Let's read the entire run

[jonesy]

And finally, we have a third collectible game this year. Dragon Dice. Man, TSR really jumped on this bandwagon quickly and enthusiastically. But not to much success. Anyone know how and why that happened?

I think it was just a gamble that went wrong. The dice were selling, they thought they'd be selling better than they eventually would. They produced a huge mass of them, and the dice stopped selling. They dumped the excess into a landfill and sold the whole thing to SFR, Inc.

If they'd done it in moderation it might have worked out. SFR is still selling them, after all.

Dancey thought that the reasons for everything lay in TSR not paying attention to what the customers actually thought of their products:
Ryan Dancey on the Acquisition of TSR

A letter complaining about the unprofessional behaviour of their computer games columnists. Fear not. They're being shown the door as of this issue. That'll teach them! I think this is following the path of what they were going to do anyway.

There were videogame magazines up the wazoo in the late 90's. Probably ended up working for something like EGM or Gamepro with better pay.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 221: September 1995


part 2/8


In dreams: Ah yes, dream magic. That's a topic that rolls around every few years. Issue 132 featured an entire class devoted to dream powers, there's been the odd spell or two in other issues, and of course, there were several big reviews of games in which dream magic features heavily, such as Changeling the Dreaming and Shattered Dreams. So I guess it would be appropriate for the magazine to jump on the bandwagon again, with this article by the assistant editor.

Alter Dream lets you play dreamlord. This is exceedingly versatile and can mimic several lower level spells by controlling what they experience and giving them ideas. Have fun.

Enter Dream is one we've had before, in issue 204. This works somewhat better than the psionic version, but still isn't really long enough to see a full dream. Is this really so hard to do? Maybe if it actually sent you in bodily, instead of leaving the caster asleep and vulnerable. Nah, that'd definitely need to be a higher level spell.

Conjure Dream Object is one of those ones that'll be a pain to adjudicate, as it requires you to keep track of the weird things the character has seen in dreams. And since they lack any supernatural properties in the real world, this is just a bit annoying. So this is serious wasted potential in a fantastical magical world.

Conjure Nightmare lets you get hold of said lower-planar horses. If you're not a scumbag, it may be more trouble than it's worth. Plus it may disappear abruptly if the dream it came from ends. I suppose it is a good deal better than basic monster summoning'd get you, so it needs the drawbacks to balance things out.

Endless Slumber is your basic sleeping beauty effect. Only a wish or a very specific condition chosen by the caster can break it. Very much one for making games work like stories.

Sleepless Curse keeps them awake for one day a level. At the level you can cast it, this has a pretty decent chance of killing them if it isn't removed in time. Drop that on them and teleport out, leaving them to deal with the consequences while you get on with your real plans.

Sleepwalking will of course let you control someone while they're asleep, with no memory of what they did. It's way weak for it's level, when you consider how long and effectively charm person lasts. Not worth bothering with unless you're theme obsessed.

Slumber is like Sleep, only it doesn't break if you kill them, essentially making this a save or die in combat. it's got a longer duration and harder save than Hold Person too, making it quite a nasty option for capturing and humiliating someone.

True Dream is your basic semiprophetic dream spell. it's such a staple of literature, and so subject to fiat, it probably ought to be lower level. I grow increasingly tired of that kind of spell.

True Nightmare keeps you from refreshing your spells, and otherwise prevents you from getting a restful night. It's short duration though, so you'll need to have regular access to the victim to keep casting it. Probably better in a city/espionage situation than a dungeon crawl then. Actually, it'll be easier to get another couple of levels and go straight to sleepless curse.

Healing Dream gives wizards another option for facilitating health in their buds. Ok, it's only 2hp per level, and takes it's time, but as ever, it's better than nothing.

