Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6072251" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 304: February 2003part 5/9Locked away: We've had articles on magical doors, magical locks, and magical keys before. Now we have one on magical chests. Yet more opportunities for you to fill your players with paranoia whenever they're down in the dungeon, for anything could be trapped or enchanted and turned against you. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, muahahahaha! The individual chests, both magical and mundane, are pretty devious as well. Two layers of transparent stone with green slime suspended within, so any application of force will drench both you and the contents, completely ruining your profit margin and your life. Magnetic chests that are near impossible to batter down or pick open if your equipment is ferrous, because it'll just get stuck. Gross chests made of troll flesh that regenerate if you try and break them open. This is all pretty ingenious stuff, some of which could be applied in reality as well. It's always the ones that apply scientific principles to fantastical ideas that come up with the most ingenious yet plausible tricks. As with the last article, I'd delight in introducing this one to my game, and seeing what my players made of it, what equally ingenious tricks they'd try to get into them. Guardians of the wild: Fey time again. Always a risky business, given how annoying players find tricksters. Still, they have got a lot more serious in recent years, so who knows how this'll turn out. Let's see if there's any more whimsy juice in the kegs. Changelings give you an ECL + 0 option if you want to play a fey-touched character who doesn't quite fit in, and has minor magical abilities and worries about their true parentage. Given what I know about players loving sexy brooding loner types, they'll eat these guys up and they'll be reappearing in any best of reprints. Crystaline Cats are tremendously pretty, but don't let them scratch you, because they breed like Slaadi, implanting a little crystal that grows up worryingly quickly. Thankfully they're kinda hampered in stealth attempts by their nature, so steer well clear and use missile weapons and hope for the best. Forces of Nature are draconic fey with wings made of leaves. They are indeed pretty forceful, and can kick your ass both physically and magically. If your party is powerful enough that even treants can't stop you from despoiling the forest, who ya gonna call? Green Guardians are a good substitute for treants as well. They look like ferns, and can sing hypnotically and emit poisonous spores to deal with despoilers without excess violence. Still, at least they can't animate trees, so they can't rearrange the scenery in quite the same way. Sparks are annoying little arsonists that can teleport from one flame to the next, so they have a strong incentive to be destructive, sneaky little gits. Sounds pretty fae-like to me. Thankfully one solid hit will snuff them out, so stock up on your water pistols and true strike spells. Seelie Fey are pretty, but they aren't necessarily good. Joining up does get them a fair number of extra powers, at the cost of vulnerability to cold iron. If you're one of the in crowd, it seems like a pretty sweet deal, so they can afford to be exclusive. Unseelie Fey, on the other hand, are always twisted horrors, in a depressing attack of grey and black morality. As they're also the product of mixed-race matings, that makes this incredibly racist as well. Two depressing cliches for the price of one! I don't think I'll be using much of this article.</blockquote>

Verification