Dragon Issue 343: May 2006


part 4/6


Fiction: Rivals by Richard Lee Byers. You know, this is the first bit of fiction they've had all year. I suppose that demonstrates once again how they're gradually narrowing their focus again after experimenting with new columns last year. It's another Forgotten Realms one as well, with an emphasis on action and banter over any deep philosophical insights. A grim and embittered half-golem and a not so grim dwarf cleric/ranger have to deal with a very typical case of being hired and betrayed by Mr Johnson, and learning to trust one-another in the process. It saddens me that as they're trying to bring back setting stuff in the regular articles, this department continues to become more formulaic and bound by the rules of the game. Can WotC not leave them at least this free of brand promotion?


The ecology of the ettercap: Attercop, attercop! But enough of the Tolkien references (which this ecology certainly doesn't miss. ) D&D is it's own game, honest. And this does indeed put some new spins on the creature, both in terms of history, ecology, and statistics. Just because they're evil, doesn't mean they aren't a part of nature, and a surprising number of them become druids, which makes their tricks even scarier. With rules for treating their offspring as swarms, several ingenious new traps, and a new spell, the new crunch is well above average in usability, and adaptability to other creatures. With their strong social tendencies, they're another creature that when combined with various spider allies and advanced variants, could be a decent driver for an entire adventure. So this is a pretty solid ecology that builds on the existing stuff about them nicely.


Wormfood: Oooh. A rather more unique shopping list than the usual monster, magic item, and spell lists that we have become so accustomed to over the past 30 years. A bunch of unique, and exceedingly powerful individuals for you to contact when using Gating. One of the few spells that is still more about the flavour and the potential consequences than strict mechanical balance. You can have all sorts of fun with this, and it's definitely an underused bit of the game. Looks like they do have something nice to offer as you approach epic levels after all.

Barabog is a Titan Barbarian who is even more wild and unpredictable than the average titan. As long as the task involves smashing stuff, and you can provide good catering, he'll be happy to help out.

Furnace master Gendinom is a truly massive fire elemental, who of course likes to burn stuff. But not just any old stuff. No, just as Barabog wants new food, Genidorm wants new and unique things to burn. Which means quests will never get simpler no matter how many times you summon him.

Selauff, on the other hand, just wants money and good conversation, like any Brass Dragon. She'll make sure you pay your debt to her, no matter how tedious it gets.

Syranus is a Solar Ranger, which seems like slightly overicing the cake. He'll work for free if your mission coincides with his, or just bugger off if it isn't. No wishy washy compromises here.

Walkyrie XVII is an inevitable bounty hunter. If you distract him from his current mission, he will not be amused. On the other hand, if you can offer useful info, he'll return the favor.

Xitomat is a coatl monk from Celestia. Exactly how he teaches martial arts compatible with the human form is a bit of a mystery, but teach he does, and quite effectively too. If you want him to help you out, you'd better be prepared to show off your chops or be treated to a long tedious lecture. Sounds like fun to play out.

Dragon Issue 343: May 2006


part 5/6


Spellcraft is larger than usual this month. It's also tied in with the current adventure path. As with the Binder stuff, this means they get to provide more interesting content than yet another batch of spells, half of which are tedious variants on the usual combat effects. On the other hand, it also gives them an excuse to create a load of powers that PC's are unlikely to be able to get hold of. After all, consuming Kyuss Worms is a risky and very unpleasant business. And the feat needed to survive it offers no inherent benefits beyond access to these spells. Like the worm based prestige class, I think this may be a suboptimal path to take. Still, we do get some of the unvarnished grossness that the actual Wormfood column has been surprisingly light on. That's something I approve of.

Consume the Parasite lets you get more HP, at the cost of temporarily losing access to your new spells.

Extrude Wormspawn lets you summon a swarm of worms to attack your enemies. Although even with a high level spell like that, they aren't as nasty as a regular spawn of kyuss's infection attack. I suppose it takes a 9th level spell to do once what wights and wraiths do with every single attack, and poison gets similar treatment.

Mindworms eat spell levels, which then get siphoned back to you. This'll keep your evil spellcaster going a little longer in your climactic battles.

Path of Worms is just a sanity bending variant on the standard granting bonuses by predicting the future divination. Meh.

Servant of the green Corruption is another one that grants fairly standard benefits, with a quirky side-effect. This again reinforces my perception that standard spellcasters aren't missing much by skipping these spells.

The Worm Within infects the victim as if you were an actual spawn of kyuss. This is longer range than their actual jump, but still not huge distance, so the option of peppering the spellcaster with fireballs and lightning bolts before they close remains a wise one.

We also get some gross variant magical items. Vestige worms don't look that different from regular Kyuss worms, but the nasty little things are full of forbidden knowledge on top of the usual brain-eating goodness. Spellworms give you a spell-like ability to unleash. Loreworms reveal dark and forbidden knowledge, granting a bonus on appropriate checks, and Visionworms are the grossest photographic media evar. Along with the campaign based sidebars, this makes this a strong bit of writing, well focussed yet versatile. Things look like they're on the up again.

Dragon Issue 343: May 2006


part 6/6


Sage advice: Geraldine is getting fat. Andy musst have been feeding him too much.  Andy will teach Geraldine how to dance and use a magic wand to clean the place. Dance, dance, my pretty! Teeheeheehee!!

If a lawful good cleric of a lawful neutral god changes alignment to LN, can they choose to switch from turning to rebuking or not (No. You can't change unless you go all the way)

Do zombies get damage reduction or not (Yess, they do)

Does a weapon actually have to be +6 to bypass epic DR, or just have an effective number of plusses about that ( Real +ses only, precious.)

