Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 244: February 1998


part 3/8


Warriors of the wind: We start off this month's theme with a whole bunch of new races, all able to fly. Since far too often, just being able to fly is such a significant ability that it can eclipse other interesting personal traits of a race, this is the kind of hyperspecialisation that really lets you create a nuanced set of creatures. Or maybe not. They certainly seem to have fairly limited class selections, but since exactly what those are varies quite a bit, that might not be so terrible.

Fainil are Drow/Bat hybrids. They seem to have somewhat atrophied legs, giving them an exceedingly slow movement rate on the ground, but can hover and manoeuvre well enough that their flight is useful underground. With the usual Drow magical powers and magic resistance, plus the intelligence to use them, they could be a terror both in the air and underground. And of course, they have the usual angsty rebels which make perfect PC's. Now all they need is to make a novel featuring one.

Telvar are flying humanoids with exceedingly long fingers, who tend towards the honorable barbarian who lives in harmony with nature stereotype. Had to have one of those, didn't they. This does not mean they're stupid or undisciplined though. And with their skill at missile weapons and taking out spellcasters, you may well find yourself out-ranged and helpless. Well, that's always an issue with flying creatures, so why not specialise in your strengths.

Ashiera are flying fish humanoids. They're moderately slow in water, land and air, but hey, that versatility counts for a lot. They tend to be quite aggressive, but lack the organisation to hold places they've conquered. With the ability to generate magical bursts of cold and mist as well, they can be dangerous even when unarmed. One would fit great into an adventuring party as long as you're not expecting to have to run away.

Masgai are flying insectoids who have a gradual expansion plan to take over the universe in a civilised fashion over the course of centuries. They're highly organised, but also unusually willing to be flexible and adapt their plans to the situation for such a lawful race, and certainly not cliche in their personalities. So this collection improves as it goes along, and gives you enough variety to make a party out of, particularly if you add existing flyers like pixies and avariel. It's definitely a solid addition to AD&D's many character options that could actually make a difference in actual play. Plus the plentiful magic items are handy even if the races don't wind up playing a big part in your campaign.


Xakhun Airship: Straight away, we have a second variant on flying drow. It's almost as cheesy a fangirl choice as unipegataurs. Just how many of these must they have rejected in their time before finally caving to public demand? Fortunately, it's a completely different take on the idea though. A whole tribe of half drow, half wood elf exiles who've taken to the airship riding lifestyle. That's not particularly cliche. Despite being exiles, they're still mostly bastards, and of course all the more scary because they come from above instead of below. This is a real epic of an article, 16 pages long, and filled with both fluff and crunch. Three new kits for various classes, so each has their role in flying the ship. A sample ship for you to fly, complete with map and game stats. Four new spider variants that they make use of to protect and repair their ship (plus another excuse for loadbearing bosses.) And in a real old school callback, a cut out and assemble guide that'll let you make your own model of their skyship. We haven't had one of them in so long, and it's a very welcome return. See, that's how you do a special feature. Take some familiar elements, and grow something new, interesting and individual. Roger Raupp's return has done quite a lot to make this issue more special. Who will come back next, and what will they bring with them?

 

[jonesy]

Masgai are flying insectoids who have a gradual expansion plan to take over the universe in a civilised fashion over the course of centuries. They're highly organised, but also unusually willing to be flexible and adapt their plans to the situation for such a lawful race, and certainly not cliche in their personalities.

The Masgai were really cool. I especially liked how it said that while they were militaristic, they were also individualistic; so not your avarage insect hive cliche. The whole writeup of their race is pure quality.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 244: February 1998


part 4/8


Wyrms of the north: Another red dragon for us to face this month. And wait a second, is all this talk about being unpredictable and grumpy until he's had a mug or two in the morning an in-joke about Dennis Kauth, one of their art guys? (who's another long absent returnee this month. Wouldn't put it past Ed. Where last month's dragon was of a good race, but had some nasty manipulative tendencies, this one is of an evil race, but performs unpredictable acts of kindness. If you're lucky, anyway. If you're an adventurer hunting him, you really shouldn't bet on it. He still kills liberally and eats baby red dragons to keep himself vigorous and youthful. Plus he has 6 wands strapped to his wings so he can blast you in quite a few ways beyond his breath weapon simultaneously. Once again the Realms has plenty of experimental magic that would probably result in someone blowing up the country if it got into common circulation. Well, at least that's true to his original vision from the early 80's. Once again he shows us how to do engaging writing, and build truly scary high level challenges. Better work on getting those saving throws up.


