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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5046814" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 164: December 1990part 2/6Bonds of brotherhood: Ahh, the old background filling in questions. Monks are supposed to have been trained by some organization. Like clerics, this means you can get substantial world integration benefits by spelling out what organizations, gods and philosophies are out there for the PC's to follow. If you set them up so they have good reasons to go out adventuring, that helps even more. So here's a bit of advice on that, and three sample orders from the writer's home world. A good one which hunts down and shares knowledge. An evil one which controls places from behind the scenes under a humble guise. And a neutral one which tries to pacify and enlighten barbarians from the inside. All seems pretty sensible, and draws on a nice range of literary sources for inspiration. File under solid but unexceptional. Born to defend: As they've said earlier, new classes are popular. Just the oriental ones introduced here alone nearly double your options from the main book. Doesn't matter if they're poorly balanced or thematically misconcieved, people still crave the crunch. No surprises that another new class finishes off this section then. The Piao Shih, who's job it is to escort caravans and people across the huge distances and substantial dangers of the oriental world. You can see how one of them would wind up with an adventuring party. And they do have some exceedingly valuable skills, especially since oriental characters don't have a ranger equivalent, and the closest thing, barbarians, are kinda persona non grata in polite society. They are pretty high on customizability, with many of their abilities selectable from an array of options that looks easily expandable. They do have a bit of an issue in that they only earn half experience from killing things and taking stuff outside the line of duty, but since this is also a problem Shugenja, Samurai and Sohei face, this is not an insurmountable issue. All you need to do is make sure trade is an important part of your group's activities. They're certainly a lot easier to integrate than Geisha, and they certainly don't look egregiously over or underpowered, while having plenty of distinctiveness and flavour. If your group is playing Marco Volo, having one of these come back with you seems pretty plausible. And then the paths the adventure could take just keep on forking. What ideas will they have next. Sage advice loses it's colour for the first time in a while. Oh noes. Poor skip. Just when skip was getting used to it, they pull the plug again. Skip will have to make some arrangements to fix this. Can magic resistance stop gaze and protection attacks (no, and maybe. )If a staff has all it's charges used, does it still retain a bonus to hit and damage (No. It's just a useless lump of wood. ) How do clerics read scrolls if they don't have spells to do so. (Err. Somehow. )Where can I get more info on herbs to make proper use of the herbalism proficiency (Waay back in issue 82. No, we still don't do reprints. You'll have to get hold of it yourself. ) How many slots does it take to learn everything about poisons. What can I do with that knowledge (Ask your DM. Don't think that more powerful poisons'll be cheap or easy to make, even if you have the knowhow. And remember kids, poison use is hazardous to your health and your alignment. Don't do it at home. ) What abilities do you get when polymorphed (You've asked this before. Skip can't be bothered. Skip is still pissed off about losing his colour. Skip is off to complain to the editor. Seeya later, bitches.) Forum: S. D. Anderson points out that wizards actually stand to benefit more than fighters from adding firearms to their arsenal. They're not likely to be the ones holding back their development. It's more likely to be the clerics, quite possibly from orders by their reactionary bosses.  Remember, the magic/technology divide is a pretty artificial one, and most in setting characters would likely ignore it, seeing both as perfectly normal within their normal parameters. Toby Myers trots out the old "computer can never replace the imagination of a human" argument. I think everyone agrees with that, yet they still keep using computers. This is pretty much a non debate. Jeannine Cochran wants demons and devils back. Good needs strong opposition to really shine. We shouldn't listen to a bunch of mothers who'd rather ban things for everyone than keep an eye on what their children have access to personally. Kildare Bangore speaks up in promotion of anime, building on Gregg Sharp's letter. It may not have gone mainstream, but there are quite a few clubs out there, trading videos and giving people a forum to talk about these things. He also goes into a talk about the history of the giant robot genre. Guess who was originally responsible. Patrick E. Baroco and a bunch of other kids speak up to praise D&D, and give their opinion on it's problems. They of course think that they shouldn't be banned from playing it. Quite right too. We've already seen the educational benefits roleplaying sneaks in under the guise of cool explosions and killing stuff.</blockquote>

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