Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 233: September 1996


part 8/8


TSR Previews: The Forgotten Realms ploughs ahead getting ever more overfilled. Volo gets in yet more trouble by publishing a guide to all things magical. Trade secrets man. Becoming a wizard is actually pretty easy in D&D, but if everyone realizes that, we're in deep . We'll end up like Halruaa, which is the subject of one of the novels. Murder in Halruaa by Richard S Meyers. Pretending to be a wizard? Not a good idea. Unless you're a bard, in which case you can be even better than actual wizards at being mysterious and impressive to common people. Oh well. Ed Greenwood is also busy writing his own novels. This time, he focuses on Storm Silverhand, and some of the things from her past.

Dark sun gets into the perilous goodies business, with Psionic Artifacts of Athas. Be prepared when you handle these, because they'll touch your mind in return.

Planescape goes into more detail on the gods, in In Hallowed ground. Do you have what it takes to fight their proxies ..... or become one? Unlikely, given their current editorial policy.

Ravenloft takes the horror one step further. They've transmogrified you into a part animal in Markovia. They've utterly ed your mind in Dominiani's asylum. Now you're transformed into an undead monstrosity, and have to try and defeat, or at least escape from Death himself. And this is one where canonically, you fail, and the land remains ed in future supplements for years to come. Ouch. Truly metaplot taken to it's most horrifying extreme.

Dragonlance gets The Dragons by Doug Niles. New, far bigger, scarier dragons. The people of krynn can say oh , thankya no matter who wins their epic fight.

The generic stuff is no cakewalk either, with our second Beholder focussed module. Eye of doom reveals another plot. Well, with double charm rays, they can get control of lots of things should they be so inclined. Not all of them want to destroy everything.

And Spellfire gets another booster pack, focussed on things that lurk in the night. Well, it is october.


The current Clack: Allen has obviously been to Origins last month, because more than half this article is devoted to it. The history of the convention is first, including it's rocky recent past, and then he goes into the winners of this years Origins awards. TSR isn't doing too badly in the nominations, but White Wolf and WotC really stand out more. And Shadis takes best roleplaying magazine. Given that Dragon & Dungeon normally have a lockdown on that, that's particularly worrying for them.

Also interesting is some substantial Palladium drama. C J Carella has now struck out on his own, with Myrmidon Press. It seems like they were trying to maintain a relationship with Palladium, with talk of licensing out Rifts Manhunter, but that's gone south, and been cancelled. What happened this time? Has Kevin been making enemies and alienating people again. Still, we got Witchcraft out of the deal, so I'm certainly not complaining. The gaming world would be a duller place without them.


The articles are well above average quality this month, but the reviews are horrid, and the promotional ones are as annoying as ever. After having dropped minis and computer games last year, it now looks like the days of book and RPG reviews are numbered as well, with the size, rigor and objectivity making a real slide. So while their core competencies are better than they've been in a while, they are definitely getting more repetitive and self-centered. I suppose there are worse tradeoffs to make. But it does mean they'll run out of new things to say all the quicker if they don't revise their style regularly. So this leaves me with mixed feelings.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996


part 1/8


124 pages. Ahh yes, welcome once again to halloween season. Which isn't obvious from the cover painting, but the various blurbs (which once again look like someone new to a computer has been set loose with a bunch of fonts and filters and then plonked stuff wherever on the cover) make this very clear. They've still got so many submissions that they could probably run multiple months of this, but instead, they'll hopefully have managed to compress the best ones into a single issue. I do generally enjoy this month more than average, let's see if that's the case this year.


In this issue:


The wyrm's turn: This month's editorial is another attempt at recapturing Roger's old magic at telling stories. And once again I am forced to say it doesn't quite work, partly due to the short wordcount, and partly due to a lack of focus, jumping from one related topic to another just as it's starting to get warmed up. Beyond the basic realities of sales at the times they were helming the magazine, it's becoming very obvious why Dave Gross isn't as well remembered as Kim or Roger. He's just not very interesting as a writer. Which is a pain, because he's not even interestingly bad enough to rant about. I'm going to have to put up with this column being boring for several years more, until someone else takes over, aren't I.


