Lana Silvertongue's page

You have an amazing hand with PDF files and I like the progress you have made here. I am going to organize my ideas/feelings into bullets of suggestions and what I like and don't like plus rational, please don't think me cold and emotionless, its just being tired but wanting to get these ideas down before I closed my eyes. I am scrolling page by page though this, so there is no importance of order in which they are listed.

Suggestions:
- Shorten the skill listing and add the knowledges directly related to IDing creatures (Arcana, Dungeoneering, Religion, Nature, Planes) and three more lines only beyond that. Most people are only going to have one or two outside that listing, each class lends itself to a specific type (rogue: local, geography cross; Ranger: geography & arch or history; pals: history, nobility ect.) Still flexibility to include psionics and other performs also but increases space below it.
- Feats & special abilities: I look at that and can see alterations for a specific theme...
Looking at the first page as perhaps being a focus on passive, roleplay outlook; I'd remove the feats and special abilities side entirely, moving the languages up and bring the Origin, appearence and personality blocks from page 21 to the first page as well as notation for traits and create a seperate page for special abilities and feats all by itself. I personally feel that feats and special abilities need three things, a notation as to which book they were found in, a page number and the ability to add a one line summary to describe it. It expidites play with all references easily at hand.
Page 2:If page one was passive/ roleplay focus (skills and identifying attributes) then page two is all about the weapon based characters. I would remove metamagic (feat/special abilities page here) box and alter the page to flow differently, defenses on top (Initiative, speed, saves, Hitpoints, AC and CMD) flowing into attacks on bottom (BAB, CMB and weapons). I would alter weapons to be able to include notations on weapon material and magical traits (dmg increases due to energy being added to weapon) I would also lengthen the box to include notation on feats effecting the weapon (PBS, WF ect)with notes on limitations. I'd corral all ammunition notations together below the weapons listings, to protect the flow. The idea behind this is if I am in combat, I have to go through the decision process of if I am going to move and attack or move and cast a spell, so this being its own page prevents shuffling around to locate information, I either use my combat page for weapon attacks or I use my magic page for magic attacks. A small feats section here may be possible so that listing combat related feats for easy reference, but it wouldn't be a tri-column based notation, more similar to your AC based column. I also don't understand the purpose of the effects column.
- Third page, inventory page, looks great! Love it! Only possible change I would make is a spot for how I am storing things (backpacks, Port hole) and its limitations.
- Four through twelve, interesting but I still suggest the alterations above, I would also heavily suggest page referece requirements for all class abilities, as more books come out, the more powers they will get and more essential easy reference is. I would remove the potions, wands, staffs ect inventory blocks from all class pages and focus on expanding those blocks. Inventory is inventory, keep it together and streamlined with the only exception being adding notes block to magic pages on when inventory would be useful for spellwork.
- Love the party page on 22. Would attach friends and foes and affiliations to a party page focus as well. individual feuds can be noted in origins block.
- 23 & 24; would go from a tricolumn to a bicolumn, include a section for page reference and have a two or three lines of notes or feats that effect spellwork.
- 25 would remove portrait, move equipment over to under SR, DR and expand feats and special abilities, adding tricks to notation.

Everything after 25 is nice but I am a focused player, so I only glanced through it. Someone told me your either a notation based player, taking alot of information down so you rarely reference the book; or a Reference player, taking scant notes and referencing the book regularly. (I am a reference player, who dreams of becoming a notational one) I would think the goal is to get most weapon based characters down to 3 pages with alot of detail, expanding to a fourth for feats and special abilities if needed. Spellcasters should be at 5 pages or so depending on level.

I know theres alot here, sorry if it isn't worth anything to you and happy gaming.

Well, I adore Dragon Compendium 1, though I will agree with a previous poster regarding tessacts. Its something I'll never wrap my brain around and refuse to try.

I would love to see Oriental stuff rehashed, but noticed that there is something in the pipeline with regards to Wizards in the future. I would also like to see a few pages dedicated to the 'Arabic' culture concept of D&D, be it Al Queem or something entirely new. I would be less likely to buy it if only Greyhawk was present, because I am hardcore FR and Greyhawk stuff can be difficult to alter to FR at times. I would say keep it as generic as possible and give sidebars on inclusion to all three campaigns would be the best way to keep your entire buyer base.

I would also like to see more charts like the crit hit and misses table and the pronounciation guide. The book is always at our table now just for those two charts.

It looks wonderful and I am chomping at the bit to get the book. When can we expect to see the book on our local gaming store shelves?

I'll pose the fact that there has not been an adventure printed in Dungeon that I did not enjoy reading. That said, I don't run many of them for one of three reasons (or perhaps all three). One] the Adaptation to Faerun, the only setting my players will play, seems very thin. This has been getting better but it would benifit me more to see a column length adaption of all Greyhawk campaigns to Faerun and another for Eberron. Two, it tends to leave out important scaling abilities for things like 'If your group doesn't have a arcane caster.' I know its odd, but its a problem we are facing alot in the worms path... Seems like a warning at the preface should read something like certain parts of this adventure will need x type of character class or y type of race. Three] it seems like the skill checks are either easily achieved or an amazing burden, just no middle ground. Also, with the background characters, perhaps DCs for various knowledge checks would give the DM to share in the creative genius of the bg char... just a thought and a comment.

So, after reading the cities of the realms article I found I loved it. It really does distress me that so many people are simply ignoring it because its Faerun or go into it with rose colored glasses. Ed's writing style is very Tolkienish with the way it describes places and people. I look forward to further cities of the realms, though if feedback continues to be so bad I would suggest FR go off and create its own magazine or a special issue Dragon kinda like its Annuals thats simply dedicated to the realms. Its not like they don't have an cult like following and might help GMs pace events better for the Current era.