Dragon Magazine #112
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DRAGON 1 SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS 41 The Ultimate Article Index compiled by Jean Black Publisher After this, an update is all youll ever need Mike Cook 51 TSR staff GEN CON® Event Listing Editor-in-Chief Better late than never and besides, theyre free! Kim Mohan Editorial staff OTHER FEATURES Patrick Lucien Price Roger Moore 8 Dawn of a new age Kim Mohan Robin Jenkins A fresh look, and outlook, for DRAGON Magazine Editorial assistance 10 DINOSAURS Steven Inniss Eileen Lucas A monstrous article on the beasts of the Mesozoic Era Art, graphics, production 19 Revenge of the nobodies Joseph R. Ravitts Roger Raupp When a grass-roots movement grows, watch out! Kim Lindau 23 The role of computers Hartley and Pattie Lesser Advertising Our second foray into the world of electronic role-playing games Mary Parkinson 27 Cloaked in magic Ed Greenwood Subscriptions Elminster returns with some wise words about windbreakers Pat Schulz 35 Armor, piece by piece Matt Bandy This issue’s contributing artists A partial armor system for non-Oriental AD&D® games Daniel Horne Jim Holloway 81 Dire Invasion — William Tracy Marvel Bullpen Rom and the Dire Wraiths in the MARVEL SUPER HEROES game Dave LaForce Lawrence Raimonda 88 For a Fistful of Credits David “Zeb” Cook Richard Tomasic New equipment for STAR FRONTIERS® gamers Joseph Pillsbury Bill Cleveland Larry Elmore DEPARTMENTS Dave Trampier 3 Letters 38 TSR Previews96 Dragonmirth 4 World Gamers Guide 92 Convention calendar 98 Snarfquest 6 The forum 94 Gamers' Guide 101 Wormy COVER This is probably the first cover painting weve ever published that owes its existence to a real-life experience. As Daniel Horne tells it, On weekends some of my fellow SCA friends and I go into the countryside in costume. It was late afternoon and we stopped in an apple orchard for a rest. Then we started to sing the song that the dwarves had sung in The Hobbit. I looked to the sky and saw ragged scarlet clouds one of them in the shape of a dragon! I went home and quickly did a sketch of it. Daniel told us the painting is untitled, and suggested we come up with a name for it if we wanted to. Well, Easy Pickings seems like an appropriate title, no matter which point of view you consider it from. 2 AUGUST 1986 Half right at the best If you take this job seriously, as I some- times do in spite of myself, you can really get hung up on soul-searching. And its even worse when you ask other people what to do, and they tell you, and you still end up searching your soul. Death of an roll 20 or less for her hit points, and the party The article on page 8 of this issue is all could possibly dispatch her by slaying her about some of the things that you have Arch-Mage's flaws homonculous. Also, the Monster Manual says ordered us to do as a result of our reader that a homonculous cannot pass more than 48" survey. Deciding to do those things was Kim: (480 feet) away from its master. However, it is easy; as the quotation marks indicate, Posted forthwith, a complete (I hope) list of entirely possible, using the random encounters those werent really decisions at all at things in Death of an Arch-Mage" tissue #111) table for the labyrinth, for the characters to least, not decisions we had to make alone. that were botched by me, you, and other re- encounter the creature in area 43. Shouldnt it But you people didnt let us off the hook sponsible parties: be in the same area as Oolayah? altogether. A lot of the questions we asked On the ground level map, there should be an Mike Sostre opening in the south wall of the inner foyer to Brooklyn, N.Y. arent being answered by 80% of you one connect it to the entrance foyer. And, in the way and by 20% of you the other way. servants foyer, there should be a door to the Obviously, we goofed in not showing the Sometimes the split is more like 70-30, or kitchen opposite the door in the west wall. tables and chairs (and the mimic) on the map on 60-40 and in a few cases, its danger- On the upper level map, that long void in the page 53. However, this is simple enough to fix: ously close to 50-50. I should have ex- south part between the stairways is the Upper Put a couple of square tables in room 11, put pected this (and I guess I did, if I think Gallery. four chairs at each table, and pick one of the about it), but I still dont like it. It should be noted on the tournament PCs eight chairs to be the mimic or let an eight- Im tempted to do it, but I wont tell you sheets that they are all human, and three of sided die decide for you. To determine the them are dual-classed. To be official, the mimics hit points, pick up that same eight-sider for now what the 50-50 questions strength scores of Kai Randar and Velton Sectal and roll it seven more times, or just select a are. What I really want to do is gripe a should each be raised to 15. number between 7 and 56 that seems appropri- little bit, and lay some advance ground- Colin Myrrh should also possess a ring of free ate for the power of the party. work for the time when were going to action, and it should be noted that his armor Oolay'ahs missing hit points can't just be have to release specific results from the class of 5 does not include his shield +2. rolled up the way the mimics can be, for the survey and, in so doing, tell you that no The two double-sided documents are the map reason that Mike has described. I think its a matter what we do, approximately half of and the list of guests. All other documents are good idea to simply give her maximum hit you arent going to like it. one-sided, and can simply be photocopied. points, to make her as tough as possible. (Thats The problem is how, or whether, to Alambar must have a vial of acid in his posses- what we would have done if we had noticed the sion before he can use it. omission in the manuscript before we published make a change when half of you want one Flaloch and Fleatis must go upstairs after 9:43 the module.) thing and half of you want the opposite. so that they can come downstairs at 9:50. The homonculous problem isnt a problem at Unfortunately, we have no way of finding Otherwise, Kim, we got them all, with the all. According to my ruler, it is possible for out (except at the expense of time we cant exception of the three typographical errors Oolayah to be in area 49 when the homoncu- afford) whether we could keep most of which Im certain you'll find. lous is in area 43, and the two will still not be you happy by changing A but not chang- Michael Selinker more than 480 feet apart as the homonculous ing B even if you really wanted both A Evanston, Ill. dies. -KM and B changed. Your diligence is appreciated, Michael. Consid- Would you continue to enjoy (and buy ering the complexity and general weirdness of lets face it; thats what this is all about) the module, I guess we should be happy that Turning up this magazine if we didnt change any- there werent any mistakes more serious than thing? We have to assume that the answer these. And just for your information, I'm not the volume is no; thats why we published the survey, going to worry a bit about the three typographi- and thats why we are, at least, doing cal errors. (Where are they, you impudent snob? Dear Dragon, something to try to achieve that very Speak up, or Ill borrow a vial of acid from my I beg to differ with Paul Hancocks otherwise elusive goal: the greatest good for the friend Alkus and slip it into your mouthwash! excellent article on When rations run out greatest number. Oh, you don't use mouthwash?. .) KM tissue #107). His note 9 says that A cubic foot of water . is equivalent to one gallon. Even now, when weve just begun to Roughly, one cubic foot will hold about 7½ take our survey results into account, you gallons. To carry this farther and out of context can assume that from your point of view, The case of the with his article, a decanter of endless water were going to do something wrong in the employing the geyser function will fill a 10 × issues to come, whether that mistake is missing mimic 10 × 10 room in just about 25 turns (assum- the result of action or inaction if we ing none of the water is absorbed by the sur- have'nt done something wrong already. Dear Dragon, rounding material or otherwise drains away). The best we and you can hope for is that Though it may seem rude to correct you, You see, I now have a flooded dungeon with a well acquit ourselves in the long run and there were a few items in The House in the runaway decanter. Frozen Lands tissue #110) which I feel need Richard E.