Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 3/8


Collaborative campaign building: Robin Laws has moved on from the magazine, but it seems his influence continues to reverberate, with this little article on blurring the player-DM boundary. The main benefits to allowing your players to join in on the worldbuilding are that it reduces the amount of effort you have to do, and increases the amount of investment and general knowledge they have, allowing them to play off the setting straight away, rather than starting off as wandering marauders each time. Plus if they have particular talents, you can take advantage of that expertise by splitting the labor in an appropriate way. Course, if you're experimenting with stuff like this, you might well be experienced gamers who don't need that crutch to immerse yourself in character, but that won't stop you from doing it for fun. After all, it's not about need, it's about trying new things so gaming doesn't get boring, and having enough trust in your players to not ruin things by metagaming or suggesting silly ideas that'll mess up the setting if implemented. Sometimes too many cooks may spoil the broth, but better to try and see if it works than stay stuck and limited by your own creativity.


Shady characters: One thing that's notable about shadows is how gradual and insidious they can be. As the sun sets, they lengthen and deepen, and you don't notice until a sudden chill creeps across your spine. Why shouldn't transforming into a creature of shadow if you spend too long in the plane be a similar process? So this article showcases another rules experiment, breaking up templates in the same way as monster racial classes, and allowing you to develop their powers one level at a time instead of suddenly becoming overpowered and then gradually trending back towards the mean. It also gives us a better idea of exactly what they consider appropriate compensation for a level, when you aren't gaining hit points, skills, BAB, or any of the other basics, and means you can hold off taking all the levels in them until you do have enough regular levels that you don't wind up simultaneously fragile and game-breaking due to your idiosyncratic special powers. So while they may still be a mechanical problem, this makes them less so, and gives players greater freedom still to customise their character, becoming only partly shadow-tainted and maybe deciding to turn back IC as they discover the consequences. Now we just need the retraining rules to fully support that kind of character arc mechanically.


Shadows of Undrentide: Even the new computer game is in theme with the issue, which is amusing. Did they plan that well in advance, or did it just happen to turn out that way? The new material is fairly appropriate for the stealth theme, detailing a whole bunch of ways to make your poisons more effective than simply increasing the numbers. Like the disease one three months ago, this sees them recognise that maybe they nerfed this a little too much in 3.5, and there is some serious plot drama involved in having a progressive, hard to fix problem that will only get worse if you don't act fast. The tricky thing is allowing both PC's and enemies access to tricks like this without it feeling unfair or making the game too lethal, for which it would be a very good idea to enforce the cost multipliers they list here strictly. That way, the big plot point poisons can only be pulled out occasionally, rather than resulting in escalation ruining the game.


Dork tower deal with the emotional fallout of gaming infidelity. So tragic.

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 4/8


Sneaky, stealthy & Stylish: Since stealth is one of the most common things characters strive for, there's always a big market for magical items that boost it. They probably didn't even have to specifically solicit for it. Still, I doubt your players will turn these goodies down if they run across them in a treasure pile.

Armor of the Woodland gives you moderate travel and stealth bonuses in forests, including teleporting from one tree to another, which is a huge boon if you're playing Robin Hood. Appear suddenly, and don't let them follow you, and your secret lair will remain undiscovered.

Bracers of Blocking make fighting defensively a little more beneficial than usual. Long-term turtling is still probably not a good tactic though.

Daggers of Torment give people hit by them hallucinations and flashbacks, which is one of those tricks that's only really useful if you plan to leave them alive for a while afterwards. Since sadism tends to get it's comeuppance, I think I'd bury that one with it's owner.

Rapiers of Disarming are pretty self-explanatory and somewhat rehashed. Swashbucking is a fun business, and good guys have their own reasons to not kill the enemy a lot of the time.  

Saps of Stunning are also a one-trick nonlethal pony. Knock out those guards, and get in and out before the alarm can be raised. Meh.

Swords of Murder, on the other hand, are all about the gruesome cascade effects. The more you kill, the better you can kill. For a little while, anyway. You're bound to run out sooner or later, and the comedown'll be a bitch.

Amulets of Good Fortune are your basic boosts to saving throws. Nothing particularly in theme about these.

Brooches of Alertness let you see in the dark and get general bonuses to your perception skills, so they're most useful to sneaky sorts by a narrow margin.

Drums of the Shadow Hound are made from the skins of shadow mastiffs, and offer a wide range of shadow based powers, depending on how you play them. Have fun figuring out how to get the best use out of them.

Fey Flutes are also made out of the bodies of their namesakes, and give you appropriate magical powers when played. Careful using them around actual fey, because you know what they're like for lengthy vindictive revenge campaigns.


Lord of darkness: Looks like the demon lord format in issue 312 was neat enough to inspire another entry. Only this time, it's an evil godly native of the plane of shadow rather than the abyss who wants to destroy the world, and has minions of all power levels for you spend a campaign foiling. And he doesn't want to do it because of hunger, but because he's from the time before light and noise and tons of living creatures crawling around breeding, eating, pooping etc etc, and just wants to go back to when the universe was dark and peaceful. So basically, he's the ultimate cosmic embodiment of the grumpy old man who thinks everything sucks these days and just wants us all to gitoffa his lawn. Since he's an actual god, you don't get stats to fight him with at the end of the campaign, but you do get domains, a prestige class, new spells, a new feat, and new monsters to throw at your players. I'm fairly entertained by this, and it looks open-ended enough to sustain a campaign. Shadows can come in many shades and depths, and sufficiently advanced ennui can be just as dangerous as genuine hate.

