Post/Author/DateTime	Post
buzzard 07-26-06, 07:43 AM	available here: http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060726a Looks nice! Of note, there is a section for "Rules for Epic Spells", it may be a reprint of the rules or it could be an update :D, and what it looks to be a lot of realmslore. :D:D
sweetmisery 07-26-06, 08:25 AM	Thanks man! Dragons have always been my favorite since I was a kid. Nice to see them touch this now in FR.
ericlboyd 07-26-06, 08:43 AM	available here: http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060726a Looks nice! Of note, there is a section for "Rules for Epic Spells", it may be a reprint of the rules or it could be an update :D, and what it looks to be a lot of realmslore. :D:D There's a very quick recap and then 3 new epic spells. --Eric
dragonheart 07-26-06, 09:02 AM	thanks for the info eric. :D
Mirtek 07-26-06, 01:19 PM	Tchazzar, Chosen of Tiamat? Interesting, until now he was a dragon who was consumed by Tiamat because he tried to become a deity in his own right. He planned to get there by collecting the essence of Tiamat's avatar that had been destroyed during the ToT and once he found the last piece Tiamat simply consumed him and was reborn into the realms. And now he's back alive and chosen of tiamat?
Derren S. 07-26-06, 03:26 PM	Looks there are again tons of anti dragon material, as if dragon hunters can't pimp them enough already. Dragons aren't a challenge anymore with all those feats, spells, items and PRCs to kill dragons which are more powerfull then normal because "it is against dragons, it has to be powerfull".
GothicDan 07-26-06, 03:31 PM	If anything, they're more powerful than their equivalent feats/spells/etc. because they are focused on a specific enemy. We had a running joke about creating a spell: "Summon Large Male Troll with a Pick-Axe." We needed some miners, you see.
Mirtek 07-26-06, 03:32 PM	which are more powerfull then normal because "it is against dragons, it has to be powerfull". All of which really start to be devasting once used against other beings that are not dragons :( If anything, they're more powerful than their equivalent feats/spells/etc. because they are focused on a specific enemy. Except for the ones who are more powerfull but lack anything saying that it's against dragon only :P
EytanBernstein 07-27-06, 12:15 AM	All of which really start to be devasting once used against other beings that are not dragons :( Except for the ones who are more powerfull but lack anything saying that it's against dragon only :P That is often true, but I think that the majority of crunch for dragon slayers is really focused on dragons. Not all, but certainly the majority.
Kaewin 07-28-06, 02:51 AM	I thought there was supposed to be things about half dragons and the way they are affected by the rage. The table of contents doesn't much. In fact it looks like the Rage gets a once page write up on it. Man that sucks. I have a player playing a half copper and I was looking forward to raking him over the coals on it. Whenever he suffers I get great roleplaying from it. To prepare for it they fought an evil mage. The party stripped him of his magic items except a staff and they took his spellbook. The 1/2 dragon grumbled about letting evil escape and they shouldn't do that. He kept getting louder and more physiacly damant of his point until one of the other pc's told him to deal with it. So he ran the mage down and ripped out his throat. Oh yeah he brought back the magic staff too. I was playing that to conencide with the rage. Flavor is great I was just hoping for the rules to help me out to say whewn or how the rage might effect them. Also how does it effect some of the other dragon type things, You know the ones that aren't true dragons. In the novels some of the extraplanar dragons aren't bothered. I guess I am just looking for a slight heads up.
Krash 07-28-06, 03:08 AM	Buy the book and read the sidebars. -- George Krashos
GothicDan 07-28-06, 03:41 AM	Or, at the very least, look through the book in a game store and read the sidebars, first. Then, if you like it, buy it. Don't want to spend money that you consider wasted, if you buy a book and aren't happy with your money's worth. :)
Delendir 07-28-06, 04:03 AM	Looks there are again tons of anti dragon material, as if dragon hunters can't pimp them enough already. Dragons aren't a challenge anymore with all those feats, spells, items and PRCs to kill dragons which are more powerfull then normal because "it is against dragons, it has to be powerfull". I wouldn't sign this yet. There was tons of new cool toys for dragons too, at least in the 3E Draconomicon; namely good spells, feats, and PrCs. Surely enough to put weight on the opposite side of the scale.
