Dragon Issue 338: December 2005


part 6/7


Sage advice: What does once per day really mean. (Oh, not thiss one again! Andy never gets a break, collins collins. Andy hatses you sso much.)

What do you do if something has both resistance and vulnerability to an attack (Resistances first, then vulnerabilities )

What's the duration of a ring of invisibility (3 minutes. )

If you affix dispel magic to hallow, what type is it (Area.)

When a spell effect is affixed to hallow, do unusual durations work (yess)

Is there any way to get rid of unhallow (Cast it's reversse on it, preciouss. )

Do temporary hit points from the same effect stack. How about different effects (No. Yess, but you need to track their durations separately. Lotss of nassty bookkeeping)

What does augment healing do to lesser vigor (Lots of extra pointses, collins collins. Very usseful.)

How long does a master of many forms wild shape last (Ssame as the base class they got it from)

Can you get a familiar from summon monster spells by applying persistent spell to the spell (sssssplts. Andy hateses you. You broke the game, collins collins. Nassty persson. Glarrrrrrkhackhackhackgurglewheezegurgle. That'ss better. He won't break the game anymore.)

What kind of action is attacking with a spectral hand (Part of the casting, yess. Nice extra power.)

Can a spectral hand deliver a spell from a staff, wand or scroll (No.)

Dragon Issue 338: December 2005


part 7/7


Class acts: Barbarians get the Horselord, a new variant. They've already had a feature on how riding barbarians can be cool. Now they can really back it up.  Of course, this might be a problem in many campaigns. But mounts always are. Curse you, cramped dungeons.

Bards get Focussed Performer. More feats that enable them to make even more of their class features. They can be extra awesome, stop for a beat, and just increase the power of their song. Like monk's stunning variants, these give you a lot of extra versatility for a couple of feats, and are really worth considering.

Clerics get Religious titles. If you remember old edition, you'll know that every level had it's own title. Here's lots more of them. After all, being called by your class all the time is rather metagame, is it not?

Druids get Animal magic. (Monkey magic? Animal magnetism? Monkey Magnetism? Hmm. Evil thoughts.) Two more magic items to make your companions more useful. Just the thing for our barbaric friends from earlier this issue.

Fighters get The Pikeman. A fighting style that works great in groups for mowing through enemies, at least until the artillery gets involved. Includes a rather handy feat that helps this. After all, fighting with polearm and shield is so historically common, it shouldn't be forbidden to D&D characters.

Monks get another bite at the background apple. Why did YOU become a monk?! Once more, into the backstory, my friends. Mind the purple prose. That stuff can make your eyes water.

Paladins get Solstice Knight. A pair of substitution levels with a fluff requirement, this feels like it ought to have been a prestige class, but they couldn't be bothered extending it to 5 levels. More than 1 way to achieve an effect, eh?

Rangers get The Elk King! Um, ok then. Of all the animals to choose as your archetype. :shrugs: Really not sure what to make of this one.

Rogues get a trio of dwarf rogue substitution levels. Seems they're the new in thing, despite being considerably more awkward mechanically than prestige classes. This set are concentrated on knocking down obstructive crap. Just the thing for a frustrated miner.

Sorcerers get another way to increase their spell lists. It all comes down to who you know, dawg. So you'd better get out there, fake it till you make it.

Wizards get 4 new magical books. Just the thing for if your player pulls a random one from a wizard's library shelf. A little knowledge never hurts.


Nodwick faces the anti-santa. By faces, we mean collects royalties from. Dork tower gets everything they asked for. Some are happier than others. Zogonia faces another horrible death.

Order of the stick makes it into Dragon! You'd better get a move on with your story, because you've got less than 2 years left to tell it in. That means learning the rules, instead of wasting a strip on a cheap gag.  


Well, after all this, I can definitely say this was the quickest and easiest year to get through in a LONG time. While not quite up to the level of variety and setting stuff they had in the 80's and 90's, it's still much better than it has been since 2001, and Erik has settled in much faster than most new editors do. I look forward to seeing if he'll continue to improve next year.

Dragon Issue 339: January 2006


part 1/6


80 (100) pages. The lady of pain gets a boob window! I'm genuinely shocked, particularly since we just had a lengthy streak of letters complaining about sexism. The art department clearly did not get the memo that inappropriate sexualisation is bad and creates a hostile environment for our female readers. Still, at least it's appropriate to the contents, as it's time for another old campaigns special. As with the regular columns, they aren't going to cram in quite as many as they did in their first attempt, but hopefully that means the ones they do will be bigger and more useful. Here's to the power of concentration and never giving up.


Scan quality: Somewhat blurry, indexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Editorial: Erik continues to demonstrate his personal attachment to the old settings, Oerth in particular. Having been a long-term fan who really felt it when they cancelled Greyhawk, he wants to reduce the suffering of everyone out there peeved WotC cancelled their favourite setting.  He might not be able to bring them back to life, but by keeping them alive in our memories, it increases the chance that the next generation of people who write D&D will be inclined to revisit them in one form or another. Makes perfect sense to me. You never know what influence your actions will have on other people in the future, and in the position of a magazine editor with a circulation in the tens of thousands, you can be sure it will have some effect. Use it or lose it, because time sure aint standing still.


Scale Mail: As usual, the october issue gets plenty of praise. They already have more than enough good material for this year's one too. Anything else you send them will be just icing on the cake.

