Let's read the entire run
- Thread starter (un)reason
- Start date
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997
part 2/8
Wild at heart: Well, at least it looks like we're getting a quite substantial themed section this month, even if it is on a repeated topic. Time to get close to nature again again again again. Here's a selection of nature related kits suitable for all classes. Ecofroofery! It's fun for the whole family! Not enough things you can say that about really.
Ferals are warriors bonded with animal spirits. Oh, like we've never seen that before. Their benefits and penalties are also completely unsurprising. Basic animal specific abilities, eventual shapeshifting, temper control issues and excessive respect for their totem animal. Yawn.
Greenfellows are rather more interesting. What happens to the kids swapped for changelings and raised by faeries? If they take a roguish path, and many do, they'll get this selection of benefits and penalties. If anyone can understand them and play them at their own games, it's these guys. Plus there's plenty of opportunities for roleplaying fun as they discover the human world as well. Ha. I suspect people wanting a SERIOUS game may object.
Stridesmen are another potentially irritating kit for their tendency to just keep walking, and trust that if they turn up somewhere, they're not lost, they're exactly where their god planned them to be. They also need less rest than normal people, so they'll also be annoyingly energetic, wanting to press on when the rest of the team are tired and cranky. Mechanically, they're ok, but I can once again see this fostering party conflict. Maybe if they use their spells to buff the rest of the party they'll be able to keep up.
Merlanes are wizards that specialise in genetic engineering. Finally, someone's taking responsibility for all the weird stuff you find in dungeons. And you can become one of them, with 8 new spells which allow you to transform and hybridise to substantial degrees, trace the ancestry of created creatures, and if needed, make them devolve back into their base form. I believe that's sufficiently awesome to redeem this otherwise somewhat sketchy article. Want want want!
Man's best friend: Doggies! Man's best friend, supposedly, although I've always preferred cats. They've had a few appearances in the magazine (issues 67, 94, 103, 117) but maybe not as much as you'd expect given their real world popularity and potential usefulness in dungeoneering. After all, they get bred for all sorts of applications in reality, including digging, hunting, tracking and guarding; that would be useful for a dungeon explorer. They'd be more versatile and less trouble than mules, that's for sure. Here's an attempt to mechanically codify how much they can learn, and how long it takes to teach them. I have no idea how true to life this is, but it does seem quite solid mechanically, even if it won't really allow your companions to scale up with you as you face challenges together. I suppose they're just not that analytical and gamist yet. In any case, it's a good reminder that there's stuff in the players handbook that will not only be helpful, but also give you a ton of roleplaying hooks if you drop a little money on it. That you'll probably have to deal with the tragedy of it being killed a few levels later will just provide more roleplaying hooks.
On a waterless sea: Naval combat got an article a mere 5 issues ago. Now it's time for boating on Athas to get a good examination, with this solid 8 page look at silt skimmers. These take a good deal more effort to keep up and going, because silt varies widely in density and doesn't handle like water at all. Fortunately, they have psionics to help them out. Still, that does mean they'll have to trade navigators, or only go for short periods of time each day. So once again this demonstrates that life finds a way, but you certainly don't have things easy on Athas. (thongs, on the other hand, are not hard to come by if you take the artwork as canon
) And a DM can make getting somewhere a pretty significant part of the adventure without resorting to fiat. With plenty of different tricks and options, I find this article both useful and likable. Even if you aren't using Dark Sun, you may want to make your world work differently from the norm, and this is the kind of thing that'll help you get ideas for implementing that.
part 2/8
Wild at heart: Well, at least it looks like we're getting a quite substantial themed section this month, even if it is on a repeated topic. Time to get close to nature again again again again. Here's a selection of nature related kits suitable for all classes. Ecofroofery! It's fun for the whole family! Not enough things you can say that about really.
Ferals are warriors bonded with animal spirits. Oh, like we've never seen that before. Their benefits and penalties are also completely unsurprising. Basic animal specific abilities, eventual shapeshifting, temper control issues and excessive respect for their totem animal. Yawn.
Greenfellows are rather more interesting. What happens to the kids swapped for changelings and raised by faeries? If they take a roguish path, and many do, they'll get this selection of benefits and penalties. If anyone can understand them and play them at their own games, it's these guys. Plus there's plenty of opportunities for roleplaying fun as they discover the human world as well. Ha. I suspect people wanting a SERIOUS game may object.
Stridesmen are another potentially irritating kit for their tendency to just keep walking, and trust that if they turn up somewhere, they're not lost, they're exactly where their god planned them to be. They also need less rest than normal people, so they'll also be annoyingly energetic, wanting to press on when the rest of the team are tired and cranky. Mechanically, they're ok, but I can once again see this fostering party conflict. Maybe if they use their spells to buff the rest of the party they'll be able to keep up.
Merlanes are wizards that specialise in genetic engineering. Finally, someone's taking responsibility for all the weird stuff you find in dungeons. And you can become one of them, with 8 new spells which allow you to transform and hybridise to substantial degrees, trace the ancestry of created creatures, and if needed, make them devolve back into their base form. I believe that's sufficiently awesome to redeem this otherwise somewhat sketchy article. Want want want!