Overall, I think we have an article which is strong on flavour, but moderately weak on mechanics, with several of the spells rather under or overpowered by comparison to existing stuff of the same level, or just problematic. I thought he was supposed to be an editor. I suppose it is hard to look over your own work objectively. But surely they have other people in the staff to do that these days? In any case, this is a bit disappointing, but not truly terrible.


Magic of kings, magic of the land: New spells for Birthright's realm magic system. Seems a reasonable enough idea, particularly as the selection in the core set was fairly limited. Since I seem to remember Birthright was a rather short-lived setting, it's probably not going to be that filled in, so any new crunch the magazine can fill in is welcome.

Forethought gives you an extra domain action next turn. Since this costs an action to cast, it'll only be useful if used very tactically. Practice your chessmaster-like planning ahead for great justice.

Disrupt Ley Line puts a short term blockage in place. You'll probably have to scope out the ley of the land to get the one that'll reduce enemy power the most. Good thing you'll probably be dealing with recurring enemies in this world.

Tangle Ley Lines is slightly more powerful, temporarily stopping all the ley lines in a province from passing power. This means it's a more blunt tool, and may disadvantage you too or make unexpected enemies if cast in the wrong place.

Duplicate lets a wizard bugger off for a few months adventuring or studying and have a magical clone handle the tedious day to day stuff. This'll only work for a little while though. And don't let the public know, or they'll be deeply annoyed that you're slacking off.

Enhance Source lets you double the power you can get for a couple of turns. It's fairly expensive, but you will get a net positive from doing so if you tap them out both turns. So this is another one you use just before you plan to be very busy dealing with trouble.

Locate Sources is the only spell here that can be used from 1st level. Good thing too, as a new wizard probably needs a bit of help figuring out where there's some magic to tap. Course, you will need to get at least a little magical energy to cast it in the first place. It can be hard getting on the first rung.

Divine Right is mechanically identical to forethought, but has completely different fluff. An interesting example of reskinning here then. I quite approve.

Erik's Preserve prevents natural disasters in an area. Get the weather to behave, and you have a tremendous advantage in farming. One that seems likely to make you popular with the common people.

Hand of Peace makes everyone stop fighting, walk home and suffer amnesia. The kind of thing that's pretty impressive in narrative terms, in other worlds, this would be very scary to be confronted with, especially as it doesn't have a save.

Haelyns Courage is a god specific spell that buffs the troops and keeps them loyal to you, as long as you act appropriately. Typical godly behaviour, really. You could do similar spells for all sorts of gods.

Nesirie's Blessing lets you move your ships around faster by giving them favorable winds. It's fairly cheap too, so you can easily recoup your costs in trade profits. Pretty unfair advantage for that clergy, really.

 

[LordVyreth]

I think it was just a gamble that went wrong. The dice were selling, they thought they'd be selling better than they eventually would. They produced a huge mass of them, and the dice stopped selling. They dumped the excess into a landfill and sold the whole thing to SFR, Inc.

If they'd done it in moderation it might have worked out. SFR is still selling them, after all.

Dancey thought that the reasons for everything lay in TSR not paying attention to what the customers actually thought of their products:
Ryan Dancey on the Acquisition of TSR


There were videogame magazines up the wazoo in the late 90's. Probably ended up working for something like EGM or Gamepro with better pay.

Wow, that was an absolutely fascinating read. Not too surprising given the presence of (thunderclap) Lorraine Williams, but still. When was it published? I wonder how the business model is different between then and the Hasbro and 4th edition days. Not that I'm going to go the 4th-ed bashing route: after all, supporters of the 3rd edition like myself might be the exact types of minorities that Ryan said they won't cater too.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 221: September 1995


