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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5616124" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997part 2/8101 dirty orc tricks: Tuckers kobolds style advice hits double digits! And well into the triple digits in terms of specific tactics! What more can I say at this point? I really don't know, since we've been here so many times before. I'm definitely running out of ideas. So yeah. 101 ideas, some new, some old, some borrowed, all concisely presented and useful. Th-th-that's all I have to say folks. Legend of the 5 rings. A teaser advert that is once again out of date. I guess they paid for it ages ago, and still have to fulfil their commitments. Not very satisfying for either side at this point, as who's benefiting from it? Aurora's undermountain sale: Now this is kind of another tie-in article, but not nearly so blatant. After all, Aurora's whole realms catalogue was released a good 5 years ago now, so this isn't commercially motivated at all and more of a follow-up, showing that this still has quite a few fans for it's detailed and playful worldbuilding. So here's 16 more nonmagical items that would be rather handy for adventurers, just in case you still have a bit of room in your pockets. And if you don't, they have better backpacks for you to buy too, so you can carry more with less risk of doing your back in. Power creep! Hey, if magic improved in RPG's at the same rate as computers in real life, people would be complaining it's totally unfair and breaks the game in no time. So yeah, there are a few improvements on standard fantasy technology, but none that don't work in reality as well. It just makes the realms a little more fantastical and less gritty. (not that it was ever hugely gritty, even at the start, what with all the hypermagical empires popping up and then blowing themselves to smithereens every few centuries. ) I have no problem with this, and found this a reasonably enjoyable read. Magical locks: Another themed collection of magical items. Well, we've had doors ( issues 106 + 115) and keys. (issue 200) This would synergise well with those two. Perhaps one on magical chests some time as well please. Maybe. We'll have to see. In the meantime, it's the usual runthrough of what's in here and how imaginative it is. Locks of Cages transport anyone trying to pick them into the classic minimus containment. They can't hold that many people though, so you'd better check them regularly if you're a big bad, and bring lots of henchmen if you're a PC. Yeah, bringing henchmen to go ahead of you is a good idea in general in dungeons. Locks of Curses deliver personalised blights on anyone trying to get through them in unorthodox ways. Another classic, or highly cliched idea, depending on your current cynicism level. Locks of Displacement are rather cleverer. The innards are not where they appear to be, making picking them a good deal trickier. Anything that doesn't rely on manipulating the mechanics can bypass this no trouble, so this isn't too valuable. Locks of the Elemental Guardians summon an elemental to kick the butt of the lockpicker. Best to run. Guardians generally stick around, and if they do follow you, someone else can sneak through while they're distracted. Locks of Etherealness just whisk your target away. Best used on chests, not doors. <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" /> Locks of Exploding are another one that has pretty limited use, for once blown, it's pretty much gone. Once again, henchmen to take the brunt will come in handy. RIP, Baldrick the 37th. Hello Baldrick the 38th. Nice to have you on the team. Locks of petrification are meaner than I thought, because they only turn your hands to stone. This is painful and slowly fatal due to weight distribution and bloodflow issues rather than just freezing you in place. Not a nice way to go. Locks of Riddles trap you in with them until you can crack their conundrum. Another method that'll make you exceedingly cautious next time if you manage to get out this time. Locks of Shadow fade away, but keep their door closed. This can be solved by the gordian knot solution of breaking the whole door. Well, isn't that true of most of these. Don't forget to put protections on the walls, windows floor and roof too. Any weak spot can be exploited. Locks of Shearing eat up anything used to pick them and spit it out in amusing fashion. Om nom nom. Another one that's best to get round by finding an alternate route, for losing your tools and possibly fingers doesn't sound cool. Locks of Spell Holding, like the cursing ones, are mainly limited by your imagination. Still, they will need regular recharging. Acererak probably wouldn't get round to it between adventurer visits. Locks of Transferrance teleport your stuff elsewhere, leaving you there naked. The standard is to put them just beyond the barrier, adding taunting to humiliation, but that is very open to customisation. Better hope the other henchmen in the team have the same size clothes. Locks of Warning just make a racket, attracting any other safeguards the placer may have. So as usual, this is a fairly mixed bag, both in inventiveness and effectiveness. Should keep players busy and paranoid for a while.</blockquote>

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