TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon
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(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 1/12
148 pages. A githyanki riding a flying carpet? I guess when you leave the astral plane you’ve got to make do with whatever transportation you can find, even if it’s not as fast as the power of thought you’ve grown accustomed to. Let’s see what other treasures they’ll have for looting, and if this will be connected in any way to the even larger githyanki adventure they’ll do next year for the 100th issue spectacular I’ve been looking forward to reading for over a decade now. Forward, Zerth soldiers, to glorious victory or death!
Editorial: Chris gives a thoughtfully melancholy piece this time, as his granddad has recently died, so he talks about how he shaped him into the gamer he is today. While not an RPGer, he had an extensive collection of board games and playing a game with him after school became part of Chris’s everyday routine. Just sitting around talking is boring or tricky for a lot of people, so the best way to bond becomes by shared interest, actively doing something together, which also has the advantage of actually getting things done. It’s also a reminder of the value of having a mentor, someone who shows you the ropes of life so you don’t have to make every mistake for yourself to learn from it. If you see someone who has potential, but needs a little helping hand to make the best of it, it can be quite emotionally fulfilling to take on that role in their life. (even if the prestige class sucks, as we saw last issue
) It might even pay off in more material ways instead of resulting in you getting killed at a dramatic moment to drive their adventuring career. That definitely gives us a decent amount to think about going into this issue.
Letters: First letter is quite excited by the mini-games, and wonders if they’ll be doing d20 versions of old settings in the format. That’s an affirmative, soldier!
Second is very pleased in general by issue 90, but puts most of the detail into praising the Dungeon side. Even by their standards, that one was well above par. Aw shucks. They just did their best, same as every month.
Third is another person growing irked by their economical with the truth tabloid style headlines, making the adventures sound more impressive than they actually are. Would it be so hard to write larger scale adventures that actually have significant effects on the world and live up to the hype?
Fourth is from a guy who was determined to make his regular session despite not feeling well. This probably saved his life, because he was with them when he collapsed and they could call an ambulance. That’s what friends are for. Take good care of your support network and they’ll take good care of you.
Fifth is pleased by everything in issue 91, including all the small adventure ideas. Those maps of mystery and critical threats are really punching above their weight in actual play usefulness.
Sixth specifically praises the artwork of Kennon James. You’ll be seeing more as long as he doesn’t become so in demand that they can’t afford his prices anymore.
Seventh is quite pleased by the idea of the minigames and wants to know if they can submit one. They’ve all been done in-house so far, but for it to be sustainable long-term, your input would be very welcome.
Eighth has some ideas on how they could improve the design of the monster tokens. The flipbook format of the new issues also caused some confusion, nearly resulting in them buying two copies of the same issue. This is where subscribing would make things more convenient.
Ninth is another generally positive one, apart from the encounter level sidebars. They’re sticking around for now because they make bookkeeping easier.
10th is a dissenting voice that thinks the new format is way too standardised and formulaic. They only just got it like this, they don’t have the energy for another big redecoration for another year or two at least!
11th is another one full of praise for all aspects of issue 91.
12th is also pleased by the change in format, and particularly Challenge of Champions. Where are the previous ones?! That’s pretty easy to answer and they should still be available as back stock.
13th is worried that their recent change in typeface means we’re getting less content. It’s actually the opposite. 100 more words per page is nothing to sniff at. As their page counts are also way up, you’re getting more dungeoneering material even before you add in the polyhedron part.
14th is annoyed by the lack of proper polyhedron cover in the new issues. This turns out to be one instance where subscribing is a bad thing, because the postal service forces them to have a clear front side, but the newsstand versions can be more ambiguous. It’s amazing how many little regulations there are that you’ll never know about until you run afoul of them.
15th and finally, a request for them to bring back polybagging. It cuts into their profits by a fair amount, so not unless they’re including as special feature with that particular issue.
part 1/12
148 pages. A githyanki riding a flying carpet? I guess when you leave the astral plane you’ve got to make do with whatever transportation you can find, even if it’s not as fast as the power of thought you’ve grown accustomed to. Let’s see what other treasures they’ll have for looting, and if this will be connected in any way to the even larger githyanki adventure they’ll do next year for the 100th issue spectacular I’ve been looking forward to reading for over a decade now. Forward, Zerth soldiers, to glorious victory or death!
Editorial: Chris gives a thoughtfully melancholy piece this time, as his granddad has recently died, so he talks about how he shaped him into the gamer he is today. While not an RPGer, he had an extensive collection of board games and playing a game with him after school became part of Chris’s everyday routine. Just sitting around talking is boring or tricky for a lot of people, so the best way to bond becomes by shared interest, actively doing something together, which also has the advantage of actually getting things done. It’s also a reminder of the value of having a mentor, someone who shows you the ropes of life so you don’t have to make every mistake for yourself to learn from it. If you see someone who has potential, but needs a little helping hand to make the best of it, it can be quite emotionally fulfilling to take on that role in their life. (even if the prestige class sucks, as we saw last issue
) It might even pay off in more material ways instead of resulting in you getting killed at a dramatic moment to drive their adventuring career. That definitely gives us a decent amount to think about going into this issue. Letters: First letter is quite excited by the mini-games, and wonders if they’ll be doing d20 versions of old settings in the format. That’s an affirmative, soldier!
Second is very pleased in general by issue 90, but puts most of the detail into praising the Dungeon side. Even by their standards, that one was well above par. Aw shucks. They just did their best, same as every month.
Third is another person growing irked by their economical with the truth tabloid style headlines, making the adventures sound more impressive than they actually are. Would it be so hard to write larger scale adventures that actually have significant effects on the world and live up to the hype?
Fourth is from a guy who was determined to make his regular session despite not feeling well. This probably saved his life, because he was with them when he collapsed and they could call an ambulance. That’s what friends are for. Take good care of your support network and they’ll take good care of you.