part 3/8


The little wish: As with Kobolds, you really shouldn't underestimate cantrips. They might not be able to inflict direct damage, but given a few levers and a bit of preparation, a tiny push in the right place can cause an avalanche. And yet, they don't get used nearly enough, as to get access to them requires sacrificing a 1st level spell slot, which is pretty valuable for a low level wizard. This article tries to solve several birds with one stone by making cantrip use a proficiency, allowing wizards to pull off extra little magical tricks if they want too, but not reliably, and allow members of other classes to be dabblers in magic without going through all the rigamarole of multi-or dual classing. I suspect this article may have influenced their decision to include 0 level spells next edition, so even 1st level characters always have a decent selection of options up their sleeve. So this is quite nice from a mechanical viewpoint, and also from a flavour one, as it helps make the game more literary and playful, rewarding creative thinking. Add in the historical significance, and I think this qualifies as one of the closest things to a classic article from this year, along with paths of power and the demiplane of shadow.


The ley of the land: More tales from the coalface about Birthright's nifty realm magic system. Getting hold of that magic and maintaining those ley lines takes a fairly substantial amount of planning and resources. And if you have any enemies, then they can disrupt any leylines if they can get into a territory that they pass through. This means that you have to make a choice between having multiple lines that cost more to maintain, or a few long ones that have more chances to be broken. Either way, it's important to keep track of where they all are, because otherwise it makes the domain stuff pretty pointless. This article points out the ambiguities in the rules as presented in the core box set, but instead of giving them a straight answer, decides to give us four different options of how they could be interpreted, in roughly increasing order of power and flexibility. Which means you can figure out if you want wizards to dominate domain play as they do many other arenas, or if the fighters have a far easier time in this sphere. This results in an article that is quite interesting, but also pretty ambiguous. Like the Player's option stuff, this is very much left open for individual groups to customise, and may well lose easy buy-in due to that. Birthright is already a fairly hard sell to a group given it's theme and the number of active worlds it has to compete with. Making the new rules vague and open to interpretation only makes that worse.


Arcane lore: Hmm. Rather depressing to realize that in more than 12 years of Arcane Lore and Pages from the Mages, this is only the third spellbook by a female writer revealed in the magazine. (and the other two were both written by Ed.) Once again the bias inherent in people's assumptions is thrown into sharp relief by the few exceptions. Still, this little collection has 9th level spells in it, so a few women are managing to follow the seven sister's example and go all the way to archmagedom. Say hello to Zala and her book of barriers. Looks like they're going to be filling in abjuration, which is also one of the more neglected schools. How very pleasing.

Zala's Icejacket coats you in a mobile barrier of snow. This is moderately versatile and protects you against both mundane and magical heat. Plus you could break a bit off to suck if you don't have a cleric to provide water.

Compose Mind protects you from mundane distractions, and low level magic ones too. If I had that, I'd be getting all this writing done a hell of a lot faster.

Zala's Lifeforce Guardian keeps your soul safe. This protects against some quite powerful magics for such a low level spell, such as energy draining. You're unlikely to regret learning this one. After all, a life ends, but your soul should be forever if you look after it properly. Yet far too many people take it for granted. Take care of your soul.

Zala's Forcebuckler gives you generalised AC and spell protection. It's another one that burns itself out after absorbing an attack. Is that going to be a general trait of this collection?

Zala's Amberhelm counters psionics. They won't get inside your mind. It can be overloaded, but it's a lot trickier, as the levels mount up.

Repulse Metal is of course perfect for dealing with those plate-clad lummoxes. And unlike a rust monster, it won't ruin their equipment. Keep them at a distance and use your wizardly blasting powers to their full potential.

Thunguul's Preservation squirrels some of your hp away for a rainy day. Another trick enemy wizards can use to escape insufficiently zealous heroes and get revenge later.

Zala's Deception combines blink and mirror image to make your location indeterminate for an entire combat. The images don't disappear and your real location teleports between them. This should increase your survivability quite a lot.

Zala's Disruption causes everyone around (including the caster) to forget a load of the spells they've memorized. Like any AoE spell, this needs to be applied wisely. After all, it's not often you face large quantities of low level spellcasters, unlike warriors, and you could wind up hurting your own party more.

