Best of Dragon Magazine 5


part 2/4


Instant adventures: I've seen quite a lot of articles over the years that help you get an adventure going quickly when you're short on ideas. In light of that, this particular one doesn't seem that impressive, as it has neither proper random tables to take the brainwork out of it, or the kind of detail that Dungeoncraft managed over the years. Sorry, but I'm afraid you've been superseded, and can remain in the archives.


Modern monsters: Ed Greenwood continues to play fast and loose with the 4th wall, as he will do for many years to come, making sure that if D&D PC's find themselves on modern day earth, they'll have plenty of suitable challenges, even at higher levels. (after all, a tank is the equal of many big ugly monsters. ) Yet again, we're reminded that a few decades ago, more fantasy stories were set on earth in the distant past/future, or had protagonists from the real world transported there, and even stories that started off with no apparent connections to present day earth would develop them. That trend is very interesting to examine.


How many coins in a coffer: Ah yes, the great hassle of encumbrance, weights and volumes. If you compare D&D coins to real world ones, they seem absurdly big and heavy. I think that falls under the category of excessive abstraction. Of course, since this stuff gets ignored a lot of the time, it's only a problem if you let it be one. I think at this point, this is best left as water under the bridge, and a vague hope that they'll pay more attention to the math in future editions. Certainly not worth obsessing over when we could be having fun instead.


What do you call a 25th level wizard: The oldest article in this collection, this still looks pretty short and goofy, as a semirandom way of generating long pretentious titles, but is also still useful for any system, and possibly not as ridiculous as some real world people's lists of titles. Meh, it fills a gap in the page count neatly. Sometimes that's the important thing when you're an editor and have some hard choices to make about what to include or leave out.


Ruins: This reminder that the adventure can start before you go underground by exploring abandoned buildings, along with an extensive list of examples still seems pretty decent, as well as being good practice for your repurposing skills. What kind of monsters would move into a ruined building, and how would they fiddle with it's original layout to make it feel more like home for them? It's not a no-brainer like the random dungeon generation tables, but you can still refer back to this one again and again and find something useful to your current situation. I think it deserves it's position here.


Libraries: This bit of random generation, giving you a random topic for a book plucked off the shelf in a library also seems like a lifesaver in the middle of a session. It is indeed the kind of thing that will show up repeatedly, so you might as well bookmark it, because you know how easily stuff like this gets lost if you don't keep up to date with your dewey decimal system sorting. Short but sweet, it could probably be made more comprehensive and applicable to games other than D&D style fantasy, but I'm not complaining too much about that.

Best of Dragon Magazine 5


part 3/4


Keep 'em guessing: Now this is an interesting one to be reminded of. Ed Greenwood's piece on keeping all the rules behind the DM's screen, so the players can concentrate on playing their character rather than number crunching. (and the DM is completely free to fudge for the sake of story whenever they feel like it) That's not something that would have flown in the days of competitive wargaming, and shows how the influx of people who saw it more as an acting and storytelling experience than one where how much stuff you could kill and take was the primary measure of success and advancement changed things over the years. It also foreshadows his love for superpowerful characters who could do things that regular PC's simply couldn't, and trying to fight was a mug's game. So this is definitely one of his more controversial pieces, depending on if you think following the rules, or doing what's best for the story is more important in an RPG. Let the debate rage over the decades.


The real barbarians: Katharine Kerr's contributions once again seem fairly dull in hindsight, devoted to realism, maybe with a bit of rose tinted spectacles, as she talks up the merits of so-called barbarian cultures. Having less of a preserved knowledge base does not mean the people there are dumber, as if anything, they actually have to think for themselves more. Knowing violence is only one insult away leads people to actually be more polite and serious about honouring their commitments. The really important thing about wealth is not how much you have, it's what you can afford to give away. It is a fairly substantial change in mindset, but calling it better than modern day thinking is very questionable. Still, it's preferable to just giving your heroes modern morality, when that would be utterly illogical given the situations they've experienced. More detailed knowledge of reality helps you make your fantasy more fantastical.


Tarsakh showers: Ed Greenwood's final little contribution here is his most explicitly Realmsian, giving us the calendar for his world and some important days in it as an example, while encouraging you to make your own one, quite possibly even more different from the real world. After all, 365.25 days per year is not a mathematically elegant number, and there could well be more or less satellites around your world (and you could be on a large moon orbiting a gas giant, a dyson sphere, or a non-spherical world that doesn't fit real world astrophysics.) They might not have known how big it was going to get, but even before Gary left, they people in the offices would have been wondering about the Realms, and just how much more Ed had to show of it. Putting this article in the best of feels like a good bit of foreshadowing for that, so this certainly has some historical significance.


The humanoids: This article probably should have gone in the 3rd best of, along with all the demihuman expansions. Guess they underestimated it's popularity, or the tendency of readers to want symmetries completed. And since the main difference between the many low HD humanoid races was initially a matter of a few HP and AC points, giving them different racial personalities was a pretty substantial help, particularly when it comes to Orcs and Hobgoblins. As with the full profiles, there's a fair amount here that stuck, and still has influence in their portrayals today. Roger may not have stuck around quite as persistently as Ed, but his output is still pretty significant in hindsight, and the way he affected humanoids is just as important as the way he affected demihumans.


Best wishes: Wishes keep on being a pain in the ass that shows up in Sage Advice, so I'm not surprised they reused this one, even if it's not a particularly fun one to read. Still, at least it merely advises you not to make them too powerful, and able to accomplish multiple things with a single wish, not to twist the intent of the caster to screw them over. (which should be reserved for wishes granted by genies, not your own spellcasting capability) That's a lot nicer than they could have been. I'm slightly less irritated by this than I was first time around, having seen more alternatives along the way, but it's still not exactly interesting reading. I could have skipped it without feeling I'd lost anything.

Best of Dragon Magazine 5


part 4/4


Magic for merchants: Len Lakofka disappeared from the magazine at the same time Gary did, so even if there had been more best of's, he probably wouldn't have been in them. Not that I would have missed him anyway, as this is another of his contributions that I really can't see myself using. The Merchant class wasn't particularly useful anyway, and this system to give them minor magical abilities is pretty vague, plus the basic assumptions behind it don't really work anywhere but old school D&D, so it's not useful for converting either. Probably best left in the slush pile, really.


Spell strategy: As with the random library books article, this is the kind of article that's a lifesaver in the right situations, particularly if you have random encounters in your game. It would be very boring if every wizard you encounter unleashes the same spells in the same order, especially as you never know how much of their reserves they have left, or what they might be expecting to deal with later. Roll away, and if it throws up an unexpected result, go with it, try and turn it to their best advantage as a combatant. You'll probably learn more about tactics that way than always spending hours carefully building encounters under tightly controlled circumstances, and have more fun too. Now, if only we had an updated equivalent for 3e, where the spell list can get even more cumbersome at high level.


Good hits and bad misses: Ah yes, critical hits. Surprised it took them this long to put them in the best of. But then that was the kind of thing that a vocal section of the public wanted, but the official writers really weren't that keen on, so while they may have experimented with it a bit, they tried to play it down, leave that to Rolemaster. Still, here they are, for those of you who do want the frisson of knowing you could get your skull crushed or your head lopped off at any time. Like the weapon breakage rules, I'd rather pass, but more power to you if you do. See you in the afterlife, sooner or later. Remember, this is not a case where the first to arrive is the winer.


The astral plane: Now this is one that totally deserves to be here, and I'm only surprised they didn't put the 9 hells ones in the best of's too, given how unanimously it was praised. I guess it probably comes down to space again, since that was a three part, 40-odd page piece that would still eat up nearly half a best of even without the artwork. They'd have to do a whole planar themed book to make that worth their while, and they already had more comprehensive plans on that front. This is another one that hasn't aged brilliantly, partly due to the fact that they left out the adventure from the original magazine, partly due to the loss of formatting in the name of space, and partly in comparison to the longer and more atmospheric portrayal in the Planescape books. Spending more than half your page count on detailing how specific spells and magical items are altered by being in another universe rather than just giving general principles definitely feels like more of a drag second time around. This is still cool as inspiration, but I wouldn't want to go back and run an astral adventure using only the information in here.




This issue doesn't have many recent articles, and feels like them going through and compiling "the best of the rest", whatever is left over after the themes of the last three best of's. As such, I can quite understand why they stopped doing them at this point, even without the management changes. If they'd done them every 4-5 years, they could have kept them up indefinitely, but they had to rush them for more short term profit, not knowing if D&D would last, or it was just a fad. Such are the follies of history. And so that's the end of that. Just one more to go. Time to skip forward 20 years, and see how the idiosyncrasies of the mid noughties have fared in hindsight.