D-Mail: Some commentary on the whole alternate history thing in Harry Turtledove's books. The developments do need to produce interesting plots, otherwise you won't get a book. If that means they don't make complete sense, so be it.

A letter from someone disturbed how true KotDT is to their group. You might want to do something about that. I suppose that's why it's popular. We're certainly not all serious epic producers.

A letter from someone who wants to become a writer and is wondering what classes to take. Creative writing is better than journalism if you want to write for RPG's, even if neither are brilliantly focussed upon it. But really, the main thing you need is creativity. Everything else is just polishing.

A letter complimenting them on doing both an article on magical fortifications and battering rams. Synergy! Yes, it does make a lot of sense to cover opposing topics in adjacent issues, doesn't it.

A familiar name writes in. Joe G Kushner! I know I've seen him around quite a bit in the forums. He gives brief comments on nearly every article in issue 232. Nice to see you. How did it feel to be here?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996


part 2/8


Nocturnal crusade: Time to start off with another batch of creepy magical items, it seems. Undead are pretty much contractually obliged to appear in every campaign world there's clerics, (yet more evidence of a godly conspiracy) so this stuff is applicable in any setting. Maybe they should make a setting without the standard monsters. Nahh. Wouldn't sell.

The Shroud of Sol's Embrace stores sunlight if left to bask in the day, so you can unleash it upon creatures of the darkness and fry their asses. It has some nice touches that make it more than just a deus ex machina, and force you to think carefully about when and where to use it. Fun.

Blood of the angered spirit detects undead and extraplanar thingies. It is rather a rigamarole to create though, and given these creatures aren't always very subtle in D&D land, it may well be more bother than it costs. Your call, I guess.

Bane of the Black Heart Javelins let you stake a vampire from a distance with ease, Buffy style. It does get consumed in the disintegration, so it's another one that'll need regular costly replacing if you're a full-time vampire hunter. Better charge the townsfolk for your heroism, so you can keep on doing it.

A Font of the Tortured Spirit (what, comic sans? ) lets you find out why a particular ghostie is hanging around being unsatisfied with the afterlife. Since people don't become ghosts if they die pleasantly, this may be a bit bad for the sanity. Another heavy price you have to pay to give the undead some peace.

Feast of Oblivion Philters lace your blood so any vampire who tries snacking off you is knocked out and at your mercy. The tables are very much turned, and you'd better have some restraints and sadistic ideas ready if you let them live.

Verses of Belneiranon cause any undead hearing them excruciating pain, but also take a toll on the user. Your standard weapons grade exorcism stuff then, as the possibility of you failing makes the fight more dramatic.

Chimes of Dark Need make vampires ravenously hungry to the point of stupidity. Unfortunately, they can also make living people exhibit cannibalistic tendencies as well. The monster hunters may become monsters themselves, which is always a nice irony. As with a regular chime of hunger, a good set of earplugs would be invaluable to a team planning on using this.

Reinhoff's Meerschaum protects you from undead as long as it's being smoked. This is awkward if you actually get into pitched combat, but should let you negotiate with a vampire without worrying about minding. I'll bet Elminster has one amongst his capacious collection.

Chalk of Barriers is another fairly normal superstitious one. Draw the line, they can't cross it. Make sure you make it an all-rounder, otherwise the might be able to squeeze through, especially if they're incorporeal.

Urns of Bound Souls let you get all ghostbusters on any incorporeal creature. Unless you have something else to put it in afterwards, this is only a temporary solution, but hey, it may well last longer than a human lifespan. Not your problem when some idiot unleashes a pissed off ghost a few thousand years later, and it makes a great story.