Fifth is pleased by everything in issue 91, including all the small adventure ideas. Those maps of mystery and critical threats are really punching above their weight in actual play usefulness.
Sixth specifically praises the artwork of Kennon James. You’ll be seeing more as long as he doesn’t become so in demand that they can’t afford his prices anymore.
Seventh is quite pleased by the idea of the minigames and wants to know if they can submit one. They’ve all been done in-house so far, but for it to be sustainable long-term, your input would be very welcome.
Eighth has some ideas on how they could improve the design of the monster tokens. The flipbook format of the new issues also caused some confusion, nearly resulting in them buying two copies of the same issue. This is where subscribing would make things more convenient.
Ninth is another generally positive one, apart from the encounter level sidebars. They’re sticking around for now because they make bookkeeping easier.
10th is a dissenting voice that thinks the new format is way too standardised and formulaic. They only just got it like this, they don’t have the energy for another big redecoration for another year or two at least!
11th is another one full of praise for all aspects of issue 91.
12th is also pleased by the change in format, and particularly Challenge of Champions. Where are the previous ones?! That’s pretty easy to answer and they should still be available as back stock.
13th is worried that their recent change in typeface means we’re getting less content. It’s actually the opposite. 100 more words per page is nothing to sniff at. As their page counts are also way up, you’re getting more dungeoneering material even before you add in the polyhedron part.
14th is annoyed by the lack of proper polyhedron cover in the new issues. This turns out to be one instance where subscribing is a bad thing, because the postal service forces them to have a clear front side, but the newsstand versions can be more ambiguous. It’s amazing how many little regulations there are that you’ll never know about until you run afoul of them.
15th and finally, a request for them to bring back polybagging. It cuts into their profits by a fair amount, so not unless they’re including as special feature with that particular issue.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 2/12
Interlopers of Ruun-khazai: As is increasingly frequent, our cover story is one by an official WotC writer that’s also a tie-in to their latest book. David Noonan shows us how to use the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook in ways you might not immediately think of as we visit a githyanki fortress in the astral plane. It disappeared mysteriously a century ago and has now reappeared just as mysteriously. What happened and what dangers & treasures might be found within? Unfortunately, you’re not the only one curious about this, and you get there at the same time as both Githyanki and Githzerai expeditionary forces. You might be able to join forces with the Githzerai if you’re very silver-tongued, but more likely you’ll wind up in a complex four-way hit & run battle between both of them and the current owner of the place, a single high level githyanki who faked his death to avoid becoming lich-queen chow and is really not keen on the other ones finding out he’s still alive. He’ll use scrying and remote magic to harry all sides and avoid confrontation until you get right into the middle of the fortress and are in a position to take his stuff, at which point he’ll have to act directly out of desperation. Of course, since it’s the astral plane and this is only a small island the place is very three dimensional, so you could explore it in all sorts of orders and the amount of time you spend on it could vary widely. This is actually pretty interesting then, designed so your experience with it will vary massively from group to group depending on the choices both the players and DM make, where the groups meet up and how they react to each other. The map design is considerably superior to Steve Kurtz’s take on the concept back in issue 43 and it’s completely devoid of railroading, giving you a decent amount of room to do it in a pure hack & slash way or take a more social approach with the rival factions. If you made more than one of the invading groups PC’s you could have a very interesting and tense skirmish game. Since it manages to be both well above average in design rigour and unusual in format, I can wind up recommending this one after all. Sometimes what you need is a new sourcebook to help you deliver a fresh take on how to put an adventure together.
Critical Threats: This column is relatively small scale statistically, which actually means they can concentrate more on the personality of the subject. A salamander with a single level of fighter? That doesn’t seem like much in terms of extra combat prowess, but you shouldn’t underestimate fighter bonus feats, which he’s spent on improving his mounted combat skills. Now he rides a Thoqqua and is unexpectedly good at doing ride-by attacks. Despite being small size he’s tougher than most of the marauding humanoids you’ll encounter at low level so he can give you a nasty shock, and he revels in the destructive effect his mere presence has on the prime material plane. He seems like a good recurring antagonist to fight at low level, use his riding skills to get away when the battle turns against him, and then fight again with a few more levels added each time at multiple points through the campaign, even if he probably doesn’t have the smarts to be the ultimate big bad. There are plenty of examples of antagonists like that in computer games so why not try one in your campaign and hope the players don’t get a string of crits and kill him before they can form any emotional attachment.
part 2/12
Interlopers of Ruun-khazai: As is increasingly frequent, our cover story is one by an official WotC writer that’s also a tie-in to their latest book. David Noonan shows us how to use the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook in ways you might not immediately think of as we visit a githyanki fortress in the astral plane. It disappeared mysteriously a century ago and has now reappeared just as mysteriously. What happened and what dangers & treasures might be found within? Unfortunately, you’re not the only one curious about this, and you get there at the same time as both Githyanki and Githzerai expeditionary forces. You might be able to join forces with the Githzerai if you’re very silver-tongued, but more likely you’ll wind up in a complex four-way hit & run battle between both of them and the current owner of the place, a single high level githyanki who faked his death to avoid becoming lich-queen chow and is really not keen on the other ones finding out he’s still alive. He’ll use scrying and remote magic to harry all sides and avoid confrontation until you get right into the middle of the fortress and are in a position to take his stuff, at which point he’ll have to act directly out of desperation. Of course, since it’s the astral plane and this is only a small island the place is very three dimensional, so you could explore it in all sorts of orders and the amount of time you spend on it could vary widely. This is actually pretty interesting then, designed so your experience with it will vary massively from group to group depending on the choices both the players and DM make, where the groups meet up and how they react to each other. The map design is considerably superior to Steve Kurtz’s take on the concept back in issue 43 and it’s completely devoid of railroading, giving you a decent amount of room to do it in a pure hack & slash way or take a more social approach with the rival factions. If you made more than one of the invading groups PC’s you could have a very interesting and tense skirmish game. Since it manages to be both well above average in design rigour and unusual in format, I can wind up recommending this one after all. Sometimes what you need is a new sourcebook to help you deliver a fresh take on how to put an adventure together.