Dragon Compendium


part 1/10


264 pages.  Or Dragon Compendium, volume one, as it says down the bottom, as Paizo obviously intended to do more of these before WotC shut down their licence. Still, it's more than it seems at first. Just as the 3e monster manuals were the equivalent of 2-4 2e monstrous compendia, this is 3 times the size of the old best of's, and far bigger than even the largest issue of Dragon Magazine. It would probably have taken them quite a while to put together another one while still keeping up two magazines monthly. Whether my review will be even longer than issue 200, we shall see, but I won't be actively trying to push it. After all, after nearly 6 years, I'm very much looking forward to seeing the end of this.  



Into the Dragon's Lair: Erik takes the introduction, unsurprisingly enough. A new series of Best Of's was one of the first things they wanted to do when Paizo spun off from WotC, but it's taken them more than two years to finish the first one, which shows you just how much they agonised over what to include in it, and how they had to squeeze working on it between getting new issues out every month, as all of the credits are staff regulars; there was no-one assigned specifically to concentrate on this project. Still, at least that means it wasn't rushed, unlike the first set of compilations, which did often feel like they were forcing it. And after the last three years of the magazine, I'm reasonably sure Erik's tastes have enough in common with mine that I'll approve of most of his choices. Once more, unto the articles.



RACES: As I noted in the previous best of's, it wasn't until the 1996 revamp that they really made regular columns packed with new monsters, spells, magical items, etc a thing, putting several in every issue come rain or shine, and in the process, giving us more than we could ever use. Still, that's 10 years in the past at the time this was published, so they have a LOT to choose from. So it's very obvious that this will involve a lot more little bits of 3e specific crunchy stuff, and fewer general articles, many of which will be from the old school issues anyway. I'm going to be seeing ones I only just redid in the previous best of's a third time in quick succession, aren't I. :sigh: But first up, new PC races! Well, it is one of the first things you pick when making a new character. Why not put it first in the running order as well.



Diabolus still seem depressingly nerfed compared to previous editions, making me not particularly enthusiastic to see them again. And they have such cool flavour as well. What price a little immunity when it cuts both ways, and can be a pain in the ass as well as a benefit.

Diopsid are one I wasn't expecting to see again, the decidedly quirky beetle-people Jonathan M Richards gave us just before the edition change. Their oddities make them an ECL +1 race, and they do get a fair number of minor tweaks to their racial abilities. They're still different enough to be a good roleplaying challenge, even if they're a little less funny this time around.

Dvati are the bonded twin people from the same era. They may seem more superficially human, but they also take a fair bit of work to make sure the edge cases of their nature aren't too exploitable under 3e rules. That's the price of an interesting concept, it seems. Sort it out now, or deal with a bunch of questions in Sage Advice.

Lupins, on the other hand, are pretty easy to convert, with the main interesting thing being their sense of smell. It's just a shame they had to fall back to the basic cultural stereotype, when there were several different ones in mystara, making them a lot more diverse than most demihuman races.

Tibbits are the oldest of these conversions, and the only one that wasn't already a PC race. Since cat related species are perennially popular, an ECL +0 feline shapeshifter seems like it'll get plenty of use. Just watch out for the kender players looking for another race to cause trouble with, as they do have definite mischievous tendencies.



CLASSES: Funnily enough, they didn't do very many new classes in the 2e years, so there's a big gap between the old updated ones, and the all new ones. As with the last chapter, this still means we're getting new rules material, which makes this collection feel less lazy than the old school ones. Whether it's faithful and/or an improvement mechanically though, is another matter altogether.



Battle Dancers get the ethnic ties from the original portrayal stripped away from them, and in fact, their requirements and abilities bear very little resemblance to the previous edition at all. A very unfaithful conversion indeed, to the point where I'm annoyed about them using the same name.

Death Masters get powered up so they start spellcasting from 1st level, and get as many spells as regular wizards. They're still weaker than regular necromantic specialists in terms of spellcasting power and flexibility, but they do get superior HD, BAB, and familiar to wizards, so they're not a completely idiotic choice. Still, they're definitely tier 2, no competition with the top classes here.

Jesters got a prestige class treatment in issue 330. Giving them a core class treatment here as well feels somewhat strange, especially knowing they were probably created concurrently. They lack the ability to kill with a joke at higher level, but they do get a wider selection of magical abilities with which to prank you with, and the agility bonuses the prestige class lacks. Overall, they're slightly less powerful than a regular bard, simply because they don't have as many additional tricks from supplements to choose from, but fill a similar niche in a party. That makes sense to me.

Mountebanks: Now this interesting. While Gary hinted at it, we never got full official stats for the Mountebank class back in the day. So this is actually all-new material for the compendium, which is very cool to see. They differ from the Charlatan not only in being a core class, but actually having some magical power (granted by a fiendish patron) to back up their trickery, putting them somewhere between a rogue and warlock in terms of character role, and with their resources handled the same way as Ninjas. Their selection of magical abilities is fixed, and not hugely powerful, but since social manipulation tricks are pretty flexible, I think they can definitely create a niche for themselves in a party, whether the other members like it or not.

Savants are another of Gary's potential creations that finally got realised way after the fact. They're another one that gets changed hugely from the previous edition, discarding the split class sage stuff to become a generalist in a similar mould to the Factotum, only not quite as mechanically experimental. Still, you'll wind up considerably better at each class's tricks than trying to be an equal advancement multiclass fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue, so I guess it just about works out mathematically.

Sha'ir still seem like a pretty faithful conversion that also smooths out their original mechanical issues. No problem at all seeing them rehashed here.

Urban druids also seem like a popular choice that it makes sense to include, since you do have to cater to the powergamers at least a little, and they're one druid variant that isn't nerfed at all. Welcome to the urban jungle boys, it gets worse here everyday.

Dragon Compendium


part 2/10


PRESTIGE CLASSES: Unlike the races and core classes, it looks like the prestige classes are all just straight reprints from the recent years of the magazine. Well, they did do a lot of them, so they have plenty of choice without needing to do any more work digging out some old kits and figuring out how to tweak the concept to better fit 3e. Let's see if they picked ones I liked first time around then.



Aerial Avengers are very much a one-trick pony. Still, flying is an exceedingly useful and versatile trick, it has to be said, so you can see why someone would want to specialise in it, and why people would remember it. Sometimes you just want to serve the concept rather than break the game.  

Arcanopath monks still feel like an attempt to make a hammer specifically designed for smashing swiss army knives, handy as far as they go, but not nearly versatile enough to really do the job when the enemy has had a chance to prepare. Short term thinking is the flaw of fighty types everywhere.

Blessed of Gruumsh still seem unusually Daily heavy for a fighting class, making them nastier as adversaries than members of the party. Sometimes, that's just what you need as a DM.

Cerebrex still feel highly suboptimal due to their requirements, and the bonusses they get from the prestige class being so very divergent, leaving them neither one thing or t'other. Definitely not a choice I would have picked for reusing.

Fleet Runners of Ehlonna are another one-trick pony. No matter how fast you can run, the teleporter will get there before you. This is why the followers of nature gods get so pissed off about violations of the natural order. It's just not fair.

Flux adepts, like Cerebrex, start off spellcastery, and then get primarily physical bonuses from the prestige class, leaving them unimpressive in both compared to someone who just stuck with a good core class. And indeed, they're from the same author and article, leaving me more than a little irritated. Not the best choice from their extensive selection.

Force Missile Mages also feel like they're here on the memorableness of their concept rather than their awesomeness in actual play. I suppose reliability counts for a lot, and they've certainly got that in spades. Consistent slightly boosted damage will annoy the DM far less than a clever save or suck spell ruining his whole encounter in one go.

Monks of the Enabled Hand are another 5 level one that feel like a diversion from the path to true power, since you're sacrificing enlightenment for the ability to hit things a little harder. Very much a trap for the unwise. Oh paizo, y u do dis to us?

Osteomancers are the third suboptimal transformational prestige class from Andrew M Scott, making me wonder what he did to get this privilege. Maybe it was the good descriptive text. I hope it wasn't blowjobs for the editors.

Shapers of Form seem rather more effective than the other three transformative classes here, since they get a better spellcasting progression, and more flexible powers too. You might still just miss out on 9th level spells, but you'll be able to do a lot of other things that might just be worth it, especially if you lost your spellbook. And if you're using epic levels, then you'll soon catch up anyway.



