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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8341612" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 62: August 1991part 2/5Past Honors & a New Challenge: No point in doing competitions if they don't announce the winners, so here's half a page wrapping up previous ones and setting a new challenge. Just who is that kilt-wearing man on the cover this issue, and how powerful are his statistics underneath that tartan? You have plenty of scope to decide what his history is, which system to use, and how he's likely to wind up interacting with the PC's. Let's hope they get enough submissions to make the competition meaningful, because it seems they're having that problem again, with the monster submissions dominated by familiar name from Dragon Greg Detwiler to a very high degree, and some categories not getting enough to award all the prizes. Despite their recent growth, it seems they're still not big enough, or with a dedicated enough readership to reliably do these properly and not expend more time and money on the prizes than they make from them. Club Champions: While the monster and ship competitions just listed the winners, probably because they didn't get enough good submissions, the spell contest gets a whole page printing the winning entries. They're all both interesting and useful in general play as well, which isn't always the case. Good for them.Malraz's Dramatic Death creates a full sensory illusion of your gruesome demise with very quick and subtle spell components, giving you plenty of opportunity to escape. Very handy if you want a recurring antagonist in your campaign. Dark Fire makes your barbecue or campfire only generate heat, not light or smoke. This won't be much use if you're in an area full of things with infravision, but when sneaking through hostile human territory, it could be very logistically handy. Neutralise Components disrupts the sympathetic magical qualities that make spell components work, seriously restricting an opposing wizard's options. Quirky but very effective indeed, and complements casting Silence on them to extra brutal effect. Overuse of this tactic may make the DM start using psionicists and monsters with innate SLA's all the time in response though. Ivy's Irresistible Scent makes virtually everything with a sense of smell follow you around. Duration is a bit short though. Might be more effective to do this the mundane way. This is even more true of the reverse, where there are plenty of vile smells you could throw on someone to thoroughly ruin their day until they have a chance for a thorough wash without casting a spell. Showdown At The IQ Corral: Speaking of psionicists, the Complete Psionics Handbook has been out long enough for people to realise that since in this edition the two power sources are completely separate in terms of detection, dispelling, and other countermeasures, a well-built psionic character can run roughshod over a spellcaster of similar level in social situations due to their ability to use powers without any obvious signs. Fortunately there's always researching custom spells to counter them. So here's another 10 in quick succession, albeit slightly less imaginative than the last 4. Your basic low level resistance booster. Setting a psychic trap inside your head. Filling the area with psychic static as if there were tons more thinking creatures in the area than there actually are. Low and high level all-purpose psychic power blockers. A tracer that points out exactly who and where is trying to get inside your head, letting you easily teleport there even if they're doing it from long range. One that lets you reflexively use your own mind-affecting spells on them when they try to get you. The obvious low level detection spell. And on the opposite end, a high level one that'll overload the mental connection and temporarily burn out their psychic powers entirely. Nothing enormously surprising, but a decent amount of variety, evenly spread between wizard and priest spells so neither are helpless. (although the clerics'll probably be quicker off the mark in gaining access to them in response to psionic enemies showing up, since they won't have to spend a load of time and money researching them, just have a god that grants the right spheres.) The kind of thing that's highly situational, but when you need it, you'll really appreciate having access to it.</blockquote>

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