Eyes of the Hunter's Wisdom give you cryptic clues about the enemies you're facing. Whether they're useful to you before it's too late is still up to you, but once again seems likely to make for an interesting story. They're definitely valuing drama over pure competence in this collection, which means undead hunter's lives won't go smooth.

Harbingers of Darkness enchants a group of birds to seek out undead and generally hang around being noisy. This will unsettle both people, and the more intelligent undead, so it's another damn cool idea that won't solve all your problems by itself, but certainly helps. The good in this collection well outweighs the bad, as it should for a first article.


The draconomicon: A whole article full of templates, allowing you to make draconic versions of every kind of undead? Dragon skeletons, Dragon zombies, Dragon Ghouls, Dragon Wights, Dragon Wraiths, Dragon Mummies, Dragon Spectres and Dragon Vampires. Certainly don't mind if I do. Seems like two great tastes that would taste great together, and on top of that, it's another thing that cements the place of Templates as a good idea, ready to be made commonplace in the next edition. That's something I approve of rather a lot. Of course, in some respects, these templates actually make the dragons worse, particularly in the area of breath weapons and energy draining, but since that's the thing most likely to kill a party instantly, I doubt too many people will complain about that. After all, people want to be challenged but win eventually, not be wiped out if they lose initiative on the first round, or crippled despite technically winning. So this is also another example of rules progression, showing how they're gradually becoming more lenient upon players. All in all, an exceedingly interesting article indeed.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996


part 3/8


The book of souls: The Forgotten Realms has been detailing the spellbooks of it's wizards semi-regularly for ages, and Greyhawk has got in on the act a few times. Now it's Ravenloft's turn. Of course, this being Ravenloft, there's no free lunches. In fact, there's not even any new spells here, merely a rather extensive description of how owning this book will take you over and corrupt you, and how much of a nuisance it'll be to get rid of. You know, that's both stereotypical and not very tempting. You have to mix both good and bad aspects if you want people to not drop you first chance they get. I don't really feel this works for me. You aren't giving me a reason to care before you screw me over. So I shall shrug and ignore you. And the drama llama will have to go hungry.


Crypt rangers and defenders: A couple of undead focussed ranger kits continues the theme. Not the ones hinted at in the complete ranger's handbook though, as the writer disagrees with Rick's ideas of what rangers should be allowed to do. Interesting. Always amusing to see disagreements amongst writers for the magazine.

Crypt Rangers are one of those specialist hunter kits that get substantial concrete mechanical benefits, for no drawback other than spurious social hindrances and a woe is me, the challenges I have to face are so much harder than other adventurers sob story. Those are getting increasingly common in the magazine, and I'm really not convinced. We all have challenges, and at least you have good odds of being able to pick your fights and be well prepared against them. I'd say you're in a pretty good position really.

Crypt Defenders are rather less player-friendly, as they're one of those kits that are bound to protect a certain area, and all their benefits only apply in their home turf. They're still all mechanical benefits for purely roleplaying hinderances though, which you know I rather disapprove of. So this is a second failure of an article in quick succession.


Undead again: Another chance for a tie-in article. Making undead playable has been proving rather profitable for White Wolf for several years now. Now TSR has finally played catch-up, albeit in a rather odd way, bundling the rules for undead PC's with some rather large and awkward metaplot events. And here's a few more undead types given PC writeups, somewhat more obscure than the ones in the main book. After all, D&D has produced a lot of weird varieties of undead over the years. Who's to say you shouldn't get to play them?

Boneless are one of the most disturbing and tragic undead types out there. It'd take a fairly open-minded person to accept that happening to your character. But hey, you get to ooze through letterboxes and grapple people like a snake. If you're going to be a monster, why not go the whole hog? And if you happen to meet your skeleton, which has also been reanimated into undead, you have the perfect setup for a really weird buddy/evil twin scenario. So many ways that could play out, many awkward or comical.

