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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8410212" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 72: June 1992part 2/5Know Who Your Friends Are: Aka, the ecology of the doppleganger II: Mackie's back in town. Well, the original was 8 years ago and in Dragon, so there's plenty of reader turnover between them. In fact, Bruce Nesmith either hasn't read the original, or intentionally chooses to present a different take on their abilities, as some of the details contradict the previous one, particularly with respect to the limits of their shapechanging abilities. Wheras the previous one had them able to simulate clothes & equipment as part of their shapeshifting, which means they're actually naked all the time unless carrying something specific, and removing or getting them to drop something is a good way to catch them out, this makes their shapeshifting even more obviously magical, and able to transform possessions as well as long as they remain within 5' of their body. Ah, the joys of 2e bowdlerisation. The best way to catch them out continues to be if they can walk the walk, as while they can use their mind reading to give you all the right answers in conversation, they can't imitate class skills, exceptional ability scores or innate magical abilities, so productivity will be way down. (which is why they actually prefer to take over the lives of rich people rather than working class folks or adventurers) Of course even that isn't an ironclad rule, as he then introduces a new more powerful variant that has greater ability to functionally emulate your attributes and equipment, but only if it actually touches you. The kind of article that's interesting because of it's extreme specificity, and covering a topic they've already covered elsewhere, so you can compare & contrast. If you're going to run a disguise-based antagonist, you need to establish the rules they work by and stick to them so the players can do the detective work legitimately and feel clever when they succeed by asking the right questions and exploiting the loopholes in the game. Having something like this look at the logical implications of certain powers for you helps speed things on their way. Experience Preferred pt 1: Time comes for us all. Those adventurers who don't fall in the course of their adventures or embrace transhumanism will eventually find themselves slowing down, struggling to heft a sword or memorise a spell the way they used too. What do they do then? If they've earned enough money to afford it, they can retire to the Nellie Thursday Home for Experienced Adventurers, where they can probably live the rest of their lives in peace, for who's going to mess with all those high level characters at once? But there's always some idiot, and so you're dragged out of retirement for one last mission, sending you across the planes on as epic a journey as they can squeeze into three 4 hour tournament slots. The kind of adventure that could be used in an existing campaign, but would lose a fair amount, as much of the page count is devoted to the pregens, which are high level with plenty of magic items, but have various idiosyncratic age-related penalties imposed on them on top of the general ability score adjustments, and lots of notes on how they relate to one-another. You're strongly encouraged to ham up the roleplaying of their bickering and complaining about their ailments, as if they've known each other for decades with various degrees of affection and irritation. So while this is still as linear as most recent adventures here, including some typically railroading and petty nonsense involving the greek gods, it is a serious adventure, and expects you to add the lighthearted humorous elements as players rather than being bombarded with jokes by the DM. If you're a fan of The Expendables or Bubba Ho-Tep it could well be fun for your group.</blockquote>

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