Of Dice and Djinn

Spell - Wind Bubble MU/Elf3

2012-02-27T04:27:00.001-06:00

There is a small brown journal full of cramped personal notes and sketches in mixed elven and magical text. It's a first person account of researching a new magical spell and the expenditures to that end.

It details the purchase of many strange objects and ingredients, along with the successes and failures of their use. Soon it discusses the care and training of a chicken to be used as a test subject. The spell is designed to push back noxious vapors and allow the subject to breathe normally, so it's not the sort of thing that you alpha test on yourself.

The chicken turned out to be viciously uncooperative and eventually came to be named Loudy McShudup. She was a headstrong chicken who caused constant delays. The author seems to have spent a rather long time detailing the costs associated with each chickenastrophe, such as broken equipment, ruined ingredients, and hiring local youths to apprehend her after she ate a rare gemstone and escaped. The author estimates that before her suspiciously undocumented death, Loudy caused half of the total 6,000 gp in research costs.

The final two written pages are a scroll of the mostly finished spell as written by the author, easy to transcribe into a spellbook.

Wind Bubble
MU/Elf3
Range: Untested. It was typically cast on the chicken at close range.
Duration: Pretty long, but it fluctuates. Expect half an hour, hope for a full day.

A strong, focused wind continuously spirals around the subject. When possible, this wind forms into a sort of hollow 10' sphere that travels with the subject. A thin curtain of strong winds blow out from the feet, whip around and spiral up the body, ending in a jet of air shooting straight up from a point above the head. The wind is noisy and easy to hear, but impossible to see unless a lot of dust or sand is flying about. Halflings and heavy physical objects can pass through easily, but all gasses and vapors are expelled.

Once inside the effect of the spell it is blustery as the cool air moves out toward the edge, but this is only a steady breeze. The subject has a constant supply of breathable air pouring out all around themselves. The outside edge is a gale force sheet of wind that runs along any floors and walls it can't push aside. Walking is made more interesting by the fast wind running along the ground. Like any strong wind, the edge of the bubble seems to repel normal fire and will put out torches and small flames that get too close. Droplets and small puddles are pushed back by the wind as the subject walks toward them. Entering a large pool of water will eventually cause the wind sphere to collapse into a constant eruption of bubbles. Being surrounded by bubbles on all sides makes it impossible for the subject to swim as they gently sink to the bottom. The ensuing underwater tower of bubbles might even capsize a canoe or rowboat if one end dipped too far into "boiling" waters. I think it might be possible for the subject to use a wet sack or something to collect and use the bubbles to breathe underwater, but Loudy totally freaked out at that point so it remains untested.

With this spell I should be able to search through some deadly gas-filled rooms. It wasn't designed to protect vs. dragon breath, fireball, or arrows... but an elf can hope. In theory at least, I'll be protected from poisonous vapors, noxious fumes, toxic spills, acidic rains, paralyzing dusts, vampiric mists, and all manner of unfortunately fatal floaty phantom foes. ~V

The end of Winter War 39

2012-02-02T18:14:00.000-06:00

I survived my first Winter War!

I'm almost caught up on sleep now. I worked every night (11pm to 7am), and attended the convention when I should have been sleeping. I ended up pretty wrecked by the end, but I enjoyed myself and regret nothing.

I do wonder if I made the correct decision about playing my 4th level elf in Jeff's convention sessions. I had a great time, but I worried that I might overshadow the new 1st level characters too much. Also, it made me play cautiously because I didn't want to get my dude killed. Most everyone else was looking to get their character into trouble and die a heroes death. I got the impression that maybe some of the other players thought I was being overly cautious. While I was focused on survival, they just wanted to come away from the session with a cool story to tell. I can understand that. So, next time I think I'll roll up a new character. It'd help me relax and enjoy myself as others lead us into certain doom.

Then again, maybe it was all in my head. I was pretty sleep deprived and weird by the end.

While I was roaming around the vendors in the main room, I met an artist named Elaine C. Oldham. I spent maybe a minute describing my character to her, and she had this character sketch of my elf Vithujin ready by the next day. Pretty sweet.

He's carousing, falling off of a table while showing off drunk. I imagine that he was telling the story about how he killed the demon thing by using magic in the Sword of the Frozen North. You can see him wearing the blue breastplate and one of the helmets that we plundered from the Wizard Made of Cancer's goons. Although he's known for wandering about without any pants (damn that carousing roll), if you look closely you'll see that he's wearing some David Bowie pants from the movie Labyrinth. I love it. Thanks Elaine!

Caves of Myrddin: con session 2

2012-01-29T12:24:00.012-06:00

Massacre in Dundagel

Everyone from the previous expedition returned to test their luck a second time. Many new adventurers joined our ranks, and spirits ran high as we set off for the ruins once more. All told, a dozen of us entered Dudagel. Only five returned alive.

We saw an 8ft long, sickly white lobster with four pincher claws, black hair, a womans face, red eyes, and pointy teeth. We all snuck around her while she was stuffing big gobs of rotting grey meat (dead sandworm?) into her awful gullet. An orc told us later that she/it can make an orc's head explode just by looking at them. Yikes.

The orc also told us about a local dungeon wizard who was building some crazy spiral pyramid out of metal and wood. Going after the wizard seemed like a good idea at the time. Oh, how wrong we were.

See, it all happened like this...

The structure is in a huge room. It has metal support columns holding up a long wooden ramp that winds it's way up and around to the top of the 50' structure. On the top is a platform with a 9' tall demon idol in the lotus position, lit by the big green flames in the palms of it's hands. It casts a strange flickering green light around the whole chamber.

While most of the party is busy searching and listening, Vithujin (Elfy Don't) decides to climb the ramp to see what's going on up there. Ian of Scotland goes up right beside him. Feelings of sickness and vertigo soon follow. A spell of protection from evil seems to help Vithujin recover, but Ian has no such magic and soon stumbles and falls toward the edge of the ramp. Vithujin tries to save him, but only manages to grab his holy symbol. The chain breaks from his neck as Ian tumbles over the edge. The fall doesn't end well.

Vithujin continues upward. Once he's close enough to the idol, he starts splashing holy water onto it. Well, that just pisses it off. The green flames shoot up into 6' pillars of green flame until the holy water evaporates moments later. Vithujin's eyes go wide and he slowly turns and heads back down the ramp.

Shortly after that, we decide to have Father Demetrius say a few words for Ian. His body is placed a short way up the wooden ramp and the whole thing is set alight as a funeral pyre. That's when a pair of basalt golems burst through one of the many sets of doors, and the wizard enters the chamber with them. He wears armor with a circuit board type pattern like in the original Tron movie, and a cylon centurion style helmet with one long narrow eye slit. He yells "Kill the intruders!", and the golems begin to lurch forward.

We all scatter and flee before them.

Most of the party runs back East, the direction we came from. Shorty the Halfling and Corbrun the Fighter head northeast and go into an unknown room. Vithujin heads northwest into a short hallway where he waits and watches to see what the wizard does next.

The bulk of the party is slowed down by one stuck door. Only Liddia the Elf makes it into the short hallway beyond, where a second door won't budge at all. As the basalt golems rush toward him, Frederick the Dwarf turns and fires his crossbow at the wizard. The bolt stops in mid air and then falls to the ground.

The wizard begins casting a spell just as Vithujin uses the power of his magical sword, but the wizard is too fast. The wizards magic flies eastward and erupts into a fireball. The magical fire stops just short of Liddia, who turns and sees those behind her die in flames. Only Frederick the Dwarf survives the burning horror.

Vithujin uses the Sword of the Frozen North to call forth the North Wind to envelop the wizard. The intense cold damages the wizards armor and cracks begin to form. The magic circuit system overloads and light pours out from the cracks in the armor. The wizard screams "Noooo!" and then explodes.

The golems both start swinging.

MIA

Jimbob the Elf and his hopeless loser sidekick Grungy the Dwarf (Jerry) - Both vanished suddenly without a trace. These were our first losses, reducing our party to ten. I'm not sure exactly where we lost them, perhaps some premonition of our fate convinced them to bugger off and make for the surface. (No, Jerry just had to leave a little early. He seemed interested in FLAILSNAILS though. Having Jimbob and Grungy return for some Google+ games would be pretty cool.)

In Memoriam

Ian of Scotland (played by Ian), a cold-blooded cleric who seemed ravenous for pork. He became disoriented by evil emanations coming from the top of the spiral ramp he was climbing. He continued upward, but lost his footing and fell to his death. Evil architects never build safety rails you know.

Wilbur of Stramshall (Brad) - An elf. He charmed an orc named Selgak the "Mighty" (mighty stupid). Then convinced Selgak to challenge the orc chief for control of the redneck orc trailer park village. Selgak was knocked unconscious with a single punch to the face. When Selgak awoke, we congratulated him on his stunning victory, having "somehow" stabbed the orc chief in the head with a crossbow bolt. "I didn't know I had it in me" said Selgak. After that we had Selgak and some of his orc underlings lead us to the wizard who had been giving them trouble. Selgak was leading the way when he was suddenly smashed into jelly by a stone golem. I should probably skip over the part where Wilbur helped us to quickly shut and brace the doors after the stone golem pulped Selgak. Some of his orc cronies were still in there and started banging on the doors before they were silenced by sickening thuds. We aren't proud of it. Please don't judge us too harshly. A bit later, Wilbur was burnt to a crisp in the fireball that killed about half the party.

Lightfoot the Elf (Jim) - An excellent cartographer and finder of secrets. He "inadvertently" snorted some of the stoned dragon's psychedelic purple haze while trying to store it in a flask for later... hmm. Later on, he used his once per session d30 for a saving throw vs. fireball. Rolled a 1. He and his lovely maps were reduced to ash. We had to scoop his remains into a sack, but that was abandoned after the zombie attack. Lightfoot's runed gemstone that shoots lightning bolts might still be in the dungeon somewhere.

Deadly One-Shot Dandy Wasdewy (Matthew) - The guy who actually shot the orc chief in the head. For some reason his 2hp (2nd level) thief did not survive the fireball. I'm not sure if the still-beating black demon heart survived the fire, but I know it make it's save vs. poison when it got hit by that dart yesterday. Wasdewy's was the only body we successfully brought back to be buried in the abbey cemetery. Rest in peace you scoundrel.

Demetrius the Cleric (Joshua) - Stood bravely before a pack of a dozen zombies and managed to turn 9 of them. Presided over the makeshift dungeon funeral of Ian the Pig Slayer. I think it was even his idea to use the wooden spiral ramp as a funeral pyre. Demetrius also perished in the fireball. As we were dragging all the burnt corpses back the abbey, those 9 zombies found us and killed yet another member of the party. That's when we abandoned most of our dead friends. As a result, Demetrius and the others could be charred zombies by now. This was Joshua's first ever of D&D session. Great game dude! I'll save you a spot at the table anytime.

The Unknown Elf (Ian's replacement character) - I never caught his name. Two of our party members (who managed to avoid the fireball by splitting from the group and running into unknown rooms) found him wandering in the dungeon alone. He knew a shortcut and led them to safety, probably saving their lives. We all met up again and he became the 13th party member, helping us drag bodies up to the surface. Then he died. One of those 9 zombies got a crit and crushed his skull. Fate sucks dude.

The Harrowed Survivors

Liddia the Elf (Moira) - Put a bunch of orcs to sleep, allowing us to capture and charm the others. Helped us hack out way through the last mob of zombies so that we could finally escape the dungeon. She seems cool and collected even in the stickiest situations, though I imagine the image of burning party members may haunt her dreams forever.

Shorty the Halfling (Erick) - Short of statue but stout of heart. I'm glad he was there for the last battle, running between legs and hamstringing zombies.

Corbrun the Fighter (Scott) - "I'm loving this empty room" he said as most of the party burns in the fireball. Yep, going northeast was a good choice. Slew two of those zombies I think.

Frederick the Dwarf (Chris) - Dude survived a figgin fireball followed by a pair of stone golems trying to pummel him to death. Hard-core. Those golems powered down once they lost sight of us all. They might reactivate to fulfill their last command if anyone gets too close. Approach if suicidal.

Vithujin the Elf (Nick) - He survived, but mourns the fallen. Leaving the bodies behind really bothers him. He assumes that any dead left in Dundagel will rise again eventually. At least we got Wasdewy out of there. Crossbow wielding zombie marksman? No thanks.

Winter War XXXIX

2012-01-28T04:53:00.006-06:00

Winter War 39 has descended upon Champaign/Urbana Illinois. The gaming convention seems to be hopping. Four or five dice/game vendors and at least one artist selling wares line the walls in the main conference room. A dozen or more miniatures games set up on the large tables in the middle. As I walk around the main room, I see a chariot race taking place on a 5ftX3ft homemade board, some miniature WWII planes in the midst of battle, and a rather detailed 3D dungeon labyrinth being set up in a 6ftX5ft area. An auction and various RPGs are taking place in smaller conference rooms scattered about the Hawthorne Suites hotel.

I'd like to spend more time looking around to see all the other games, but I'm in a bit of a time crunch. I have just enough time to commission the artist to make a colored sketch for me, then I'm off to the room where Jeff Rients is running "Doom of Dundagel". It'll be fun to see how new players react to the Caves of Myrddin campaign and Jeff's gaming style. It wasn't that long ago that I was new to Jeff's table, and I remember well the feelings of confusion mixed with delight. I remember thinking to myself "I don't know what the hell is going on, but it's awesome!", because that thought still pops up most sessions. The trick is to realize that the setting is utterly ridiculous (in a good way), so stop worrying about the "why" and just focus on dealing with whatever craziness is being thrown at your character. You're exploring a cave in 1150AD Cornwall when out jumps a hulking serial killer maniac named Joe Mama wearing a hockey mask and swinging a chainsaw... yes, that makes no sense. Just skip all that for now and start thinking about how to survive. Knowing the "why" might give you some piece of mind, but that encounter is already at maximum awesome. Just go with it. Once you acquire a taste for it you'll be hooked and willing to pay for convention sessions of a campaign that you already play bi-weekly for free.

Anyhow, expect some session reports in the near future.

Caves of Myrddin: Vithujin's Confusions

2012-01-26T15:10:00.004-06:00

Vithujin the Elf, occasional survivor of the dangers under Dundagel, has returned once more to the guesthouse at the Abbey of St. Emmet. Once there, he immediately begins making arrangements for a celebration he calls the "Woed Ruckus", a week long marathon of drinking, feasting, and wenching. Reaching into the pouches at his belt, he pulls forth gold, and even platinum coins to pay the locals for their various services.

As a joke, Vithujin payed for some fliers to be made up. The intent was to send invitations over to the scoundrels at Le Lepin Bleu (Hugo le Bâtard's manor), but due to heavy drinking and gross overpayment the fliers end up in every settlement surrounding the Abbey.

Let the Woed Ruckus begin!

Our generous host Vithujin the Elf, the Pantless Pilgrim, the Demon Freezer, and only person to have successfully goosed the Dragon of Dundagel and been remortaled to talk about it; is throwing a party.

Already in attendance are those persons possessing a gentle spirit, quick wit, or firm backside.

Now the rest of you need to show up.

The plan is to fill the Abbey with songs, stories, and seductions for a full week.

St. Emmet's antennae will be flailing wildly.

On the first day of the Woad Ruckus, Vithujin refuses to talk about where he got all these gold and platinum coins that he is now spending so recklessly. On the second day, Vithujin lets slip only that the coins were indeed found under the ruins of Dundagel but remains tight-lipped about any details. That doesn't last for long though. After days of drinking and merrymaking, he seems to forget his caution and launches into a tale so impossible, so ridiculous, that those who've experienced the horrors of Dundagel think it might just be true.

It went something like this...

I don't know how this story makes any sense, but this is what happened. Those dungeons are mad I tell you. Best I can do is list out all the quandaries I encountered. A list of Vithujin's confusions. Here we go.