We have another request for more epic material. They have no great objection to that, but they need more submissions. They ALWAYS need more submissions. The deadline beast is ever-hungry, and they'd rather give it good-quality food if possible.

We also have another request about the old boardgames they did. You can still buy many of them, but they won't be producing more in the near future, which is a shame.

They may well be doing some more psionics material and fiction in the near future, possibly even together. Again, they want to do it, but it's all up to the writers. They have to find the sweet spot between quality, and people who don't want too much money.

An amusing suggestion for an april article. Remember, things going spectacularly wrong is often more interesting than them going right.

As demonstrated by the amusing bickering in Order of the Stick, which persuaded someone to renew their subscription pronto. Funny how a single page of material can make all the difference in a big magazine.

And finally, we continue the endless debate of the fluff/crunch balance in the magazine. Erik reminds us that one cannot truly exist without the other if you want to play a roieplaying game. You'll just have roleplaying, or a game. it's adding the two together that makes it more than the sum of it's parts.

Dragon Issue 339: January 2006


part 2/6


First watch: Races of the Dragon. We've exhausted the core collection, but that's where things get interesting. See Kobolds get some more cool stuff so the ultimate underdogs can kick your ass a little more humiliatingly. See Dragonborn, another of the things that would prove damn popular and become core next edition. And the usual load of spells and prestige classes for those of you who want to enhance your draconic connection.

Eberron enjoys it's very own Players Guide. As with many near core supplements, it looks like a grab-bag of material, including some which come from fan suggestions.  Some'll be good, some'll be filler.

D20 stuff this month seems pretty decent. The big one is the release of the Dark Legacies player and campaign guide. We've had victorian steampunk mixed with magic recently, now we have postapocalyptic steampunk mixed with magic and horror. Doesn't sound too bad. Another one incorporating dimensional horror, odd technology, and (not actually very) low magic is the Iron heroes Bestiary. See Mike Mearls cook up cool creatures that take advantage of his new combat options, and a bunch of spurious planes for the weirder ones to come from. And finally, they give a shout-out to Goodman's Dungeon Crawl Classics. Revenge of the rat king sees another spin on the classic PHB cover and plenty of other retro features. Ahh, the joys of there being more things to buy than you ever could. It means there's bound to be something you like out there.

Our minis this month tie in with our current adventure path. Writhing Stranglers, worm infested corpses for all your kyussy needs. Several other things in the same line should also prove useful, even if you won't find out why for a few months.

Several other play aids as well, as usual. Castle kits give you another source of minis landscapes for your visual representation needs. If you'd prefer things flat, Ocho games gives us little ceramic tiles with visual representations of monsters. Less worry of being knocked over, but still fun for cats to play with. And dice are getting their own pretty variants, courtesy of q-workshop. Just as long as it doesn't make them hard to read.

Conan gets a graphic novel adaption of the Jewels of Gwalhur. He continues to be a popular choice amongst games for inspiration, and maybe you can get a little more here.

The new D&D computer game, Stormreach, is finally out. Now will you stop going on about it. This is what, the third time here.

And finally, on the silly side, we have D&D themed motivational posters. This became the biggest thread series in rpg.net open, and it looks like someone is actually selling them. I find this very amusing, and more than a little :rolleyes: worthy.


Dragon Kings: In 2e dark sun, getting to become a Dragon or Avangion was theoretically possible, but would take a truly enormous game to accomplish. You needed to roll high enough stats to dual class in the first place (even if athas's alternate generation method made that slightly more probable, and then work your way through to 20th level twice, each of which will likely take years of play in itself. And then once you became one, each new level required not only hundreds of thousands of XP, but also a complex and expensive magical ritual. Safe to say that it's considerably easier in 3e. They reduce the requirements to 9th level spellcasting and 6th level psionic powers, which will still require you to be at least moderately into epic levels, but doesn't seem too gruelling if you plan your prestige classes right. Similarly, the power levels are much more balanced with a conventional character of the same total level, with their physical progression fairly similar to what it was, but their spellcasting progression substantially lower. Of course, since their original levels are pretty much bound to be 1/2 BAB, they won't be that physically threatening compared to a fighting class of the same level either. So while they remain a terrifying world-shaking threat to the common person, it's much easier for a party to challenge them and win under 3e. You'll have to give them some more class levels than the minimum if you want them to remain competitive in a world of hecatoncheires and pseudonatural paragon tarrasques.

Dragon Issue 339: January 2006


part 3/6


Races of Spelljammer: Here's an article for the one conspicuous absence last time round. Turns out they didn't convert all the cool races wildspace has to offer in polyhedron 151, so here's an article which adds to that without rehash. Once again, I'm glad that Erik got to hone his editorial talents there before moving up to the big leagues. Let's see just how well these survived the conversion to 3e.

Giff remain amusing as ever, colonial mercenary hippo people IIIIIIINNNN SPAAAAAAAACE!!!!! They're big and tough, and absolutely useless as skill monkeys thanks to their monstrous humanoid racial hit dice. Make sure you pay them properly, because those guns need regular recharging.

Insectare are elf-insect hybrids who want to take over the entire universe. They're ridiculously arrogant, and an affront to one is all of them. When in mixed race company, they usually pretend to be just regular elves. This seems custom designed to create inter-party tensions, like mixing assassins and paladins. As if regular elves weren't trouble enough.

