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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6152193" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 324: October 2004part 5/8Spellcraft: Another book of illusion spells, courtesy of a gnome illusionist. I thought we'd outgrown that since 3.5 arrived. Evidently not, as no less than Rich Burlew gives us a typically mischievous bit of history design. He's managed to make a whole university the suckers with this book. Chalkboard is another handy cantrip for making your point better, via visual ornamentation. Keep finding uses for those 0 level spells, people. I guess teaching archmages have to keep on going back and relying on their low level spells to get through their day's classes. Delusions of Grandeur makes you complacently overconfident and smug. Seems slightly better suited to enchantment than illusion, but there's always these edge cases, aren't there.  Phantom Foe manipulates the flanking rules in a very specific manner. You might have seen spells with visuals like this before, but the mechanics are new. Another sign of their greater attention to those kinds of details these days. Sensory Deprivation is another one that stretches the limits of the illusion school. All senses removed? That's a bit powerful for a 3rd level spell. It may only have a short duration, but this seems like the kind of brutal battle ender they're moving away from now. Shadowy Grappler is another one that removes all the fun ambiguity of general illusions, and just goes for a very specific effect. Curious business. Soliptism is nothing like the ToM spell of 2e of the same name. Instead of imagining stuff into existence, this makes the victim believe nothing is real, again leaving them vulnerable to whatever you want to try, in a manner that will really frustrate their mates. This is an interesting collection, both in descriptive terms and in tracking the progression of rules trends. Magic shop: This column also gives us a previously seen theme. items that are beneficial, but have a price or drawback attached to their powers. One that always makes for interesting play, whether the players accept the price of doing business, or look for some rules exploit that'll enable them to mitigate or bypass it. Either way, it increases their investment in the character and setting more than getting cool stuff for free. Heironius's Mercy gives your basic healing others by transferring the damage to you trick. A problem, but definitely a surmountable one, thanks to other effects like a ring of regeneration. The Ring of the Mystical Elite gives you impromptu specialisations, boosting the number of spells you can cast per day, but giving you a random different forbidden school each time you put it on. Once you get one you don't use much anyway, best to stick with it to get the most out of this. The Skin of Kaletor is a poorly preserved bearskin that boosts your wild-shaping abilities, but inflicts a huge social penalty against anything with a sense of smell. You can only get so close to nature before it starts to mess you up. Balance in all things. The Fool's Plate is both a shield and a serving tray, and can confuse both you and your opponent. Better buff up your will save so the joke is more likely to be on them then. Shadakhar's Swift Wind are cheetah-print sandals that boost your speed, but reduce your dexterity due to constantly being on edge. Well, with a tacky fashion statement like that, I'm not surprised it eats at your confidence <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" /> The Mantle of the Winter Witch gives you cold resistance and fire vulnerability as if you have the subtype. Better hope your wizard isn't so enamoured by the cool new force and sonic spells to forget to put fireball in their spellbook then. Agustinius's Folly lets you give inspiring speeches, but has your basic 10% chance to backfire, and do the opposite of what it was intended too. Every performer chokes sometimes. You've just got to figure out how to survive it and try again. The Mask of Fury requires you to smear your blood on it to activate it's powers. If you aren't already bleeding, this'll hurt a little bit. If you are, go right ahead and Rage, as you've paid your dues. The Hammer of Skill gets more annoyed with you each time you miss, subtracting from your further chances to hit, but adding to your damage if you do connect. This either forces you to shape up fast, or it'll rapidly become too unwieldy to use at all. Definitely sounds like a frustrating one to have in the backpack.</blockquote>

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