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 5/8


Patterns of shadow and light: We've had a magical item collection. Now for a spell one. This is also only partially in theme, with light-based spells as well as darkness ones. I suppose we need the contrast, just to make the darkness seem a little deeper. Let's see if these are worth adding to the many existing flavours of D&D magic.

Cone of dimness makes people believe everything has gone black instead of just extinguishing the lights. Since it's way higher level than regular Light and Darkness, that seems a little pointless at first. I guess this way, your side can be prepared and attack normally by using illusion countering spells, which definitely has it's upside.

Ebon Eyes let you see in the dark, and also look obviously sinister, which may or may not be a plus depending on your character. I'm sure you can finagle at least a +2 bonus to intimidation rolls for the synergy effect with a nice DM.

Lightwall illuminates the area and dazzles anyone who passes through it except the caster, making it good for setting up ambushes. Still, I don't think it's as good as wall of fire, and at the same level, you'd only want to use this if you know the enemy is resistant to fire.

Lucent Lance absorbs all the light around you into a single focussed blinding blast that'll leave some serious afterimages. But if you're lost in the dark, that's no use at all. Seems like a fairly exploitable weakness, since you're already in trouble when the lights go out.

Luminous Gaze gives you eyes that glow so brightly anyone meeting them is dazzled. This is both handy for combat and seeing in the dark, but not for subtlety. A really arrogant god-king will make the effect permanent, and relish the fact that all must avert their gaze.

Radiant Assault is similar to Prismatic Spray, only not as interesting, as all it's different colours merely do different types of damage. How tedious. At levels where this comes into play, you should be able to deal with petrification or being teleported to another plane, even if it does divert the adventure for a little while.

Rainbow Beam is basically a combo of colour spray and a low level attack spell like chill touch or burning hands, both dazzling and inflicting a random type of damage. Why wait until you have 5th level spells and quickening when you can effectively deliver a 2-in-one whammy at 3rd level with this?

Rainbow Blast does a little bit of damage each from lots of energy types. If you're not sure exactly what a creature is resistant too, hedge your bets and at least you won't waste your efforts entirely.

Shadow Phase is kind of the reverse of those annoying shadow monster spells, making an existing creature slightly unreal, and thus able to ignore attacks some of the time. Like Blink or Blur, this makes them lengthy and frustrating to fight. And since it's twice their level, it shows this collection is definitely being overconservative in terms of power levels. I guess you can get twinky stacking them.

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 6/8


Heroes of the war of the spider queen: In the past couple of years, the Rogues Gallery Column slowed to a trickle and was taken over by stuff from the War of the Spider Queen series. Here, we conclude that plot thread, as we are many others. Lolth has been away for a while, but they can't kill her off for good. Let's see what stories her absence has enabled.

Halisstra Melarn remains the same level, but has switched from neutral to good, from worshipping Lolth to Eillistrae, and had some changes in equipment. Being a protagonist gives you plenty of chances to consume moral fiber, even if it may take a while to pass through your system.

Danidae Yauntyrr, on the other hand, remains resolutely on the side of evil, just waiting for a chance betray her mistress. Enforcing loyalty through magic may work for centuries, but something will go wrong eventually, and it won't be pretty when it does.

Nimor Imphraezi is a half shadow dragon assassin who might be chaotic evil, but also wants to see Lolth worship shattered because it's not beneficial to him personally. Which is evil all over, isn't it, even if some good comes out of it in the long run because they're too busy backstabbing each other to take over the world. It's a perfect opportunity for adventurers to go in and make some changes by choosing their alliances wisely and betraying first.


Nodwick has to suffer friendly fire again.


Elminster's guide to the Realms: Several times in the past, we've had articles on what to do with dragon parts once you've killed them, and how much you can make by selling them to enterprising wizards. The Realms being a high magic place with plenty of wizards and dragons, it's not surprising that someone would take the job of middleman, setting up a shop which can take a dragon carcass, strip apart and preserve all the useful bits, and then sell them on at a profit when someone comes in, which is more convenient for everyone than lugging it hundreds of miles around to potential buyers. Equally unsurprisingly, a place like that needs a fair bit of magical security, both from thieves and pissed off relatives of the deceased dragons. Prices fluctuate wildly as stocks come in and deplete, and whether the owners know and trust the customers or not. As usual, Ed has plenty of fun with both the nature and personalities of the owners, and the layout of the shop, making it both useful for players and an entertaining read. It certainly doesn't seem like he's running out of ideas. Will he continue to be as frequent a contributor after this column goes, or is his 25 year reign finally at an end? Guess we'll find out soon enough.

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 7/8


Faiths of Faerun finishes off as it started, with a double bill, as the revamp approaches, and evidently they don't want to waste already written material before giving it the axe. Since it was never particularly regular, nor really settled on what it wanted to actually do with itself, even though it did manage to come up with some cool stuff along the way, I suspect this is one of the less mourned of the departed columns, along with The Current Clack and Dastardly Deeds & Devices. We only have a limited page count, so it goes to those who push hard and regularly to ensure they're included. No time for the shy and reticent, even if they do often have better ideas.