Bookwyrms: The red wyvern by Katherine Kerr is another book in her Dverry series. It moves between a whole bunch of time periods, featuring characters that are reincarnations of each other. This does make the plot a bit of an effort to follow, as it's not immediately obvious who is who and how much they remember. It all seems like setup for future books filling in the gaps. Which makes sense when you're building an epic. And since of course she's an ex-gaming writer, it's well designed for plundering for your own worldbuilding.

Running with the demon by Terry Brooks is a modern day story of cosmic good vs evil, and the people caught in the middle being made to choose sides. Combine this with themes of predestination vs being able to change the future, and you have a recipe for a reasonably complex world and characters that can have moral conflicts despite there being an objective right and wrong. Still, it probably won't net him as much as a new Shanara book would.

The Dragon and the Gnarly King by Gordon R Dickson sees the writer say it's the third book in the series, when a little googling says it's the 7th. How do you miss that badly? Anyway, our hero out of time is now settling in quite comfortably to his new life. But it wouldn't be a new book without a new challenge, and he's sent on a quest to rescue a baby and encounters a whole bunch of strange creatures, some friendly, and some not so much. The whole thing remains fairly lighthearted, and they exploit the anachronisms to their advantage. Sounds like it could be fun.

War of the gods by Poul Anderson sees him put his own spin on a somewhat less known bit of danish history, giving it the full Arthurian legend treatment with giants, gods, rune magic, and all that norse goodness. With a writing style that echoes their poetic style, and larger than life dialogue, it seems a good choice for those who like mythological epics, but are bored of Arthur, Beowulf, Gilgamesh and the greek guys.


Fiction: Soulkeeper by Michaelene Pendleton. Another bit of fiction, another attempt to give us an internally consistent magic system in just a few pages and still tell a story. And I think they do a reasonable job of both, although the system is better than the story, creating shapeshifters who can pull some pretty neat tricks, but are still limited by conservation of mass and relying on a sidekick to keep them from getting lost in animal form. Given what a powerful ability it can be, that kind of limitation keeps narrative drama going. With the other forms of magic hinted at, but their rules not spelled out in the same way, it leaves room for sequels, while still resolving the plot neatly enough. I wouldn't mind seeing this expanded upon.

 

[Orius]

Ashiera are flying fish humanoids. They're moderately slow in water, land and air, but hey, that versatility counts for a lot. They tend to be quite aggressive, but lack the organisation to hold places they've conquered. With the ability to generate magical bursts of cold and mist as well, they can be dangerous even when unarmed. One would fit great into an adventuring party as long as you're not expecting to have to run away.

THese guys I believe are also the makes of one of the exotic armor from the first Annual issue, so it's good to see a writer display some of his personal worldbuilding in the magazine. Of course, it's nowhere near the level of Ed's output, but then what is?

Xakhun Airship: Straight away, we have a second variant on flying drow. It's almost as cheesy a fangirl choice as unipegataurs. Just how many of these must they have rejected in their time before finally caving to public demand? Fortunately, it's a completely different take on the idea though. A whole tribe of half drow, half wood elf exiles who've taken to the airship riding lifestyle. That's not particularly cliche. Despite being exiles, they're still mostly bastards, and of course all the more scary because they come from above instead of below.

Bastard in every sense of the word it seems too. What else can you expect from drow?

Still, it was a pretty damn good article, and while I never got around to using xakhun, I made sure there was a place to put them into my campaign.

Roger Raupp's return has done quite a lot to make this issue more special. Who will come back next, and what will they bring with them?

I'm not sure it was an acutal return on his part. The note on the ToC page about the cover states that the art was found buried in TSR's archives somewhere. So it sounds like he maybe pitched some of the ideas years ago but the never got used and were forgotten. And it was now being used as WotC went combing through TSR's vaults.

Fiction: Soulkeeper by Michaelene Pendleton. Another bit of fiction, another attempt to give us an internally consistent magic system in just a few pages and still tell a story. And I think they do a reasonable job of both, although the system is better than the story, creating shapeshifters who can pull some pretty neat tricks, but are still limited by conservation of mass and relying on a sidekick to keep them from getting lost in animal form. Given what a powerful ability it can be, that kind of limitation keeps narrative drama going. With the other forms of magic hinted at, but their rules not spelled out in the same way, it leaves room for sequels, while still resolving the plot neatly enough. I wouldn't mind seeing this expanded upon.

