I've had this one for a while now, but things have gotten in the way of writing a review/feedback post. So it goes.
First thing: cover. Beautiful piece of art there, and the absence of all the text that's been layered on top of the art lately makes it look even better. I hope the editors can keep the cover text-free below the masthead in the future.
Content... I'll save the features for last this time.
I like the 'dragon talk' blurbs, and I was glad to see one for Hero. One of the better movies of the year, there. Might've mentioned House of Flying Daggers (being released to theaters in early December), too, but hey; limited space. Hopefully next issue. Editorials and letters are always interesting, too.
First Watch/Player Initiative: I like this section. It's fun. As long as it's only 4 pages, I have no problems with it.
Under Command: This, on the other hand, is too big. I can see why it might be covered, but cut it back to 2 pages. The miniature game isn't really part of roleplaying, and that should be the magazine's focus. Under Command should be more like Silicon Sorcery or Novel Approach -- short articles about minis and the game. As for the article itself... okay. I'm not all that concerned about the mini game, but it seemed like a decent variation.
Silicon Sorcery: A nice expansion of animal companion options. I'm not sure that a monster companion really warrants requiring two feats, especially since Savage Empathy is specific to a creature type rather than general.
Novel Approach: Didn't really interest me. I'd prefer to see general game ideas or mechanics drawn from a novel, rather than writeups of specific characters. If I'm not running in the Realms, I have no use for this particular dragon bard, and even if I am, it may not fit my plans. But if this were an article about, say, the Cult of the Dragon, or the rogue dragons (mentioned as being a big part of the novel), it might be more transplantable. Or a writeup of the Rage in game terms. Or stats for a dracolich (which, as a generic creature instead of a specific character, would be more transplantable). Or just about anything other than what we're actually presented with. Disappointing use of two pages, here.
Comics: Pretty amusing; liked the Nodwick 'storage area' one.
Ecology of the Rakshasa: Very well written. This was fun to read, and the sidebar about variant breeds was pretty thorough. Psychology and Society and the writeup of Ravanna were entertaining too. Versus the Rakshasa had some good advice. One really ugly sentence, though: "A rakshasa's hands is easily its most unnerving feature." Might be grammatically correct, but it sounds jarring; seems it would've been better to pluralize the whole sentence. But that's minor. This's a strong article.
Spellcraft: Cantrips and orisons, always fun. I'm a bit underwhelmed by some of them (Nosy Neighbor? Come on...), but others are pretty cool. I especially like Fleeting Fame and Necrosurgery. Decent article overall.
Magic Shop: Nice theme, good variety of items. Nothing really stands out as either broken or exceptional, which is more a good thing than a bad one, I think. The thornblade's flavor text is pretty cool.
Heroic Feats: Blah. Flexible Mind is kind of cool, but I'm pretty sure it appeared as a non-Anarchic feat in the past. (Cosmopolitan, maybe?) This version might be slightly stronger, though. The first two feats help with multiclassing, which I guess is okay. The last grants the old wild mage ability to sort-of control a random magic item, but since there are so few of those... anyway, these seem okay, but they don't exactly inspire me.
Gaining Prestige: I'm not sure about this one. It's a cool concept, I'll say that much. But the flavor text and general slant of the class doesn't seem to fit a typical fantasy setting. I guess what I'm saying is, I like the class, but I'd have trouble using it unless I built a campaign with it in mind. Which is okay, of course. Fun read, anyway. But what's with the little Pokemon-looking things?
Winning Races: Half-elemental class levels. Okay, I suppose. I could see alowing them, with a sufficiently good backstory or (as an addition) through in-game research and plot. But what I really liked about the article was the artwork of half-elemental Ember, Vadania, Krusk, and Hennet. Nice pic, and glad to see the "other" iconic types getting some exposure.
Class Acts: The usual hodgepodge. This month, I may make use of Rogues and Rangers; I consider Fighters, Wizards, Barbarians, and Sorcerers useful articles for some players; I consider Monks an interesting read. Clerics left me cold; I have no use for flaws. Paladins was pretty bland. Bards seems like it's trying to cover too much in too little space, and suffers for it. Druids... deserves its own little rant, I think.
Druids: This article is all over the place. A lot of the advice is either obvious or not particularly useful. For instance: "...transforming into a dire tiger goes a long way toward making up for the druid's d8 Hit Dice and average base attack progression." Well, yes, but the dire tiger is a 16-HD animal, so the druid can't transform into it until 16th level, as the next sentence states. Does a druid who's managed to progress successfully through the first 15 levels really need this advice? Surely she should be pretty familiar with the straightforward combat use of her wild shape by level 16? And "A wild-shaped druid in the form of a plant gains immunity to critical hits, sneak attacks, and mind-affecting spells"... since when? Maybe there's errata I'm not aware of, but by the book, the druid's ability functions like a polymorph spell. Polymorph does not grant extraordinary special qualities, and "plant traits" are listed in the Monster Manual as special qualities. The description of wild shape explicitly overrides that limitation for elemental form, but not for plant form. If there's no errata ruling (and I see none in the most recent posted PHB errata on the WotC site), this seems like an outright error in the article; if there is, shouldn't that have been put in a footnote or sidebar or something? This article just seems sloppy, to me, though I can see that there's a good article concept behind it somewhere. The execution doesn't seem to have come through.
Sage Advice: A great big THANK YOU! for changing the answer text color. The answers are more easily legible now. Very nice.
Coup de Grace: I can usually take or leave these, but as a writer, this one struck a chord with me. Very nice.
Okay, now for the features.
Dungeon Delver's Guide: Wow. This is great. Reminds me of some of the classic advice articles I read when I was starting out. This particular article doesn't offer much to me personally now, but it gives tips in so many areas... if I were a new player, I would love this. If I were GMing for new players, I would give them this to read. Great stuff. I like the artwork, too.
Down the Drain: This was a fascinating read. Terrific mix of historical material and suggestions for using that material in-game. Very strong.
Get Lost: I enjoyed reading this one, but the mix of history and game isn't as strong as the sewer feature's is. I'm not sure whether this just dwelled too much on the history and myth, or whether it separated the out-of-game and in-game portions of the itself too drastically, but it didn't work as well for me. Still, I'd consider it a pretty good feature. Certainly well-researched, anyway.
Only three features this month. However, they're three solid ones, and the Dungeon Delvers' Guide is exceptionally long, so that's okay. On the whole, I think this was a pretty strong issue; I found more to like in it than in the last two or three.
One problem: The first feature was on page 42. That's a long way to go to get to the meat of the mag. I suggest shuffling some things around. Keep the mail, editorials, and maybe First Watch and Player Initiative up front, but put the first feature right after them. That puts something substantial right up front. Then you could either stagger the short Under Command, Novel Approach, and Silicon Sorcery articles with the longer features (and Ecology, if there are only three features), or run the shorter articles then the other features, or run the other features then the shorter articles. I'd go for that last approach, personally; showcase the features, and put the recurring bits further back. The spells, magic, feats, class acts, sage advice, and coup de grace can be left toward the end, where they currently are.
I think getting the features closer to the front would be a format more appreciated by the readers; it seems to me that many people would most look forward to, so they'll want to get to them quickly. I think that the recurring articles, however useful they might be, would not be as much anticipated as the "one-shot" feature articles are... so if they're likely to be put off until later, why not put them later in the magazine to begin with?