Our first article is Nether hounds of Kiaransalee. Hang on, didn't she get killed by Orcus after he came back to life? Death for gods is an awkward thing, especially now the Realms is in a different cosmology, despite sharing a lot of the old gods and events. Continuity becomes such a headache once retcons come into the equation.  It's too much bother for me to unpick at the moment. Our new crunch is a vicious new template, for turning things into said Nether Hounds. Slavering undead monstrosities, they're the kind of thing that relish ripping you apart with their bare hands, and with terrifying yowls, excellent senses, and high movement rates, they're well suited to hunting you down over a desolate moor or labyrinthine dungeon. Since it's a template, you could add them to anything from ghouls, to frost wights, depending on how scary you want the encounter to be. Not the most ground-breaking idea these days, but pretty well implemented.

Our second one is for another prestige class, the Deathstalker of Bhaal. Now he's definitely dead. It's a big plot point actually. Yet ironically, in some ways this has actually increased his popularity, and there's a worrying number of people who want to see him back and are willing to devote themselves to this prestige class to see it happen. It's only a 5 level one, but it culminates in them become exceedingly difficult to finish off permanently, with autoraising as standard. For a solitary villain without a party or villainous organisation to back them up, that's a huge advantage, normally only achievable by wizards with complex contingencies set up. The other abilities put them midway between cleric and assassin, which makes sense, but may require a bit of careful management for optimum power. I'm sure you're used to it by now. Ironically, it's quite an impressive end to this column, which could definitely have gone on longer if managed better. Oh cruel fate! :wipes forehead: Why must you taunt us so with unfulfilled promises, yet punish us so harshly if we fail to fulfil ours!


Dungeoncraft is off to Dungeon, appropriately, but at least Monte finishes off this particular topic here so he can start a new one there, and not confuse people who only read one magazine or the other. Having spent two issues on building personalities, he asks the question: Does a character still have a personality if they aren't interacting with anything? Which is pretty deep, really. People are very much defined by their relationships to others, and most change how they act depending on who they're with. You can spend ages designing some platonic ideal of their personality, only to have in-game events push them in a very different direction. So when you make a character, think about the other people you've already designed in the area, if they'd know them, and what their relationship with them is. A few distinctive relationships transform a cardboard cutout into a unique character with surprising speed. So having slightly fewer characters, but thinking about them more will make each more interesting, and hopefully they won't get killed off so quickly. As is too often the case, the longer a series goes on, the more distinctive it becomes, and I'm irritated that they're ending here just after telling us something new for a change.

Dragon Issue 322: August 2004


part 8/8


DM's toolbox: Our final toolbox reminds us that what players say they want isn't necessarily what they actually want, particularly in ongoing campaigns, and they might not even know what will really please them. So here's some tricks to help you read the unconscious signals they're giving off, and respond to them appropriately. Open-ended questions are far better than flat yes or no ones. Look at the character sheets, see what's emphasised on that. Let the players talk amongst themselves and pay close attention to their dynamics. And once you have an idea, don't be afraid to change your earlier plans to keep the adventure full of appropriate twists and turns. You might not be able to please everyone all the time, especially in a big group, but you'll please more people more of the time if you know how to work with human nature rather than against it.


Sage advice is back to 3 pages again. Skip is not taking any crap. The eternal sage who puts the pages in the mages and the broomstick between the witches legs is on top again. So let's get back to business as usual.

How smart is someone with an intelligence of 3 (Depends if their wisdom is also seriously sub average. You'll get more latitude that you would in the real world, because of the range of intelligence in sentient races, and the lack of a standardised education system. But yeah, you can talk, but people will know you're not the sharpest pencil in the box. )

Do charisma buffing magic items improve paladins divine grace (Yes.)

How long does it take to activate trigger magic items containing spells with long casting times (A standard action, or the spell's casting time, whichever is longer. The designers really should have spelled that one out better. )

Do spell-trigger items suffer spell failure due to armour (Not in general.)

What can be prone (Anything that can stretch out on the floor. Apart from a few weird things like beholders and gelatinous cubes, that's most things. Things with no limbs aren't negatively affected by going prone )

What can be tripped (Pretty similar list, really. Anything that uses legs to move. You can perform an analogous move on things with wings, which stalls them. Try it some time, it could turn the tide of battle. )

Can you trip someone while they're getting up with your AoO (No, as AoO's take place before the action that triggers them. You'd have to ready an action to pull that nasty little trick.)

Can prone creatures move. Can they tumble (You've seen action movies, haven't you. They can pull some pretty cool tricks, and we're not going to completely forbid them. )

When fighting with two weapons, do you double the bonus from combat expertise (Hell no. You suffer the penalty to all your attacks, no matter how many different weapons you make them with.)

Can you use both power attack and weapon finesse simultaneously with spiked chains and rapiers (Why yes. How feat intensive but potentially twinky.)

How fasst can a halfling barbarian in medium armour move, preciousss (You would want to know that, shorty. And don't call Skip Precious, or Skip'll cap you. That pleasure is reserved for the laydees. And it'd better be in a sultry purr, not some awfull squeaky voice that makes your fucking teeth grind. Now about your question, lets see. Ahh here we arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhlarkhackhackguuuuuurrrrrrggggllllee :thud: )


A whole bunch of things come to an end this month, and most of them get fairly decent sendoffs. The theme isn't stuck too that strictly, but still manages to get a solid selection of articles. And since they did get pretty annoying at times with the formulaic generic stuff, I'm definitely interested to see what comes next. Let's hope player-focussed isn't a buzzword for even more contextless new spells, magic items, prestige classes, etc that you won't get a chance to use.