It was a dark and stormy morning when we set off to the dungeon. There were bunches of us, ten or eleven I think. Three elves for sure, Lankii, Sonoma, and myself. Our holy man, Ethelred the Unready. The great slab of beef named Will Die Too was there, and strong enough to wrestle ogres. Frederick the Dwarf brought his maps and his army along, some crossbowmen in chain, a mule, and Turg his goblin guide. Oh, and Sonoma has a torchbearer, but that guy didn't say much.

There was some talk of going back into the magical land of the goblins where day is night and the stars are all wrong. The burning sands of the desert are strong enough to keep the forest in bloom during winter. Turg knows of a village of strange colored men miles away who hold goblins as slaves. We decided to go meet these men, so down we went into the east tower, the gatehouse of Dundagel. As we came down the spiral stairs a swarm of giant rats suddenly fell upon us! We hacked and chopped them to bits, but one of them bit into the thigh of Frederick's animal trainer so hard that blood sprayed out like a fountain and I almost slipped and fell down the stairs. His wounds were too great, and the poor man perished while he mumbled something like "don't leave me down here". We loaded his corpse onto the mule and continued down.

Frederick led us through the winding corridors of stone and mortar until we reached the circular portal covered in runes and emerged in the goblin ghost town. The sky and trees and purple fruits are strange in ways I can't describe, but at least the weather was an improvement. Then, as soon as we arrived, we abandoned our plan to search out the strange colored men. Instead we took to exploring the various sections of the dungeon passages and rooms which straddle between that world and this one. We began opening new doors.

We found a small hole at the base of a wall in a stone room. Terg was sent in to investigate. Terg said that the tunnels were made by many rats, and lead to corridors further down. We plugged the hole as best we could.

We found a small room full of weapons, some were rusty junk but others we took to sell. We discovered later that among those a two handed battleaxe was magical, Will Die Too carries it now.

Then we found a hallway full of demonic faces carved into the stone walls. Sensing danger, Frederick the Dwarf searched about and found that the entire floor of the hallway was a pressure plate. We took the obvious course of action and tossed the corpse of our dead comrade onto the trap while quickly backing away. Poison darts shot out through some of the demon mouths along the walls. With the pressure plate thus weighted down, we walked across safely.

Soon we found ourselves in a satanic chapel. Others collected a wavy emerald eyed serpent dagger, emptied fresh blood from a small golden bowl, and took down the fine black curtains from the walls. I poured a vial of holy water unto a small statue of Old Scratch, utterly melting it. We learned later that these items allow the dagger to summon forth shadow demons when it spills the blood of the innocent. Ethelred, being a man of strong faith, insisted then that we destroy the dagger. I think that I saw Lankii keep it's emerald eyes though.

After the looting, we searched about for whoever had filled the blood bowl. Unable to find any doors, we went up through the hole in the ceiling and discovered a very strange room indeed. Along the walls were a dozen pillars made of crystal, prism prisons holding shadow demons in stasis. One of these disguised a secret door. There were three sets of finger holes in the stone next to one crystal pillar, but the lowermost set of holes were trapped to snip off fingers. The big brute Will Die Too stepped up and heaved at the upper finger holds. The entire column slowly swung out like a door, as all the air in the room rushed out the opening pushing us toward the void that lay beyond. Will let the column snap shut. We dallied here for a time as I sketched the pillars and shadowy figures within. We returned here (with our dead friend) and presented these findings to the scholars of the abbey. Thus we learned of the shadow demons and the dagger used to summon them for bargaining.

After a long rest, we set out again retracing our steps. Along the way, we encountered a gang of melty lepers. They didn't notice us approach, so I thought we were just going to toss holy water on them to see if they melted further. The holy water had no effect, so I thought we would try to parley. But no, one of us threw a burning flask of oil at them, which flew wide at lit up the room. Others in our group began aiming crossbows, so I cast a sleep spell on the freaks hoping to defuse the situation and possibly save their lives. Well, we tied them up and tried to question them, but the horrid things had never grown any tongues to speak with. That's when we saw their satanic tattoos. We decided they they were either evil abominations or victims of a fate worse than death. We put them down and continued on our way.

Rather than return to the hall of the shadow demons, we chose a new perfectly ordinary transdimensional dungeon corridor to explore. In this area, we found a large font with a statue of the White Queen (Morgana?) pouring a continuous stream of clean pure water from an urn. In a nearby room, we found a multitude of cats and a crazy old crone who claimed to be the "royal rat catcher" having inherited the job from her mother. If that's true then how old is she? Centuries? She was also talking to people who weren't there and pouring us drinks from her jug of piss, so we were a tad skeptical. Sensing that her answers were useless, we went back to rest once more and prepare new spells. We returned to her with gifts of jam and other foodstuffs to distract the old woman. Meanwhile, Ethelred the Unready recited prayers that allowed him to speak to the horde of cats. The first thing he heard them say was "Get us the hell away from that crazy woman! She makes us live in this dungeon!". Well, promises of freedom were made, and questions about shiny treasure were asked. Then a black cat with one white paw and the soul of an adventurer stepped forward and offered to lead us to the "big pile of shinnies behind the secret door". His name is Billy White Paw, and we owe this feast to him.

Billy led us up and down and around from room to room. He warned us of the flying serpents in one room. Lankii charmed one of these, I think he said it's a "wobra". Eventually Billy led us into a room with the bodies of a bunch of purple men, purple raiders I guess. In this room is a secret door that opens to a narrow natural cave passage. The passage soon widens into a cavern with a large pool of water holding about twenty large fanged fish. Oh, and in the center of the pool is a GIANT HEAPING PILE OF COINS AND GEMSTONES!

Well, those fish soon became kitty treats. Then we filled every sack and backpack and had the mule loaded down so badly that I heard him wheezing as he went up stairs. We brought all the cats out to the forest in the magical goblin lands and set them free. The old woman cried a bit, but we made them a deal and she can always get new cats. She is staying at the abbey for now, perhaps the priests have some prayers that can help unfuddle her. Billy White Paw has decided to continue traveling with us. Ethelred seems to have taken a shine to him. As we passed by the magical throne Ethelred told Billy that a dog once sat in the throne and learned to speak, but it sometimes melts people and is dangerous. Billy said "Not dangerous to me. I'M Billy White Paw!" and hoped up to sit in it. It didn't give him the gift of speech, but Billy claims that it "supered up his cattishness". I'm not sure what that means, but I'm glad that he's happy. Ethelred is using his share of the loot to research a new spell to help him understand Billy all the time, oh and he donated a bunch of gold to the abbey. I think he said something about it going to help build a new holy water font. But you know, I prefer ale. Lankii is busy training his new pet flying cobra. I still don't trust the venomous thing. It might last for months but that charm spell will wear off eventually, and that wobra keeps looking over at me. We buried our poor dead animal trainer, and Frederick is already hiring someone new. He also gives his men danger pay, and hefty bonuses. He even made an effort to track down the dead mans family in order to compensate them. I thought it was a classy move, especially for a guy who throws his dead henchmen unto traps.

And me? I'm just taking it one day at a time... and today was made for wenching!

Critterlings

2012-01-16T05:58:00.000-06:00

In my Ezzin setting, Halflings aren't a native species. Neither are humans actually. Humans and halflings are certainly present now; all sorts of beings arrive through the portals. Most of the PCs will originate elsewhere, having been whisked away by forces unknown and transplanted into Ezzin. It's all very "Land of the Lost".

Honestly, no one is really certain anymore who the true natives are. Many assume that the various species of critterlings originated here, but that's open to debate.

Critterling PC's
1. Pick an animal
2. Morph it into a 3-4ft tall biped
3. Most (but not all) have halfling limitations, abilities, xp, and saves

Some species have very different class abilities. Goatlings have a strong predilection for necromancy. Pandalings can be kung-fu monks. Mouselings can have access to all the thief abilities. Ratlings sometimes become assassins. Maybe I should start posting some of these as customized classes?

While there are still villages of only a single species, modern critterlings are willing to live and work together. Their society is much like that of humans. They work together in towns and cities, each using their talents for the good of the community. Social status and occupation are not determined by species. Critterling leaders and politicians are especially diverse. However, there are certainly stereotypes. Molelings can be found digging tunnels and working the mines. Beaverlings work in construction. Piglings are greedy politicians. Donkey/Ass-lings are country yokels who tend to the herds of buggalo, flocks of small dinobirds, and squirms of mammoth woolly worms.

Tourist Tip: Manimals are the man-sized animal bipeds who live out in the wilds. They are far less civilized. Referring to a individual critterling as "a manimal" is an insult, it's a clever way to call someone a "stupid brute".

Rethinking a Bad Idea

2012-01-02T07:34:00.000-06:00

"If you roll a 3 for any of your six ability scores, you may play a dragon. The life of a young dragon is no picnic. Email me, we’ll roll on the dragon charts and see what you get."

That's out.

The dragon charts aren't coming together like I'd hoped. The xp requirements would make them level extremely slow. Besides, dragons are cool because of their mystique and rarity. I don't want to loose all that by putting one in the party at first level.

Still, I want to do something special when someone rolls an ability score of 3. Something to change the player reaction from "oh crap" to "oh, interesting". Players who roll an ability score of 4 or 5 already have the option to help make a customized class to play, so...

If you roll a 3 and choose a human class: Pick one of these, then roll any die.

Psychic! (Mental Mutation)
Mutant! (Physical Mutation)
Cyborg! (Mechanical Enhancement)
Inheritance (Bonus Gemstone/Jewelry/Gold)
Magical family heirloom. (Magic or "Magic" Item)
Sentient construct (Robots, Golems, and Androids - altered xp)
Average person, nothing special at all. I swear. (The Special Chart)
Parent was an alien abductee, mad wizard, or cult member (Rosemary's Babies)

A second look at Table 11: Spell Progression

2011-12-31T15:55:00.008-06:00

This is the last table from my Customized Classes for B/X post. I'm pushing through to finish this thing before the new year. Here we go.

Table 11: Spell Progression

Cleric Spell Table - +120%

Magic User Spell Table - +250%

Impressive, right?

I wrote quite a bit below this in the original post. Enough that I'd rather summarize than copy/paste it all. If you go back and take a look you'll see that I went on to give suggestions about customized spell progression tables and their costs. The numbers I gave assume that the highest cleric spells are 7th level, and the highest magic user spells are 9th level. Then I mentioned how elves top out with 5th level magic user spells so they have special needs if you're jacking with custom spell progression and concerned about keeping elvish xp totals unchanged.

I don't really have anything enlightening to add. Instead, I'll just offer an alternative method for making customized spell progression tables. This one assumes that 6th level spells are the highest available to both clerics and MUs. Magic users get their first spell at Lv1, clerics at Lv2.

Custom Spell Progression
Level at which you gain first spell
Level    Cost
1    100%
2    60%
3    35%
4    25%
5    20%
6    15%
7    10%
8     5%
9    0%

MU spells cost +25% per max spell level attainable
Cleric spells cost +10% per max spell level attainable

Now elves just need another 25% to bring their total back up to 800%. Giving them the MU ability to create spells, scrolls, and magic items (Magic Research at L9 - +25%) would fit rather nicely I think.

That's all I've got. I'm pretty happy with how this project turned out. Now I just need to turn the whole thing into a PDF. It's a holiday though, and I'm sleepy, so don't hold your breath or anything.

Happy New Year!

A second look at Table 10: Beyond Human Abilities

2011-12-31T10:10:00.005-06:00

The full system for building B/X customized classes is over here. I'm going over it all again, bit by bit. These are the non-human abilities. Level limits are required for a custom class to get access to these.

Table 10:Beyond Human Abilities
(The highly questionable list of special abilities and their costs which are likely to be revised)

Halfling abilities - 55%
90% Hide in Wilderness (+15%)
Hide 1-2 on d6 in cavern/dungeon (+10%)
AC -2 when attacked by large creatures (+15%)
+1 initiative when alone or with other halflings (+5%)
+1 missile attacks (+10%)

Dwarf abilities - 35%
Infravision 60’ (+15%)
5 languages: Common, Dwarvish, Goblin, Gnome, Kobald (+10%)
Stone Sense: 2 in 6 for detecting masonry traps, false walls,
hidden construction, or sloped passages (+10%)

Elf abilities - 50%
Infravision 60’ (+15%)
5 languages: Common, Elvish, Gnoll, Hobgoblin, Orc (+10%)
2 in 6 for detect hidden and secret doors (+10%)
Connection to Nature: Immune to ghoul paralysis (+15%)

Infravision 60’ - +15%
Functional Wings (slow) - +50%
Aquatic Breathing/Movement (slow) - +25%
Regeneration - +100% per hp per turn, not fire/acid
Shapeshift at will, one form only - +50% per HD
Innate Ability, once per day - +10% per spell level
Innate Ability, always on - +30% per spell level
Parasitic Host Control - +50%

This table is already messy, and now I'm adding more. At least I don't see any costs I want to change, so that's something.

I like having the dwarf, elf, and halfling abilities grouped together with the cost of each ability individually listed. It seems informative. All the halfling abilities relate to their small size and very fast reflexes. Stone Sense seems like a dwarven heritage thing to me, due to countless generations living underground. The elvish ability to detect hidden/secret doors I assume is due to their keener than human senses, and their Connection to Nature definitely seems beyond human to me.

I'll add languages over on the human side, Table 9. I'm thinking that human common and a Native Language costs 0%. Every other language costs 5% each. I'll give non-humans (like dwarves and elves) an Extended Lifespan ability for 10% which allows 3 other bonus languages at 1st level. Level limits should have perks, right?

I'll put some guidelines for special ability costs over on Table 9. I'll have the same thing over here for non-humans, I'll just call them innate magical abilities instead. It'll look like this.

Innate Magical Ability (once per day) - +10% per spell level equivalent
Innate Magical Ability (multiple uses per day) - +15 to 25% per spell level equivalent
Innate Magical Ability (constant) - +30% per spell level equivalent

I wish I had some clue about cost guidelines for those non-human Physiology traits. A little lower than innate magical abilities since wings are slower and more inconvenient than a Fly spell? A little higher because wings can't be dispelled? The same? I dunno, I just make up numbers.

I'll remove the questionable costs disclaimer at the top. It's still true of course, but why draw attention to it. I'll replace it with a note about level limits being required for this table, and then call it a day.

A second look at Table 9: Extras

2011-12-30T12:56:00.006-06:00

Alright, now we're getting to the fun stuff.

The previous tables cover the abilities and stats that are more or less shared between all the classes. These next two tables focus on the specialized abilities, skills, and talents that can help make a class unique.

Table 9 has the special abilities and skills that even humans can master. I tend to think of these as teachable skills. Table 10 on the other hand is for all the abilities that require non-human physiology or heritage. Wings, gills, and eyes that see infrared are all definitely "beyond human".

Between those two extremes is a whole host of natural talents and innate magical abilities. I'll leave it up to the individual DMs to decide which abilities their human classes can use. Different campaign settings are going to put different limits on human potential. You might give humans access to psychic talents and innate magic abilities, or reserve those for non-humans only. If human clerics have the Turn Undead ability, can other human classes channel different supernatural forces; talking to spirits, summoning djinn, or making infernal pacts? Different worlds are going to play by different rules. It's really up to you to draw the dividing line between human and non-human abilities.

Table 9: Extras

Open Locks - +10%

Remove Traps - +10%

Pick Pockets - +10%

Move Silently - +10%

Climb Sheer Surfaces - +10%

Hide in Shadows - +10%

Hear Noise - +10%

Backstab - +10%

Student of Linguistics - +20%

(Read Languages 80% at L4 & Arcane Scroll use 10% failure at L9)

Turn Undead - +20%

Magic Research at L9: create spells, scrolls, and items - +25%

The only abilities I have listed in Table 9 are the ones already used by the human classes in B/X. I'm sure to make additions, but for now I want this table to just be bare bones so that I can use it as a template for almost any setting.

The costs here are all highly subjective, so feel free to ignore my numbers and make up whatever costs seem fair to you. Even if you want to keep the B/X xp tables unchanged, you could raise Backstab and Climb Sheer Surfaces to 15%, and lower Move Silently and Hear Noise down to 5%. Trading percentage points between Turn Undead and the Cleric Spell Progression is really easy, same with Magic Research and Magic User Spell Progression (but that applies to the Elf class too).