Crawling Claws as PC's? You can finally play Thing?! AWESOME!!!! Obviously they have pretty substantial limitations in what they can do, but still, this is definitely a squee moment for me, and quite possibly Ed Greenwood as well. Since they can climb well, move fast and fit in all sorts of places a normal character can't, they can definitely make a valuable and unique addition to a team. And when they can't, just pop them in your pocket, and they'll be no encumbrance at all.

Penanggalan got a whole article to themselves last year, so I'm not too surprised to see them turning up here. They're in a rather odd position, as they're basically normal during the day, and then off trying to satisfy their hungers in the nighttime. It's actually a pretty awkward lifestyle, and you really have to work to keep your problems a secret. Still, at least you have that option, unlike the other ones detailed here. All in all, this seems pretty damn cool. I definitely like this article, even if I'm not fond of the hassle it took to get here.

 

[Orius]

Undead are pretty much contractually obliged to appear in every campaign world there's clerics, (yet more evidence of a godly conspiracy) so this stuff is applicable in any setting.

Now THAT'S interesting. D&D often uses the Gods Need Prayer Badly trope. Now what if that god of light guy who's always harping on about how eeeevviiiil the undead are is actually the one creating them to get people to worship him? He sets up a zombie plague, then sends his clerics in. They say they'll turn the brain munchers if the people worship their god. But it's really all just a racket so the god can get what he wants -- prayers.

Chimes of Dark Need make vampires ravenously hungry to the point of stupidity. Unfortunately, they can also make living people exhibit cannibalistic tendencies as well. The monster hunters may become monsters themselves, which is always a nice irony. As with a regular chime of hunger, a good set of earplugs would be invaluable to a team planning on using this.

If you want to get real nasty (and you've got a few levels to burn), you could mix this with the Feast of Oblivion Philters from above. Make them feed on you, and slip 'em a mickey. Then stake 'em nice and slow.

 

[jonesy]

Undead are pretty much contractually obliged to appear in every campaign world there's clerics, (yet more evidence of a godly conspiracy) so this stuff is applicable in any setting. Maybe they should make a setting without the standard monsters.

Not just settings with clerics.

Certain periods of Dragonlance history had no clerics, and we still got the undead roaming around.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996


part 4/8


Wyrms of the north: Ahh yes, a dracolich for halloween. How very appropriate of Ed. An exceedingly scary one that's modified itself further, so it has half a dozen breath weapons, magical abilities that match up to a decent archmage, and the usual array of minions and traps built up through several centuries of planning and paranoia. This really is not the kind of creature you want to mess with, for even nuke it from orbit may well miss the phylactery, and then you'll definitely be having nasty repercussions down the line. This is a particularly highly concentrated article, repurposing and modifying stuff left, right and centre, providing a decent amount of new stuff as well, and showing once again that no-one does high level challenges like Ed, particularly pre 3e where you don't have to worry about obvious EL mathematics. And the ability to melt someone's bones and turn them into a vaguely humanoid ooze is worth the price of admission alone. He's brought more than enough awesome here, including plenty of bits which could be plundered and used individually, to overcome my misgivings about the overall format of the series.


Network news: Another non-surprise, the RPGA column is devoted to what happened at Gen Con. As the busiest time of the year, that's when they really justify their existence. And good god were they busy this year. Over 900 tables over the course of the weekend, with more than 90 playing at once at the peak point?! That's pretty impressive. Once again, it seems that despite the troubles in the company as a whole, organised play is still thriving and even building new avenues for itself. And that means not only supporting the big events, but the smaller ones as well, for that's how you build up a playerbase, especially if you're doing the persistent world thing where people want to play frequently so they can competitively advance their characters. So this is another pretty positive column that may even get a few people to join in itself. That's definitely worth a page of the magazine a month to them.


Artifacts of athas: Time for another setting specific bazaar. Yet another example of how the player appetite for crunch is seemingly neverending, and they're working harder to satisfy it these days. Which given the drop in readership, may be working, but there you go. Giving people everything they want means they don't need you anymore. It's like seduction really. You always make sure you have something more to offer …… maybe, if they're extra good; if you want them to keep coming back.