Dragon Issue 323: September 2004


part 1/8


102(132) pages. Raar! Dragon rip through annoying, oft-derided whitespace! Time for another format change. Well, it has been a few years. And it's fairly fitting that the final big shift before they went electronic should be at the 9/10ths point. Since they're busy just sorting out the finer details of the new setup, they've decided not to have any other theme. They've also removed a lot of the more complex colour schemes and fonts on the inside, going for a cleaner look with lots of little regular columns. Whether they'll remain regular remains to be seen, but this does look like it could become very formulaic indeed if they don't rotate them a little.  Let's enjoy it while it's fresh, and see where it goes from there.


Scan Quality: Good, some page bleed, unindexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


From the Editor: Even this bit gets renamed, which seems a bit redundant, as well as unnecessary verbiage. I hope we all know what an editorial is, and if not, a comprehensive dictionary is only a google away. Since they're trying to be clear about their motives and communication, this spells out exactly what's going to be in the issue, and future issues until they decide to do another format change based on more feedback. They've created regular columns which'll give us a little bit of every type of player centred crunch they can think of, plus a little more focus on the out of game community aspect of gaming than they used too, and book conversions to go with the minis and computer game stuff. Hopefully that'll mean everyone can find something to please them each issue. But it does seem like it makes them even more dependent on their regular writers, as they have to get x amount of x type of submissions per issue, and edit them down quite strictly. I shall have to see how many unfamiliar names are breaking in as we go along.


First watch: After a couple of years absence, they bring back the previews. D&D's release schedule has now long since slowed to the point where it can't satisfactorily fill a feature like this on it's own, so they bring back coverage of third party products, like they tried for a short period back in 1998. A fairly pleasing change, given how insular they've been recently. This should help keep these last few years interesting.

Unsurprisingly, our first two previews are the actual D&D releases. Frostburn sees them try a new form of splatbook, having done class, race and historical period/region ones repeatedly. Climatebooks? Sounds a little specious. Can your writers justify this one? Somewhat more likely to sell reliably is the Monster Manual 3. There's still plenty of old monsters that need converting, and it's not as if they're short of ideas for new ones either. Plenty of new options for PC races and helpful creatures as well as stuff to fight.

Another release falls heavily into the Dear god, who would want this category. The audiobooks of the wheel of time, unabridged, each book spread across dozens of CD's, and in many cases lasting more than 24 hours. A lot trickier to skip through all the braid-tugging in this format. Thanks but no thanks for this particular heads up.

Substantially more useful in your actual gaming experience is Tact-Tiles. You can draw on them, wipe it off, and they're modular, allowing you to create maps that fit your table quickly and easily, and change them as characters move around without erasing the whole thing. Pretty cool, if also fairly expensive.

And Larry Elmore gets a little help, as his new trading card series comes out. They do seem to be covering a much wider range of products this time round. I wonder what other odd third party stuff we'll see.

Dragon Issue 323: September 2004


part 2/8


Scale Mail gets a cute little illustration, and they realise that email is now the standard method of communication, so they don't list a physical address anymore. So you can spam them as much as you want and it won't cost you anything but time. I pity their filters.

Our first letter is another armed forces guy who has fond memories of gaming while posted around the world. Supervisors might not have always approved, but they found places to play anyway. Ssshhh.

As with virtually every other time they tried it, the gun article gets nitpicked for Historical Accuracy. I'm sure the editors find this almost as tiresome as I do.

The dragon-raising article, on the other hand, gets plenty of praise. Dragons are for life, not just high levels. It's good that they're working to enable that in actual play.

Their criticisms of the AD&D cosmology get debated and partly rebutted. It might have it's problems, but it certainly has more than enough cool stuff to not throw it out completely. Just pick the bits you want for your game, and don't worry about the rest.

We get a bulgarian who wants to see more Oriental Adventures material. This makes me smile for no good reason.

They ask after an article that was teasered, but not released. Cut for space at the last minute, unfortunately. Which means it will turn up some time, since they've probably already edited it, and hopefully paid the writer.

And finally, we have two letters on the possibility of a good D&D movie being released, hopefully one that actually draws on the existing settings. Don't get your hopes up, my dears. There are many awful tie-ins to come yet.


Player Initiative: Another all-new column, this talks about upcoming conventions and RPGA stuff in a way they haven't for a few years. It's a short one that's primarily self-promotion, trying to get us to come out to gen con and buy the cool new or exclusive stuff, and register in the tournament adventures. It seems aimed primarily at newcomers, and so isn't hugely interesting to me. Still, as long as Gen Con keeps on getting bigger, that's good for everyone apart from the people bored in queues or trying to book hotel rooms at decent prices. And if you don't have that kind of money, tough luck.


Under command: This column survives unchanged apart from the visuals, including more photos of actual minis from the game. And as is often the case, they're introducing stuff that's useful for both D&D and the minis game, bringing the two closer together mechanically. Stuff about choosing and advancing your commanders makes them closer to being well rounded individuals. And meanwhile 7 feats that replicate effects from the minis game allow you to make D&D characters that are more like them, and quite possibly convert characters between the two systems, and use both in a campaign depending on which is more convenient for the encounter. Automatically buffing all your allies gets more handy the more friends you bring along, and at some point it will get unwieldy to stick with D&D. Practicing system changes before then will let you pull them off smoothly when needed.