Man's best friend: Doggies! Man's best friend, supposedly, although I've always preferred cats. They've had a few appearances in the magazine (issues 67, 94, 103, 117) but maybe not as much as you'd expect given their real world popularity and potential usefulness in dungeoneering. After all, they get bred for all sorts of applications in reality, including digging, hunting, tracking and guarding; that would be useful for a dungeon explorer. They'd be more versatile and less trouble than mules, that's for sure. Here's an attempt to mechanically codify how much they can learn, and how long it takes to teach them. I have no idea how true to life this is, but it does seem quite solid mechanically, even if it won't really allow your companions to scale up with you as you face challenges together. I suppose they're just not that analytical and gamist yet. In any case, it's a good reminder that there's stuff in the players handbook that will not only be helpful, but also give you a ton of roleplaying hooks if you drop a little money on it. That you'll probably have to deal with the tragedy of it being killed a few levels later will just provide more roleplaying hooks.
On a waterless sea: Naval combat got an article a mere 5 issues ago. Now it's time for boating on Athas to get a good examination, with this solid 8 page look at silt skimmers. These take a good deal more effort to keep up and going, because silt varies widely in density and doesn't handle like water at all. Fortunately, they have psionics to help them out. Still, that does mean they'll have to trade navigators, or only go for short periods of time each day. So once again this demonstrates that life finds a way, but you certainly don't have things easy on Athas. (thongs, on the other hand, are not hard to come by if you take the artwork as canon
) And a DM can make getting somewhere a pretty significant part of the adventure without resorting to fiat. With plenty of different tricks and options, I find this article both useful and likable. Even if you aren't using Dark Sun, you may want to make your world work differently from the norm, and this is the kind of thing that'll help you get ideas for implementing that.
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Orius
Unrepentant DM Supremacist
I could have sworn they tapered off during the late 2e issues and into the earliest 3e ones. Which makes their reappearance during the Paizo run kind of amusing too. I don't really feel like checking my issues right now though. The only issue I have from during Paizo's run is #315, and there was a lot of 3rd party d20 ads running in that one, so I can't really comment on if they did reappear.
LordVyreth
First Post
I don't know about anyone else, but I remember being completely shocked at TSR's bankruptcy and buyout by WotC. Sure, by going over these recaps, the writing was on the wall with the obviously doomed Dragon Dice, nearly infinite settings, Spellfire totally failing to catch up to Magic, etc. But to just some high school fan, it was like watching a god topple. And if I remember right, Marvel's bankruptcy was just around this time as well. That wasn't a good pattern. Does anyone else remember how they reacted?
Orius
Unrepentant DM Supremacist
Me? I didn't know anything was wrong until April, this was before I had first gone online, so no news that way. All I knew is that some stuff that was supposed to be released in early 97 wasn't hitting the stores, then I finally read about the problems in a CCG magazine IIRC. I thought it wasn't good, and WotC would be bad for the company, but the buyout was at the time very good for the company.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997
part 3/8
Wyrms of the north: Ed once again shows off like crazy in demonstrating his talents with creating high level creatures and their survival strategies in a big, complicated and dangerous world. Curiously, the method this dragon has adopted is almost exactly the inverse of Liches one. While they hide their soul in an item, keeping them safe and able to possess a new body as long as the item remains safe, he instead hides his body away, and sends his awareness hopping from item to item, mostly swords. This is far less conspicuous than having a great wyrm dragon wandering about the place, and allows him to observe adventures easily and help out if needed by pretending to be just an intelligent magical item. Now that does sound like a fun life, especially when you're old and patient enough to snooze through the walky and sleepy bits between stuff happening. He's seeking a longer-term method of life extension, but hasn't got there yet, and being a dragon, isn't in a great hurry. So this is one creature that could easily be encountered at low levels, and repeatedly throughout a parties career without their knowing, and the plot hooks contained in this article are similarly suited for long-term pursuit and being used independently. And the new spells are really cool. It feels almost redundant to say how awesome he is again at this point, but as long as he's still got it, I'll have to keep on praising him.
Hidden talents: Oh dear. Another case of people instantly trying to move the Dragonlance 5th age system away from being highly abstracted, this time by adding a skill system. They just can't let go, can they. We had tons of hassle with this in AD&D as well, and many people still find the game faster and more fun if you just ignore the proficiency system entirely. Still, I can't see this slowing the system down much, as the system is insufficiently granular to model levels of skill beyond trained and untrained, so all it does is give you a tiebreaker where the skills you have would be appropriate. The whole mechanical details bit is sorted within half a page, and then the rest is just a rather too long and dull list of skills which again, seems to be trying to put it's simulationism in a very narrativist game. So this article is counterproductive and filled with fail on almost every level. - it doesn't improve the game, it's not faithful to it's original intent despite being by one of the official writers, it doesn't promote it very well, it's not pleasant to read, and it illustrates how problematic it is trying to add new stuff onto a rules light game in general, which means it is going to be hard for the magazine to give it regular coverage. I'm completely boggled at just how bad this is. I'm not even going to laugh. I'm just going to point and sneer.
The dragon's bestiary: Yet another previously covered topic gets revisited with snakes getting another turn on the merry go round (see issue 115, among others.) This is a bit tiresome, and doesn't even have the numbers or ecological stuff of the previous. Yeah, things are really going to crap around here.
