Dragon 113 (september 1986).pdf

SPECIAL ATTRACTION

53 Cardboard Dragon designed by Dennis Kauth

All the parts you need to make it fly

Publisher

Mike Cook

Editor-in-Chief

Kim Mohan

OTHER FEATURES

10 Welcome to Hades Bruce Barber

Shedding a little light on the Three Glooms

28 A capital idea Vince Garcia

Owning a business can be quite an adventure, too

32 The role of books reviews by John C. Bunnell

36 The tales people tell Thomas M. Kane

Folklore can add flavor to a campaign world

40 Magic and morality computer game review by Mike Gray

42 Clout for clerics James A. Yates

Followers and doctrines for high priests

46 A saddle isnt enough Mike Albers

The significance of the lowly stirrup

49 Combat complexity William Carlson

Extra rules for battle in the CONAN® game

62 A Difficult Undertaking Harry Turtledove

A bird in the box is worth building a story around

72 Easy as 1,2,3 Rick Swan

How to quickly create interesting and consistent NPC personalities

74 One roll, to go Larry Church

Binomial tables make dice rolls easy to deal with

76 Top (Secret) Guns Patrick Rice

Jet fighters and TOP SECRET® game agents

80 MINIMAGIC Miniature dioramas by Mike Sitkiewicz

82 Cold Steel Scott A. Hutcheon

Hunter-class robots for GAMMA WORLD® gaming

88 Star Cops! Terrence R. McInnes

Joining the TRAVELLER® interstellar police

Editorial staff

Patrick Lucien Price

Roger Moore

Robin Jenkins

Editorial assistance

Eileen Lucas

Georgia Moore

Art, graphics, production

Roger Raupp

Advertising

Mary Parkinson

Subscriptions

Pat Schulz

This issues contributing artists

Robin Wood

Roger Raupp

Dennis Kauth

Hank Jankus

Janet Aulisio

Bruce Mackley

Joseph Pillsbury

Dave Trampier

Richard Tomasic

Tara Hoffman

Lawrence Raimonda

Larry Elmore

DEPARTMENTS

3 Letters

59 Convention calendar

96 Wormy

4 World Gamers Guide

60 TSR Profiles

99 Dragonmirth

6 The forum

94 Gamers Guide

101 Snarfquest

58 TSR Previews

COVER

Robin Wood's third contribution to our cover is a haunting scene entitled What a

Knight for Apparitions. The idea behind the painting, in Robins words, is this: A

person had been given a geas to present a magic sword to whatever hero won into

this area. The geas was so strong that even after she died, she had to stick around

and see it through. The place fell into ruin, and still she haunted it, until this young

knight got there. He fought his way into the innermost chamber, and broke his own

sword in the process. Now they both get their reward.

2 SEPTEMBER 1986

How I spent

my summer

This was going to be the summer that I

acted like a normal person. I was going

to take some vacation time, take it easy,

and maybe even get a suntan for the

time since I became responsible for

first

Rogers reasoning

(particularly the surprising neutral good ranger-

druid combination for certain elves, elaborated

upon by Frank Mentzer in DRAGON issue #100,

page 9), a ranger-thief is not unthinkable. It

even sounds workable and reasonable.

Consider a ranger-thiefs abilities and outlook.

Here is a powerful scout, one equipped to

infiltrate enemy positions, commit sabotage and

theft, and rescue kidnapped victims of human-

oid armies. He or she is the best alternative to

using an assassin when one needs a spy. The

ranger-thief is an espionage agent and com-

mando warrior with ties to both wilderness and

urban areas. If he or she does not belong to a

thieves guild, then the necessary training is

gamed through a military or paramilitary force

controlled or aided by rangers.

Why did I place it in your article? This is

harder to answer. I fear that on occasions I may

tinker with certain articles, adding new material

that seems appropriate to the nature of the

topic and, in my feeling, that makes the articles

more complete and enhances their usefulness.

For example, I added half-(aquatic) elves to the

mariner NPC class (DRAGON issue #107) and

additional information on broken arrows to

the Agents and A-Bombs article in issue #108. I

try to avoid gilding the lily, so to speak, and I

confine my tinkering to minor additions.

Given the nature of half-satyrs and half-

dryads as outlined in your article, the ranger-

thief combination seemed very reasonable for

them which it does (to my way of thinking)

for elves and half-elves as well.

2. This point is very confused in the AD&D

rules. The Players Handbook implies that elves

(page 16) may apparently use armor and cast

magic-user spells at the same time, and even

implies that gnome and half-elves may do the

same with their illusionist and magic-user tal-

ents, respectively. Yet the book also specifically

forbids magic-users from wearing any sort of

armor, for martial training is so foreign to

magic-use as to make the two almost mutually

exclusive (page 25). Yet again, the Monster

Manual (page 39) notes that a multiclassed elf

has a chance of using magical armor. And yet

again, Unearthed Arcana (page 13) repeats the

ruling that magic-users and illusionists cannot

wear armor. The Arcana update article

(DRAGON issue #103, page 16) says that a multi-

classed character may use any armor and

weapons available to any one of the classes

without harming that characters performance.