It was an interesting story to be sure, there was some good fiction in Dragon toward the end of the 2e days. Though the shapeshifter was a real irritant of the worst kind.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 244: February 1998


part 5/8


Arcane Lore: Another in theme article, with a whole bunch of elemental air spells. Appropriately enough, we're coloured light blue, although I'm not so sure about the pink headers. Oh well, at least it gives me something interesting to comment upon. Let's hope the same can be said of the spells.

Cloud Cushion is a quick-fire spell that you can create to catch falling creatures, reducing or negating the damage altogether. One that'll save quite a few lives and facilitate getting around awkward locations if your wizard memorizes it.

Glide is somewhere between feather fall and flight in terms of power and usefulness, as befits a second level spell. You can control your descent quite a bit, but can't go up. Combine with levitation, and a 4th level wizard or air specialist'll be able to kludge together something to keep up with full flight.

Part Vapors lets you cut a path through mists, including magical ones like cloudkill or death fog, and gas based monsters. Since so many of those creatures are impervious to conventional assault, this will be very useful in certain encounters.

Windshear makes turbulence to up flying things. This is another one that's pretty versatile, if not hugely deadly on it's own. Exercise your imagination.

Mass Flight lets you bring the party with you, assuming it's not too big a party. Since you are about name level, this is the kind of game-changer you really should be exploiting to the hilt.

Air Mantle lets you breathe in vaccum, and shields you from nasty gas effects. Really needs to be longer duration if you want to go spacefaring.

Wind Conduit lets you summon raw elemental air energy to enhance your spells. This can obviously be applied to the other forms as well.

Death Stalker is a far more badass invisible stalker that only kills, and is extremely hard to kill permanently itself. It may sometimes turn on it's caster though, so stay on your guard if using it and keep a banishment spell ready.

Solidify Air is interesting and versatile, but probably doesn't merit being 9th level. Still, it's another one that's full of fun variant uses. When you're that kind of level, you can afford a little wastefulness.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 244: February 1998


part 6/8


Bazaar of the Bizarre gets some more colour too. The budget increases are starting to percolate through. We're still on theme here, with an absolute ton of items designed to get you airborne. No more worrying about niche protection, there's enough for everyone, albeit at different speeds and limits. This is a new one on me. Things are very literally looking up.

Anklets of feathers turn you into a bird. Always a good way to fly, even if the lack of hands limits your actions quite a bit while up there.

Clasps of Theol create a cloak from whatever materials are around, in a somewhat destructive but cool looking way of assembling your flying appendages. Might not be a good idea for a wizard to activate this in their study, for spellbooks are rather expensive.

Cloaks of the Swanmay let you grow swan wings, putting you halfway to bird maidenhood. Whether you can leverage this into a promotion is up to you.

Cloud Blend lets you go all lakitu and ascend to the sky that way. Steering and coming down may be a problem though. Better have at least a ring of feather falling as well.

Cloud Chariots are rather more maneuverable, but still require a mount to pull them. And their capacity may not be enough for a whole party either. Neither fish nor fowl, it's a bit of an awkward middle ground really.

Courier Shafts turn into a hawk and go straight for their destination, which can be up to 100 miles away. Much better than a pigeon service by a long shot.

Crowns of the Wind Dukes reference our old artifact rod and expands on it's lore a little. It's powers are relatively minor, but it's more what they represent as a symbol of law from a vanished race. They also suffer from infectious alignment syndrome. Wear with caution.

Daedalus' Wings are as decidedly shoddy as their mythic counterparts. Do not use near an open fire or highly sunny days. These won't stand up well to the rough treatment adventurers go through in their travails.

Darkest Bridles summon big scary flying mounts. Exactly how scary is random. Have fun when your luck turns bad and the enemy laughs at your mobat when you needed a Dragon.

Flying windmills are basically gnomish helicopters. Seems like they're getting a token item quite regularly these days. I guess it makes up for them hardly ever getting the full themed issues.

Gargoyle armor is protective, lets you fly (rather slowly and clumsily) and has claws. Even better than the real thing as far as many people are concerned.

The Greater apparatus of Kwalish is another callback to classic DMG setting seeds. Obviously, given this issue's theme, it can fly, but it's real value is as a mobile engine of armoured destruction. It even has a breath weapon. Pretty awesome, if a bit easy to run away from.