Dragon Issue 323: September 2004


part 3/8


A novel approach: Their new books column is another one that starts off with slightly irritating pure self-promotion. They're launching a new series of D&D novels not set in the existing settings, and oriented at a younger crowd, in the hope of sucking in a new generation. Which can't have worked brilliantly, given the still ageing roleplaying demographics, but since they continued publishing stuff in this imprint regularly until 2011 can't have been a complete flop either. Completely unsurprisingly, the new crunch is conversions of the characters and a magic item from the book. Each of them is level 1, and together they make up a fairly decent starter party, if somewhat more socially focussed than most. They obviously want to downplay the violent side of D&D for the sake of being family friendly. I can see the formulas going full force on this one, so it leaves me feeling very cynical indeed. Definitely not the best way to start off a column when there are so many more distinctive fantasy worlds out there to choose from.


Silicon sorcery, on the other hand, chooses a very big name for conversion. Chocobos from Final Fantasy! They come in a wide range of colours, are fairly cute, and a few of them can fly. They really do fit into D&D perfectly, which makes sense given the number of FF monsters that were converted from D&D in the first place. They're probably slightly easier to take into dungeons than horses, and being able to double your movement rate for extended periods of time certainly doesn't hurt. I am mildly amused by this, and definitely approve of the idea. (moogles, on the other hand...... ) People who dismiss all anime out of hand because of the visual style are missing out on a lot of cool stuff that's very appropriate for D&D. Someone ought to do an anime style conversion of the temple of elemental evil so Lareth the Beautiful can get the number of fangirls he truly deserves.


Zogonia mark their territory. Wandering monsters may get annoyed by this. Nodwick has a public service announcement to make. Dork tower tries to fix their group dynamics and fail again.


Samurai vs Knight: Well, this is certainly a harder fight to decide than Elminster vs Raistlin. The elite warrior classes of two very different cultures that existed at around the same time, and with tech levels not so far apart as to be obviously overpowering. There's certainly room for a good deal of debate there, because there's a ton of variables. Precise time period, environment, home team advantage, if they're fighting in melee or on horseback, if each is fighting fair by their own particular standards, you can consider them all, and never come to a solid answer. Because really, it would depend on the luck and skill of the specific individuals, and even if there were statistical trends, there would still be many exceptions to the rule. So no solid answers here, and I can't help feeling it would be a more entertaining read as an actual forum thread where people genuinely do have polarised opinions, rather than one person being even-handed and researching both meticulously. This is interesting because it's different from the usual fare they serve us, but still feels like a bit of a white elephant, as I'm really not sure what to do with it. Do they plan to do any more? What other iconic comparisons are there to make? Do they have the courage to do a wizards vs sorcerers (or wizards vs fighters, which would be even more telling) one and pick apart the problems in their own game? I guess we'll see soon enough.

Dragon Issue 323: September 2004


part 4/8


Demon Stone: A second computer game article in the same issue? Looks like they need to keep up their quota of self-promotion. Unlike Silicon Sorcery, this is pure teaser material for their latest action-focussed D&D conversion. Featuring R. A. Salvadore's Drizzt, real-time control of three characters simultaneously, and lots of cut-scenes to advance the plot! Sounds very of it's time, as they're selling mechanical elements that are now fairly mundane as if they're a big deal. Looking at reviews shows this was another decent success, but not a breakout like the Neverwinter games, in part for being just too short. If you try too hard to make it about a linear story, people won't make it their own and build upon it in interesting ways. This applies to computer games just as much as tabletop RPG's.


Seven deadly domains: The NWoD was launched last month, making Virtues and Vices an integral part of your character in the same way alignment is in D&D - an important choice, but too broad to completely define your character's nature. Given their leadup times, it's an interesting co-incidence that they do an article on the 7 deadly sins here as well. And just like there, while indulging in them may be bad from a moral point of view, it's good from a story point of view, and even many good gods have particular flaws in their personality, so there's a lot of drama to be found in incentivising being naughty mechanically. Which in a roundabout way, leads us to these 7 new themed domains for your cleric to take, most of which have at least one new spell not normally on their list, plus an appropriate granted power that'll make being bad feel a little sweeter. They add them to the domain lists of plenty of existing gods, so it's not hard for you to take them if you feel the desire, and many of the new spells are available to other classes as well. This is another interesting article that gives me plenty to talk about, so It's another success in my book.


See no evil: A second examination of the nature of sin and how it should be handled in D&D. Detect Evil can be a problem in campaigns because it can wind up as an excuse to kill people just because they must be guilty of something, even if it's not the specific crime you're thinking of, and because morality is an incredibly subjective business that can cause endless irritating debate. There is a very good reason that they flat-out stopped it from working in Ravenloft. So this article introduces a selection of interesting substitutes that you could put in your campaign. Detect Attitude lets you tell if someone is friendly or hostile to you personally, which is actually pretty handy in political situations, but not when dealing with strangers who haven't had a chance to establish an opinion yet. Detect Guilt lets you tell if someone has misdeeds eating them up inside. Of course, this means you're more likely to wind up punishing the good people who make occasional lapses than the true bastards. Detect Heresy only works on someone who follows your religion, (or is pretending they do, in which case they glow like a sore thumb. ) and detects how well they stick to it's specific strictures. This is again quite subjective, as it keys off your specific denomination, so catholics and protestants can still wind up fighting without god stopping them. Detect Violence lets you analyse how recently and often nasty stuff goes down in an area, but leaves out the whos and whys. So they're all much easier tools to adjudicate than detect evil/good, while having specific issues that mean you can't just use them to solve a plot effortlessly. You've got to select the right tool for the job, and having several at once won't be redundant in a social heavy campaign. A very interesting article indeed. Why couldn't they have had mature, thoughtful articles like this in issue 300 instead of going for the gross-outs?


