MAYIJUNE 1989 ISSUE #17 VOLIII,NO.5 $3.75 SA dco eli alte Magazine for the. Paar BE 3 ail @ S0Dscription © cardin thisiseve. Whe cardi6 missing, ’ ‘wit to PO. Box Lake Geneva Wi 53147,COVER: Dragons ave long memories. As Carol Heyer's cover painting tor this issue shows, Flame is back, and he's out for revenge. Abbreviated Thoughts ‘Areader now to roleplaying games wrote uso sy that parts of DUNGEON* ‘Adventures dit make sense ti °V had wo en what thoneabrevia ‘Sometimes, tone of whe have been roleplaying fora longtime fnget that wee a beidering st of acronyms and abbreviation that ca be dating to ‘ove Seto mabe if abi entero neweomers hee are soe ofthe moet tonmensbtrevations ted in our magasine, [ADAD* ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS? game DED" DUNGEONS & DRAGONS" ume DM Dungeon Master the ame’ rarytller and referee) PO player character the players alter NPC hanplaer character run bythe DM ‘The following are ADAD game hardback book: DMG de PH Players Handbook MM2_ Monster Monua 2 Ok Oriental Adentures SG Dungoncert Survival Guide UA, Unearthed Di DRAGONLANCE® Adventures GA GREVHAWK Adventures LLL Legend & Lore formerly the DEITIES & DEMIGODS™ ycopedis ‘With the intrdution of the new ADKD 2nd Editon rules, we'l be sing the {breviation2ED to designate tow volumes for example, the ADD 2od Editon Player's Handbook wil appear a2 “PHL-ZED" Inthe ADAD 2nd Edition gave, allerthe monsters willbe presented in aos leaf frat, 0 there wil be oy ‘ne Monsines Compendiam (abbreviated ME), to which you will ad new pages ‘they are released ach mnterand NPC stcainteed in en ave toyaparagraph of statisti, Hore are sme of he MQM Monster Menual rin geverally socompanied ‘AC armor clans Ding. damage per attack V tmovement SA” special tacks MD edie SD tpecil defenses bo bp AL alignment ERT tbr of attacks per Inthe furs, we'l iv the new abbrevston for ADD 2nd Flition charac 4 bua 9h Oahas J pry Vol. Ill, No. 5 PUBLISHER: Mike Cook EDITOR: Barbara G. Young ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Roger E. Moore EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Robin Jenkins, Kim Walter ART DIRECTOR: Lori Svikel CARTOGRAPHER: Diesel ‘TYPESETTING: Commset, Streamwood IL. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Janet L. Winters ‘The Readers LETTERS 2 THE PIT (AD&D levels 3-5) Adventurers are ‘more than welcome—they are nourishment! . sees 4 Randal 8, Doering THE HUNT IN GREAT ALLINDEL (AD&D levels 4-7) A treasure vault without guards or traps—can it be true? 16 Richard Emerich THE WAITING ROOM OF YEN-WANG-YEH (AD&D-OA levels 5-6) Your mission is to recover the bones of a long-dead noble. But he isn’t ready to give them up yet. 31 Greg Kramer OUT OF THE ASHES (AD&D levels 8-12) Slain in disgrace, reborn in fury, armed to the teeth: Flame returns! 42 Grant Boucher Avoid pride, illustrious hero, For alittle while you will be at the peak of your strength; but it will not be long before sickness or the sword, or the hand of fire, or the raging sea, a thrust of the knife, a whizzing arrow, or hideous dotage, or failure and darkening of the eyes, will plunder you of your might.” King Hrothgar, to Beowulf Beowulf translated by David WeLETTERS Fun with Statistics T'm strongly in favor of fewer D&D* game modules appearing in this maga- Zine. Not that D&D players don't have righ, but I look at it from a proportion: al view. I remember reading that ‘approximately 95% ofthe readers prefer AD&D! game modules. Well, with DUNGEON® magazine putting out six scenarios per issue, with one D&D ‘adventure per issue, that’s 17% of the magazine for 5% of the readers. If one D&D scenario appeared every two iasues, as [believe they should, only 8% af the modules would be DAD material, ‘hich is sill generous to D&D players and fairer to the masses. Brett Knappe Racine, Wisconsin In the editorial of isswe #15, 1 should ‘have said that 95% of readers respond- ‘ng to our survey enjoy AD&D adven- tures; I said “prefer” and that is ‘misleading. As I said later in that para ‘graph, 35% of our readers responded by checking that they enjoy D&D adven: tures. This was not an either/or choice; ‘many people play both game systems. For that 35% of our readers, we have published 11 D&D adventures in 17 ‘ssues, about 13% by adventure count. That's why we keep getting letters beg ging for more D&D material. I would like to run one D&D adventure each issue. We have run between four and seven adventures an issue, averaging Just over five per issue. One D&D mod- tule out of five makes 20%, still under the ‘95% of our readers who desire them, but ‘much better than we have been doing. ‘Now we only need to get enough quality D&D adventures to support such a plan. ‘Tough But Fair It has been common practice in most ‘of the campaigns I've ever played to ‘always take the recommended levels in any module with a grain of salt. Always Took to the high end, as player numbers greatly affect the outcome of things Most groups are fairly small; I've never been with a group larger than eight persons, but some modules can refer to froups with more players. ‘Tam talking about this as I've just finished reading Howard Leroy Davis's letter in issue 415.1 don’t know how big his group was, or what their levels, disposition, and equipment consisted of, What I can say is that “The Ruins of Nol-Daer” lissue #13] was not a death trap, as his letter might imply My group sustained some damage in rooms 30-82. One character was critical ly wounded, and the group chose to rest at this point. The group consisted of an Sth-level paladin, a Sth-level cleric, lusionist/thief, an 8th-level magic user, ‘a 9th-level fighter, a 7th-level barbari ‘an, and a bth-level clericiranger. I don’t see this group as a real powerhouse bunch, and I think McCleskey called it fairly close. ‘The first death occurred when the illusionist/thief decided to do his own thing and got caught alone with hhuecuvas in room 35, His death was due to his own stupidity, but he was saved by a timely elixir of life