Dragon Magazine #148
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Issue #148 Vol. XIV, No. 3 August 1989 13 Fighting the Good Fight: Publisher A look into the ways of the warrior, Mike Cook Always Wear Your Best Suit — Gordon R. Menzies Editor 14Your armor could become the most valuable treasure you own. Roger E. Moore Tracking Down the Barbarian - David Howery Assistant editor Fiction editor 18 If Conan is the only barbarian you know, you’ve got a lot to learn. Anne Brown Barbara G. Young Good Does Not Mean Boring Scott Bennie Editorial assistant 24No one said that all paladins have to art exactly alike—and they don’t! Kimberly J. Walter The Corrected Cavalier David Howery Art director 30Knighthood flowers again (with a little judicious pruning). Lori Svikel Production staff Paul Hanchette Angelika Lokotz Arcane Lore — Bruce Kvam Kathleen C. MacDonald Gaye O’Keefe 34Wizards aren’t clerics, but they, too, can cure wounds. Subscriptions U.S. Advertising Luck of the Draw Robin Jenkins Janet L. Winters Sheila Gailloreto 44 Knowledge has a high price if you study the deck of many things. U.K. correspondent The Deck of Many Things Christopher Christou INSERT George Barr Pick a card—any card—from the most popular magical item of all! U. K. advertising The Game Wizards — Steve Estvanik Sue Lilley 54The tactics of victory: the SNIPER!™ game comes to CompuServe. Role-playing Reviews Jim Bambra 60 Even monsters deserve respect—and here’s how they get it. The Role of Computers — Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser 68Saving the world from evil: Prophecy and The Magic Candle. Around the World in 36 Levels Jim Bambra 78 Adventures are for everyone in the D&D® game’s Known World Through the Looking Glass Robert Bigelow 84A bad day at Retirement Village—or, A giant troll never forgets. Watch Your Step! — Thomas M. Kane 90A mine is a terrible thing to waste in the TOP SECRET/S.I.™ game. 5 Letters 40 TSR Previews 100 Dragnnmirth 6 Forum 74 Gamers Guide 10 Sage Advice 94 Convention Calendar COVER Ned Dameron (noting that art directors sometimes look at a painting and ask, “What is going on here?“) sent a five-page description in screenplay format of the action in his cover painting. Both warriors are searching for a mysterious item—but they don’t plan to share it. By the way, any similarities between this cover and last month’s cover by Clyde Caldwell are coincidental (“independent invention,” as per this month’s editorial). 4 AUGUST 1989 Duplicates Several readers recently pointed out similarities between one of the new dragons described in DRAGON® issue #l46 and a small dragonlike What did you think of this issue? Do you have Dear Dragon: creature that appeared in several SF a question about an article or have an idea for a I am writing about the cobra dragon in issue novels by Alan Dean Foster. We new feature you’d like to see? In the United #146. The cobra dragon’s venom reduces a States and Canada, write to: Letters, DRAGON® character’s strength by half. Would that include were not aware of the similarities Magazine, P.O. Box 111, Lake Geneva WI 53147, magical strength, such as from a girdle of giant and have no evidence that the new U.S.A. In Europe, write to: Letters, DRAGON strength or strength spell? dragon was derived from the one in Magazine, TSR Ltd., 120 Church End, Cherry Eric Moon the novels. We do our best to avoid Hinton, Cambridge CB1 3LD, United Kingdom. Fairport NY the unfair use of copyrighted mate- rials in DRAGON Magazine, but with Quick ones Cobra dragon venom would not affect magical the enormous growth of fantasy and strength gained from a potion or girdle, though SF in recent years, we cannot al- if the character using such strength-boosters ways tell if a submission is wholly Dear Dragon: lost the effects of the potion or took off the I really enjoyed “The Marvel®-Phile” section in girdle, his normal strength score would be original or not. DRAGON Magazine. It helps make the MARVEL reduced by half. If the character was under the Most role-playing games abound SUPER HEROES® game more entertaining. I effects of a strength spell when he was bitten, with materials and items that were have been disappointed at not seeing more reduce his normal strength score by half, then based in part on other sources. The Marvel characters put into this section. add the amount of strength he gained from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Jack Vance, Craig Moore spell to get his new strength score. Poul Anderson, Gordon Dickson, Claymont DE Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle (not to mention Star Jeff Grubb, who wrote most of the install- Dear Dragon: Wars and Star Trek) have