Bushmaster still sounds like a bad joke, all these years later. Damn you, and your forked tongued ways. No cunning linguist is a bad cunning linguist! [/cartman] Keep your horny tail spikes away from me.
Fer-de-lance is one I haven't seen before, so it's not all bad. They have much more realisticly applied poison than the corebook snakes, which is interesting to see. Guess this is good for something after all.
Gaboon are another rehashed one. Aside from the more detailed venom effects, they're pretty similar to last time. If you're hit by this one, you're in trouble even if you make your save. Ahh, the joys of clerics. Doing what modern medicine still can't.
Black mamba are another very familiar and already covered name. They hit hard and fast, with cumulative poison effects. Just what you need.
Boomslang are another one with a comical name, but plenty of deadliness. Remember, if it's not aggressive, you don't need to fight it. How hard a lesson is that to take in?
Cobras are of course the venom spitters. Seen them before plenty as well.
Gila monsters take us beyond snakes, to poisonous legged reptiles. They may be tiny, but you don't want one of these attached to your finger. Once again, these are converted completely straight, and aren't that interesting.
Rough-skinned newts have poisonous skins, making having them for dinner a dubious prospect. Wear gloves when handling.
Poisonous frogs also have unpleasant effects to touch. Wear gloves. Hell, wear a whole body suit in the jungle. It's safer that way, even if it will make the heat even more stifling.
Neotropical toads are also pretty boring. Man, this has been a waste of time and a half. Next!
part 3/8
Wyrms of the north: Ed once again shows off like crazy in demonstrating his talents with creating high level creatures and their survival strategies in a big, complicated and dangerous world. Curiously, the method this dragon has adopted is almost exactly the inverse of Liches one. While they hide their soul in an item, keeping them safe and able to possess a new body as long as the item remains safe, he instead hides his body away, and sends his awareness hopping from item to item, mostly swords. This is far less conspicuous than having a great wyrm dragon wandering about the place, and allows him to observe adventures easily and help out if needed by pretending to be just an intelligent magical item. Now that does sound like a fun life, especially when you're old and patient enough to snooze through the walky and sleepy bits between stuff happening. He's seeking a longer-term method of life extension, but hasn't got there yet, and being a dragon, isn't in a great hurry. So this is one creature that could easily be encountered at low levels, and repeatedly throughout a parties career without their knowing, and the plot hooks contained in this article are similarly suited for long-term pursuit and being used independently. And the new spells are really cool. It feels almost redundant to say how awesome he is again at this point, but as long as he's still got it, I'll have to keep on praising him.
Hidden talents: Oh dear. Another case of people instantly trying to move the Dragonlance 5th age system away from being highly abstracted, this time by adding a skill system. They just can't let go, can they. We had tons of hassle with this in AD&D as well, and many people still find the game faster and more fun if you just ignore the proficiency system entirely. Still, I can't see this slowing the system down much, as the system is insufficiently granular to model levels of skill beyond trained and untrained, so all it does is give you a tiebreaker where the skills you have would be appropriate. The whole mechanical details bit is sorted within half a page, and then the rest is just a rather too long and dull list of skills which again, seems to be trying to put it's simulationism in a very narrativist game. So this article is counterproductive and filled with fail on almost every level. - it doesn't improve the game, it's not faithful to it's original intent despite being by one of the official writers, it doesn't promote it very well, it's not pleasant to read, and it illustrates how problematic it is trying to add new stuff onto a rules light game in general, which means it is going to be hard for the magazine to give it regular coverage. I'm completely boggled at just how bad this is. I'm not even going to laugh. I'm just going to point and sneer.
The dragon's bestiary: Yet another previously covered topic gets revisited with snakes getting another turn on the merry go round (see issue 115, among others.) This is a bit tiresome, and doesn't even have the numbers or ecological stuff of the previous. Yeah, things are really going to crap around here.
Bushmaster still sounds like a bad joke, all these years later. Damn you, and your forked tongued ways. No cunning linguist is a bad cunning linguist! [/cartman] Keep your horny tail spikes away from me.
Fer-de-lance is one I haven't seen before, so it's not all bad. They have much more realisticly applied poison than the corebook snakes, which is interesting to see. Guess this is good for something after all.
Gaboon are another rehashed one. Aside from the more detailed venom effects, they're pretty similar to last time. If you're hit by this one, you're in trouble even if you make your save. Ahh, the joys of clerics. Doing what modern medicine still can't.
Black mamba are another very familiar and already covered name. They hit hard and fast, with cumulative poison effects. Just what you need.
Boomslang are another one with a comical name, but plenty of deadliness. Remember, if it's not aggressive, you don't need to fight it. How hard a lesson is that to take in?
Cobras are of course the venom spitters. Seen them before plenty as well.
Gila monsters take us beyond snakes, to poisonous legged reptiles. They may be tiny, but you don't want one of these attached to your finger. Once again, these are converted completely straight, and aren't that interesting.
Rough-skinned newts have poisonous skins, making having them for dinner a dubious prospect. Wear gloves when handling.
Poisonous frogs also have unpleasant effects to touch. Wear gloves. Hell, wear a whole body suit in the jungle. It's safer that way, even if it will make the heat even more stifling.
Neotropical toads are also pretty boring. Man, this has been a waste of time and a half. Next!
