The "official" Dragon Mag

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all

First up, I know that Dragon Magazine is in no way official. Its, technically, ALL homebrew I believe. That said, its official enough to be included at a lot of tables in a way things like mongoose never was.

But wheres the cut off. There are hundreds, if not thousands of Dragon Mag releases. Getting hold of them all now would be difficult, and reading them would be impossible.

So whats the "official" set of them? I believe a certain number were bound into a book at some point. Is that the standard set? Or is it always a free for all, everything goes, ask your DM type deal?

Id like a basic starting point to flick through so I can include them in my own games.

[sleepyphoenixx]

There aren't that many, and only a small subset of those is 3.0 or 3.5. About 80-90 of them iirc.
I don't know the exact issues but i think 3.0 content starts showing up somewhere in the 270s and ends in #359.

[Palanan]

They switched over to 3.5 with a three-issue update series, 310-312, which includes some fairly obscure yet interesting material.

The book you're thinking of is the Dragon Compendium, which I hear a lot about, but which I've never actually seen in person. My sense is that they included some of the best 3.5 Dragon content in the Compendium, but that it's very swingy in terms of balance and quality.

Supposedly the Compendium was intended to be the first in a series of compilation volumes, but I don't think they ever printed a follow-up.

[Malimar]

The book is Dragon Compendium. At tables where I DM, I allow it in its entirety (except for the Dvati).

The other Dragon Magazine thing I auto-allow is the flaws in issues #324-329 and #333, because they're so much more flavorful than the Unearthed Arcana flaws.

Everything else is case-by-case. The internet hive mind has dug up most of the gems, so most guides to whatever it is you feel like doing will mention anything that's relevant from Dragon.

Of course, the full 430-issue run of Dragon spans 1st or 2nd through 4th edition. There are only something like a hundred 3.0 and 3.5 issues. Which is to say, the Dragons that are relevant to us is comparable in number to the official sourcebooks that are relevant to us, and each Dragon contains somewhat less material than a full sourcebook. So given that the internet hive mind has completely digested pretty much all the 1st-party sourcebooks, it's not surprising that it's mostly digested the relevant Dragons as well.

[Necroticplague]

Hi all

First up, I know that Dragon Magazine is in no way official. Its, technically, ALL homebrew I believe. That said, its official enough to be included at a lot of tables in a way things like mongoose never was.
Actually, it's official, it's just not first-party. It's made by Paizo Publishing, but given permission to be DnD by WoTC (thus why they have the DnD logo on them, and bear the 'Official Wizards of the Coast licensed product' on them.


But wheres the cut off. There are hundreds, if not thousands of Dragon Mag releases. Getting hold of them all now would be difficult, and reading them would be impossible.

So whats the "official" set of them? I believe a certain number were bound into a book at some point. Is that the standard set? Or is it always a free for all, everything goes, ask your DM type deal?
The 3.5 run of DnD in the Dragon Magazines runs from issues 309 to 364.

[GilesTheCleric]

I've read through them all a few times, and I'll agree that folks have already found most of the interesting things that there are to find. That said, there's a lot of neat things that get overlooked because they're not powerful, even if they're interesting. For example, there's an Aeromancer PrC in an article about magical weather that looks like fun -- it can create magic weather to boost/ hinder spellcasters, including granting small amounts of free MM (just +1, which is probably why nobody mentions it). There is still plenty of neat stuff in them to read, though -- I really liked the articles in the Demonicon of Iggwilv series. The article on (mechanically-supported) parrying in combat was a nice idea, too. It completely changes how combat would run, and seems like an interesting way to play.

A fair amount of the "halfway-decent" stuff was pilfered by WotC and later republished in the Completes and other sources, too (Shining Blade of Heironeous, I'm shaking my head at you). I think additional things should have been included in actual WotC books. For example, there was an issue that covered a whole bunch of older settings, plus a few articles here and there for them. I would have really liked to have seen more official support for Savage Coast/ Red Steel, Spelljammer, and Dark Sun from WotC, or generally some settings that aren't as generic as Greyhawk and standard FR. Fansites have helped here and it's not too tricky to port in the fluff from the older books, but still.