If you want some rough guidelines...

When making new abilities, I usually try to imagine what level of spell could create that same effect, then I set the cost at around 15% per spell level. If the effectiveness of the ability is scaling based on character level (like thief skills and turn undead) or it doesn't start until the character reaches 4th level, I reduce that cost to about 1/2. If the ability isn't gained until level 9, I reduce the cost to 1/4.

Good luck, and have fun!

A second look at Table 8: Magic Items

2011-12-26T06:20:00.001-06:00

This table shows the costs to use the various types of magical items. Magic users can't use normal armor, so they obviously do not need to pay the 5% to use magical armor. Magic users can use magical robes and clothing because those are Miscellaneous Magic Items, just like the boots and cloaks.

I basically ignored Mr. Crabaugh's magic item table once I saw that he was using a single category for Potions/Rings and another for Wands/Staves/Rods. Mine is divided into more item types and has different costs. I find it interesting that we both arrived at a total cost of 70% for a class who can use all types of magic items. I hadn't noticed that until a moment ago.

Table 8: Magic Items
Weapons - +5%
Armor - +5%
Potions - +5%
Rings - +5%
Protection Scrolls - +5%
Misc. Magic Items - +5%
Staves&Rods - +0% (but these often have class restrictions)
Wands - +10%
Divine Scrolls - +10%
Arcane Scrolls - +20%

I can imagine all sorts of magic item restrictions for various custom classes. If Robot was a class I doubt they could drink potions. A class of walking octopodes ("Walktopus"?) might have trouble wearing magic rings, or not; I guess it depends on the DM. How about a class of limbless psionic worms who levitate and use telekinesis to wield weapons? I bet they have trouble using magic rings. There are a lot of options out there, that's why I wanted more categories.

I can think of two ways to make a class unable to use any magic items (and pay 0% on this table). They could have an anti-magic aura, but I imagine that would have a rather high cost on the Beyond Human Abilities table. The other would be to give the class some kind of allergy to magic. I think I would set the cost of a magical allergy ability to 0%. It would be like a free Detect Magic ability due to the rashes and uncontrollable itching when a magic item gets too close, but spells cast against them might do extra damage and even healing magic might send them into fits for a time. I'm not sure how fun it would be to play such a class, but to each their own.

I set Staves&Rods to 0% because of a single item, the Rod of Cancellation. I think a class that can't use any magic items should still be able to use a device that un-magics items. If there is a Rod of Cancellation I don't see why you can't have one in the form of a staff or pole. Some magic items you want to un-magic from a distance, right?

Overall I've kept the costs on this table pretty low. I considered raising the costs for cleric and magic user scrolls in order to lower the costs of their spell casting tables. Putting the cost of single use scrolls at about 1/10th the cost of daily spellcasting seems fair to me, but if your campaign setting has an abundance of scrolls you might like to adjust those costs.

Looking over all this again, I have found a couple of improvements I should make. I'm raising the cost of using magic weapons to 10%. A lot of monsters require the use of magic weapons to hurt them. I think that being restricted from using magical weapons is more of a detriment than being restricted from using potions, or magic armor. The other change is to lower protection scrolls to 0%. I believe that all classes should be able to use the warding scrolls, even the guys with magical allergies. You could rationalize it by ruling that the warding scrolls are non-magical writs and contracts that have been signed via magic by demi-gods or demon lords. Reading them aloud (or presenting the scroll to the monster?) causes those powerful entities to fulfill the agreement by protecting the reader. Or not. Maybe you want those protection scrolls to be highly magical, and those PCs who are illiterate or allergic to magic will just have to suck it up and go uncompensated for not being able to use them. They can probably just stand next to their buddy while he reads it anyway.

So, here are the changes.

Weapons are raised to 10%
Protection Scrolls lowered to 0%

Not a big change, but moving that 5% could matter to some pacifistic class who never uses any weapons. I bet they'll deserve it. I'll go edit the original post now.

A second look at Table 7: Weapons

2011-12-24T07:33:00.002-06:00

The basic idea here is that if a class can use any of the individual weapons listed in parentheses, then they should pay the cost for the category.

I did my best to break the weapons into sensible categories. If a class can use one of the weapons in a category, they can probably use them all. Given the infinite number of possible classes there is bound to be the odd exception. Like how robots can't use blowguns unless they have an air compressor. It's hard to account for the infinite number of possible species and shapes. Also, the existing classes forced the creation of some categories. The clerics wanted me to split the blunt weapons from the sharps. Magic users needed daggers split from short swords. The dwarves and halflings want the short bows split from the long bows. Maybe I should split the bows again so the small folk can just pay 5% for the short bows? Hmm.

I can't seem to stop making changes to this table. I keep splitting and combining categories and changing costs. Something about this table just doesn't feel right, you know? I'll look it all over one last time and see if I can finally let it go.

Table 7: Weapons
~Freebies~

+0% - Fist/Finger (brass knuckles, war fan, spiked gauntlet, bagh nakh)
+0% - Thrown Blunt (boomerang, stick, stone, flask)
+0% - Thrown Sharp (dart, throwing knife, shuriken)
+0% - Point & Shoot (blowgun, slingshot, wand)

~Ranged Weapons~

+5% - Mechanical (catapult, crossbow, ballista)
+5% - Thrown Poles (spear, javelin, trident)
+10% - Bows (short bow, long bow)

~One-Handed Weapons~

+5% - Blades (dagger, knife, kukri, sickle)
+5% - Blunt (club, hammer, mace, sap)
+5% - Flexible (flail, sling, whip, spiked chain, bola, net, nunchaku)
+10% - Choppers (hand axe, light pick, kama, spiked mace)
+15% - Swords (short sword, long sword, scimitar)

~Two-Handed Weapons~

+5% - Quarterstaff
+10% - Heavy Weapons (heavy version of any used one-handed weapon)
+15% - Pole Arms (pike, glaive, morning star, lance)

----------------------------------------------------------------
+90% - Any Weapon

Freebies is the section for weapons that are low damage and just dead easy to use. They all cost 0% because I didn't feel that a class should have to pay extra xp to use this stuff. I thought categories might still be useful though. Clerics can't use the Thrown Sharps. Fist/Finger weapons are hard to use when you only have tentacles. A creature whose primary sense is smell might not be able aim at enough distance to use Point & Shoot.

Mechanicals are those weapons that require a bit of preparation. They need to be wound up, pulled back, have the spring set into place, ect. I imagine that some species just aren't bright enough to ever use this stuff, like trolls and ogres maybe. Crossbows aren't available to magic users, I assume for being too cumbersome as opposed to too complicated. Oh, and here is the part where I realize that I forgot to ever give Clerics access to catapults. Nooooooooooooo. Looks like I'm doing another revision at the end of this post. Should magic users be able to use catapults? Depends on the situation, right? Hmm, maybe the siege weapons should all cost 0%.

I could probably do a whole post about why the pole weapons are split into Thrown Poles, Quarterstaff, and Pole Arms. The short answer is that a Halfling can use a spear or javelin, but the other poles are too big; while a Hawkman (or Snail-dude) can use a Quarterstaff, but the back end of spears and pole arms would knock against their wings (or shell).

I ended up combining the short and long bows into Bows. I think if you can use one then you know how to use the other. I'd argue that halflings and dwarves can use longbows, they'd just need to stand on a table. Oh wait! Their short arms probably couldn't pull the string back far enough. Huh, I guess I should split these up again.

The Blunt and Choppers I almost combined because they all use the same swinging arm motion. I suppose that the Choppers do require a little more control to keep the blade pointed forward. Honestly though I find it hard to imagine any class except cleric who would use one type but not the other. Anti-clerics who use only edged weapons? I'd best just leave it alone.

Flexible weapons require a fair amount of coordination to use. If you're building an especially clumsy class, they probably can't use any of these without hurting themselves.

I set the cost for Swords a little higher than other weapons. Swords are versatile. They can slash, stab, or bash with the pommel (that's where the word "pummel" originated). Besides that, the best magical weapons tend to be swords. I think the cost is justified. If your class can't use swords you probably deserve a little more xp than the class that can't use bows, right? Maybe? Hmm. Maybe I should split the short swords from the long swords again. I can imagine species able to use one but not the other.

I rather like the way that Heavy Weapons are set up now. Use of a heavy flail requires Flexibles and Heavy Weapons. A two-handed sword requires Swords and Heavy Weapons. It does force a giant class to pay for categories of weapons that might be too small for them to actually use, but they'll be able to hold a great sword in one hand and a shield in the other so I bet they'll get over it.

Revision time again.

I'm going to rename ~Freebies~ to ~Very Small Weapons~
I'm going to remove any mention of siege weapons and just rename Mechanical to Crossbows 5%
I'm splitting the swords into short swords 5% and long (and bastard) swords 10%
I'm splitting the bows into short bows 5% and long bows 5%
I'm raising all the Level Limit costs 5%, so I can make a custom class that tops out at 7th level
I'm making Magic Users pay for Flexibles 5%, I figure they can use nets and maybe whips or slings
I'm reducing the cost of Magic User Spell Table to 250%, because I've always wanted to

Now I'm going back to edit the original post again. My sense of aesthetics wants this weapon table to be more streamlined, but it seems to work best when it's messy and full of options. It feels finished now, so hopeful I can leave it alone.

A second look at Table 6: Armor

2011-12-22T05:08:00.006-06:00

Not the most exciting table, but I'm really happy with it how it turned out. I started with the intention of putting the cost for using Any Armor at two-thirds the cost of Any Weapon, so I'm glad my recent revisions brought back that 2:3 ratio. I'm not sure why I think it's a good ratio, but I'll just trust my gut and rationalize it later. You know, the usual.

Table 6: Armor
None - +0%
Padded or Leather - +5%
Studded Leather - +5%
Scale or Hide - +5%
Chain - +10%
Banded or Splint - +10%
Plate - +15%
Shield (wood or metal) - +10%
------------------------
Any - +60%
Stealthy armor only (padded, leather, studded) - +10%

The only cost I see on this table that might be questionable is the 10% for shields. I set shields at 10% because they're versatile and can be used with any type of armor, also because magical shields stack with magic armor. Magic shields tend to get more special effects than magical armors (at least at the tables where I play). If your class can't use shields then you're probably giving up some cool protection effect at later levels, in addition to the +whatever on the shield.

A lot of people also use house rules so that shields do more than just improve AC by 1. That's not why I set the cost at 10%, but I'm just saying. If using Shields Shall be Splintered or an alternate AC/Armor table helps you feel better about the 10% cost, that's a pretty easy fix. If you must change shields to 5%, then raising Splint/Banded to 15% would put all seven classes back at the same xp totals... and make me groan in disgust. It's your game though, do as you will. Moving on.

In my original post I almost put a few extra options below "Stealthy armor only". I decided against it because I felt that the costs should vary based on how different DMs implement the options. Say you decide to make a class who were all decidedly vegan, they refuse to use anything made from animals at all. Since they can still use padded or scale armors, the only cost to subtract is the 5% for Studded Leather, so according to the chart they'd pay 55% total. Maybe 50% is more appropriate if you assume that Leather and Hide armor are both worth 2.5% each. Also, the DM could decide that replacing leather straps with different materials makes vegan plate armor less effective. If some of their armors are getting AC penalties, then maybe 40 or 45% would be fair. It's all open to interpretation.

One last example. Say you decide to make a B/X Druid class. I'm not sure why they think metal is unnatural, but they're against using it; fine. Padded & Leather, Studded, Hide, and wooden Shields comes to 25%, but what if they get creative. What's the cost for bone splint, or wooden plate, and what's the AC? I'd give them 35% total and AC near chain, but that's just me. It's all rather subjective, but I hope this table provides a good framework for DMs to build onto.

A second look at Table 5: Saves

2011-12-21T14:06:00.001-06:00

This table surprised me by being the one I spent the most time on. Saves are weird. I spent a long time trying to find the best way to quantify and compare them all. Eventually, I felt that I got the cost ratios balanced to reflect the effectiveness of each save table. I was happy. A few days later I decided to revamp my weapons, armor, saves, and hit progression tables all at once. The ratios inside each table were fine, but the costs for the weapons and armor were really high compared to the low costs in the saves and hit progression tables, so I knew I had to even it all out. As a result my precious save cost ratios got screwed up. I meant to go back and fix it later, but that is a very tangled web to weave. Maybe I'll have one last go at it.

Here's how it looks right now...

Table 5: Saves
Normal Man - +0%
Magic User +10%
Thief - +10%
Cleric - +20%
Fighter - +30%
Elf - +35%
Dwarf/Halfling - +60%

Not to shabby. The cost of the Cleric saves bothers me a little, but I can live with it. I should probably explain how I went about comparing all these save tables.

At first I was going to have poison and spell saves be more valuable than the other types, but I changed my mind. I imagine that poison and spell saves get rolled more often than the other types, but it really just depends on the individual DM and the enemies and challenges they place into the setting. If Blue DM likes to use venomous creatures, and Green DM is running a Hogwarts campaign where everyone is using wands, while Red DM uses a lot of area effect traps that require Dragon Breath saves, then it gets really hard to quantify how much better save vs. poison is compared to save vs. wands, if at all. I gave it all up and decided to just assume that all save types were created equal. I doubt it's true, but it does make comparing the save tables easier.

Assuming that all save types are equal also makes it easier to create new customized save tables. You could take numbers from one type of save and spread them into the other types in the same row. So long as the totals are equal, then the new save table costs the same as the original. Keep it within reason though. I'd suggest not letting any save category drop more than one per character level. Like, fighter saves drop every three levels, so I wouldn't reduce any save by more than three each time. I don't advise fiddling with the Dwarf saves, they're crazy enough already.

In the end, I weighed all the save tables against each other simply by adding the five saves in each row together. Then I compared all the first level totals against each other, second level totals against each other, and so on. Low score wins. Here's the summary of how that worked out.

Normal Man saves start awful and never improve at all. Cost = 0%
Magic User saves cost 10%. That gap will leave room for a "worse than MU" custom save table used by some new and accident prone class.
Magic User and Thief save totals are usually even or very close. Thieves have better saves at levels 5, 9, and 10, but magic users have an edge at 6,7,8, and are way better off at levels 11 and 12. I think it's a tie, so I made their costs equal.
The gap between Thief saves and Cleric saves is far greater than the tiny gap between Cleric and Fighter save totals. Like around three times greater. Cleric saves seem to start off better and progress at a faster pace than any of the others. I'm guessing that they get some kind of bonus for being buddies with a deity.
Elf saves are the same as fighter saves, except that elves are a bit more resistant to spells and petrification. Cost = (Fighter save cost +5%).
Dwarf/Halfling saves are equal to fighter saves if you skip the first two tiers, except Dragon Breath which just skips one tier. On average Dwarf saves are about one and a half times better than Fighter saves for any given level, but considering that their saves at first level are ridiculous good; I'd put the cost somewhere around 1.75 times the cost of Fighter saves.

So, what I really want to do is raise the cleric saves by 5% and lower Dwarf/Halfling saves by 5%. That would put a 15% gap between the Thief and Cleric saves, 5% between Cleric and Fighter saves, and a 10% gap between Cleric and Elf saves. It would also put Dwarf/Halfling saves close to 1.85 times the cost of Fighter saves. Yeah, that all lines up with the ratios nicely.

The trouble is finding different costs to lower without messing up the other tables. The whole reason I started doing this was to get the final xp totals at the end to match the B/X books, so for every 5% I add to a class I need to lower 5% somewhere else. Since a lot of the abilities are shared by multiple classes, changing any cost can start a kind of chain reaction. Oh, and it'd be nice if all the ability costs looked reasonably balanced once I'm finished.

I'm just rambling now because I'm not quite sure how to pull this off.

I'd always meant to rework the weapons table a bit. Also, I had an idea yesterday to lower the cost of some of the armor types. I know that some people prefer to play with ascending AC and allow PCs to use Dex as AC if unarmored. I think I can get these armor costs to look good whether you play that way or not. If I can just get all these changes to line up so that the costs all balance...

