Dragon 106 (february 1986).pdf

DRAGON 1

SPECIAL ATTRACTION

A plethora of paladins Christopher Wood

Seven new alignment-oriented NPC classes

Publisher

Mike Cook

Editor-in-Chief

Kim Mohan

Editorial staff

Patrick Lucien Price

Roger Moore

Art, graphics, production

Roger Raupp

Kim Lindau

Subscriptions

Georgia Moore

Advertising

Mary Parkinson

Contributing editors

Ed Greenwood

Katharine Kerr

This issues contributing artists

Keith Parkinson

Roger Raupp

Jim Roslof

Bob Walters

Hank Jankus

Marvel Bullpen

James Holloway

David Trampier

Ted Goff

Stephen Hearon

Richard Tomasic

Joseph Pillsbury

Larry Elmore

OTHER FEATURES

The laws of magic Charles Olsen

Everything you wanted to know about the arcane

Casting spells for cash Fraser Sherman

Magic-users are good for more than combat

The ecology of the maedar Ed Greenwood

All about the medusa and her man!

Money isnt everything Carl Sargent

. . . But a few gold pieces can make a big difference

Open them, if you dare Ed Greenwood

Enter an unusual magic item enchanted doors

The ranger redefined Deborah Christian

More skills to help strengthen the class

More range for rangers James A. Yates

A new system for determining followers

The way we really play Tom Armstrong

Thoughts on the development of a Dungeon Master

Bad idea, good game? Michael Dobson

Why some bad games fail and others dont

Intruder Russell Madden

Being considered alien is always in the eye of the beholder

THE ARES™ SECTION

Notes from the Underground Ken Rolston

How to be a better traitor in the PARANOIA game

Stellar Feedback Roger E. Moore

A look through the science-fiction gaming mail

The MARVEL®-Phile Jeff Grubb

Alpha Flight and Omega Flight, part I

The New Humans David Wainwright

Pure strain humans in the GAMMA WORLD® game

DEPARTMENTS

Letters

World Gamers Guide

The forum

TSR Previews

60 TSR Profiles

87 Convention calendar

88 Gamers Guide

90 Wormy

92 Dragonmirth

94 Snarfquest

COVER

TSR staff artist Keith Parkinson enters the ranks of cover artists for DRAGON® Mag-

azine with Valshea. According to Keith, the woman who stared back at you when

you first laid eyes on her is Lady Valshea, an elven fighter/magic-user who was cap-

tured in color as she, her familiar, and her trusty steed took a break during their pas-

sage through Blue Rock Vale.

2 F EBRUARY 1986

More for

your money

Missing maps

a natural armor class of 7; however, high dexter-

ity and magic devices such as rings of protection

may improve this figure considerably RM

DRAGON® Magazine now costs more

than ever before. Thats not exactly hot

news to those of you who read this column

a couple of issues ago, when we an-

nounced the upcoming price increase. It

shouldnt be bad news to subscribers,

since the subscription rate didnt go up,

and I hope the higher price didnt come as

a shock to anyone who bought the maga-

zine at a store.

What we didnt tell you in December,

but what we can tell you now, is that

youre going to get more for your money.

Beginning with issue #107 (March 1986),

the magazines page count will go up from

96 to 104. Because we dont expect our

advertising lineage to go up, that means

well be able to devote those eight pages to

more articles.

I wont try to claim that an extra eight

pages is worth an extra 50 cents. As I

pointed out two issues ago, the price in-

crease is intended to help us cover our

costs, and the costs of the distributors and

retailers who sell the magazine on our

behalf. Approximately half of that 50 cents

will go directly to distributors and store

owners; out of the 25 cents that well

receive, weve decided that we can afford

to pay the cost of producing and printing

more pages and still end up with enough

bucks to pay the bills.

I dont expect Ralph Nader to give us a

medal for caring about the consumer, but

I am rather proud of the fact that the

company I work for has decided to use

some of that extra revenue to directly

benefit the people who are giving us the

money.

In the next few months, were going to

be looking into ways to use our page space

as effectively as possible also in the

interest of giving you more for your

money. Weve already saved one page,

starting with this issue, by combining the

table of contents page in the ARES

Section with the contents page for the rest

of the magazine. (Thats why the page at

the left looks a lot more crowded than it

used to.) As other ideas come to us, or are

suggested to us, well try them out. We

want to do whatever we can to encourage

you to keep thinking that the magazine

you buy is worth every penny of the price

you pay for it. As always, if you have any

ideas on how we can accomplish this, well

be glad to hear about them.