Scro are of course orcs in space, far more disciplined than their landbound cousins due to the privations of extended voyages. They still have enough of a sense of humour to come up with really creative insults though. They're far more likely to work smoothly with an adventuring party than a kender, that's for sure. The question is merely if their con bonus will compensate for their +2 LA adjustment in resilience as warriors.


Full frontal nerdity gets topical about the new orleans disaster. Ouch. They also sing belated christmas carols.


Dead factions: Our third article updating planescape factions to 3e, this pretty much completes the process, which is pleasing to see. They even take the time to remind us of the more obscure ones from various supplements. Now all they need to do is finish off the planar dragons as well and we can move on to something else.

Godsmen get a feat which doubles the rate at which they can craft items, another which lets them use magical items at a higher caster level than normal, and a magical item that lets them tap past incarnations to summon various creatures. Seems suitably creative to fulfil their remit.  

Communals gain magic items and feats which improve their co-operative abilities, sharing damage between people, boosting your aid another ability, and increasing the number of things you can affect with bardic music. All seem very handy indeed for an adventuring party, which needs to work as a unit if it's to survive dark and dangerous dungeons. Can you share all the treasure just as freely if you suceed though?

Expansionists get a bunch of obvious items that boost their physical combat abilities, letting them get what they want by force and intimidation. This also seems very appropriate for most adventurers, assuming you're strong or sneaky enough to kill them and take their stuff.

The Incanterium see their signature trick of turning a spellcaster into an immortal thaumivore updated as a 5 level prestige class. As in 2e, it's debatable whether it's worth it, as losing your natural healing is not a small sacrifice and there are plenty of other ways to immortality.

Mercykillers are also a 5 level prestige class, mixing combat and magical tricks to help them hunt down and punish lawbreakers. The smiting of chaotic creatures is new, but the other tricks involving oaths, contracts and warrants are pretty familiar. Behave when you're around them, for they will lose their powers if they have to turn a blind eye to the other party member's misdeeds.

Signers get four rather nifty magical items, reflecting their egocentricism in different ways. A mirror which summons shadowy creatures from your subconscious at midnight, which can easily get out of hand. A book which lets you bless and curse people if you know their names. A trumpet that acts as a loudspeaker, penetrating even magical silence to make sure you're the centre of attention. And the Heart of Aoskar, a minor artifact that will transfer you to a random plane if you fiddle with it. I guess from their perspective, wherever you go, you're still the centre of the universe.

Dragon Issue 339: January 2006


part 4/6


Creature Catalogue IV: More deliberate tapping of nostalgia here, as they stop using The Dragon's Bestiary altogether, and go back to a series originally used between 84-86. Instead of providing new monsters, it's focussed on converting some of the many monsters that haven't got 3rd ed statistics yet, but really should. So I guess the question becomes less one of creativity, but how well they get converted. Faithful, powered up, or horribly nerfed. A mixed bag, as is often the case.
 
Animus become a template, as befits undead that retain class abilities. This gives them reasonable fast healing and a grab bag of special abilities for an LA of +4. Iffy choice for PC's as usual.

Blindheim were the foglight eyed frogs from the Fiend Folio. They get an improved degree of ecological thought and rudimentary society added, with is actually quite nice. They may be weird little frogs, but they're still just about smart enough to be people, dammit.

Carrionette are that old standby of evil puppets. How could they leave these guys out? They'll wind up operating your body, and speaking through other people's mouths. Angel will foil them!
 
Death head's trees are also already well catered for in the 3rd party Ravenloft license by white wolf. Why they feel they have to repeat them here confuses me. Do they think that Ravenloft & Dragonlance's new incarnations don't count or something? Irksome politics aside, they're still a cool idea, decently converted.

Greyhawk Dragons were of course one of the more common sources of half-dragons last edition, given their urbanised, sociable nature. Everyone else is getting in on the act these days, but they're still holding on, albeit with a somewhat nerfed breath weapon. Maybe someone you've known for years has been one all along.

Dusanu are one I don't remember. They were originally from module X5, apparently. Still, like yellow musk zombies, they're a plant based false undead created by parasitic infection. You die from their attacks, you'll be joining them soon. They also include an advanced version, which is actually pretty tactically capable.

Goblyns always seemed like a dumb name to me first time round. Another one covered in the new Ravenloft monster book anyway. You ought to simply acknowledge the existence of that rather than waste valuable page count on this crap. And they still feel vaguely inessential in terms of abilities too. Yawn.

Maggot golems are of course the perfect minions for worms that walk. They now get fast healing and an engulf special attack that's serious nightmare fuel. No complaints here.

Suel Liches also become a template that may or may not be worth it from a PC point of view, but make for pretty nifty adversaries. They can possess anyone, and don't even need the usual tells a spellcaster has in terms of equipment. Just the thing for paranoia promotion.

Nagpa are an interesting one. They appeared in the Princess Ark series, got PC stats in Top ballista, and were an early example of the cursed with awesome, therefore I must AAAAAnnnngst principle. This conversion completely leaves out the eternal reincarnation, which seems to be missing the point a bit. Not sure it should be a template either. Hrrmm. Nahh. Not keen on this implementation.

Phanaton should be very familiar to anyone reading this from the start. One of the many awesome things created in X1, they've since got PC stats in here before and also played a part in the princess ark series. As LA 0 creatures with gliding and climbing, they're not a bad addition to a party in 3e either. Yay for that.