*Days Later*

OK, got it. This is probably my last revision. I managed to fix (almost) every cost that bothered me. I even got Climb Walls and Backstab back at 10% each, which is where I secretly preferred them. Here's the rundown of all the changes.

Cleric saves 20%, now 25%
Dwarf/Halfling saves 60%, now 55%
Short Bow 5% and Long Bows 5%, now Bows 10%
Short Swords 5% and Long Swords 5%, now Swords 15%
Massive Blunt 5% and Massive Sharp 10%, now Heavy Weapons 10%
Choppers 5%, now Choppers 10%
Pole Arms 10%, now Pole Arms 15%
Scale and Hide Armor 10%, now 5%
Banded and Splint Armor 15%, now 10%
Climb Walls 15%, now 10%
Backstab 15%, now 10%

Now I'm off to edit the original post.

A second look at Table 4: Level Limit

2011-12-16T11:34:00.009-06:00

Level limits! Everyone's favorite topic. Let's skip the part where I wax poetic about humanity's potential for greatness vs. other species. B/X has level limits, so my system for creating customized B/X classes includes a table with their costs.

If you want to use this system but don't want to use level limits, you can! Just throw this table out, increase the cost of infravision to 25%, and increase the dwarf Stone Sense ability to 20% (those seem a tad high, but not by much). Fair enough?

If you do want to incorporate level limits into your custom classes, here is what I came up with.

Table 4: Level Limit
(Humans pay 0% for no cap)
8 - +0%
9 - +5%
10 - +10%
11 - +15%
12 - +20%

This table bothered me for the longest time. It just seemed so unfair that the humans were paying 0% while the dwarves, elves, and halflings were paying a fee for level caps. It didn't make any sense... until about an hour ago when the answer hit me like a ton of bricks.

Level limits are the price you pay for access to Table 10: Beyond Human Abilities.

The cost is based upon the level where you cap. If your class caps at level 8, then access to Table 10 costs you nothing. Otherwise, access to the abilities in Table 10 costs (max level-8)*5%.

That's why humans pay 0%. They don't have access to all the cool stuff in Table 10. Infravision, wings that let you fly, innate magical abilities, tremor sense, bonus AC vs. large creatures due to your small size, immunities, resistances, water breathing, and gods know what else.

So, if you make a species like, I dunno... Andorians. You decide that their antenna and blue skin are only cosmetic changes that grant no special abilities. You give them some Extras from Table 9 but nothing from Table 10; then Andorians don't need a level limit.

On the other hand you can also make a class for Hawkmen and declare that they don't hit their level cap until 12th. They would pay 20% ([12-8]*5%) for access to the functional wings in Table 10, plus the cost of the wings. I think I listed slow functional wings as costing 50%, I imagine hawkmen as being swift but not super agile fliers so maybe 60-65%.

I think it's fairly easy to tell which abilities are "Beyond Human" and which aren't. I'm not going to worry right now about listing every possible ability in it's proper table. The real question I have is if 12th is the highest possible level cap. Can a class pay 60% for a level cap at 20th? I'm still undecided, but ultimately it doesn't matter. Individual DMs are going to decide for themselves anyhow.

OK, so...

In the original post I'm changing the sentence under Table 4 from "(Humans pay 0% for no cap)" to "(Level limits grant access to Table 10: Beyond Human Abilities)". Then I'm moving the dwarf, elf, and halfling abilities from Table 9 to Table 10. Some of that stuff (like bonus languages) belongs in Table 9, but most of it doesn't. I'll expand those tables and clean them up in a few days.

A second look at Table 3: Hit Progression

2011-12-15T10:23:00.001-06:00

Here's what I'm taking another look at.

Table 3: Hit Progression and Hit Points after level 9
Normal Man - +0% (+1hp after L9)
Magic User - +15% (+1hp after L9)
Cleric/Thief - +30% (+1hp after L9)
Fighting Man - +70% (+2hp after L9)

Bonus Hp after L9
(in addition to the standard amount listed above, will also raise xp for L10+)
Bonus +1hp - +10%

Ignoring the hit points after level nine for a moment, I'll try to explain where I got the costs for the hit progression tables. Normal Men never progress at all and are nearly as skilled as a first level magic user, so I gave them the lowest possible cost of 0%. Magic Users suck at combat, but they're far better than Normal Men who never progress at all, so I put their hit chart cost at 15%. This cost gap will accommodate a couple of new and awful hit charts that I might inflict on cross-eyed brownies, blind mole people, or others whose combat skills fall between a normal man and mage. Then I just doubled the cost for the Cleric/Thief (30%), and doubled it again for the Fighter progression (60%). Later I added another 10% to the fighter's table to account for the additional hp after level nine and general awesomeness.

I justified all this to myself much later. If you care to crunch down all the numbers, round profusely, and basically ignore the first few levels; fighters are sort of almost twice as effective at hitting baddies as clerics and three times as effective as magic users. Costs of 20-30-60 seem appropriate based on those ratios. Once I considered that the basics of combat training are far easier to learn than the advanced maneuvers, the 15-30-70 costs made sense to me.

Back to those hit points now. This was originally two different tables, one for hit progression and another for hit points after level nine. I combined them shortly after Table 1 took it's current form. Mainly this came about because at the time I was requiring Halflings to pay for the "after name level" hit points even though they topped out at eighth level. Then I saw that the higher "after name level" xp requirements of Dwarves and Thieves could be blamed on them gaining a hp in addition to those of their combat peers. It all made sense in a weird moment of clarity, so I tied the "after name level" hit points to combat proficiency. Normal Men get +1hp after L9 because I thought it would be sad to level a character from 9th to 10th and not gain a hit point. I'm generous like that. If you decide that Normal Men combatants don't deserve it and should get +0hp after 9th, I wouldn't think less of you.

Now somebody out there is going to ask about the cost of that Bonus +1hp (because I know I did). "Why are thieves and dwarves paying +10% every level in addition to the higher xp after name level?" I'm not sure honestly. This discrepancy convinced me make a new house rule for my own games. Thieves get a minimum of 2hp per level. Dwarves get a minimum of 3hp per level. So, if one of those guys goes up a level and rolls a 1 or 2 for hp, then they get the minimum instead. I mean they're paying for those hp every level, right? It makes sense to me.

Another alternative is reducing the cost of the bonus +1 hp after L9 to 0% (but it still raises xp for level 10+), then raise thief and dwarf special ability costs to compensate. Climb Walls starts off pretty high, so maybe it should cost 15%. Backstab might also deserve to cost 15%. For the Dwarves I'd raise their language skills up to 10% (to match the elves), and their Infravision up to 15%. Then elf Infravision goes up to 15% to match the dwarves, so I'd lower the elves Connection to Nature down to 15%. Hmmm... That looks good actually. Really good. Crap. I wish I'd have thought of this sooner. I'm going back to edit the original post again with these new changes. I'm scrapping the minimum hp house rule that I mentioned a moment ago, I think these changes work out better all around.

Dear IT guys at my work,

2011-12-15T06:53:00.002-06:00

I realize that you're probably just "following orders" or whatever, but every time you upgrade the website blocking software or disable certain functions on my computer I end up wasting a lot of time figuring out how to bypass it so that I can post on my blog and look at Zak S's site.

It's starting to cut into my productivity.

It really becomes exponential at some point when you think about all the time you've spent blocking my access to the web, and all the time I've spent worming my way through the cracks. Imagine all that we could have accomplished for the company if we hadn't wasted that time and energy. I realize that we can never really join forces, but can't we at least stop this arms race? Couldn't you just turn a blind eye so long as I'm getting my work done and continuing to find ways to make the business more efficient?

Thanks for listening, and have a lovely day.

Sincerely,
The Spoiled Brat

A second look at Table 2: Hit Dice

2011-12-14T01:46:00.004-06:00

Overall, I like how this table turned out. The +30,+40,+50 cost progression feels right somehow.

Table 2: Hit Dice
d3 - +0%
d4 - +30%
d6 - +70%
d8 - +120%
d10 - +180%
d12 - +250%

I see that I did make an obvious mistake. The number of sides on those dice are changing by 2 each step. So, the step before d4 should actually be d2 - +0%. If your cheapo class doesn't want to pay for hit points then you don't roll a die, you flip a damn coin. I like that. I'll go back and correct the original post. I'll even add another step below that, d0 - (-20%). Then any DM with an interest can get the costs for the odd dice by finding the mid point between the steps. Like this.

d1 - (-10%)

d3 - 15%

d5 - 50%

d7 - 95%

d9 - 150%

d11 - 215%

I'm not sure what kind of madman builds a class with d11 for hit dice, but I'm here to facilitate not to judge.

Crabaugh's hit dice table had the costs doubling for each higher die, which some of you will like better I'm sure. I changed it mainly because I wanted the step between d4 and d6 to cost more. Also, I know I'm going to use a d12 at some point for a Cyclops or giantish class, and I thought that the cost doubling method made the cost for d12 too high.

I suppose I might like Crabaugh's costs better if I allowed my players to reroll 1s or start their 1st level characters with max hit points. There is an argument to be made that d10 and d12 hit dice should cost more than I have listed, but if that big hulking class still has a possibility of starting first level with 1hp then I think these costs are fine.

A second look at customized classes, Table 1: Base XP

2011-12-10T13:02:00.001-06:00

The plan seemed simple enough. Take Crabaugh's system and tweak it "just a little" so that it would spit out the xp tables in the B/X books if you plug in the seven existing classes. I said, "I'll just reverse engineer the classes into their base components. It can't be that hard".

That was weeks ago.

The brick wall that I kept running into was the unified base xp table. I really wanted it to work, but the Thieves and Elves conspired against it. Once I made the decision to let go of the unified table, everything fell into place rather quickly.

It was easy to see that the arcane magic used by Elves and MUs was costing them. Their offensive spells cost them more than the helpful prayers of clerics. In addition to that the versatility of spellbooks, sharing spells, and the potential to keep a library full of magical options seemed to put them up into a whole new tax bracket.

The thieves and clerics confused me though. Their xp tables were obviously playing by different rules, but it took me long time to see what those two classes had in common. Eventually I stumbled across a discussion online about how thieves were assumed to belong to a guild and required to fork over 10% of their gold, just like clerics donating to their churches. I don't remember ever using that rule in play. I wish I had my old B/X books so that I could verify it. Labyrinth Lord seems to agree though, so I labeled their base xp as "10% tithers" and moved on. It makes sense to me. They pay their dues and in exchange they get some training from their peers. It's also interesting to note that if they broke away from these organizations and kept their gold, thieves would need 1600xp for level 2 and clerics would have the same xp requirements as fighters. I like that.

Clerics and thieves are also responsible for the Level 10+ section. Thieves have lower xp requirements than clerics every step of the way until after name level. At that point clerics need 100k per level and thieves need 120k... what the hell? And don't even get me started about the dwarves. I gave up, truncated the tables at level 9, and decided to just blame the rest on hit points.

... and that's where this three headed monster came from.

Table 1: Base XP

10% Tithers Standard Base XP Spellbook Users
0 ------------ 0 --------- Level 1 --------------- 0
300 -------- 400 ------- Level 2 ------------ 500
600 -------- 800 ------- Level 3 ---------- 1000
1200 ------ 1600 ------ Level 4 ---------- 2000
2400 ------ 3200 ------ Level 5 ---------- 4000
5000 ------ 6400 ------ Level 6 ---------- 8000
10000 ---- 12800 ----- Level 7 --------- 16000
20000 ---- 24000 ----- Level 8 --------- 25000
40000 ---- 48000 ----- Level 9 --------- 50000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Level 10+
Add a flat amount to the total based upon hp gained
10% Tithers Standard Spellbook Users
+100,000 --- +100,000 --- +1 hp/level --- +150,000
+120,000 --- +120,000 --- +2 hp/level --- +200,000
+130,000 --- +130,000 --- +3 hp/level --- +250,000

Like many of the tables in this class building system, I don't really like it but it seems to work. If I can find a way to simplify or improve it I'll go back and update the original post.

Customized Classes for B/X

2011-12-09T12:20:00.034-06:00

Based in part on Paul Crabaugh's excellent "Customized Classes" from Dragon #109, but altered and reworked so that xp values for the seven canonical classes remain unchanged.

Basically you just start with 100%, then add all the percentages for the skills, abilities, and equipment you want the class to have access to. That's your multiplier for the appropriate base xp chart (the first table), those results are your customized xp table.

Table 1: Base XP

Bonus Hp after L9
(in addition to the standard amount listed above, will also raise xp for L10+)
Bonus +1hp - +0%

Table 4: Level Limit
(Level limits grant access to Table 10: Beyond Human Abilities)
7 - +0%
8 - +5%
9 - +10%
10 - +15%
11 - +20%
12 - +25%

Table 5: Saves
Normal Man - +0%
Magic User +10%
Thief - +10%
Cleric - +25%
Fighter - +30%
Elf - +35%
Dwarf/Halfling - +55%

Table 6: Armor
None - +0%
Padded or Leather - +5%
Studded Leather - +5%
Scale or Hide - +5%
Chain - +10%
Banded or Splint - +10%
Plate - +15%
Shield (wood or metal) - +10%
------------------------
Any - +60%
Stealthy armor only (padded, leather, studded) - +10%

Table 7: Weapons
~Very Light Weapons~

~Ranged Weapons~

+5% - Crossbows
+5% - Short Bows
+5% - Long Bows
+5% - Thrown Poles (spear, javelin, trident)

~One-Handed Weapons~

+5% - Blades (dagger, kukri, sickle)
+5% - Short Swords
+5% - Blunt (club, hammer, mace)
+5% - Flexible (flail, sling, whip, spiked chain, bola, net, nunchaku)
+10% - Choppers (hand axe, light pick, kama, spiked mace)
+10% - Long Swords (long sword, scimitar, bastard sword)

~Two-Handed Weapons~

+5% - Quarterstaff
+10% - Heavy Weapons (heavy version of any used one-handed weapon)
+15% - Pole Arms (pike, glaive, morning star, lance)

----------------------------------------------------------------
+90% - Any Weapon

Table 8: Magic Items
Weapons - +10%
Armor - +5%
Potions - +5%
Rings - +5%
Misc. Magic Items - +5%
Staves&Rods - +0% (but these often have class restrictions)
Protection Scrolls - +0%
Cleric Scrolls - +10%
Magic User Scrolls - +20%
Wands - +10%

Table 9: Extras
Common and Native Languages - +0%
Bonus Language - 5%

Student of Linguistics - +20%
(Read Languages 80% at L4 & Arcane Scroll use 10% failure at L9)
Open Locks - +10%
Remove Traps - +10%
Pick Pockets - +10%
Move Silently - +10%
Climb Sheer Surfaces - +10%
Hide in Shadows - +10%
Hear Noise - +10%
Backstab - +10%

Turn Undead - +20%

Magic Research at L9 - +25%
(create spells, scrolls, and magical items)

Custom Abilities
Special Ability (once per day) - +10% per spell level equivalent
Special Ability (multiple per day) - +15 to 25% per spell level equivalent
Special Ability (constant) - +30% per spell level equivalent

Table 10:Beyond Human Abilities
(These abilities require Table 4: Level Limit)

Halfling abilities - 55%
90% Hide in Wilderness (+15%)
Hide 1-2 on d6 in cavern/dungeon (+10%)
AC -2 when attacked by large creatures (+15%)
+1 initiative when alone or with other halflings (+5%)
+1 missile attacks (+10%)

Dwarf abilities - 35%
Infravision 60’ (+15%)
5 languages: Common, Dwarvish, Goblin, Gnome, Kobald (+10%)
Stone Sense: 2 in 6 for detecting masonry traps, false walls,
hidden construction, or sloped passages (+10%)

Elf abilities - 50%
Infravision 60’ (+15%)
5 languages: Common, Elvish, Gnoll, Hobgoblin, Orc (+10%)
2 in 6 for detect hidden and secret doors (+10%)
Connection to Nature: Immune to ghoul paralysis (+15%)

Custom Abilities
Innate Magical Ability (once per day) - +10% per spell level
Innate Magical Ability (multiple per day) - +15 to 25% per spell level
Innate Magical Ability (constant) - +30% per spell level

Physiology

Infravision 60’ - +15%
Functional Wings (slow) - +50%
Aquatic Breathing/Movement (slow) - +25%
Shapeshift at will, one form only - +50% per HD
Regeneration - +100% per hp per turn, not fire/acid
Parasitic Host Control (restricted use, painful removal) - +50%
Extended Lifespan (native, common, and 3 bonus languages) - +10%

Table 11: Spell Progression

Cleric Spell Table - +120%
Magic User Spell Table - +250%

The spell progression values above give results in line with B/X.