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997
part 4/8
TSR Product line previews: Oh dear oh dear. 9 full pages of release schedules for the year. All of which is now late or cancelled. You really shouldn't have. No, really, you shouldn't have. It would make you look less of a mess if you'd bumped this entirely and pulled out a couple of extra articles from the slush pile instead. Now exactly how far you've let things slide is on full show to the world. Well, I suppose it's valuable for us anyway, and it means that despite any future attempts at whitewashing we can point at this and say yes, they were planning such and such products. Still, even if the takeover hadn't happened, this would be promotional filler that wouldn't particularly please me. It isn't a very comfortable feeling reading through this section.
Game wizards: Another outdated promotional article here. Coming this summer - Alternity! 4 years after their last attempt, here's another shot at creating a new system for sci-fi gaming. This time, they're staying rather closer to the AD&D system than previous attempts, although they are introducing a universal resolution mechanic and a setting that hits all the modern storygaming cliches. Gah. They're being trend followers instead of trendsetters again aren't they.
As with the 5th age stuff, I am left with a tremendous sense of cynicism about this new endeavour, albeit for different reasons. Wheras that felt like them trying to revive a property that still had some support, just not the right kind by wild experimentation, this feels like trying to follow the market rather than genuine creativity. And neither of these extremes is going to work out particularly well. Plus of course there's the fact that they've now missed their deadline. This once again reminds us how messy things have got around here. I look forward to seeing how they revise their plans and change things around in upcoming issues.
I'm a what?: Don't tell me we haven't already had an article expanding on Reincarnation?! Apparently not, aside from a few bits in last year's indian articles. And like Infravision and Alignment Tongues, it's been in the game from the start, and is perfect for a good examining. So I'm rather happy to see this. Figuring out what they can do in their new form, what prospects for advancement they have, and what obstacles they'll face is something many DM's wouldn't mind a little help upon. It is a little conservative on strength scores, but we know they won't fix the game's scaling until next edition. It also reinforces that this kind of death is still a fairly substantial blow, and the things you lose from being stuck in an animal form will probably outweigh the benefits. Still, plentiful reincarnation seems considerably less game-breaking than straight resurrection. I'm going to rate this one at slightly above average.
Campaign classics: An article on dogs, and an article on dog-people? Shoulda got a few more, and made a whole themed issue on canine stuff in general. Oh well, this is pretty great anyway. Bruce Heard revisits our old favourites, the lupins. And gives us more detail on them in a way that is both very interesting, and more than a little silly. Lupin versions of the dozens of real world dog breeds, complete with variant ability modifiers, level limits and racial abilities. Although it can't go into as much detail on each one, there's actually more options here than there are in the entire complete book of humanoids. You could easily make a whole party from these guys - in fact, if you wanted to do dogtanian & the three muskethounds, you could run a dog-people only campaign and have no trouble differentiating characters from all around the world by using the different breeds. Indeed, many of the special abilities specialised breeds get are very distinctive and idiosyncratic, far exceeding ordinary races in the way they distinguish themselves from one-another. Bruce has always been good at packing tons of information into a small package, and here he's really surpassed himself, with an article that's more useful than many full books, and would be a definite classic if anyone was still paying attention during this mess. This is one instance where I really wish Mystara hadn't died. The Realms needs competition like this to keep it sharp and adventurous.
part 4/8
TSR Product line previews: Oh dear oh dear. 9 full pages of release schedules for the year. All of which is now late or cancelled. You really shouldn't have. No, really, you shouldn't have. It would make you look less of a mess if you'd bumped this entirely and pulled out a couple of extra articles from the slush pile instead. Now exactly how far you've let things slide is on full show to the world. Well, I suppose it's valuable for us anyway, and it means that despite any future attempts at whitewashing we can point at this and say yes, they were planning such and such products. Still, even if the takeover hadn't happened, this would be promotional filler that wouldn't particularly please me. It isn't a very comfortable feeling reading through this section.
Game wizards: Another outdated promotional article here. Coming this summer - Alternity! 4 years after their last attempt, here's another shot at creating a new system for sci-fi gaming. This time, they're staying rather closer to the AD&D system than previous attempts, although they are introducing a universal resolution mechanic and a setting that hits all the modern storygaming cliches. Gah. They're being trend followers instead of trendsetters again aren't they.
As with the 5th age stuff, I am left with a tremendous sense of cynicism about this new endeavour, albeit for different reasons. Wheras that felt like them trying to revive a property that still had some support, just not the right kind by wild experimentation, this feels like trying to follow the market rather than genuine creativity. And neither of these extremes is going to work out particularly well. Plus of course there's the fact that they've now missed their deadline. This once again reminds us how messy things have got around here. I look forward to seeing how they revise their plans and change things around in upcoming issues. I'm a what?: Don't tell me we haven't already had an article expanding on Reincarnation?! Apparently not, aside from a few bits in last year's indian articles. And like Infravision and Alignment Tongues, it's been in the game from the start, and is perfect for a good examining. So I'm rather happy to see this. Figuring out what they can do in their new form, what prospects for advancement they have, and what obstacles they'll face is something many DM's wouldn't mind a little help upon. It is a little conservative on strength scores, but we know they won't fix the game's scaling until next edition. It also reinforces that this kind of death is still a fairly substantial blow, and the things you lose from being stuck in an animal form will probably outweigh the benefits. Still, plentiful reincarnation seems considerably less game-breaking than straight resurrection. I'm going to rate this one at slightly above average.