Critical Threats: This column is relatively small scale statistically, which actually means they can concentrate more on the personality of the subject. A salamander with a single level of fighter? That doesn’t seem like much in terms of extra combat prowess, but you shouldn’t underestimate fighter bonus feats, which he’s spent on improving his mounted combat skills. Now he rides a Thoqqua and is unexpectedly good at doing ride-by attacks. Despite being small size he’s tougher than most of the marauding humanoids you’ll encounter at low level so he can give you a nasty shock, and he revels in the destructive effect his mere presence has on the prime material plane. He seems like a good recurring antagonist to fight at low level, use his riding skills to get away when the battle turns against him, and then fight again with a few more levels added each time at multiple points through the campaign, even if he probably doesn’t have the smarts to be the ultimate big bad. There are plenty of examples of antagonists like that in computer games so why not try one in your campaign and hope the players don’t get a string of crits and kill him before they can form any emotional attachment.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 3/12
The Swarm: We had to deal with a Borg situation last issue. Now we have the more organic kind of hive as a swarm of eusocial spiders have moved into mount Athrof, working together with goblins to take it from the dwarves that were it’s previous owners. (the fact that they took it from the goblins by violence a generation ago as well is of course completely irrelevant
) The PC’s will encounter the refugee dwarves on the road, arguing about their next move. After a few minutes, this will be interrupted by another attack of hive spiders, dragging the PC’s into the fight whether they like it or not. Hopefully they’ll decide to do the heroic thing and stick around afterwards to retake the mountain & rescue any survivors. This leads into a nonlinear, mazy little dungeoncrawl with lots of random encounters padding it out, but relatively few fixed ones aside from when you reach the hive’s queen. So this is relatively old school in the way it’s designed, giving you plenty of room to customise it and letting the PC’s wander for a while rather than just throwing one encounter after another at them in quick succession, maybe having a chance to rest & heal, maybe having to deal with wandering monster attacks in the middle of the night. Overall, another one on the decent but unexceptional level, with enough tricks & traps to keep you on your toes, the novelty of a new monster you need to figure out the quirks of, but not doing anything groundbreaking.
Side Treks - Return of the Blessed Damozel: Like the critical threat, this side trek is designed to introduce a recurring antagonist who’s probably too tough to kill first time you encounter him, but won’t stick around and fight to the death. The PC’s come across an old woman berating a young man. Since he lost his fiancee he’s fallen into bad company & joined a gang and her ghost is not pleased about this. Shaming him out of this path turns out to not be too hard, but unfortunately the gang is the kind that doesn’t take kindly to quitters and the rest of them will rock up ready to rumble. To make things much worse their boss is secretly a rakshasa and will support the gang with magic and his hellcat pets, but avoid revealing his true nature or getting into a physical fight and retreat if it looks like his minions are going to lose. This of course leaves things wide open for him to come back later and get revenge with another scheme. But hey, at least you’ll have made a new ally as well. So once again they’re encouraging enemies that have motivations beyond killing the PC’s straight away with no regard for their own safety and planning ahead for a more interesting campaign, which I definitely approve of. The danger of course is doing too many similar things in quick succession, which is less pleasing as diminishing returns set in fast.
part 3/12
The Swarm: We had to deal with a Borg situation last issue. Now we have the more organic kind of hive as a swarm of eusocial spiders have moved into mount Athrof, working together with goblins to take it from the dwarves that were it’s previous owners. (the fact that they took it from the goblins by violence a generation ago as well is of course completely irrelevant
) The PC’s will encounter the refugee dwarves on the road, arguing about their next move. After a few minutes, this will be interrupted by another attack of hive spiders, dragging the PC’s into the fight whether they like it or not. Hopefully they’ll decide to do the heroic thing and stick around afterwards to retake the mountain & rescue any survivors. This leads into a nonlinear, mazy little dungeoncrawl with lots of random encounters padding it out, but relatively few fixed ones aside from when you reach the hive’s queen. So this is relatively old school in the way it’s designed, giving you plenty of room to customise it and letting the PC’s wander for a while rather than just throwing one encounter after another at them in quick succession, maybe having a chance to rest & heal, maybe having to deal with wandering monster attacks in the middle of the night. Overall, another one on the decent but unexceptional level, with enough tricks & traps to keep you on your toes, the novelty of a new monster you need to figure out the quirks of, but not doing anything groundbreaking.Side Treks - Return of the Blessed Damozel: Like the critical threat, this side trek is designed to introduce a recurring antagonist who’s probably too tough to kill first time you encounter him, but won’t stick around and fight to the death. The PC’s come across an old woman berating a young man. Since he lost his fiancee he’s fallen into bad company & joined a gang and her ghost is not pleased about this. Shaming him out of this path turns out to not be too hard, but unfortunately the gang is the kind that doesn’t take kindly to quitters and the rest of them will rock up ready to rumble. To make things much worse their boss is secretly a rakshasa and will support the gang with magic and his hellcat pets, but avoid revealing his true nature or getting into a physical fight and retreat if it looks like his minions are going to lose. This of course leaves things wide open for him to come back later and get revenge with another scheme. But hey, at least you’ll have made a new ally as well. So once again they’re encouraging enemies that have motivations beyond killing the PC’s straight away with no regard for their own safety and planning ahead for a more interesting campaign, which I definitely approve of. The danger of course is doing too many similar things in quick succession, which is less pleasing as diminishing returns set in fast.
