Abinadi does a great job of this every month, but I thought I'd give it a shot, being that I have such strong feelings about this issue:
Cover: Great for an april cover. Straight, to the point, and humorous. The modron was really well done, and the simplicity works excellently. One of my favorites.
Scale mail, editorial: I must just say that Erik Mona is right. About everything written in those pages. Also the phrase "a botched dice roll when the party needs it the least" made me laugh so hard with an upspring of memories, such as the time i fell off my phantasmal steed, that the rest of the bus was staring at me.
First watch: It's nice to see projects like the open design and war of the burning sky up there with the stuff by the big guys. I got on at the tail end of the last OD project, and I really enjoyed it.
Core Beliefs Heironeous: Core beliefs for me are like the demonicon, the regular articles I count down issues for. This one was no exception. While not the most interesting of the articles to date, SKR did a great job of making the archetypal paladin god interesting. While I don't play greyhawk, preferring less traditional settings, I really enjoy the greyhawk lore that is rich in these articles. I also commend mr. Reynolds for always managing to find a way to merge the inconsistencies between 2nd and 3rd editions into more interesting wholes.
Also, a friend of mine frequently complains that, while D&D contains tons of beautiful women, most of the men look like retired boxers. While said friend was reading over my shoulder, he commented that the men in this article were actually attractive. I'm not saying this should always be the case, but it is nice to see on occasion.
Return of the Modrons: Ok, after my first taste of planescape from the first campaign classics issue of dragon, my first planescape product was the great modron march. I immediately fell in love with the race(?), so I came into this article with extrememly high expectations. And it met them. The old elements and feel of the race were captured, and the new elements were organic with the race and very interesting. Where the article deviated from traditional planescape lore (modrons as constructs rather than construct-like outsiders, and a schism between rogue and exiled modrons) surprisingly didn't bother me, as they stuck well to the feel of the race, and were used to good effect. While different, they were of equal quality to the concepts they replaced, and were well thought out, so they didn't bother me at all. The worst thing an article can do is be shackled by volumes of previous lore. I'd have bought this article just for the base modrons 3.5e stats. I got so much more.
Also, the art captured modrons amazingly well. The monodrone standing next to the pentadrone picture was just perfect, and I loved the acheron modrons.
Ancient PCs. In any other issue, this might have been my favorite of the articles. It provided exicting character origins and campaign hooks that can be used in any setting (rare for so flavorful an article to be entirely setting neutral, typically they invoke at least some campaign setting). The feats were well balanced and lent way to interesting and flavorful character builds. Too often flavorful feats are useless as they just can't compare to Iron Will, Weapon Focus, or Spell Penetration.
Ecology of the Kopru: The article is yet another quality ecology, with interesting tidbits. I liked how the article contained strong elements tying them to the savage tide, but without at all hindering the article for general use.
Savage Tidings: I'll preface by saying that in general, I hate savage tidings. I played untill the party wipe in age of worms, and never felt the need to renovate our abandoned base and put in hardwood floors. I never found them useful. Once we stopped playing the campaign, they were now uninteresting, unuseful articles that didn't even pertain to anything I was doing (and they reminded me of the party wipe!). WHile savage tidings have been marginally better, they haven't ever been up to par with the rest of the magazine, and even though I plan on dming Savage Tide, I don't expect to need many of these articles.
I'll also add that I generally don't like prestige classes, for reasons explored in other threads. There have been exceptions, such as the athasian dragon, and the demonicon thralls, but I loathe most of them.
This one I liked. It did exactly what a prestige class should do: allow characters to tie into organizations unique to the campaign, and give them access to options geared to working in the campaign. It was flavorful, balanced, and on topic. Savage tidings is a perfect place for a prestige class, for these reasons, (not just because I've written it off as wasted pages anyways). Also, I like the "what do you know" rumors at the end of the collumn. If you keep up with a monthly dragon tie in article for the next AP (god forbid) keep these. But seriously, make this article bimonthly next time. The organizations article, the phanaton article, and this one were worth reading. The rest are wasted treeflesh.
Volo's Guide: The return of elves to cormanthyr is the most exciting thing to happen to the realms, and returns the eyes of the setting to the original focus: myth dranor. This timeline is very useful for those interested in involving their PCs in the current intruiges. Great idea.
Dragonmarks: An awesome example of a dragonmarks article. It captured the boromar clan, and the tone of the setting (something even WOTC has trouble with periodically) perfectly. I loved it.