Campaign classics: An article on dogs, and an article on dog-people? Shoulda got a few more, and made a whole themed issue on canine stuff in general. Oh well, this is pretty great anyway. Bruce Heard revisits our old favourites, the lupins. And gives us more detail on them in a way that is both very interesting, and more than a little silly. Lupin versions of the dozens of real world dog breeds, complete with variant ability modifiers, level limits and racial abilities. Although it can't go into as much detail on each one, there's actually more options here than there are in the entire complete book of humanoids. You could easily make a whole party from these guys - in fact, if you wanted to do dogtanian & the three muskethounds, you could run a dog-people only campaign and have no trouble differentiating characters from all around the world by using the different breeds. Indeed, many of the special abilities specialised breeds get are very distinctive and idiosyncratic, far exceeding ordinary races in the way they distinguish themselves from one-another. Bruce has always been good at packing tons of information into a small package, and here he's really surpassed himself, with an article that's more useful than many full books, and would be a definite classic if anyone was still paying attention during this mess. This is one instance where I really wish Mystara hadn't died. The Realms needs competition like this to keep it sharp and adventurous.
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(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997
part 5/8
Network news: Double promotional fail here this month. Not only is this promotional article for Winter Fantasy coming out long after it should have happened, but the convention itself actually got cancelled, as they note in a footnote. This of course means all the tournament games, particularly the multi-parters that were supposed to tell an ongoing story, have been thrown into disarray. This hurts their plans for Dragonlance: the 5th age the most, as after all, the system was on shaky ground right from the start, and having the company drop out underneath it certainly can't have helped persuading people to buy it. But really, everyone's a loser here. It goes to show how important TSR still was despite their accumulated debts, that their fall had immediate knock-on effects upon the rest of the roleplaying industry. Another thing I suspect I'll be seeing more of in the next few issues.
The triviathlon finally gets answers. Nice to see the new management hasn't forgotten about little things like this in the chaos.
Sage advice: I don't care how much you apologize. Skip ain't comin' back. Skip's enjoyin' skip's independence. Skip is still much in demand. There aint no way in hell skip is workin for she who must not be named again. What's that you say. She's gone for good? And you'll pay Skip better rates? Weeeeeeeeeeeell, ok then. What are you waiting for. Send in the clients.
Can you cast a flame strike sideways (no. It can't go through ceilings either.)
When you dispel magic, do you roll once, or per effect affected ( Once would be quicker, but for some reason, most people haven't realized that. )
Is casting animate dead inherently evil. (fraid so. Gods get squeamish about dead bodies wandering around too, and they will judge you for doing it, even if you don't actually do anything evil with the undead. )
What spells can pass through walls of force. (Anything that tries to go through rather than around it. Apart from illusions. They're fine)
Do walls of force stop infravision and divination spells (no, and usually)
If a wall of force's edge is infinitely thin, can you use it to cut stuff (No. Cut out the rules lawyering. You could hurt yourself, son. Leave it to the professionals. )
What happens when you turn a paladin. Why can't you turn clerics. (Same thing that happens to undead. They run off and cower somewhere. Clerics can't be turned because they're not as intrinsically holy. Sometimes too much faith can be a bad thing.
Can paladins and rangers cast from the All sphere. (no. The All is for all clerics, not everyone. Some alls are more all'ey than others. )
Do multi-classed clerics have to abide by their armour restrictions (yes. Their god will not give them a pass if they claim multiple commitments. )
Can you backstab, and then activate an item to become invisible again instantaneously (no. You've already used up your standard action for that round. )
Can you parry a two-handed sword with a rapier (sure. Abstract combat system, remember)
Can wild mages become dual-classed characters. (Skip recommends not. It can get messy. Skip specifically forbids wild mages/chronomancers, as that messed up the universe something fierce.)
part 5/8
Network news: Double promotional fail here this month. Not only is this promotional article for Winter Fantasy coming out long after it should have happened, but the convention itself actually got cancelled, as they note in a footnote. This of course means all the tournament games, particularly the multi-parters that were supposed to tell an ongoing story, have been thrown into disarray. This hurts their plans for Dragonlance: the 5th age the most, as after all, the system was on shaky ground right from the start, and having the company drop out underneath it certainly can't have helped persuading people to buy it. But really, everyone's a loser here. It goes to show how important TSR still was despite their accumulated debts, that their fall had immediate knock-on effects upon the rest of the roleplaying industry. Another thing I suspect I'll be seeing more of in the next few issues.
The triviathlon finally gets answers. Nice to see the new management hasn't forgotten about little things like this in the chaos.
Sage advice: I don't care how much you apologize. Skip ain't comin' back. Skip's enjoyin' skip's independence. Skip is still much in demand. There aint no way in hell skip is workin for she who must not be named again. What's that you say. She's gone for good? And you'll pay Skip better rates? Weeeeeeeeeeeell, ok then. What are you waiting for. Send in the clients.
Can you cast a flame strike sideways (no. It can't go through ceilings either.)