Xvart are one I don't feel any particular need to bring back, as they're just another low level marauding humanoid. Tiny little stat changes just aren't enough, they need their own niche to survive. Being the goblinoid equivalent of gnomes doesn't quite cut it.


Order of the stick has to deal with long casting times. But sometimes you don't need to identify things to know they're bad.

Dragon Issue 339: January 2006


part 5/6


The ecology of the draconian: A Krynn specific ecology? Not often you see those. Guess it's a fairly convenient way to kill two birds with one stone in their old campaigns special. And they do have one of the more interesting creation stories, spawned purely for conflict by the forces of evil, now the war has ended, they have to find a place in the world, and deal with the fact that they can't reproduce naturally. As is often the case with these, the article is so busy reiterating what readers of the old books already know that it doesn't really get the chance to contribute anything new, apart from the usual crunchy bits like the advanced character stats and the knowledge DC table. So mildly useful if you're playing third edition, and not at all if you're the type who mines the fluff for conversion. Not very thrilling.


Wormfood: Ooh. We shout out to the very first strategic review here, with a new magical fountain with random effects for drinking. Course, as is common, they do it better now. Or at least, far better balanced. This is where the real clever part comes in. You get both a benefit and a penalty, and they are reasonably balanced, but you get to choose one, while the other is rolled randomly. Ingenious. So will you maximise your benefit, or try and minimise your penalty? Not an easy choice. (which is the best kind of choice in dramatic terms. ) So unlike last month, this is a pretty resounding success on both the flavor and mechanics fronts. And it's pretty easy to use in other campaigns too. Two thumbs up.


Spellcraft: Ah yes, Dr Daclaud Heinfroth. Aka Dr Dominiani. One of the more impotent, but still interesting darklords. He was never a spellcaster. But desire for article fodder trumps established statistics, and so here's a collection of spells focussed on the study of the brain and sanity. As with spells that use the names of the original player's characters made by other people, and fanfic that violates established characterisation, I mildly disapprove of this appropriation of other people's creativity to legitimise your own, but am willing to overlook it if the contents are good.

Depression will have fuck-all effect on me. Waaaay ahead of you, mate. As usual these days, the mechanical penalty is spelled out, but there are no notes on how you should roleplay it.

Lobotomise causes temporary loss of an ability. Unlike the real thing, you can get pretty precise in what you rip from their mind, assuming you know the victim patient.

Shock Treatment and Submersion Treatment let you bypass the expensive and bulky equipment to just deliver the raw materials straight, and then have them disappear with no trace. Even a scientist who is suspicious of magic like Dr Mordenheim will see the value in that.

Transfusion allows you to drain ability score points from others to boost your own. One that could be very scary indeed if you could extend it's duration. Drawing obscene power from your tortured prisoners is always a good one for an evil overlord, as it gives them a catch for the players to exploit.

Dragon Issue 339: January 2006


part 6/6


Sage advice: Is a warforged considered to be wearing armor (Not usually. Sometimes, when it's beneficial, yess.)

Can warforged swim (Mosstly.)

Can warforged go deep underwater (Ssstil ssuffer pressure damage, collins collins. Crushing nassty.)

How long can a warforged run or hustle. (No longer than usual. They can nearly kill themself because they don't notice the fatigue, ssilly robots.)

Do warforged have scent (Yess. Andy likes the ssmell of warforged, preciouss. )

Can you salvage materials from the body of a dead warforged (No. Its all wasted, collins collins. Not even enough for a snack.)

If you attack a warforged with shocking grasp, do you get the benefit for metal (Yess)

Are warforged affected by wounding weapons (yess. Lots of things are assumed to be normal for reasons of game balance.)

Does having adamantine body enable warforged to hurt things that need adamantine to penetrate their DR (no)

How do the metal body feats affect a warforged's weight (quite a bit, preciouss.)

Can a dead warforged's body be sundered (yess)

Do warforged paladins get special mounts (no. Better choose wisely, yess? Breaking your mounts back iss probably an evil act.)

What bonus languages do warforged get for a high int (None. No sspeaky good.)

Can a changeling look like a warforged (yess)

Can a kalashtar soulknife use quori imbedded shards (no)

Can a wild elf get a dragonmark (no)

Can a duergar or drow get an abberant dragonmark (Yess. It's accepting of the strange and unloved. Not like those nassty do-gooderss. )


Class acts decides it's taken the one page for each of the 11 core classes thing as far as it can go. Instead, it gives us 4 2 page spreads, one each for adventurer, arcane, divine and warrior.  This is a definite improvement, because it gives them more room for depth in their options, and allows them to include stuff for the new base classes from the splatbooks. I approve. Hopefully this'll cut down on the half-assed filler.

Adventurers get A Different Path. Rangers have already got some advice on different ways to skin their skillset. Here's 6 more of them, including that old favourite from older editions the bounty hunter. They also get 6 new feats, including Pathfinder, which would of course become the name of their product line. Now that is interesting to note. Someone on the paizo team really likes rangers.

Arcane characters get (an absolutely atrocious pic of mialee) their own bit of advice on essential spells to choose. Thanks to the new format, they can do this in a single issue instead of splitting it up over 3. An improvement, but still dull reading.