FEATS: They don't list the feats individually on the contents page, which is quite understandable since there are 75 feats in 22 pages, and that would make it overflow considerably. In the past, I might have simply done a general overview of them, but as this is the very last time, I shall try and find something to say for every last one. After all, it's still a drop in the ocean compared to what I've done already.



Ability enhancer is only useful if you're a specialist in buffing, as a +1 extra bonus is small individually, but adds up if you buff lots of creatures in several ways at once. It's just a pain that they nerfed the durations of most of those spells in 3.5.

Air Bloodline is the first of many bloodline feats in this collection, granting your spontaneous spellcasters a themed set of bonus spells. There's plenty of elemental spells in the books, so they have an easy job for this first one. Telekinesis, though? That doesn't fit the air theme at all. Not trying hard enough.

Anarchic Bloodline's bonus spells, on the other hand, are mostly mind-affecting. Since alignment is all in the mind, that seems appropriate. See what chaos you can cause with these extras.

Astral Tracking is another niche feat that could be very useful for the right character, but most will never miss it. After all, many people never leave their country, let along their entire universe.

Axiomatic Bloodline gives you lots of divination and a few warding spells. You can't stick to the rules unless you know what they are, and have the strength to say no to people. Otherwise you get forced into a position where there's no right answer.

Bend Spell is pretty neat. Being able to shoot round cover is definitely a good addition to your arsenal if you're at all interested in evocations.

Braced for Charge, on the other hand, seems pretty useless because it's a passive power that only comes up occasionally. Not worth spending a feat slot on unless you're a dumb fighter.

Celestial Bloodline is all about the abjurations, which is a bit boring, but fits the goody-good image. Don't want anything exploitable if they go to the dark side, do we?

Celestial Light lets you show off your glowy holiness, as if that isn't easy to fake. Also, why 5 times a day? Might as well make it at will, since it's not a single round combat power. You're just making pointless bookkeeping for us with this one.

Charming makes things marginally more susceptible to your mindfucking magic. Meh.

Circle Student & master are cascading feats that let you be extra effective against one opponent at the cost of being vulnerable to everyone else. In a duel or against one big monster, that's not a drawback at all, so you'll get a fair amount of use out of this.

Combat Charm gives you a fairly substantial bonus at mindfucking mid-fight. De-escalating may be hard, but it definitely pays off.

Commanding is another one from the mind controllers article, letting you squeeze a little better odds. It's a good thing wizards get bonus feats, really.

Cuthbert's Strike lets you zap both chaotic and evil things with one smite, making you rather less likely to waste them. It's good to be sure and steadfast in your morality.

Cutpurse lets you pick pockets mid-combat without taking AoO's. Not sure how useful that'll be. Once again, a specialist pick that won't end up in proper books.

Dragon Compendium


part 3/10


FEATS C-M:


Dead Eye lets you add dex to ranged damage. That's one that'll really add up over an extended campaign. Hawkeye certainly wouldn't miss out on this if he was built under 3e rules.

Deceptive Dodge lets you dodge in such a way they hit someone else instead. Sadistically amusing, but the odds aren't great unless you put some more feats into boosting your dodge bonus.

Divine Conduit is incredibly flexible, letting you spend channeling uses to give other people free metamagic. One person in the team with this makes everyone else way more awesome.

Divine Fervor isn't quite so impressive, but still, a floating +1 to nearly any roll may save your bacon. Hard to tell, compared to all-new abilities.

Double Team is neither the pokemon power or the porn maneuver, just letting you apply flanking bonuses a little more frequently. Only worth getting if you're a rogue, and want to make lots of use of your sneak attack.

Draconic Bloodline focusses on spells that make you glorious and scary, with a fair bit of sensory boosting too. If people can get the drop on you in terms of knowledge, they soon lose respect, and we can't be having with that.

Dragon Sight lets you see magic. Probably not worth it, since you're a sorcerer, and have plenty of options that don't involve spending a feat to do the same.

Earth Bloodline is another one that's surprisingly low on earth spells, especially at low level. Once again, the need to stick to spells from the corebook prevents them from getting the very best for the theme.

Elemental Theurgy lets you add caster levels together in very limited situations. As a patch for a suboptimal character, it's not very impressive. Better not to build multiclass spellcasters in the first place.

Enspell Familiar lets you share spells up to a mile away. I'm sure you can find ways to exploit that.

Favoured Power Attack is for Rangers who like two-handed weapons, and have tough nemeses. Three points of damage for every -1 to hit is not to be sneezed at. Giant-killers apply here.

Fell Energy Spell helps you buff your undead. Meh.

Fey Bloodline gives you a predictably tricksy set of extra spells. Right up to the 9th level, when they pull instadeath out, apropos of nothing. Whatever happened to the fey penchant for shapeshifting?

Fey's Fate is basically the same as Luck of Heroes, only from a different source. They can stack too, if you plan it right. There's always someone who wants to max out their saves.

Fiendish Bloodline starts off a bit random, but soon concentrates on spells that inflict maximum misery rather than direct damage. Evil being it's own downfall due to inefficiency is very much the case here.

Fire Bloodline is also surprisingly combat-light, with hypnotism and tongues instead of the obvious choices of burning hands and fireball. Well, they certainly make you more flexible, and given the number of monsters that are immune to fire spells, you can't expect to solve every problem by violence.

Flash Casting makes you glow when spellcasting. Forcing everyone to look away does make your spells harder to disrupt, but it's not very subtle. You may attract more trouble in the long run by this method.

Friend of the Earth gives your earth-bonded sorcerer mildly improved climbing abilities, which is probably not that useful, since it isn't a class skill for them.

Guided Spell is the higher power version of Bend Spell. It's cost in extra spell levels is similarly exaggerated. No escape here unless you have an actual counterattack.

Haft strike is one of the many polearm specific feats here that's only handy if you're a fighter specialising in that.

Hammer Fist lets you punch two-handed and get the same benefit as using a two-handed weapon. Best combined with Power Attack so you can actually inflict decent damage when you connect.

Heads Up is one of those crap feats that forbids anyone who doesn't have it from trying a trick everyone should be able to do. Screw that fun-spoiling noise.

Hibernate doubles your natural healing rate. Incredibly handy if you don't have a cleric in the team, or indeed, a team at all.

Illithid Bloodline stays very on point, adding all mind-affecting spells. Your companions might not trust you at first, but you'll soon be able to ensure their allegiance. Muahahaha.

Kin Mastery lets bloodline sorcerers turn or rebuke their relatives. If they were kicked around as kids, this is where you get to do some serious payback. Oh so worth it from a plot perspective.

Kung Fu Genius lets you substitute int for wis for all your monk powers. If you want to max out your skills or have specific long-term multiclassing plans, it could just be worth it.

Lawful Discipline helps you resist mindfucking, but only mildly more than iron will, which is far broader in it's application. Only really worth it if you've already got that and are desperate to keep your mind your own.

Long Strike extends the reach of your reach weapons that little bit further. If you have AoO boosting feats as well, this lets you be a quite nasty battlefield controller.

Mercurial Strike lets you take advantage of AoO's even when unarmed. Perfect for those barroom brawls. DON'T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME!

Mighty are Fallen helps you deal with Power Attack. Very very situational indeed, especially since they'll simply stop using it if they realise you have this.

Mind Weapon lets you imitate your illithid creators, poorly. Save up for the full-on mind blast you can get through other routes.

Dragon Compendium


part 4/10


FEATS N-Z:


Necromantic Bloodline skips the animating effects, and goes for draining life and making you scary. No spawn cascading deathtouched here, unfortunately for you.

Pack Feint lets you set up your allies for a brutal round of sneak attacks with considerably greater ease. Make sure they're built to take advantage of it too.

Pack Tactics is the basic feat that should have come first, making flanking more efficient. The pure alphabetical organisation in here is a pain sometimes.

Pebble Underfoot is for giant-fighters who like to trip up their opponents. A good visual, so it's desirable even if it might not come up enough in your campaign.

Penumbra Bloodline gives you one of the most flexible selections of spells, so it seems pretty desirable. Shadow creatures always did get glamour above and beyond their raw power levels.

Pike Hedge is another obscure polearm one that's most useful in larger formations, not PC size parties. Huh. That's how they're rolling is it?

Plant Bloodline has a broad selection of elemental effects, for those who dislike the idea of one-note planar ones. How does your garden grow when you give it the love and care it really needs. NOT LIKE THAT YOU PERVERT!

Pole Balance lets you resist tripping and stuff when wielding a polearm. As low in utility as any other highly situational resistance.

