Dragon 274

Okay, this is the transition issue for Dragon Magazine, where 2nd edition is officially dead and everything is 3rd edition now. This is very different from the transition between 1st and 2nd edition, where there was no defining point where you could say 'that was a 1e magazine, this is a 2e magazine'. When 2e began, it was around Dragon 142, but there were still 1e articles as late as Dragon 169, two years later. Now, the demarcation is crystal clear.

So, what do we have in this magazine? Well, there's a lot of introduction to 3rd edition stuff in here, of course. There are also a couple of articles that really should have been included in the rulebooks because of how important they are. We get a Sage Advice column that answers a lot of questions about the new rules, a mini-campaign set in Sherwood Forest complete with legendary NPCs, some cartoons, some player and DM advice...and ads. Lots and lots and lots of ads.

I'm not going to go into detail on everything, but I'll at least mention everything that shows up. The editorial is just a '3rd edition is awesome' ad, really. It talks about how the rules try to cover as many situations as possible, going so far as to say how many PCs can fit in a behir's stomach at the same time. Okay, that's useful info in a combat. Maybe a bit too much detail? We'll see when the Monster Manual is released.

Gary Gygax is back; he came back on board after the death of TSR and the purchase of the company by Wizards of the Coast. They wanted to show that Gary (and Dave Arneson) were worthy of respect and honor for their contributions to the hobby. Considering their primary contribution to the hobby was inventing it in the first place, that's a pretty good idea. He writes an article called 'The Perfect Dungeon Master', then starts off by saying there's no such thing. I recall that Gary had quite the extravagant idea of what a Dungeon Master should be; he wrote a couple of books on the subject which took DMing to a whole new level. And not necessarily a good one for the majority of people. He took it way too seriously. But, he's allowed. This article is brief, giving some tips such as 'reread the rules every once in a while to refresh your memory'. Well, that's handy.

The letters column (Scale Mail) has some pedantic complains about Tiamat as she was portrayed in Dragon #272. There's not a lot to talk about yet, since the rules are brand-new (I don't know if the magazine came out before the rulebook or not).

Profiles introduces Jonathan Tweet, who created a few games before he got onto the D&D bandwagon; Ars Magica, Over the Edge, and Everway, all of which had varying degrees of success. Of course, he has nice things to say about the new edition.

That takes us to page 16. Other than a couple of pages describing various upcoming conventions and upcoming products for D&D 3rd edition, as well as a couple of cartoons, the next content is on page 38. The intervening pages are almost entirely ads. Yikes.

However, the next content was worth the page-flipping. It's an article entitled 'One Roll to Rule Them All', and it explains the core mechanic for the new system in significant detail. This is one of those articles I mentioned that should have been in the Player's Handbook. There are plenty of helpful examples and descriptions of the various checks and rolls in the game, most of which revolve around the d20 + modifiers model. Excellent article.

Then there's some fluff about playtesters and how important they were to the development of the game. There was a lot of secrecy involved, as well as some pretty intense security measures considering the subject matter. The playtesting was made much easier by using the internet to disseminate updates to the rules. It's probably one of the first such uses in the RPG community. How fitting that it was for D&D, the grandfather of the hobby.

Next is the other 'must-have' article: Class Acts. This article introduces us to prestige classes. These were briefly mentioned in the Player's Handbook, but no details were provided; they'll be in the DMG next month. But this article explains how prestige classes work, how best to use them in the campaign, and most importantly, how to make your own to suit your setting. The stress is on using prestige classes to define organizations that the PCs can join rather than just using them the way they would end up being used later on: As min-max tools to make ultra-powerful characters without any sense of how they got all these abilities.

And then we get an example of what a prestige class can be, the very first prestige class to ever see print: The Mystic. This is most definitely a spellcaster's class; its prerequisites include feats such as Spell Penetration and Spell Focus, and I don't see a fighter taking those.

So, the Mystic is basically a wizard variant. You give up spell progression in favor of bonus spells and spell secrets, which are basically a permanently modified spell with a metamagic feat attached to it. The feat doesn't change the spell's level, either; a 1st-level Mystic with access to the fireball spell can permanently modify that spell into an Empowered fireball, which is still cast as a 3rd-level spell. That's rather handy. At the highest levels, they can permanently maximize a spell and permanently quicken one as well. So, a high-level Mystic can't drop a meteor swarm on an opponent, but can drop a maximized cone of cold on them instead. A bit of a trade-off, sure, but it all depends on the kind of character you want to play. I think the Mystic would see little to no use in a min-max scenario, but it's an interesting challenge for a long-time player who wants to try something different with his wizard or druid. Yes, other spellcasters can have this prestige class as well, although a bard would look rather silly as a mystic.

Next up, we have an interview with Justin Whalin, the star of the ill-fated Dungeons & Dragons move that came out around this time. I remember seeing it in theaters and being pretty disappointed. There was some genuine D&D feel to it at times, but Jeremy Irons set new records for over-the-top scenery chewing. Anyway, this is a fluff article about the movie and Justin's role. Eminently skippable.

Then we get to Sherwood Forest. This is a lengthy group of articles that talk about setting a game in the time of Robin Hood. The first one is a historical overview of the Robin Hood stories, and includes a historical timeline as well as discussions of who the 'real' Robin Hood might have been. Next is 'Wolfsheads', which talks about running a D&D game in the setting and how to handle certain types of characters (such as barbarians and wizards). The best part of this article, in my opinion, is the sidebar that includes four new feats related to archery tricks: Ranged Disarm, Deflect Ranged Attack, Ranged Pin, and Ranged Sunder. Very useful to build up an archer character.

"The Great Greenwood" is a mini-gazetteer describing Sherwood Forest. The magazine originally came with a map of the forest, but my copy doesn't have it (none of the copies available on Noble Knight Games had it). Then we have 'Rogues and Royals', a list of NPCs for use in a Sherwood campaign. Robin Hood is a ranger/rogue multiclass who took Norman nobles and evil bandits as his favored enemies. Or, he's an 8th-level fighter/2nd-level rogue. It depends on who you think is the 'real' Robin Hood; there are two options given. Following them are a bunch of other NPCs, both heroic and dastardly who can be slotted into the campaign. Overall, I'd say this was an interesting way to show how the new rules could be used to play in a more historical game. I doubt I'd ever use it, though, even if I did have the map of Sherwood handy.

Our next article is called 'Indispensible', and it's about convincing the DM not to kill off your character once you realize how easy resurrection and raise dead spells are to hire out. Frankly, it's a bit--okay, a lot of brown-nosing your way into the DM's good graces. I'm not a fan.

Up next is 'Plotbending', which is the DM's article for throwing plot twists at PCs. Not necessarily to kill them off, but to shake things up and take them in unexpected directions. It's nowhere near as annoying as the previous article, but I get the sense it's aimed at newer DMs to help them keep the game interesting when it bogs down. Not bad.

I'm going to cut it here and finish the rest of the mag next time. See you then.