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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4928475" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 142: February 1989part 5/5Arcane lore: A whole grab bag of druid spells from various freelancers here this month. Animal/bird call are cut down versions of the usual summoning spells. They may bring the creatures, but they don't control them. At 1st level, you'll have to use your brains and exploit their natural tendencies to make them useful. Coalstone is another low key, but tremendously handy little trick. Like continual light cast on an object, only with the additional benefit that you can use it to burn stuff like an actual coal, having one of these in your pack is a huge benefit every evening. The kind of thing you can see becoming a commonplace utility spell in any society where magic isn't too rare.  Druidsight lets you see through the eyes of an animal and order them around. Just what you need for when you've run out of shapeshifts for the day, and need to do some inconspicuous spying. Once again, they prove that what wizards can do, druids can do sooner, and with more side benefits if you apply the powers cleverly.  Hailstone proves that there are still some things wizards are better at, being a nature based relation of magic missile, only not as accurate or damaging. Still, any blasty spells are better than none, and it isn't annoyingly context dependent like call lightning. Sense Direction lets you know which way north is. Elementary, really. Nuff said. Sharpleaf lets you turn easily available plant parts into dangerous weapons. Be it as melee, missile weapons, caltrops, or simply tools, they can bring the pain quite adequately.  Shatter Stone and metal lets you not only destroy the weapons of your opponents, but do so explosively, adding injury to insult. A classic of screwage that'll annoy and scare players even more than a rust monster. They are producing a lot of seriously handy powers in this installment.  Sink into earth lets you do a bit of safe underground hibernation. Very thematic. Splinter wood is like the metal one earlier, only lower level and affecting wood. No matter what your equipment is made of, a powerful druid can ruin it. So much for technology. Go the pure magical force route or something. Stonewood lets you make wood as hard as stone, duh. Exactly which of the shattering spells now affects it is not clarified. Since it is fairly high level, I would incline towards conservatism. Things that look like one thing and act like another are a good source of screwage and counter-screwage. Thunderclap is also pretty self-explanatory. The ability to inflict permanent deafness as an AoE attack is not to be sneezed at at all. It may not be as damaging to your HP as fireball or call lightning, but it is a bit trickier to get rid of. If you don't have a cleric, you'd better have money to burn. Tracking lets druids effortlessly outclass rangers at one of their specialities, just as knock and levitation lets wizards marginalise thieves. Here we go again with the power creep. Warp stone or metal completes the symmetry of object screwage, being lower level than the shattering one, but higher level than warp wood. Even if it's not as damaging, you can pull some clever tricks by choosing the directions in which the object is warped. And possibly even express your artistic side as well. <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" /> Weather dome gives you a mobile AoE forcefield against unwelcome weather of all types. It's a bit expensive to use every time there's a bit of drizzle, and that'd be the kind of thing which puts you out of touch with nature if overdone, but it is rather nice to have as an option. Wind and rain protection does pretty much the same thing, only on a single target for a much shorter duration, at lower level. The two spells were done independently by different people, and boy does it show in their design choices and overall power disparity. This is an article exceedingly full of versatility increases, and in many cases outright power creep. Definitely a fun one to read, but also another one that reinforces the current spellcasters are way better than other classes attitude. There is very little magic can't do quicker and better. And the edition change is going to do nothing to fix this. Dragonmirth offends those on high. Yamara starts metaplotting. Things go from bad to worse for Snarf.  Another mixed bag, with some good articles, but the reviews seem to be fluctuating in quality rather. Another fairly average one overall, it is nevertheless a reminder that the magazines used to be easier to get through, and eventually, they will become so again. But in the immediate future, the issues are only going to get bigger. It's still going to be several years before I can get this millstone off my neck, so I'd better think of new ways to keep it interesting. Onward! I may have missed the 2nd ed preview, but I can still see the real thing, which is far more important.</blockquote>

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