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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9582783" data-attributes="member: 7737">Commentary and belated rant from section 121 wherein Carr gets his equipment on.I unironically enjoy this gear-up scene. It's a fun part of D&D. However….We enter the FREE HUT that was formerly Landor's and now ours and sit down at the same table where our dad "conducted his research into the magic of his ancestors, the sorcerer-kings of Bhukod."We know from book 1 that <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/ad-d-gamebook-sceptre-of-power-kingdom-of-sorcery-book-1-of-3.709391/post-9548636" target="_blank">Bhukod was a kingdom of ELVEN sorcerers who flourished throughout Kandia up until they stopped flourishing 500 years ago</a>. We made a lot of hay in that book's thread about how <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/ad-d-gamebook-sceptre-of-power-kingdom-of-sorcery-book-1-of-3.709391/post-9560398" target="_blank">Dalris could claim to be descended from Bhukodian royalty</a> when she is human, but ultimately decided <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/ad-d-gamebook-sceptre-of-power-kingdom-of-sorcery-book-1-of-3.709391/post-9560606" target="_blank">her elven blood could be sufficiently dilute that Dalris counts as human</a> in game terms.Here in book 2 we find out that Landor ALSO claims that his ancestors were Bhukodian. Therefor Landor and Carr also have some elven blood.IS THERE ANYONE IN THIS DARNED SERIES WHO ISN'T A POINTY-EARED TREE-LOVING ELF?Ever since we acquired Landor's stuff "five years ago", we've been translating from his coded scrawls into… our own coded scrawls, apparently, because we are making our own spellbook which is a subset of the spellbooks we inherited from Landor.As mockworthy as this sounds, this is how AD&D spell acquisition worked for captured spellbooks. You had to cast Read Magic, "translate" the spells, then scribe them into your own spellbook (at significant cost in GP and time) so you have them available for daily memorization.We then take up our father's cloak with its permanent Deeppockets enchantment….A cool flavorful enchantment for any magic-user’s robes, Deeppockets was introduced in Unearthed Arcana. The spell allows one pocket of a specially prepared "gown or robe of high-quality material (at least 300 GP value)" to hold "1000 GP of weight (5 cubic feet of volume)." And, furthermore, "there will be no discernible bulge where the special pocket is."Don't look at me that way! I don't write the suggestive Gygaxian prose; I just report it.Of course, this being AD&D, Deeppockets had a significant "screw you for trying to use this spell for its intended purpose" downside:If the spell duration expires while there is material within the enchanted pockets, the wearer must make a saving throw versus spell. Failure indicates the material in those pockets has gone from extradimensional space to astral space -- lost forever. Success indicates the material suddenly and totally appears around the wearer and immediately falls to the ground.So after 24 turns + 6/level, you either lose all your stuff permanently or it all BAMFS around you and falls to the ground meaning your adversarial Gygaxian DM likely calls for saving throws for every fragile component you own, or more likely your DM just decides all your stuff crashes to the ground and is ruined, not that this ever happened to me and no I’m not still bitter.Thus, a permanent Deeppockets is a highly useful solution and we must reluctantly tip our hat to Landor (whose robe this is) for thinking of it and for doing it. Permanency costs the magic-user 1 point of Constitution, umm, permanently, so that's a painful price in personal puissance. Good on you, Landor.Looking back at Carr's list of spells, he also has permanent Read Magic. Which is impossible because Permanency is an 8th level spell, WAY beyond Carr's ability to cast."As a final measure of magical power," we locate a loose sheaf of our father's "original" spells. The three spells we take with us are not "original"; they are by-the-book magic-user spells. Unless the book is trying to say that Landor is the one who invented these spells in this gameworld, in which case: Cool!It's a magical bronzewood staff banded with iron that, upon command, will double in length from six feet to twelve feet.I would like each reader to step outside his or her house, head to the local home improvement store, and purchase a tree-pruning tool which is available in a length of 12 feet. Now go back home, grip your tool firmly in both hands, and swing that thing around like you’re defending yourself from angry goblins.Assuming you return from the emergency room with your limbs intact, you will have realized that a twelve foot long stick is totally unusable as a weapon. So of course that is what WIS 3 Carr chooses to carry.Then we open up a pouch to check on our three poisoned darts.Ah, the humble dart. The most overpowered magic-user weapon ever created. Why, you ask? Because of this table:[ATTACH=full]396026[/ATTACH]With a Fire Rate of 3, the dart is 50% faster than every other weapon in the Player's Handbook (and Unearthed Arcana for that matter). There are lots of weapons with a Fire Rate of 2 (daggers, bows) but literally only the dart can be fired 3 times per round.The poor magic-user still has to suffer through the worst attack bonus in the game, but! As Joseph Stalin said about his lifetime as a dart-chucking wizard, "Quantity has a quality all its own." Throw enough darts and you will eventually hit your target. And if your darts are coated in a soporific poison? One hit is all it takes.Speaking of darts. We don't use the Manticore's tail spikes to enchant our darts here. Is anyone even remotely surprised?We toss everything on top of the cloak, along with a small dagger for good measure, and then fall asleep still trying to decide whether to begin our mission in(95) Saven or(137) Seagate Island.I promised to do a close reading of all information on this choice, which will warrant its own post.</blockquote>

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