Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 213: January 1995


part 6/8


Role-playing reviews: While D&D does have resurrection, dying in RPG's is still a serious business, and frequently a session ruiner. But the great thing about gaming is that you can imagine characters so dramatically different from mundane humanity that conventional labels of alive and dead don't apply, and then figure out what it's like to exist as one of them. Sure, it may be challenging, and probably won't enjoy the same kind of sales as something which tries to speak directly to the human condition, but it'll be interesting and different. I know there's been times when I've had all I can take of romances and heroes journeys, so I'm exactly the target audience for this month's kind of experimental gaming.

Nephilim sees Chaosium take a leaf from white wolf's book, putting you into the role of a bodyhopping spirit trying to achieve godhood down the centuries, described in decidedly florid prose. There's a lot to learn, with the magic system being a bit of a mess, and the campaign material sparse, but it has the potential for truly epic campaigns spanning generations, even more than Pendragon. Good luck trying to get a group together capable of fulfilling that potential.

Wraith: the Oblivion is also difficult to keep a game together, but for far more depressing reasons. Chief amongst these is of course the shadow rules, which are cool for a single player, but frequently cause a group to devolve into dark comedy and internecine bickering. The relentless grimness doesn't help either. Even more than Vampire, you are pretty damn screwed as a ghost. It's pretty much the height of white wolf as an uncompromising newcomer producing gaming as art, before they started to bow to the realities of practical design limitations and make sure their settings worked as places that are good to adventure in as well as read about. Once again, good luck getting a group together, with so many other inhabitants of the World of Darkness vying for attention, even though this might be remembered by many, you're more likely to wind up in a crossover game than pure ghost story.


Rumblings: White Wolf has a pretty prominent place in this column as well. After much bickering, some of which was via email and has been preserved for posterity on the internet, SJG and White Wolf have agreed to put out GURPS Mage: the Ascension, but stop making any further products together. Neither side is very happy, and I'm not really sure who was wrong in the first place. Rereading them, it all seems a combination of misunderstandings and petulant overreactions. Definitely wrong, on the other hand, is White Wolf's new Black Dog imprint, where they push the envelope, already pretty elasticated, well beyond breaking point, mostly for sensationalism's sake. The road to maturity does require going through adolescence, unless you want to end up like Michael Jackson, spending a lifetime trying to recapture what you missed out on at the time and looking increasingly creepy in the process.

In other news, there's a whole bunch of multimedia crossovers coming out soon. Cyberpunk 2020 is getting a soundtrack. The Death Gate Cycle and Battletech are both getting computer games, while Tank Girl is going from comic to movie and RPG. True ambition is never satisfied with conquering one medium, but must keep going until it overreaches itself and falls over. I wonder which of these were any good.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 213: January 1995


part 7/8


Series magic: Another Steven Schend Forgotten Realms article that is very much in Ed's spirit. I really ought to be making more batman & robin jokes about them. Seems like Laeral is taking a personal interest in him again, letting him in on some rather big secrets. Themed sets of magical items that synergise to give the wielder extra powers when you have more than one? It's not a new idea, especially when said theme is elemental (captain planet, he's our hero) but they're still not actually that common, since the logistical hassles involved in creating them are considerably greater than just making a similar number of unconnected magical items. You have to give kudos to anyone talented and determined enough to make a set. We get two examples here, a set of magical blades, and of course, a set of elemental themed rings (without Heart, of course) Both get plenty of references to their history, and where they might or might not be now, as is usual for Ed influenced stuff. The idea is slightly better than the implementation, but that just encourages you to create your own. After all, there's tons of themes out there, and if you make your own, you can better integrate it into your world and build a whole campaigns worth of adventures around assembling the set and making sure your enemies don't. Plenty of value in that.


Elminsters notebook: Speaking of Ed, he's talking about another female wizard who likes to keep a floating skull around for extra firepower. In typical Ed genius, he turns what would be seen as recycling of ideas in lesser hands and uses it to make his world seem all the more real and subtly interconnected. After all, a lot of what adventurers do is unearthing old stuff, combining it with other old stuff from different areas and eras, and then use it to fulfil their own ambitions. As with last time, he uses a bunch of footnotes to make this more accessible to newcomers, and keep the main narrative flowing while also making various amusing digressions. This shows him balancing material for players of all experience levels, and giving them plenty more adventure hooks, plus a whole load of potential spells and magic items for you to hunt down, or quite possibly write up yourself. (after all, the names are pretty self explanatory, unlike Nulathoes Ninamen) As usual for these articles, he's packing in one of the highest concentrations of plot hooks per page I've seen outside the original 70's modules, far outmatching most of the actual supplements released around this time. If you can't get a good adventure or two from this, I pity you.