Tobian's Ultimate Circle is completely invulnerable from one side only. Course, if you cast two of them, that little problem can be fixed, and you have a completely impenetrable warding circle that'll outlast the world. Now that's the kind of thing you should be doing with 9th level magic. Another strong entry in this series.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 221: September 1995


part 4/8


Eight ways to tame the dark overlord: After several issues in a row where they showed you how to make your villains scary and effective, they remember that just maybe the heroes are supposed to win. How are they going to do that if the villain outclasses the heroes that much? Weak points! Be they psychological, or actual statistical issues, you have to give the players something they can exploit. Or just make them imprisoned, crippled or in another plane, and the real battle is to keep them from being unleashed on the world, because if you face them directly, you've already lost. After all, the only time we ever see Sauron in LotR is briefly via palantir, and he's defeated by exploiting a weak spot rather than direct combat. And if the players do screw up, you can give them at least one second chance by having them captured instead of killed, which we know doesn't work well in D&D. So this is very typical 2nd edition advice encouraging you to put story before mechanics, and if necessary, break the rules to make the story continue to work. A bit awkward really. You're trying to fix problems you made in the first place. Oh if only they could have just not made them in the first place.


Role-playing reviews: Players option: Combat and tactics sees Rick skeptical at first, but won over fairly quickly. For the first time in, like, evar, someone is trying to seriously clean up the rules of the game instead of just adding more and more stuff or giving them a cosmetic polish. Attacks of opportunity, weapon groups, a greater emphasis on tactical movement, there's quite a bit of stuff that would make it into the next edition, albeit further cleaned up in a lot of ways. Course, there's also quite a lot of stuff that wouldn't as well, and there's too many options for a group to really use it all at once. It OUGHT to improve your game. Well, yeah. In theory, every supplement you buy ought to improve the game. But in practice, too many choices leads to options paralysis and less gets done. And this is where that point hits for me. Maybe if they'd done it a few years earlier, it wouldn't be such a problem. Once again, there's plenty to speculate about how this could have been done differently and in a less alienating way. As is often the case at the moment, I'm finding it rather frustrating.

The ultimate martial artist is for the HERO system. With over a hundred martial arts detailed from around the world, with plenty of research on their details, and how they translate into the system, it is indeed pretty ultimate. On top of that, it has conversion notes for lots of popular systems, including D&D, that'll allow you to add some more MA to them as well. Looks like you can get plenty of bang for your buck from this one.

Arms Law is of course for Rolemaster. And equally obviously, It makes skills & powers look quick and simple. Which is of course exactly what it's target audience buy it for. That and the funny bits in the vast critical hit tables, which never seems to get old. If you want your combat complex and brutal, accept no substitute. But since Rick is starting to incline towards lighter games, he doesn't give it as high a mark as the other two.


The role of books: Angel souls and devil hearts by Christopher Golden is a high action vampire thriller, owing as much to James Bond as Dracula. People are coming up with all kinds of different vampire variants these days, and doing well from them. Course, he'll do even better once he moves into playing with other people's worlds, but that's another story for a different time and place.

The fearful summons by Denny Martin Flynn is another star trek book that fails to write the existing characters very well. Seems like they have particularly low quality control as franchises go, as they get easily the most complaints on that front. Maybe it's that John is a big fan of the series, and so has high standards for writing the characters properly.

Tapestries, edited by Kathy Ice is a Magic:the Gathering anthology that does more to fill in the setting than the novels reviewed a few months ago. It also sees humour start to enter the design. As with most anthologies, there are a few missteps, and the lack of illustrations is a bit curious, but it's still an improvement. Where will WotC take their big moneyspinning property next?

The key of the Keplian by Andre Norton & Lyn McConchie feels like it's one of those franchise books where the younger author does most of the work, follows their formula, and then they both reap the rewards. Not that it's bad, but it doesn't seem to add much to the world, and the marketing is somewhat incongruous. Probably not worth bothering with unless you're an established fan.

