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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5882643" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 273: July 2000part 5/7Arcane Lore: We draw 2nd ed to a close with a 3rd druid special, this time concentrating even more specifically on plant magics. Hey, that means it'll also be useful to Rangers. A plan with relatively few drawbacks. Except the ever present danger of rehash. Still, hopefully this is the last time I'll have to say that for a while. Hail of Thorns brings the pain, plant style. Slightly less dangerous than magic missile, as a cleric blasty spell should be, it's still both accurate and reasonably damaging. Pinespear lets you add piercing damage to your staff without any metal assistance. Cue getting reamed with a pinecone jokes. Hey, druids can still have filthy senses of humour. Nature's Mantilla is invisibility, plant sphere style. This is another one that doesn't work quite as well as it's straight wizardly equivalent, but that's the nature of kludges. Leaf Ears is clairaudience via plants. Well, we do already have teleportation via plants. Rooting lets you feed through your feet. Seen you before. Next! Thorn Growth is the textbook antigrappler. Seen plenty of variants on you too. Bear Fruit is a juicy variant on create food and water. Handy though, because it leaves the tree it creates behind, which may be more of an ecological benefit than the immediate one. Reforestation can be hard for druids, this makes it a lot easier. Placate Plants satisfies their appetite, keeping them from going all Audrey II on you. A niche power, but possibly a lifesaver, like so many others. Bronzewood Weapon is another way of making your weapon more badass, hopefully enough to hurt an annoying monster immune to mundane stuff. Not totally reliable though. Rooted Wrath is a buffed up, damage inflicting Entangle. As usual though, there needs to be vegetation around. And this is one dungeon delving druids are unlikely to have the materials to draw upon, unless on the first level, and having the tree roots reach down out of the roof. Oh well, it's hardly terrible, is it. Bazaar of the Bizarre: Our final 2nd edition bazaar is in theme, with a whole bunch of items that are perfectly suited to the swashbuckling mentality. Fight with style, and have dramatic encounters. An idea I'm pretty positively inclined towards. Looks like a pretty decent closing sale. Favors for the favored are charms, traditionally presented to your romantic amour, which offer minor mechanical benefits. That's a good present, not like some pack of cheap chocolates that are probably half nutty crap anyway. The Blade of Heroic Measures lets you do called shots and disarms with much greater probability. You don't have to kill your enemies to kick ass. The Impeccable Defender lets you parry lots of attacks. But maybe not enough. D&D still can't match up to white wolf in terms of active defence mechanics. The Rapier of Brilliance produces flashes of light that allow you to make a quick getaway or temporarily blind your opponent. It's all very unfair. I suppose we'll always have Grimlocks. Breath of absolute valor allows you to bring a companion back to life, but at the very real danger of giving up your own life. One perfectly designed for dramatic nerve-wracking scenarios where everything hangs in the balance. A Bridle of the Companion Mount boosts your mount's morale and helps you perform stunts with them. Hi ho, Silver! Away we go! Candles of Renewed Brilliance let you rest and come up with a cool idea to sort out your current problems. Since I can generally do that anyway, I'm not impressed. Everflowing Capes billow dramatically without any wind, let you leap chasms, and produce stuff mysteriously with a flourish. Swoon. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Gloves of the Gallant let you fight while seeming not to be paying attention at all. This has little mechanical effect, but is highly amusing flavourwise. Kaldeen's Chroniclers of Questing Confessions provide a truly faithful account of your actions. This means you may be cautious about letting people read it, for all your little lies and indiscretions will be revealed. Perfume of Wondrous Attraction are an item recycled right from the early 80's. Temporary charisma boost followed by sharp loss if you're not careful. Just the thing to really set you up for a disappointment. Potions of Spotlessness help your grimy adventurer to become socially acceptable again in short order. If you've just got back from a big adventure and feel it's partytime, this'll get you spruced up in time for a full evening's carousing. The Shield of the Righteous is another item that reduces the effect of undead screwage. You may still lose levels and die, but you can postpone the effects for a bit and hopefully make a real difference for the party. The ecology of the hippocampus: Silly people, underestimating things that look like animals, when actually they're pretty smart. Still, it does make for rather good stories, so I suspect they will keep on doing it. This ecology is the work of a pair of new writers, and it shows, in comparison to the slick charactersmithery of the monster hunters stuff. It's also a little to attached to the savage nobility of it's subject,    the angst of being captured and suffering, the bond between man and animal, and all that bumpf. What is it about horses that makes people go all gooey. It happened with unicorns, centaurs just about avoided it, but they're half human, and I expect it'll happen to pegasi if they ever get round to doing an ecology on them. Still, once again, the change in storytelling style breaks up the monotony. That's worth quite a bit these days.</blockquote>

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