Horseshoes of the asperii let your mount not only stay in the air, but also go up and down with ease. Just a slight upgrading from the basic DMG formula.

Masks of the Aarakocra are psionic items that let you fly via animal affinity with eagles. Interesting bit of problemsolving there. Psionics does have a little trouble with that, as telekinesis is far too expensive to really use for flying yourself.

Ravenkin rings are another one of those affinity items that let you fly via transformation, and offer nifty social benefits with related creatures too. This is of course dependent on finding wereravens and ravenkin, which may be tricky in some campaign worlds.

Rudders of the winds let you sail a ship through the air. Another trick that's always useful, simply because it has a far greater capacity than other arial methods.

Saddles of the Dragon Steed let you enslave a dragon and order it to fly you where you want. This will not be taken kindly by the dragon. I would recommend against it. There are definitely better ways.

Skyblight rods let you summon so many ing ravens as to completely blot out the sun for miles around. Rings of invisibility get copied from the hobbit left right and centre, and no-one thought to imitate this one? How dumb are we? Truly, we're missing out on the epic right in front of our noses. It has other pretty scary powers too. I love this one.

Staves of the lost winds produce 4 different cardinal direction themed powers. Hot, cold, wet, dry. They don't let you fly though. Guess they've had enough of that by now.

Whirling Scimitars let you fly, but only by using them as a helicopter. This obviously leaves you slightly vulnerable, and a bit comical to more maneuverable flyers. Watch they don't knock you out of the sky to splat.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 244: February 1998


part 7/8


The ecology of the sphinx: This is amusing. This story manages to weave together a tale of all four main sphinx types, and a wizard who manipulates their various tendencies to get what he wants. Man, their sex lives are even more ed up than Lamias'. It's a wonder they manage to survive and perpetuate themselves. It's all pretty much as laid out in the monster manual, but of course much more fun to read about when it's happening to specific individuals, rather than some nebulous generic sphinxkind. The footnotes aren't very interesting or useful this time round, making this an entertaining but ultimately inconsequential entry in the series. On we go then.


Dragonmirth may be playing the wrong game. Swordplay once again fail to kill each other. Floyd draws upon some very interesting magic tricks indeed.


Roleplaying reviews loses it's hyphen. In time, everything gets abbreviated. Fire bad. Space good, though. Rick thinks so, anyway, and he's got no shortage of designers who think likewise to review. So once more unto this topic, just to take things a bit further than the sky theme of the rest of the issue. Up up and away!

Trinity sees white wolf go sci-fi. Well, space opera anyway, as lets face it, it's hard to do psychics in space vs aliens and superheroes turned mutant monstrosities and keep the science particularly hard or avoid thinking of Star Wars. Rick is reasonably positive about it, as the setting and characters are vividly done, and the system streamlined somewhat from the WoD version. But it's still designed very much as the header for a ton of splatbooks, so he's not entirely happy about running a game there yet. Give it a little while, and hope it doesn't die before they get enough books out

Heavy Gear on the other hand, gets an overall negative review. It looks good, but the setting is exceedingly sketchy when contrasted with WW's, and the system has a nice core but huge impenetrable tactical combat rules. Plus they're more interested in mechs than the human scale stuff. One for wargamers who want to add a bit of roleplaying & plot to their epic battles.

The southern Republic tries to fill in the biggest nation of the setting, but the writing fails to enthuse rick, with it feeling as if the writers were struggling for inspiration. Far too many of the things are pretty direct real world lifts for a setting 4,000 years in the future, and some of them are just goofy. Is this what you want to do when not in your mechas?

Jovian Chronicles uses the same system as Heavy Gear, but gets a slightly more positive result because it's setting seems simultaneously closer to home, and with a more interesting setting. Still, that's merely a matter of degree, and it still seems rather tame when compared with Trinity. What was acceptable 10 years ago no longer cuts the mustard.

Mechanical catalog really concentrates on the vehicles of the setting, giving lots of example ones and showing you how to build your own. This actually gets the best marks, because it's the area the writers seem to be most enthusiastic about. So really, it's a case where the system has potentail, but they aren't really applying it to it's full capabilities yet.

