Shade's page

I've read six of the books, and have already learned quite a bit.

1.) Don't mess with people from Mercury. Ever.
2.) The Far Realm touches all worlds.
3.) Inchoate means "imperfectly formed or developed"
4.) Don't trust practitioners of magic. Ever.
5.) Druids can be badass, even without wild shape.
6.) Hell hath no fury like a woman shamed, but a woman shamed hath no problem using Hell to satisfy her fury.
7.) Satyrs aren't always fun-loving frat boys with beer bongs.
8.) When in Atlantis, good wine is hard to find.
9.) Rapiers and Power Attack aren't mutually exclusive.
10.) The elder races had all the wonderful toys.

Anyone else learn a thing or two from Planet Stories?

http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=91-049

This is a reprinting of the Marvel Comics' Epic comic adaptation.

I'm not sure why the blurb calls Esau Cairn "the warrior, Almuric", though.

Erik,

Any chance we might see something akin to RPG Superstar to find the next great pulp author?

It sure would be fun to read through the entries. :)

Having collected/converted/created several thousand monsters, one thing I'd love to see is a more exhaustive abilities section that lists out the commonly used abilities.

For example, how many times have you seen the text for evasion, uncanny dodge, sneak attack, ability drain, all-around vision, etc. repeated in near-entirety in a monster or prestige class writeup? Wouldn't it be nice to simply be able to stick evasion on the SQ line and be done with it, much like scent or darkvision nowadays?

One thing I really liked in later sourcebooks and Dragon Magazine was the increasing use of feat descriptors. For example, Ambush feats, Divine feats, etc. It made for an easy way to reference them in other parts of the game.

For example, I'd like to see [Skill Boost] aplied to Acrobatic and Deceitful. This way, if a class/prestige class comes along that allows one to choose bonus feats from a list of feats that mostly includes skill-boosting feats, you could just say "select any Skill Boost feat".

It also prevents all the redundant text for things like "A fighter can select X as one of her bonus feats" or "A monk may select X as a bonus feat at 6th level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites." A simple [Fighter] or [Monk 6] would save space for better stuff. :)

From http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=50552

"SF author S.M. Stirling told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, was inspired by his feeling that classic pulp writers had an unfair advantage: namely, that they could imagine a much more interesting solar system than the one we actually have."

This could be interesting for Planet Stories fans.

Any plans for support past 20th level?

I just stumbled across Wikisource, an offshoot of Wikipedia, and found a treasure trove of old Sword & Sorcery and Pulp stories available to read online.

Lovecraft, Howard, and Burroughs are just a few whose works can be found here.

I may be just way slow in discovering this site, but figured I share in case anyone else was trapped under the same rock. ;)

Hello,

I entered a promotional code in my shopping cart, and it shows that it was entered. However, the price does not reflect the 10% discount.

I proceeded to the select payment screen and it still does not show the discount.

Is there any way to clear a promotional code and re-enter it?

I tried emptying my shopping cart and re-entering everything, but it retained the promo code.

Thanks!

From Rich Baker's blog:
- Devils are angels who rebelled. They rose up against the deity they served and murdered him. The crime of deicide is unimaginably perverse for angels, and hence devils were cursed and imprisoned in the Nine Hells.
- The Nine Hells are what became of the murdered deity's divine realm after his death. The Hells are the devils' prison, and it is difficult for them to get out without mortal aid.
- We've re-sorted demons and devils a bit, since we want these two categories of monsters to make a little more sense. Devils tend to be more humanoid in form, usually fight with weapons, and often wear armor. Most have horns, wings, and tails. One consequence of this: the erinyes and the succubus were holding down pretty similar territory, so we've decided that they're the same monster, called the succubus, and it's a devil.
- Ice devils don't look like other devils. We've decided that they are actually a demonic/yugoloth race... one that was entrapped by Mephistopheles long ago in an infernal contract. So ice devils hate other devils, retain their insect-like appearance, and have a special loyalty to Mephistopheles. It's one of the reasons why Asmodeus has never chosen to move against Mephistopheles. Asmodeus would of course win if he did, but that would let the ice devils out of their contract.

