Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5351830" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994part 4/6Libram X introduces the macguffin, and the retro-cyberzombie. Even if this isn't set in the same universe as the planescape cosmology, it certainly uses quite a bit of the same tone. Which isn't a bad thing. Sage advice: What level can bugbear shamans be (7) What level can voadkyn druids be (5)Can humanoids become bards or not (Most of them can only become the nerfed bard kit in the book. Skip has forgotten this, and makes a dodgy ruling)How high a level can alaghi shamans get (6)Can you permanance wildfire (no, and it wouldn't do much good anyway)What's the range of speak with dead (1 yard. Corpses don't have very good hearing. )Can item shrink a living creature. How about dead creatures. How about fire ( no, no and yes) My wizards want to put plate mail on after using up their spells for the day. (Well they can't. They're not properly trained, and they'll collapse like schoolkids forced to hike a hundred miles with a fifty pound backpack. Plus, who's carrying the armour when they're not wearing it? Doesn't that impede their fighting usefulness somewhat) There are maps missing in FRS1 (Skip will solve that. Skip is more than used to dealing with this little problem. )Gauntlets of ogre power, girdles of giant strength and warhammers stack?! Isn't that broken? (Yes, but you've gotta use all three simultaneously, or no go. Someone back in 1st ed really liked Thor, and we've never bothered to clean out that bit of exception based design because it's cool.) Do psionic attacks go twice against non psionic opponents (Yes. This isn't as great as it seems) Can psionics and magic work together (not easily. Magic is from mars, and psionics from venus. Relationships will be filled with misunderstandings. )Why doesn't mind blank completely protect you from psionics (Be thankful it provides any protection at all. You know they normally don't work on each other at all. )You got dark sun scroll creation wrong! (Skip apologizes profusely. Please don't cut Skip's pagecount or retcon Skip, oh mighty TSR overlords. Skip assures you that Skip will do better next time. Skip has kept up on his godly duties, expanding on the gods of nehwon. Isn't that worth something? ) Fiction: Cap Revoort's luck by Daniel Hood. A sequel to the story in issue 195, this manages to answer the ambiguity left at the end of that story quite nicely, while still working as a standalone. It also highlights the dilemma of the swashbuckler's luck, where you are destined to accomplish great things and have legendary adventures, but the flipside of that is that you never get to live a quiet life, and the people and things around you that aren't so blessed will suffer lots of collateral damage as they're swept into your wake. It may be pure advantage from the PoV of a person playing them, but from the perspective of the character themselves, the constant drama can be a bit tiresome. As with the previous story, the character dynamics are pretty good as well, and there's plenty of implications that there's a wider world built up by the writer's notes, ready to go if needed. This is one campaign setting I could definitely stand to see a bit more of. We won't se it here though, unless the Freeport referred to repeatedly is the same one Green Ronin did quite nicely out of in the early d20 era. Let's check this. Doesn't look like it. Damn overcommon names. It's never too early: Or once again, we have awesome plans for our conventions! Book now, otherwise you might miss out! Q is our special guest! More than 10,000 dollars worth of prizes to be won! Roleplaying and board games aplenty! (note that wargaming is now subsumed into the board game stuff, another sign of it's decline) An open gaming library that you can use to browse books and check out for use in games! (what are the odds many of them'll be missing by the end) And tons of stuff that's exclusive to RPGA members, so sign up now! Meh. More pure promotion. Like christmas, it seems to come earlier and earlier every year. 12 secrets of survival: Ooh. A collection of toys by Spike Y Jones. He's generally pretty good. Although not at math, apparently, as there's 13 things detailed in this article, not 12. Maybe it's the editor's fault. Maybe they meant 12a secrets, in the way that some buildings skip the 13th floor because it's bad luck. Either way, it's amusingly facepalm worthy. Amulets of catnaps allow you to sleep in small bursts and still retain full functionality. For a couple of days anyway. Then, like most magic items of this sort, they'll start causing problems. Sleep seems to be one of the hardest things to get rid of completely in D&D worlds. Armor of restful sleep lets you do the paranoid adventurer thing and stay fully protected in the roughest of terrain without having backache afterwards. Now you'll never get them out of it. Exposure salve protects you from the elements for up to a full week. Well, you know how tiresome it gets having to apply makeup properly every day and wash it off before going to bed. Like the previous one, this'll save quite a bit of time on a day to day basis if you can get hold of it. Eyes of the condor let you see as if you were soaring high above your location, getting a birds eye view that can be quite handy tactically. Just don't try to operate stuff at the same time, for perspective shifts make you clumsy and quite possibly nauseous. Otiluke's survival sphere lets you encase yourself in an airtight bubble that also provides for your needs when active. It can be rolled around by the occupants or anyone around, so it won't make you totally safe from monsters and hazards, but a giant invincible hamsterball makes you able to explore more safely than normal, and is also a thoroughly amusing visual. I love it. Pavilions of plenty are a somewhat larger device that also gives you a full food supply, and some protection from the elements. It even has it's own inbuilt butler, who can probably tell you all sorts of stories about what trips other adventurers took it on. Be careful packing and unpacking it though, or it will gradually lose it's value. Potions of camel thirst are another thing that allow you to defer, but not eliminate your bodily needs, with diminishing returns setting in when overused. Still, the comedy value of drinking several week's worth of water to make up for your deprivation is quite appealing to me, so you can definitely go in my game. Stone Cloaks let you disguise yourself as a rock when wrapped around you, a la morgan le fay. Like many transformations, there's the danger of coming to think like the thing you've become, which isn't very good for rocks. Could be a looong time before you turn back if that happens. A straw of breathing makes sure you have an air supply on the other end no matter where you go. Which will leave you looking like a yokel when sucking this out of the corner of your mouth all the time in space, but hey, better ridiculous than dead, as we've said before. (and contradicted ourselves on a few times - it's such a hard decision.) Sun Cloaks are of course very helpful in dealing with inclement weather. They do have a catch though. You wear it one way to stay warm, and inside out to stay cool. Put it on the wrong way round by mistake, and you'll be suffering twice as quickly. What are the odds someone'll do that while in a hurry to pack, particularly if there's monsters around?Sustain fire makes anything you set alight burn for 10 times as long before being consumed. Along with the obvious use in dungeon delving and cooking, this also seems usable as both a torture device, and ironically, a last ditch protection should you happen to find yourself plunged into the elemental plane of fire unprepared. Gotta love those low key utility spells that encourage you to use your brain. Rainfire prevents your fire from being put out even by being plunged fully underwater. If used to set someone's hair alight, you can bet they won't be happy about that. Rainshield deflects any water from above, allowing your cleric to keep their dignity, and maybe even their life if acid is involved. Another of those utility spells that doesn't sound too impressive, but certainly makes things a lot more comfortable. Now, if only they'd remembered to include a sphere listing for it. So this article does have lots of cool, useful and funny things, but also some seriously sloppy editing marring the product. What's with that?</blockquote>

Verification