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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5369982" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 209: September 1994part 2/6The priests of africa: More kits time! As with issue 200's wizardly kits, (which are by the same writer) these have minor access to spells from the other side, thus blurring the wizard/priest distinction in D&D. This should make for an interesting article mechanically, but also runs the risk of repeating fluff ideas. Africa is a big continent, but are his cultural sources wide enough to do that justice? I shall have to see. Artwork's good though, so that's already a plus in it's favor. Animal priestesses get wizard divination spells (but not clerical divination spells, very weirdly) and the abilities to talk too, charm and summon their chosen animal. Course, they can't hurt said animal without losing their powers, but as a limitation, I think this falls into the path of what I was going to do anyway. They're pretty unlikely to attack you with that suite of powers unless there's a more powerful spellcaster involved. Kongo Witch Doctors get to create village wide circles of protection via dancing. They're not that great as adventurers, with quite a small sphere selection and no armour allowed. More a support kit then, for they'll be almost as squishy as wizards in the frontline. Legbas are another variant on the elemental priest idea. They get the more wide-ranging power to control all kinds of animals from the appropriate terrain, and a pretty decent spell selection, including wizard spells of the appropriate element. The only hinderance is once again having no armor and shields, which I suspect may be standard for all this lot, given the culture. Obeah-men get wizardly necromantic spells, setting them up as the priestly parallel of issue 200's Houngan & Mambo. They also have to sacrifice animals to the gods upon level increase in the same way. Using both really blurs the distinction between the magic types. Poro draw upon their ancestors regularly, and get to upgrade their mental stats in the manner of cavaliers. They also get bardic lore and lots of proficiency slots. Their spell selection isn't that great though, making them more generalists with spiritual fluff than clerics. Which is interesting. But as with last selection, these seem more likely to err on the side of overpowered than under. Maybe the consistently considerably lower AC's will balance that out. Guess that's another question for the actual play realms. Palladium also gets all verdant, with the jungles of yin-sloth out now. Long-lost priestly magicks: Wizards aren't the only ones with obscure spells. Clerics might not have as many, for both IC and OOC reasons, (godly records, and not as many supplements focussing on them) but there's certainly nothing stopping spells from going out of common use, particularly if they're the sort that would only be cast a few times a lifetime anyway. High priest forgets to pass them down, or gets killed before a decent successor arises, and the hierarchy's secrets are borked. Such a pain. Merge with Nature lets you avoid death by merging with a tree and becoming a dryad. This is nowhere near as good as Tree Spirit from the complete druids handbook, but it is a level lower and accesible from more spheres. If you know about both, you're unlikely to use this unless it looks like you're going to die from old age before you get the chance to advance a few levels. Roots of the Assassin are a druidic variant on Evard's black tentacles. They kill by strangulation, and are rather a bitch to fight. They seem perfectly decent as a combat spell, and have some neat forgotten realms fluff woven in as well. Resplendence of renewed Youth lets an old priest temporarily regain the vigour of youth for one last world-saving adventure! (at a heavy price, of course) Very much a plot device, this has a good dramatic feel to it, making me thoroughly approve. This selection definitely goes for quality over quantity, which since we have tons of spells already, isn't a bad thing. And new methods of playing with the aging process, which is one area D&D has always been rather conservative with, are especially welcome. So I definitely enjoyed this one. Role-playing reviews: Lester bends the rules a little, and reviews computer-based roleplaying aids in this column. Well, it's just as valid a form as audio CD's to aid your gaming, and has considerably more legs in terms of development and reusability. After all, we know now that computer based aids'll become an invaluable part of 4e's player aids toolkit. It's mainly the budget required that keeps this from becoming more common. I suspect quite a few companies are trying to jump on this bandwagon around this time. Goldtree engine is for creating your own fully searchable city setting, full of fleshed out buildings, people, objects, weather, random events and plot hooks. Much of Lester's review is devoted to his sample adventure created with it, which does indeed sound pretty cool. It's surprisingly quick to use, and can throw up results that surprise even the DM, spinning off into new plots easily. A computer program should make things quicker and easier, not harder, and this certainly seems to fit that bill. Now, if they could just get the self-aggrandisement out of the manual. <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" /> Worldsystem Mapmaker is designed to create maps and encounters over a wider scale, even going up to solar systems rather than just planets. Again, it's flexible, and supports putting a certain degree of randomness in your game so you can have random monster attacks and weather to keep players on their toes. It does seem a bit harder to use than Goldtree, but also more versatile. It also has a bunch of expansions, so it seems good for people who really want to work at mastering a program. Campaign Cartographer isn't nearly as versatile as the other two products reviewed here, but does what it does better, thanks to being more specialised. You can zoom in and out from street to global level easily, and create amazing levels of detail. You can lose yourself for hours and fill your entire computer's memory with your world maps. And it costs $70. That's a fairly substantial investment to make. Once again I'm thankful that computers have become a good deal cheaper and better over the years.</blockquote>

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