What are spirit creatures (Creatures with the spirit subtype. Sseveral others as well, jusst to be helpful in a nonoriental game.)

Does powerful build let you take feats only large creatures can take (no)

Can you use psychic reformation to change your class levels (no)

Does speed of thought increase all your speeds (yes)

If you augment a power, is it's effective level increased (no)

Does a scroll with multiple spells count as a single item for the purpose of creation spells (yess. No, you can't rip it into pieces after this and sell the spells sseparately.)

Do grafts count as posessions for a vow of poverty (Yes. Nassty ssurgery won't let you lawyer your way around your vows. )

If you polymorph someone into a 1st level humanoid, what class, level etc does it have (sstandard for it's race. )

What happens if your polymorph wears off while someone is still in your belly (They get ejected messily. Nassty blerk, collins collins.)

Can you use healing spells from magic items in the mournlands (no)

How about a wish to duplicate a healing spell (no)

How about fast healing (no)

How about nonlethal damage (Yess, that's not important enough to be suppressed

How about regeneration. (Only if it's natural, not magically granted. Monssters may survive, but you'll sstill die horribly, collins collins.)

Can you use identify power on magic items (If your psionics is transssparent, yess.)


Class acts: Adventurers get Urban Markers. A whole load of pictographs to help you communicate surreptitiously with other adventurers. Just watch out the monsters don't learn them, or you'll be in all kinds of trouble. White wolf does it better.

Arcane gets Magic in the Blood, some more sorcerous heritage love. Take the new feat indicating divine descent/favour, and get access to the power and spells from a single cleric domain as well as your regular ones. An exceedingly good option indeed, but of course one that's mutually exclusive with most of the other heritage feats. Such a tricky decision. Dragon, fae, demonic, illithid. They really are stacking up, and most seem pretty tempting. Just have to play more characters then.

Divine gets Pious Extension. This is a grab bag of feats for all sorts of divine classes, including ones aimed specifically at Favored Souls and Spirit Shamen. New uses for your energy resistance, spirit chastising, wild shaping, and turning abilities. I think they ought to have made turning and spirit chastising transparent with respect to divine feats, just like sneak attack and sudden strike are for prestige class requirements, as they're mechanically pretty much the same ability. Ho hum. Easy enough to houserule.

Warriors get The Tide of Battle. A whole bunch of feats designed to make you extra badass in a rip-roaring large scale melee, with enemies leaping all over the place, and make sure the rivers of blood and mountains of skulls are largely comprised of the opposing side. The exact opposite of the duelist's approach, in other words. Better hope your DM doesn't put you up against dragons, tarrasques and other big singular monsters in response then.


Nodwick is suspicious of his employers next crazy attempt to make money. Dork tower gets dollhouse creepy. Zogonia proves that these are not the heroes you want. OotS mess things up without any knowledge of the larger picture.


Aside from the fiction, which continues to be a massive disappointment compared to the old days, this issue has a nice combination of new ideas, old ideas brought back, and existing ones expanded upon. The main problem continues to be the lack of variety, with wargaming, books and computer games now a fading memory, along with all the other fun stuff they used to try. Just how much more can they lose and remain interesting reading? Do I really want to find out? Let's see if they have any new experiments next issue, or just nostalgia callouts for the long-term fanboys.

Dragon Issue 344: June 2006


part 1/6


95 (132) pages. So we've made it to 30 years. Tiamat is our cover girl that dares to bare it all, showing that Zuggtmoy's appearance 7 months ago was not a fluke at all. Not that you really know what to ogle on a 5-headed dragon goddess. Best to look on the positive side, and view it as being spoiled for choice, for being reduced to ash is not a desirable experience. Let's see if this issue is an embarrassment of riches, or just an embarrassment.


Scan Quality: Slightly blurry, indexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Editorial: Erik's been promoting this issue hard for several months now, and he's not going to stop now. After all, they've got three long-absent big names brought back to the magazine, plenty of new draconic material, and an exclusive special edition mini to sell you. That's a pretty decent haul, even if it's nowhere near as adventurous as Dragonchess, LARPing, or the sculpted paper cover. They may have more past to celebrate now, but it's just as important that they keep on working to make the future interesting. After all, the world is not staying still, and before you know it, the whole medium of print will be going into decline. Where will they be if they don't adapt to that?


Scale Mail: Our first letter is another one that finds OotS on it's own reason enough to buy the magazine. It's fanbase is huge, and being in Dragon can only increase that further.

Next is praise for the Core Beliefs series. As with the Demononicon, they intend to keep it up until they run out of deities to cover, which would happen all too soon if they did it every month.

The domain powers article gets a little errata. People always forget the plants, even though they're everywhere. Another reason Druids can make such great spies.

And finally, we have conflicting opinions on the ecology of the adventurer, and it's technically impossible star. Remember, that means people care and are interested by them. It does not mean you should skip the humour articles altogether next year, because in the world of media, being interestingly bad is far better than being competently boring.

Dragon Issue 344: June 2006


part 2/6


First watch: Hordes of the Abyss is our generic D&D product. Demon lords, and everything underneath them. Always a popular topic, especially when they try and suppress that knowledge. What power level will they be when you encounter them? Given the way of 3rd ed, it should be a level that's challenging but not insurmountable.

The Realms gets Mysteries of the Moonsea. Both sourcebook and adventure series. Well, they've got several previous books doing one or the other for the area in their back catalogue, so they can draw on those. Can you get the gloomy buggers around here to cheer up, and maybe some decent management? Tough order, since they have the power of many novels behind them.