Libram X starts a new story with Dave Gross replacing Jeff as writer, and the second death of the net zombie. Not a good way to go. Swordplay finds they have developed a reputation. Dragonmirth is duly warned that their GM intends to screw them over. Yamara finds out why halflings shouldn't overuse the hair products.

 

[Jhaelen]

Simtex was shut down before they finished the sequel. Microprose tried continuing it, but then they got in trouble.

And now there's Elemental: War of Magic, which doesn't come even close. And crashes more than Master of Magic.

Thanks for the info. What a pity!

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 213: January 1995


part 8/8


Through the looking glass: Robert runs out of soapboxes, having been going through them quite a lot over the years. Since I've also been finding myself low on enthusiasm lately, I can quite understand that. Let's just do the job, shall we. First we have some buildings. A greek style temple with a removable roof, so you can fight around, inside and on top of it. Some tavern tables, if you want a little more worldly comforts in your adventuring. And some little houses, of late medieval extraction. Fairly mundane settings really. Rather more fantastical are the creatures. Two nasty mechanical mechanical units for the Legion of Steel game. A somewhat insubstantial looking fire elemental. A rather heavily dressed lich, with ambitions of being king of the undead. A very veiny looking beholder. He needs more shut-eye, methinks. A rather short orc standard bearer. Well, they get the job because they're not the best warriors. A barbarian cyclops, with requisite pot belly. He needs a bit of fixing up, I'm afraid. Some similarly sloppy marines by the same company. A tremendously amusing diorama of an apprentice sorcerer accidentally summoning a demon. He's going to have a scary time when he realises what's happening. And a mysterious bearded guy with a lantern. I suspect he may wind up being used as a wizard or druid. Well, someone has to be exposition guy.


TSR Previews: Mystara is our biggest deal this month. Paired Accessories, the players and dungeon masters survival kits give you yet more gimmicky bits and pieces that they hope will make your game run more smoothly and be more fun. Neh. Can't really say I got much use out of these, and unlike the Tavenloft tarroka deck, the cards weren't very tactilely pleasing and tended to get lost.

Planescape has Planes of Law. Contrasting with planes of chaos, each of the 5 planes here get their own mini book. But just as with the last one, this seriously kicks ass, and has both cool descriptions and pretty maps. Just watch out for the metaplot, which intrudes even on the supposedly eternal and infinite universes.

The Forgotten Realms figures out an area it hasn't done a splatbook on. The Moonsea. Extra incentive for you to go kick Zhentarim ass and liberate the miserable people beneath them.

Dragonlance also finds more little gaps in their history to fill, after much searching. Doug Niles gives us the story of the Kagonesti. They refused to fight. Which means when the war came to them, they were beaten easily and enslaved. See them suffer, muahahahaha!!!

On the generic side, they realize that they've run out of existing classes to create splatbooks for, and do The Complete Barbarian. The start of my dissatisfaction with them, and the first complete book I chose not to buy, this gave me the first inkling that they were just making stuff for their benefit, rather than ours, back in the day. So much for innocence.

Endless quest goes gamma world in American Knights. You get to save the world! Doesn't sound very in theme for the setting.


Lots of cool articles in this issue, even if many of them have been or will be recycled in actual books. So it seems the problem this time is not quality, but quantity of ideas. By relying on a few staff writers too much, and having most of the people present in the same office, there's the constant temptation to reuse material to make deadlines and pad things out. This of course means people buy less in the long term, because they feel gypped and don't want to spend money again on basically the same thing. Just another small factor to fit into their overall issues. The irony there being that you can pay new freelancers less and move onto new ones when they start becoming demanding. Still, they are coming out with at least some great material, so I don't consider this issue a waste of money at all.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 1/8


124 pages. Dark elves on the cover, even if their skin is more grey than black. But then, there's both the tedious racism issues that have resulted in alterations in the past, and the fact that grey is better camouflage against cave walls than jet black. Still, this doesn't seem to hurt their popularity, along with that of elves in general. So they're getting another themed issue. Altogether now! boo Yaay! Dwarves'll never catch up at this rate. Oh well. Let's see if they have any particularly unbalanced crunch to offer us.