Since different people use different charts, I’ll leave it to you to break the spell progression tables down into their component parts and costs if you want to build custom spell progression tables for new classes. If it was me, I prefer having Clerics get no spell at first level and peak with 7th level spells, Magic-Users peak with 9th level spells. So, I’d break it up like this.

Custom Spell Progression
Level at which you gain first spell
Level    Cost
1    70%
2    50%
3    35%
4    25%
5    20%
6    15%
7    10%
8     5%
9    0%

MU spells cost +20% per max spell level attainable
Cleric spells cost +10% per max spell level attainable

Guidelines for Building Custom Spell Progression Tables
Once you begin to learn spellcasting, gain 1 spell each time you level
After learning your second 3rd level spell, gain 2 spells each time you level
After learning your second 6th level spell, gain 3 spells each time you level
After learning your second 9th level spell, gain 4 spells each time you level

The number of spells per spell level must be within 1 of adjacent spell levels
(ignore zeroes)

Only gain a new spell level after learning 2 spells of the previous spell level

A note on Elves

Currently Elves are paying the same for their spells as Magic Users. Once I start messing with custom spell progression tables, Elves are going be an issue. Because of their level limit Elves top out with 5th level MU spells, so if I’m going to reduce the cost of their spell table by 80% I need to give them something extra to bring their xp total back up to B/X standard. I’ll probably just bump up the cost of their “Connection to Nature” ability and have it do more than give immunity to ghoul paralysis. Possibilities include: resistance or immunity to sleep and/or charm, improved reaction rolls with woodland creatures, bonus languages/beastspeach. They might also gain the ability to create spells and magic items like Magic Users, I just haven’t decided yet.

------------------------------------------------------

Fighter
100 Base
120 Hit Dice: d8
70   Hit Progression: Fighter (+2hp after L9)
30   Fighter saves
60   Armor: Any
90   Weapons: Any
30   Magic: no wands, no divine scrolls, no arcane scrolls

Standard Base Experience X Fighter Class 500%
0 ----------- Level 1 ------------ 0
400 -------- Level 2 ------ 2000
800 -------- Level 3 ------ 4000
1600 ------ Level 4 ------   8000
3200 ------ Level 5 ----- 16000
6400 ------ Level 6 ----- 32000
12800 ----- Level 7 ----- 64000
24000 ----- Level 8 ---- 120000
48000 ----- Level 9 ---- 240000
________ Level 10+ ________
2hp/Level = +120,000 each
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Level 20 @ 156000

------------------------------------------------------

Thief
100 Base
30   Hit Dice: d4
30   Hit Progression: Cleric/Thief (+1hp after L9)
0 Bonus +1hp after L9
10   Thief saves
10   Armor: Padded, Leather, Studded
90   Weapons: Any
30   Magic: no wands, no divine scrolls, no arcane scrolls
80   Thieving Abilities: all 8 at L1
20   Student of Linguistics (Read Languages 80% at L4 and, L9 arcane scroll use 10% fail)

Tithe to Guild Base Experience X Thief Class 400%
0 ----------- Level 1 ------------- 0
300 -------- Level 2 ------- 1200
600 -------- Level 3 ------- 2400
1200 ------ Level 4 -------- 4800
2400 ------ Level 5 -------- 9600
5000 ------ Level 6 ------ 20000
10000 ---- Level 7 ------- 40000
20000 ---- Level 8 ------- 80000
40000 ---- Level 9 ------ 160000
________ Level 10+ ________
2hp/Level = +120,000 each
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Level 20 @ 1,480,000

------------------------------------------------------

Cleric
100 Base
70   Hit Dice: d6
30   Hit Progression: Cleric/Thief (+1hp after L9)
25 Cleric saves
60   Armor: Any
25   Weapons: Thrown Blunt, Blunt, Flexible, Quarterstaff, Heavy Weapons
50   Magic: no wands, no arcane scrolls
20   Turn Undead
120 Spells: Cleric Spell Progression at Lv2

Tithe to Church Base Experience X Cleric Class 500%
0 -----------Level 1 ------------- 0
300 --------Level 2 ------- 1500
600 --------Level 3 ------- 3000
1200 ------ Level 4 ------- 6000
2400 ------ Level 5 ----- 12000
5000 ------ Level 6 ----- 25000
10000 -----Level 7 ----- 50000
20000 -----Level 8 ----- 100000
40000 -----Level 9 ---- 200000
________ Level 10+ ________
1hp/Level = +100,000 each
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Level 20 @ 1,300,000

------------------------------------------------------

Magic User
100 Base
30   Hit Dice: d4
15   Hit Progression: MU (+1 hp after L9)
10    MU saves
0     Armor: none
15 Weapons:   Blades, Quarterstaff, and Flexible (restricted to light weapons)
55   Magic: no armor, no divine scrolls
25   Magic Research at L9, able to create spells, magical weapons, armor, wands, potions, ect.
250 Spells: Magic User Spell Progression at Lv1

Spellbook User Base Experience X Magic User Class 500%
0 -----------Level 1 ------------- 0
500 --------Level 2 ------- 2500
1000 --------Level 3 ------ 5000
2000------ Level 4 ------ 10000
4000 ------ Level 5 ----- 20000
8000 ------ Level 6 ----- 40000
16000 -----Level 7 ----- 80000
25000 -----Level 8 ----- 150000
50000 -----Level 9 ---- 300000
________ Level 10+ ________
1hp/Level = +150,000 each
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Level 20 @ 2,050,000

------------------------------------------------------

Dwarf
100 Base
120 Hit Dice: d8
70   Hit Table: Fighter (+2hp after L9)
0 Bonus +1hp after L9
25 Max Level: 12th
55 Dwarf Saves
60   Armor: Any
55 Weapons: no 2-handed weapons, or longbows
30   Magic: no wands, no divine scrolls, no arcane scrolls
35   Dwarf Abilities

Standard Base Experience X Dwarf Class 550%
0 -----------Level 1 ------------- 0
400 --------Level 2 -------- 2200
800 --------Level 3 -------- 4400
1600 ------ Level 4 ------- 8800
3200 ------ Level 5 ------ 17600
6400 ------ Level 6 ------ 35200
12800 -----Level 7 -------70400
24000 -----Level 8 ------132000
48000 -----Level 9 ------264000
________ Level 10+ ________
3hp/Level = +130,000 each
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------ Level 10 ---- 394000
-------------Level 11 ---- 524000
-------------Level 12 ---- 654000

------------------------------------------------------

Halfling
100 Base
70   Hit Dice: d6
70   Hit Progression: Fighter (+2hp after L9)
5     Max Level: 8th
55 Dwarf/Halfling saves
60 Armor: Any
55 Weapons: no 2-handed weapons or longbows
30   Magic: no wands, no divine scrolls, no arcane scrolls
55   Halfling Abilities
Standard Base Experience X Halfling Class 500%
0 -----------Level 1 ------------- 0
400 --------Level 2 ------- 2000
800 --------Level 3 ------- 4000
1600 ------ Level 4 ------   8000
3200 ------ Level 5 -----   16000
6400 ------ Level 6 -----   32000
12800 -----Level 7 -----   64000
24000 -----Level 8 ----- 120000

------------------------------------------------------

Elf
100 Base
70   Hit Dice: d6
70   Hit Progression: Fighter (+2 hp after L9)
15 Max Level: 10th
35 Elf saves
60 Armor: Any
90 Weapons: Any
60   Magic: no divine scrolls
50   Elf Abilities
250 Spells: Magic User Spell Progression at Lv 1

Spellbook User Base Experience X Elf Class 800%
0 -----------Level 1 ------------- 0
500 --------Level 2 ------- 4000
1000 -------Level 3 ------- 8000
2000------- Level 4 ----- 16000
4000 ------ Level 5 ------ 32000
8000 ------ Level 6 ----- 64000
16000 -----Level 7 ---- 128,000
25000 -----Level 8 ---- 200,000
50000 -----Level 9 --- 400,000
________ Level 10+ ________
2hp/Level = +200,000 each
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Level 10 @ 600,000

------------------------------------------------------

Customized Classes for Ezzin

2011-12-09T11:16:00.006-06:00

Here's an excerpt from the character creation document I'll be giving to my players.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pick a Class: Any Character can be any of the human classes (Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Magic-User) without restriction. Having an ability score below 9 allows the option to play as one of the non-human classes.

Ability Score 8 or less ---- Available Class

Strength -------------------------- Halfling

Intelligence ----------------------- Nagual
Wisdom --------------------------- Dwarf or Gnome
Dexterity ------------------------- Cyclops
Constitution ---------------------- Elf
Charisma ------------------------- Haniver

An ability score of 4 or 5 also allows you the choice to play as a beast man, any sort of human/animal hybrid, a fey creature, an intelligent dire animal, or somesuch thing. Your choice. Just make sure it fits with the low score you rolled. Strength 4 fits with a Pixie, Frogling, or Ratling. A talking Dire Wolf or Minotaur fits better with a low Int, Wis, or Cha. This is your chance to play a goblin, patherman, fairy, serpentaur, spiderfreak, or whatever. No Dragons, Djinn, Divine or Demonic beings. Email me with your choice and any ideas you have about culture, skills, and background. I’ll make the custom class and XP chart for you and send back a link to the new class document.

If you roll a 3 for any of your six ability scores, you may play a dragon. The life of a young dragon is no picnic. Email me, we’ll roll on the dragon charts and see what you get.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So instead of giving myself just a handful of custom classes to create and balance, I might also need to create a new class whenever a player rolls a crappy Ability Score. I enjoy a challenge. The easiest road would be to just make up classes/races on the fly and build xp tables with my gut, but I second guess myself far too much for that. What I needed was a system, a class creation formula, so I set about looking for it.

Paul Crabaugh's excellent "Customized Classes" from Dragon #109 was almost exactly what I was looking for. The only thing was that I wanted the xp charts for the original seven classes to remain unchanged. Not that I disagree with Crabaugh's results. I just don't want to have to justify those results to others. I seems to me that if the customized class formula could recreate the xp tables of the seven canonical classes, then it somehow lends an air of authenticity to any newly created classes. I want to be able to sidestep the "Why does my Wizardly Wolf-Man need 5000xp for level 2?" discussions by simply pointing at the B/X book and saying "it's based on those xp tables". Somehow it just feels more fair if the xp tables are already in print, I dunno why.

So I set about tweaking Crabaugh's system. "It can't be that difficult" I said to myself. Besides, reverse engineering the B/X classes seemed like it would be a fun mental exercise that might give me some insight about why those xp charts seem to vary so wildly. Here is a summary of my process.

Step 1: Assume the xp tables in B/X are implicitly correct.
Step 2: Assume that all skills and abilities have values based upon their usefulness/fun
Step 3: Waste hours and hours of your free time struggling to find method in the madness
Step 4: Make your wife question your sanity by mumbling gibberish mixed with numbers... for days

Step 5: Nail down all the numbers and share the whole thing on your blog
Step 6: Sit in the rocking chair and sip a brandy while feelings of smug satisfaction wash over you

I'm on Step 5 now. My next post will be just the raw tables and numbers without any detailed instructions or explanation. Sorry, but I want to hurry along to step 6.

Basically you just start with 100%, then add all the percentages for the skills, abilities, and equipment you want the class to have access to. That's your multiplier for the appropriate base xp chart (the first table), those results are your customized xp table.

It's not perfect. I know that. Heck, I don't even own any B/X books anymore due to a fit of generosity a few years back. A lot of this is from bits and pieces I found on the web and memory, so buyer beware. I think it turned out pretty well though, especially if you're willing to do a little rounding for the Dwarves and look the other way when Elves get to level 7 and 8.

Later on I might write a post about each of the tables, discuss how I came to the numbers and other such minutia. For now though I'm just excited to set it all aside for a couple of days. Someone else can play and tinker with it if they like while I enjoy my drink.

Don't do what Elfy Don't does!

2011-12-01T00:34:00.006-06:00

DM: "You're all walking along toward the dungeon. Suddenly, a shadow passes over you. You all look up and see a large, winged, serpentine..."

Elfy Don't: "I cast Magic Missile at it!"

Everyone Else: "No, Elfy! DON'T!"

Elfy Don't: *rolls for damage*
-----------------------------------------

I honestly don't know why my brain called up the image of that giant, flying, venomous snake that we saw in the caves a few sessions ago. Once Jeff said the word "dragon" I had to resist the urge to crawl under the table in shame.

As most of the party dove into the bushes for cover, Elfy Don't stood his ground and readied a wand. (Don't do that)

Ready for the Pro Tips?

Dragon Breath has greater range than a Wand of Paralyzation.
Check your sheet for the Potion of Fire Resistance that you forgot about.
When the DM says that one of the henchmen stands slack-jawed staring at the dragon, HIDE! Let the hench-patsy suffer the dragon's wrath.
You're probably dead anyway. Running away from the rest of your party might save their lives.
Drop magic items as you run. You might get rezzed, your items won't.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by: a remorseful, impoverished, 2nd level elf in a loincloth

The Beast Tongues of Ezzin

2011-11-23T05:56:00.007-06:00

I'm still working on the playable races/classes, but I think I'm nearly done. One of these are called the Nagual. They are a race of shapeshifters. When individual Nagual learn a new form they can usually slip into a pack or herd for a time in order to learn their ways and language.

Basically, I wanted them to be able to speak to whatever animals they could change into. So then I had to decide some things. Do animals all speak the same language, or a different language for each species, or what? I knew I wanted to give druids and elves the chance to speak to some animals too, but I thought that being able to speak to any animal should cost more than one language slot.

So, this is what I decided. Each species has a unique dialect based upon one of the root languages below (1-10). The last two (11 and 12) are amalgamations of many words from many root languages developed over time by the animals forced to live together by their biped captors. Most animals know their species dialect, plus two of the languages listed below.

Fera Lingua: The Beast Tongues. None of these languages have an alphabet or written words, they are spoken only.

Avian
Reptilian
Amphibian
Mammalian
Insectian
Vermian - worm, snail, slug, centipede, spider, tick
Fishycan (Mid Ocean Common)
Molluskian (Low Ocean Common, crustacean, squid, jellyfish, bottom dwellers)
Surfsong (High Ocean Common, whale, dolphin, seal, some sea birds)
Penguinian (Panarctic Common, all penguin, rorquals, polar bears, snow petrel, flightless midge)
Barnyard Slang (Low Domesticated Common: chickens, pigs, goats, cows, sheep)
Kennel Cant (High Domesticated Common: dog, cat, war horse, service lizard)

Sylvan (Fey Common, fairy, pixie, brownie, sprite) is understood by many wild creatures of the forest. Some of these wild animals may have even been taught to read a few words or trail markings such as "danger" or "haven". Animals usually find it difficult to speak in Sylvan though, as their mouths can't make the proper sounds. So, an elf or druid who wants to use a single language slot to communicate with a number of wild animals might do well to learn this.

On the other hand, Naganese (the language of the Nagual shapeshifters) is never taught to outsiders and is unknown to both animals and men. It also has no alphabet, and is only spoken. The Nagual use this in order to identify each other while hidden among other species.

Animals refer to all other languages as "the babels". These languages of men and bipeds are too complex for them. They might be able to learn a few command words at best. There are always exceptions though, some individuals or species are smarter than others.

So... a chicken would probably know the chicken dialect (based on Avian), Barnyard Slang, and Avian. However, they probably react better to those who speak Barnyard Slang because they find Avian so highfalutin that they think you sound like a pretentious asshole.

