Mark A Vandermeulen wrote:
>
> On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, gingerprince wrote:
>
> > Has anybody considered the effects shown in War, when the Mages seem
> > to age considerably from casting battle spells? This was quite an
> > interesting concept, I thought and could be used to prevent munchkinism
> > amoung PCs.
>
> Damn, now I'm going to have to get that book, too. So far I've only ever
> seen it is hardcover. Anyway: was this permanent aging, or a sort of
> temporary aging, perhaps a temporary loss of CON points that could be
> recovered with sufficient rest?

Hello,
The aging described in the book seemed to be quite permanent. The "good
guy" wizard (forget his name) survived the big battle but was aged
considerably because he cast a number of very powerful spells. The effect
the author was describing seemed much like the "Channeling" magic system
described in the Player's Option: Spells & Magic book, but the wizards also
aged when they reached the mortally fatigued stage. I've always thought
the Channeling system was quite interesting, but I am afraid PC wizards in
my campaign would just end up wanting to take a nap after every encounter.

As far as the novel "War" goes, I believe you are correct that it can only
be found as a hardcover. It was not bad, but I personally thought it
featured the topic of sex a bit too much. It seemed out of place for a TSR
novel. It's by the same author who wrote "The Iron Throne" (Simon
Hawke??), and seemed somewhat similar to that previous book IMO. I did
like the aging concept of spellcasting, but that was a pretty small part of
the story. The "good" wizard was a fringe character and the "bad" wizard
was nameless, IIRC.

On the topic of BR novels, did anybody else like "Greatheart"? I thought
it very nicely portrayed Cerilian elves, much better than the Tuarhievel
Player's Secret book. By far the best BR book, IMO. Of course, I'm a big
fan of the Sidhelien, so my opinion may be a bit skewed.

Regards
Craig Greeson