Divine characters get the Sidhe Scholar. A variant druid trained by the fae, (as was also done by Vince Garcia way back in issue 155) they are simultaneously more educated, and more alien than the standard druid. Their powers make them simultaneously alluring and disconcerting, and they get lots of skill bonuses. They're pretty much on a par with regular druids in terms of overall power, which makes them pretty scary. Don't go into the woods when the moon is ripe, my son. They'll steal you away. Or something.

Warriors get another demonstration of the new flexibility this format offers them. Hexblades have got no love at all in this magazine. Here they get 11 new feats granting them new curses, or enhancing their existing ones. Become a master debuffer. It's what they're good at, and your team will thank you for it.


Nodwick takes it's time to thank the little guys they kill so often. Without them, adventurers would never be able to defeat the high CR horrors that threaten humanity. Dork tower reflects that advances in technology do nothing to stop other people from being annoying. Zogonia actually resurrects kev for the first time. He's got a long way to go to catch up with that dwarf, but at this rate he'll get there.


Going with fewer, larger articles gives them a better batting average than two years ago, even if not all of them are great. As with many skills, it takes a few years to really get good at being an editor, and the magazine is still reaping the benefits of not having it's staff replaced so frequently. It'll be very interesting to see if their ambitions will stretch even further with this theme next year, since they're planning on keeping it regular. Let's cycle all the way through the other 11 months one last time and find out.

Dragon Issue 340: February 2006


part 1/6


76 (100) pages. MORE cheesecake in quick succession? The magazine continues to talk the talk, but not walk the walk when it comes to combatting sexism. Maybe you could call it a homage to issue 114, since they appear to be wearing the same outfit, and in a very similar position. Still, at least they've found a new theme for the issue. Astrology! There's a real world topic that has plenty of mystical symbolism, and yet has been mostly passed over in D&D, due to Diviners having far more specific and accurate tools to work with. Let's see if they can sustain a whole issue on the idea, or if it should have stayed as a single article amongst a load of other stuff.


Scan Quality: Good, unindexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Editorial: Erik talks about going to the moon, a topic last tackled by Gary in issue 301. This is one idea that's gradually fallen out of fashion the more we know about it, as people went to the moon, found it was an airless wasteland that went from well above boiling in the day to well below freezing at night, and decided that the profit from going there was not proportionate to the cost. I don't think it's a co-incidence that the further humanity has explored, the more distant our fantasy stories have to be set from the world we know. If we do ever get permanent interplanetary colonies up, which still seems possible within our lifetime, what kind of fiction will the people who live there write, especially the kids who grow up without ever knowing what it's like to go outside without a spacesuit and feel earthly wind, rain, gravity, etc? What tropes that are common now will they find cheesy or unbelievable? How much more state of the art can special effects get? After all, we already live in a science fiction future by many standards, even if it tends more towards cyberpunk than space opera. Here's to continued speculation, and the people who will work way too hard to bring those ideas into reality.


Scale Mail: We start off with a long letter complaining about Erik's put-downs of 80's fantasy films. Go back and rewatch them, see if you can do it without cringing. If you can, then you have a stronger suspension of disbelief than him. Or at least, you have a higher tolerance for stop-motion than orange and teal.

Completely the other direction, they criticise Dragon for being more expensive than Backpacker Magazine. I'm betting the reason for that is economies of scale. Not only do they have more readers, but they're more likely to get advertisers willing to spend larger quantities of money. You wouldn't think they had the time, like the ones devoted to skydiving, surfing and skateboarding, they ought to be out living the life.

Erik gets sloppy, and prints the letter about crunch vs fluff two issues in a row. Tut tut. And you'd managed exactly a hundred issues since the last time you made that particular mistake.

Also a blast from the past is someone asking about The Wizards Three. By no co-incidence at all, they're planning on bringing that back for their 30th birthday special. That'll get the nostalgia flowing like few other columns could.

Keith Baker calls in to correct a little mistake in one of his recent articles. It can be tricky to keep the small differences between 3.0 and 3.5 straight, even for the official writers.

Another very familiar request is the one for more psionics. If at some point it ever gets equal coverage to magic, pinch me to wake me up.

People continue to write into the magazine to ask where stuff is, instead of asking forums, despite the much faster turnover they could get that way. I do wonder why.

And finally, we have more praise. OotS has a lot of fans, and they're very pleased to see it get the WotC seal of approval, especially since they could have been arseholes about the use of D&D rules terms. Do comics count under the OGL anyway?

Dragon Issue 340: February 2006


part 2/6


First watch expands to 6 pages. Given that the magazine is also shrinking, this means it's taking up a bigger proportion of it than the previews ever have before. Which means more creativity free content that won't be much use later on. Blaaah. Anyway, this month's D&D product is an epic adventure. The red hand of doom should take you from 5th to 10th level, the sweetest quarter of your adventuring life. Did you run through this one?

D20 modern gets D20 future tech, another bit of nice crunch for your enjoyment, and potential crossover fun. Spaceships, cyberwear, virtual reality, lots of other coolness.

Plenty of 3rd party D20 stuff as well. Paizo continue to give us Compleat encounters, for those of you who find Dungeon just isn't enough, or are addicted to your visual aids. Crisis in Freeport gives you another adventure set there, and probably some more incidental setting details at the same time. And Green Ronin must be a popular choice amongst the writers, because they also promote their True20 Worlds of Adventure book. Well, Chris Pramas was another WotC employee. I guess he and the Paizo gang keep in touch.