EytanBernstein 07-28-06, 04:14 AM	I thought there was supposed to be things about half dragons and the way they are affected by the rage. The table of contents doesn't much. In fact it looks like the Rage gets a once page write up on it. Man that sucks. I have a player playing a half copper and I was looking forward to raking him over the coals on it. Whenever he suffers I get great roleplaying from it. To prepare for it they fought an evil mage. The party stripped him of his magic items except a staff and they took his spellbook. The 1/2 dragon grumbled about letting evil escape and they shouldn't do that. He kept getting louder and more physiacly damant of his point until one of the other pc's told him to deal with it. So he ran the mage down and ripped out his throat. Oh yeah he brought back the magic staff too. I was playing that to conencide with the rage. Flavor is great I was just hoping for the rules to help me out to say whewn or how the rage might effect them. Also how does it effect some of the other dragon type things, You know the ones that aren't true dragons. In the novels some of the extraplanar dragons aren't bothered. I guess I am just looking for a slight heads up. There's a whole heck of a lot more than one page. Rage material gets spread out through the book. I can't say specifically where, but I can say that it's fairly extensive.
ArnimThayer 07-28-06, 06:32 PM	We had a running joke about creating a spell: "Summon Large Male Troll with a Pick-Axe." So did you have a "Summon Aerial Bombardment" spell for summoning a large red dragon? :D "I love the smell of dragon breath in the morning!" This reminded me of 2nd edition, were the actual visual effects of some spells were left to the caster (and player) to decide... without having to take Spell Thematics as a feat. We had a Wizard who would cast variant spells such as Smurf Swarm for Confusion (hordes of little blue men flow from his sleeves, singing and running amuck within the area of effect...) and Summon Kool-Aid Man (a big, red Earth Elemental bursts from the nearest wall singing "ooh, yeah...). Lots of fun.
GothicDan 07-28-06, 08:11 PM	I really liked that option, because it allowed one to reflect a Wizard's personal paradigm, personality, and the manner in which he learned his magic. For instance, the basic thematics of an Elf's magic may very well different from that of an Imaskari's, even if they were using the same spell.
Mirtek 07-29-06, 04:18 AM	Actually this was also this way in 3.0e, the caster supplement (Tome and Blood) said that the visual effects of each spell varied from caster to caster and you could chose them without needing a feat first. It was only with some later supplement that you suddenly needed a feat to do so.
BadCatMan 07-29-06, 04:46 AM	Huh? Nearly all spells have no visual description - we have to make up our own spellcasting styles.
BrianCritchley 07-29-06, 07:29 PM	a good "fix" would be that spell thematics mean a WIDELY differnt look of spells, and one highly personalzied, eneugh so that you can't look at a spell and go "ohh right thats an elven fireball"
GothicDan 07-29-06, 07:44 PM	I don't know. Why should you have to take a Feat to cast a spell that looks very different from the standard/Netherese version? There's a lot of other magical traditions out there.
BadCatMan 07-29-06, 09:51 PM	What Spellcasting Thematics does do is allow for freakishly different styles of slinging spells. Vargo Kent, the Cult of the Dragon guy in Lords of Darkness (?), wipes sweat off his brow and flings it as acid spells and whatnot, IIRC.
GothicDan 07-29-06, 10:05 PM	Why in the world does one need a feat to do that, if that's the way that he developed learning them in his studies?
BadCatMan 07-29-06, 10:21 PM	Shrug. The unusual style is just flavour - what it really comes down to making your spells (extra) confusing to enemy mages, so that they're harder to identify and counter.
GothicDan 07-29-06, 10:30 PM	I'll just keep my own ruling that the Spell Thematics Feat isn't needed to do this kind of stuff. :)
BadCatMan 07-29-06, 10:56 PM	What it really is crunch: +5 DC to spellcraft checks to identify the spells.
GothicDan 07-29-06, 11:02 PM	I never played it that it was the visual representation of the spell itself that allowed one to identify the spell, but rather the components and the energies as they were being wound (like Elven High Magi could see through illusions since they were directly linked to the Weave).
BrianCritchley 07-30-06, 07:03 PM	I don't know. Why should you have to take a Feat to cast a spell that looks very different from the standard/Netherese version? There's a lot of other magical traditions out there. not what I ment, I ment more your spells are highly unique from ANY tradtion. truth be told I imagine that most adventureing wizards learn their magic from a number of spells. finding a fireball in an old ruined elven outpost, a mage armor purcashed at a thayan enclave, a knock spell learned from a netherese scroll. this is fairly typical low lev el fair but could lead to a 6th level wizard blending elven ,netherese, and mulhorad casting traditions, and if he learned his basic rudiments from say... a calishite, thats 4 seperate traditions. another reason why the idea of magic tradtions, breaks down too a degree, i imagine theres a large degree of... cross poloniation