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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5508017" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 227: March 1996part 5/8Bazaar of the Bizarre: We had two specials on elven magic items last year. Inevitably, this brings the complaint that dwarves are under-represented. Oh, suck it up. You're still easily in the top percentile in terms of media coverage and shiny toys to play with. Spare a thought for the Norkers and Dire Corbies. They're never going to get a special on them, while you've still got several to come over the years.  Now enjoy your presents, ya grumps. An Axe of Dwarvenkind can turn into a battle axe or a pair of twin returning throwing axes. In either form, they're only really any good for dwarves. No question how the treasure's gonna be divided if you get one of these. Stonereaver axes are not only super effective in dwarven hands, they also hurt stone based enemies even more. No big surprise from a race built on mining stuff. Dwarven Warhelms give you a bonus to AC, and also to ale! <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" /> (I presume that's meant to be morale, but is a very appropriate typo played straight) It's even cumulative in groups. Let's quaff some more, lads! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Explode stones are a very bad pun. They can be used as grenades or dynamite, both of which seem handy in subterranean warfare. Watch the enemy don't reverse engineer them, because then you have very definite technological advancement and we can't be having with that. Hammers of Battering allow you to automate your violence in a whole bunch of interesting ways, and avoid having to keep rebuying material components. Definitely one for the priestly then. Hammers of Stunning seem pretty self-explanatory. You hit them once, they're at a substantial disadvantage and you can keep on pounding. Always useful when facing a big boss. A Manual of the Forge gives you a free proficiency. It's not as invaluable as the ones that give you level or ability score boosts, but certainly nothing to be sneezed at. Search for lots of variants on this to become a real skill monkey. Oil of Corrosion Resistance is invaluable in a community where they try and build things to last. A manufacturer of this can make a pretty penny by selling it on to all the craftsmen. Oil of Sculpting is basically stone shape in a jar. Another one that has considerable economic value. Not trusting magic rapidly disappears when it's just so useful. Floyd has the summoner/demon relationship rudely inverted. They're in the book: Another way of using books as plot hooks. Well, it's important to get our adventurers reading, especially since 2e has the lowest literacy level amongst characters of all editions thanks to the way the proficiency rules work. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Actually, this is pretty interesting, as it showcases the various ways clues can be hidden in an otherwise unrelated book, or collection of books. The main issue here is that it is rather tricky to adjudicate, as you can't just put the books in front of the players and let them find the clues themselves. You can either give the solution away, or like secret doors, make them roll, and just use the solutions as flavour when they discover. Or if you're really dedicated, scribble on a real book and make them search for the anomaly IRL. Yeah, Not sure I'm keen on that one. Maybe annotate a .pdf instead. So this is a good idea, that may be a lot of work in actual play. I'll have think about how I can make this one work to my benefit. Tactics for two: Our CCG coverage this month is a little collection of variant rules for the Blood Wars game. Rules optimised for two players? Seems slightly odd. After all, the game doesn't break down when played that way, unlike in solitaire play. Still, they would probably know better than I do, having plenty of chances to playtest it. The changes aren't that great, mainly being adjustments to how much stuff you can play, and a few additions and clarifications that will keep play suitably brutal when the political aspect is greatly reduced. It makes me wonder just how badly the game handles 2 player under the core rules. And was that a problem when it came to actually finding people to play the game with? This is one of those cases where I'll have to turn my questions upon the general public. What were your experiences with this game and how did the number of players change it?</blockquote>

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