Sage advice: People ask the sage, he gives advice. Not much else to say.
Class Acts:
Arcane and Warrior: these are handy little articles that can save people playing such classes some page turning. If I end up playing such a class, I will definitely use these.
Divine: I'm loving the aztec pantheon, and am glad to hear that other pantheons are likely to be covered.
Adventurer: This was just plain cool. The article achieved different effects of ninjaness, and managed to not just maintain an asian ninja flavor, but actually amplified it.
Comics:
I'm sad to see no Zogonia, but I certainly understand that sometimes other things take priority. I eagerly await its return.
Order of the stick was hilarious. I laughed four or five times out loud.
All in all, this issue is a competitor for my favorite issue of dragon in the 2+ years I've been reading it.
Although it was hard to understand Sucros' Elmer Fudd (? spelling) impersonation, it is always nice to have different opinions about what Paizo (and WotC) put out. Kudos to Sucros for getting into character while doing the review.
Sucros, if you are not excited about the adventure paths, then why do them? Isn't the point of gaming to have fun? If I ran an adventure that I didn't like, I would have a hard time making it enjoyable for the players, also. Just my thought.
Thanks for the kind comments, Sucros. I admitted to Erik that the stereotypical god of stereotypical paladins wasn't easy to write without being ... stereotypical ... but I tried to throw enough little quirks and details to give players some hooks. I especially liked the "you can summon me to fight for you" thing that the paladins do, leads to some interesting campaign options IMO.
"I remember you ... you summoned me to fight that demon and I almost died! Nice going, High Priest Jerkface!" ;)
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Although it was hard to understand Sucros' Elmer Fudd (? spelling) impersonation, it is always nice to have different opinions about what Paizo (and WotC) put out. Kudos to Sucros for getting into character while doing the review.
Sucros, if you are not excited about the adventure paths, then why do them? Isn't the point of gaming to have fun? If I ran an adventure that I didn't like, I would have a hard time making it enjoyable for the players, also. Just my thought.
I didnt notice any elmer fudd spelling ... might have been an April Fool's filter thing...
Although it was hard to understand Sucros' Elmer Fudd (? spelling) impersonation, it is always nice to have different opinions about what Paizo (and WotC) put out. Kudos to Sucros for getting into character while doing the review.
Sucros, if you are not excited about the adventure paths, then why do them? Isn't the point of gaming to have fun? If I ran an adventure that I didn't like, I would have a hard time making it enjoyable for the players, also. Just my thought.
The fudd was from the april fools part.
I'm a HUGE fan of the adventure paths. I love the 1.1 adventures of the age of worms I ran as a PC, and the savage tide ap has never made me look forward to DMing my annual summer campaign. I'm just saying that I am frequently dissapointed by the wormfood/savage tidings tie ins. Wormfood got off to a terrible start ("how to renovate your dilapidated shack", or "trading spaces: Greyhawk edition"). I just never found stuff in there that I felt was useful at all to use as a player. And when I wasn't playing them, they were even more useless to me.
Savage tidings has been head over heals better than wormfood, but I still find it to be consistantly the weakest part of any given issue.
I find it funny that #354 is the first Dragon Magazine in a long time that we've seen a prestige class (not counting the "Thralls of X" PrC) and it's specific to an adventure path.
Good thing it can easily be tailored to any campaign. But, wow, I was shocked to even see a PrC. I thought they were done with those.
Maybe there is hope?
Contributor
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I find it funny that #354 is the first Dragon Magazine in a long time that we've seen a prestige class (not counting the "Thralls of X" PrC) and it's specific to an adventure path.
Good thing it can easily be tailored to any campaign. But, wow, I was shocked to even see a PrC. I thought they were done with those.
Maybe there is hope?
As I've stated before, we happily run prestige classes when they tie into something else, whether a thrall or one specific to an adventure path.
IMO, that is exactly where they belong.
Well, let's hope there'll be an Elemental-themed issue or Elemental- themed adventure path so my player can get his long-awaited Lightning Monk-type PrC.
So many ideas for new PrC that could be born in the pages of Dragon...all of them stuck in a miscarriage :(
i agree - we could get the archomentals involved then. ;)
i agree - we could get the archomentals involved then. ;)
More archomentals are a good thing...an all-out Elemental War...sounds like a great campaign arc. :D
it might be cool. :) don't know how popular of an idea that would be though.