The ecology of Chokers: Hmm. They don't normally use the plural in the creature title for these articles. How quirky. In any case, chokers are one of those creatures that has come off pretty well from the edition change, increasing in popularity and widespreadness of use. Amusingly, this is reflected in setting, with their being a relatively recent and spreading introduction to the underdark. In contrast to last month's ecology, they get a quite dry and utilitarian description, and since it's pretty dumb, they don't bother with the team tactics bit this time round. Not a particularly enthralling ecology, with no great surprises or new insights. The main notable point is that they start using the lists of specific knowledge DC's to determine just how much you know about the creature, that also became common in books around this time. I suppose that's a fairly decent refinement. I wonder if they'll remember to do that reliably.

Dragon Issue 323: September 2004


part 5/8


Spellcraft: Another renaming and resurrection here. Arcane Lore hasn't been around for a couple of years now, but it looks like people want their regular infusions of new spells back. Exactly why they chose to rename it I'm not sure, but better here than not. So this time, our topic is Force spells. One we haven't covered before, simply because it was only formalised as a power type with it's own specific benefits in 3e. And now it's virtually a new element, running neck and neck with sonic effects as the weapon of choice for the discerning spellcaster who wants to bypass immunities as often as possible. Already a viable option, let's exploit it a little more, encourage people to develop resistances, and so move the cycle onto a new energy source.

Chain Missiles isn't as badass as chain lightning, but that's the thing about being lower level. Same basic principle.

Emerald Planes will give you cover from physical and ethereal creatures. Weightless, near indestructible walls always come in handy for redecoration, regardless of color.

Force Chest is another rather hard to hurt bit of kit. You can even make it semi-transparent, taunt people with the contents. Frankly, you're asking for heroes to come in and kill you, take your stuff if you do that.

Force Ram is a bit weedy as an attack spell, but it is a druid one. Raw magic energy isn't really their forte, is it.

Mass Mage Armor is a pretty obvious extrapolation. Buff your whole party. Filler, really.

Shard Storm is another moderately nasty blasty effect. Relatively Small AoE and damage, but lasting lots of rounds, it'll help you keep up with the warlocks.

Tenser's Greater Floating Disk is another bit of unimaginative filler to make page count line up. That's only getting worse, if anything, despite the revamp.


Gaining Prestige: So this is the new prestige class column. What, was Class Acts not good enough for you? This is one where the format remains fairly similar though, apart from the all-white background making it faster to read. The Spirit Speaker is our first offering. A secondary spellcaster in the Assassin mould, with a fairly substantial selection of other tricks built around the idea of going into trances and getting spirits to buff them up, they seem designed to make an interesting play experience, but not necessarily for maximum effectiveness, since they can only apply one buff at a time, and they only last for one round per level. The do get all good saves and an excellent skill selection though, so they do have their merits compared to full spellcasters. As a generalist, they'd make a good 5th member to a team or solo character, but get outperformed by specialists in their field.


Magic Shop: Bazaar of the Bizarre actually gets it's name shortened in the clarification process, which is an improvement in one way, if not in terms of being interesting and vocabulary expanding. It's another one where you can't really change the format that much though. And the topic is dwarf-made items, which certainly isn't a new one. Is their ingenuity endless, or will the items themselves be ones seen before.

Armor of Thror gives people hitting it electric shocks. Seen that one before in the D&D companion set. Nice to see it back again.

Breastplates of Hardiness absorb damage, effectively giving you temporary hit points at the start of each fight. Low key, but I'm sure the benefit will add up over a campaign.

Gauntlets of Bashing are your basic punch enhancers. Noting to see here, move along, move along, and if you don't, the knockback'll make sure you do.

Mugs of Clear-headedness are fairly amusing, showing some self-awareness in a race that isn't always known for it. Unfortunately it only has a limited number of uses per day, so it can't sober up a whole team if trouble crops up suddenly. Being a cool head in a crisis will hopefully still count for something.

Rings of Spelunking boost your basic dungeon knowledge, and let you shrink your way out of a tight spot in a pinch. If you have this one, you can expect to wind up going first in the marching order all the time.

The Statuette of the All-Father effectively adds the Strength Domain to your spell list if you fit the criteria. Fairly banal mechanically for such an interesting description.

Dragon Issue 323: September 2004


part 6/8


Heroic feats: Feats are generally the shortest bits of crunch, so this new column is correspondingly compact at only a single page long. It crams in 8 feats associated with being from a desert or oceanic region, that'll let you deal with both the environmental and social problems, and also have combat applications as well in many cases. Whether they'll be better than more general ones will depend on what happens in the campaign, so I probably wouldn't take them very often.


Winning races: We've seen the writers put a good deal of effort into producing interesting LA+0 golems, dopplegangers and lycanthropes recently. Now they apply themselves to creating an LA+0 cyclops variant that still captures the mythological feel of the race. In the process, they highlight an aspect that previous D&D versions have pretty much ignored, the oracle part of their nature. Their depth perception may be lacking, but they compensate for that with a slightly unfocussed temporal sense. (plus the obligatory darkvision that they give nearly everything ) They come in both savage and civilised variants, each of which get plenty of cultural description. They're just ever so slightly too small to get Large size and all the mechanical stuff that comes with it, which makes sense, but also feels very artificial. Once again, this is finely tuned, putting quite a bit of effort into both mechanical design and creating an interesting yet generic backstory so you can slot them into your world easily. It succeeds in making me want to play them and make them my own, so I think they're onto a winner here. A fresh coat of paint on an old idea can make all the difference in the world.