Pole Fighter lets you use a polearm as a special monk weapon, with all the attendant benefits. Slightly more useful, but once again, only if you work at it.

Power in the blood gives you an additional floating spell slot for your bloodline spells in a pinch. Having seen the selections they get, that's a good deal for any party that doesn't stick to the 15 minute workday.

Precise Strike lets you convert sneak attack dice into hit bonuses, pretty much an inverse of power attack. For all those annoyed that rogues no longer get an automatic bonus when the enemy is unaware like previous editions.

Puppet Master makes your mind-control less obvious. Always handy, as monotone slaves aren't good public relations.

Ring the Golden Bell is that old classic of highly experienced martial artists hitting things from a distance without actually touching them. Pretty handy, as you never know when you'll need ranged attacks without equipment, and you can't rely on wizards all the time.

Riposte lets you make an instant counterattack if the enemy misses while you're using combat expertise. Might as well keep a one point subtraction on all the time really.

Scalding faith of the Sun gives paladins of pelor a 2 level boost to their turning power. Meh.

Scathing Wit gives enemies a minor penalty when you taunt them. Also meh.

Seer gives you a daily power and a low key floating bonus that goes away if you use it. Very interesting indeed.

Serenity lets paladins substitute their wis for cha for class abilities, which reduces MAD quite a bit and opens up a fair few character concepts. Very handy for a min-maxer, especially if you take a social flaw in exchange for this feat.

Serpent Bloodline starts with mind affecting spells, then goes into power words for the last three levels for some reason. Maybe they're easier to pronounce when you have a forked tongue.

Shield Maiden's Grace lets you share your paladin save bonuses with others. As if your high cha didn't make you popular enough already. Now, if only you could do it reflexively in response instead of needing to ready an action. I'm sure there's a feat for that somewhere.

Shorten Grip is the other side of Long Strike, letting you use your awkward polearms at close range. The two together really mark you as an expert in the field, and let you concentrate your weapon focus/specialisation slots on a single weapon to fit all needs.

Single Blade Style helps swashbucklers compensate for their lack of armor or shield. Pretty much the same as the old Kit in benefit, so I'm not complaining.

Song of the Dead lets you use your mindfucking magic normally on intelligent undead. Perfect for the pissed off enchanter sick of the DM's nerfing.

Spinning Defence helps you deflect attacks with your polearm. Looks like all the feats from that article are in here. Well, that's one way to cater to the old school crowd.

Staggering Blow lets you do the street fighter thang and stun enemies when you crit. Make the next hit count, because you still need to finish them off.

Unorthodox Flurry is another one that adds new weapons to a monk's special list. Should have just rolled them into one, as they seem a bit redundant.

Vault lets you use your polearms to increase your jumping distance. Another thing everyone should be able to try anyway, and the feat should merely make it better.

Water Bloodline finishes us off as we started, with yet another set of elemental tricks. As usual, it's easier finding higher level elemental spells to fit the list than low ones. Funny how that's worked out over this chapter.

Dragon Compendium


part 5/10


EQUIPMENT AND MAGIC ITEMS: Similarly, the gear chapter has too many little entries for them to label them all individually in the contents page. Still, at least it has some subdivisions of type to break up the monotony. That should make it easier to feel my progress than the previous chapter.



Weapons:


Ankus are blunt hooks on the end of poles, which has a fair number of comic applications. Since they had a lot of love for polearms in the feats chapter, I'm guessing the same will apply here, including several weapons that were core in previous editions, but left out of 3e. Erik does love his old school, after all, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing this collection in the first place.

Blunt Arrows aren't from an old corebook, but they also feel very familiar, and also have interesting applications. I can see why they'd want more people to try them out.

Flight Arrows remind me that they did a whole article on alternate types of arrows, and like the polearms, they're probably going to reprint them all. Anyway, these are the long-range ones. If you have the extra money, there's no drawback to investing in them.

Signal Arrows aren't very good at combat, but still handy until you can set up telepathy between the party members. Wheeeeeeeeee.

Smoke Arrows probably get launched just before shit gets real. It's all about the right timing for every bit of equipment.

Thunder Arrows are also for causing panic and confusion as much, if not more than actual damage. Just make sure you use the ones that obscure your vision for further shots afterwards.

Awl Pikes have huge hafts to hit things 3 squares away, no more, no less. Unless you take those handy feats that let you shift that one way or the other, which seems particularly useful here, especially when combined with AoO enhancers. None shall pass!

Bardiche are another ex-core weapon turning up in your back like a jilted ex. But not wielded BY Bards, weirdly enough. Linguistics is a funny business.

Bec Du Corbin have slightly shorter hafts to hit things two squares away, no more, no less. Which will work better in an actual battle will depend how much breathing room you have.

Bladed Flails are extra good at Cleaves, trips and disarms. Another one that you'll need to take a fair few feats to really reach 100% potential with.

Bladed Staves give you a range of lethal or nonlethal attack styles to play with, plus the usual support walking. If you can make the blades retractable, even better.

Shatter Bolts are still a better idea than breaking bottles in your hand to use in a barroom brawl, but not entirely without risk. Make sure you pad your equipment bags heavily, because trekking through the wilderness is not kind to them.

Broad-bladed Shortspears really aren't worth an exotic weapon proficiency slot. Next!

Disguised Daggers are ever popular with groups who want to appear civilised, but don't want to leave themselves vulnerable. Good to see them again.

Duom are an interesting one that might hurt you if you're not careful with it, but seem a good solution to the problem of not being able to fight in close quarters with polearms.

Fauchards are another ex-core one that are inconvenient to use close-up under the new rules. Well, it certainly doesn't help their slow slide into unfashionability.

Folding Bows are another one for the folks who value surprise over raw damage. They still take a little more work to get out or hide than daggers though.

Garrotte Rings require the reprinting of a whole bunch of special rules, as strangling is a form of grappling, and therefore annoying in D&D. If you know an enemy likes wielding one of these, be very afraid indeed.

Greatspears are another long, awkward to use one. Lest we forget, there are a lot of polearms, and we're still only 7 letters through the alphabet.

Hydraflails are somewhere between singular flails and a cat o' nine tails. They're not more damaging, as you can still only apply the same amount of force, but are considerably better at disarming than most weapons. That's worth considering when you're mostly fighting other people.

Lochaber Axes are another polearm with a little extra, this time a hook for tripping as well as a blade for slicing. Sounds like fun to me, even if immobilising them for a coup de grace seems unlikely.

Longstaves are Quarterstaves big brother. They're similar enough that a specialisation in one is a specialisation in the other, and they're good at fending off sneaky rogues trying to gang up on you. Perfect for a travelling cleric.

Lucerne Hammers are another polearm with a different set of hurty things on the end. Its amazing how inventive people can be when adapting farm implements into weapons.

Modular Weapons, on the other hand, take careful creation and designing so their individual pieces look as innocuous as possible, but they can still be quickly and easily assembled and dissassembled. This requires a skilled craftsman and a lot of cash.

Panther Claws are like tiger claws, only blacker. Exactly which branding sells better and what this says about our subconscious prejudices is worth investigating.

Partisans are another reach one that help you keep the foes from getting too near, especially if used in formation. Those little side spikes make things that little extra bit trickier to get past.

Pilum are extra long, thin spears designed to punch straight through an enemy's shield and rip it out of their grip. The kind of thing you use as a secondary weapon, as it'll spend a fair amount of time out of commission.

Poison Rings are yet another one for the sneaky guy who wants to look stylish while also being practical. Cha-Ching!

Heavy Poleaxes are another long, bulky one you can set for a charge, Question then becomes how you goad enemies into charging when you have a big obvious weapon ready to deal with it. It's a puzzler.

Razor Nets are a particularly nasty and effective idea, making any attempts at escaping exceedingly painful. Of course, putting little bits of barbed metal into your net is not great for it's structural integrity, so they don't have a lot of reuseability. What you need is monowire, and a way to keep those wires from cutting each other.

Spetum are another one designed for disarming. It's a good way to win fights without fighting to the death, so why not specialise in it. You might even make some friends if you fight with honor and style, which you definitely can't say if you kill everyone you fight.

Spring Dart Boots are a particularly cool concealed weapon, and the space could also be used to hide other things once you've fired them. Another one for the rogue who wants everything they wear to be pimpin'.

Swordbreakers are pretty self-explanatory. Have fun with your sundering, and hope you don't ruin anything too valuable that you might have wanted to use yourself.

