. This reminds us that in some ways things were indeed better in the old days, but it's also very much a matter of perception, as it's harder to impress adults who have a wider range of experiences to draw from. Will this year's conventions have the same kind of wow factor to a new attendee? Well, that's the hope. They're certainly bigger than back in the 80's And if they're spending a fair bit of money on promotions, they might well pull it off. Just got to make sure videogames don't draw everyone away with their even larger budgets.


Scale Mail: It turns out that it's not just the army that has tons of gamers filling in time there. The Navy is pretty good at that as well. And given the nature of these things, I'll wager the air force will be along to defend their geek cred as well in the near future.  

Second, we have a letter from someone who doesn't get to play much, so more setting and less disconnected generic crunch is definitely a more interesting read to them. remember how many people bought the dragonlance novels but not the games. Can you afford to cut them loose from your marketing strategy?

Next is another person who was initially suspicious of eberron, but won over by it's coolness, and now wants an article on pirates there. It does sound like a fun combo for an article, I'll give him that, even if they did do articles on pirates already just a year ago.

Also a topic worth returning too is more Call of Cthulhu monsters. Believe me, as long as James Jacobs is in the building, you'll have no shortage of things like that coming down the pipeline, even if they aren't official conversions.

While the magazine might be doing a bit more setting stuff, that does not mean WotC as a whole has changed their policy on not fragmenting the market. Nor are they going to convert Magic: the Gathering worlds to D&D, despite the potential extra money for half the extra effort in that.

However, even if WotC isn't bringing them back, other people are. This also applies to those old Tom Wham games, which are now published by Steve Jackson Games. Nice to see someone didn't sign away all their rights to the magazine and wind up screwed for finances long-term.

Thankfully, the humour in the april issue hits the mark this year. Hopefully they won't skip it again for several years running.

And finally, we have one of those tedious little rules quibbles that pops up every now and then. No amount of perfectionism and seriousness will stop those from slipping through.

Dragon Issue 332: June 2005


part 2/7


First watch: Another sign of things to come, as they release the Dungeon Masters Guide 2. See them realize that near core books sell even better than regular splatbooks and turn that into a major part of their strategy next edition. Or just enjoy all the cool new stuff. Depends how cynical you are.

Eberron gets Five Nations. Lots of fluff and a bit of crunch on Khorvaire's various regions. Nice to see a still young and quickly growing gameline around here.

D20 stuff is also full of familiar solid sellers. Malhavoc releases the Book of Roguish Luck, courtesy of Wolfgang Baur. Like WotC's official releases, this has new core classes, new prestige classes, feats, and some interesting rules experiments. Only somehow a little less formulaic than it's official relation. Funny how that works. There's also the Monsternomicon. Hee. Will you nom them, or will they nom you? More Iron Kingdoms goodies converted to 3.5 for your enjoyment. Another thing that must have been more popular than I remember.

A ton of movies also get micropromotions. Mirrormask. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Howls Moving Castle. Rather idiosyncratic choices. Guess they've got to keep up their geek cred.

Reaper minis get kudos for another sinister cloaked and horned guy. I'll bet he has fun doing the maniacal laughter thing, with all the metallic reverb from his helmet.

Jeff Easly supplies art for a new game, Nin-Gonost. Another example of shiny new technology applied to old ideas, this uses magnetic soles to it's pieces to help them stay put.

And they also supply promotion for another of their mates. Tony Mosely now has a website up compiling his old Zogonia strips, plus extras. Unfortunately, it appears to be no longer functional, but that's life. Everything ends at some point.

Speaking of which, they also have an obituary for Andre Norton. I didn't even know she was dead until I read this. That's rather depressing. (note: this was written in september 2008, when I was first cataloging all the contents of the issues. Ahh, the confusion of holding multiple references of time in place at once.)