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman prequelise again in Dragons of the Dwarven Depths. See the last few scraps of the original heroes lives get picked over for the few remaining vultures to consume. All we need now is baby heroes of the lance saving the world while still in diapers. Maybe it could be a cartoon series. On the gaming side, this line gets a new bestiary for 3rd ed. A few new monsters, a lot of updated old ones. How will they cope with the new sorcerers and mystics, and other tricks the heroes have?

On the minis side of the operation, they're warming up for their 10th wave of stuff. War of the dragon sees Tiamat doing the expansionist thing, bringing with her lots of new monster types, including the ridiculous dragonspawn humanoids. Now, draconians make sense, because you get dozens from each egg, and you're taking resources from your enemies too. But these are pretty pointless compared with actual dragons. Oh well, they're interesting opponents, they just need a little refluffing. On the third party side, there's another set of pieces for building your own castle adventures, and Ptolus gives it's villains minis as well.  Not that rat like humanoids or cowled cultists are rare in other settings, so they should be transferrable to, say, WHFRP.

Out in D20 land, they pick True Sorcery for True20. Once again Green Ronin try and push the boundaries of what you can do with the D20 engine, and make magic that's balanced, but less limited than standard Adepts.  No objections to this one.

Fantasy Flight Games release the Runebound boardgame for Midnight. With the movie planned as well, it looks like they're trying to make this a multimedia IP like the WotC ones. Good luck with that. Also on the game side, there's Wizkids Pirates of Davy Jones' Curse. Guess what film they're trying to capitalize on with this one.

They also choose to promote some music this month. Nox Arcana are a more classy ambient relative of filk, composing tracks based around classic horror themes. Ok then. :buh: I do wonder how they pick this stuff. Is one of the group mates with the Dragon writers or something?  

Even more stuff to come as they promote LARPing here again. Yay for that. True Dungeon: Escape from the spider cult gives you a chance to dress up and spend a weekend pretending to delve dungeons in an entirely more visual and visceral way than usual. Great fun if you can afford it.

And finally, they celebrate the 100th anniversary of Robert E Howard's birth, and take a little time to talk about all the things currently being planned involving the Conan property. Some people are making a lot of money off that IP. Let's hope they don't dick the licensees around too much.


Planar dragons: Our third and final instalment in this series arrives. We now have planar dragons for all the outer planes apart from Arcadia, which is apparently too civilised and tidy for big stompy primal things to fit into. There's still a fair few of the more obscure para/quasielemental planes missing, but all the transitional ones are taken, so you're never more than one planar jump away from a dragon. As long as they're in the name of the game, this is kinda helpful for the DM, you know.

Astral Dragons are quite different once again, making them one of the most drastically retooled monsters every edition. Strange. Once again the degree of quirkiness is reduced substantially, which depresses me even more than their ignoring history.

Chole Dragons, on the other hand, really do bring the quirky, with a whole bunch of odd descriptive details that remind us that the abyss is a place of chaos as well as evil, and that chaos is thrown into relief by smaller scale patterns that don't connect to everything else. They're full of plot hooks to solve, or go mad trying too.

Elysian Dragons are all about the good times, making everyone around them happy in the most direct and effective way (which may produce more than a few half-dragons in the process ) Their breath weapon makes everyone caught in it drunk, and their ability to create food at will ensures they don't mess up the environment and steal resources from others in their pursuit of generosity. It's good to not have to compromise.

Gloom Dragons are the exact opposite, miserable, cowardly scavenging fuckers who condemn you to an eternity inside them (with a tombstone growing on their back) if they eat you. Seems appropriate for the Gray Waste. So these are fairly inventive and appropriate in their descriptions, even if they forgot the distant past to focus on more recent material.

Dragon Issue 344: June 2006


part 3/6


Gen con indy 2006 previews: You know, I noticed the decline of wargaming, books, computer games, reviews, humour, fiction, the forum and coverage of other RPG's in the magazine pretty much straight away when they happened. I'm surprised that I didn't notice just how much less they've talked about the various conventions since 1998. Before then, every year would have both articles and editorials promoting them and then describing what they were like afterwards. Afterwards, they've been sporadic at best. Another casualty of WotC being more self-centred than TSR. Well, at least they've got a fairly substantial one this year, and aren't just talking about what they're doing at it. And things have changed quite a bit since last time as well. Anime continues to grow in popularity everywhere else in the world, with multiple companies involved in subs and dubs. Meanwhile the internet and cheaper recording devices democratise media, meaning there are more independent musicians and filmmakers than ever before. (which also means more filks, unfortunately, but what are you gonna do) There's still tons of new releases, tournament games, and minis stuff, including the rather amusing sounding competitive speed painting. If you want to get in as a vendor rather than just a tourist, you have more opportunities than ever to make your mark. I suppose the really tricky thing these days is finding a market for whatever you create, given how much of the competition is free. Still, a few days meeting people face-to-face will probably make you more useful connections than months of internet spamming so go, have fun. It will be worthwhile in the long-term.  