If you'd like to get a better idea of what all is in them, you could scan through the Dragondex (http://www.aeolia.net/dragondex/index.html). It's not too much effort to c+p all of the data into spreadsheets so you can easily sort it.

Edit: Folks shared the 3.5 issues, but not the 3.0 ones. The entire 3e collection is #272-364, plus Annuals 5 and 6, and of course Dragon Compendium. The type of content published changed pretty dramatically across the issues, with pagecount dropping and new series petering out as the issues go on. The later ones are all pretty "standardised", with all the same Scale Mail, Class Acts, small collection of magic items, plus one or so feature article. I think they changed to that format with the 3.5 update, but it might have been a bit after that.

[Troacctid]

Actually, it's official, it's just not first-party. It's made by Paizo Publishing, but given permission to be DnD by WoTC (thus why they have the DnD logo on them, and bear the 'Official Wizards of the Coast licensed product' on them.
Dragon was originally published by TSR (a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast), not Paizo. Paizo didn't take over until #298. They ran it until #359; after that, Wizards started publishing it on their own again.

This means that there are five issues of Dragon that are, in fact, official and first-party 3.5e material (#360–364), and twenty-three issues for 3.0 (#275–297). And, of course, all 4e issues are 100% official first-party content as well.

[Jay R]

The cut-off is DM-determined, and will not be the same in all games.

[thorr-kan]

Issue
Edition
Notes


1-250
1ED/2ED
Contents of Dragons Magazine Archive


1-144
1ED
First Edition


145-273
2ED
Second Edition, including 3ED previews


274-308
3.0
Third Edition, minus 3.0 previews, including 3.5 previews.


309-364
3.5
3.5 Edition, minus 3.5 previews, including 4.0 previews.

[Jay R]

Issue
Edition
Notes


1-250
1ED/2ED
Contents of Dragons Magazine Archive



Actually, the first issues of The Dragon came out before first edition AD&D, and were about the original Dungeons and Dragons in the white box.

[Psyren]

This means that there are five issues of Dragon that are, in fact, official and first-party 3.5e material (#360–364).

Nice bit of trivia - anything interesting in those issues?

[Troacctid]

Nice bit of trivia - anything interesting in those issues?
Epic Destinies are the most interesting. There's also Epic Vestiges, Thrall of Graz'zt revision, 4e Death and Dying variant rule, affiliations for some evil churches using the Complete Champion rules, some interesting monsters, and a new Elder Evil.

All the stuff is online, but it never made it to archive.wizards.com, so you have to use the Wayback Machine to access it.

[atemu1234]

Epic Destinies are the most interesting. There's also Epic Vestiges, Thrall of Graz'zt revision, 4e Death and Dying variant rule, some interesting monsters, and a new Elder Evil.

All the stuff is online, but it never made it to archive.wizards.com, so you have to use the Wayback Machine to access it.

Do you have any of the (broken) links?

[Troacctid]

Do you have any of the (broken) links?
Yes.



















...Okay, okay, fine, here you go.
http://web.archive.org/web/20090217154812/http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dreo/20071003a
https://web.archive.org/web/20090619191821/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080407a
http://web.archive.org/web/20100916093852/http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drfe/20080428
http://web.archive.org/web/20110111170127/http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drdd/20080201a
http://web.archive.org/web/20090217155017/http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drigg/20071024
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191725/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20071015
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191730/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20071017
http://web.archive.org/web/20090912221530/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20071212
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191714/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20071001
http://web.archive.org/web/20090603084637/https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20071008
http://web.archive.org/web/20090603085106/https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20071130
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191745/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20071112
http://web.archive.org/web/20090603084725/https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dreo/20071221a
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191755/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080111a
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191801/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080130a
http://web.archive.org/web/20090603084733/https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080227a
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191816/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080318a
http://web.archive.org/web/20090602015203/https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080110
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191806/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080225a
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191811/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080311
http://web.archive.org/web/20090619191826/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080528a
http://web.archive.org/web/20090603084851/https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080416a

[Psyren]

That's good for the art alone :smallbiggrin: Thanks Tro!