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<sigh>

Obviously, WotC's non-core classes cannot be used.

Since alternate class features aren't in the SRD, will you be including new core classes in Pathfinder to fill some of the gaps (like ninja, swashbuckler, etc.)? Or will you focus on a different alternative?

I'm just curious while trying to brainstorm ideas while waiting for the submission guidelines to materialize. ;)

Just curious.

I just noticed in the sample page from Hollow's Last Hope that one of the new creatures included is a tatzlwyrm.

Based on the accompanying picture, I'm guessing this is based on the cryptid of similar name (tatzelwurm). Cool!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatzelwurm

I'm excited about Pathfinder and the possibility of contributing beasties. Since outsiders and elementals are my bread n' butter, I thought I'd see what could be used, and what would need to be replaced.

Angels - In SRD.

Archons - In SRD.

Eladrins, Guardinals - Oddly, although they have representatives in the SRD (avoral, bralani, leonal), the names of the groups are never mentioned, so I suppose a new name must be chosen for the exemplars of NG and CG.

Celestial Paragons - All are off-limits.

Demons, Devils - In SRD, but the baatezu and tanar'ri subtypes are off-limits. Obyriths and loumaras are off-limits.

Archdevils and demon lords - Many can be used based on inclusion in ToH and other OGL sources. Since many of the names come from mythology, others can be reimagined.

Yugoloths - Thanks to ToH, can be used, but must be called "daemons" again.

Altraloths and other yugoloth lords - Anthraxus and Charon are in the ToH.

Demodands - Can be used thanks to ToH.

Formians - In SRD.

Inevitables - In SRD.

Modrons - Can't be used.

Slaad - Thanks to ToH, can be used. Only Ygorl and Ssendam are present, though, so all new types of non-lord slaadi would have to be created.

Rilmani - Unfortunately off-limits. A new exemplar race of true neutrality would be needed.

As for the elementals, we lose the monolith category. All the existing archomentals and the term "archomental" are unavailable. We also lose access to para-elementals.

However, quasi-elementals are in the ToH, so quasi-elementals could be expanded to take the place of the para-elementals. New archomentals could be created to fill the gaps of the loss of the others. I know a few guys with some experience working on archomentals who'd be happy to help out. ;)

What am I missing?

This section of the boards is too quiet!

Now that the book has been out for over a year, what have you incorporated into your games?

I've used the Good Hits and Bad Misses, which has added an interesting element to critical fumbles. We aren't using the crit side of things (group choice), but the fumbles are almost like wild magic nowadays. :)

Several of the monsters have seen play, and I hope to incorporate a mountebank and battle dancer in the near future.

First off, thanks for updating the dzalmus to 3.5. The Hordelands article was fantastic (even better with the web enhancement)!

A couple of questions:

- In the tables, the breath weapon damage is listed as a d8 progression, but in the text it is 1 point per age category. I'm assuming that the text is correct in this case, as it would be far too deadly otherwise. Is this correct?

- The tables list a camouflage ability, but it isn't mentioned below. Is this simply the bonus they receive in the Skills entry?

- Any suggestions for its class skills? I'm thinking Hide, Move Silently, and Survival are appropriate.

Thanks!

Wow! I had to take a moment to post about the coolness of this critter. I'm a long-time monster fan, and this one screams "instant classic". Nice touch incorporating the warlock's eldritch blast. :)

The artwork is fantastic as well. Very creepy, like demons should be!

I gotta say, you guys truly did justice to the Creature Catalogs of old.

The artwork is amazing. The rune golem art should be included in a future "art of D&D" collection. It's that good. Kudos to the artists.