The baker's boy by J V Jones, by contrast, is a first novel that manages to bypass several common fantasy flaws, and be quite distinctive as well. It gets to the point, the worldbuilding has some very amusing touches, and both good and bad guys are human and understandable. And the marketing is similarly quirky and amusing. Well, a bit of bread with the review copies certainly gets a reviewer's attention, and can hardly be called bribery. A lot of products could benefit from care like that.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 221: September 1995


part 5/8


Rumbles: You know, Wolf just told us he was leaving in the editorial. We really didn't need it as lead news here as well. Slow month? Or just self-aggrandisement. Actually, it's quite a busy one. TSR loses a second tim, (brown this time) but is getting a Dragon Dice computer game and a new Forgotten Realms computer game as well. There's another new gaming magazine out, d8, which will die in just over a year's time. GDW has sold the licence for a Space: 1889 movie, which is another spinoff that never seems to have come to fruition. Cthulhu is getting a collectible card game, which just depresses me, as is Marvel Comics, FFG, and WWII, of all things. Well, it was popular for wargamers. Why not try recapturing that market? Even more strangely, Mortal Kombat is hosting an entire stageshow featuring tons of real life martial artists. I guess when you're making money hand over fist, you get a little extravagant. In general, it seems like what's going on in movies and computer gaming is more interesting than what's going on in RPG's. Maybe they need more high profile designer drama or something to keep people interested.


Floyd: Another new comic starts. Annoying ginger apprentice wizard loses his master due to magical politics. Wackiness and big explosions ensue. His life is about to get very interesting.


Forum: Michael A Fiorentino comes to the defence of TSR's current trends in adventure design. Gamers are bored with just wandering around, they want story! Yes, but a story where you can choose what happens would be nice.

Jason Johnson rules that haste may drain your lifespan, but that's due to stress rather than actual aging. That reduces quite a lot of the pure logic stupidity.

Ed Freidlander contributes for the first time in a few years, to talk about the human weight and body composition. This is another area D&D isn't too realistic on, and could stand to revise it's formulae for next edition.

Hussain Adulhaqq finds that his characters refuse to pay for anything, preferring to rob and kill all the shopkeepers. You know, they really ought to bite off more than they can chew at some point. And if they are too powerful, there's been plenty of advice on how to deal with that over the years.

Steven A. Greenfield hasn't found female gamers have any problem in his games. Guess this is another annoying thing with lots of regional variation.

Koby Bryan is another individual who feel TSR's output has really gone downhill in recent years, and is more concerned with making money than encouraging creativity. We don't want to be hemmed in, and we don't want style over substance. Smarten up, or many more people will leave the fold.

J. B. Pollard has more advice on dealing with powergamers. A shapeshifted dragon in politically powerful positions means brown trousers time if they try to completely mess up the status quo. Even ridiculously tough characters have issues with that kind of damage output.

Steve Bitz thinks we ought to have sentient armor as well as sentient weapons. It's a lot easier to have them take over in amusing fashion, and should liven things up. I quite agree, as I have said before.


The dragon's bestiary: Ahh, yes, the Slaad lords. Created by Charles Stross way back in the fiend folio. Course, that's long out of print, and unique enemies seem notably rarer in 2nd edition, Ravenloft excepted. A few of the old de :shut yo mouth: (hey, I'm talking about Graz'zt here) lords have come back recently in Planescape though, so it seems that this is no longer a strict policy like it was around the changeover period. And since so many people won't have access to the originals, like a few of the ecologies, reprinting the stats seems a good thing to do. And indeed, this was where I first read about these guys. This will be an interesting one to revisit now I've actually read the FF.

Ssendam gets some fairly substantial changes, including a gender switch ( Can a giant golden amoeba really be said to have a gender? ) and serious behavioural tendency alterations along with quite a bit of powering up in general (apart from the nerfing of it's energy draining ability ) It all feels like more of a rewrite than an updating, and I do wonder what the motivation of the writer was.