Finally, Oriental Adventures forbids the use of

armor by wu jen (sorcerer) characters.

In short, I did my best to interpret the rules as

they stand. If my ruling is incorrect, which it

could very well be, it may be easily altered to

allow multiclassed spell-casters to wear any

armor they are able to use. Call it as you see it!

3. About magical chain mail: Half-satyrs were

noted, in the article, as being opposed to the use

of metal armor. This bias appeared to be a

deeply rooted cultural one, so mention of magi-

cal chain mail was clipped to make the race

more consistent. Elfin chain was kept for rea-

sons noted in the article (DRAGON issue #109,

page 58). RM

putting food on the table. Things were

going to be different this summer.

Well, I was right about that I just

didnt realize how different this summer

was going to be. I immersed myself in

the great outdoors, but I did it sitting at a

computer terminal instead of lying on

the beach. If it was possible to get a

suntan from the glow of a screen filled

with little letters, my face would be

permanently bronzed by now.

From early April until just about the

time youre reading this, I spent practi-

cally every spare hour I had on the crea-

tion of the Wilderness Survival Guide,

the latest hardbound book in the AD&D®

game system. Visions of blizzards, des-

erts, and overloaded mules danced

through my head. I learned more about

how to get along in the wide open spaces

than I ever thought I would need to

know, and I did my best to translate all

that knowledge into rules that work

within the context of the AD&D game.

Im not after sympathy here. I did it

because I wanted to. In fact, I practically

leaped at the chance. Its an honor of the

highest order to join the small group of

people who can point to an AD&D rule

book and say, I did that.

The point I want to make, and which

Im finally getting around to, is that this

kind of writing is not easy. Now that Ive

done a rule book, I have even more

respect for my predecessors and more

understanding of why their books arent

perfect just as Wilderness is far from

perfect. Its impossible to think of every-

thing that could be covered, and it would

be impossible to contain all of it in a

book of manageable size anyway. Its not

easy to be sure that what you said on

page 32 is consistent with a related piece

of information on page 97. Churning out

words is one thing; making all of those

words interlock and support each other

is something else.

I wont say the book is good; thats for

you to judge, not me. I will say that its

the best I could do, and even when you

start picking it apart and pointing out the

errors (you will do that, wont you?) Im

going to be proud of the mistakes I didnt

make.

Dear Roger Moore,

Seeing my article (Hooves and green hair) in

the pages of DRAGON #109 was a great plea-

sure. Thank you very much not only for your

decision to print it, but for your encouragement

and editorial advice along the way.

My players and I were curious about some

things that made it into the published version.

You may want to answer these questions in your

Letters column, because I suspect some other

readers might also be wondering.

(1) Ranger/thief has been added to the list of

multi-class options available to the half-satyr and

half-dryad. However, in Unearthed Arcana, page

7, it says that rangers must be of a good align-

ment, and thieves must be of a non-good align-

ment. This doesnt seem to leave anything over

for the ranger/thief. I seem to remember a

comment somewhere that thieves may be

allowed to shift toward good alignment as they

ascend in level, but this is not mentioned in UA,

and anyway wouldnt seem to help the hapless

half-breed ranger/thief, who must start off with

both professions simultaneously.

(2) In the discussion of armor permitted to

multi-class half-satyrs and half-dryads, the text

reads: Multi-classed characters may use the

armor and weaponry available to either of their

classes, so long as the armor does not interfere

with the performance of the abilities of their

classes. For example, a half-satyr fighter/magic-

user would wear no armor . . . . Is this part of a

new rule that multi-class magic-users cannot

wear armor? Does it apply to elves and half-

elves as well? This would represent a major

change for such characters.

(3) I was a bit disappointed that you left out

magical chain mail as an option for these two

races. I had included it (along with elfin chain)

on the basis of the fact that its available to

bards, who, with their druidic training, are also

nature-oriented characters.

Bennet Marks

Palo Alto, Calif.

1. A large number of gamers prefer to use the

earlier ruling, established in the Players Hand-

book (page 27), that thieves may start the game

as neutral good. Granted, Unearthed Arcana has

changed this rule so that thieves may only be

non-good (Unearthed Arcana, page 7), but Kim

Mohans Arcana update, part 1 (DRAGON®

Magazine issue #103, page 12) modified this

ruling to mean that, though they must start as

non-good, thieves may become good later in

their careers. This article even noted that assas-

sins could change alignment to neutral or even

good status, given time. Furthermore, David

Cook noted in Oriental Adventures (page 26)

that a yakuza, an urban underworld character

class, may be of the lawful good alignment

(presumably starting the game this way). Being

good, then, is no problem.

Given the explosion of new class combinations

possible for AD&D characters with the Un-

earthed Arcana and Arcana update rules

DRAGON 3

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