In this issue:


Letters: We start off the letters page with some particularly blatant pimping by Tim Beach. Red Steel is perfect for high level games! Well, yes, but dis is still vewy vewy tacky. There is a time and place for self-promotion, and the letters and forum pages are not it.

A retirement letter from Ian Reid. He can't keep doing the PbM thing due to life issues. Don't let the games we created die once I'm gone. Not likely they'll be replaced with the internet taking over at the speed it is.

A letter from someone who noticed that the TSR staff have been engaging in self-insertion in their spellfire cards. This is a long cheesy tradition in the company, as Mike Nystul, Don Arndt and Dennis Sustarre have demonstrated. I just hope they wipe the cards off afterwards.

One of our regular cries of help from someone trying to find out of print books. Come on, you have the technology now. Make online downloads available, then we need never worry about this again.

A heartwarming tale of the magazine going above and beyond the call of duty to deliver to a subscriber. Good customer service does help quite a bit to keep buyers loyal. It's the difference between repeated purchases and going elsewhere. Course, some companies manage to suck at it and still keep going, because they advertise enough that there's always a new sucker. Read the feedback before you buy.


Editorial: As with last issue, the editorial suggests that our staff have been made very aware by management that their sales are down, and they'd better start turning things around or face the consequences. But of course making the wrong changes would alienate people and accelerate the decline. So what Dale's asking us to do this time is explain our reasoning behind changing the magazine in one direction or another. Okay, this means that any changes will skew in the direction of the intelligent and erudite readers, which isn't always the path for maximum commercial success, but It's a mistake I'd probably make in their position as well. Better to go out with integrity than to try and produce what a committee says, and probably lose both commercial and critical credibility. So this is one of those no good answer situations. They no longer trust their own vision, and they're following rather than leading. As is often the case, this makes for uncomfortable reading in hindsight.


First Quest: Harold Johnson brings a good deal of self-awareness to the writing of this column. Having noticed that many players were rather annoying when young, he one-ups them all by revealing that it's him who was responsible for the creation of Kender. Hrmmm. <_< >_> BURN HIM!!!! Add to that his was the original idea for A4, a classic instance of player screwage inflicted upon thousands, and I think he has earned his place in the deepest circle of gaming hell, somewhere between Byron Hall and the Blume Brothers. The rest of his article is a whole bunch of firsts. The first time he played, the first time he DM'd, the first time he ran at a convention. It's so hard to choose which was most significant. It's certainly entertaining reading, and highlights that gaming is a collaborative process, with lots of people beyond the actual writers contributing to forming books. I just wonder if the other participants remember things the same way.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 2/8


The complete half-elf: Hmm. Since elves can use nearly all the kits that humans or elves can use, they're already pretty spoiled for choice when customising themselves. It's an interesting question how this can meaningfully add to our options. By focussing on multiclass specific kits, which is the area half elves really stand out in compared to other races? That'll do it. Now the trick thing is coming up with archetypes that are both distinctive and emotionally resonant.

Shadowblades are your typical brooding fighter/thief loner, trying to match the popularity of Drizzt and hopefully failing. They're more oriented towards stealth and sudden violence than actual larceny, but that doesn't mean they're trusted.

Military Scouts combine their martial and roguish talents for official purposes. This means they're more trusted than most rogues, but also kept on a shorter leash by their bosses. You'll probably want to make sure the other players are also on good terms with the boss, as this'll make setting up plots a lot easier.

Crusaders are about as close as half-elves get to being paladins, although they're rather more focussed upon converting the ambivalent as well as smiting the unrighteous. Since they aren't strictly restricted to lawful good, you get more leeway to be a jackass in the process. There is something to be said for a good smite.

Wilderness avengers are the Fighter/Druid kit. What's the difference between a Fighter/Druid and a Ranger? Mainly how mean they can be in the process of protecting nature. They're another one that has social penalties for concrete benefits, which will probably push them into the brooding loner role again.

Spellarchers get the rather useful ability to deliver touch ranged spells through their arrows. Better get scouring those sourcebooks for the twinkiest combos to use with this option. Or just ask Elminster. He's sure to have a few ideas.

Aristocrats remind us that even half-breeds can be accepted into high society when they look this damn good. As with the other kits of this ilk, they get more money and social benefits, but have to live extravagantly. If you allow multiclassed characters to take a standard kit from either class, this is pretty pointless.

Rescuers are Cleric/Rangers, some of the nicest folks you'll ever meet. This means like any good medic, they'll heal up friend and foe after the fight, which may be rather a departure for many PC groups. If they come into conflict with even the paladins, they're probably doing it right.