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(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 4/12
The Razing of Redshore: A second big tie-in adventure in the same issue? That seems a little much. Still, this one is more likely to be bought by a significant fraction of the gaming population and get follow-ups not written by the official writers. It’s time for the release of the Epic Level Handbook, which means James Jacobs gets to really go to town with a threat that’ll be a significant challenge even for 20th level characters. An awakened sperm whale druid with a serious grudge that’s not too concerned about collateral damage? That’s an interesting test of the 3e advancement rules and how they work out when you apply them to already powerful monsters. He’s hunting the cabal of assassins that slew his circle and seized control of a magical pool that unlocks people’s epic level potential. Since he doesn’t really understand human society and venturing on land is a little tricky for him, this means storms, animal attacks and sinking any ships coming or going, eventually escalating to attacking in elemental form. If you aren’t too optimised and manage to kill him first encounter, (ruining the whole rest of the adventure’s plot) he’ll retreat after a while, having got a deus ex machina vision that the PC’s are the chosen ones who could solve his problem. He’ll then contact them in a more peaceful way wild-shaped into a small innocuous animal, tell them about the pool and assassins and ask them for help. Presuming they don’t feel all the death & destruction he’s caused already is unforgivable and blow him off (but what are the odds they’ve made it to 20th level without a few instances of mass destruction of their own) they then have to make their way 4 miles under the ocean (but that bit should be no problem by now as long as you have at least one generalist spellcaster in the party.) to reach the Shadar Caves. Once there, you have to deal with the Kraken Cleric and Mithral Golem guarding the pool, then placate the spirit of the pool itself and convince it you’re worthy of the responsibility of epic levels. Now equipped with your 21st level, the first epic feat that goes with it and a bunch of inherent bonuses on top, (so this still gives you a boost if you live in a world where epic levels aren’t gated and characters with them are relatively common) you can go and take on those assassins, each of which has a statblock that takes up nearly a full page, plus the various minions in their fortress, most of which would be the full-on big bad in their own right in a lower level adventure.
So I’m unhappy to report that this turns out to be the bad kind of tie-in adventure, the annoyingly linear kind filled with overused high fantasy cliches they’d never let a freelancer’s submission get away with. To his credit, James is at least a better rules writer than Bill Slavicsek, so I have a little more faith that the math on the creatures adds up to make the numbers support the intended story, but there are still multiple points where one wrong decision on the part of the party will completely ruin the adventure, plus high level 3e parties can vary so much in competency that an optimised one focussing on spamming debuffs & save or die effects rather than HP damage will break it at the first encounter without even trying. At that level you should be designing adventures to be less linear, not more, because that’s the only way to keep them functional in the face of all the options high level spellcasters have. Not the very worst adventure they’ve ever done in here, but still a huge disappointment.
Nodwick’s team find it a little hard to accept that a squirrel is really a shapeshifted whale. That’s what breaks your sense of immersion after all the other weird things you’ve encountered over the years?
part 4/12
The Razing of Redshore: A second big tie-in adventure in the same issue? That seems a little much. Still, this one is more likely to be bought by a significant fraction of the gaming population and get follow-ups not written by the official writers. It’s time for the release of the Epic Level Handbook, which means James Jacobs gets to really go to town with a threat that’ll be a significant challenge even for 20th level characters. An awakened sperm whale druid with a serious grudge that’s not too concerned about collateral damage? That’s an interesting test of the 3e advancement rules and how they work out when you apply them to already powerful monsters. He’s hunting the cabal of assassins that slew his circle and seized control of a magical pool that unlocks people’s epic level potential. Since he doesn’t really understand human society and venturing on land is a little tricky for him, this means storms, animal attacks and sinking any ships coming or going, eventually escalating to attacking in elemental form. If you aren’t too optimised and manage to kill him first encounter, (ruining the whole rest of the adventure’s plot) he’ll retreat after a while, having got a deus ex machina vision that the PC’s are the chosen ones who could solve his problem. He’ll then contact them in a more peaceful way wild-shaped into a small innocuous animal, tell them about the pool and assassins and ask them for help. Presuming they don’t feel all the death & destruction he’s caused already is unforgivable and blow him off (but what are the odds they’ve made it to 20th level without a few instances of mass destruction of their own) they then have to make their way 4 miles under the ocean (but that bit should be no problem by now as long as you have at least one generalist spellcaster in the party.) to reach the Shadar Caves. Once there, you have to deal with the Kraken Cleric and Mithral Golem guarding the pool, then placate the spirit of the pool itself and convince it you’re worthy of the responsibility of epic levels. Now equipped with your 21st level, the first epic feat that goes with it and a bunch of inherent bonuses on top, (so this still gives you a boost if you live in a world where epic levels aren’t gated and characters with them are relatively common) you can go and take on those assassins, each of which has a statblock that takes up nearly a full page, plus the various minions in their fortress, most of which would be the full-on big bad in their own right in a lower level adventure.
So I’m unhappy to report that this turns out to be the bad kind of tie-in adventure, the annoyingly linear kind filled with overused high fantasy cliches they’d never let a freelancer’s submission get away with. To his credit, James is at least a better rules writer than Bill Slavicsek, so I have a little more faith that the math on the creatures adds up to make the numbers support the intended story, but there are still multiple points where one wrong decision on the part of the party will completely ruin the adventure, plus high level 3e parties can vary so much in competency that an optimised one focussing on spamming debuffs & save or die effects rather than HP damage will break it at the first encounter without even trying. At that level you should be designing adventures to be less linear, not more, because that’s the only way to keep them functional in the face of all the options high level spellcasters have. Not the very worst adventure they’ve ever done in here, but still a huge disappointment.
