Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8209991" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 48: July 1989part 3/5The Mutant's Armory: The second half of this extensive list is considerably shorter, but covers things which need longer individual descriptions. Various high explosives, including grenades, dynamite, bombs and missiles. Many ways to cause overkill amongst players and their adversaries, and a few less lethal options like foam and smoke bombs. Seems decent enough, but I can't think of anything much to say about it that I didn't last time. Spelljammer: Dragon first started teasing this setting back in december '88, but it looks like they're going to give it some promotion in here as well. Jeff Grubb gives us an efficient single page campaign pitch that's pretty clear both on what it is, and what it is not. It's not any kind of remotely realistic treatment of space - they're intentionally making it weird and fantastical, inspired by 18th century ideas of crystal spheres and phlogiston, filled with solar systems which vary widely in composition and arrangement. All sorts of races can venture into space, including mind flayers & beholders, which play particularly important roles in the setting. Since this is D&D, they're not forgetting the dragons, and the ones up there can be many orders of magnitude larger than terrestrial ones. And then there's the Spelljammer itself, the ultimate macguffin of the setting that gives people a big legend to seek out instead of just wandering the vast expanses aimlessly, or doing crossovers between the previously established AD&D worlds. It's all gloriously ambitious, and it does seem a shame that it wouldn't get much traction with the wider gaming public and be cancelled after a few years, never to even get a proper conversion to future editions like the extraplanar material. Such are the dangers of being too different and nongeneric. Oh well, we'll always have Bral. Let's hope there's a little more interesting material for this setting to be found in the newszine along the way, to make it that little bit bigger and more versatile. Wand of Wondrousness: Muahaha. Ah yes, the Wand of Wonder. An item to instil terror into every DM and player except maybe the one with a Wild Mage PC. But the number of options given in the DMG is somewhat limited. Before you know it, they'll start to become predictable. Here's another hundred options to amuse, annoy, and occasionally terrify. This is one that's familiar to me from the Encyclopedia Magica, which collected a good half-a-dozen of these lists from various sources over the years. It's definitely on the less lethal end of the spectrum compared to some of the alternatives. You'll probably be able to survive burning through all the charges. The big question then becomes if you'd want too, and if your DM would stick with one list or arbitrarily switch between them when you're getting a bit too comfortable. Do you trust them to not screw you over with this of all things?</blockquote>

Verification