Arcanists are the mage/cleric combo. They get 4 bonus proficiencies, bard legend lore due to their wide magical knowledge, and a social penalty for being bookish. Once again, a pretty good tradeoff, especially as long as they're in a party where someone else can play the face role.

Guild Mages are another one that sees the established order exploit their unique flexibility for nefarious ends. A well-trained half-elf who knows when to keep their mouth shut will always be in demand for a little Knock spell.

Prestidigitators put a rather more flamboyant spin on the Mage/Thief theme, for those who can't quite make it into Bard and the unlimited advancement it offers. Not that you should udderestimate them, or they'll leave you in nothing but your Bart Simpson underpants by the end of the show.

Redeemers our our first triple class kit. Fighter/Mage/Clerics who throw everything into defeating a particular favoured enemy. That doesn't sound very redemptive to me. Genocider just doesn't have quite the same ring though, does it. Still, that impressively Orwellian level of redefinition aside, the idea of getting bonuses against a particular enemy, at the price of an irrational level of hatred for them that'll prevent peaceful solutions is a pretty standard tradeoff.

Dilettantes are Fighter/Mage/Thieves who wound up that way through simple inability to stick to one thing. They won't be keeping up with the rest of the party when it comes to gaining levels, but have tons of tricks that may save your butt in an emergency. The perfect 5th member to a team, in other words.

Diplomats are also Fighter/Mage/Thieves, falling very much into the James Bond mould of ambassador who may have to do shady adventures in the course of following their countries interests. Well, who better to serve as mediator than someone who isn't of any one race? That's a pretty good niche to fill. And a party comprised of multiclass characters like this'll never be short of tricks to pull. Still, there is a moderate amount of uncompensated twinkitude in these kits, so I can't say I entirely approve of them. Elves will be elves, and even half-elves get substantial privileges simply due to the rule of cool.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 3/8


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Elven magical items? Now there's a surprise! I never would have guessed! They have so little to do with magic normally! Yeah, even the sarcasm is wearing thin.

Arrows of Entrapment enweb whatever they hit. Just the thing for when you want to take down that pesky adventuring party intruding into your woods without killing them. And that can be damn handy in a narrative sense.

Enchanter bows make your arrow able to actually hurt things that need plusses to hit. Valuable, but dull.

Ironheart bows can morph into a hand weapon. It's a werebow! Give it intelligence and this might become extra fun. You could have all sorts of variants on this principle.

Bracelets of mental contact let you do the silent communication thing. It has a bunch of quirks and a limited number of charges, but people being unnerved by elves being really good in the woods won't know that.

The Harp of Courage is another no-brainer. It's approximately as good as casting bless on your buds and it's reverse on the enemy. Like magical battle standards though, it only works while up, so expect the player to become a target pronto. Invisibility might be a good idea.

Locks of security are a magical deterrent probably needed in a culture where nearly half the population are spellcasters. There'll always be someone who doesn't obey the social contract, especially in a pretty chaotic race.

The Manual of Nature's Harmony is the level boosting book for rangers. Surprised we don't have one of these already. Goes to show what can be missed out for ages.

Pendants of Augmentation are your basic metamagic effect to make spells bigger, harder, longer. This kind of thinking grows ever more frequent.

Pendants of Azuriel are your basic pair bonding item, seen previously in ring form. What better way for two adventurers to express their love than an item that says "I'm in deep ! Come rescue me!"

Potions of resistance cure disease. I really don't see what this one has to do with elves at all.

Rings of Cooshee summoning bring the dogs from the valley to aid you. Like, totally day-saving, man. Just don't get all doggystyle with them, as that's just grody.

And Orcslayer swords ARE the ones from the Hobbit. They glow when goblins are near and kick ass. Nuff said. Really should be in the corebook along with rings of invisibility, given their popularity.


The dragon's bestiary: Kercpa are sentient squirrel people. Don't we already have some of those? Why yes, the Ratatosk from norse mythology (detailed very recently in planes of chaos. ) And in theme with this issue, they do have substantial faeish tendencies, with an array of tricks that exceeds their HD, and all that froofy respect for nature stuff. Can't say I'm very keen on them, particularly when they're trying to fill an already occupied niche. Let's leave this one out, shall we.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 4/8


For truth and justice: Hello again superheroics. It's been well over a year now since the Marvel-phile ended, and coverage of that genre fell off a cliff. And sadly, it looks like the return is starting again from scratch with basic advice, a pattern we've seen several times before, and not one that endears them to a long term reader. So yeah, here's another of those basic adventure checklists, this time slanted towards superheroics, but really, applicable to any game. Tailor your adventures to the PC's. Give the villains proper personalities, motives and plans. Give your adventure a beginning, middle and end. Keep track of character positioning and stats in an efficient way. Nope, can't find any new advice in here. Not that it's bad advice at all, it's just not doing anything different or innovative.