Ygorl isn't powered up nearly as much, putting him firmly below Ssendam whereas before they were pretty near equals overall. He's also considerably less changed, with all the fluff from the previous version updated and expanded upon. When contrasted with the previous entry, that makes this whole seem even more curious.

Chourst, on the other hand, isn't rehashed. He is however a personification of the lulz school of chaotic neutral, as also practiced by the xaositects and fishmalks. This also makes him seem rather annoying and out of place in these more serious times.

Rennbuu is slightly less goofy, but probably even more annoying. Randomly changing your colour is like girdles of gender changing. Statistically, it may mean nothing, but few are the people who will be happy about their character becoming purple with orange pinstripes unexpectedly. In short, it seems that this is an article that has not aged well, and didn't have respect for it's source material either, leaning quite strongly towards the kender side. Bleah. I want to wash my hands after reading this.

 

[Orius]

Floyd: Another new comic starts. Annoying ginger apprentice wizard loses his master due to magical politics. Wackiness and big explosions ensue. His life is about to get very interesting.

Floyd was one of the reasons I started reading Dragon regularly. I always enjoyed it. Williams had the whole comic archived on his webpage, but I can't find it if it's still there.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 221: September 1995


part 6/8


ARS Magica stops numbering their editions, and just revises them. For now, anyway. The next owners will have different ideas.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Magic items to buff your familiar. We've already had articles on getting hold of better familiars (issue 86), and using magic to enhance your existing familiar. (issue 181) So now an enterprising wizard has even more tools to ensure their companion's badassity.

Amulets of mutual location are yet another tool for ensuring splitting the party isn't permanent. What's that Skippy? Your wizard's stuck down the well again? You're getting very tired of that joke and wish he'd just memorise levitate? You wish you'd never answered the call at all? Ok then.

The Basin of disguises lets you disguise your bird by giving it a wash. Once again we have to consider every eventuality to foil the master detectives. They are recycling abilities in different containers with increasing frequency these days.

Boots of manipulation give your familiar fingers! Oh, what a joyful day for them, especially if you've already enhanced their intelligence. Much gratitude ahoy.

The Bowl of Dampness keeps anything in it properly moistened no matter how hot and dry it is. A niche item, but one that could save lives, or keep something valuable and fragile from getting spoiled on the way to market or making a magic item.

Coats of Adaption do exactly the same as the necklace would. I suspect we'll be seeing some more of these straight conversions in here. In fact, to save myself more boredom than I really have to, I shall just extract them all. Coats of displacing, Collars of protection, Legbands of Sharpness, you are all creatively moribund direct conversions of existing items. I yawn and flick my thumb at you. Begone!

Coats of Slipperiness keep them from being pinned down. Just the thing for if you're about to be captured and need to get a message out.

Collars of defending let your familiar use your saving throws. Now that's going to save their life more than a few times at high level.

Collars of freedom keep them from being minded, ensuring their loyalty to you and you alone. At least, until you mistreat them too badly, at which point you won't be able to charm them back, but such is the risk that comes with power.

A Dropper of good measures lets you affect small animals with a potion without worrying about overdosing them. Not a problem I'd considered before, but given how much trouble vets have treating various species, I can see why they'd think of it.

Hoods of Suspension let you keep your falcon completely inert until you need them. If you have a whole bunch of these, you can make for seriously creepy tableaus. Another idea that's just ready for the stealing. Does Ravenloft have a falconer darklord?

Legbands of Identity make them immune to polymorphing. Course, this is another one that may be a disadvantage if your wizard forgets what items he's given his familiar.

Legbands of Haunting let them come back as a ghost to wreak their revenge against whoever killed them. Since ghosts in D&D are really scary, this will probably have the desired effect.

