25 Years Ago...

A busy day for online releases. First up, we have a new spell: Master's Touch . This is a 1st-level spell for either bards or sorcerer/wizards. It's quite handy for casters who fancy themselves combat-ready. It lasts for one minute per level, and it makes the caster proficient in one weapon or shield that he is currently holding. Only one item, and only that specific item. So, if a bard is holding a small shield in one hand and an elven thinblade in the other, he can cast this spell and be proficient in one of the two items. Assuming he picks the thinblade, he will remain proficient with that weapon for the duration of the spell. However, if for some reason he drops the thinblade and picks up a different thinblade, he will not have the proficiency. If he picks the original thinblade back up, he's good to go until the spell expires. So, it's very specific. And it can be cast multiple times in order to use more than one item. Seems like a waste of spell slots to do it tha...

We'll get back to the monsters soon enough. For now, here's our weekly map, following in the vein of wizard's towers. This is the School of Sorcery . It doesn't look all that much like Hogwart's, does it? And this one has most of the rooms already labeled. From the description: What magical map collection would be complete without an arcane academy? The uninitiated cannot even fathom the mysterious activities and articles behind this structure's elaborate facade.

Alright, finally. Working sixteen-hour days sucks. Anyway, let's dive into this collection of monsters from the magical land of Faerûn. You'll notice I have found the quick-key to put the accent on that 'u'. It's much easier to type that word now. The first thing I notice about this book is that it doesn't look at all like a Forgotten Realms book. Instead, it looks like a core rulebook, doesn't it? Complete with the spine and gems. I wonder if they did the same thing and made an actual book to photograph for the cover art? Looking online, I don't see it; this might just be how they did the art. It certainly looks cool, though. As far as I know, this is the last 3rd edition Forgotten Realms product that doesn't have the distinctive trade dress that would appear with the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting  book. So, the table of contents is very similar to that in the Monster Manual , with an alphabetical list of all the monsters within and ...

Alright, let's get this bad boy finished up. Our next article is 'Just the Facts, Mage', or 'The Fine Art of Gentle Persuasion'. this is about getting information from NPCs. It's almost a psychological study of different behavioral cues and environmental clues that can suggest ways of convincing them that you're someone they can divulge all their secrets to. I'm not really a big fan of this one; it looks like it would add a lot  of work to the DM's plate to make this work properly. Ah, here we go: Familiars. We get new types of familiars, from dogs to skunks, feats related to familiars, and of course spells to cast on your familiar. Very handy stuff to make familiars a more useful and interesting part of the game, especially since every wizard and sorcerer gets one. Reel Heroes is yet another article about the D&D movie. This time, we get stats for the movie characters. Ridley (Ftr 1/Rog 2), Marina (Wiz 3), Snails (Rog 3), Norda (Elf Rgr 7), Elwo...

Finally. This took longer than I wanted it to, but life happens. This issue is about magic and sorcery, rather than having a racial theme as the previous two did. So, this should be an interesting change of pace. It's the first issue of the 3e era to focus on magic, too. The cover art is pretty straightforward; there's a sorceress casting a spell while a dragon of some sort coils itself around and near her, not squishing her like Kaa in the Jungle Book. The editorial talks about the price increase in the magazine and how you really shouldn't be worried about that extra dollar. A dollar is quite a jump for a magazine in that time. But at least the subscription price hasn't changed...yet. In Scale Mail, among other things we get a discussion of fonts, a promise that the iconic characters from the Player's Handbook  will be statted out later this year in Enemies and Allies , and an RPG version of the 2000 presidential election (Gore vs. Bush). Which is about as coheren...

  Continuing the magic theme of this month's Dragon Magazine, we have the Tower of Deception . This one's a little bigger than the last one, and has the following description: A false beacon for weary sailors, this tower is the last resting place -- make that  restless  place -- of many a missing seaman. So, this is more of a haunted type of place, likely with a few ghosts and the like. There's also what looks like a maze on the very first level, not to mention a bunch of shipwrecks surrounding the tiny island. You would think those alone would discourage sailors from landing here, but you never know. That maze on the first level is actually tough. You want to reach the staircase that is in the tower just to the right of the entrance. And if you end up reaching the center, there's a trap there. What sort of trap? Probably something deadly enough to turn you into some sort of undead. But it looks like you have  to go through the trap to get to the staircase. Yikes. Th...