Fiction: The return of Gord by Gary Gygax & K. R. Bourgoine. Oh Gord, not again. Didn't he kinda destroy the world already? Oh well, I guess there's always room for prequels and interquels, just as with the Heroes of the Lance. And indeed, while it hints at his larger adventures in a way that you could probably use to place this in the chronology of the novels, it's a fairly basic heist plot set at ground-level in Greyhawk City. Gord sees a particularly impressive bit of treasure that he simply HAS to have, and the rest of the story details the trials and tribulations he goes through in hunting for it. Unsurprisingly, he was set up in the first place by a devious manipulator, and equally unsurprisingly, he manages to beat them anyway, and come out with a modest profit, but not the huge one he was hoping for, thus leaving him free to blow it all and be poor again for any more instalments. So yeah, all these years, and he's still deeply in thrall to Fafhrd and the Mouser, only as he's just one person, he doesn't have anyone to play off to set up really good banter. And that is why he'll always be second-rate. I'm afraid that even after all these years, I'm not particularly inclined to give Gary a pass for producing bad fiction, especially as I'm not even sure how much of this was actually written by him. And wouldn't it just be pathetic if he was relying on ghost-writers and still producing sub-par material.

Dragon Issue 344: June 2006


part 4/6


Another evening with the wizards three: Another rather interesting returnee to mark their 30th anniversary here. It's been 8 years since Elminster, Mordenkainen and Rauthene last met up for our entertainment. In that time, Greyhawk has been revived and died again, the Realms has undergone a complete retroactive cosmology shift, and Mordenkainen has lost most of his hair and had a major makeover. But they're still an immature bunch who seem to be primarily here for the food and the cheap laughs at each other's expense. It's rather like going through a time warp when you contrast it with the tone of most recent articles. And indeed, they pick up where they left off, asking about the fate of Dalamar. Which since Krynn has got it's magic back now and a new 3e gameline, really should be a soluble problem, but ho hum. Still, it's better than the last instalment, even if it isn't as good as the classic first few. Overall, it's pretty welcome.
 
The new spells are all combat ones. Battle Tentacles is a relative of Evard's black tentacles, with the benefit that the caster can ignore them. Fireball has had variants like this several times, why shouldn't other spells. In fact, it really ought to be a template. Raising the level by 1 to remove the possibility of the caster being harmed or impeded by their own spells seems a good trade to me.
 
Mailed Might lets you animate suits of armour, and have them explode when beaten. He's already pulled that trick with zombies, but giving your creations a sting in the tail does seem like the kind of thing a villain would relish doing. Particularly a load bearing boss.

Wyrmcone is a pretty decent AoE blasty spell who's energy type varies on what type of dragon scale is used to power it. Course, getting dragon scales has it's difficulties, but those are surmountable with a little negotiation or a lot of violence. Hey, more plot hooks.


The voyage of the princess ark: God. Now this is another blast from the past and then some. 14 years after it ended, Bruce Heard brings the Ark back for one more flight.
We rejoin Haldemar 6 months after the last instalment. He's returned to Alphatia with the Ark, and since then has simply been kicking his heels, being told to do nothing by the Empress. But this boredom is not to last, as the opposing factions make their move. The Ark is captured. Haldemar gets knocked out (man, it really is just like old times. ) and they have to do some sneaky stuff to find out what the hell is going on. Is the empress a traitor to the entire nation?! Or is she only taking the best of many bad options. In any case, it would be best if they set forth again, traveling new lands, and making sure they're as far away from Alphatia as possible when the shit goes down. Which is of course an invitation for the whole series to start up again, and I get the impression that Bruce would be very happy to oblige if asked to make this a recurring feature again. Alas, it is not to be.

In contrast to the original format, where all the OOC stuff was put at the end, this time, it's scattered in sidebars throughout the story. A lot of this is simply recaps of info about the original cast, setting and adventures, as obviously they have to keep the article comprehensible to people who never read the previous instalments. And if the timeline issues seemed awkward at the end of the last instalment, they're even more so now, after the massive change in setting, all the stuff that happened during the AD&D era, and then a good decade of the setting lying fallow. But they do find the space to slip in one new magical item, a cool variant on the potion of disguise. Still, it's been great to see this old girl get an airing again. Will we ever see Mystara return officially? Probably not, they have enough generic fantasy settings. But as long as people still have the old boxed sets and Cyclopedia and play with them, it'll never really die.

Dragon Issue 344: June 2006


part 5/6


Dreadhold: Eberron hasn't been around long enough to pull out any nostalgic big guns, but they're still giving us a big article full of plot hooks. Maybe they will have something to call back to on the 60th anniversary issue, you never know. I suppose that depends how well Alcatraz survives as a folk legend, with Guantanamo taking it's place in recent years as the prison of horrors that plays on people's minds, for quite different reasons. Because yeah, this is very much Eberron's equivalent of Alcatraz, an island prison that's full of both the most dangerous prisoners from around the world, and a few innocents put there for political reasons. Unsurprisingly, it's not a place that adventurers can just waltz in and out of, slaying liberally as you go, with plenty of high level guardians and magical wards to match the inmates. With plenty of interesting named NPC's, this is flexibly designed so the PC's could take all sorts of roles, both as prisoners and visitors. I can't help but wonder if it might have been more appropriate as a feature in Dungeon than here, but I'm certainly not objecting to seeing something a little different. And as always, you can easily swipe the new crunch for your own games, as magical warding tricks are always welcomed by the paranoid wizard.


The ecology of the dracolich: How very appropriate. The Dracolich was first introduced in the 10th anniversary issue of this magazine, by Ed Greenwood. Seems fitting that they should be revisited and expanded upon in the 30th. Unsurprisingly, this article is very aware of it's antecedents, and talks about them in a sidebar. Quite a bit of effort is gone into establishing the mentality that leads an already near immortal being to cheat death, and they do remind us that curiously, not only are they more powerful than regular dragons, but they're also usually more goal driven and socially connected as well. There may be more creatures that work on a similar epic level than there were 20 years ago, but that just means you can have richer and more convoluted intrigues and rivalries. Not as epic as last year's birthday gift, this is still a fairly solid ecology, with an unusual amount of campaign specific details and alternative ideas for you to try. After all, every dracolich should be a customized unique individual. Keeping them fresh is going to take a bit of effort.


