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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5568967" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 234: October 1996part 5/8Forum: Roni Saari has managed to run a magic poor AD&D game and still have fun. It was pretty dramatic actually, without magical healing, everyone was much more cautious. Guess it can work after all, even if the odds are against it. Jochen M. Kaiser thinks that thieves shouldn't be trying to be straightforward combatants, but taking advantage of their stealth and backstabbing powers. That more than compensates for their relatively low THAC0 and armour abilities. Nice theory, anyway. You know how players hate it when one person hogs the limelight for a whole scene. Lucas Ashlar Lee is another one of those people who supports magic being rare enough to feel magical. The Forgotten Realms just doesn't do it for him, with an archmage in every city. Robert Armstrong gives his alternate rules for axe damage. Once again I say huh. Go go pedant lawyers. Hyper nerdy pedant lawyers. Ian Bloomberg becomes our third Emailing contributor. Still not common, but gathering pace. He brings up the old canard about spellbooks being ridiculously thick and heavy for their page count. Yawn. Been through this before. Your topic is not keeping pace with it's delivery. Martin Scutt agrees with a whole bunch of other forumites. He's eliminated level limits and dual-classing for some time and it hasn't caused any problems. He's also cut down on magical items quite a bit, and that has helped his campaign carry on in the long-term. Remember, you can go back without completely resetting everything. The dragon's bestiary: We finished Tom Moldvay's examination of all the undead types last year. So it's back to upgrading basic skeletons and zombies, as he did back in 1988. Necrosurgery is a fun little business, and as any Tzimisce will tell you, the human form is a highly malleable. While your imagination might not actually be the limit, with patience and raw materials, you can do a hell of a lot. And won't your enemies be happy to know they're being killed by creatures you spent hours customising, rather than fresh from the grave mass raised zombies. Spike skeletons are not only hedgehogised, but have two other tricks added on that'll really make you regret hitting them close up. As ever, cover and missile weapons really will help. Acid Zombies are another one that's pretty self explanatory. Do not touch is once again the defining mantra. Still, at least you're unlikely to get diseased as well from this one. Dust Skeletons go poof when you hit them, but this is still not a good idea, as said dust is poisonous. Get your cleric to use his sling to deal with this one. Quick Zombies are also pretty obvious, moving at double human speed tirelessly. These should keep the enemy busy while the slower creations mentioned above have time to close. See the advantage of tactics. Several different creatures can triumph where hordes of one couldn't. Absorbing Zombies deal with the spellcasters, absorbing their attacks and turning them back. The writer is really thinking about these guys as a team, not just as individual monsters. All I need to do is create said boss.Defiling Skeletons are easily the scariest of these guys, with their lovely ability to rejuvenate via destruction of all the plant life around. They have a nicely flavourful weakness too. Even though it says they're dark sun only, I'd have no hesitation transplanting them elsewhere. Tales of the fifth age: Firstborn by Dave Gross. Ah yes, this is where Dragonspawn start. As if Draconians weren't trouble enough. Now we have to deal with humans mutated into humanoid draconic hybrids as well. Which of course means the opportunity for AAAAAAAAAAAAAngst, as people become monsters, and have to deal with that fact. Not that Dragonlance has ever been short of angst. They were doing it before White Wolf was an inkdrop in the Wieck brother's pens. But this does feel like a conscious attempt to tap into the same vein of drama. An assassin gets transformed into a monster, and ironically winds up becoming a better person for it, or at least, turning his talents on those who truly deserve it instead of working for pay like before. We've seen that story before, and I don't doubt we'll see it again. And this makes them feel like they're now following trends instead of making them, as with many of the 5th age rules quirks. This certainly isn't terrible, but it doesn't stand out either. I am forced to say meh.</blockquote>

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