Reign of steel is one of GURPS' most interesting settings yet. Ok, the basic theme is essentially that of the Terminator series future, but it's handled with style, and with a whole bunch of competing overminds, there's plenty of room for regional variation, and weird touches keep it from being a one note setting. Plus you can play as either the humans or the robots, in case you get bored. Who doesn't want to hunt down and slaughter human scum.


Re:Views: The Power seems to be an attempt to meld Mage and Changeling, as PC's are initiated into a secret world by eldrich entities where they can tap the dreamtime to manipulate reality through a deeper understanding of how it works. Just as with last month, this is a case of great flavour, but somewhat lacking mechanics. I guess they really are following in the White Wolf spirit. In any case, it's the kind of world that accommodates all the standard archetypes and adventures while not feeling too generic. It gives you another option if you want to do the dark modern fantasy thing.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 244: February 1998


part 8/8


The KotDT crew are suckered into endless debate. This gives the GM breathing room to think and recover their sanity.


TSR Previews: Things start to step up in pace again in april. The forgotten realms continues to try and figure out what to do regarding Azoun IV's death. Just put a new king in and get on with things. You'd think they'd never heard the word succession. Also under stress this month is Evermeet: Island of elves. Elaine Cunningham has fun setting Malar against them. Will they have to swallow their pride and ask for help from humanity to survive?

Al-Qadim also gets some attention for the first time in a while. The appropriately titled Reunion compiles three linked tournament adventures where you have to complete some fairly solid objectives. Will you win, lose, or go off the rails?

Ravenloft finally reveals what lurks within The Shadow Rift. Gaping holes in the fabric of reality can only hang around so long without something coming to fill them. Can your PC's do anything about this dire new menace?

Our monstrous Arcana series turns it's attention to illithids. The Illithiad is our third monster book. They've always been popular in the magazine, and it looks like another generation will get to enjoy being minded and having their brains eaten in the next adventures.

Dragonlance has another anthology. Relics and Omens covers the period immediately after the Chaos Wars, as people adapt to the new world. Who will deal best with the changeover?

Dragon Dice is up to Kicker Pack 8: The Treefolk. Earth + Water = plantfolky goodness. Once again, the balance of power is upset as ever more sides join in the fight.

Looks like they've slipped out another game when we weren't looking as well. Marvel Super Dice? Man, they've missed no time jumping on the licencing. This pack gives us extra coolness for the avengers. Okey dokey.

And finally, they make another attempt at a generic system, 5 years after the last one. Less wacky than the Amazing Engine, Alternity attempts to position itself firmly in the modern day/sci=fi vein. Once again, they will try hard, and fall short of their primary cash cow to the extent that is isn't profitable to continue.


Profiles: When asked to feature in this series, Ed Greenwood massively overwrote, as usual. It's all because of his enormous, infectious enthusiasm though. He's produced the biggest, most detailed campaign world in the world, and he's still going. Much of this can be credited to his gaming group, which has been going since 1978 with the same core people, and who's questions and input help direct his imagination and keep his enthusiasm going. And he has a full time regular job as well. (although as a librarian, he probably gets plenty of free time to jot down ideas as they occur to him. ) It's not all sunshine, he's not as rich as he could have been if he got royalties from all the FR books, nor does he get as much creative control as he could have if he signed a better contract. But he doesn't seem too bothered (not that the magazine would publish it if he was) and is very happy that so many people have taken his words to heart. Hopefully he has several more decades of insanely prolific writing in him. As enjoyable a read as most of his contributions.


With several old school returnees, and a sufficiently new take on on the issue's topic that it doesn't feel particularly rehashed, plus some more upgrades in the overall presentation of the magazine, I rather like this issue. It shows they were not only reconciling with the obvious big names, but other writers as well, and really thinking about how to bring readers back. Do more epic features that make everyone who reads the magazine talk about it with their friends! Word of mouth is the most important thing for long-term success, and you'll never get anywhere if you don't make new legends to rival the old ones. Do something bold, give me something I can really care about.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 245: March 1998