Wormfood: We finish our adventure path with a column full of advice on moving into epic levels. As with the rest of 3rd ed, you have to plan your build ahead carefully if you want an optimal character. And of course, you'll want to pick differently depending on if the campaign is likely to end shortly, or continue with further plot arcs. This is another article that's nicely done and helpful, but also feels way too short, barely scraping the surface of the awesome things you can do, or the commonsense things you should do when you have that level of power. In a funny way, half doing things like this is worse than not doing them at all, because it just leaves you wanting more, knowing you're unlikely to see it anytime soon. Why they wound up both reducing the page count and increasing the font spacing when there's so much still to do this edition is still a mystery. Unfulfilled potential. It's all gone by so fast compared to the 2e days.

Dragon Issue 344: June 2006


part 6/6


Sage advice: Does a dragon's crush provoke attacks of opportunity (Only when it gets up again, nassty thing.)

Can you use a breath weapon as an AoO (no)

Can a dragon's breath weapon harm a golem (as long as it's not immune to their energy type.)

Do creatures other than dragons have overland travel speeds (Not at the moment, but they could. )

Are dragons immune to unconsciousness effects (no)

Can a dragon use wands and staves of cleric spells it can cast (Yess, but not scrolls. Ssilly magic type regulations.)

If a dragon takes cleric levels, can it choose one of it's racial domains (Not unless the god grants it anyway.)

Does a dragon with power attack add double the damage to tail attacks (No. It's not really a two-handed weapon.)  

Can a dragon wear magic items designed for humanoids (Yess. Resizing can get verry sstupid ssometimess.)

Does a dragon use it's HD or caster level to determine how good it is at assuming alternate forms (HD. Dragons are goood at sshapechanging)

If a dragon in alternate form takes ability damage, how is it handled. (Ssubtract the same amount whatever the form. If you change into a weaker form, you're in big trouble. )

If you cast resurection on dragonhide armor, does it come back to life (yess, ass would any leather armor. Teeheeheehee. Andy likes that idea. Turn nassty stuck up-ladies coats into a pack of weasels.)

What are the rules for jumping onto a dragons back ( There aren't any. There really ought to be. )

Do you have to use leadership or dragon cohort to get a dragon mount (No, jusst a mechanically balanced, plot protected one :spits: Your DM could jusst give you one, yess.)

Are the rules for epic prestige classes different for dragons (Yess. Special exception)

Does a paladins mount share their special abilities (No. Their bond isn't as close as a familiars. That's right, Geraldine. Those pompouss sstuck up priggsses don't know what real love iss. Dance, Dance for me! )

Do goliaths have darkvision (Yess)

Can dwarves tumble in heavy armour (Yes. Pessky cannonballs. :shakes fist: They make ssuch a mess of your lair, collins collins. )


Class acts: Adventurers get Out of the Shadows. Nine more ways in which you can focus your sneak attacking skills, and turn them to uses beyond the basic dealing of more damage. Never let a rogue get the drop on you, for one hit will have you screwed for the rest of the battle, which will probably not end in your favour after that. I would say become undead, but then you have to deal with double hassle from clerics instead. Maybe putting your brain into a golem's body'll do the trick. You can even stay sexaay forever if it's a caryatid column, unlike with lichdom or worm that walksification.

Arcane gets the Anagakok. A variant wizard class for primitive cultures, they exchange the usual bonus feats and familiar for specialization in a suite of nature related spells, spontaneous conversion of spells to endure elements for those unexpected sudden changes in weather, and a special good luck power. A pretty decent trade, really, not particularly over or underpowered. (unless you were planning on using the bonus feats for some twinky synergistic build) Given the number of alternate classes for less developed lands, you should now be able to play a full party from one without sacrificing much in the way of power and versatility.

Divine gets Devotees of the Dragon. Given their power and impressive appearance, it's entirely reasonable that some people would choose to worship them. If you want to focus your devotion to a specific type of dragon, take one of these domains. Chromatic, metallic, gem or lung. Each will give you a different set of spells and granted power, as you'd expect. You could even take two, if you're that obsessive about them. Why should sorcerers and odd non core classes get all the special dragon related powers?

Warriors are also on a draconic kick with Hunting the Wyrm. A bunch of specialist equipment designed to do exactly that, making the life of any dragon dumb enough to hunt this area repeatedly likely to be cut short. They may look down on primitive monkey tools, but this will be their undoing. Compared to them, we are Tuckers Kobolds.


Nodwick engages in some inept treachery. That's gonna need some duct tape. Dork tower celebrates dragon's 30th birthday in vaguely humorous fashion. Zogonia can't remember anyone's name. Lets just use descriptions. OotS has another attack of bogging down due to rules.  


Well, they certainly brought back a lot of stuff that we haven't seen in ages this time, which was pretty pleasing. It does leave me a little worried that they're playing off nostalgia a little too much, but if you can't pull the nostalgia card on a big number anniversary, when can you use it? The question is if any of these callbacks will remain, if they have any new ideas to introduce, or it'll be back to the same old formulas for the rest of the year. I could definitely stand to see a few more Wizards Three, and it's a shame they don't have an iconic Eberron wizard to add to the teamup. Let's move onto the next issue, and try and concentrate on the things that are there, not the things that are still missing.