Class Acts is radically retooled as part of this changeover. Instead of providing new prestige classes (which lets face it, we already have thousands of, more than any group could conceivably play. ) they give us an array of stuff for each of the 11 core classes. As we've discovered, putting all the cool stuff in the prestige classes annoys people because they have to wait quite a few levels to get them, and plan way in advance to meet the prerequisites. So by introducing new core classes, and variant abilities for the existing ones, they make the kewl powers more accessible to encourage people to buy the new books. Whether this is a good change or horrible lowest common denominator pandering power creep is a matter of opinion.

Fighters get the Thane: A very slight variant where you swear fealty to a lord and get a few new feats added to your bonus list. Given the plot annoyance this can present, probably a slight drawback, really.

Clerics get Heed your calling: A bunch of roleplaying advice encouraging you to make up reasons for why they chose the specific domains they did. You can deconstruct every choice, can't you. Ho hum.

Wizards get Specialist familiars: 8 new familiars, one for each school, with a special benefit of particular use to that school. Another case of wizards getting the best tricks, this is pretty useful stuff.  

Rogues get Wilderness Rogues: Some mechanical build advice showing you how you can make your rogue more suited to the wilds by proper allocation of your skill points. Why should rangers and druids get all the forest walking fun?

Barbarians get The civilized Barbarian: Remember, classes are really just collections of powers, and you can refluff them if you choose. There are a bunch of other concepts that you can use for your character, from spoiled nobleman to frankenstein-esque amnesiac. Interesting.

Druids get a whole bunch of new tricks they could teach their animal companions. This is of course useful to anyone else with Handle Animal as well.

Sorcerers get Beyond Blood: As with barbarians, this is a bunch of other reasons why they could have spontaneously developed magical powers. If you've read comic books, you should be familiar with most of these.

Rangers get Gear for Greeners: A bunch of new equipment, that as with the druid's entry, seems useful for anyone with a wilderness slant to their tricks. If you have a few hundred gold to blow, these would be valuable additions to your pack.

Paladins also get a load of dull concept building advice. We know, we know, they don't all have to be knights in shining armor.

Monks are also on the concept building advice path. This is even less impressive than the last couple.

Bards get Instruments of the masters: Some instruments are better for various kinds of bardic music abilities than others. Reflecting that mechanically isn't a bad idea. It's only a minor benefit, but a nicely flavourful one.

This is definitely a case where the idea of the change is better than the execution. Most of these articles really do feel like filler ones, made to fit a hole, and fill out the page count, rather than from any real imagination or desire. And the best ones are for the classes that are already the cooler ones, pushing them even further ahead. Not a very auspicious start.

Dragon Issue 323: September 2004


part 7/8


Player Tips: With Dungeoncraft moved out, they replace it's space with something very similar but smaller, aimed at PC's. A bit of fluff about how the culture your character comes from will affect their stats and personality? This is almost the same stuff as the NPC designing ones the last three months, only from a slightly different angle. With the really small size, it's hard for them to say something that hasn't been said before, so this is another one for the new players with the short attention spans. If they think bite sized chunks will sell better, I guess I'm going to have to live with it.


Adventurer Tricks: This second little column is also rehashing a very recent topic indeed, talking about how a group copes without a rogue. A decent ranger and wizard can cover for virtually everything a rogue brings to a table except sneak attack, and that's not that great anyway. A few well-chosen spells more than deal with the stealth and trap removal aspects, and these days a lot of traps are weak enough that a tough barbarian can just set them off and take the hit, before letting the cleric deal with the aftermath. Since this does bring a different, more lighthearted spin on the topic than Mearls' one, I'm inclined to tolerate it. It isn't that serious a problem unless the DM specifically sets out to make it one, so don't get too worked up about it. If you die because you didn't have the right set of powers, just make a new group and get on with things instead of angsting.


Sskip is no longer here to do Ssage Advice. He, err, retired to live on a farm. Thatsss right. Don't worry, Andy will take good care of you now. Yes, collins, collins, Andy will take good care of all sskip's precioussss books. How kind of Sskip to leave them behind when he left, collins collins. But Andy will get rid of those nassty plants. Getting too big, they are, collins collins. Letss rip them all down, make lotss of nice white sspace to move in, ansswer more quesstionss in, yess, collins collins. Sso, whatss your firsst quesstion?

How do you calculate your BAB when wielding two weapons and have more than one attack per round (Eassy. Just determine the penaltes for each hand, and ssubtract 5 for each attack your firsst hand makes. If you have improved two-weapon fighting, you do the same for the extra attackss your otherr hand makess. )

I have a super twinky rapier wielding fighter. Just how badass is he. (All these numberss, making Andy's head spin, collins collins.  Lots and lotss of attacks, yess. But rapierss aren't a light weapon, no, so you don't get that benefit. Almosst as good as you thought, ok? )

Can you use power attack when wielding two weapons (Yess. But power attack uselesss with light weapons, so only good if you copy Drizzt, yess. )

If you use a two bladed sword, how much of your str do you add. Does it matter which end you use (Jusst like two handed weapon, yes. One and a half times strength, no matter which end.)

Can you throw weapons two handed and use rapid shot at the same time. (If you have quick draw, yess. Lots of shotss, lots of penalties, collins collins.)

