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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4625223" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 82: February 1984part 1/286 pagesIn this issue:Loremaster. Yet another rolemaster product line is starting up. Tanara, yog mur, the iron wind. More stuff I've never heard of, and would be interested to know more about. Out on a limb: A letter picking apart the stats in issue 80's module. You forgot a rule.  Now correct it. Another letter pointing out that halflings cannot be druids. Kim reponds with the PC's are different maxim. NPC's can break the rules PC's are bound too any time the writer wants, so there. Five more letters pointing out errors that they admit were valid, for various reasons. Kim apologizes. Making a magazine on time every month is incredibly hard work, and tis no surprise that some stuff slips through the net. A letter asking for clarification on the combat computer as it pertains to monsters. Many of them don't map properly to PC armor types, so you'll have to just leave them out or spend ages on case by case adjustments. Dr No. The official James bond supplement. You saw the Top Secret imitation, now you can buy the real thing. And there was much rejoicing, particularly amonsgst the people who had to go through the hassle of clearing the licensed products with the film company. The forum: Nikki Purdue thinks that serfs in medieval times had things better than Katharine Kerr said. Really, it was a period of centuries over an entire continent. I'm sure these things varied widely. S D Anderson pontificates on the planar cosmology, and how to make it work. He is of the opinion that there should be more than one plane per alignment, and this would solve overcrowding and turf war problems. But there only being one interesting thing in each infinite universe would make the planes feel even emptier. As it stands, creatures of the same alignment competing, or living on planes that don't match their morals because they got kicked around or chose to move (orcs and yugoloths, respectively) produces more interesting stories. I vaguely disagree with your thoughts. Ralph Sizer thinks that the reason there shouldn't be official anti-paladins is because being good is harder than being evil, so it requires active sacrifices to maintain, while evil is the path of what I was going to do anyway. Ha. Have you ever tried being consistently evil? It's just as hard as being consistently good, because people keep trying to stop you. Someone else has experienced rather different life lessons to me. Eric Odgaard thinks that the current multiclassing rules are balanced, actually. Hee. If it's working in your game, that's cool, I guess. Laurel Golding doesn't think that dragon magazine and D&D in general is nearly as sexist as, say, chivalry and sorcery. I'll guess you weren't around for issue 3. Well it's nice to see some people aren't hypersensitive to every implied slight. The ecology of the peryton: Nigel findley!!! One of gaming's most missed writers. And it looks like this is his first appearance in the magazine. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of him in the future. One of legend's stranger creatures gets a nicely creepy writeup, taking a weird, but relatively straightforward monster in actual play, and making it really rather disconcerting to deal with. I suppose you can do that even with monsters that familiarity has made prosaic, like goblins and tigers. He also introduces legends of lost glories for the creatures, and fleshes out the characters of the people doing the telling and their personal dynamics quite interestingly. One of those cases where the writer immediately stands out from the crowd, thanks to their already well developed personal voice. I look forward to seeing what else he gets published in here. Wounds and weeds: Herbalism! Another excuse to heal and buff your characters when out in the woods away from easy shopping, and reduce an adventuring parties need for clerics. In fact, there's a little too much focus in this article on healing damage, at the expense of the other effects various herbs can have upon your health and state of mind. But I guess that's a problem with the underlying system, as well. It's certainly interestingly presented though, with decent fiction and nice illustrations of the various plants detailed. Despite it's limitations of scope, this is still a likable article, that punctures D&D's tropes in amusing fashion, and is very useful in actual play. One of those things I would have no hesitation about incorporating, as it is neither useless, nor overpowering. Just what the doctor ordered. Enhancing the enchanter: Another dragonquest article. How pleasing. Quite a substantial one, too. The author takes a look at what is in his opinion the weakest of the schools of magic, and gives it a whole bunch of new things to do. Of course, I can't judge whether they bring things up to par, or overbalance them. So it goes. For all that I like them covering other systems in here for the variety, It still means I have to deal with bits I can't properly assess on a mechanical level. Rings that do weird things: A bazaar of the bizarre by any other name would still still be just as sweet to shop at. 13 new types of magical ring, including two Ed Greenwood contributions. They're a pretty varied and useful bunch, with both combat and noncombat abilities well catered for. Only problem is, you don't have enough fingers to wear them all. Guess you'll have to share them amongst the party. Another collection of stuff that is both entertaining to read and instantly useful for an actual game. Just what the magazine should have. New avenues for agents: Another non D&D article here, as they give us teasers for the top secret companion. Two new classes, a load of specialities, and some more informal roles that cross classes like becoming a rogue or double agent. Not sure about the presentation here, I mean, putting the XP tables first isn't the best way of saying Cool new stuff! Come and get it! But it's nice to see games other than D&D getting decent amounts of expansion material. And while you could play the informal roles anyway, spelling them out like this makes GM's more likely to allow players to do stuff like this, rather than being trapped in the "do mission, report back, get new mission" cycle. And expanding the scope of a game is usually good. They're still nowhere near the point of diluting the theme and overcomplicating the game by adding too many options. After all, going renegade or double agent is an established convention of the genre. It can cause problems in troupe based play, but that doesn't mean it should be forbidden outright.</blockquote>

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