When you dispel magic, do you roll once, or per effect affected ( Once would be quicker, but for some reason, most people haven't realized that. )
Is casting animate dead inherently evil. (fraid so. Gods get squeamish about dead bodies wandering around too, and they will judge you for doing it, even if you don't actually do anything evil with the undead. )
What spells can pass through walls of force. (Anything that tries to go through rather than around it. Apart from illusions. They're fine)
Do walls of force stop infravision and divination spells (no, and usually)
If a wall of force's edge is infinitely thin, can you use it to cut stuff (No. Cut out the rules lawyering. You could hurt yourself, son. Leave it to the professionals. )
What happens when you turn a paladin. Why can't you turn clerics. (Same thing that happens to undead. They run off and cower somewhere. Clerics can't be turned because they're not as intrinsically holy. Sometimes too much faith can be a bad thing.
Can paladins and rangers cast from the All sphere. (no. The All is for all clerics, not everyone. Some alls are more all'ey than others. )
Do multi-classed clerics have to abide by their armour restrictions (yes. Their god will not give them a pass if they claim multiple commitments. )
Can you backstab, and then activate an item to become invisible again instantaneously (no. You've already used up your standard action for that round. )
Can you parry a two-handed sword with a rapier (sure. Abstract combat system, remember)
Can wild mages become dual-classed characters. (Skip recommends not. It can get messy. Skip specifically forbids wild mages/chronomancers, as that messed up the universe something fierce.)
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(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997
part 6/8
Bazaar of the Bizarre: No surprise that like last time, their holding pattern has resulted in a tried and tested topic being dug up for another go in this department. Magical bows and arrows. The last time they got specials on them was in 87 and 88, so I think this is probably about due, unlike the Armor ones just before the break. Let's see if any of the ideas are new.
Arachne arrows work as a high quality grappling hook. As usual, they're one use, so save them for when you really really need them.
Arrows of billaro wrap the person hit up with great brutality. Always a useful trick. Again, one use, so make sure you need it.
The arrow of endless archery gives you exactly that as long as it stays in it's quiver. It even has a failsafe to make sure you don't waste it accidentally. Very handy.
Arrows of pyros obviously add a load of fire damage to the hit. Some of them also provide an AoE fireball effect. Make sure you don't shoot them into melee with your friends, as usual.
An arrow of the thunderst(r?)ike go boom when they hit, providing an AoE hit. Another thing we saw a variant upon very recently.
Arrows of withering aren't permanently crippling like I'd hoped, just another one that inflicts tons of themed damage. Well, it keeps spellcasters from totally dominating the artillery role.
Diamond tipped arrows hurt a lot, but are very expensive. Unusually for magic arrows, they're sometimes reusable if you can recover them. Good luck with that.
Ruby-tipped arrows teleport the person hit home. This can of course be useful whether you target friends or foes, and definitely deserves thinking about before use. Very interesting idea I'd like to see used cleverly in a book.
Emerald-tipped arrows are another explosive hit triggered AoE attack. Really, they could come up with endless variants on this by putting different spells into the equation.
Gnimshan oil lets you enhance rather more arrows with burning death. Honestly, have these people never heard of mundane flaming oil? That'd be cheaper and almost as effective.
The bow of Ehlonna has the best aspects of several bow types, plus a few more benefits. Not very impressive, but just generally useful.
Duell's iron bow folds up into a tiny size for easy carrying. Another trick that can be applied to nearly any item type, and I think already has. This is one I can't work up much enthusiasm for.
KotDT suffer from overattachment to their characters. Dragonmirth makes another Marilyn Monroe joke in quick succession. Swordplay starts playing a game within the game. A whole host of crossovers make cameos in Floyd. Growf.
Rifts has a checklist of their release schedule for that year. How many of these were late as well?
part 6/8
Bazaar of the Bizarre: No surprise that like last time, their holding pattern has resulted in a tried and tested topic being dug up for another go in this department. Magical bows and arrows. The last time they got specials on them was in 87 and 88, so I think this is probably about due, unlike the Armor ones just before the break. Let's see if any of the ideas are new.
Arachne arrows work as a high quality grappling hook. As usual, they're one use, so save them for when you really really need them.
Arrows of billaro wrap the person hit up with great brutality. Always a useful trick. Again, one use, so make sure you need it.
The arrow of endless archery gives you exactly that as long as it stays in it's quiver. It even has a failsafe to make sure you don't waste it accidentally. Very handy.
Arrows of pyros obviously add a load of fire damage to the hit. Some of them also provide an AoE fireball effect. Make sure you don't shoot them into melee with your friends, as usual.
An arrow of the thunderst(r?)ike go boom when they hit, providing an AoE hit. Another thing we saw a variant upon very recently.
Arrows of withering aren't permanently crippling like I'd hoped, just another one that inflicts tons of themed damage. Well, it keeps spellcasters from totally dominating the artillery role.
Diamond tipped arrows hurt a lot, but are very expensive. Unusually for magic arrows, they're sometimes reusable if you can recover them. Good luck with that.
Ruby-tipped arrows teleport the person hit home. This can of course be useful whether you target friends or foes, and definitely deserves thinking about before use. Very interesting idea I'd like to see used cleverly in a book.