part 1/8


116 pages. It's a dwarf special. We haven't had one of these since 1982! And elves have had at least three I can recall since then. That's a bit of going back to your roots I can get behind. Wonder if halflings and gnomes will have to share theirs again when they next get one. And will goblinoids ever get a turn to shine instead of being mowed down like the mooks they are? Well, I guess we'll have to see. In the meantime, I shall skip shaving for the next couple of days to get into character.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Alternity may have been delayed a bit because of all the financial problems, but it's still coming out. And here they ask if they should give it lots of coverage in the magazine, a little, or none at all. A question which is almost guaranteed to result in them taking the middle path and putting maybe 1 article a month in here, given the way it's phrased. Still, hopefully there'll be some more specific suggestions that the writers can take on board. And hopefully they'll do a better job of promoting it than they did many of their other products. The 80's had plenty of variety, with Marvel Superheroes, Star frontiers, Top Secret and Gamma World all doing quite nicely, but Buck Rogers was rather a debacle, and the Amazing Engine coverage halfhearted. So this is a reminder that they used to have more variety and adventurousness in their topics, and could in theory do so again, but it seems unlikely. There are drawbacks to playing it safe.


D-Mail: A letter praising Dragonlance and asking if they plan to make official recordings of the music from the books. Very good question. They might well just leave it to the filkers.

A letter in support of Lankhmar. It's the closest thing they have to a low magic setting, plus the city has more than enough detail to feel alive. It deserves much more popularity than it has.

A letter supporting Greyhawk, but also cagey about the possibility of them adding more to it. The fact that it's still fairly open gives you more room to make it your own without being contradicted by canon niggling. They could ruin it all too easily if they're overenthusiastic.

A letter saying planescape is obviously the most awesome as it encapsulates everything else and then some. Simply in sheer variety of ways you can play, it wins by a long shot. Well duh.

And finally, a letter of general commentary. Most of it is positive, but there's always something you think they could do better.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 245: March 1998


part 2/8


Forum starts to really ease into it's new role as airing ground for the edition shift. Our second question is what they should do with the weapon stats. They need some interesting factors beyond damage to distinguish them, make for valid choices. How best to implement that?

Kevin R. Messner attacks the guy saying slavery is just another form of business quite viciously. It's an inherently corruptive and exploitative practice, resulting in much death and misery. How can that not be evil?

Jo Ann Spencer points out how magic low Tolkien actually is in comparison to most D&D games. This does not make it a bad story. Quite the opposite in fact. Learn from that.

Mike Walko thinks that humans ought to have a few extra discretionary points compared to other races to reflect their versatility. Now there's something that definitely made it into both 3 & 4e. Now you know exactly who to blame for that.

Rob Garret also gets right to the point. We need to be able to raise our ability scores as we gain levels. Yeah, we'll yoink that one too.

Tom Kretschmer thinks you ought to get rid of level limits, but give humans slightly lower XP costs so they learn faster. Sorry, you fail. Not every idea is going to be taken up, of course.


Sage advice: How can a bladesinger attack and parry in the same round (secret twinky elven techniques. They can cast spells one-handed, too. Skip doesn't even need to try to make that sound wrong. )

How do you use the monster summoning VIII table for VII. That would be broken. ( only use one monster, instead of rolling for number)

Can dispel magic get rid of summoned monsters.( Usually. If you choose the wrong spell though, it'll just remove the control over the monster, leaving it there to rampage. Know your enemies magic. )

What's the difference between mislead and an image made by spectral force. (you don't need to concentrate, and it can leave the area without disappearing. )

What happens if a shadow mage casts spells on someone in a different lighting condition (the target's condition takes precedence)

What does a ring of wizardry do in the spell point system. (They gain a fixed number of extra spells. No messing around with the extra power. )

Does making a permanent item make you less likely to lose con than a freestanding spell or not (Volo is wrong. What would a 5th level character know about advanced magic technology.)

Does alignment based damage happen if you are forced to touch an item (no, only if you pick it up of your own volition)

How does sleep work (weakest creatures first. )

How do you calculate MTHAC0 (table 77)

I don't understand it when ships have multiple movement rates (sails, oars, and both.)

What's aasimar's movement rate (12)

Can identify detect cursed items (not directly. Most of them are designed to screw you over. Commune'll generally do the job.)

What modifiers affect spell-created weapons (oh, this is a can of worms. It depends on if you physically wield them or not, and a whole bunch of other complicated things. Some fudging may be required. )

Strength provides more benefit to two-weapon wielders than two handed weapon users. This is wrong! (You have a point. We may have to do something about that. )

How do you work out ego points. (with great bravado.)

Can rockfalls hurt creatures that are immune to nonmagical weapons (yes, as they aren't a weapon)

Can you improve your THAC0 further than the high level table says (you can certainly add more bonuses onto it. You seem to be confusing base and modifiers. So it goes)