Voulge are just cleavers with a polarm haft, another one that's easily adapted from farmyard tools. You too can go from killing chickens and pigs to horrible monstrosities from other worlds.

Vulcanian Thunder Clubs are a very interesting bit of alchemy that gives fighters an explosive AoE attack once a battle. Risky, but definitely pretty cool looking.

Dwarven Warpikes have counterweights on the other end to make them easier to balance. After all, when you have stubby arms, you have to adjust your fighting style accordingly to be effective, especially when fighting giants.


Armor:


Retarius is barely armor at all, just protection on one arm & shoulder. Well, gladiatorial fights are all about the beefcake, so they have to show plenty of skin. Otherwise you won't get the groupie denarius and have to downsize colosseums, which doesn't sound good at all.

Samnite is only slightly more covering, adding a bit of protection for your head and legs, while still leaving all those important chest muscles exposed. Rawr.

Secutor at least gives you a half decent AC bonus, but still leaves a fair amount exposed, and cuts down your max dex bonus more than many heavier armours. Remember, nonprotective stuff can be awkward and inconvenient to move in too, which is why no adventurer should wear high heels on the job.

Silk Armor is the odd one out here, costing far more, yet with it's primary goal to not look particularly obtrusive or hinder movement. Once again, it's the quiet ones you've really got to watch out for, as the flashy ones are just there to distract you.

Thracian is just a helmet and leg armor. I hope that covers the groin too, because I don't want the other gladiators making cheap shots.

Dragon Compendium


part 6/10


Alchemical Items:


Alchemist's Mercy is a reliable hangover cure. You know, I'd simply not drink anyway, save twice as much money. But not all adventurers are that sensible.

Armor Soft lets you temporarily soften up your armour, which means it's likely to break, but also helps with stealth. And of course, you can use it on enemies too. It's not just weapons that can be sundered.

Blackwater eats up all the oxygen in a fair area, leaving water breathing creatures suffocating. It'll soon dilute away if used in a bigger sea, but is a good way of dealing with big fishes in small ponds without fighting them.

Catstink is one of the many ways of foiling trackers. Spray it around liberally, hope they won't be able to pick up the scent again by circling around.

Cooling Gel gives you minor fire resistance. If you don't have a spellcaster, it's better than nothing.

Courier's Ink is your basic invisible writing with a corresponding revealing solution. Once again, don't overlook the nonmagical methods of encryption if you want to keep a secret.

Firestone is your basic chemical grenade, ignited by impact rather than pulling out a pin. Not much more dangerous than a regular attack, but setting fire to things

Flash Powder is also a common one, especially where ninjas are involved. It could easily be core and no-one would be surprised.

Flashstone is basically the same thing, from a different issue. Really didn't need to recycle both of these.

Free Foot is another trickster one. Making an area slippery is always a good one, whether it's by spell or mundane means. Mind you, a lifetime of back problems doesn't seem so funny, but D&D doesn't track stuff like that anyway.

Holdfast solves the opposite problem, creating a fast drying, short-lived adhesive upon impact that's useful for climbing where a grappling hook wouldn't find purchase. Just don't take too long, or it'll fall off again and send you plummeting, which is an embarrassing way to go.

Ice Crystals keep your drink cold indefinitely, which is just neat. Every restaurant should get some, as that's as handy as continual light stones.

Insect Repellent brings us back down to earth. Although if they were being truly realistic, they'd have hundreds of them, tuned to dealing with particular species of bug.

Liquid Ice has a violent endothermic reaction when exposed to air. Another one for throwing and hoping the bottle is the right toughness to break on impact, but not on casual handling or jostling in your backpack.

Night Eyes is a chemical that boosts your low light vision when applied to the eyes. It'll probably also make your pupils disturbingly dilated, but when you're an adventurer, somehow the long term health risks don't seem so important.

Powdered Water turns a drop into a gallon. Careful you don't waste it, and good luck dehydrating it again afterwards.

Shriek Paste is a highly practical byproduct of everyone's favourite fungal sentinels. it responds to light, letting dark dwelling creatures use it against adventurers without worrying about them wandering off. Grimlocks in particular will appreciate that irony.

Slimebane breaks down oozes, so if you aren't sure what will hurt it, and what will just make it multiply, pack lots of this and throw it at them. Or get a hose, sanitise the whole dungeon before you go in. That'll make things much neater.

Slippery Oil gives you a bonus to escape artist checks. Not sure why it's different to the other oil that trips people up. Once again, this best of exposes the cracks caused by lots of people contributing similar things at different times over the course of the magazine.

Slumberweed is for the Romeo & Juliet fans amongst you. Feigning death has all sorts of dramatic uses, including the boring one of just using it as a poison in combat.

Sneezing Powder is more comical than dramatic, but still definitely has it's uses. Trouble is, many high level monsters don't breathe, so you can't puncture their dignity that way.

Softshoe Powder gets rid of all those little squeaks and creaks in your footwear, giving you a bonus to move silently checks. It probably leaves powdery residue where you walked though, given it only lasts 10 minutes, so you still have to worry about being tracked. You'll probably pay less in the long run buying elven boots.

Soupstones are another way to compress gallons of food into a tiny package for wilderness treks. Just add water, possibly water that you also dehydrated earlier, and enjoy.

Spy Buttons are yet another way to be both stylish and practical. At least, until you've used them and are trying to get away with a shirt flapping loose. Might want to change your look fast and walk away casually.

Stonecloth is for those adventurers who are sick of losing gear to fireballs, as it pretty much ignores short flashes of heat. Just don't try and go swimming in lava. Ain't no suit flameproof enough for that.

Tanglewire is another way of slowing down careless people following you, particularly in the dark. Once that stuff gets strewn around, it's a nightmare to tidy up.

Toungeloose accomplishes what you could do cheaper by getting someone drunk, only with slightly less risk of violence. Another example of spy gear costing a premium because the stuff is tricky to get hold of.

Travellers Solace is one of those chemical concoctions that keeps you going a few hours more before you have to crash. So basically, overpriced coffee. They just have to tart this stuff up for a fantasy game, don't they.

Truth Wine is another repeated idea from a different issue, with different mechanics. Yawn.

Vapors of Sleep is just a fantasy chloroform, knocking out people exposed to it, once again reusing an idea from earlier in this collection. They should definitely have pruned this particular section more ruthlessly.


Magic Armor:


Arboreal Armor is still fairly memorable, taking the idea of a living artifact very literally, plus saving on carrying supplies. Pretty practical really.

Armor of the Long Journey is another one where the primary benefits are out of combat. Funny how that works out.

Breastplates of Righteous Endeavours, on the other hand, are only useful in a fairly specific subset of fights - those against undead and other creatures of cosmic evil. Oh well. still better than nothing.

Drachensgaard is another specialist one, this time for dragonslayers. Yeat again, you have to ask if you're looking for trouble, or just want to be ready if it shows up on your door, which definitely influences your choice of gear.

Hellshield is not actually a shield, but the ideal platemail for the paladin from the Paladin in Hell illustration. Presuming he's smart enough to look for the best tools instead of just barreling in trying to be a big hero, which is not the case for many paladins.

Humillianthir is from the same source, and is for protecting your horse. After all, a paladin can't be losing companions left, right and centre, or they'll be forever tormented by their conscience.

Praesidium Luminata is another paladin one that's for sharing the love, helping your companions and hindering your enemies with inspiring light. I suppose it's good for the whole family.

Shields of Obstruction are another tactical one that helps the whole party, not just their user. Hold the line without having to hang around and die personally. Then you can be a hero again another day.

Spellcease continues the paladin love, allowing them to absorb evil spells. I guess it's another case where they're picking out whole articles, rather than just the very best bits of many different ones.

Truedeath completes this process, showing that while Johnathan M Richards may have left after they changed the ecology format, his work is still remembered and loved for other reasons as well.


Magic Weapons:


Suppressing weapons briefly remove your spell resistance, making them very handy for taking out big nasty monsters as a team. At least, until they have saves so high they'll only fail on a 1, sending you right back to the grind at epic levels. No easy solution fir every situation.

Barthon's Delving Doves still stand out as just about the only reusable magical arrows around, and do it in style too. Add a few to your quiver so you can spread peace in style.

Bolts of Discord are a very bad idea when you have allies in melee. Pick the time to use them carefully, or you'll have to deal with a fair few intra-party arguments as well.

Deitus Daggers still look pretty cool, if a little too vampire specific. After all, plenty of other monsters spawn cascade too, and you could definitely do with breaking their control chains if you want to save the world.

