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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8586334" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 96: June 1994part 3/5Conjurings: Time for another bumper helping of spells submitted by clubs all over the world to fill out the middle and make this review longer than usual. Let's see where these fall on usability, balance and seriousness as usual. Animal Sanctuary keeps your squishy pets or familiars alive in combat. The cleric version is more powerful than the wizard one, even though they probably need it less, because they have healing afterwards. Aunty's Bath turns any body of water into a soapy autoscrubbing comfort zone, letting us know quickly that there are going to be some lighthearted utility spells in here that adventurers who only focus on the combat minmaxing will ignore. Know Weight is another self-explanatory utility effect that may seem low key, but could be very tactically useful or help solve an intractable puzzle. Just don't cast it on a sphere of annihilation if you want to keep your sanity. Talon's Waterproof could well save your spellbook or other crucial macguffin so it's another one pure combat monsters will ignore, and may well wind up wishing they hadn't. Jester's Jest ironically does the exact opposite, temporarily completely removing the target's sense of humour. Whether you use it to get troublemakers to pipe down and focus, or set people up to be the butt of the joke to everyone else is up to you. Projected Magnification lets you create a scaled up or down image of any object nearby. Very handy for both scientific and espionage purposes, as it has a large enough range & AoE to count a building as an object, letting you spy inside from any angle and plan your route in advance. Talon's Skitmaster simultaneously makes you invisible and a bunch of illusionary creatures appear. It has some quirky limitations that mean it's not really that great for combat, but for a storytelling bard, it's a perfect tool to make what you're narrating real to the audience. Still, in a pinch I'm sure you can get some clever use out of it in dangerous situations as well.Talon's Soundmaster puts a bunch of sound effects in a little cube to be released when you press it's sides, supplementing the previous spell and giving you all manner of theatrical or comedic possibilities.Aryeric's Cloak of Protection is an AoE shield that not only boosts the whole party's saving throws, but also allows you to redirect damage that still gets through to the people most capable of taking it. That way, hopefully everyone'll survive the encounter to get healed rather than the much greater expense of raising. Bubble Breath is considerably less dangerous than Pink Dragon's similar effect, merely coating you in mildly hindering soapy slime when the bubbles hit you and pop. Not really worth a 4th level spell slot if you're expecting a serious fight. Fire Wake superheats your target's posterior, sending them running around screaming like Super Mario when he hits lava until someone dispels it or they run out of hit points. Another one that's not really competitive with corebook combat spells of the same level in terms of raw damage, but worth it for sheer humiliation value. Rastor's Magical Spy turns a brooch into a spy-eye. Another handy way to gather information, with some definite limitations that mean it isn't a miracle problem-solver, as you need to get it on the person of someone suitable to go where you want to spy, and most people will be paranoid about unexpected presents.Scapegoat makes everyone in the vicinity hate and attack one person. They get to save every round to snap out though, which puts this initially very powerful effect at 4e levels of weakness long-term. Bestow Enchantment is metamagic that turns a self only spell into a touch one. Another one that really rewards ingenuity and teamwork skills to get the most out of.Nemicron's Transference swaps a single physical property like weight, temperature at which they melt/boil, tensile strength, conductivity, etc between two inanimate objects. This is permanent, so repeated use by a patient wizard can abuse this in all sorts of creative ways to make technically nonmagical but fantastical items. Have fun driving the DM to despair with your exploits. Reflectorum Arcana is much more limited, giving you a magical shield that reflects a fairly limited subset of single target blasty spells. Like spells that let you resist a particular energy type, you're only going to memorise this if you're going up against a foe known to specialise in them. Sacremon's Acid Wit makes a magic mouth to follow someone around and abuse them, causing a mild debuff due to distraction. Really not worth a 5th level spell slot and should be several levels lower. Shadow Play is another idiosyncratic divination, getting the shadows in a room to replay what happened several hours ago. Handy but not an instant solution to most murder mysteries, given the vagueness of shadows in general. Salamander's Seismic Seisure is a weaker earthquake spell. That's one type of combat magic clerics actually do better. Shadow Speak adds auditory components to Shadow Play, making your detective work much easier again while still not breaking theme, which is important for specialist wizards who want to fill their bonus slots.Janga's Jewel trades one high level spell and a suitable jewel for a bunch of lower level divinations. Not sure if it's worth it overall, but a nice signature move for a specific wizard to show off with and use those other spells casually in a social situation without all the faff of casting them separately. Teleport Block, on the other hand, is the kind of thing that gets developed independently by lots of high level spellcasters. Ed came up with his own version over in Dragon, and I'm sure other people did too before it was finally incorporated into later edition's corebooks. Aranen's Divvinial Armor boosts HP & AC, but only for people wearing metal armor, so it's most useful if you have hirelings rather than just 1 PC of each class. Eldeth's Tranquility gives you disney princess level of friend to all animals aura. Ability to come up with spontaneous song & choreography not included, unfortunately.Spliffs Wonder Bubbles give each person caught in them a random minor buff or healing effect. Probably not as useful as just Blessing the whole party, but it looks cool. Gloomcloud makes a literal small raincloud appear above the victim's head. This obviously has a very negative effect on their mood, while encouraging cruel humour in those surrounding them. Once again there are much better combat effects at the same level, but that's not really the point. Hand of Fate makes the common Zakharan metaphor literal, making a massive blue hand appear to save your life in dangerous situations. If you're in combat and down to your last few hit points, being saved once probably won't turn the tide of battle, but for a cliffhanger situation it's the perfect safety net.</blockquote>

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