Oil of Repulsion keeps predators away. Since it only works on animals, this will only be much use if you're sending them on a solo mission. And how often do you do a thing like that?


The ecology of the crystal spider: The ecologies continue to venture to new worlds, with one set in Athas. Not a place where you get to do much detached academic study, but one where knowing what dangerous stuff is out there, how to deal with it, and if you can eat it after doing so is crucial. This ecology doesn't really take full advantage of this opportunity, lapsing back into detached pontification for the majority of it's length, showing a very detailed knowledge, without telling the story of how that knowledge was obtained. The results are still useful, and full of interesting little details, but overall, this isn't a brilliant ecology like the last few. Back to the up and down it is then.

 

[LordVyreth]

Floyd was one of the reasons I started reading Dragon regularly. I always enjoyed it. Williams had the whole comic archived on his webpage, but I can't find it if it's still there.

I remember being annoyed that Floyd was introduced just before the end of Yamara, on the assumption it was essentially that strip's replacement. But I grew to enjoy it. At any rate, I like a lot more than Nodwick. Did Williams ever make a proper ending to it?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 221: September 1995


part 7/8


More than 101 uses for a portable hole: Ah yes, this ever popular item. Unlike the decanter of Endless Water, very few adventurers (unless their DM simply doesn't enforce encumbrance in the first place) undervalue it's usefulness. But still, they might underestimate just what they can fit in, that would simply be unfeasible in any number of backpacks due to bulkiness or fragility. And by being prepared, and bringing this stuff in, they're more likely to survive than if they just threw everything in the hole as they looted it, and then thought no more of it until it was time to divide the spoils. So this is filled with ideas, some of them cool, some of them silly, but most of them pretty inventive. And as with the Decanter article in issue 171, they also offer plenty of variants on the item that would give them further uses and possibly problems to deal with. So this is one of those articles that's not only full of tricks for you to use, but encourages you to come up with your own. Brain food of the best kind, really. They really ought to do more articles like this, taking an overlooked part of the game and expanding upon it. Now, if only there was a snappy alliterative column name that would fit.


Sage advice: Do bards suffer penalties for trying to read languages in armour?! ( No. That's just silly.)

Does magical armour reduce thief skill penalties (no)

Can druids wear armour other than leather (as long as it's made from natural materials )

Why doesn't magic resistance work on stoneskin (because it's buffing them, not directly affecting you. Another reason why buffs are better than blasts at high level.)

Isn't it too easy to spot when a jackal's stolen your spells ( Probably. Skip'll make it a little trickier, just for you. )

Can you stop casting a spell halfway through, then pick up later ( No. Be thankful this isn't Buffy, or who knows what would happen. In D&D, it just gets wasted)

What's the point of speed factors (For nitpicking with. After all, having nits sucks, especially when you're just a poor boy growing up on the mean shores of lake geneva. No-one would do it for Skip, so Skip had to get good at picking nits for himself. )

What's a samovar (An arabian teapot, short and stout.)

Can Elementalists or sha'irs learn the kits from the complete sha'irs handbook (No, because then they'd have two kits. Why did we call it the complete sha'irs handbook if they can't use the stuff in it? Good question.)

Can you have firearms in planescape (It's a big universe. Probably. They won't work the same from plane to plane though, just like everything else. Expect lots of retooling every bloody time you go somewhere new. )

What happens if wild mages cast spells in wild magic zones (Everything goes wild. What do you think. Extra randomness on toast with a little dancing chaos beast on top. Wise wild mages wouldn't do it, but wise mages don't become wild mages.)

Do you retain your class when reincarnated (As long as the new form can be that class. If not, you'll have to start again. )


Jen is finally starting to suspect something is amiss in libram X. Dragonmirth is anachronising again. Swordplay are totally fair in dividing their treasure. For a certain perspective of fair. Yamara goes full-page as a world ends, and a woman is reborn. Yay, no more baldness.