Dear Dragon,

I am ecstatic about the module in #104, since I

play the MARVEL SUPER HEROES game

and am always interested in new plots. But there

was one problem: I didnt have any of the maps

listed in the adventure, so I couldnt use it.

Another problem: The article on kender in

#101 contained little signs that indicated kender

would make great thieves, but when I looked for

bonuses to their abilities all I could find was a

high dexterity. What bonuses do kender get?

Final question: A while back Mr. Gygax said

something about some new character classes like

the savant, the mystic, the mountebank, and the

jester. Are these going to be published and if so,

when?

One or the other

Dear Dragon:

I have a question regarding the spell-casting

abilities of the new bard class in the Best of

DRAGON Vol. III. It states that the effective-

ness of a druid spell cast by a bard is the same as

that of a druid one level lower than the bard.

Under the new Unearthed Arcana rules, it is now

possible for elves to be druids of unlimited levels

(except for wild elves). Elves can also be bards of

unlimited advancement, according to the article.

My question is this: If an elven druid/bard (of

perhaps 5th/5th level) casts a druid spell acquired

by his bard class, would the spell be cast at 4th

level efficiency (as in the rules), or would the elf

cast it at his normal druid level? After all, the

spell effect is no different for both classes (except

for the special few outlined in the article).

Richard Hudson

Jackson, Miss.

Mark Baxter

Orlando, Fla.

Of the four maps required to play the Sudden

Dawn adventure, the one for Chapter 1 comes in

the MARVEL SUPER HEROES boxed game

set, and the one for Chapter 2 is provided in the

adventure. Because of space limitations, we were

unable to reproduce the maps for Chapters 3 and

4, but they are both contained in MHAC6, New

York, New York. If you dont want to buy that

accessory or cant find it for sale, you can make

your own maps. The Barcley Research Center is

similar to the city map in the boxed set, but with

the addition of a riverfront section. The 35th

floor of the Empire State Hotel has 4 large suites,

a storage room accessed by a stairwell, and three

elevators, with a central hallway connected to

each of them 10 areas in all, counting the

stairwell.

Kender have the same bonuses for thieving

skills as halflings do. This was implied in the

article (on p. 13), but should have been more

clearly stated. Kender, like all other thieves, also

receive bonuses for high dexterity

In issue #103, Gary Gygax mentioned the

mystic, the savant, and the jester (but not the

mountebank) as new character classes (subclasses,

actually) that will be included in the Second

Edition of the AD&D® game rules. To the best of

our knowledge, he has no plans at present to

preview these classes through articles in the

magazine. If that situation changes, well let you

know. KM

What we have here is an excellent example of

what happens when you combine official rules

with unofficial material from a magazine article,

and toss in a pinch of personal preference to boot

The ingredients dont mix very well. Sometimes

you can use one or the other (the rules or the

article), but not both.

In the first place, the rules in Unearthed Ar-

cana were not designed to be compatible with the

unofficial bard class, which was written and first

published several years ago. In the second place,

neither the rules nor the article specifically per-

mits the existence of a multi-classed druid/bard.

Obviously, problems can (and often do) arise

when someone tries to make an illegal multi-

class combination work with the existing rules.

But if you want to assume that a druid/bard

character is possible, Richards question does

have an answer. If the spell was acquired by his

bard class, the character would cast it as a druid

of one level lower just like the article specifies.

The fact that the character is a druid in addition

to being a bard should have no effect on the

characters ability to cast a druid spell that he

receives by virtue of being a bard. You have to

keep the characters dual identities separate,

and moderate his spell-casting as a bard as

though he were only a bard. KM

Armor class answer

Dear Dragon,

I have a question pertaining to the thendar

(issue #101, Creature Catalog, p. 54). Under

armor class it says see below, but nothing is

mentioned in the text about armor class. What is

it supposed to be?

A question of size

Dear Dragon,

I have a question about the size and population

of Ansalon in the world of Krynn. In the article

about the gnomes of Krynn (#103), Roger Moore

said there were about 59,000 gnomes on Sancrist

Isle. How do you make room for all the other and

more numerous races on Ansalon (which could be

(Concluded on page 4)

David Korson

Louisville, Ky.

We neglected to note that because of their

magical and extraplanar nature, thendar have

DRAGON 3

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: