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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4598482" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 71: March 1983part 2/2Sage advice is following up on the astral plane article 4 months ago. The information given just raised more questions, as there's no way you could satisfy everyone in 13 pages, and you couldn't anticipate what holes they'll pick in it anyway. So lets see what else we find out here. Does the astral plane connect with the elemental ones (not usually. You'll have to create a relay or use powerful gating effects) How do you drink potions in a weightless environment. (use a straw, squeezable bottle, or some other inventive means. There are plenty of tricks to solve this one)  Why can creatures drown if they don't need to breathe there (because it blocks the astral "air" from getting to their system. (I know they changed that one later. because they had the whole astral ocean thing in planescape.)) Can you talk normally while astral (yes) How are psionics changed while astral (here's the list) What races are the wizards traveling the astral (nearly all human. Other races just can't get high enough to learn the magic, apart from by using scrolls.)What's this about creatures going insane when lost in the astral (Exactly that. Stranded creatures may be of dubious sanity, due to sensory deprivation and the strangeness of not needing to eat, sleep, and stuff. Watch out.) How do lycanthropes cope (they can't change while astral, because there's no moon, no night, and virtually no time. I doubt they'd spend much time there unless they were an unwilling one looking to get away from their curse.) Can a cleric bring their holy symbol along with them (If they enchant it somehow. A simple light spell should be enough.) Can astral travelers adjacent to another plane be seen by creatures further into the plane (yes, with some caveats) How fast can a magic-user's familiar move (if within 12" of its master, it can use it's master's intelligence, if not, it uses it's own) Do you automatically heal any damage your astral form has when you return to your real body (no) I don't like the rules for adapting to missile fire in weightless conditions (that is not a question. You can houserule it if you like) Why aren't the missile ranges infinity if there's no friction (because it still gets harder to hit further away targets. After a while it's just ridiculously improbable.) Since you move by thought, can't you just dodge by thinking yourself out the way (Reaction times still depend on dexterity. Stop trying to break the system)Why is grappling allowed, but overbearing isn't (because there's no surface to push you onto) Can intelligent magic items move while astral? (theoretically, but they won't think of it on their own as they're used to being passive partners. Plus, they have no senses apart from the magic ones they're specifically given unless being held, in which case they share yours. They're unlikely to wander off.) Do magical items from other planes lose power on the prime material (yes)Do swords of life stealing lose their special power when astral (only if their plusses are reduced to zero) How long does it take spellcasters to recover spells (the usual. Even if they don't sleep, they still have to spend 8 hours doing nothing before studying. And they can only do so once per journey, unless their god lives on the astral plane, or they're a native. (now that's another bit they would later drop)) Man, that's a lot of questions. And it's not over yet, as they expand on the spell changes as well. This has certainly been informative (and a lot of typing) Deities and demigods of greyhawk: This month's creatures that you may choose to worship are Erythnul, Incabulos, Nerull, Ralishaz and Wastri. A pretty unpleasant lot, running the gamut of evil alignments and goals, from human supremacy to slaughtering everything. (funny just how much of nerull's portfolio vecna stole in 3rd edition. You'd think they'd conflict more.) Weirdly enough, more attention seems to be paid to balance their cleric's powers with each other. Either gary's getting more practiced now, or they're making sure all the players don't defect to the side with the better toys. The dragon subscription page is particularly amusing this issue, thanks to tom wham. Reviews: Swordbearer is a fantasy RPG. With an abstracted wealth system rather than coin-counting, an interesting magic system, and skill development rather than rigid classes, it's certainly a step upwards in overall design sophistication. Can it survive against the current harsh competition for any amount of time though? Our reviewer is not optimistic. It may be too sophisticated ( ie, complex) for the proletariat. Plus it's silly to try to get into an already occupied niche. Dunzhin is a text based adventure game. Explore, kill beasties, find treasure, hope your stuff doesn't run out at a bad moment, wrestle with the simplistic parsing system; unless you're too young, you'll remember the drill. Thankfully, it's all randomly generated dungeons, so there's plenty of replay value, and you don't have to worry about trying to hold conversations with NPC's  And if you manage to finish this one, you can buy more games in the series, and transfer your leveled up character between them. Isn't that nice. An advert for plattermania is on the same page. How many spinning plates can you keep up for how long? Sounds like an interesting little computer game. Definitely not worth $39.95 on its own though. That'd be a single minigame on one of the modern wii party games. (actually, is there one, as that seems like it would be very well suited to the controller system. ) What's new covers lycanthropes. Dave Sim approves. Wormy features holy mackerel (sorta) Dragonmirth has a million reindeer. It'll make more sense if you actually read it. A very fast-paced issue, with relatively few articles, none of which held me up. This is a definite improvement over the last couple of issues. Lets hope that's a trend,  not a fluke.</blockquote>

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