A trained Peregrine Falcon would also likely know their species dialect, Barnyard Slang, and Avian. Unlike chickens though, Avian is more commonly spoken in the mews where hawks and falcons are kept. So anyone speaking Barnyard Slang to them would likely be thought of as some lowly yokel. I imagine that most other domesticated carnivores speak Kennel Cant and rarely speak Barnyard Slang (even if they understand it) because they too feel it is beneath them.

So, what do you all think? Is there a better way to split these up?

Cleric Turning d30 Table

2011-11-20T10:54:00.004-06:00

I was thinking the other day about Jeff's games. He likes to put clerics in the role of "undead turner" rather than "party healer". Being expected to play as a living band-aid isn't much fun. Saving the entire party from level draining doom by just staring the beasts down until they back away... that's where the fun is.

But the fun is also with Jeff's d30 rule. Then I thought to myself "d30 Turn Undead!". So, then I made this. It's the same old turning chart everyone knows and loves, except that it accounts for results of 2-36 in case you decide to roll the 30 rather than one of those 6's. Here's the chart.

Click the chart to see a bigger version.

The trouble though (I suspect), is that using the d30 to turn undead isn't quite as awesome as the d30 usually is. Turning undead in OD&D requires 2 rolls of 2d6. One roll to see if the attempt is successful and the second roll determines how many HD of undead are turned. As the d30 rule stands, you can only use the d30 once per session. So, even though it is all one action, you only get the d30 for the success/fail roll, or the HD roll, but not both.

It could be argued that this is fine because to-hit and damage rolls do the same thing, split one action into two rolls of the dice. That's apples and oranges though, turning does no damage and it acts a lot like a spell. Personally, I'd rather just roll the 2d6 once. Use the total as both the success roll and the HD roll and be done with it. I don't think anything too noticeable would be lost, and single-roll Turn Undead with the d30 would be super awesome.

Sept. 16, Reno: Tragedy at the Air Show

2011-09-17T16:46:00.000-05:00

For those who haven't heard, there was a crash yesterday at the Reno Air Show. It seems as though a mechanical failure was to blame when a P-51 Mustang Galloping Ghost plummeted out of the sky Friday afternoon and crashed into the viewer grandstands. ABC News

Changing estimates are now that 9 are dead, and over 50 more suffered injuries. Initial estimates did not account for those who were rushed to hospitals in private vehicles.

Ray Guns, Muskets, and Magic Wands

2011-09-15T06:31:00.000-05:00

I'm torn. I want easier attack rolls for special weapons like pistols, laser rifles, and lightning wands but the rules should be dead simple. So, how should I handle an attack roll for firearms? Any 0-level peasant should have a decent chance to hit a close target right? Is armor totally ignored? Do Dexterity modifiers to AC matter when the projectile is too fast to be seen?

Pew! pew! pew!

In Labyrinth Lord attacking with a ranged weapon is super easy and I think not all that realistic (and I'm not the only one). Use Dex modifiers instead of Str to hit, +1 for short range, -1 for long range. The end. Having ranged rules that are so dead simple is a big plus at the table, but I feel like these provide a rather poor simulation for ranged attacks. It's the range modifiers that rub me wrong. I think those rules make sense if you are shooting into a column of troops, but shooting a single man-sized target at long range isn't that easy.

Bang! Bang!

So, what is best? Leave well enough alone and use the same rules for firearms? Use different rules for firearms only? If I change ranged combat for everyone, do I change one thing, or everything, or some combination? Maybe it would help to just list out all of the different options that I'm considering.

Zap!

Option #1 - Change nothing. Treat ray-guns and lightning wands like any any other ranged attack.

Pro: Boom, done.
Con: A goblin with a shotgun has a crappy attack roll.

Option #2 - Rework the ranged attack modifiers. I think HackMaster has a nice balance of sane but simple ranged rules.

Roll a smaller die at longer ranges.

Short Range: d20
Medium Range: d12
Long Range: d8

Sights
Fixed: Improves range one step (One round to aim, lasts until you move)
Optical: Improves range two steps (One round to aim, lasts until you move)
Laser: +2 (can be combined with another sight)

Pro: It feels less crappy than massive negative modifiers
Con: I'd miss the loss of the natural 20 automatic hit.

Option #3 - Improved hit rolls. Point and shoot weapons don't require a lot of training. Shouldn't the attack roll be a lot easier than a bow or sling, especially at low levels? I feel like a crossbow falls into this category too since the basics can be learned in a day.

Attack as a fighter whose level is equal to half your Dexterity (if your level of experience is higher, use that instead). Amateurs may need to use the M-U or Cleric attack table until they get enough practice.

Stationary target (or whatever else deserves a bonus): +2
Multiple shots (or whatever else deserves a penalty): -2

Pro: That goblin with a shotgun looks more dangerous now.
Con: Elvish archers are less dangerous than human crossbowmen. Do I just assume that longer lifespan means higher level?

Option #4 - Ranged AC. Use the attack roll from option #3, but the target has its AC modified by size.

Target Size Modifier: +/-2 per size category different from human standard
(Yeah I know, LL doesn't have size categories. Maybe I'll use these.)

-10 Bug (<2") Fly, Flea
-8   Tiny (2"-6") Butterfly, Frog
-6   Wee (6"-1') Smurf, Rat
-4   Small (1'- 2') Cat, Imp
-2   Short (2' - 4') Halfling, Goblin
0    Average (4' - 8') Human, Elf, Dwarf
+2 Large (8' - 12') Ogre, Troll
+4 Giant (12' - 21') Most Giants, Wyvern
+6 Huge (21' - 32') Adult Dragon, Tyrannosaurus
+8 Gargantuan (32' - 64') Old Dragon, Kraken
+10Colossal (>64') Ancient Dragon, Roc

Pro: I like the idea of AC for firearms based on the size of the target profile.
Con: I don't want to deal with an extra chart in combat. Also, do dragon scales deflect bullets?

I guess that's about it. I'm leaning toward option #3 and nothing else, but I keep changing my mind. Anyone have suggestions?

Hit Location/Severity Charts for Ranged Attacks

2011-09-11T05:04:00.004-05:00

Inspired by the gun-fighting mechanics in Boot Hill, I've been tinkering with rules to use in Labyrinth Lord for death-rays, boomsticks, and magic wands.

I'm still not certain how I want to handle the to-hit rolls for point and shoot weapons that bypass or ignore armor. I don't want to use standard AC because hardened scales and quick reflexes don't really help much against bullets. I'm leaning toward something like a Dex check with modifiers for the target's size and range, but I really don't want to fiddle with a size category chart. I'll try to figure something out soon.

I do have these other two charts finished, and I quite like them. These could be useful for any ranged attack.

Hit Location
Odd = Left [d20] Even = Right
(add half your level)

1-2 : Hand/Wrist
3-6 : Arm
7-10 : Foot/Leg
11-12: Shoulder
13-14: Groin/Abdomen
15-18: Chest
19-20: Head/Neck

or
1-9 Outer Ring
10-17 Inner Ring
18-20 Bulls Eye

Hit Severity
Hit Location roll + 1d20

2-20 : Light Wound
21-26 : Serious Wound
27-40 : Grievous Wound

If the target is using cover don't adjust the to-hit roll, just let the location chart and your common sense tell you if the shot was blocked. A crossbowman behind a parapet would have his legs and abdomen protected. Bullet proof vests only help when you get hit in the chest.

The meaning of Light/Serious/Grievous is open to interpretation. They could represent different save bonuses, damage modifiers, or different effects altogether. Maybe something like this...

Thrown Melee Weapons
Light: use smaller die for damage
Serious: normal damage
Grievous: use larger die for damage

Arrows, Bolts, Sling Stones
Light: half damage
Serious: normal damage
Grievous: double damage

Firearms
Light: 1 damage per HD of target
Serious: 2 damage per HD of target
Grievous: d4+2 damage per HD of target
(Exceptionally large creatures: 0/1perHD/2perHD)
(Godzilla: 0/0/Annoyed)

Phaser (set to stun)
Light: Hit location is numbed/paralyzed for d4 rounds
Serious: target is stunned for d4 rounds
Grievous: target is knocked unconscious for one turn

Phaser (set to kill)
Light: d6 damage + Save vs. Death +5
Serious: d6 damage + Save vs. Death
Grievous: d6 damage + Save vs. Death -5

Phaser (highest setting/disintegration ray)
Light: Save vs Death or Hit location disintegrates
Serious: Save vs Death or Target and all possessions disintegrate
Grievous: Target and all possessions disintegrate

SATURMORN: World of Nostalgia

2011-09-01T14:03:00.003-05:00

Saturmorn Playable Races

(assuming the planet is mostly a low-tech/fantasy world)

(Everything) - Humans
(LITTLE SHOP) - Venusian Flytraps
(MONCHHICHIS) - Monchhichis
(ALF) - Melmacians
(DUCKTALES) - Ducks (Mallardians?)
(GARGOYLES) - Gargoyles
(LITTLE MUPPET MONSTERS) - Muppets
(GUMMI BEARS) - Gummi Bears
(PAC MAN) - Pac-Men
(BARBAPAPA) - Barbas
(EWOKS) - Ewoks
(MY LITTLE PONY) - Unicorns (Bronies)
(CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS) - Grith (Dino sapiens)

(PINK PANTHER AND SONS) - Panthers (Meowmen)
(THE LITTLE MERMAID) - Merpeople
(MARSUPILAMI) - Marsupilamis
(THE AMAZING LIVE SEA MONKEYS) - Sea Monkeys
(MASKED RIDER) - Edenoites: Human look-alikes. Descended from insects, they possess a crystal on their foreheads. Sustained concentration keeps the crystal hidden by illusion. The crystal is capable of focusing psychic ability, and sharing mental imagery with others.
(THE SMURFS) - Smurfs

Smurf Ranger

Monsters of Saturmorn

(POPPLES) - Popples
(TROLLKINS) - Trollkins
(BISKITTS) - Biskitts
(FRAGGLE ROCK) - Fraggles
(THE LITTLES) - Littles
(TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES) - Martial Artist Mutants
(ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES) - Killer Tomatoes
(HERSELF THE ELF) - Tiny Elves
(DRAK PACK) - Corporeal Undead and Werewolves
(THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS) - Slimer (Incorporeal, telekinetic undead)
(SNORKS) - Snorks

Snork Legionnaire

High-Level NPCs

(DRAGON’S LAIR) - Dirk the Daring

(DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS) - Venger
(TARZAN: LORD OF THE JUNGLE) - Tarzan
(ALADDIN) - Mozenrath
(GALTAR AND THE GOLDEN LANCE) - Galtar
(CONAN THE ADVENTURER) - Conan
(TALES FROM THE CRYPTKEEPER) - Cryptkeeper
(CAPTIAN CAVEMAN AND THE TEEN ANGELS) - Captain Cave-Man
(COUNT DUCKULA) - Count Duckula
(THE GARY COLEMAN SHOW) - Gary Coleman, Angel
(HULK HOGAN’S ROCK N’ WRESTLING) - Hulk Hogan, Gladiator

(BEAKMAN'S WORLD) - Beakman, Alchemist
(MR.T) - Mr. T, Trainer

(THE WEIRD AL SHOW) - Weird Al Yankovic, Eccentric
(PEE WEE'S PLAYHOUSE) - Pee Wee Herman, Schizophrenic
(GUMBY ADVENTURES) - Gumby
(POPEYE AND SON) - Popeye
(LITTLE WIZARDS) - Prince Dexter
(RUBIK, THE AMAZING CUBE) - Rubik the Cube

(HERCULES: THE ANIMATED SERIES) - Hercules
(BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURES) - Rufus (Temporal Fixer)
(MYTHIC WARRIORS: GUARDIANS OF THE LEGEND) - Greek Heroes
(THE LEGEND OF CALAMITY JANE) - Calamity Jane
(MEN IN BLACK THE SERIES) - Alpha (Agent A)
(READING RAINBOW) - LeVar Burton, Sage

Troy's psyche is shattered by LeVar

Artifacts of the Ancients

(THE MASK) - Mask
(POWER STONE) - Power Stones
(PROJECT GeeKeR) - GeeKeR (Idiotic Shapeshifter)
(POKEMON) - Poké Ball
(HAMMERMAN) - Talking Dancing Shoes
(MONSTER RANCHER) - Mystery Discs (they unlock new monster breeds)

Mystery Disk

The Dreamland Dimensions

(DINO RIDERS) - The Prehistoric Past
(THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN) - The Far Future
(BEETLEJUICE) - The Neitherworld
(LAND OF THE LOST) - Land of the Lost
(THE NEW ADVENYURES OF WINNIE THE POOH) - 100 Aker Wood
(NOOZLES) - Koalawallaland <--- try 8:20
(WILDFIRE) - Dar-shan
(KIDD VIDEO) - The Flipside
(PUNKY BREWSTER) - Chaundoon
(MOONDREAMERS) - Starry Up
(MY PET MONSTER) - Monsterland
(RAINBOW BRITE) - Rainbow Land

(THE WORLD OF STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE) - Strawberryland
(THE CARE BEARS FAMILY) - Care-a-lot
(THE INHUMANOIDS) - Infernac/core, ?/mantle, Skellweb/crust
(ROMPER ROOM) - Broadcast each day into all the mirrors on Saturmorn. The children named at the end of each show are soon gathered up by Do Bee and participate in the next show... then disappear forever.

Romper Room Host (not Miss Ann) & Do Bee

The Many Moons of the Old Ones
(for a more Gamma World feel, you only need to step onto a new planet)

(THUNDERCATS) - New Thundera
(BLACKSTARR) - Sagar
(THE HERCULOIDS) - Amzot
(HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE) - Eternia
(SHE-RA: PRINCESS OF POWER) - Etheria
(ROBOTIX) - Skalorr
(VISIONARIES: KNIGHTS OF THE MAGICAL LIGHT) - Prysmos
(SKELETON WARRIORS) - Lumimaire
(VYTOR) - ?world name?
(BRAVESTARR) - New Texas
(GALAXY HIGH) - Flutor
(SECTAURS) - Symbion
(TIGERSHARKS) - Water-O
(TAZ-MANIA) - Tazmania "Where the sky's always yellow, rain or shine"
(THE WILD WEST COWBOYS OF MOO MESA) - Moo Mesa
(TOXIC CRUSADERS) - Smogula (The Smogulans)
(THE FLINTSTONES) - Bedrock
(THE JETSONS) - Orbit City
(SONIC THE HEDGEHOG) - Mobius
(THE PIRATES OF DARK WATER) - Mer

Map of Mer

Map of Mobius

Emissaries from Beyond the Void

(here are some aliens who might take the PCs off-world)

(SUPERTED) - SuperTed & the Spotty Man
(THE NEW ADVENTURES OF FLASH GORDON)- Flash Gordon
(GILLIGAN'S PLANET) - Gilligan
(FANTASTIC MAX) - Fantastic Max
(STARCOM THE U.S. SPACEFORCE) - Col. James Dash Derringer
(SPACEGHOST) - Space Ghost
(SABRE RIDERS AND THE STAR SHERIFFS) - Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs
(SILVERHAWKS) - Quicksilver & friends
(ULYSSES 31) - Ulysses
(VOLTRON SEASON1) - Lion Force Voltron (Voltron of the Far Universe) Crew=5
(VOLTRON SEASON2) - Vehicle Voltron (Voltron of the Near Universe) Crew=15
(what might have been) - Gladiator Voltron (Voltron of the Middle Universe) Crew=3
(PANDAMONIUM) - Mondraggor & Poppapanda
(EARTHWORM JIM) - Earthworm Jim
(HYPERNAUTS) - Hypernauts
(BENJI ZAX AND THE ALIEN PRINCE) - Alien Prince Yubi

(DINOSAUCERS) - Dinosaucers
(ADVENTURES OF THE GALAXY RANGERS) - Galaxy Rangers
(JAYCE AND THE WHEELED WARRIORS) - Jayce
(BATTLE OF THE PLANETS) - G-Force <--- because none of the other versions involve space travel
(POWER RANGERS IN SPACE) - Power Rangers
(SILVER SURFER) - Silver Surfer

Yumi, Ulysses, Telemachus, and Nono

Feel free to tell me about an interesting show or element that I may have overlooked.