Eagle's Cry Bows are still amusing because they devote more words to it's description, and the details of how any non-elves who get hold of one will be hunted ruthlessly than it's actual powers. Shows you where their priorities lie.

Hands of the Creator are another one that's all for elves, and may be problematic for anyone else. Well, with so many elf themed selections over the years, it's not surprising this best of is a little slanted too.

Heart Trackers are both made by elves and good against vampires, making them a double whammy of overdone topics. Fight cheese with cheese, and then pray you can get the smell out afterwards.

Lashes of Torment are whips with lots of little barbs and spikes in, making them extra painful and motivating for slavedrivers. Anyone trying to turn them agains their masters will have a crap time of it, so they can casually leave them lying around and laugh at the cruelly ironic consequences.

Quarterstaves of Law have some pretty boring spell-like abilities, as you'd expect from something that exemplifies Law.

Quiet Daggers are not only good for stealth, as you would expect from their name, but the more powerful ones also give you free silent spell metamagic. Perfect for spellthieves or beguilers who want to keep their secondary talents from being too obvious.

Sais of the Hornet are an amusing variant on the common dancing sword. Handy, but is it worth the new entry?

Staves of the Crushing Breeze give you improved trip as a freebie, letting you resolve conflicts a little more peacefully. If you already have that, pass it on like a proper virtuous monk.

Thornblades are still an annoying one, both because they give poison to good aligned creatures, and because you can'y just take them from their owners and claim them for your own.


Rings:


Keeper's guide still seems like a pretty suboptimal bit of design, and I'm really not sure why it made it in here. Well, clerics can't get it right all the time.

Rings of Earths Grasp gives you a rock hard grip, which is useful for all sorts of things, IYKWIM.

Rings of Scry Detection are still one of the first things any archmage should make for themselves. Once you're at that level, you can't afford to get sloppy and leave yourself open to scry teleport smite attacks from anywhere in the multiverse.

Rings of the Evil Eye are still a crap shoot as to whether the benefit outweighs the penalty. Since I remember them clearly, they definitely deserve a place in the best of.

Rings of Stalking are a suitably creepy name for a fairly effective little gadget. This is why you don't give out your real name while adventuring. It opens you up to being followed home.

Dragon Compendium


part 7/10


Rods & Staves:


Briar Staves still hold up in terms of being distinct, and having plot hooks for owning them as well as powers. Your druid should be very happy to have one, as it means you have an excuse for extended holidays to recharge between adventures.  

Deluge Rods also seem cool, thanks to their drawbacks that make their powers a little less of a no-brainer. Not a bad pick at all.

Rods of Deadly Function are sufficiently versatile and quirky to fit in with the old classics. Have fun figuring out what all the buttons do.

Rods of Revealing only have one trick, but it's a good one, eliminating invisibility and illusions just like that. Another reason why even specialists should have a few spells of other types, to make sure they can't get completely no-sold.

Rods of the Wild are another interesting multipurpose one, albeit a little lower-key. Having totem animals to play with is a good way to make fighty classes a little more flexible.

Staves of Earthen Might are just another of your themed selection of spells with limited charges. Ho hum. Easy enough to whip up a few more of those.


Miscellaneous items:


Acorns of Acuity still don't impress me that much. Using up a hand to gain their benefits, and being easily lost makes them much less useful than a ring with the same power level.

Alchemist's Glass doesn't seem too impressive, but perfect miscibility and easy separation has all sorts of interesting uses if you're a chemistry student. Maybe that's why the philosopher's stone is impossible to create normally.

Amulets of Astral Projection seem s good way to get players going extraplanar without so much risk, or breaking the game with high level spellcasters. After all, if you get killed, you just snap back. Why should demons have than benefit and not you?

Amulets of Deception are on that definitely deserve to be in a best of. Tricking scrying attempts is more useful than simply blocking them, as it gives you more control and doesn't immediately alert the people looking at you.

Autonomous Harps are still amusing looking, but fairly boring in mechanical effect. Make them intelligent and they'll be another irritating comedy sidekick to put in your game. Please don't say the wizard has fallen in the pit trap again.

Bands of the Iron Monkey let you catch arrows like a trained Monk, which doesn't seem hugely thematic unless you're talking about an oriental campaign. But then, it's not as if those are rare either.

Bardic Cups are actually fairly complex to understand, but simple to use. You just have to know what all the indicators mean. It certainly helps make magic feel more mysterious when they pull stuff like this.

Belts of the Camel are another handy but boring one. We still have to worry about food and the weather, no matter high level we get, but there are many ways of mitigating that.

Boots of the Woodland still don't impress me. I don't have much time for weaker, more specific versions of already existing items.

Caine's Flagons of Shadows on the other hand, still seems like a pretty neat way of achieving it's effect, even if it's not a hugely impressive effect in the overall scheme of things. But then, style can be more important than substance, especially for tricksters.

A Cape of the General is for all those who prefer to hang back and play tactician, with extra benefits for elves. Well, the smug gits do like to incentivise what they would do anyway.

Chalices of True Seeing are another one where they put more effort into the description than the power. But then, everyone knows what true seeing is for. You have to really work at keeping no-selling interesting.

Chromatic Flutes are another thematically cool but not too powerful one, mainly because playing an instrument to produce illusions makes it really likely people will try to disbelieve them or shoot directly at you to disrupt the effect. It's all about plausible deniability.

Circlets of Convocation still seem like an awesome idea with obvious pitfalls, and therefore very tempting to use in game. They definitely deserve to be here.

Clay of Sculpting is exceedingly flexible stuff, and so an invitation for PC's to have fun solving their problems with it. As a reusable item, this could wind up one of your real mainstays whenever you have a puzzle to deal with.

Cloaks of the Desert still seem exceedingly situational in use. Meh.

Coffin Clamps of Aziell Moonchild are even more specific, but at least they're really good at what they do, and have a cool backstory. No vampire hunter should be without them.

Deathglance Lockets are another one from the scrying screwage article. I'm completely unsurprised they remembered this one fondly and decided to recycle the whole lot of it.

Dragon's Goblets are one I don't remember from first time around, but I'm glad they did reprint them, as they have a selection of abilities and drawback that connect together quite well.

Dwarven Rune Steins are also cool, and as they have lots of powers, but you only get to use each power once, they'll really force you to look for clever solutions to your trials. (and hope they're the one the DM intended. ) Very fairytale.

Extradimensional Anchors are another one trick antiscrewage effect that will still likely be popular with wizards everywhere. Just make sure you leave a place in your tower so you can get in and out, for you never know when not being able to teleport away from danger will be a problem instead.

The Eye of Horus still has powers that are interestingly opposed to it's goals. I guess sometimes you've got to be sneaky to catch a thief, as brute force doesn't work if you don't know where to aim it.

Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows add your cha bonus to damage. The kind of substitution effect you can reskin in a million different ways.

Girdles of Hate double your favored enemy bonuses, which is only useful if you have one anyway. Pretty sure there's a prestige class from the magazine which synergizes perfectly with that.

Goggles of Scrutiny are just another minor perception bonus. Do we really need so many of them repeated?

Golden Beholders, on the other hand, still feel pretty unique. Both weapons and spying devices, they definitely reward smart thinking. If only they were a little less bulky.

Holy Bone Shackles are still unusable unless you can resist the urge to make batman references every time they show up. It's almost as bad as monty python for breaking the mood.

Horns of the Planes are still the perfect way to plop players into whatever adventure you want to do at the time without worrying about the hassles of travel. If you want a Sliders campaign in D&D, you could do a lot worse.

Black & White Elipsoid ioun stones are another one from the antiscrewage article. Assurance that your mind isn't being read is worth a hell of a lot, especially when playing poker.

Masks of the Reaper may make you scary, but without other powers to back that up, you'll be nothing more than a scooby doo villain. One brave puppy will be your undoing.

Mirrors of Captured Images are still handy, but dwarfed by modern media in terms of storage capacity. That's still a danger with magic items these days. You never know when technology will seem more magical than magic.

The Obi of the White Lotus Master makes your monk moderately more badass, but it's another one that won't help unless there's decent raw material to work with in the first place. Search for the hero inside yourself.

Quivers of Plenty are one of those basic but effective logistics removers. Eventually, you'll save more money by buying one of these than using regular arrows, so go for it.

Requiem Jars are very specialist indeed, and more for use by enemies than PC's. Not one I would have reused.

Robes of the Burning Serpent are even more exclusively for antagonists. Still, they have style, and evil masterminds love that. But remember, turning into a giant snake never helps. Seriously, read the evil overlord's handbook please.