Nodwick’s team find it a little hard to accept that a squirrel is really a shapeshifted whale. That’s what breaks your sense of immersion after all the other weird things you’ve encountered over the years?
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 5/12
Table Talk: Unsurprisingly, the talk of doing Spelljammer without the cheesiness has resulted in a whole load of very heated messages, some in favor of the idea and some against. Ultimately, they don’t want to alienate either group, so this merely reminds us that wildspace is big, (really big) and there’s more than enough room for both approaches and plenty of other takes besides. If you want Spelljammer closer to the way Jeff Grubb used to make it, there’s the official fan website, (now at a different location) as with all the old settings they haven’t got around to doing actual books on. The canon police have enough trouble keeping track of on-planet activities, the chances of a patrol stopping and fining you up there are infinitesimal. Nothing particularly surprising here then. The days of Gary’s intentionally inflammatory rants telling whole sections of the gaming public they’re Doing it Wrong™ are long behind us, with even his guest columns in Dragon somewhat more sedate. Any regular WotC employee trying that would soon be receiving official reprimand from their superiors.
Bolt & Quiver find out that the Tomb of Doom has long since been turned into the worst kind of trap of all, a tourist trap.
part 5/12
Table Talk: Unsurprisingly, the talk of doing Spelljammer without the cheesiness has resulted in a whole load of very heated messages, some in favor of the idea and some against. Ultimately, they don’t want to alienate either group, so this merely reminds us that wildspace is big, (really big) and there’s more than enough room for both approaches and plenty of other takes besides. If you want Spelljammer closer to the way Jeff Grubb used to make it, there’s the official fan website, (now at a different location) as with all the old settings they haven’t got around to doing actual books on. The canon police have enough trouble keeping track of on-planet activities, the chances of a patrol stopping and fining you up there are infinitesimal. Nothing particularly surprising here then. The days of Gary’s intentionally inflammatory rants telling whole sections of the gaming public they’re Doing it Wrong™ are long behind us, with even his guest columns in Dragon somewhat more sedate. Any regular WotC employee trying that would soon be receiving official reprimand from their superiors.
Bolt & Quiver find out that the Tomb of Doom has long since been turned into the worst kind of trap of all, a tourist trap.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 6/12
First Watch: This continues to be large and multi-parted. First up, they fill in the missing symmetry in d20 Modern by adding the Tough Hero. In the process we get to see which bits have moved closer to the release version and which won’t be fixed until even more feedback comes in. They’ve gone from 20 level classes to a mere 10, and changed it from a fixed set of abilities to alternating choice of bonus feat and class-exclusive ones, although they’re still only approximately every third level each, leaving some dead levels. Reputation bonuses are now in. They are still using vitality points rather than hit points, and even the tough hero only gets 1d6 per level, which makes me think giving all the others 1d4 wasn’t a typo after all - they genuinely thought making them all that much more fragile than D&D or even Star Wars ones was a good idea. Even more weirdly, they give it 4+int skill points despite there being no con based skills except concentration, which isn’t a class skill for them! Make that one make sense folks. This is still very much a work in progress then, with only 6 months to go.
Second, the release roundup. Affinity Games release the Windhaven City Campaign Guide, a mammoth 328 page setting book ready for adventuring in. If you liked the tone of the old Judges Guild books check it out. Alderac get round to covering Gods in their guidebook series, and are hoping to get Farscape d20 finished and through approvals soon, after repeated delays. Atlas have some Occult Lore for us, including multiple alternative magic systems of dubious game balance to try. Avalanche have four different books based on public domain ideas. I: Mordred, for if you think Arthur wasn’t such a nice guy after all. All For One, a rather straighter take on the Three Musketeers. Whispers in the Shadows, for your Illuminati and other real world secret society fun and Endless Sands, for if you want another take on fantasy Arabia. Bastion Press has Spells and Magic, another self-explanatory helping of the things players most look forward to getting their hands on. Fantasy Flight Games does Way of the Sword, the start of their series of class handbooks to rival Mongoose, White Wolf and the official WotC ones. Fast Forward Entertainment give us Dungeon World, which is a little tricky to google now because of an apparently unrelated recent PbtA game of the same name by a different company. Firey Dragon Productions have a pair of sequels, with both the Counter Collection and the Of Sound Mind psionic adventures selling well enough to stretch to third instalments. Green Ronin are a little more esoteric with their class handbooks, covering Necromancers and Shamen. It took TSR 6 years to get around to those in 2e. Holistic Design decide to be extremely topical with Afghanistan D20, so you can mix your war on terror with your D&D. Malhavoc release the book of Eldritch Might II and The Banewarrens, both of which contain elements that will be significant in Ptolus later. Mongoose are not the most prolific publisher this month, unusually, with just the Quintessesntial Wizard & Elf books, plus the Judge Dredd RPG. Monkey God Enterprises give us Librum Equitus, a collection of prestige classes varying from the classic to the very quirky indeed. Finally, Necromancer Games have a couple of adventures. Hall of the Rainbow Mage is new, while Necropolis is a d20 conversion of an adventure from Gary Gygax’s Dangerous Journeys. Let’s hope it still works with the much faster advancement rate of 3e characters.
Thirdly, as a somewhat acerbic corollary, they put in a d20 trend tracker pointing out the most overdone topics that the d20 boom is producing. Seven different takes on pirates from different companies? You’ll definitely wind up with a fair bit of redundant information if you buy all of them. You’ll have to go a little more obscure than that if you want to make your offerings stand out from the pack.
part 6/12
First Watch: This continues to be large and multi-parted. First up, they fill in the missing symmetry in d20 Modern by adding the Tough Hero. In the process we get to see which bits have moved closer to the release version and which won’t be fixed until even more feedback comes in. They’ve gone from 20 level classes to a mere 10, and changed it from a fixed set of abilities to alternating choice of bonus feat and class-exclusive ones, although they’re still only approximately every third level each, leaving some dead levels. Reputation bonuses are now in. They are still using vitality points rather than hit points, and even the tough hero only gets 1d6 per level, which makes me think giving all the others 1d4 wasn’t a typo after all - they genuinely thought making them all that much more fragile than D&D or even Star Wars ones was a good idea. Even more weirdly, they give it 4+int skill points despite there being no con based skills except concentration, which isn’t a class skill for them! Make that one make sense folks. This is still very much a work in progress then, with only 6 months to go.
