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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4785569" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 118: February 1987part 2/5Illuminati! All these conspiracies to control the world. Who will win? Now with new friends and enemies in the expansion set. Surely, you joust!: Fast forward a few hundred years, and gladiatorial arenas are no longer in fashion, but instead guys in heavy armour get on big horses and do their best to knock each other off with lances. Course, in D&D, you can take a short trip from Karimekos to Thyatis and do both no problem. But without rules for weapon breakage and unhorsing, it'd just be a standard fight. So here's another fairly extensive article to turn tournament fighting into it's own minigame. Cavaliers are of course the stars of the show, with their slew of riding related bonuses making them better than any other fighter at the same level, but that doesn't mean you can't at least compete. Another pretty good article, even if it does fall into the trap of creating nonunified subsystems to handle each situation, and it's obvious that the writer hasn't read either of the survival guides that roll out nonweapon proficiencies for general use. It happens, especially when an article has probably been in the slush pile for months waiting for enough other stuff on the same theme to build up. A day at the faire: Once again we follow on fairly logically. You now have rules to fight in a tournament. But plenty of fun can be had simply as a spectator, especially if you already have an in with the upper classes and can engage in a little shopping, betting and politicking while there. Here's a fairly quick article that gives us some descriptive fluff to help you set the mood, a set of map elements for you to take and use, some sample NPC's, and half a dozen plot hooks involving them. In other words, this cuts all the crap, and gives us one thing after another that's useful in actual play with very little work. If anything, it's almost a sample adventure. Which is pretty damn awesome, actually. Even more than the last article, this really makes a good bit of tournamenting seem a fun and accessable option for a session. Very pleasing indeed. On target: And if you're not too keen on arena fighting or jousting, there's always archery, which allows you to demonstrate your skill with rather less bloodshed, particularly on your part. And once again, we are faced with the abstractions in D&D's combat system, which while normally beneficial to our play, make running a competition like this very hard if you don't houserule. And once again <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=";)" /> Leonard Carpenter is here to provide said houserules. Once again, he isn't fully integrated with previous books and articles (Completely ignoring the Archer class in a discussion on archery? Shocking. I don't care if it was 6 years ago, and you don't have a copy of that issue <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=";)" /> ) but most of it makes sense on it's own terms. A solid but unexceptional way to finish off what has been overall, a very good themed section. ARRRGH!!!: What a header <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> I'm amused already. This is all about PAIN! Wound penalties are one of those things that certain people keep trying to put into the game, but so far, it's never stuck. Mainly because for most people, it's more bookkeeping for less fun. And massively escalating hit points combined with it produce odd results. But here we go again, into the AARRG, my FOOT!!!! territory. Which while it has it's superficial temptations, is nowhere near as nice as marlboro country to live. If you want to add an extra roll and a couple of extra bits of bookkeeping to every single hit, be my guest. But even though these seem pretty solid, and don't neglect the idea that some of D&D hit points are actually narrative avoidance, I still have no desire to actually use them. It also gets cut off at the end without saying where the final few lines are and I can't find them anywhere. Sloppy editing. Curse you, Roger! :shakes fist: Nibar's keep: CC Stoll pulls an old game out of his files and finally gets it published.  Not really a full-on special feature, this is a quick little game where two players summon various creatures and compete in an arena to settle disputes. They ought to sue nintendo <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=";)" /> There are 9 different types of counters, all with their own strengths and weaknesses, giving you a level of emergent tactics on a similar kind of level to chess. With an optional advanced version, it should survive a few plays.  This fits the theme of the issue well, and since it has a fairly generic rationale for existing in a larger setting, you could insert Nidar and his keep into an RPG campaign, and use this as a minigame who's results have effects in the larger continuity. Which I might well do, if I get the chance. Nice.</blockquote>

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