The Rose of Kings isn't that great for adventurers, but a perfect one for ensuring honest politicians. Which is probably why it keeps on getting lost or stolen, so heroes have to go and rescue it.

Sand of Set might be made by his clerics, but they're not exclusive like the robes. Anyone can sprinkle it to summon some serpent servants. So step right up folks.

Scorpion Bracers give you reasonable poison resistance. Pass them on once you've become transhuman and can completely ignore that kind of stuff anyway.

Scout Goggles are one I remember, having great utility for a party, but also more than a few risks. The kind of thing that keeps adventurers playing it smart, instead of getting soft because the magic sorts out all the everyday details.

A Shell of Amplification is still better than modern microphone systems, since it doesn't require bulky speakers, but you never know what the future will bring. This might still be superseded by reality.

Silver Collars of Adentrius are another vampire specific one that's incredibly handy as far as it goes, but how often will that be. Well, with so many horror themed issues to choose from, it's not surprising vampires wind up a bit overdone.

Snake Charmers are another one I'm surprised to see again, given how utterly banal I found them. Tastes obviously do vary in this case.

Spider Masks are still pretty decent, if nasty magical items, especially if you want to be mysterious and intimidating. Careful when looting the bodies of your enemies. Even if you can use their evil magics, do you want too?

Spy Glasses are your own portable window, which is always handy. Question is, are they two way or not, as that makes a big difference in how easy you are to catch out.

Sylvan Cloaks are still very much overdone. We already have elven clothes right from the corebook. We don't need several more variants on the idea.

Thespian's Masks are another one trick pony I'm rather bored to see repeated. A hat of disguise does all this and more and is fully core. Shoo, you amateurs.

Tiaras of Bast are another pretty limited one. But then, given the popularity of cats, they'll still be more useful than one that lets you communicate with all reptiles, for example.

Vampiric Goblets may seem cursed at first, but they're actually quite useful as a hit point storage system. That contrasts amusingly with all the items that seem cool at first, but are actually a real pain in the ass, especially once you realise the problem and want to get rid of them.

Ventriloquist's Mouthpieces are still a one-trick pony, albeit a handy one. Meh.

Vestments of Judgement still feel like they're designed to push you into hard choices, what with only working once a month, and people dying a lot more frequently than that. Oh well, just have to make more of them, then you can share the load of responsibility instead of carrying it all yourself and get more done.

War Mugs of the Ogre Magi on the other hand, are just handy everywhere, all the time, and amusing on top of that. They even make a perfect replacement for a judges gavel. Order in the house, or I'll beat some sense into you!

Z'hentra's Tools aren't useful at all to most PC's, since they're pretty much only good for torture. I'm not normally one for destruction of magic items, but these'll just push your Pc's into being Hard Men making Hard Choices if they keep them, which is an incredibly slippery slope.

Dragon Compendium


part 8/10


CLASSICS: While the last two chapters were all from the last few years of the magazine, this one is nearly all 1e stuff designed to tickle our nostalgia bones. Many of them are ones I've just gone over a second time in the last batch of best of's, so I may struggle to find something to say about them. Let's see how much effort they've put into improving the mechanics and visuals of these old faithful's.


Arcane Alterations: Our only recent article in this chapter is also the only OGL article in the book. Very surprised that they liked this one enough to reuse it considering that. Still, the Arcana Evolved influenced ceremonial feats and spell templates are pretty nifty, so I'm glad that they did decide to include it. Monte Cook did have some pretty cool ideas, and it's good to see them using the OGL the way it should be used, to pass them around, twist them into new shapes and build upon them.


Glyphs of Cerilon: We've certainly seen a lot of the Forgotten Realms since the early days, much of it reprinted repeatedly in multiple forms. However, it's easy to forget that once there was another freelancer sneaking bits of their personal setting into our magazine - prolific cartoon writer Larry DiTillio. Erik bringing this one back is a very good example of just how much he researches, and how much he cares. Unsurprisingly, while the conversion is fairly faithful in most ways, with all the cool flavour retained, they seriously nerf anything that would inflict permanent harm upon your character, like the ones that drain levels or wither limbs.  So this serves as another reminder just how much more forgiving D&D has become over the years, with nearly all status effects temporary or easily healed with the right spell. None shall pass, even the legacy effects!


The answer is ... the Riddle!: Sigh: They had to have at least one bit of irritating cheese in here, didn't they, and revisiting the riddle themed issue certainly fits the bill. They include a nice bit of new artwork here, and tweak the formatting so there's more headers,  but there's no mechanics to convert, so the text is pretty much unchanged. If you do want to use riddles and make your players groan, it's not as if anyone is going to stop you, even in games which encourage rolling mental stats to solve these problems in game. Moving swiftly on.


Runes: You again. Once again, the fact that runes are a big part of several mythologies gets them brought back for another generation. And once again, the fact that this was completely mechanics free means there's no changes in the text, apart from a bizarrely small one at the start, where they swap out the thief in the original for a wizard, to reflect their changed powers and roles in the new edition. Amazed that they bothered really, since it is such a tiny thing. I suppose that kind of attention to detail is to be commended, because otherwise I'd have even less to say about this one.


Runestones: For a second time, this article follows on directly from the last one in a best of. Unlike the previous two, this one is a little abbreviated, with the example bits of writing cut out, leaving just the text and the key to the runes. And the text is still great fun too, reminding us that even Ed eventually scaled back on breaking the 4th wall in his writings and got caught up in giving us little bits of crunch and setting detail on a regular basis rather than big ideas. He might have had more longevity than any of their other staff, but even he can't completely ignore the hands of time or the dictates of fashion.


Tesseracts: Now this is an awesome one that definitely deserves re-introducing to every new generation, since it's based off a mathematical construct that remains universally applicable regardless of time, place or culture. 4-dimensional mapping is now easier to do than it was in the 80's, thanks to home computers that are more powerful than the entirety of a big company's processing power. Games like Portal have exposed people to the fun you can have distorting space and given us systems for managing the convoluted maps that can result. So if you're struggling, google away. You don't have to hurt your head figuring this one out on your own.


Another look at Tesseracts: If maps that don't conform to the normal three dimensions take extra effort to make, ones that you can wind up in the same areas, but different orientations are even more complex. This is somewhat harder to find help with, as we still have less of an idea what gravity is and how to manipulate it than we do advanced theoretical mathematics.
Electromagnetism and the Strong & Weak nuclear forces, we have a idea how they work and the cool things you can do with electricity and chemistry. Gravity, it's just kinda there, and a real pain in the ass a lot of the time. If we could negate, invert or set gravity at right-angles to the dominant plane the way they describe in this article, the world would be a very different place, and getting into space would be a lot easier. So there's still room for quite a few more expansions on this idea, and the magazine shouldn't have stopped at the two. Maybe that would have slowed down the descent into incredibly specific bite sized chunks of info.


Toxins of Cerilon: A second updating of Larry DiTillio's old works, this is another collection of toys for the DM, and possibly players to put into their games. Unlike most of the articles here, the list of poisons is completely reorganised, removing the categorisations from the original, and putting everything into alphabetical order. The effects are also completely rewritten, with far fewer of them doing hit point damage, instead substituting all sorts of ability score damage and status effects. So while there is a little bit of nerfing going on here where they would do permanent damage before, they've also worked to make them more interesting in other ways in the process of updating. That pleases me, and makes these articles very worthwhile even if you already have the original.

Dragon Compendium


part 9/10


MONSTERS: The monsters are another mix of new ones from the 3e issues, already done conversions, and new exclusive updates for this compilation. Obviously, I'm more interested in the stuff they're updating, as that took more work, and gives me more toys to play with. Who will their favourites in this department turn out to be?



Blackroot Marauders remind us that James Jacobs started giving us awesome monsters just before the 3e changeover, and they fully deserve to be updated and used along with the many others he's given us since. His distinctive flavour can definitely liven up a campaign.

Bleeders are one of the monsters that made it to official books in 2e, but only ever got updated to 3e in the magazine, and I have no idea why, since it seems pretty arbitrary. For all Ed's prestige, a fair few of his articles still wound up on the chopping board over the years.

Bodak templates still seem like a decent enough addition to 3e's modularity, and the specific example is very cool indeed. Definitely a good pick.

Bonespitters are another James Jacobs one, a gruesome amalgamation of body parts that you too could be incorporated into if unlucky. This kind of stuff is why clerics get anti-undead powers, because they're just too squicky otherwise.