Dragon Issue 345: July 2006


part 1/6


80 (100) pages. The price goes up to $7.99, not even 2 years after the last increase. Yep, they are definitely increasing prices more frequently these days. Remember the 80's. They managed to go nearly a full decade without a price raise. Still, at least we have a sensibly dressed female adventurer for a change after the substantial upsurge of cheesecake on recent covers. But no real background detail again. Still, at least it's another theme they have yet to do this edition. Giants! (last seen in issue 254) Despite being the stars of the first D&D modules ever, and tons of myths, they're actually underrepresented in terms of overall screentime. Let's see just how much useful stuff they've managed to fit in this issue.


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


In this issue:


Editorial: Back in issue 326, they tried leaving the big obvious blurbs off the cover to see if they could keep the magazine going without them, the way they did in the 80's. Turns out the answer is no. If they don't keep putting themselves out there and shouting for new readers, they get lost amongst the competition, of which there is a hell of a lot in the internet age. Roleplaying as a whole certainly isn't growing, and that means Dragon has to fight to capture as much of the remaining market as possible. Of course, even if they do have eye-catching covers, the fact that they're completely D&D specific now means it's harder for them to draw in people who have no idea what's going on, unlike when they had fiction, general advice and reviews that a newsstand browser could flick through and understand instantly. So this is a somewhat depressing editorial, even if it tries to be positive about the future. Progress steamrollers a whole bunch of things in it's path. I suppose it's just a good thing that once they went electronic and the covers were purely for people who'd already bought the product, they no longer had to worry about this, and left them off.


Scale Mail: Our first letter is the expected criticism of the april issue for not being funny enough. As they've noted many-a-time before, they just can't win on that front.

But they can do better than they are now. We get a highly amusing picture of a beholder in a bikini submitted to us, which I must admit is funnier than their attempts this year. Once again this shows the difference between using freelancers and full-time staffers for most of your articles. The freelancers are less likely to be worn down by the daily grind and afraid of losing their jobs for one little bit of silliness.

Another regular request is for prints of their artwork. They really ought to put really high-res versions of them up for print on demand. That'd be another way they could make some more long tail money for minimal effort these days.

And finally we have a request for more nonstandard classes in Class Acts, and a reminder that people should teach gaming to their kids if they want it to survive in the long-term. Both seem entirely reasonable statements to make.

Dragon Issue 345: July 2006


part 2/6


First watch: The Monster Manual IV sees the designers try and avoid the dread spectre of diminishing returns by introducing not just new monsters, but new elements, such as various advanced versions of creatures, and lairs/prefab encounters as well. Not a bad idea, even if it did irritate some people.

Eberron gets Secrets of Xen'drik. Explore their very own Dark Continent, full of ancient ruins and savage monsters. Find out new things about eberron's history as a whole. Again, sounds pretty promising. Take an airship tour over it, and avoid a big chunk of the hassle of exploring.

A third official release this month. Rather more than usual these days. Dragondown Grotto is another Fantastic Locations adventure. Another 16 page adventure, and lots of add-on bits and pieces. Still probably not going to sell hugely compared to the first two.

A whole host of minis this month, both official and third party. D&D releases the 10th set of minis, as they've been spoiling for a bit. Goodman games releases a load of minis based on old skool monsters. And McFarlaine toys unleashes their own collection of dragons. Who will get your dollars? They also promote yet another battlemat for them to fight upon. I'm definitely getting choice fatigue in this area. How many battlemats does the average gamer need? If you want another game to play using them, there's Genesis by Dark Age games. Modelled by our very own Brom, this postapocalyptic combat game seems to be doing pretty well for itself.

No D20 books promoted this month. However, they do choose a White Wolf supplement. Mythologies for V:tR is a pretty good book, so I can understand why. The copy is a bit misleading though. Remember, all of this stuff is optional, and some explicitly contradictory. Don't believe everything you hear and read, especially in the world of darkness.

Online, we have an interesting experiment. Wolfgang Baur's Open Design project. See an adventure constructed through votes and fan feedback, and maybe join in. A definite case of the joys of the net. I very much approve, and wish I could make money doing something like that.

Also on the computer side, there's Fantasy Grounds, another attempt at simulating roleplaying, and facilitating online play. Looks pretty decent.

They also choose to promote the DVD of The Princess Bride, for some reason. Well, it isn't a bad movie, and it does have one line that's become ubiquitous in online quotes, but really, is it a classic? Really not sure what to feel about this one.

And finally, they take the time to promote the ENnies. Once again we see how much the forums now influence the official writers, and vice versa, since many of them are registered and regular contributors, talking directly to the fans. Everyone can join in, (albeit with varying success) as I've demonstrated over the past few years.


Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Another of our less sophisticated demon lords this month.  Kostchtchie may be an ugly, bandy-legged thing with a bad temper, but ...... actually, no, he doesn't have hidden depths, he's just an ugly misogynistic thug who has a whole bunch of stupid pretensions and insecurities and acts in a decidedly sub-optimal way as a result of them. You've made it to the status of abyssal lord, get over yourself. They make a huge mechanical error in removing one of his big weaknesses of previous editions, (he should be slower moving than normal humans for a very good reason. If one of the big sources of his insecurities isn't backed up mechanically, then it's hardly a penalty. ) and the whole thing suffers from obyrith creep. They're supposed to be over, a footnote in the history of the abyss. They shouldn't be having more and more influence on the current plots and storylines. So yeah, while the quality of this article is as high as ever, I distinctively disapprove of the specific ways they've updated and advanced the character this time. Guess it's house-ruling time. Moving onwards then.