The Chatkcha of the Great One is a +5 vorpal weapon that lets you summon and command thri-kreen. Ironically, when it takes control of you, it makes you preach a message of peace and love. Well, peace needs to be enforced with a sharp blade, especially when you're proselytising to giant carnivorous insects.

The Crown of the Dwarven Kings is a second race focussed artifact, able to summon and command dwarves, but unable to harm them without being feebleminded. So you're pretty much obligated to be a decent king if you have this. Of course, you could always be political and give people you don't like the harder and more unpleasant jobs, as that's not against the rules. I mean, that's practically expected of a ruler.

The Dragonskin is an artifact that raises some very interesting questions, given how dragons are created on Athas, and how rare they are. It's not really powerful enough to justify the rigamarole of it's creation though, and leaves it's wearer completely vulnerable to psionics. On Athas, that's a pretty hefty hindrance. In fact, it's probably better for it's noncombat benefits than it's melee ones.

The Eye of Psurlon goes back to the race-focussed theme. It is pretty cool though. 80% discount on psionics and the ability to create a null magic zone a mile in diameter? That's some impressive scale discounts. You'll be able to punch well above your weight, and the curse is pretty easy to bypass. You could have a long and interesting career with this on if you don't get careless.

The Rvk'choel is a rather gross looking organic artifact from the blue age that protects you from other life-shaped stuff and gives you regeneration, but takes over your body while you're asleep. Better get into bondage then, like an infected werewolf, if you want to keep your friends alive. You know, it's hard to see a downside to that. Despite a tendency towards underpoweredness, this collection have in general been a pretty interesting read, with distinctive powers, not too onerous curses, and plenty of setting integration. You don't have to worry about ruining the whole game if you introduce one.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996


part 5/8


Forum: Roni Saari has managed to run a magic poor AD&D game and still have fun. It was pretty dramatic actually, without magical healing, everyone was much more cautious. Guess it can work after all, even if the odds are against it.

Jochen M. Kaiser thinks that thieves shouldn't be trying to be straightforward combatants, but taking advantage of their stealth and backstabbing powers. That more than compensates for their relatively low THAC0 and armour abilities. Nice theory, anyway. You know how players hate it when one person hogs the limelight for a whole scene.

Lucas Ashlar Lee is another one of those people who supports magic being rare enough to feel magical. The Forgotten Realms just doesn't do it for him, with an archmage in every city.

Robert Armstrong gives his alternate rules for axe damage. Once again I say huh. Go go pedant lawyers. Hyper nerdy pedant lawyers.

Ian Bloomberg becomes our third Emailing contributor. Still not common, but gathering pace. He brings up the old canard about spellbooks being ridiculously thick and heavy for their page count. Yawn. Been through this before. Your topic is not keeping pace with it's delivery.

Martin Scutt agrees with a whole bunch of other forumites. He's eliminated level limits and dual-classing for some time and it hasn't caused any problems. He's also cut down on magical items quite a bit, and that has helped his campaign carry on in the long-term. Remember, you can go back without completely resetting everything.


The dragon's bestiary: We finished Tom Moldvay's examination of all the undead types last year. So it's back to upgrading basic skeletons and zombies, as he did back in 1988. Necrosurgery is a fun little business, and as any Tzimisce will tell you, the human form is a highly malleable. While your imagination might not actually be the limit, with patience and raw materials, you can do a hell of a lot. And won't your enemies be happy to know they're being killed by creatures you spent hours customising, rather than fresh from the grave mass raised zombies.

Spike skeletons are not only hedgehogised, but have two other tricks added on that'll really make you regret hitting them close up. As ever, cover and missile weapons really will help.

Acid Zombies are another one that's pretty self explanatory. Do not touch is once again the defining mantra. Still, at least you're unlikely to get diseased as well from this one.

Dust Skeletons go poof when you hit them, but this is still not a good idea, as said dust is poisonous. Get your cleric to use his sling to deal with this one.

