March 2000

There are two things related to third edition in the month of March, 2000. First up, we'll cover the online article that follows up from last month's Countdown article: The wizard character sheet. Next will be the promised article on the Rogue from Dragon #269.

First up, our second iconic character after Jozan the Cleric: Mialee the Elven Wizard. She's got the same three writeups at 1st, 4th and 7th levels. Her highest ability score is Dexterity, giving her a +3 bonus to Dexterity things. Like Jozan, her most important ability score (in her case Intelligence) has a 15, bumped to 16 at 4th level. Surprisingly, since she's an elf, her lowest score is a measly 8 in Charisma. An antisocial or ugly elf. Well, there's a first time for everything, I guess.

And she's got a lot of hit points for a wizard at 7 with no Con bonus. She has the Toughness feat, which adds 3 points, so she's at her maximum at 1st level. She also carries a shortbow, and later on adds a longsword. I'm going with the 'elves are just better' explanation for how a wizard is using those weapons.

Like Jozan, she has three 0-level spells (cantrips), and two first-level spells (the standard magic missile and sleep). She also has fresh special abilities as an elf. Infravision is gone; in its place is low-light vision. Rather than the classic 90% elven resistance to sleep and charm, she's outright immune to sleep spells, but gets a +2 to saving throws vs. all Enchantment spells and effects, which includes fear, as well as charm spells. Oh, and she can scribe scrolls as a 1st-level wizard, too.

Her 7th-level writeup includes an interesting magical item: The Headband of Intellect +2, which gives her a +2 bonus to her Intelligence, so she's now sporting an 18 when she wears it. The listed spells are pretty bog-standard for wizards in any edition, including stoneskin and fireball. Because of course there's fireball. There's always fireball.

Alright, so that's Mialee the Elven Wizard. Now let's see what the next issue of Dragon Magazine has to say about the upcoming edition.

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Dragon #269 (March 2000)

And yes, it's about the rogue and the new skill system. The sidebar lists a few benefits of being a rogue in 3rd edition, including the bold assertion that the new Sneak Attack ability is better than the classic Backstab. Rogues have the most skill points, the widest selection of skills, can choose their special abilities at 10th level, have no alignment restrictions, and something called Uncanny Dodge. Alright, then. Let's see what we've got.

First of all, the rogue is a replacement for the thief. Same job, different name. No big deal. The skill system, however, is a very big deal. No longer are all rogues going to have the same eight specific thief skills; now you can customize your thief and pick the skills you want. Of course, if you have enough skill points handy, you can choose all the same thief abilities anyway, I suppose.

There are a few reasons to prefer Sneak Attack to Backstab listed, including ranged attacks within 30 feet being eligible for the bonuses. Well, that's new and exciting. Now you can snipe instead of sneaking up behind someone and risking getting stabbed up close and personal. Nice. It's also a +1d6 to damage instead of just doubling it, which isn't necessarily better. But this does scale up every other level, making high-level rogues very, very nasty indeed.

Anyone can now detect traps, but only rogues can detect magical traps. Evasion allows them to avoid all the damage from an attack that requires a Reflex saving throw, and Uncanny Dodge is basically spider-sense, preventing them from being caught off-guard.

Next up is the new skill system. All classes get a specific number of skill points, and can add their Intelligence bonus to their skill points at every level. At 1st level, the number of skill points is multiplied by four, so a halfling rogue with a +2 Intelligence bonus gets 40 skill points at 1st level. That is a lot of skill points. You can put a maximum of four skill points into any one skill, but you do get bonuses (or penalties) based on your relevant ability scores.

The Difficulty Class is introduced; basically, it's the target number to succeed or fail on a skill check. The higher the DC, the harder it is to do. And there can be opposed skill checks, with the example of a rogue trying to hide from some hobgoblins; the rogue rolls his Hide check, the Hobgoblins roll their Spot check, and the highest roll wins. And on another note, a roll of 1 on a skill check is NOT an automatic failure, nor is a 20 an automatic success. The ideas of taking 10 and 20 are also mentioned; taking extra time when not in a stressful situation (like combat) means you are given an 'automatic' roll of 10 or 20, depending on how much time you took, which is added to your modifiers and compared to the DC. And it's possible that even taking 20 will result in a failure if your modifiers just aren't high enough (for example, the DC is 30 and the maximum you can get taking 20 with +8 modifier is 28, so you simply can't accomplish that task until you get more experienced. That seems reasonable.

And that's it for this issue. Next up, we are promised a look at the new version of the fighter, and the wonderful new concept of 'feats'.