Dragon Issue 345: July 2006


part 3/6


The giants of Xen'drik: Dark Elves and Giants have a longstanding connection in D&D, stretching back to the GDQ series. Eberron takes this, but inverts it, making them long-standing enemies who's wars ravage a continent. That's certainly a scenario that allows players a lot of adventure hooks while caught in the middle. This article works to add the personal touch to that scenario, with a specific location and NPC's there, making it really easy to run because the maps are sorted out and you can just wander in. Like Dreadhold last issue, this feels almost like one of those old school adventures that just details an area, and gives you plenty of room in how the adventure will turn out rather than trying to force you into a particular plot. And like that, it's very welcome as a kind of feature that they haven't really done before. This way of filling in a world definitely seems to be working for them so far. I hope it'll be a while before it hits diminishing returns like their other cycles before it.


Four ways to travel the world: We've had vast numbers of new monsters and spells over the years. New vehicles, on the other hand, not so much. They're mechanically much more complicated to create, and have a bigger effect on your game if you get one. It's not that there isn't the demand, but the lack of supply keeps the price too high for most. Well, someone's had the courage to submit this and get it published. Let's see if it fills this much-needed niche.

The Silver Trident is a big, (relatively) comfortable sailship with plenty of room for any treasure you pick up along the way, and a swashbuckling captain who'll be quite happy to join in your adventures. If you need to make a quick getaway, these are your guys.

The Kraken's Bane is a fantastical submarine that looks more than a little fishy. It's captained by a grizzled old salt who does not put up with fools or insubordination. Well, one puncture and you're in serious trouble. You don't have room to be forgiving in those circumstances. A stint underwater will put you in good stead for facing the tomb of horrors later.

Serella's Caravan is for those of you who are looking for a little company (and maybe protection in numbers) in your overland trips. It's run by a hard-bitten old trader who'll be cranky and suspicious of you at first, but loyal to the end if you prove yourself. It's all about long-term investment to create a viable business.

The Steambolt is a gnome-designed steam-powered Zeppelin, a combo which surprises me not at all. Couldn't you have a comfy halfling houseboat or something instead if you're going to stick with the racial stereotypes? Still, with special rules on what happens if you try to damage an airship mid-flight (not a good idea) this is a pretty decent implementation mechanically. So this article manages to be a winner in both setting detail and mechanics. It's nice that they can really combine the two again in larger chunks.

Dragon Issue 345: July 2006


part 4/6


Sea Serpents: It's not just humanoids that can grow to enormous sizes in D&D. Snakes can do the same. Indeed, in mythology, many dragons are more serpentine than reptilian, writhing through the water or undergrowth rather than flying. So this article would have been just as appropriate last issue, as it gives us new dragon types. We can always do with new underwater creatures, especially since the last article increased our odds of going on an ocean voyage anyway. Let's see how these big beasties measure up to Kraken and Dragon Turtles in a fight.

Crested Sea Serpents produce music through the frills of their quest. This gives them both sonic blasts and hypnotic capabilities, so they're quite capable of accumulating a fair amount of political influence. Engaging one in conversation will be as tricksy as any true dragon.

Lantern Sea Serpents also have some hypnotic capability with their dangling lure, but their secondary powers are more visually based, with prismatic spray at higher level. They're exceedingly bossy, doing their best to impose order on all the inhabitants of their territory. You can be sure one will be a pain for people on the coast, especially if they have minions that can survive out of water for extended periods of time.

Spiked Sea Serpents are the least socially capable, with a combination of poison and insanity inflicting powers. They can still be pretty cunning, but are more likely to cause havoc than impose any kind of formal leadership over others. And while they might be slightly weaker physically than the other two, they're still a dragon, with all the epic level scaling that implies. I think these three manage to be as interesting as the regular dragons in the MM, rather than just being rampaging beasts good only for a physical fight, like the last few variants on the draconic theme they gave us in the magazine.


The ecology of the annis: Man, F Wesley Schneider really has a hard-on for hags, doesn't he. Hag based items in 300. Night hags in issue 324. Greenhags in issue 331. And now these girls.  And it looks like he has more planned as well. Eeech. What's all that about. I find this vaguely worrying. He brings back another neglected 2nd ed deity, (man, there's a lot of them) Cegliune, the hag goddess, and draws on lots of folklorish sources to create a solid, but not particularly surprising ecology. Once again, the formulaic nature of these articles becomes a bit tiresome, making it feel like a computer could write them if you fed it the right data. How am I supposed to come up with interesting things to say under these conditions?

Dragon Issue 345: July 2006


part 5/6


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Very much in theme here, with magical items for giants, and for fighting them. Another thing the bazaar has managed to miss all these years, despite giants getting plenty of love in other departments. So once again I rather approve of this topic.

Cloud Giant Harps are another musical item that puts you to sleep. Some of them are also intelligent and able to talk. That seems pretty familiar, if not from D&D. Weapons shouldn't bogart all the sentience, as I've said before.

Hel's Death Staff is a kickass debuff/necromantic device that is super effective against giants. And once you beat them, you can have an extra large legion of zombie giants to rip up any further enemies. Stylish and full of synergy, this is a well designed item.

Ice Armor of the Northlands radiates cold. Unless you're immune to cold, such as, say, a frost giant, it'll also freeze your nuts off inside it too. Better stack up on your endure elements spells if you take this one from it's current owner.

Rings of the Frost Giant Jarl let you summon winter wolves and breathe icy damage on people. This is obviously of little use against frost giants, but is useful to them, and they'll probably be usable as bracelets for human size wielders.