Can a monk fight with two weapons. What penalties will they suffer (depends if itss a monk weapon or not, collins collins. Lotss of different ways to do this. So many choices, yess. Andy will help you work out which one hurtses your enemies most, yess.)

How much damage does an enlarged monk do. (Follow the weapon ssize change formula, yess. Easy, yess? )

Can you stack a monks damage with a soulknifes (No. Mind blade not unarmed attack. One or the other, yess.)

Can a centaur monk make hoof attacks on top of their normal unarmed attacks. (Yess. Ssecondary weapons useful, yess.)

How do I figure out if a monster gets iterative attacks with it's high BAB. (Natural attacks never get iterative, collins collins. Ssuch a sshame. Only weapons.)

Dragon Issue 323: September 2004


part 8/8


The D&D Buyers guide: As they've done a few times before, they release a big catalog of upcoming stuff for their various product lines. Another 17 pages of pure self-promotion. They haven't been this blatant about it since 1995, when that was one of the biggest criticisms they had to deal with in trying to revamp themselves. I guess the degree of turnover since then is sufficient that they're starting to forget the lessons they learned in those hard times. But then, the times themselves have changed, so maybe different rules apply now. I'm still pretty bored flipping through this though.


Coup de Grace: In a nice mirror to First Watch, we finish off with another look at the wider world surrounding the game. It's pretty safe to say that the process of creating a D&D book has changed quite a bit since WotC took over, with a greater emphasis on design and development by teams, and playtesting as much of the mechanical bits and pieces as possible, rather than letting an individual writer do their thang and then handing it off to editors, who's main priority are spelling mistakes. All of which contributes to 3e books having a very different feel even when the writers are older ones who survived from the TSR era. And that's probably small fry compared to the amount of development and playtesting new M:tG releases get. So this makes it very clear that their books these days are produced to a formula, and roughly what that formula is. Its a good thing that they did let third party publishers in so you could have compatible stuff that's less polished but more imaginative and inventive. 3e really would have been poorer if WotC was left all to it's own devices.


This has been an odd issue. Packed with tons of small articles, they've definitely changed the feel quite a bit. In fact, I'd call the changes even more drastic than the switch to 3e ones in terms of format. On the good side, there are some articles that are a genuine departure from what they've been doing recently, and the new format is far easier to read than the previous one, making even the bad articles much quicker to get through and come to a solid conclusion on. On the bad side, there's an annoying uptick in the amount of contentless self-promotion, and some of the new columns seem distinctly half-baked. Still, if they really are continuing to listen to feedback, hopefully they'll shake out those kinks and just stick with the ones that work and get regular submissions.

Dragon Issue 324: October 2004


part 1/8


108 pages. So it's time for another price increase, to $6.99. Seems like they're coming more frequently these days. Funny that they tend to happen the issue AFTER a format change. Anyway, halloween has rolled around again, and that means undead and other monsters that are billed as scary, even if mechanically they're not as nasty as some others that aren't getting the same publicity. (maybe their next april issue can combine badgers, mushrooms and snakes, since all of those have truly terrifying D&D variants) Once again, let's see if there's anything new to say on this topic.


Scan Quality: Slightly blurry, oversaturated blacks, unindexed.


In this issue:


From the editor: So the D&D movie sucked. But somehow, it's still getting a sequel. (even if the two only share one character and no actual plot threads) It's vaguely baffling to me. I suppose there's several considerations beyond short term profit at work here. One is the sheer number of D&D based books and computer games that have become bestsellers. Surely someone ought to be able to crack converting it to the big screen. Another is that as long as D&D is around, any movies based on it will enjoy a fair amount of long tail sales, even if they're known to be crap, because gamers want to rubberneck. And finally, there's doing it as a loss leader to raise the profile of gaming as a whole. D&D flourished in the 80's thanks to the people spreading negative publicity about it as much as anything. A little more of that might be just what we need to fix the ageing demographics. Well, they've got to have hope, otherwise they wouldn't be working here.


First watch: Our generic D&D book this month is Libris Mortis. Undead continue to be one of the most popular adversary types, and so a splatbook focussing on them, both as adversaries and PC's seems likely to sell. New monsters, new spells, new prestige classes, all those crunchy jubblies they know work.

The forgotten realms reintroduces The Shining South for the new edition. High temperatures, high magic, and airships in the sky. They point out that Eberron did not originate these tropes. Ahh, the horrors of having to fill newbies in on the past.

Speaking of which, they also release 30 years of Adventure, their latest retrospective on the history of the game. They aren't making as big a deal about it as they did for the 25th anniversary, but they're still feeding off nostalgia quite a bit. I do wonder how well things like this actually sell compared to new gamebooks. Do they get into shops that the actual rulebooks don't?

Also on the nostalgia trip, we get an odd situation where the UK is getting DVD's of old kids shows before the US. He-man and the D&D cartoon are both getting these first for a change. Bloody region coding. It really has no place in the modern world where you can order stuff from any country easily. This stuff really irritates me.

They also decide that computer games are now within their remit, promoting Dundjinni, a map making program. Another thing that's useful, but hardly essential, as they point out that drawing stuff by hand still works just fine.

In addition, along with the usual previews on what's next in Dungeon, they add Amazing Stories to the roster. Once again they try and relaunch it, make it relevant to a modern audience by putting hot celebrities on the cover. Unfortunately, this is going to prove about as effective as your granddad trying to rap. Sigh.