(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 78: October 1983
part 2/2
And now, the psionicist: Hmm. Now this is very interesting. We now have a class specifically devoted to psionics. And it has the same name that the 2nd ed version would. That automatically makes this a pretty influential article. Lets see what they changed in the meantime. These do have quite a few weird 1st editionisms, such as different hit dice at different levels, level titles (which overlap with other classes thanks to insufficiently sized theasauri) and basic details such as armor/weapons/money are different. Despite adding a bunch of extra powers, they still have a rather limited selection compared to the spellcasting classes. If the ability to access the ones they know in any order as long as they have the points to spend will balance that out I'm not sure. Given that even 2nd edition psionics was horribly breakable, I suspect that these guys may also be if you select your powers right. (Yes, I am aware of the contradictions there. Could they be simultaneously under and overpowered? Possibly.
) Still, even if it needs a few rounds of playtesting and fine-tuning, this is a pretty neat article, that opens up new character avenues nicely. And since AD&D classes were never that well balanced anyway, what does it matter if they're unbalanced as long as they have niche protection. Another cool thing to add to the massive list of things I want to try out.
The Deryni: Ooh, a conversion with official author sanction. It's been rather too long since we saw one of those. And since we got a FUDGE deryni game recently, that probably means she's actually a gamer herself and not just licensing it out for the money. Anyway, lets look at the actual merits of the article. As you might expect, they do run into the problem of trying to fit them into the D&D rules framework, but they take away options as much as they grant them, which means they aren't as annoying as some other contributions we've seen :cough:gypsies:cough: Overall, this is a pretty decent article, and they don't have to mutilate them too much to get them to work with D&D. I wonder if we'll see them again in here.
Heroes and villains of the deryni: Arthur Collins' final contribution this month allows him to put all the ingredients he's introduced so far into a nice package as he details characters from the books. Which is nice, as normally, you don't get to see the optional rules in these issues actually applied. We get 8 characters, most of which are multiclass psionicists. There is the usual tendency towards massive attribute bloat that we see in most of these articles. You ought to know by now I disapprove of that unless it really does accurately reflect the characters all-round capabilities as shown in the novel (in which case it's the author who'll get the mild disapproval if their writing isn't good enough to justify the characters all-round brilliance ) so I shall simply shrug and sigh at this. Giants in the earth may be gone, but it's influence is still seen, making people think creating characters with stats like this is normal behaviour. So I have decidedly mixed feelings about the final results.
Citadel by the sea: A 16 page module for low level characters. It does have some fairly specific character requirements, due to the mission and setting, and requires quite a bit of roleplaying. But once you get past that it's a regular, if pretty large dungeoncrawl. Like keep on the borderlands, this is one you can approach in a number of ways, and if you fail to clear it out first time (likely, unless you have a big, well henched party) they should react and adapt to your encroachment. So another useful little piece of kit that you can drop in easily enough to your games. They strike a decent balance between putting roleplaying stuff in and allowing the players plenty of freedom in how to solve the problem.
Figure feature: Lots of different monsters this month. Mermen, demons, trolls, hydra, dragons, plus a couple of mounted humans. But at least they're evil humans, so you can kill them without feeling guilty as well.
Be thy die ill-wrought?: Standard deviation. One of the more useful pieces of statistical math. In this case it's used to test if a die really is loaded, or your mind is just seeing patterns where there are none. For those of you who can't wrap your brains around the math involved, they also include a BASIC program which can do the heavy lifting for you. Its always nice when they put in something that'll expand people's general knowledge. I haven't done these kind of maths since I left school, and it's nice to be reminded of them.
The ecology of the mind flayer: Looks like they're getting in on the psionic theme as well, with the story of the ilithids, as told by a githyanki. And as they should know, you don't
with them unprepared, and you don't rely on magic to get them. Use psionics liberally, watch your companions for signs of being taken over, and generally make sure you have lots of failsafes and backup plans. Because they'll definitely learn from your mistakes and get revenge if you fail. The drama is strong in this one, as the protagonists learn just how scary it is dealing with someone who's reading your mind the whole time. Still, better they learn that now than in pitched battle where the enemy counters their every tactic and then eats their brains. Also interesting to note is that mind flayers don't have a god yet. Illsenine and whats-his-name who got killed by Orcus are still just motes in some writers mind. Also missing is the whole implantation schtick. In fact, details on their reproductive cycle are completely missing. On the other hand, they do get plenty of info which would be useful in actual encounters, such as the type of creatures that they associate with, and how they build their cities. Not a perfect article, but still an exceedingly entertaining one. Monsters like this are why you should treat dungeoneering as a carefully planned military mission. When you're going into a city filled with thousands of high power monsters, you've got to be prepared.