The Sword of Giant Rending is weirdly square, and has different special properties specifically targeting the weakness of whatever giant you're currently fighting. If you rip out their hearts in classic bloodstained conquerer fashion, you can keep the benefit and apply it to everything. Huzzah! A fun set all round!


Spellcraft is also in theme, with some unique giantish magic. In fact, this follows on directly from the Xen'drik article, plonking it down in there. For a third time this year, they're giving a rare form of magic from the supplements some love here. This time it's Artifact spells. They may be more powerful, but they're a real challenge to memorise, requiring giant monoliths to properly record them, and repeated spellcraft checks to understand them. Unless you have routine teleportation, you aren't going to be able to draw upon them regularly, especially as adventurers. So this should have interesting results when incorporated into your campaign.

Disjoin Posession deals with anything in the area occupying a body it shouldn't. It also keeps them out after that for a decent time, which should let you kick said spirit's asses without worries of collateral damage.

Eskella's Soul Cyclone is an AoE energy draining attack. That's definitely more impressive than regular 9th level spells, and I can quite understand people fighting over access to this one.

Hibyrntic's Curse is an ongoing icy effect that isn't completely negated by successful saves. This may well be lethal, but isn't enormously ground-breaking. It's more interesting as a reminder how much they've nerfed ongoing effects in 3.5 and 4e.

Life Spring is just a slightly more convenient resurrection, bringing you up to full power straight away. Cool, but hardly worldshaking in D&D magic terms.

Telepathic Strike is a dual action scrying and remote attack spell. Since D&D is rather conservative about extreme distance magics that allow you to attack while remaining undetectable, this is another pretty cool one from a plot perspective. An article that both stands well alone, and is a good one for encouraging you to buy their new supplements. In that respect it's actually better than the Binder one.

Dragon Issue 345: July 2006


part 6/6


Sage advice: Andy is teaching Geraldine how to read. Andy is sso proud. Who's a clever little mouse, collins collins. Maybe he can sstart answering questions ssome issue ssoon.

Does a barbarians fast movement stack with other speed increasing effects (Yes. It has no type, sso of coursse.)

Does a raging barbarian lose rage when they go unconcious (no)

Does uncanny dodge prevent you from losing AC due to feiiiiiinnnaaaaaaaarrrrrrghhhhhhhlark (Ssomeone already assked that one, collins collins. Hmph.)

Can a multiclassed cleric/wizard lose their wizard spells to spontaneously cast cure spells (no)

Do domain bonuses to caster levels apply to spells from other classes (yess)

Does trackless step work even when a druid is shapechanged (yess)

Can a druid walk on thin ice with trackless step (No. On the pluss side, it'll close up again after you go through, and there'll be no sign you died there. Your body can sstay one with nature forever.)

How does a favored soul ready spells (ssame ass a ssorcerer)

Do two resistances to energy stack (No. Only the besst countss)

Can a monk use a gauntlet attack as an unarmed attack (Sskip didn't think sso. Andy doess. You'll sstill ssuffer nonproficiency penaltiess though, collins collins)

If a creature with natural weapons takes monk levels, how do they interact (Itss complicated. Andy doessn't like that idea. )

Does ki strike allow monks to affect incorporeal opponents (no)

Does a monks spell resistance stack with a racial SR (no. Again, only besst countses, precious.)

Is using poison an evil act. (Andy doessn't think sso. Itss how you usse it. What iss evil anyway? )

Does a paladin use their turning level or their actual level to see if they destroy undead (Turning level, preciouss. )

Can you take 10 on use magic device with skill mastery (No Only warlockses get that sspecial power.)

Can you get sneak attack damage on burning oil (Yess indeed, teeheeheehee.)

If you gain evasion twice, do you have improved evasion (no)

Why do scouts have trapfinding, but not disable device (ssilly writerses. There iss errata for that already. )


Class acts: Adventurers get Equipment Arrays. Save on your shopping time and make sure you don't forget the essentials by picking up one of these. Perfect for quick generation of NPC's, and pretty helpful for players as well.

Divine gets Underdark animals. Since a big part of adventuring is underground, it might actually make more sense if you get a mount suited to that environment, rather than horses, which are noisy and not particularly suited to close quarters combat. A giant burrowing snake, an underground velociraptor, a large albino ape. All are definitely worth considering for your paladin or druid's animal companion. Just be careful not to overencumber them, because that greater underground flexibility does have a price.

Arcane is missing this month, but has been replaced by a Psionic feature, Psicrystal Substitutions. Like familiars, psicrystals only offer minor benefits most of the time, but if you're willing to spend a little extra on them, you can get more from them in return. Definitely worth considering, as they make your choice of psicrystal personality a good deal more significant.

Warriors get Combat strikes. A trio of tactical feats, each of which grants you three maneuvers. Another way in which the later 3.5 writers tried to rebalance fighter types with spellcasters in terms of overall power and versatility, and failed. More fighty stuff is not the key. It's all in the utility tricks.

Nodwick shows us another strange little part of their world. Dork tower reveal their terrible taste in music. Zogonia decide not to take on this particular dungeon crawl. They replenish too rapidly. OotS show how to handle monsters in a civilized fashion.


Well, this issue was pretty different from the last one, but still had plenty of interesting things to say about giants, so it comes as welcome. It's particularly good to see their attempts to seamlessly meld mechanical and setting material still improving, and more near-complete campaigns instead of little pieces that you still need to do all the assembly yourself. I wonder if that's also being mirrored by similar changes in Dungeon at the same time. Extended adventure paths definitely seem to be making a difference for them too. Let's see if next issue has any big, joined-up features that'll force people to remember them.