Dragon Magazine #279, Part 2

Alright, let's wrap this one up as we're more than halfway through already. The next article is our D&D Movie pimping article. This time it's a profile and interview of Bruce Payne, who plays Damodar. It's only a couple of pages, so it's not overly burdensome. We learn that Payne does do fencing and likes armor, so playing Damodar was a natural fit for him. However, he's not a gamer except for video games.

Next up, we're back with more Unusual Suspects. This time it's about monks and druids. We're told that the monastic tradition, while assumed to be primarily a human thing, can also be set up as demihuman traditions in your campaign. After all, you can do whatever you want now. So, there might be a sect of dwarves dedicated to Moradin that embraces the idea of dwarven perfection, achieved through monastic discipline. Drow monks might have training in unusual weapons in addition to their unarmed combat abilities. And so on. The interesting part of this is the additional feats for nonhuman monks. These are basically fighting styles that can be learned in a particular monastic setting. While they aren't strictly racial by nature, what race do you think is most likely to learn the Hammer Fist fighting style, or the Staggering Blow?

Druids can be found among all the races as well in 3rd edition, and we get a nice list of variant animal companions for each race. Dwarves might get a giant lizard, a wolverine, or a dire bear; gnomes might have groundhogs, dire weasels, or giant crocodiles. Dwarven druids are be more in tune with the earth and stone than others, while elves will naturally be tree-oriented. Even half-orc druids are possible; many will be multiclassed barbarian/druids, which would be a frightening combination.

Our fiction this month is The Sleeping Tide by J. Gregory Keyes. This one is not in a D&D setting; from my brief internet research, this is a story in a collection about the main character, Fool Wolf. Fool Wolf is sort-of possessed by an evil goddess, Chugaachik, and his companion is his lover Inah, who is the daughter of a god herself. So there's a definite epic feel to this story. Fool Wolf and Inah are shipwrecked on an island. And they're naked. So this isn't really a kid-friendly story. And Inah's enemy, Uzhdon, is a local hero of sorts, and he can't be killed except in a fair fight; he's survived two defenestrations already, and Fool Wolf doesn't really want anything to do with him. Unfortunately, he keeps sleepwalking back to the town, so something's up. Frankly, the story feels a bit incomplete; maybe you have to read the whole anthology. I'd give this one a pass; it's not my cup of tea.

Mind Flayers gives us a puzzle, specifically a chess puzzle using the names of the iconic characters. It looks interesting; I might give it a try.

James Wyatt gives us our latest tactical update with a page on fighting fiends. The issues with fighting these guys is they have things like spell resistance, damage reduction, energy resistance, spell-like abilities and regeneration, so they're tough to take down. The first tactical suggestion is to run like hell, unless you're prepared to fight one of these Outsiders. Spells like dimensional anchor and antimagic fields are great tactics; they are so loaded with spell-like abilities that an antimagic field might be your best bet for a fair fight.

More of Volo's ramblings from Ed Greenwood, and we're looking at more lost treasures of Cormyr. This is more lore, without any specifics about what these lost treasures actually are. We get more personalities, but not much detail. Ed really likes these lore dumps, doesn't he?

Ah, our prestige class of the month is the Ancestral Avenger, which is restricted to elves and half-elves. They're drow hunters who absolutely hate the drow and love hunting them down and doing unpleasant things to them. Most of them are rangers, since Tracking and Wilderness Lore are prerequisites, and most of these guys already have drow as a favored enemy anyway. Ancestral avengers can track underground just as well as above, and get the equivalent of the bane special ability when fighting drow and spider-creatures. They also get poison resistance (really helpful against drow), a bonus to overcome drow and drider spell resistance, ignore web spells, and other fun things to help them do nasty things to drow. A very focused prestige class to be sure, but one that would certainly be very useful in elven campaigns focused on fighting drow.

Giants in the Earth gives us historical figures from the Persian Wars against the Greeks. We get Xerxes (10th-level fighter), Miltiades (5th-level fighter with diplomatic skills), Leonidas (a 7th-level fighter who does not look at all like Gerard Butler), Epialtes (2nd-level rogue who betrayed the Spartans at Thermopylae), Megistias (5th-level diviner/2nd-level warrior Spartan), Artemisia (4th-level fighter who fought at the battle of Salamis), and Themistocles (4th-level fighter who led the Athenians during the war). This is a fascinating period of history, not least because this war led to the Golden Age of Greek civilization and thus the birth of Western civilization altogether. I like this article a lot.

PC Portraits gives us...elves. Are you surprised?

Dragonmirth includes a staring contest between a medusa and a beholder, which does not go well for one of the commentators. Nodwick visits the Barrier Peaks and finds the 'strange cave' from S3. We get the usual shenanigans, and Piffany gets to channel her inner Sigourney Weaver from Aliens. Sure, why not?

The Forum is still focused on the new edition and the changes to the game; most people are liking it, though not everyone. Still, they bought the books, which is all WotC really wanted, right?

Role Models continues the beginning lessons in mini-painting, something I've never gotten into at all. Moving along.

We now have a new column called, 'The Play's the Thing'. This is about making your character more fun to play. We begin with choosing a battle cry. It's a fun thing to include, helping you to get more into character. There are a few variants, such as the prayer, the vow, the dedication, the display of bravado, the unsubtle approach, and the warning. All of these have their advantages, but not all are suitable for all characters. The grim assassin isn't going to be shouting, 'Ho! Playtime commences!' as he stares down his target.

Sage Advice focuses on magic questions and the like. We get some Power Plays that show how low-level sorcerers and wizards can become tanks with massive AC bonuses from their various spells, or how a well-endowed halfling can have ridiculous defensive abilities and saves. And of course, continual flame carries on the ancient tradition of continual light tricks, such as casting it on the end of a rope before lowering said rope into a pit, or casting it on a weapon to scare trolls and the like.

Dungeoncraft continues, acknowledging the much lengthier character creation process and how to work that into the gameplay. This might be one of the first instances of 'Session Zero', although it's not called that yet. But the idea of dedicating a session of play to just creating your characters is new to this edition; earlier editions had a much easier character creation process (unless you were using Skills & Powers in 2nd edition).

Finally, Phil and Dixie talk about elves. And this elf is about as obnoxious as any elf who ever elfed. Unfortunately for him, Phil wrote this around Christmas time, and Dixie is feeling like an evil Santa. The elf is no longer obnoxious as he heads to his new place of employment at the North Pole.

And that does it for this issue of Dragon. Again, it was elf-heavy. There was some really good stuff in here; I like the demihuman monk fighting styles and the Persian War characters. Definitely an issue worth revisiting.

Assuming I can get to it tomorrow, I'll be diving into this month's Dungeon Magazine next. And of course, it's got elf stuff in it. Because why not?