The layout is great, too, giving it the feel of a separate, pull-out section, just like the original CCs.

The monsters themselves are a nice mix of classic and new. It's great to finally have the legendary chupacabra in D&D. The arcane dragons are fresh twist on the true dragon, and the rune golem is definitely not your typical golem.

Kudos to all involved! I eagerly await CC VI. :)

James,

Like his predecessor, Baphomet looks fantastic. Great job as always. One question though. Baphomet's combat section states:

"If his enemies manage to crowd him and stay inside the reach of his glaive, Baphomet sheathes the weapon and fights with his two claws, his bite, and his gore attack."

However, the attack lines don't list a claw attack. What should the damage be?

Thanks!

We used the updated Bad Misses tables in the last gaming session. Fun stuff! The party's archer nearly killed himself...twice. He does x4 critical thanks to deepwood sniper levels, so you can imagine his pain. I had to park the NPC cleric right next to him with a healthy does of heals, and revivify on deck. :)

Here's a question that came up:

When fumbling and hitting yourself (or an ally), should you apply precision-based damage (such as sneak attack, point blank shot, etc.)? It would seem not, since fumbling is the antithesis of precision, right?

I was just wondering: How is the Dragon staff going to cope with the massive outpouring of love and praise when the
Dragon Compendium Hardback Volume 1 arrives?

Considering the great wave of happiness that the Demonomicon has generated (boy, that sounded odd; Demonomicon=happiness), imagine what is headed your way when the legendary Nine Hells articles are inevitably updated to 3.5 in the Compendium!

I've already started drafting my love letter. :)

The fact that the Dungeon boards have so many more posts than the Dragon boards baffles me. It would seem to me that Dragon has the larger subscription base (I could be wrong), has more articles of which folks would seem to have opinions/questions, and covers a broader spectrum of topics.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, though. I'm just curious. Any ideas?

While reading through the excellent overview chapters of the aboleths, illithids, and so forth in Lords of Madness, it occured to me how great this format would work for Ecology articles in Dragon.

For those who haven't seen the book, each chapter is similar to the writeup for races, with language, relations with other races, and so forth. Additionally, many include variants, stats for young of the race, and special feats, items, and spells that the creatures might use. For example, the aboleth chapter includes information on giving aboleths a weak bite attack, then gives several feats for making the bite more versatile. It also includes amphibious, aerial, and Stygian variants.

I realize that the page restraints would prevent going into quite as much detail as an entire chapter in a book, but I know I'd find even parts of this format much more useful than the current format, with the heavy focus on players vs. said creature rather than details on playing the creature.

Since Dragon has adopted the new prestige class format from some of the recent books, I'm not without hope that this format could be used as well.

Anyone agree?

As much as I enjoyed the Far Realm article in Dragon #330, the best thing in the issue was the reply to a letter in Scale Mail, stating that not only is the Campaign Classics issue returning this winter, but it is becoming an annual feature!

This thrills me to no end. The Campaign Classics issue is my favorite issue since 3E began. I look forward to the return of more classic material from these beloved dead settings.

Thanks, Dragon Staff!

I'd like to see any of the following articles:

1.) More epic-level articles. Anything epic-level would be appreciated. WOTC has started incorporating a little epic-level content in many of its recent books, so hopefully Dragon will follow this trend. I don't know the number of people who run or play in epic-level campaigns, but I see alot of posts on other messageboards desiring more epic content.

2.) More planar content. I'd like to see articles similar to the planar cities articles (N'gati, Balefire), but pertaining to perhaps a layer of the Abyss, or a region of Limbo. The Manual of the Planes left many possible hooks open to further exploration.

3.) Compiliation lists. It would be nice for DMs to be able to reference an article that lists all the monsters from official products that can be summoned via a summon monster or summon nature's ally spell. Same goes for spells that can be made permanent. I'm sure other compilation lists could be beneficial.

Thanks for requesting the feedback!