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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4565711" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 59: March 1982part 1/284 pages. Another traveller heavy issue here, with a new adventure and more articles and reviews. It is easily taking second place in terms of coverage at the moment. Was this reflected in it's general sales at that point? In this issue:Out on a limb: Another letter on the overpowered characters debate. While not overly in favor of that kind of ridiculous twinkery, the sender does think that getting XP for being hit isn't such a bad idea. After all, you learn as much from failure as success in real life. A letter rebutting Brian Blume's soapbox piece about the undesirability of evil. Go you. We can't leave stupid statements like that unchallenged. A letter in favour of weapon specialization. Proficiency shouldn't just be a binary thing. A letter saying that dragon isn't overpriced for what it delivers. Have you compared the page count to cost ratio with actual modules and stuff? Another letter asking for reprints, preferably in themed anthology form, collecting say, monsters, NPC's new classes, optional rules, etc in groups. They say they might consider that if there seems to be enough demand. From the sorcerors scroll: Cantrips! Gary introduces 0th level spells to the game. These are exceedingly useful little effects, very open to creative use. Which is symptomatic of how powerful even 1st level spells can be, compared to magic of literature, but there you go. Another cool thing that would have a strong influence on later editions, making low level wizards more than just one shot and they're empty spellcasters. He also includes a new spell, Advanced illusion, and a new magic item, the philosophers stone, as they have been referenced in the fiend folio, but not printed yet. Man, this game really was stuck together randomly in some ways. An article that is both enjoyable, usefull, and influential. You can't have much better than that as a lead in. Giants in the earth: This month's rather highly statted characters are Poul Anderson's Sir Roger de Tourneville, L Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea, Alexei Panshin's Anthony Villiers and Torve the Trog; and Clifford D Simak's Mark Cornwall and Sniveley. That's quite a large turnout. Gypsies! Looks like someone was separating them from normal humans and giving them a whole slew of special powers long before the world of darkness did. (well, D&D had an entire campaign setting revolving around the buggers, I guess.) Fortunately, their powers here are vague enough that you can't make them into a PC race without a bit more work. Which just makes me sigh. If you're going to be tasteless, you could at least do so with a little discipline and consistency. Like the nazi's <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I do not approve. Dragon's bestiary: The bleeder, a bloodsucking beholder variant that would make it into future monster manuals, gets introduced here. Frankly, most players would rather face this that a real beholder, as 10 straight attacks are far less dangerous than a host of instakills and subverters. Stymphalian birds are another greek mythical monster. Vicious, with flight, hideous stench and disease spreading effects, they're the kind of creature that'll continue to be a problem even if you kill them. Spriggans are odious little gnomes which can enlarge themselves. Another monster that makes into future official books, they are probably derrived from the same mythological source as duergar. Anyway, they make both nasty combatants and good tricksters, so watch your stuff around them. The great kingdom and the knights of doom: Rob Kuntz gives us more official Greyhawk setting stuff. The demonic Knights of Dooooooom!, elite servants of Irvid (sic) the undying. Beware. The state has been taken over by evil of the worst sort. Anyone speaking out is a traitor. and must be eliminated, post-haste. Send help, urgently. No chance. There have to be evil states, otherwise what would the PC's have to kill? This is another plot thread that's going to developed further in the future. Are the demons and undead really neccecary though? Humans are quite capable of being complete bastards on their own. Skitterbugging: Fiction by Gene O'Neill about a group of planetary surveyers. Aka those who go boldly where no-one has gone before, exploring new worlds, cataloguing new forms of life, etc. A rich seam of plots for adventurers, in other words. You never know what challenges you'll face each time. And they can be pretty weird, as in this case. They then put traveller stats for the characters and creatures in the story. A pretty good setup really. I quite enjoyed this one.</blockquote>

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