Quick Zombies are also pretty obvious, moving at double human speed tirelessly. These should keep the enemy busy while the slower creations mentioned above have time to close. See the advantage of tactics. Several different creatures can triumph where hordes of one couldn't.

Absorbing Zombies deal with the spellcasters, absorbing their attacks and turning them back. The writer is really thinking about these guys as a team, not just as individual monsters. All I need to do is create said boss.

Defiling Skeletons are easily the scariest of these guys, with their lovely ability to rejuvenate via destruction of all the plant life around. They have a nicely flavourful weakness too. Even though it says they're dark sun only, I'd have no hesitation transplanting them elsewhere.


Tales of the fifth age: Firstborn by Dave Gross. Ah yes, this is where Dragonspawn start. As if Draconians weren't trouble enough. Now we have to deal with humans mutated into humanoid draconic hybrids as well. Which of course means the opportunity for AAAAAAAAAAAAAngst, as people become monsters, and have to deal with that fact. Not that Dragonlance has ever been short of angst. They were doing it before White Wolf was an inkdrop in the Wieck brother's pens. But this does feel like a conscious attempt to tap into the same vein of drama. An assassin gets transformed into a monster, and ironically winds up becoming a better person for it, or at least, turning his talents on those who truly deserve it instead of working for pay like before. We've seen that story before, and I don't doubt we'll see it again. And this makes them feel like they're now following trends instead of making them, as with many of the 5th age rules quirks. This certainly isn't terrible, but it doesn't stand out either. I am forced to say meh.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996


part 6/8


The role of books is back. Or are the two different book columns competing? I guess I'll have to keep reading and see what happens. More drama, I guess. I suppose it keeps things interesting even if the individual reviews aren't.

A breach in the watershed by Douglas Niles is an attempt by our well-established TSR pulp guy to do his own world (published by another company.) This doesn't get a particularly positive review. The fantastical creatures are renamed, but not given anything to really distinguish them otherwise, and there's some awkward plot holes. I guess that's the trouble with his sources. They don't hold up to close examination, and if that's what you learn from………

Palace by Katherine Kerr & Martin Kreighbaum removes the punk from cyber and adds a healthy dose of space opera instead. The two work together to build a complicated plot and setting that takes work to untangle, but is worth it if you do. There's always something about being able to bounce ideas off people that lets you build things up more quickly, as long as both sides are engaged and enjoying what they do.

Glenraven by Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle is another collaboration that uses both writer's strengths to full advantage. Set in an imaginary country on the border between France and Italy, it takes it's protagonists out of the comfort zones, and in the process of dealing with supernatural stuff, they also manage to get over their romantic troubles. Who says fantasy doesn't appeal to women. No-one these days, that's for sure, with paranormal romance overtaking other fantasy no trouble.

Reign of shadows by Deborah Chester sees John primarily complaining about sequelitus in modern novel writing. They're so blatantly writing this as a doorstopper. Not that that is inherently bad, but when the book cuts of midway through the plot, without even a decent cliffhanger to get your appetite up, he gets tetchy. The way it splits up focus between the characters in different chapters also isn't great. If you'd split things apart, and given each perspective it's own book, each plot could have got farther and been resolved more satisfactorily. But no, gotta drip-feed the damn stuff until we decide it's not worth wasting our money on. Good thing he probably gets comp copies anyway.

Murder in Tarsis by John Maddox Roberts gets ripped apart for being completely inconsistent with Krynn's established setting, history and society. It's not terrible in it's own right, but it reads like the author was paying no attention to continuity, and just shoehorned in an already written story where it doesn't really fit and did a search and replace on the names. The TSR editors should never have let this one get published. Ouch and ouch again. See, this is why I prefer proper reviews, You get gems of vitriol like this to add variety to proceedings. Don't go away too soon.