served as ments for that column, has moved on to other Recently I got issue #144 and almost immedi- projects at TSR. However, we are picking up ately found a big mistake. In the review of Ral inspiration for hundreds of ideas in other material on the MARVEL SUPER HEROES Partha’s Regimental Command Lance [“Through the field of role-playing games. Such game for use in the magazine. Because so rnany the Looking Glass”], you stated that the recon inspiration is fine, but there is a heroes and villains are scheduled for the ’Mech was an Ostscout. It isn’t. It’s a 60-ton limit to what you can borrow before Gamer’s Handbook of the Marvel Universe™ Ostsol. So offense. it is considered theft-and thus series, we will probably focus more on cam- Ben “Zed” Gillian legally actionable. paign information and suggested rules for the Garland TX To complicate the issue, we regu- game than on character statistics. Still, we may larly see cases of independent inven- have some surprises in store. Here we go: When the review column arrived, tion, in which two or more writers we checked it against a copy of FASA’s BATTLE- independently create monsters, TECH® Technical Readout 3025. We did not have Dear Dragon: the Regimental Command Lance figure set, magical items, spells, characters, In reading David E. Cates’ article on drakes in however. The smallest ’Mech in the figure set and even adventures that are ex- issue #146 [“Dragons Are Wizards’ Best was identified as an “Oscout,” but there is no tremely similar. While everyone Friends”], I noticed that it says there are five “Oscout” in the Technical Readout 3025. There would like to think his ideas are types of drakes to be described; the article is, however, an Ostscout. We thought the re- unique, your magazine editors can describes only four. Also, there is a table labeled viewer had made an error and so “corrected” it. tell you that certain themes do ap- “Faerie Dragons’ Ages and Spells,” and a refer- As fate would have it, the boxed set does pear over and over. We have seen ence to the “color of a faerie dragon’s wing indeed identify its smallest ’Mech as an “Oscout,” many interesting duplicates of markings.” I assume that these references but the Ostscout in the book does not look very witches, shape-changing NPC should actually refer to faerie drakes. much like the figure in the boxed set. As we Sean D. Reddy later learned, the Technical Readout 3025 was classes, unusual vampires, Oriental Phoenix AZ itself in error; as it had reversed its pictures of martial-arts NPC classes, aliens and the Ostscout and the Ostsol. (Note that the demons that resemble the creature That should have been four instead of five Ostsol is said to be capable of punching other from Alien, and certain types of drakes in that first paragraph. And yes, that ’Mechs — but the picture of that ’Mech on page dragons, golems, and giants. It is not should be “faerie drake” instead of “faerie 79 of that book has no hands; also compare the unusual to see two or three mon- dragon.” “Weapons and Ammo” descriptions with the sters, spells, or magical items with pictures on pages 29 and 79.) Thus, the smallest identical names and powers from miniature in the Regimental Command Lance is different writers over the course of Dear Dragon: really, an Ostscout after all — we think. I’m pretty sure that I found an error in issue a year (e.g., glass and wood golems, #146. On page 26, in the statistics for the rain- thunderclap spells, rings of quasi- bow dragon, it says that an 11-12 HD dragon elemental or para-elemental com- would be worth 8,050 xp per hit point. mand). It is difficult, if not nearly Now, if a 12-HD rainbow dragon with 96 hp impossible, to develop a truly origi- (maximum) came along and it was slain, it would nal idea. be worth 772,800 xp! You’d have to kill Asmo- Sometimes we have published deus 11 times before you could match that! independently created items if they Geoff Manaugh Blue Bell PA Continued on page 52 The experience-point value for the 11-12 HD rainbow dragon should have read “8,050 + 16 per hit point.” Sorry! DRAGON 5 DRAGON® Magazine (ISSN 0279-6848) is published monthly by TSR, Inc., P.O. Box 756, Lake Geneva WI 53147, United States of America. The postal address for all materials from the United States and Canada except subscription orders is: DRAGON Magazine, P.O. Box 111, Lake Geneva, WI 53147, U.S.A.; telephone: (414) 246-3625. The postal address for all materials from Europe is: DRAGON Magazine, TSR Ltd., 120 Church End, Cherry Hinton, Cambridge CB1 3LD, United Kingdom; telephone: (0223) 212517 (U.K.), 44-223 212517 (international): telex: 616761: fax: (0223) 248066 (U K.), 44-223-248066 (International).