Incoming Barbarians

Wizards of the Coast has published a table of contents for this month’s issue ofDragon.  The articles aren’t up yet, but there look to be some interesting things in this one.

Most attractive:  a playtest article for next year’s Player’s Handbook II barbarian class.  This is the second playtest article, following the artificier — a leader class from the Eberron setting, in which I had no interest.  Barbarians, though, are another matter.  I look forward to seeing the article.  Expect a review of the class once it’s up (provided Dragon is still free by that time — I don’t intend to subscribe to D&D Insider just yet).

Other promising-looking articles:

Punch the Big Ticket, regarding using artifacts in your campaign.

Smart Swords, about intelligent magic weapons, a long-time favorite.

Epic Power in Abeir Toril, presenting some new epic destinies.  I’m not a huge fan of the Forgotten Realms, but I’m hoping these aren’t too setting-specific.  The epic destinies in the Player’s Handbook are a little lacking, and more options would be nice.

Bestiary: Golems and Oozes.  I like golems.  I don’t use oozes much, but more monsters never hurts.

Playing Gnolls, presenting gnolls as a PC race, with racial feats and (I assume) background flavor.  Gnolls aren’t something I use often in my games, but I always like reading race writeups.  There’s usually inspiration to be found.

Design & Development: The Evolution of Magic Items.  An article about how the design team decided to implement magic items in fourth edition?  Yes, please.

There’s also a Class Acts article featuring the swordmage.  I’m still on the fence about swordmages, but if you use them, I suppose it’s good.  And there are a couple of articles about locations:  Janus Gull, a ghost village that appears once a year, and Auril’s Hall, which is apparently a location within the Forgotten Realms.  Those both look worth mining for inspiration.

Looks like over half the articles this month are very solid, with another couple that seem worth a skim through.  Dragon may be the best digital thing Wizards of the Coast has managed to do yet.

Related posts:

1. Barbarians at the Gates
2. News roundup
3. Gleemax’s Failure and other thoughts
4. 4e Mystic project
5. Gencon in Review