Dragon Dice: After a brief break, it's time for the 5th new race to be introduced in a kicker pack. Swamp Stalkers! Combining the elements of water and death, they'll drag you to a watery grave and then mutate your body into another one of them. They're sold here as possibly the best all-round units yet, which is a bit worrying. Either they're introducing power creep, or they're lying and saying they are to get more sales. Either way, I don't particularly approve, despite the number of cool tricks they try to sell them to us with. Still, it does seem they're also paying attention to the setting behind the game. That's interesting and worthy of note. And it's not as if they're totally devoid of weak spots. Kill their leaders, they can't replace them nearly as easily as other sides. And they have to stay on the offensive, which means you may be able to bait them into a trap. Whether that balances them out though? Anyone want to share actual play experiences?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996


part 7/8


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Horrifying magical items to fit the theme. Actually, we haven't had too many of those, as the writers generally prefer to concentrate on the monsters. And of course, since they may be icky or of dubious morality, you have another excuse to give the enemy cool stuff that the PC's can't profit from. Poor PC's just can't get a break these days.

Amulets of the undead let undead find other undead, like a necrotic dating service. This is of course useless to you, unless you become a lich or vampire.

Blackfire wands are so-so zappy things that channel negative energy. Still, at least they don't require regular recharging. Undead always forget that kind of thing, not needing regular food and sleep and all.

Bonebriar amulets let you grow spikes from your bones. This is of course generally lethal to living things, but makes a nice grappling buff for undead. Never trust the obvious treasure in an undead dungeon.

Brooches of turning resistance are pretty self-explanatory. What use is your holy symbol now, fool?

Gauntlets of aura suppression let liches grope you without paralyzing you. Course, unless they're using other shapeshifting as well, this will still be a shudder inducing experience.

Memory globes let you store memories you no longer want. Why you would want to do such a thing is up to you. Liches tend to use it to get rid of lingering shreds of humanity, which is rather silly really. Vampires struggle so hard to hold onto it and you throw it away. No appreciation of true value.

A Nightmare harness lets you summon said demonic horse to ride. This isn't undead specific, unlike most of the items here, but nonevil characters will still have a hard time controlling the blasted thing.

Potions of yellow mold distillate are genius and gross, a truly horrible way to die that also endangers everyone around the drinker. Poison seems thoroughly mundane by comparison. Muahahaha

A Staff of the Flesh lets you steal the flesh of others and use it to temporarily rejuvenate your withered form. Another gross way to die and effect that isn't very useful to living characters. My, this is an evil bit of writing.


Sage advice: What happens if bob Holds joe and sam puts a ring of free action on his hand ( Nthing, It's too ;ate. He's already spoken for. )

Does the hat of difference let you be a class nornally forbidden to your race (yes. This may still be a problem. )

How do you tell if a material component is used up (it is unless it specifically says it isn't. In soviet TSR, guilty until proven innocent. )

Please clarify the rules for scrying cheacks (add the odds from intelligence and level tohether, then you'll have a decent chance.)

Please explain players option unarmed combat again. (yay, Skip gets to eat up page count again. Skip gets paid by the word, so that's very important when they keep cutting skip's rates. Blah blah blah, lotsa tables, blah blah blah mastery, grand mastery, extra padding.)

Can you use a wish in an antimagic shell (no. If there's no magic there, then the most powerfullest spell in the game certainly isn't going to work)

You don't do your research properly. You give answers without consulting all the books. (The books are not official. Skip is! Skip gives the answers, not the complete book of supertwinked mary sues. I'ma cap yo ass. fft: Crap. Skip can't even afford new bullets anymore. Uhm. Retroactive april fool. :runs: )


No SASE ogre has been replaced by a no SASE dragon. How the hell are they affording that? I am very suspicious.

KotDT parodies real game designer conflicts. Swordplay reveals how dull it is siting in a 10x10 room waiting for adventurers. That pie has to last you an eternity. Dragonmirth goes back to the classic gags. Puns and movie references. What is sweeter in life? Floyd goes from crap to exceedingly powerful. But he doesn't know it yet. That's not a good idea.