Bonetrees are similarly gruesome, yet completely different in terms of powers. They still want to eat you, though, and use your bones to plate their bark though. Fee fi foe fum indeed. (and I can't believe I nearly went the full thread without making THAT reference. )

Casaruas are a pretty cool one to update, since Tom Moldvay's alternate undead were pretty memorable in general. They're distinctive in visuals, powers and creation method, and are better faced using brains than brawn, so it's a win all round.

Chaoswyrd are another one of James Jacob's sanity threatening monsters that he can whip up in his sleep. While cool, I think they may be spoiling us with too much of a good thing again, as his style is starting to get samey.

Ciruja Plants are another one from James, but don't use the same stereotypes, instead ageing you rather than threatening your sanity. Still, it is pretty brutal, so you should still be afraid. Just a few years later they wouldn't let them make monsters like this,

Elemental Demons still piss me off, knowing that they're Mearls' trial run for rewriting the cosmology and stripping all monsters of everything but a few combat related tricks in the next edition. Also, why these rather than the Battleloths, which were far more interesting in my opinion. Strange decision.

Demonically infused elementals add to the confusion, letting you give your inner planar creatures an outer planar flavour. We already have a fiendish and half-fiend template, and several different types of fiendish bloodline. Do we really need another one?

The colour wheel dragons get fairly straight conversions to 3e, with most of their spell-like abilities remaining the same, but some alignment changes. As with the 2e conversion, I find myself increasingly pleased to see them again, as they're something exclusive to the magazine. I hope they appear at some point in the 4e issues too.

Ghastly and Ghoulish creatures are still a sensible idea when you're working from the PoV that templates are good, and you should be able to combine creature types in all sorts of ways. Not that plenty of living monsters don't want to eat your flesh anyway, but adding paralyzation to the mix definitely turns up the fear factor.

Glasspane Horrors are one I've never seen before, since I've still never managed to get hold of the Creature Catalog from issue 89. They're pretty nifty too, making me pleased to see them here, and annoyed I didn't get the chance before this, and can't compare the mechanics.

Grandfather Plaques are a somewhat goofy one to convert, but hey, we can't forget the influence of Labyrinth and the fairy tale end of fantasy on D&D. There's still plenty of strange creatures ripe for conversion there.

Bog Mummies are just tougher mummies with a vulnerability to cold instead of fire. Not hard to figure out when you know their origins. Meh.

Ragewings are yet another James Jacobs combination of gruesome appearance and annoying special powers that make them pretty dangerous to fight. Well, as one of their lead editors, he has no trouble keeping his material fresh in their minds.

Ravenous template is still a good way to get your zombies to fit the Romero mould, as well as having more esoteric uses. I just wish they'd used the version from Silicon Sorcery instead. In fact, the stuff from book and video game articles has been notably absent from this collection, despite it generally being more adventurous mechanically. Guess they didn't want to deal with licensing hassles again.

Seelie Court Fey still seem annoyingly froofy. As if most fae weren't annoying enough as it is, you had to add an in-crowd and an out-crowd to them. No desire to relive that kind of high school bullshit.

Spiritus Anime get their setting details mildly rewritten to make them more generic, but remain pretty similar mechanically. Oh well, I guess that gives DM'd more freedom to put them where they like in a dungeon.

Trap Haunts still feel like an amusing lampshading of D&D dungeons, and their impossibility in reality. Someone has to maintain this stuff if more than one adventuring party passes through, and it might as well be undead, who don't have to worry about ecology.

Fire Trolls retain their amusing, and somewhat tricky to discover weak point, making them a real pain to take down permanently. Just the thing when players get complacent and think they can rely on brute force to solve their problems.

Unseelie Fey are one I'm pretty shocked to see reprinted, given how nasty I found the anti miscegenation message there first time around. I guess drama sells, and knowing sex is forbidden between you because it produces monstrosities certainly qualifies for that.

Dragon Compendium


part 10/10


APPENDICES: A few more old school articles round this collection out. Not sure what their criteria was for dividing them between the Classics and Appendices sections, and maybe it was just because they're 1e DMG fanboys, as I can't see much of a difference in overall theme between the chapters. Let's see which I'm more likely to want to refer back too regularly.



101 Wondrous Whereabouts: The 101 lists were always handy, simply because that's too many things to memorise perfectly, so no matter how many times you've used them, you can always find something you've forgotten about to use, and keep your game fresh for you and the players. They could probably have filled a whole chapter with them if they felt like it, (and I'd love to see the bag of beans one converted to 3e) but they stick with just the one. Still, it is a pretty good one, full of atmospheric adventure locations and reasons to go there, many which draw on mythological sources D&D has only briefly touched upon. I fully approve of reusing this selection.


7-Sentence NPC's: This one is also generally handy when you have to crank out a large number of NPC's in a short amount of time, and are finding it hard to make them distinct. Breaking personality building down in the same way as statistics may make characters formulaic, but at least you can make sure they're not too shallow, and you have obvious ways to play them differently. Some people may be able to manage without using shortcuts, but even they'll feel the benefits of using them every once in a while.


Be Thy Die Ill-Wrought: The mathematics heavy chi-squared rule article is the kind of thing they stopped doing in the last years of the magazine, so this seems like a breath of fresh air. The amount of higher mathematics and statistics involved in roleplaying ballooned in the 80's, before fading away as people wanted to just get down to the gaming rather than spend forever number-crunching and consulting tables. But making sure people aren't cheating is always a concern, especially if you're concerned with game balance, so this is another thing I'm pleased to see here.


Good Hits & Bad Misses: Huh. I'm surprised to see this one a third time. I guess even though they put a basic crit system in 3e, some people STILL want more gruesome descriptive effects when they hit things. I really don't know. Still, at least the crunch here is all-new, with each injury having a mechanical effect that still usually makes sense even if the description doesn't, (due to the myriad body shapes monsters can have) letting you reskin the description. This definitely feels like they gave it some thought to improve how it works mechanically, which is a relief, even if I still don't really want to use it in my own game, as it still gives other people decent options to choose from.


Instant Adventures: This one is transferred pretty much unchanged, apart from taking up slightly more space due to the way they formatted it here. And it's still handy, but not the most impressive example of it's kind, since it only provides seeds, not a way to grow them into full adventures on it's own. Guess recompiling the dungeoncraft stuff would have taken a full chapter, and they still only had limited space to play with. If only they had brought out a second one, they would probably have done more interesting themes with it.


Not Another Magic Sword: This bit of step by step advice is also unchanged, and curiously enough, doesn't need to be changed for 3e anyway, apart from intelligent magical weapons having wis and cha scores now. Goes to show, some bits of rules didn't need a huge amount of fiddling with, especially when so many magical weapons have unique abilities anyway. Just remember, it can be applied to other magic items too, not just weapons.


Pronunciation Guide: Ha. This is a system-free one that remains very relevant today, as new people learn the game all around the world without previous teachers, and so wind up mangling the words that they've read but never heard spoken. This could probably have been expanded quite a bit in the update, since they've introduced tons of new monsters and settings since then, but no, they're sticking to what Frank already gave us. A bit of a wasted opportunity, when you consider some of the changes they've made to other articles in here.


Solo Dungeons: And so we finish right back where we started, with an updated version of the random dungeon generation tables from the Strategic Review 1 (and the first best of). It seemed pretty damn cool back then, and you know what? It still does, especially as they've cleaned it up and made it easier to understand, while only changing it the minimum needed to fit into 3e rules. This definitely feels like a good note to end things on, bringing them full circle before I head out in directions unknown.



Putting this collection next to the old best of's definitely makes it easier to contrast how their approaches changed over the years, with the far greater emphasis on specific small pieces of information rather than big ideas in the articles. However, this attention to detail is also notable in the better artwork, formatting, and rules, and as a result, this collection definitely feels less lazy than the old best of's and their direct, artless reprints. So it looks like I can end this on a positive note, even if I would have made different choices of exactly which articles to reprint, and praise Paizo for their hard work in the last few years of the magazine's life. Now, will I ever get to see what WotC did once they took it back? The answer is in your hands. For now, farewell.

This is a total thread-necro, but over at GrogHeads, we've been running a video series that also looks back at Dragon Magazine, including commentary on our time in and around the game business throughout the years

http://grogheads.com/category/books-movies/dragon-up-the-past

Quote from: bayonetbrant;1042233This is a total thread-necro, but over at GrogHeads, we've been running a video series that also looks back at Dragon Magazine, including commentary on our time in and around the game business throughout the years

http://grogheads.com/category/books-movies/dragon-up-the-past

Cool. And welcome to theRPGsite!