The Boot Hill Finale

2011-08-26T09:40:00.001-05:00

As expected, the final session of Boot Hill was a blast. My character (Wild James Riley) played some cards, got into a brawl in the saloon, threw a stunned opponent over a table and into another fella, and nearly blew up a mounted gang with dynamite. All in all, a pretty eventful session. Then, right at the end as we were rounding up the wounded gang, Zeke Proctor jumped out of hiding and the two of us blasted holes into each other. The doc tried his best, but the wounds were too great. Wild James Riley takes his place in the bone orchard up on Boot Hill.

Honestly, I was surprised that Riley had avoided death for so long. I had rolled him up for the first gunfight of the campaign, and he survived five or six shoot outs. Gentleman Jim was the only character from the first session to survive the entire campaign. So, faux-history remembers Gentleman Jim as one of the greatest lawmen of the old west. I imagine that Riley is also remembered, but as more of a ruthless SOB. Riley was on the wrong side of the law about as often as he wore a badge. For example, Gentleman Jim shot and killed Jesse James shortly before Wild James Riley (and another PC, Josey?) killed Frank James. The difference was that Riley was helping the James brothers rob the bank while Jim was trying to prevent the robbery. After we escaped, with Jesse dead and Frank wounded, it just seemed easier to kill Frank and take his share of the loot. Getting medical attention is problematic when you're on the run.

I had a lot of fun playing Boot Hill, more fun than I expected. Apparently I find participating in westerns more fun than watching them. Most of the credit goes to Jeff obviously, his free-wheeling "anything goes, especially if I think it sounds awesome" style can make any game enjoyable. Mixing that with his research and presentation of historical gunfights resulted in some of my favorite scenarios. He would lay out a hand drawn grid map of a saloon, small town, or whatever. We'd get a short history lesson about that particular gunfight, date and location, the events leading up to the bloodshed, who was involved, who lived and died, and any repercussions from the battle. Then it was like "It's up to you guys if you want to try to reenact the battle or change history. Pick which side you want to be on, you can all be buddies or fight against each other". We'd roll to determine our starting location on the grid, then the fight was on. It was a nice bit of edutainment.

Sadly, the rules themselves were a little below my expectations, with one big exception. The rules for drunkenness seemed cumbersome. The gambling rules were kinda lackluster (highest percentage roll wins). The brawling and grappling charts are interesting, but I felt the canned results took some of the creative license away from the players and GM. Still, it works better than most RPG unarmed combat.

The "one big exception" was the rules for shooting. I had originally thought the 3 separate percentage rolls for each shot (to-hit, location, severity) were going to slow the game to a boring crawl. Instead, it was enthralling to watch each shot unfold. Interest was probably helped by the fact that each shot was potentially deadly. It's cool enough that I want to play around with it some more. So I'm going to use the Boot Hill hit location/severity charts (which I haven't actually seen) as an inspiration for similar charts to use in my Ezzin game whenever someone finds and uses instant attack devices like ray guns, muskets, or magic wands.

I'm thinking that these charts will only be used for projectiles/beams moving too fast to be seen. Bows and crossbows will still use normal attack and damage rolls.

The Boot Hill Sessions

2011-08-12T16:49:00.000-05:00

For those who don't know, Boot Hill is an older RPG with strong focus on the "Old West". Gunfights, Gambling, Brawling, and all that jazz. Wikipedia says "Boot Hill is a western role-playing game designed by Brian Blume and Gary Gygax. First published in 1975, Boot Hill was TSR's third role-playing game, not long after Dungeons and Dragons and Empire of the Petal Throne."

Honestly, I never cared much for westerns, but that didn't stop me from playing Boot Hill. I like to try out new game systems and see how all the fiddly bits work together. I've never even had a chance to peek at these rule books before, and you never know when you'll find some rule or table that you'll want to carry over into other games. Also, when you have a chance to play at Jeff Rients' table, you take it. I'm not too proud to admit that he's a better GM than I am. His games are always a blast.

I've been a player for four sessions of Boot Hill. I think that my character (Wild James Riley) has been involved in five or six gunfights now, and has managed to survive all of them. PC death is a constant threat. Experienced characters are somewhat faster and more accurate then inexperienced ones, but they are all equally fragile. A character's max Strength (hit points) is determined at creation and doesn't ever increase, most characters seem to have between 10 and 20. Every single gunshot has a decent chance to kill. Most guns can shoot up to 3 times per round. Most characters have between a 60% to 80% chance to hit, -10% for each shot after the first. If you hit you make another percentage roll to determine the hit location. Cover helps, always use cover. A third percentage roll determines severity (each location has a different severity table). Gunshot damage is either 3, 7, or Dead. Oh, and if you win the fight but take wounds in the head or chest there is a chance that you'll die anyway from infection/organ failure some days later. It's pretty hard core. I'm rather enjoying it.

The rules and systems seem to have a lot of moving parts, but they all fit together rather neatly. Play is a lot smoother than I had imagined. At first I thought that all those percentage rolls would make combat drag out too much, but I find that I'm rather fond of it all. Most gunfights are over in only a few rounds, so the extra rolls don't seem like a hassle. Besides, knowing exactly where I hit the poor bastard makes my mental picture of the gunfight a lot more vivid. The brawling chart is pretty cool. I still need to try some gambling to see how that works. I was hoping to see how mounted combat worked, but Jeff says we are ignoring those rules. I trust his judgement, the overall FPM (Fun Per Minute) is probably higher without using them but I'm still curious how it works.

The one set of rules that I know I would tweak are the intoxication rules. I like the end results, but getting there is a pain. Basically, taking shots of whiskey will lower some basic attributes (speed and... accuracy?) while raising others (bravery and strength), this changes the associated rows of bonuses, then you have to tally the columns again see what your new weapon modifiers are. That's a lot of scribbling and looking at charts for a temporary effect.

Grod knows, Jeff doesn't need my help... but this is how I'd house rule intoxication for Boot Hill.

GM determines level of intoxication, or a d10 is rolled.

(1) - Bent an Elbow, Had a Snort of Liquid Courage
+5% Accuracy thanks to calm nerves and a steady hand

(2,3,4) - Tonsils Varnished, Loaded
-1 Weapon Speed, +1 Strength, -5% Accuracy

(5,6,7) - Soaked, Drunk
-2 Weapon Speed, +2 Strength, -10% Accuracy

(8,9) - Full as a Tick
-3 Weapon Speed, Normal Strength, Variable Accuracy (GM rolls percentage each round to determine your new base accuracy)

(10) - Drunk as a Boiled Owl
-5 Weapon Speed, -3 Strength (easier to incapacitate/knockout), -50% Accuracy ("Whoa there, fella! Just put the gun down.")

So, there you have it. I did a little research to come up with 1800s slang for drunkenness. Did you know that "Drunk as a skunk" didn't get popular until the 20th century? I was surprised, I thought it was older. Luckily the "boiled owl" version was in use, and is hilarious.

I'm mainly just sharing this in case anyone else wants to run Boot Hill with alternate rules for drunkenness. I'm still debating whether I should show this to Jeff or not. The next session of Boot Hill is our last. We're moving on to a different game after that, so it's unlikely that we'll use the intoxication rules again anyhow. Besides, there are more important things to focus on. I still have three personal goals that I want my character to accomplish.

Get into a fist fight over a card game (or a lady).
Negotiate a pause in the middle of a shootout so that women and children can run to safety.
Use the phrase "Hotter than a whorehouse on nickel night".

Wish me luck.

Dance my Pixels, Dance!

2011-08-08T19:08:00.001-05:00

If you haven't heard yet, Lord Gwydion is busy creating the Zhongyang Dalu setting for the Flying Swordsmen RPG. I think it's going to be awesome. You can go check out the What a horrible night to have a curse blog to get more details.

Recently he posted a scan of the lovely Zhongyang Dalu map. I love me some maps. Especially some hand drawn maps. Anyhow, his sketch pad is too big for his scanner so he had to splice together two images and as a result there is a minor seam visible. He mentioned looking for a print shop later to get it scanned in one piece.

Now, my artistic skills are rather limited, but I am handy with a pixel editor. So, I took it upon myself to try to hide the seam. I also tried to help define some of the coastline and letters where the seam made them blurry. If I couldn't blend the color differences well enough for my own taste, I just pushed one color over to the closest coastline or political boundary (see Yu and De).

Take a look.

Happy Un-Birthday Lord Gwydion. I hope you like it. It's not perfect by any means, but hey, it's free.

I cleaned up a little fuzziness on some Chinese characters. You should probably double check the first character of Bufang Bag, and the last character of Mei Hwa Mountians to make sure I didn't accidentally change their meaning. Let me know if you want me to rework anything. I could probably get the color transitions smoother in Yu and De if you prefer. Let me know if you would like any other changes made. I could thicken/brighten the red political lines, or remove the green where the red lines meet the rivers, change the name of a city, make something stand out a little more or a little less, or whatever.

I like doing this stuff, so don't be shy about requesting anything. You can hit me up at saint_nik AT yahoo DOT com, or just leave a comment here.

Previously, I also edited another of your images. I loved seeing this at the bottom of your blog. I only tweaked the dragon's claws and the warriors foot a tad. It was quick and easy. I just thought I'd share.

PC Level as Initiative

2011-07-29T07:13:00.000-05:00

I've always had mixed feelings about initiative rolls. Determining initiative is important, but I always felt that the flow of combat was interrupted by making those initiative rolls, applying the modifiers, and comparing the results. So, now I plan to determine initiative without rolling at all (much). This method saves time, helps combat flow faster, and it seems halfway plausible.

Actions are declared in order from lowest HD/lvl to highest.
Actions are resolved in order from the highest HD/lvl to the lowest.
Characters with the same HD/lvl act simultaneously.
Any character/monster may add a d6 roll to their initiative if they wish, but if they roll a 1 that action is fumbled.

Using experience level to determine initiative makes sense to me. Those better trained or more experienced will react more instinctively in combat. They will have faster reaction times because they've been in similar situations before. Where less experienced characters will be actively looking for an opening in their enemies defense, higher level characters will strike reflexively as soon as the opportunity presents itself. More experienced warriors will also be more adept at using feints and other misdirection to create openings and opportunity for attack.

The optional d6 roll is there because I know that sometimes in combat a person will sacrifice accuracy in order to gain speed. Mistakes can happen when you rush yourself. Including the fumble chance within the initiative roll allows blunders for actions without an attack roll, like falling down as you try to run away, breaking the bottle as you rush to use the healing potion, or accidentally shooting yourself in the foot as you try to fast draw in a duel.

It's not a perfect system, I know. HD of monsters often reflect size as much as combat skill. Maybe they should get a -2 to their initiative per size category above medium. I might also adjust non-humanoid initiative up or down for other reasons, but I find that I can estimate this in my head near instantly. It was always counting all the modifiers for all the PCs that seemed to slow us down.

Modifiers for Dexterity, weapon speed, and casting time all make sense to me, but I don't really feel that they produce enough fun to justify the time spent tallying and comparing these numbers that can change every round. Having a flat number with an optional d6 added is far smoother.

Arguments can also be made for a Dex as initiative system, but personally I think experience would effect initiative more than hand-eye coordination. Besides, a monsters' HD is easier to find than their Dex.

Save or Cry: LL save matrix design

2011-07-25T21:13:00.008-05:00

I made a few changes, now it can generate Labyrinth Lord saves.

Saves for Zero Level

Poison, Disease, or Death: +6

Madness, Fear, or Charm: +5

Paralyze, Petrify, or Polymorph: +4

Dragon Breath or Energy Blast: +3

Spells, Artifacts, or Runes: +2

Classes have a favored save that receives +3 at first level
Classes get +5 every odd level to distribute into saves
Fighters are the exception. They get +6 every odd level.
20 - [category bonus] = target number

Class...... Favored save
Fighter: Dragon Breath
Cleric: Poison
Thief: Petrify
Magic User: Spell

Class/Level.....OSRIC...............The New Hotness............Labyrinth Lord

Poison / Wand(Charm) / Petrify / Breath / Spell

Fighter

0.............16/18/17/20/19..............14/15/16/17/18..............14/15/16/17/18

1.............14/16/15/17/17..............12/14/15/14/16..............12/13/14/15/16

3.............13/15/14/16/16..............11/12/13/14/15..............12/13/14/15/16
5.............11/13/12/13/14..............10/11/11/13/14..............10/11/12/13/14
7.............10/12/11/12/13...............9 /10/10/11/13...............8 /9 /10/9 /12
9..............8 /10 /9 /9 /11.................8 /9 /9 /9 /12.................8 /9 /10/9 /12
11............7 /9 /8 /8 / 10..................7 /8 /8 /8 /10.................6 /7 /8 /7 /10
13.............5 /7 /6 /5 /8...................6 /7 /7 /7 / 8....................4 /5 /6 /5 /8
15.............4 /6 /5 /4 /7...................4 /5 /6 /6 / 8....................4 /5 /6 /5 /8
17.............3 /5 /4 /4 /6...................3 /4 /5 /4 / 7....................4 /4 /5 /4 /7
19+..........2 /4 /3 /3 /5....................2 /3 /4 /3 / 5....................3 /3 /4 /4 /6

Cleric
1...........10/14/13/16/15...............11/13/15/17/16...............11/12/14/16/15
3...........10/14/13/16/15...............11/12/13/16/15...............11/12/14/16/15
5............9 /13/12/15/14...............10/11/13/15/13...............9 /10/12/14/12
7............7 /11/10/13/12................9 /10/12/14/12................9 /10/12/14/12
9............7 /11/10/13/12................8 /10/11/13/10.................7 /8 /10/11/9
11..........6 /10/9 /12/11..................7 /9 /10/12/ 9..................7 /8 /10/11/9
13..........6 /10/9 /12/11..................6 /8 /9 /11/ 8...................3 /4 /8 /8 /6
15..........5 /9 /8 /11/10...................5 /7 /9 /9 / 7....................3 /4 /8 /8 /6
17..........4 /8 /7 /10/ 9...................4 /6 /8 /8 / 6....................2 /4 /6 /6 /5
19+........2/ 6/ 5 /8 / 7....................2 /5 /7 /7 / 6....................2 /4 /6 /6 /5

Thief
1...........13/14/12/16/15..............14/15/13/16/14................14/15/13/16/14
3...........13/14/12/16/15..............13/14/12/15/13................14/15/13/16/14
5...........12/12/11/15/13..............12/13/11/14/12................12/13/11/14/12
7...........12/12/11/15/13..............11/11/10/14/11................12/13/11/14/12
9...........11/10/10/14/11...............10/11/9 /12/10.................10/11/9 /12/10
11.........11/10/10/14/11................9 /10/8 /11/ 9..................10/11/9 /12/10
13..........10/8 /9 /13/ 9.................8 /9 /7 /10/ 8....................8 /9 /7 /10/ 8
15..........10/8 /9 /13/ 9.................7 /8 /6 /9 / 7.....................8 /9 /7 /10/ 8
17...........9 /6 /8 /12/ 7.................6 /7 /5 /8 / 6.....................6 /7 /5 /8 / 6
19+........9 /6 /8 /12/ 7..................5 /6 /4 /7 / 5.....................6 /7 /5 /8 / 6

Magic User
1...........14/11/13/15/12..............14/14/14/16/14.................13/13/13/16/14
3...........14/11/13/15/12..............13/13/13/15/13.................13/13/13/16/14
5...........14/11/13/15/12..............13/11/11/15/12.................13/13/13/16/14
7...........13/9 /11/13/10...............11/10/10/14/12..................11/11/11/14/12
9...........13/9 /11/13/10................11/9 /9 /13/10...................11/11/11/14/12
11..........11/7 /9 /11/ 8...................9 /9 /9 /12/ 8.....................9 /9 /9 /12/ 8
13..........11/7 /9 /11/ 8..................9 /8 /7 /11/ 7.....................9 /9 /9 /12/ 8
15..........11/7 /9 /11/ 8..................8 /7 /6 /9 / 7......................9 /9 /9 /12/ 8
17.........10/5 /7 /9 / 6...................7 /5 /6 /8 / 6.......................7 /5 /6 /8 / 6
19+.......10/5 /7 /9 / 6...................7 /4 /5 /7 / 4...................... 6 /4 /5 /7 / 4

A few of the levels match up exactly with the LL saves, so I put those in bold.