Spells can be psionic too: Kim finishes off the psionic stuff with some dull comparison between spells and powers that do roughly the same thing. While it does reveal some little details about the D&D universe metaphysics, this definitely has the feel of a filler article. I'm really not in the mood for this kind of piece by piece examination at the moment, and I think we can safely skip this one. The last of 8 articles in a theme is rarely that good.
Pop the clutch and roll: Chases! A situation full of drama that the vast majority of RPG's handle very badly indeed, with their flat movement rates, and awkward integration of attack and movement options. Vehicle chases are particularly problematic. Lets see what this set of rules for Top Secret is like, and if they work.
Hmm. Recording maneuvers for each turn in secret, then revealing them simultaneously. That's a pretty good way of going about it, as it allows both luck and skill to play a part in catching or losing your opponent. Obviously, there is a certain amount of crunch involved as you compare options, but at only 5 pages, I think you can handle it. And it's good that they're not neglecting their other games as well.
The thrill of the hunt: Dragonquest also gets an article this month. Rules for hunting food. Now there's a good idea. Unless you're in another plane of existance or something similarly problematic, you shouldn't have to rely entirely on food you packed beforehand. A simple and effective little table is provided allowing you to determine your odds of success in various environments. Obviously this does increase the power of the characters a little, but as it also takes up plenty of time and XP to develop and use, I think it balances out. Time spent hunting is not spent completing your primary quest. But if you die of starvation, you're not going to complete anything. I quite approve. It adds realism without getting in the way.
What's new sets us some puzzles. Wormy engages in some recounting. Snarfquest solves the predicament by mad luck.
Well, that was a rather harder issue to get through than I expected. Goes to show. First impressions from looking at the table of contents are not always accurate. Not that it's a bad one in terms of writing or design, but the degree of hard-to-digest crunch is definitely quite high in this one, making it less enjoyable that the last few. I guess it's good exercise for my brain, reading this much this fast. No pain, no gain. I wonder how much'll actually have been retained once it's all over. Maybe | should take a test. Eh. Long way to go. No time for angst. We can save that for the 90's.
part 2/2
And now, the psionicist: Hmm. Now this is very interesting. We now have a class specifically devoted to psionics. And it has the same name that the 2nd ed version would. That automatically makes this a pretty influential article. Lets see what they changed in the meantime. These do have quite a few weird 1st editionisms, such as different hit dice at different levels, level titles (which overlap with other classes thanks to insufficiently sized theasauri) and basic details such as armor/weapons/money are different. Despite adding a bunch of extra powers, they still have a rather limited selection compared to the spellcasting classes. If the ability to access the ones they know in any order as long as they have the points to spend will balance that out I'm not sure. Given that even 2nd edition psionics was horribly breakable, I suspect that these guys may also be if you select your powers right. (Yes, I am aware of the contradictions there. Could they be simultaneously under and overpowered? Possibly.
) Still, even if it needs a few rounds of playtesting and fine-tuning, this is a pretty neat article, that opens up new character avenues nicely. And since AD&D classes were never that well balanced anyway, what does it matter if they're unbalanced as long as they have niche protection. Another cool thing to add to the massive list of things I want to try out. The Deryni: Ooh, a conversion with official author sanction. It's been rather too long since we saw one of those. And since we got a FUDGE deryni game recently, that probably means she's actually a gamer herself and not just licensing it out for the money. Anyway, lets look at the actual merits of the article. As you might expect, they do run into the problem of trying to fit them into the D&D rules framework, but they take away options as much as they grant them, which means they aren't as annoying as some other contributions we've seen :cough:gypsies:cough: Overall, this is a pretty decent article, and they don't have to mutilate them too much to get them to work with D&D. I wonder if we'll see them again in here.
Heroes and villains of the deryni: Arthur Collins' final contribution this month allows him to put all the ingredients he's introduced so far into a nice package as he details characters from the books. Which is nice, as normally, you don't get to see the optional rules in these issues actually applied. We get 8 characters, most of which are multiclass psionicists. There is the usual tendency towards massive attribute bloat that we see in most of these articles. You ought to know by now I disapprove of that unless it really does accurately reflect the characters all-round capabilities as shown in the novel (in which case it's the author who'll get the mild disapproval if their writing isn't good enough to justify the characters all-round brilliance ) so I shall simply shrug and sigh at this. Giants in the earth may be gone, but it's influence is still seen, making people think creating characters with stats like this is normal behaviour. So I have decidedly mixed feelings about the final results.