Role-playing reviews: Following on from last month, we have two more rather large reviews of games that differ substantially from the norm. As the centre weakens, these spring up, grabbing people's attention, as they consider trying something new, moving on to more interesting grounds. Course, none of them will displace D&D as the biggest game in the hobby, but it's theoretically possible they might have. Far stranger things have become huge hits on TV.

Aria is a gobsmackingly huge game that tries to let you play entire nations, and their developments and conflicts. It also has human level stuff, but that isn't as impressive, and you may well be better off running that in another system and then overlaying this for the global scope. It does have some flaws, and takes a lot of work, but Rick is still highly impressed by the scope of their creativity and the degree the game can be customised.

Castle Falkenstein gets even more effusive praise. Character creation is quick and different, Playing cards are used to resolve actions, magic is full of interesting quirks and potential backfires, and the setting is really rather cool. Mike Pondsmith has managed to come up with another winner, and he hopes it's commercial success will match it's critical reception.


Rumblings: Where last month had a lot to say about White Wolf, this is closer to home, with a lot of attention on TSR's media properties. Wildspace TV show? I don't remember this at all. Sounds like an attempt to revive Spelljammer. And that's a lot of tie-in stuff planned too. And on top of that, the long on hold D&D movie has a new owner and staff and apears to be moving forward. What went wrong with these two? Development hell strikes again! The only thing I know actually did come out is the Blood Wars CCG, TSR's second shot at grabbing this market in quick succession. Shouldn't they wait so they can learn from the mistakes of the first one? Or are they rushing them to market so this has a rather shorter development lifespan than their regular product cycle. I must confess to quite a bit of curiosity on this issue.

CCG's from other parties are also springing up like mushrooms as companies realise there's big money to make here. Highlander, Star of the Guardians, Doom Trooper. Big names and small, many from RPG's and other industries. Can you say talent drain? We are not amused.


The ecology of the Neogi: Our first proper ecology in ages is also our first spelljammer one ever. And it's quite a neat one, making it clear that these are pretty darn alien creatures, and not very nice at all. With an inherently destructive reproductive process, a society built on enslavement, and equally nasty gods, they are pretty much forced to be evil by their biology. You'd feel sorry for them, if you weren't too busy being scared and grossed out and urgently KILLING THEM WITH FIRE! Curiously though, this is another one that makes them available as PC's, or at least classed NPCs, so you can make them even more challenging to your players. Anyway, I rather like this one, which is pretty decent in both fiction and mechanics, and does quite a bit to build them up as a race. A welcome return here.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 5/8


Eye of the monitor again changes hands, with Lester Smith taking on this month's review. Once again I get the sense that the level of organisation in the TSR offices is declining, as people struggle to get everything done with declining budgets and workforce. Compounding that is the fact that this isn't very long, is covering a game they've reviewed before, and is completely lacking in screenshots. So this is another look at the Space Hulk computer game. Lester thinks it's a great game, and sets out to repudiate Jay & Dee's review one point at a time. You've got to use military tactics and think ahead, it's not an arcade blaster. There are valid reasons for using both the overhead and personal views. The monsters spawn randomly, so you can't win by simple memorisation anyway. Even their grasp of the basic controls seem shaky. It's as if they weren't even paying proper attention. Perhaps they should have read the manual. So this is a somewhat curious review, that does have traces of snark and condescension in it while remaining civil and avoiding any ad hominem attacks. It's certainly not as interesting as Gary's old rants, but it does stand out against the current tone of the magazine. This is definitely worth noting. Just how haphazard will this column get before they cancel it altogether.


The game wizards: This column is taken up by spellfire stuff again. No-one outside the company is sending articles in it seems, so it's purely company pressure that's putting it in here. As they did with the Buck Rogers boardgame back in issue 157, they show us how to adapt the rules for a solitaire game. Which is very appropriate, given the difficulty of finding people to play these games. The opponent is completely predictable, but gets several substantial advantages over a human player because they're largely an aggressor, and don't need to worry about realm maintenance. They should still be quite tough to defeat, unless you build a deck specifically intended to work poorly for them. And if you're spending that much money on fine-tuning a deck you'll never use for a proper game, I think a little derision is not entirely undeserved. So this is exactly what they ought to be giving the game, and I mean that in the meanest possible way.