A lot of stuff on the game aids side, probably more than you'll ever want. Vector based maps that allow you to zoom in and out for the right level of detail for the situation. Another set of magnetised multicoloured disks that you can put under your minis as a quick way of tracking status effects. Vewingdale, a mapmaking computer program. A whiteboard specifically designed for tracking initiative. A coffin for your character sheets?! O_o My poor poor brain. Man, I hope you're running the game at your house, because I'd hate lugging all that stuff around.

Our new minis this month are mostly official ones. The Wardrums line is their current wave of prepainted monsters and monstrosities, including siege engines for mass combat. If you want something more specific, there's Privateer Press's Commander Coleman Stryker, a badass warmachine leader with a surprisingly cute battle standard. He's all little and stompy and spiky haired. Sephiroth would approve.

The D&D online: Stormreach game gets a full double page spread of promotion this month. God, they really will not let up on this one. Neverwinter nights never had it so good. Warhammer 40k also comes to the Nokia N-gage, amusingly. Since Rifts also did so recently, I'm not sure what to make of this fact. Definitely worth noting though.  


The stars are right: We kick off with a very interesting article indeed. A D&D zodiac, comprised of 12 different iconic monsters to replace the real world set, with their own set of symbolisms and things they're supposedly good and bad at. That's specific in a way very few generic articles are these days, adding a bit of implied setting to the game in general. Unfortunately this comes at a cost. Gaining the benefits of your zodiac sign requires spending feats, and the benefit you get from each one is just plain worse than a regular skill focus or other basic feat like the saving throw boosters that anyone can buy with no prerequisites. So as a flavour piece, this is a resounding success. As a mechanical one, it's an embarrassing failure. And it's certainly been a LONG time since I could say that, so it gets an extra point for being genuinely old school. Well done. Well done indeed. I'm highly entertained by your efforts. :golf claps:


Full frontal nerdity introduces a new character. Via webcam. This is a bit dodgy. He has to resort to bribes to convince the other players he's kosher.

Dragon Issue 340: February 2006


part 3/6


The master astrologer: We had an astrologer NPC class in issue 45, and a more general oracle in issue 53, but neither really stood up to conventional spellcasters in terms of world-affecting tricks or combat potential. This is definitely not the case for the Master Astrologer prestige class detailed here, which gets 9/10ths spelllcasting, an accelerated bonus feat progression, easy worldwide communication with all other members of their prestige class, and several pretty cool floating bonuses that they can apply to make their spells more powerful. (I'm particularly tickled by the bonuses to spell DC's and penetration if you know the star sign of your target.) Like the Loremaster, they seem entirely worth the sacrifices you'll need to make to get in, particularly for Sorcerers and Wizards. If you want to play the kind of spellcaster who uses divinations, crafting and buffs to plan ahead and completely break any enemy that doesn't have similar tricks up their sleeve, this is pretty darn good at that.


The eternal sun: Having done the stars, we continue to gaze into the sky to try and understand the sun, hopefully without being blinded by it. Fittingly, the bright orange backdrop makes this one of their harder articles to read clearly. This is very much a grab-bag of associated stuff. First up, we have a bit of talk about the symbolism of the sun in the real world. Then they talk about how that might well change if you vary the length of the year and number of suns the world has, and the cool possibilities for varying climate and illumination it offers a world. And then we get lots of little bits of crunch that you can pick and mix for your game. A new religion with their own unique domain worshipping the sun directly. Substitution levels for Paladins and Monks, making their abilities more symbolic of sun worship. (the paladin's set being more obvious and literal than the monk's one. ) And finally some feats that reflect a connection with a particular time of day. (with very similar symbolism to the same Exalted castes) Lots of things that would be disconnected single-page articles a year ago, that become slightly more than the sum of their parts when all put together. Introduce in bits and pieces over the course of a campaign to get the best effect.


Eye of the night: The sun, the stars, the ...... I'll take moon for 5 please bob. And this article follows exactly the same pattern as the last one. It's easier to have multiple moons of different cycle lengths without having to completely rethink your assumptions on day to day life though, and the set of associations are quite different. The substitution levels are for Rangers and Rogues, and the feats representing being born under a particular phase are even more blatantly cribbed from WoD werewolves. So I'm afraid to say this special is falling into formulaicness after a more original start. With so much built up symbolism around something, it's hard to drag it out again and keep it exciting.


The ecology of the mooncalf: An amusing name, but a rather scary creature, it's another ecology that is strongly influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. His influence on D&D has definitely increased in the latest edition. Huge flying tentacled masses that can consume anything physical, but their real attraction is to witnessing disasters, which they can predict, and if there's none coming in a reasonable timeframe, they're quite happy to manipulate events to cause them? You don't want to hang around when that darkens the sky. A nicely atmospheric ecology that fills out and adds to them more than enough to make them a primary driver in an entire campaign arc, this is a pretty damn good ecology. The new feats are particularly cool and suitably epic. I think I can use this. Fly! Fly, my pretties! Show them what real woe is!!! Ahahahahaha!!!!!