Citadel by the sea: A 16 page module for low level characters. It does have some fairly specific character requirements, due to the mission and setting, and requires quite a bit of roleplaying. But once you get past that it's a regular, if pretty large dungeoncrawl. Like keep on the borderlands, this is one you can approach in a number of ways, and if you fail to clear it out first time (likely, unless you have a big, well henched party) they should react and adapt to your encroachment. So another useful little piece of kit that you can drop in easily enough to your games. They strike a decent balance between putting roleplaying stuff in and allowing the players plenty of freedom in how to solve the problem.
Figure feature: Lots of different monsters this month. Mermen, demons, trolls, hydra, dragons, plus a couple of mounted humans. But at least they're evil humans, so you can kill them without feeling guilty as well.
Be thy die ill-wrought?: Standard deviation. One of the more useful pieces of statistical math. In this case it's used to test if a die really is loaded, or your mind is just seeing patterns where there are none. For those of you who can't wrap your brains around the math involved, they also include a BASIC program which can do the heavy lifting for you. Its always nice when they put in something that'll expand people's general knowledge. I haven't done these kind of maths since I left school, and it's nice to be reminded of them.
The ecology of the mind flayer: Looks like they're getting in on the psionic theme as well, with the story of the ilithids, as told by a githyanki. And as they should know, you don't
with them unprepared, and you don't rely on magic to get them. Use psionics liberally, watch your companions for signs of being taken over, and generally make sure you have lots of failsafes and backup plans. Because they'll definitely learn from your mistakes and get revenge if you fail. The drama is strong in this one, as the protagonists learn just how scary it is dealing with someone who's reading your mind the whole time. Still, better they learn that now than in pitched battle where the enemy counters their every tactic and then eats their brains. Also interesting to note is that mind flayers don't have a god yet. Illsenine and whats-his-name who got killed by Orcus are still just motes in some writers mind. Also missing is the whole implantation schtick. In fact, details on their reproductive cycle are completely missing. On the other hand, they do get plenty of info which would be useful in actual encounters, such as the type of creatures that they associate with, and how they build their cities. Not a perfect article, but still an exceedingly entertaining one. Monsters like this are why you should treat dungeoneering as a carefully planned military mission. When you're going into a city filled with thousands of high power monsters, you've got to be prepared. Spells can be psionic too: Kim finishes off the psionic stuff with some dull comparison between spells and powers that do roughly the same thing. While it does reveal some little details about the D&D universe metaphysics, this definitely has the feel of a filler article. I'm really not in the mood for this kind of piece by piece examination at the moment, and I think we can safely skip this one. The last of 8 articles in a theme is rarely that good.
Pop the clutch and roll: Chases! A situation full of drama that the vast majority of RPG's handle very badly indeed, with their flat movement rates, and awkward integration of attack and movement options. Vehicle chases are particularly problematic. Lets see what this set of rules for Top Secret is like, and if they work.
Hmm. Recording maneuvers for each turn in secret, then revealing them simultaneously. That's a pretty good way of going about it, as it allows both luck and skill to play a part in catching or losing your opponent. Obviously, there is a certain amount of crunch involved as you compare options, but at only 5 pages, I think you can handle it. And it's good that they're not neglecting their other games as well.
The thrill of the hunt: Dragonquest also gets an article this month. Rules for hunting food. Now there's a good idea. Unless you're in another plane of existance or something similarly problematic, you shouldn't have to rely entirely on food you packed beforehand. A simple and effective little table is provided allowing you to determine your odds of success in various environments. Obviously this does increase the power of the characters a little, but as it also takes up plenty of time and XP to develop and use, I think it balances out. Time spent hunting is not spent completing your primary quest. But if you die of starvation, you're not going to complete anything. I quite approve. It adds realism without getting in the way.
What's new sets us some puzzles. Wormy engages in some recounting. Snarfquest solves the predicament by mad luck.
Well, that was a rather harder issue to get through than I expected. Goes to show. First impressions from looking at the table of contents are not always accurate. Not that it's a bad one in terms of writing or design, but the degree of hard-to-digest crunch is definitely quite high in this one, making it less enjoyable that the last few. I guess it's good exercise for my brain, reading this much this fast. No pain, no gain. I wonder how much'll actually have been retained once it's all over. Maybe | should take a test. Eh. Long way to go. No time for angst. We can save that for the 90's.
Anyway, happy new year. Hope you enjoy the mid 80's as much or more than you did the early part. Lets get cracking. 