Second, the release roundup. Affinity Games release the Windhaven City Campaign Guide, a mammoth 328 page setting book ready for adventuring in. If you liked the tone of the old Judges Guild books check it out. Alderac get round to covering Gods in their guidebook series, and are hoping to get Farscape d20 finished and through approvals soon, after repeated delays. Atlas have some Occult Lore for us, including multiple alternative magic systems of dubious game balance to try. Avalanche have four different books based on public domain ideas. I: Mordred, for if you think Arthur wasn’t such a nice guy after all. All For One, a rather straighter take on the Three Musketeers. Whispers in the Shadows, for your Illuminati and other real world secret society fun and Endless Sands, for if you want another take on fantasy Arabia. Bastion Press has Spells and Magic, another self-explanatory helping of the things players most look forward to getting their hands on. Fantasy Flight Games does Way of the Sword, the start of their series of class handbooks to rival Mongoose, White Wolf and the official WotC ones. Fast Forward Entertainment give us Dungeon World, which is a little tricky to google now because of an apparently unrelated recent PbtA game of the same name by a different company. Firey Dragon Productions have a pair of sequels, with both the Counter Collection and the Of Sound Mind psionic adventures selling well enough to stretch to third instalments. Green Ronin are a little more esoteric with their class handbooks, covering Necromancers and Shamen. It took TSR 6 years to get around to those in 2e. Holistic Design decide to be extremely topical with Afghanistan D20, so you can mix your war on terror with your D&D. Malhavoc release the book of Eldritch Might II and The Banewarrens, both of which contain elements that will be significant in Ptolus later. Mongoose are not the most prolific publisher this month, unusually, with just the Quintessesntial Wizard & Elf books, plus the Judge Dredd RPG. Monkey God Enterprises give us Librum Equitus, a collection of prestige classes varying from the classic to the very quirky indeed. Finally, Necromancer Games have a couple of adventures. Hall of the Rainbow Mage is new, while Necropolis is a d20 conversion of an adventure from Gary Gygax’s Dangerous Journeys. Let’s hope it still works with the much faster advancement rate of 3e characters.
Thirdly, as a somewhat acerbic corollary, they put in a d20 trend tracker pointing out the most overdone topics that the d20 boom is producing. Seven different takes on pirates from different companies? You’ll definitely wind up with a fair bit of redundant information if you buy all of them. You’ll have to go a little more obscure than that if you want to make your offerings stand out from the pack.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 7/12
News From the Top: Gen Con already has smaller versions of itself in other countries. A logical thing to do if they want to grow the RPGA would be to do the same for Winter Fantasy, so they can have mini-summits for individual countries and give people who can’t afford to fly all the way to the USA a bit more control over policy. Now all they need is enthusiastic volunteers around the world who could make it happen. Since I can’t find any evidence of this actually happening by googling, I’m guessing this is one ambition that probably fell foul of their resources pinch at the time. They are moving ahead with their attempts to train more GM’s though, with a detailed set of ranks and the benefits they offer, but the details of this are also still subject to change based on feedback and resource limitations. So this is pretty underwhelming. There’ll be no more big expansions in the near future, no new Living campaigns unless they’re entirely volunteer run. Not what you want to hear if you’re one of the many enthusiastic new signups that joined just last year.
Robert Remembers: They’ve had quite a bit of turnover in the last year. Now they lose Robert Wiese, the guy who kept things going when TSR collapsed and it was just him and a bunch of volunteers, communicating over the fledgling internet, trying to keep organised play going and the Trumpeter coming out so it wasn’t just complete radio silence. Without that, they would have lost even more subscribers and the RPGA might not have survived. Then he had the unenviable job of building things back up again through the WotC years, once again figuring out how to get people enthused and stretch their limited budget as far as possible. Unsurprisingly, the lessons he’s learned about humanity in his time here are fairly cynical. Taking a job like this may seem to give you power, but the responsibilities far outweigh the rights if you’re doing it right, as you’re essentially a public servant facilitating other people’s fun. You’ll mainly hear about the things that are going wrong, because people are a lot quieter when things go right, particularly if they go smoothly for any length of time and they start taking you for granted. If you must complain, one of the best things you can do is suggest a solution at the same time. (although that runs the “risk” of being volunteered to be the one to implement it. ) You can definitely see why someone would get fed up on that after a while. This is why I’d much rather do projects that have a defined finish. (even if that finish may take years to reach) The kind of job where success simply means having to do it again until you fail or choose to quit gradually turns into sysyphean torment no matter how much it might have been your dream job beforehand. So I can definitely see why he’s leaving and wish him well in whatever comes next, (if google is correct, teaching biochemistry) but I also have to hope that he doesn’t turn out to be a loadbearing admin that the place will fall apart without. Given that RPGA content is being cut way down, will I even get a chance to know his successor before Dungeon goes solo again?
part 7/12
News From the Top: Gen Con already has smaller versions of itself in other countries. A logical thing to do if they want to grow the RPGA would be to do the same for Winter Fantasy, so they can have mini-summits for individual countries and give people who can’t afford to fly all the way to the USA a bit more control over policy. Now all they need is enthusiastic volunteers around the world who could make it happen. Since I can’t find any evidence of this actually happening by googling, I’m guessing this is one ambition that probably fell foul of their resources pinch at the time. They are moving ahead with their attempts to train more GM’s though, with a detailed set of ranks and the benefits they offer, but the details of this are also still subject to change based on feedback and resource limitations. So this is pretty underwhelming. There’ll be no more big expansions in the near future, no new Living campaigns unless they’re entirely volunteer run. Not what you want to hear if you’re one of the many enthusiastic new signups that joined just last year.