Dragon Issue 340: February 2006


part 4/6
 

Wormfood: Style points? Tee hee hee. How very fripperous. Another thing that would merge very well with Iron Heroes, with it's social feats and wealth based special effects. Yes, folks, here we have a whole new little subsystem for determining exactly how much social benefit you get from proper grooming, fashion, accessories and having a big menacing entourage. As is usual for 3rd edition, the costs for each plus increase roughly quadratically, which should keep them from getting out of hand compared to your skill bonuses. Another one that I find quite likable, but isn't that strongly connected with the adventure path. With Dungeoncraft gone, it seems like they're using this to provide general worldbuilding and adventure running advice. And they are still trying to advance the technology they do so with. So it's not perfect, but still very useful if you're playing the right kind of game.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: This article is also made to fit into the episode's theme. Since the two articles are by different writers, I have to wonder which came first. A dozen magic animal themed items? We'll say they're the D&D zodiac.  Well, if you have a totemist in your party, they'll probably approve. Another case of D&D eating it's own tail ever more so as the years pass.

The Basilisk's Mask protects you against gaze attacks and gives you an extra damage buffer before death. It'll only save your life a few times before breaking though.

Bracers of the Chimera let you become a hybrid of yourself and said three-headed monstrosity, making things even more confusing. Have fun unleashing fire, sonic and ramming damage on the enemy simultaneously.

Cloaks of the Dragon make you a better leader. Not too sure about that. Sure Dragons have plenty of presence, but they don't generally make great bosses. Too detached and likely to squish or eat you. Symbolic associations aren't always accurate are they.

Dryads Helms pioneer an ability that would become standard next edition. Penalties to the enemy if they attack anyone other than you. The archetypical Defender trick. Very interesting, if once again a rather tenuous connection to the actual creature.

An Ettin's Club randomly hits any one of the people in range. This makes being a team player rather tricky, but if you just wade into the middle of the foes, problem solved. Or be chaotic evil and laugh when your friends get in the way.

The Eye of the Beholder also has abilities nothing like it's namesake. Sense motive? Ignore concealment? Both useful abilities though. I guess another bad pun about differing viewpoints would be in order.

A Harpy's Cap is slightly more logical, giving you social benefits and extra bardic music. But once the feathers in your cap run out, that's it. Some zodiac signs are more transient than others.

The Kraken's Bracelet improves your general knowledge skills. This makes sense. They do get around, those kraken.

The Ring of the Hydra lets you reroll saving throws. Always a useful one, even if you're working blind. Everyone wants a chance to escape those 1's.

A Stirge's Gauntlet lets you drain an enemies blood to recharge your own HP. But only once a day, unlike a ring of vampiric regeneration. Another weaker version of existing stuff then.

A Unicorn's Shield lets you do kick-ass charge attacks. Curiously, it isn't spiked though. I guess the real unicorns would complain if you actually used one of their horns.

A Wyvern's Die gives you a random benefit when rolled. It's 12 sided too. Just the thing for if you find yourself hardly ever using it IRL. Not a bad collection overall really.

Dragon Issue 340: February 2006


part 5/6


Spellcraft: No surprise that this department is in theme too. Astrology and magic have huge real world links. Hell, just being able to track the time of year accurately, a la stonehenge, WAS magic. Humans can be surprisingly easy to impress. Course another strong connection here is werecreatures and the moon. That's one we have had a themed collection on before. So lets hope this collection of astrological magics venture a little farther into space.

Guiding Star helps you get places, twee weather witch style. Follow the shiny light. Watch a will-o-wisp doesn't take it's place and lead you too your doom.

Lunacy drives you nuts every full moon. Dr Dominiani would be fascinated by this one. Hmm. You have too much cerebral fluid. We must drain it at once! :nom:

Moonbridge create a means of transport only good creatures can use. Perfect for getting over a river or ravine and escaping. Make them permanent and create a city out of little floating islands and you have the perfect security measure that keeps out nasty sorts unobtrusively. I quite like this idea.

Motes of Moonlight is just another low level light creating spell. Like Dancing Lights or Faerie Fire, this has it's distinct uses, but is hardly a worldchanger.

Sever ties of the Moon helps mess up lycanthropes, making remaining human the optimal thing for them to do. Handy for dealing with inflected ones, in particular. Just make sure you have the chains ready, for like many 3.5 spells, it doesn't last nearly long enough.

Shooting Star is a more firey variant on call lightning. It doesn't do as much damage, but can obviously be used whenever there's open sky, instead of needing storms to activate. No objection to that idea.


Novel Approach returns one last time, albeit without it's A, to give us a look at The Black Cauldron. Lloyd Alexander's series is one of those that continues to sell decently to this day, even if the movie didn't do too well. And completely unsurprisingly, said cauldron is the primary focus of this article, along with the horrible hordes of undead that you can create with it. You still can't create unlimited armies like you could in previous editions, but increasing the amount to (level+5)^2 skeletons at a time is certainly enough for a good skirmish game (if they were still running those ) And knowing that the only way to stop the cauldron for good is for someone to climb in it and sacrifice their life for the greater good definitely remains a good source of dramatic tension amongst an adventuring party. So even if this is somewhat nerfed from full mythological artifact status and you can't use it to take over a country, adding more undead to the horde with every village you conquer, it's still more than capable of creating a big challenge for a group of PC's. And I guess that's what the designers want these days. Combat challenges, but not world-changing abilities. :Sigh: And to think they usually avoided that conservatism in previous novel and computer game columns. Time to reduce the variety of stuff we're getting a little further again.

