Dragon #280, Part 2
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), Elwood (Dwarf Barb 3), Damodar (Ftr 10), and Profion (Wiz 15). We also get a few new magic items that appeared in the movie: Portal Dust, the Royal Rod of Dragon Control (a major artifact), the Rod of Savrille (also a major artifact), and the Quicksand Rug. Good stuff to include in a game.
Our fiction this month is "The Opal of Nah" by J. Gregory Keyes. And yes, it's another story about Fool Wolf, our protagonist from last month's fiction. It looks like this is part two of a series, since it more or less follows directly from the "The Sleeping Tide". Uzhdon doesn't make another appearance, but he's very much involved with this story as he has apparently gone mad and has broken the seal to a great and powerful evil. Fool Wolf still isn't being heroic, but he does find a way to follow and avoid another enemy. I'm not following everything that's going on, but I did get the gist of it. It's not bad, but still not my cup of tea.
The sorcerer theme continues with our 'vs.' article: Vs. Sorcerers. How to deal with someone who can spam magic missiles and lightning bolts like they're playing an ARPG? The first step is preparation; know what you're getting into, and plan for what the sorcerer's tactics are likely to be. Unlike wizards, sorcerers are limited in their options for spellcasting. They make up for it in volume, of course, but if you know that the sorcerer you expect to fight likes tot throw hold person spells, make sure your Will saves are boosted, or have magical gear that can protect you. If he throws fireballs, Reflex saves and rings of fire resistance are your friends. Once you do start the fight, get in close as quickly as possible, since most sorcerers prefer to fight at range. Using hold and silence spells are great ways to hinder sorcerers, so have them handy.
Ed Greenwood is back with more Lost Treasures of Cormyr. To the shock of no one, this is a loredump with no gaming stats. The lore revolves around a long-lost magical harp, but all we get is rumors and tales. Meh.
Class Acts presents a new prestige class: The Eldritch Master. These are either sorcerers or (rarely) bards. Entering this class involves making a pact with a powerful outsider, and there aren't any alignment restrictions (a celestial or slaad works as well as a fiend). The biggest benefit to this prestige class might be the additional spells known they gain over levels. A 10th-level eldritch master has added ten 1st-level spells to his spells known, as well as 8 more from levels 2 through 4, and 4 fifth-level spells. Considering how few spells known sorcerers usually have, this is a massive benefit. They don't actually get to cast more spells, but the tactical flexibility gained is awesome. They also get bonus metamagic feats, can snipe spells from other spell lists (how about picking spells from both the sorcerer list and the druid list?), and cast an additional spell from his lowest-level spells per day. There are some sweet benefits to this class, although you would be giving up your highest spell levels by taking this class; reaching 10th as an eldritch master means you won't gain any spells higher than fifth level. So, there are always tradeoffs.
Ooh, we return to the Barrier Peaks to find new monsters. Radioactive monsters, no less, creatures that have been exposed to the slow radiation leak from that crashed starship. First up is the Bonetree, a Huge Plant with 11 HD and a CR of 5. This plant has stinging vines and poison that can paralyze the victim. If the victim is indeed paralyzed, the plant will start sucking the Constitution right out of them. And it can channel that Constitution drain into armor and razor-sharp bony spurs out of its vines. Oh, and if you hit it, you'll release a radioactive flash that will blind you. These bad boys can grow up to Colossal size with 33 or more hit dice, too. Good luck.
The Ragewing is much less dangerous, but it's still a nastly Small Aberration with a single hit die and a CR of 3. I'm not going to try describing this thing; it's just a nasty little bat-like thing with lots of legs and a lamprey's eyeless head. Yuck. The ragewing's main way of sustenance is to form an empathic bond with any living creature, incite that creature into fits of rage through that bond (causing the victim to start attacking everything in sight), and feeding off the kills that result. Not a nice beastie at all. And if that wasn't enough, they can also siphon off a bonded creature's life force to heal itself. If the DM is in a really bad mood, these suckers can get up to 20 HD and Huge size (why are they aquatic, though?). Oh, those are variants. Okay, then. Anything more than 3 HD and it's thrown into the 'whale' category.
The Razortail is a nasty Medium-sized Beast with 2 HD and a CR of 2. Really? It's less challenging than a ragewing? These things travel in packs, and they are basically landsharks. That is, they smell blood and go utterly nuts with what is here described as a 'bloodfrenzy'. They can also literally shoot you with a laser. It's a 'radiation beam' that does 3d6 damage if it hits. They can get up to 6 HD and Large size.
Finally, we have the Treeleg Strangler. This is a Huge Aberration with 10 HD and a CR of 8. This is sort of like a land octopus that looks enough like a tree that it can hide for days, waiting for its prey to arrive. If it grabs someone with its tendrils, it will strangle the victim. SImple, straightforward. Oh, and it also can unleash radiation that will drain Constitution. Truly magnificent specimens have been seen ranging up to Gargantuan height and 30 HD.
Nodwick goes to Hommlet and explores the Temple of Elemental Evil. This adventure is so big it comes in two parts. For now, the party breaches the ensorcelled doors and takes care of elementalist cultists and their priests. We actually get a cliffhanger as the party must deal with some earth elementals. Will Artax save the day? Probably, in some spectacularly ridiculous way.
The Forum starts off with a discussion about pronouns and how the editors of the new edition often used 'she' in examples rather than the traditional 'he', and how that's apparently a good thing. I personally always find it jarring, but then I've been reading for over five decades now, so I suppose I have expectations. Someone else is complaining about that exact same issue, of course. Equal time, and all that. The next writer doesn't like how the new edition basically nukes prior edition material and makes it very difficult to convert to the new edition. I do remember quite a few people not being fans of that effective erasure of a decade or more of products they'd collected. I was one of them.
Role Models is back to give more basic techniques for beginners to painting miniatures. I think a lot of the miniatures that came later were pre-painted, weren't they? I might be wrong, but I seem to recall something like that.
The Play's the Thing is back, and this time the focus is on giving your favorite weapon a name. Sure, why not? There are plenty of named weapons in fantasy literature and gaming. Give it a go.
Sage Advice covers tower shields, shield spells, familiars, and other fun things. In Power Plays, we get a cleric substituting as a fighter, a human fighters with a non-magical blade barrier (spike chain and lots of attacks of opportunity), and an elven rogue that snipes from the shadows like he's the Green Arrow.
Dungeoncraft finally gets to the business of starting a brand-new campaign to put the previous lessons into practice. This new campaign word will be dominated by...dinosaurs. Okay, that's a cool concept. Almost no mammals, just dinos. Yeah, that could work. Just the idea of a knight charging with a lance on the back of an ankylosaurus...I'm sold.
And in What's New, Evil Dixie offers Phil as a sacrifice to gain ultimate cosmic power. Fortunately, the dark powers are better at distributing cosmic power than they are at homophones.
And that's it for another issue of Dragon Magazine. There's still one more product to look at this month: Monsters of Faerûn. I hope to get that started tomorrow, depending on how busy I am with the bakery. See you next time.
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