Robert Remembers: They’ve had quite a bit of turnover in the last year. Now they lose Robert Wiese, the guy who kept things going when TSR collapsed and it was just him and a bunch of volunteers, communicating over the fledgling internet, trying to keep organised play going and the Trumpeter coming out so it wasn’t just complete radio silence. Without that, they would have lost even more subscribers and the RPGA might not have survived. Then he had the unenviable job of building things back up again through the WotC years, once again figuring out how to get people enthused and stretch their limited budget as far as possible. Unsurprisingly, the lessons he’s learned about humanity in his time here are fairly cynical. Taking a job like this may seem to give you power, but the responsibilities far outweigh the rights if you’re doing it right, as you’re essentially a public servant facilitating other people’s fun. You’ll mainly hear about the things that are going wrong, because people are a lot quieter when things go right, particularly if they go smoothly for any length of time and they start taking you for granted. If you must complain, one of the best things you can do is suggest a solution at the same time. (although that runs the “risk” of being volunteered to be the one to implement it. ) You can definitely see why someone would get fed up on that after a while. This is why I’d much rather do projects that have a defined finish. (even if that finish may take years to reach) The kind of job where success simply means having to do it again until you fail or choose to quit gradually turns into sysyphean torment no matter how much it might have been your dream job beforehand. So I can definitely see why he’s leaving and wish him well in whatever comes next, (if google is correct, teaching biochemistry) but I also have to hope that he doesn’t turn out to be a loadbearing admin that the place will fall apart without. Given that RPGA content is being cut way down, will I even get a chance to know his successor before Dungeon goes solo again?
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 8/12
Convention Scene: This concentrates entirely on this year’s Winter Fantasy. As usual, it was packed with RPGA content of all kinds, plus the summit where they discuss their future directions. All the usual regional restrictions for Living Greyhawk were off, letting people play adventures set anywhere. Similarly Living City brought back a whole load of old adventures from all across 2e, now converted to 3e and ready to challenge your characters all over again. Living Force also had a massive Interactive that attracted a lot of cosplayers. The other Living settings aren’t mentioned but I’m sure each of them had at least one adventure scheduled at some point over the weekend. They’re not going to pretend they haven’t had problems recently, but it’s not going to stop the show going on. Nothing particularly surprising here.
Spelljammer - Shadow of the Spider Moon: The intro is pretty short this time, getting us straight through the credits and tone-setting (which they already did a fair bit of in the editorial anyway) so they can get to the mechanics. Andy Collins is the main person to praise/blame for the writing this time, with Scott Schomberg on art and Erik doing the editing as usual. He wants to concentrate on the age of piracy IIIINNN SPAAAAACEEEE swashbuckling action over the gnomes, hamsters and hippo-men. Well, as we saw just a few pages ago, pirates are in fashion this year so why not. They have a reliable subscriber base and will be doing something different next issue anyway so it’s not as if they’re competing with all those other d20 supplements for sales.
part 8/12
Convention Scene: This concentrates entirely on this year’s Winter Fantasy. As usual, it was packed with RPGA content of all kinds, plus the summit where they discuss their future directions. All the usual regional restrictions for Living Greyhawk were off, letting people play adventures set anywhere. Similarly Living City brought back a whole load of old adventures from all across 2e, now converted to 3e and ready to challenge your characters all over again. Living Force also had a massive Interactive that attracted a lot of cosplayers. The other Living settings aren’t mentioned but I’m sure each of them had at least one adventure scheduled at some point over the weekend. They’re not going to pretend they haven’t had problems recently, but it’s not going to stop the show going on. Nothing particularly surprising here.
Spelljammer - Shadow of the Spider Moon: The intro is pretty short this time, getting us straight through the credits and tone-setting (which they already did a fair bit of in the editorial anyway) so they can get to the mechanics. Andy Collins is the main person to praise/blame for the writing this time, with Scott Schomberg on art and Erik doing the editing as usual. He wants to concentrate on the age of piracy IIIINNN SPAAAAACEEEE swashbuckling action over the gnomes, hamsters and hippo-men. Well, as we saw just a few pages ago, pirates are in fashion this year so why not. They have a reliable subscriber base and will be doing something different next issue anyway so it’s not as if they’re competing with all those other d20 supplements for sales.
(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon/Polyhedron Issue 92/151: May/Jun 2002
part 9/12
Characters: Like most of their settings from this point on, this works firmly on the principle that everything Core is allowed. Fortunately, Spelljammer is a broad setting anyway, so this doesn’t ruin anything. (unlike 2004’s Dark Sun conversion trying to shoehorn Paladins, Sorcerers and spellcasting Bards in without explaining where they get their power from or how the defiler/preserver dichotomy works for them.) Humans are the newbies to space, from the third planet in the system. (oh, how original) Dwarves depart from stereotype by shaving themselves all over their body, as a reflection of their shame from losing their homeworld. Elves are even more insufferable than usual, a nest of schemers who may seem lazy to others, but only because they know they have plenty of time to wait for the right moment to act. Gnomes lost their homeworld a long time ago, but are much more cheerful about this than dwarves, wandering the spaceways doing techie stuff. Half-elves are the usual, caught between two cultures and not entirely trusted by either. Half-orcs get around the rape issue by saying they’re mostly the product of Illithid breeding programs, which is actually worse when you think about it for any length of time, because it means both parents were probably mind-controlled and non-consenting. (and now I have the horrible mental image of Illithids as fanfic writers making people act out of character just to fulfil their personal ‘ships.) Halflings seem nice, but that’s just a front as they look for opportunities to exploit. Everyone seems to be more morally ambiguous than usual, with definite neutral tendencies wherever they normally fall on the alignment axis, but the mechanics for both the races and classes are unchanged. There are 5 new prestige classes though, which are a little more interesting.