Emerald-tipped arrows are another explosive hit triggered AoE attack. Really, they could come up with endless variants on this by putting different spells into the equation.
Gnimshan oil lets you enhance rather more arrows with burning death. Honestly, have these people never heard of mundane flaming oil? That'd be cheaper and almost as effective.
The bow of Ehlonna has the best aspects of several bow types, plus a few more benefits. Not very impressive, but just generally useful.
Duell's iron bow folds up into a tiny size for easy carrying. Another trick that can be applied to nearly any item type, and I think already has. This is one I can't work up much enthusiasm for.
KotDT suffer from overattachment to their characters. Dragonmirth makes another Marilyn Monroe joke in quick succession. Swordplay starts playing a game within the game. A whole host of crossovers make cameos in Floyd. Growf.
Rifts has a checklist of their release schedule for that year. How many of these were late as well?
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997
part 7/8
Role-playing reviews: Dragonlance: the fifth age sees Rick think that diceless gaming is the wave of the future. Haha. Nice idea bro. Well, freeform gaming probably outnumbers all roleplaying games put together, but I'm sure most people would say that doesn't count. In any case, he certainly thinks it deserves more credit than it got, with both presentation and writing being top-notch, and the system pretty easy to understand. Just another victim of circumstance, another twist of fate.
Necromunda is another Games Workshop gateway drug, taking the warhammer 40k rules, simplifying them a little, and giving you a pretty cityscape for your minis to fight in. Rick finds this both amusing and impressive. His main complaints are that it can sometimes be tricky to calculate line-of sight, and that the board is large and takes so long to put together that assembling it for every game or storing it between them would be pains. Get a bigger house.
Blood dawn tries to bring white wolf style pretentiousness to postapocalyptic cyberpunk. Once again, the base system is simple, but combat fills things up with a ton of conditional modifiers of the sort that makes rick yawn, and the setting needs a few supplements to fill things out. Same old story. These things need a while to get going, that they might not get due to the buying public's fickleness.
TSR Previews: One of the bits rendered most laughable by the hiatus. I'm sure this is not only out of date, but pretty inaccurate, Nevertheless, I shall handle February and Marsh (sic) as they appear here. This means this is going to be a big one, but hopefully repetitions as we find out where things actually got delayed to in future issues will keep the overall bloat from being too great.
February sees the Forgotten Realms move up to show Birthright how it's done, with a full 4 books. Three of these are novels. That department really is getting too big for it's boots. Errand of Mercy is well into another series I've never seen before. The double diamond triangle saga book 4? Right. Would it be so hard to give the magazine another page so we can actually see everything you release? On the other hand, we know exactly where Elminster in Myth Drannor comes from. Filling more backstory and tying into the recent themed adventures, Ed gets to kill two birds with one stone. Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak cross over with planescape in Finder's Bane. Someone's trying to bring Bane back to life. We've gotta stop them! Unfortunately, this is another case where good isn't going to win. You may succeed this time, but he'll be back come 4e. And our single lonesome game product is Four from Cormyr. 4 mini adventures. Hey, Isn't Azoun IV still dead? This is getting headache inducing again. The continuity is snarling up to the point where I certainly can't keep track of it.
Talking about Planescape, they get Faces of evil: The fiends. When you consider that they got a big boxed set focussing on them just half a year ago, I have to wonder if this will involve rehash.
Ravenloft ties in with it's recent modules, in Lord of the Necropolis by Gene DeWesse. Was all this part of another convoluted plan by Azalin to escape the demiplane? You're the biggest fish in a small pond. Learn to appreciate what you've got, and be a better person. Ceasing to be evil is the only true way to quit being a darklord, you pillock.
Birthright gets Hogunmark, another domain sourcebook. Want miserable weather and lots of druids in your domain. Come from here! Doesn't seem very inviting when you phrase it like that.
Having given beholders plenty of love, the Monstrous Arcana series decides it's second subject is to be the Sahuguin. The Sea Devils takes us under the water to see just how powerful and in control they are. Will the follow-up adventures let you put a dent in that?
And finally, it looks like they're starting a new Sci-fi book imprint, Fantastic Adventures. The first one is Tale of the Comet by Roland Green. Two alien forces, and earth is caught in the middle.
Onto March then. Once again, the forgotten realms is driven by it's novels, just like Dragonlance. Mortal Consequences by Clayton Emery finishes the Netheril Trilogy. This themed bit seems to be coming to an end. Where next for them? The Double Diamond Triangle saga (man, that's a mouthful) is up to 5 books. An Opportunity for Profit by Dave Gross. Pirate assassins see their plans go wrong. Can't say I'm surprised.
Dragonlance gets Heroes of Defiance. As far as I can tell this is a game supplement about roguish sorts, and their new place in the 5th age. I could be wrong, with the ad copy being both vague and pretentious. They also get The day of the Tempest by Jean Rabe. The superdragons are oppressing Ansalon. Can puny humans make any difference at all? Only if they stand together, and use the power of their hearts. Blergh. Changing the laws of physics has done little for their cheese quotient.
Ravenloft gets Domains of dread. Again, they are vague, but this looks like a new corebook, so they can enshrine all the metaplot changes of the last few years and force everyone to adopt them. Thanks for that, dudes.