Dragon Issue 340: February 2006


part 6/6


Sage advice: Does a full round spell go off in the next round (No. Thatss a 1 round casting time, not a full action cassting time. Completely different thingses.)

If a spontaneous caster uses 2 or more metamagic feats, does the spell take even longer to cast (no)

Do empower and maximise spell affect rolls to hit with it (no)

Can silent spell be used when trying to remain quiet (Yess. Perfffect for reading in the library, preciouss.)

Can still spell be used while entangled (No. Being grabbed and pulled around is still nassty and distracting, collins collins.)

Can domain granted turning powers power divine metamagic (no)

Can you use divine metamagic when making items (yess, but it won't save you any money.)  

Do you have to know the divine metamagic feat you use (Yess. You need to pay for each one separately. Nassty nassty nerfing.)

If you use twin spell do you pay twice the component and XP cost (no)

Can you combine energy admixture, maximise spell and twin spell to a single effect  and they all multiply each other out (Yess. Oh, the power :drools:)

Can you use a normal fireball to counter a metamagiced fire ball (Yess. Eassy.)

Can you counter a quickened spell (Ass long as you have an action ready. It'ss still not cast so fasst you can't react to it. )

Can you apply innate spell to another metamagicked spell (No)

Does ability focus (eldrich blast still apply if you add essences to it (yes)

Does ability focus apply to spell-like abilities (only one of them at a time)

Does spell focus affect spell-like abilities (no)
Can a warlock empower or quicken his eldritch blasts (Yess. If they have enough power.)

What does innate spell-like ability mean for the purpose of supernatural transformation. (A magical power everyone in your race getses. Not a learned one.)


Class acts: Adventurers get Opportunists. A whole bunch of feats designed to make you more able to attack off guard opponents, both terms of frequency, and amount of extra effect you have on them. Take lots of them, because they synergise with each other to truly horrific extents. 1-4 levels of fighter for all the bonus feats might  help this build, rather than hinder it, (go Thug if you don't want to lose so many skill points) since many of them are on their bonus list. Someone do the DPR calculations. T'would also be a perfect path for AE Unfettered. In general, this combines striker with defender tactics to lethal effect.

Arcane characters are in theme and get Starcasters. Another concept that would get a profile upgrade in 4e. Anyway, this is 8 new backgrounds that can be taken by anyone, but are probably most suited to arcane casters. Both the benefits and penalties seem to be slightly higher and more general than most backgrounds. Watch someone taking these, for they may be aiming for twinky synergies.

Divine characters get Schools of Faith. A listing of what school of magic the various spells in the corebook belong to, this is mainly useful if you're taking feats based upon boosting spells from particular schools. Not very interesting though, as it's just a compilation anyone could have done themselves.

Warriors get Ritual Markings. Tattoos, ritual scarification, piercings, and other fun and sometimes squicky body modification is a great way to individualize your character, and can offer actual mechanical benefits. While it's generally spell users that get the enchanted tattoos, warriors can also look cool from doing so. Here's how. Another one that's useful for pretty much any class.


Nodwick uses the wrong weapon for the job of killing a demon lord. Dork tower has it's stupid little superstitions challenged. Zogonia has a rather weird and unfunny punchline this month. Order of the stick, on the other hand is pretty damn funny.


Well, this issue was pretty interesting in terms of having a strong theme that they haven't covered before, but was also surprisingly weak in mechanics, with stuff that's both over and underpowered easily spotted with examination. I guess the renewed focus on setting has come at a price, as these things always do. Let's see if it was just a momentary lapse, or they'll continue to get sloppier in that respect as time goes on.

Dragon Issue 341: March 2006


part 1/6


75 (100) pages.  We get reminded that a critical part of Warforged is the being forged part. Which just like human sex, is a long, hot, messy process with plenty of waste material. And it looks like they have plenty of company in an issue full of articles about artificially created creatures. That's another theme they haven't done before. Well done to them for spotting this niche and filling it, and let's hope their brainstormings have more ideas lined up.


Scan Quality: Moderate, some mis-sized pages, indexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Editorial: The editorial this month is a pretty straight bit of self-promotion, with Erik talking about what's coming up, and why you should be excited about it too. Templates might be nice, but all new creatures are what really gets his juices flowing, as then the players have no idea what tricks to expect. On the other hand, big names are nice too, and they have a ton of them lined up for their 30th anniversary issue. So as an editorial of two halves, neither really has a lot to say. Guess I'd be better served putting my focus on the actual articles when they arrive.


Scale Mail: The demonomicons are the first thing praised this month, which is quite understandable. That doesn't mean they'll be increasing their frequency to every month though. They'd run out of previously established demon lords in barely a year.

Also getting unconditional praise is all the stuff in issue 339. May they do many more like it in the future.

On the other hand, the recent run of cheesecake covers gets quite rightly criticised. They'll have to do something about that.

Also getting praised is their current policy of putting fewer prestige classes, and more alternate class features and general tricks in. Of course, these too will eventually hit diminishing returns. It's all cycles and waves.

On the other hand, it seems to be the right time to bring back the old settings. People just can't get enough of them, and WotC would have to do a lot more before that became the case.

Finally, we have two people who find Class Acts their favourite part of the magazine, which once again reminds me different people are in it for different things, and it's a real challenge for them to please us all. As long as they keep trying, that's the important thing.