Master Scavengers are the obvious gnome hyper-stereotypes. Plenty of skill points and a knack for making the best of whatever they find, they can macguyver their way out of all sorts of tricky situations. Just watch what you buy from them, because even if it works for them, it might not hold together long for anyone else.
Planetary Explorers, like their earthly ones in the Pulp Heroes issue, are medium all-rounders with lots of bonus languages. They do have a slightly more mystical side though, gaining resistance to extreme temperatures and the ability to literally talk to the planet at high levels. (which is about as useful as Commune ever is) Not particularly brilliant in combat, but good for a more socially focussed campaign.
Spelljammer Aces get full spellcasting progression plus a special power every level, which means they’re one of those classes that’s an unambiguous step up if you’re starting off as a Sorcerer, probably still an overall plus as a wizard, but much more of a choice if you’re a cleric or druid who’d lose out on hp and BAB progression by specialising. Like many a fictional pilot, they tend towards the reckless daredevil end of things, to the irritation of anyone who gets space-sickness.
Stellar Corsairs get full BAB plus a decent compliment of rogue skills, which will hopefully make up for heavy armor not working too well when climbing the rigging. Another one not too different from their earthly implementations elsewhere.
Storykeepers are a 5 level bard variant focussing on their voice-related powers. You’ll lose out on both skill points and BAB though, so it’s another one that’s more for socially focussed characters than dungeon-crawlers who expect to get into fights every session.
Not many new or variant skills either, just Pilot (obviously), plus two new knowledge types and one new profession, none of which are particularly surprising. The single page of feats also has lots of ones repeated from other supplements, including several of the currently omnipresent +2 to two skills filler ones and a bunch of background feats taken from the Forgotten Realms book. There are a couple of genuinely new ones revolving around being extra good at spelljamming, plus another feat tax on top of the basic craft wondrous item one before you can create spelljamming helms yourself. They’re obviously not something anyone can just throw together, even once space travel is common.
part 9/12
Characters: Like most of their settings from this point on, this works firmly on the principle that everything Core is allowed. Fortunately, Spelljammer is a broad setting anyway, so this doesn’t ruin anything. (unlike 2004’s Dark Sun conversion trying to shoehorn Paladins, Sorcerers and spellcasting Bards in without explaining where they get their power from or how the defiler/preserver dichotomy works for them.) Humans are the newbies to space, from the third planet in the system. (oh, how original) Dwarves depart from stereotype by shaving themselves all over their body, as a reflection of their shame from losing their homeworld. Elves are even more insufferable than usual, a nest of schemers who may seem lazy to others, but only because they know they have plenty of time to wait for the right moment to act. Gnomes lost their homeworld a long time ago, but are much more cheerful about this than dwarves, wandering the spaceways doing techie stuff. Half-elves are the usual, caught between two cultures and not entirely trusted by either. Half-orcs get around the rape issue by saying they’re mostly the product of Illithid breeding programs, which is actually worse when you think about it for any length of time, because it means both parents were probably mind-controlled and non-consenting. (and now I have the horrible mental image of Illithids as fanfic writers making people act out of character just to fulfil their personal ‘ships.) Halflings seem nice, but that’s just a front as they look for opportunities to exploit. Everyone seems to be more morally ambiguous than usual, with definite neutral tendencies wherever they normally fall on the alignment axis, but the mechanics for both the races and classes are unchanged. There are 5 new prestige classes though, which are a little more interesting.
Master Scavengers are the obvious gnome hyper-stereotypes. Plenty of skill points and a knack for making the best of whatever they find, they can macguyver their way out of all sorts of tricky situations. Just watch what you buy from them, because even if it works for them, it might not hold together long for anyone else.
Planetary Explorers, like their earthly ones in the Pulp Heroes issue, are medium all-rounders with lots of bonus languages. They do have a slightly more mystical side though, gaining resistance to extreme temperatures and the ability to literally talk to the planet at high levels. (which is about as useful as Commune ever is) Not particularly brilliant in combat, but good for a more socially focussed campaign.
Spelljammer Aces get full spellcasting progression plus a special power every level, which means they’re one of those classes that’s an unambiguous step up if you’re starting off as a Sorcerer, probably still an overall plus as a wizard, but much more of a choice if you’re a cleric or druid who’d lose out on hp and BAB progression by specialising. Like many a fictional pilot, they tend towards the reckless daredevil end of things, to the irritation of anyone who gets space-sickness.
Stellar Corsairs get full BAB plus a decent compliment of rogue skills, which will hopefully make up for heavy armor not working too well when climbing the rigging. Another one not too different from their earthly implementations elsewhere.
Storykeepers are a 5 level bard variant focussing on their voice-related powers. You’ll lose out on both skill points and BAB though, so it’s another one that’s more for socially focussed characters than dungeon-crawlers who expect to get into fights every session.
Not many new or variant skills either, just Pilot (obviously), plus two new knowledge types and one new profession, none of which are particularly surprising. The single page of feats also has lots of ones repeated from other supplements, including several of the currently omnipresent +2 to two skills filler ones and a bunch of background feats taken from the Forgotten Realms book. There are a couple of genuinely new ones revolving around being extra good at spelljamming, plus another feat tax on top of the basic craft wondrous item one before you can create spelljamming helms yourself. They’re obviously not something anyone can just throw together, even once space travel is common.
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