Birthright's War by Simon Hawke gets a new printing. Probably going from hardback to paperback or something. I wish they'd say.
The Odyssey line gets Tale of the comet, presumably tying in with the recent book. Magic vs Sci-fi. Been a while since they let that into their D&D.
And Dragon Dice get their 5th "kicker pack" Who came up with that name anyway? Frostwings seems to involve some spooky vaguely draconic humanoids. Which side are they on, or will they just kill everyone.
part 7/8
Role-playing reviews: Dragonlance: the fifth age sees Rick think that diceless gaming is the wave of the future. Haha. Nice idea bro. Well, freeform gaming probably outnumbers all roleplaying games put together, but I'm sure most people would say that doesn't count. In any case, he certainly thinks it deserves more credit than it got, with both presentation and writing being top-notch, and the system pretty easy to understand. Just another victim of circumstance, another twist of fate.
Necromunda is another Games Workshop gateway drug, taking the warhammer 40k rules, simplifying them a little, and giving you a pretty cityscape for your minis to fight in. Rick finds this both amusing and impressive. His main complaints are that it can sometimes be tricky to calculate line-of sight, and that the board is large and takes so long to put together that assembling it for every game or storing it between them would be pains. Get a bigger house.
Blood dawn tries to bring white wolf style pretentiousness to postapocalyptic cyberpunk. Once again, the base system is simple, but combat fills things up with a ton of conditional modifiers of the sort that makes rick yawn, and the setting needs a few supplements to fill things out. Same old story. These things need a while to get going, that they might not get due to the buying public's fickleness.
TSR Previews: One of the bits rendered most laughable by the hiatus. I'm sure this is not only out of date, but pretty inaccurate, Nevertheless, I shall handle February and Marsh (sic) as they appear here. This means this is going to be a big one, but hopefully repetitions as we find out where things actually got delayed to in future issues will keep the overall bloat from being too great.
February sees the Forgotten Realms move up to show Birthright how it's done, with a full 4 books. Three of these are novels. That department really is getting too big for it's boots. Errand of Mercy is well into another series I've never seen before. The double diamond triangle saga book 4? Right. Would it be so hard to give the magazine another page so we can actually see everything you release? On the other hand, we know exactly where Elminster in Myth Drannor comes from. Filling more backstory and tying into the recent themed adventures, Ed gets to kill two birds with one stone. Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak cross over with planescape in Finder's Bane. Someone's trying to bring Bane back to life. We've gotta stop them! Unfortunately, this is another case where good isn't going to win. You may succeed this time, but he'll be back come 4e. And our single lonesome game product is Four from Cormyr. 4 mini adventures. Hey, Isn't Azoun IV still dead? This is getting headache inducing again. The continuity is snarling up to the point where I certainly can't keep track of it.
Talking about Planescape, they get Faces of evil: The fiends. When you consider that they got a big boxed set focussing on them just half a year ago, I have to wonder if this will involve rehash.
Ravenloft ties in with it's recent modules, in Lord of the Necropolis by Gene DeWesse. Was all this part of another convoluted plan by Azalin to escape the demiplane? You're the biggest fish in a small pond. Learn to appreciate what you've got, and be a better person. Ceasing to be evil is the only true way to quit being a darklord, you pillock.
Birthright gets Hogunmark, another domain sourcebook. Want miserable weather and lots of druids in your domain. Come from here! Doesn't seem very inviting when you phrase it like that.
Having given beholders plenty of love, the Monstrous Arcana series decides it's second subject is to be the Sahuguin. The Sea Devils takes us under the water to see just how powerful and in control they are. Will the follow-up adventures let you put a dent in that?
And finally, it looks like they're starting a new Sci-fi book imprint, Fantastic Adventures. The first one is Tale of the Comet by Roland Green. Two alien forces, and earth is caught in the middle.
Onto March then. Once again, the forgotten realms is driven by it's novels, just like Dragonlance. Mortal Consequences by Clayton Emery finishes the Netheril Trilogy. This themed bit seems to be coming to an end. Where next for them? The Double Diamond Triangle saga (man, that's a mouthful) is up to 5 books. An Opportunity for Profit by Dave Gross. Pirate assassins see their plans go wrong. Can't say I'm surprised.
Dragonlance gets Heroes of Defiance. As far as I can tell this is a game supplement about roguish sorts, and their new place in the 5th age. I could be wrong, with the ad copy being both vague and pretentious. They also get The day of the Tempest by Jean Rabe. The superdragons are oppressing Ansalon. Can puny humans make any difference at all? Only if they stand together, and use the power of their hearts. Blergh. Changing the laws of physics has done little for their cheese quotient.
Ravenloft gets Domains of dread. Again, they are vague, but this looks like a new corebook, so they can enshrine all the metaplot changes of the last few years and force everyone to adopt them. Thanks for that, dudes.
Birthright's War by Simon Hawke gets a new printing. Probably going from hardback to paperback or something. I wish they'd say.
The Odyssey line gets Tale of the comet, presumably tying in with the recent book. Magic vs Sci-fi. Been a while since they let that into their D&D.
And Dragon Dice get their 5th "kicker pack" Who came up with that name anyway? Frostwings seems to involve some spooky vaguely draconic humanoids. Which side are they on, or will they just kill everyone.
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