Forum: Paul Morgan goes back 19 issues to the multiclass character problem. He's found that while more powerful at first, as time goes on, they become less and less so compared to their single class companions. Long term balance, not per encounter.

Christopher Davis has his own fairly mild solution for multiclassed characters. They're not that much of a problem. Always spreading xp half and half between their classes no matter what they do, on the other hand, isn't such a great idea. They should be able to concentrate on one or the other a bit.

Jarmo Gunn is another writer reaching back well over a year. His characters survive despite having several below average stats due to their ingenuity. Don't just throw yours away because they don't have multiple 18's.

John Morris. Jr is horrified by all the people playing drow all of a sudden. They're mostly ghastly twinks too. Bob Salvadore has a lot to answer for. What are we to do with these pesky dual-wielding bandwagon jumpers! Hee. Another overpopular thing gets it's much deserved backlash here.

Philip Dale reminds us that sometimes problem players are a result of the DM, and it's your responsibility to figure out what the problem is and fix it as it is theirs. But if all else fails, go freeform, then they can't game the system. Or just kick them out. That is an option, you know.

Thomas Martin reminds us that nearly every RPG system has some exploit that'll make characters unfairly powerful. D&D's new bard kits certainly aren't alone in that. You've got to address the problem on the player level as well s the mechanical one, otherwise they'll just find some new trick to exploit.

Andrew McLeish comes to the defence of bard kits. Penalise them when they play them wrong, and don't be overgenerous in handing out magic items and they'll be fine. Ha.

Gray Calhoun makes the tedious statement that you should balance the twinked bard kits by social hindrances. I think that theory is getting a bit frayed around the edges now. It doesn't really work very well, especially with this most social of classes.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 6/8


Lost empires: Atlantis! After doing nice big articles on two real world continents, David Howery does a slightly smaller one on a (probably ) imaginary one. This means he has to make things up mostly from wholecloth and a few ancient books. The result does feel a little light compared to the Africa one in particular, but it does have lots of options. You aren't restricted to one culture or era, you could pick any of their stages of development (although you're probably gonna want the hypertech empire, decadent weirdness or mysterious lost continent phases. ) Really, this is sufficiently vague that it's just a reminder that lost continents are a cool plot option to insert into your own game, rather than a ready to go adventure location. I hope it wasn't another victim of excess editorial trimming because they aren't fond of doing epic features any more.


Sage advice: Why do innate abilities have initiative modifiers (Reaction times. Even thought has a speed)

Can you disrupt magic items (often you can. They do have some fiddly requirements at times. )

Where's the info on alignment tongues (We got rid of them Aaaaaaages ago, with the edition change. Don't tell Skip it took you this long to notice. )

Does a thief's backstab get the bonuses for ambush as well (only if it would be logically appropriate)

Does protection from fire work before or after the save for half damage from spells (after)

Do symbols blow their wad after affecting someone or stick around to bug everyone. (Wizards symbols are one-shots. Cleric symbols have real staying power. Huh! )

Can detect magic detect charm spells (Like with invisibility, it only detects that something is up. It's up to you to figure out exactly what.)

How many missiles can you catch with gloves of missile snaring (1 per round per hand free. Once again, beware mariliths. )

What can a rod of cancelation destroy (Quite a lot. They're a real screwage device)

How does a wand of negation work (It's your own personal interruption beam inna stick. Not as good as actual dispelling, but nothing to be sneezed at)

What happened to the +4 bonus to attacking motionless creatures. (we moved it to the DMG. This should not affect your enjoyment of the game in the slightest)

I still don't understand about the mechanics of gnomes wielding bastard swords (Just what kind of game are you playing, anyway? Everyone knows gnomes are illusionists. Any gnome who'd want to wield a bastard sword is seriously out of character )

What does immediately mean ( right away. No time to counter or pack. It takes effect right now. )

Can you alternate champions if a battle lasts 3+rounds (not usually)

Does a card affect previously played cards (Well, they can't affect ones that haven't been played yet, can they)

How do ghost ships work (Ooooooh. They move you around unexpectedly. Oooooh. )

Can you dispel dispel magic. (No. They've already done their job. There's no magic there anymore for you to dispel)