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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4912922" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 140: December 1988part 2/5Sage advice takes on top secret this month. Once again, it's the old edition, not the new one, that's getting the attention.  Are Temporary reductions percentages of your score, or 100. (your score ) How do you handle wounds in the field (You put up with them until you get to a hospital. No mid-mission healing round here. )Does willpower help you resist poison (not usually) How can you die from poison (Cumulative exposure. )How do you check for sleep gas. (regularly pinching yourself)How do Chlorine and nerve gasses affect you. ( irritatingly) I want stats for heavy military gear. (Tough. Even though other writers are rapidly putting the lie to the words, Skip will continue to insist they have no place in the Top Secret game. ) What happens if you use a combat style the enemy doesn't know (they're at a substantial disadvantage) Can players look at the charts when fighting hand to hand (yes. The rules should be an open book to them) What happens in projectile vs HtH cpmbat. (usually, the shooter pwns the slasher) How long does it take a chopper to get airborne ( In an emergency, always too long)What happens if you dip lead bullets in teflon (if doesn't stick very well) Do you roll a new difficulty each time you force a door (if its been broken once, chances are it'll be easier to break again) What are the chances of having your disguise penetrated. (depends how good the disguise is) What are the chances of an enemy running away when losing (Courage score seems tailor made for that purpose) How do you learn to forge stuff. (That's a tricky crossdisciplinary business. Governments like making these things diliberately awkward to do, as is their right) How much do false documents cost (You get what you pay for. If you're with an agency, they set you up with even better for free. ) Does the defender need a sword to not autolose at swordplay (no, but they do need something to block with) What are the chances for train derailment (See the orient express module. Logical place to put it. ) The flamethrower is missing stats ( See the Top Secret Companion) How do you improve your languages (same as any other AOK) What is stopping power (how well a weapon knocks you back or out) The military record rules are confusing (That's because it's a realistic emulation of military bureaucracy <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> )What do you roll when trying to create a diversion (a bit of everything) What's with departure times ( Errata) What are your chances of getting away at an airport (depends how long til your flight. This is why they normally make you book in advance and hang around for hours. ) What are the ranges of airliners (If it aint a few thousand miles, it's barely worth the name) How much does water travel cost, and what is a water mile ( Quite a bit. Remember, you're not traveling straight, but round lots of little jiggly bits on a river or coast. )Do the involuntary hit response rules work like they seem too (yes)What's the modifier to a course if your skill is 17-84 (none. Only extreme scores do anything. ) What do you gain for doing the silent killing course (coughs and points downwards)Sawn-off shotguns are way too accurate (you're right. That should be a minus, not a plus. ) The savant: Ok, so it's not exactly how Gary would have done it. But at least you get to see this long mooted character class at last. This is an attempt to make a PC level Sage class, able to both adventure and have masterful knowledge of many fields. They're another split class, combining with some other spellcaster so they have slower advancement, but considerably more miscellaneous powers. Which is pretty cool really, as it gives you another way of making a character who is powerful, but not primarily a combatant. It would also require very little modding to allow it to split-class with warriors or rogues instead, and I would be entirely willing to consider that. Seems like split classes are becoming quite the fashionable option, allowing you to give your character more customisation while not completely removing yourself from the more heavily supported baseline ones. You can see why they developed kits in the next edition, to make this kind of thing more standardized and accessable. The demand is very much there. Since I like customisability, I approve of this development. So many gods, so little time: Building a pantheon. A topic tackled by no less than Ed himself, back in issue 54. Rather big shoes to try and step into and rehash. And indeed, this tackles it with less detail and far fewer specific ideas than the previous version, making it not really that interesting to me. There are a few new ideas, but really, if you're going to do something again, you need to do it bigger, better or sufficiently differently to make an impression when the previous version is still around for the consuming. Sorry, but this just ain't up to it.</blockquote>

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