None of the fighter levels match up exactly, but they are all rather close. Some levels are only off by a single point (5,9,15,17).

Clerics are problematic. I think perhaps they are supposed to receive a flat +1 on all saves because higher powers are watching out for them.

Thief saves line up nicely.

Magic User saves worked out better than I though they would. Comparing an "every other level" tier with an "every fifth level" tier was bound to make it look funky. I was surprised that 11th and 17th levels lined up exactly.

So, there you have it, a system to create LL saves. Now when I make up new classes for Labyrinth Lord I can give them unique save tables. Yeah, I could have just picked numbers that felt right, but it makes me feel better to have a system that balances the new saves with the existing matrix.

Save or Cry: save matrix design

2011-07-25T12:35:00.002-05:00

I've been looking for a standardized method for creating a saving throw matrix. Something that I can use to create a new class with a unique saving throw matrix that is comparable with saves in either OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord.

I couldn't find it, I don't think it exists.

So I made it up myself. Using this system I can create an old school style save matrix for any new class I create. The saves will be fairly balanced between the classes, but still have plenty of quirks. The results aren't quite in line with OSRIC or LL, but they're kinda close. Here it is...

Saves for Zero Level

Poison, Disease, or Death: +6

Madness, Fear, or Charm: +5

Paralyze, Petrify, or Polymorph: +4

Dragon Breath or Energy Blast: +3

Spells, Artifacts, or Runes: +2

Each class has a favored save category that goes up +1 each level
Each class gets two other +1s each level to distribute into other categories
No category can gain more than +1 per level

So, that's it.

When adding a new class all I need to do is assign it a favored category. Then I can plot out where the bonuses go for each level, and convert it into a save matrix (20 - [category bonus] = target number) so that it looks like an old school save chart.

Or I could put the bonuses straight onto the character sheet. Then to roll a save the PC just rolls a d20, adds the bonus, and a result of 20 or more equals success.

The results don't line up as neatly as I intended. If I try to recreate the saves for Fighter/Cleric/Thief/M-U they don't turn out exactly right, but they are fairly close. I'll stand these new matrices up next to the old familiar ones, so you can see for yourself.

Favored Category by Class

Fighters: Dragon Breath and Poison*

Clerics: Poison

Thief: Petrify

M-U: Spells

*Fighters get an additional favored category. Improved saves are one of the few perks for the fighter class.

Class/Level.....OSRIC...............The New Hotness............Labyrinth Lord

Poison / Wand(Charm) / Petrify / Breath / Spell

Fighter

0.............16/18/17/20/19..............14/15/16/17/18..............14/15/16/17/18

1.............14/16/15/17/17..............13/15/15/16/17..............12/13/14/15/16

3.............13/15/14/16/16..............11/13/14/14/16..............12/13/14/15/16
5.............11/13/12/13/14...............9 /12/13/12/14..............10/11/12/13/14
7.............10/12/11/12/13...............7 /11/12/10/12...............8 /9 /10/9 /12
9..............8 /10 /9 /9 /11................5 /9 /10 /8 /12................8 /9 /10/9 /12
11............7 /9 /8 /8 / 10..................3 /8 /9 /6 /10..................6 /7 /8 /7 /10
13.............5 /7 /6 /5 /8....................2 /7 /8 /4 / 8....................4 /5 /6 /5 /8
15.............4 /6 /5 /4 /7....................2 /6 /7 /2 / 6....................4 /5 /6 /5 /8
17.............3 /5 /4 /4 /6....................2 /4 /5 /2 / 6....................4 /4 /5 /4 /7
19+..........2 /4 /3 /3 /5....................2 /3 /4 /2 / 4....................3 /3 /4 /4 /6

Cleric
1...........10/14/13/16/15..................13/14/16/17/17...............11/12/14/16/15
3...........10/14/13/16/15..................11/14/15/16/15...............11/12/14/16/15
5............9 /13/12/15/14...................9 /13/14/15/14...............9 /10/12/14/12
7............7 /11/10/13/12...................7 /12/13/14/13...............9 /10/12/14/12
9............7 /11/10/13/12...................5 /11/12/13/12................7 /8 /10/11/9
11..........6 /10/9 /12/11....................3 /10/11/12/11................7 /8 /10/11/9
13..........6 /10/9 /12/11....................2 /9 /10/12/ 9...................3 /4 /8 /8 /6
15..........5 /9 /8 /11/10.....................2 /7 /10/11/8....................3 /4 /8 /8 /6
17..........4 /8 /7 /10/ 9......................2 /6 /9 /10/ 7.....................2 /4 /6 /6 /5
19+........2/ 6/ 5 /8 / 7.......................2 /6 /7 /8 / 7.....................2 /4 /6 /6 /5

Thief
1...........13/14/12/16/15....................14/15/15/16/17................14/15/13/16/14
3...........13/14/12/16/15....................13/14/13/16/15................14/15/13/16/14
5...........12/12/11/15/13....................13/13/11/15/13................12/13/11/14/12
7...........12/12/11/15/13....................12/12/9 /14/12.................12/13/11/14/12
9...........11/10/10/14/11....................11/11/7 /14/10.................10/11/9 /12/10
11.........11/10/10/14/11....................10/10/5 /12/10.................10/11/9 /12/10
13..........10/8 /9 /13/ 9........................9 /9 /3 /11/ 9.....................8 /9 /7 /10/ 8
15..........10/8 /9 /13/ 9........................8 /8 /2 /10/ 8.....................8 /9 /7 /10/ 8
17...........9 /6 /8 /12/ 7........................6 /7 /2 /10/ 7.....................6 /7 /5 /8 / 6
19...........9 /6 /8 /12/ 7........................6 /6 /2 /8 / 6......................6 /7 /5 /8 / 6
21+........8 /4 /7 /11/ 5........................6 /6 /2 /8 / 6......................6 /7 /5 /8 / 6

Magic User
1...........14/11/13/15/12...................14/14/15/17/17..............13/13/13/16/14
3...........14/11/13/15/12...................13/13/14/16/15..............13/13/13/16/14
5...........14/11/13/15/12...................13/12/12/15/13..............13/13/13/16/14
7...........13/9 /11/13/10....................12/11/11/14/11..............11/11/11/14/12
9...........13/9 /11/13/10....................11/10/10/13/ 9...............11/11/11/14/12
11..........11/7 /9 /11/ 8......................10/9 /9 /12/ 7...................9 /9 /9 /12/ 8
13..........11/7 /9 /11/ 8.......................9 /8 /8 /11/ 5...................9 /9 /9 /12/ 8
15..........11/7 /9 /11/ 8.......................8 /7 /7 /10/ 3...................9 /9 /9 /12/ 8
17.........10/5 /7 /9 / 6.........................7 /6 /6 /9 / 2.....................7 /5 /6 /8 / 6
19.........10/5 /7 /9 / 6.........................6 /5 /5 /8 / 2..................... 6 /4 /5 /7 / 4
21+........8 /3 /5 /7 / 4.........................6 /5 /5 /8 / 2..................... 6 /4 /5 /7 / 4

As you can see, the saves generated don't really match OSRIC or LL. The favored categories improve too quickly. Is that really a problem though? Maybe it's a feature?

Honestly, letting each class excel in a single save category seems pretty cool to me. I'm happy enough with the results to use them for my own games. I'm going to start writing up the races/classes for Ezzin now and use this system to give unique saves to each of them.

If anyone has an idea of how to rework the math so that the results line up better with the old school charts, I'd be grateful. As always, any comments are welcome.

Saving Throws - the quandary

2011-07-25T01:38:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about saving throws lately.

Combing the blogs to see what others have to say about saving throws has been enlightening. There are a lot of interesting posts out there. Mr. Stanham has a nice article on the subject over at Silver Blade Adventures. Jeff Rients has some interesting observations about how the names of the save categories have evolved. Then you have all the various charts, and graphs, and whatnot where people wiser than I are trying to see the truths that are hiding behind the numbers. I still felt a little lost though.

I love having words like "Death Ray", "Petrify", and "Polymorph" on the character sheet. I think it adds a sense of danger and helps to give new players a healthy dose of caution. I'm not a big fan of the old school matrix though. It seems kind of clunky and arbitrary to me. I get the impression that the numbers in the original saving throw matrix weren't "planned out" so much as they just "felt right". For one thing, there are a lot of different matrices depending on which edition/clone you decide to play. They are all very similar, but everyone seems to try tweaking the numbers here or there for reasons I don't fully understand. It seems as though designing the old school saving throw matrix was always treated more like an art than a science.

There are other options. 3e introduced Fortitude, Will, and Reflex saves. They do feel more even-handed and planned-out than the old style matrix, but I still don't like them. I like my saves kept separate from my ability scores. The character has already failed to protect themselves or to avoid trouble. To me, rolling a saving throw represents the universe aligning to protect the character after they've fallen into harms way. Lasers bouncing off jewelry, bullets getting lodged in bibles, that sort of thing. Fort, Will, and Reflex saves just seem like Ability Checks modified by level, and that's not really what I want.

I could use a single save system, like in Swords and Wizardry. That's a pretty slick system. I'll admit that it tempts me. It feels a little too cookie cutter though, like there isn't enough distinction between the classes. It also makes the character sheets less aesthetically appealing to my eye. Maybe I'm being petty, but having cool looking character sheets is important to me. Still, of all the options I've seen this one is the easiest to customize, and that's a big plus for me.

So... I've decided that I want something like the old matrix, with cool names and categories weighted for certain classes. But I want it to feel less arbitrary and more equitable. Also, it would be nice if it was customizable enough to accommodate new classes because eventually someone will roll up two 5s for their ability scores and I'll have to come up with saves for a talking dire squirrel or some other craziness.

I think I might know how to do it.
I'm going to crunch the numbers a little more, I'll post some details in the next few days.

Wish me luck.

Low Ability Score Requirements: "You must be this short to ride"

2011-07-23T07:33:00.002-05:00

I'm still working on the Ezzin races and classes. As I mentioned back in this post, I want to make below average ability scores the requirement to play nonhuman races. My hope is that rolling low during character creation will stop being a buzzkill for the player, and might even be a cause for joy.

To accomplish this I thought it might be best to have a sliding scale of racial choices.

......................8...................................5.....................................3

Str | Halflingon (Monk) - Halflingon (Assassin) - Pixie (Flying Illusionist)

Int | Naga (Healer) -------- Naga (Berserker) ----- Bugaroo (Cowboy)

Wis | Andworvian (Defender) - Andworvian (Artificer) - Troll (Juggernaut)

Dex | Cyclops (Trader) -------- Cyclops (Seer) --- Treefolk (Plant Druid)

Con | Elfulan (Bard) ------- Elfulan (Shifter) - Fungaloids (Spore Thrower)

Cha | Haniver (Puppet Master) - Haniver (Psion) - Robot (Exorcist/Paladin)

Multiple Low Ability Scores = Player's Choice (from any world)

Multiple 8s - Bipeds/Centaurids/Beast Men

Multiple 5s - Talking Beast/Intelligent Dire Animal

Multiple 3s - Magical Beast (Dragon, Manticore, Medusa)

Rather than have 18+ races, I decided that the main six "civilized" races would have a second class option. The classes are listed in parenthesis. I'll rename a lot of the races and classes later, but it gives you an idea of what I'm going for.

I explained my weird Middle-Earth/Star Trek hybrids a little bit in my previous post. By using those hybrids I'm hoping that the players won't fall into the same old stereotypes, yet the concepts are familiar enough that they can probably make up character background information without my help. I'd like for some of these societies and cultures to be my players creations as much as my own. Others are a little more exotic. Naga are like centaurs, if you replace the horse bits with giant snake. Bugaroos are insect cowboys who ride giant millipedes and shoot chitinous projectiles. Hanivers look like parasitic manta rays who attach to their victims spinal column and take over their body. Hanivers look like this.

Humans will have 3 class choices, Fighter, Magic-User, and Mixed. Humans get more flexibility and ability choices when leveling. Nonhuman classes have fixed abilities as they level, but they are often talents that humans can never pick. Thief class is absent, those abilities are going to be part of the skill system.

I need to work out saving throws too. I like the old school saving matrix with Poison and Death Ray and all that good stuff. However, I'm pretty lazy and I just mapped out 21 classes to create, so... we'll see. I'm excited to start writing these classes up and sharing a post for each of them on the blog. I'm particularly pleased with the backstory for the robot exorcists, but that's a post for another day.

When worlds collide

2011-07-18T07:15:00.003-05:00

It feels like I'm going at a snails' pace, but the Ezzin setting draws ever closer to viability.

Ezzin is a wild world, with very few cities. Civilization is only just beginning to take hold. I thought it would be fun to give the PCs a chance to explore the undiscovered wilderness, meet unknown species, establish new trade routes, and to build strongholds and cities.

I've been struggling with writing the introduction to the setting though. Should I explain the lost sci-fi origins of this fantasy world to the players, or keep them on par with the characters and NPCs who struggle to make sense of their world with far fetched theories/religions that are difficult to prove or disprove? Without explaining the lost origins of the world I'm afraid that the players will see aspects of the setting as ridiculous, and crazy... which it is honestly. I really do have a method to my madness though. Does withholding the rationale kill the mood, or enhance it?

As an example, here are four of the seven "civilized" races available to the PCs at character creation.

Halflingons - A race of proud warrior monks who seek constantly to improve their martial skills and family honor. Rumors persist of a secretive order of Halflingon assassins who seek to master shadowy arts. 3 feet tall, ridged foreheads, quick but not very strong.

Andworvians - Proud and intelligent craftsmen who live and work within their deep mines. They employ a method of using Djinn demon runes on items to create magical artifacts. They insist that the items are perfectly safe, but others are skeptical and think that the Andworvians are playing with fire. Andworvians have thick, compact bones and tissues giving them some extra resistance to fire, cold, and physical blows, but this higher density causes them to sink like stones when in water. Some say that their great resilience contributes to their renowned recklessness and impatience. 4 feet tall, blue skin, pale hair, a pair of antenna able to produce UV light, normal and ultravision.

Humans - Although these people usually choose to call themselves "Human" they are known by many names: Strangers, Freaks, Mutants, The bastard race, The 10-fingered plague, New babies (newbies), The filthy, and many others that are even less kind. Humans are the youngest of the seven civilized races. The first of their kind is thought to have been born less than 500 years ago. It began very slowly, the original six civilized races would rarely give birth to one of these strange children. Reactions were mixed. Some were well cared for by their parents and tribes, others were cast out once they reached adulthood, some were believed to be cursed and killed by their parents. Some of these human outcasts would band together, eventually forming tribes of their own. Often poorly educated and resentful, these groups of savages quickly turned to raiding and stealing for survival. As time goes on, it becomes more and more common for non-human parents to give birth to human children. Now, human children are typically tolerated and taught to become useful members of their society, rather than be sent away to join the ranks of the savage raiders. Humans are rarely seen as equals within their non-human societies, except perhaps by their parents or lifelong friends. The child of a human is always human, no matter the race of the other parent. Many non-humans secretly fear for the future of their people if these mutant weeds continue to thrive. 6 feet tall, 10 fingers and toes, generally have better ability scores than any other race.

Elfulans - Highly intelligent and cultured, Elfulans claim to have the oldest written language. Others whisper behind their backs that Elfulans also invented the art of twisting words in order to trick and deceive. The oldest Elfulan records only date back a few hundred years however. Before this time they they were known as Elvulcans and lived within their now mythical garden forest home. At the time there were many disagreements among the Elvulcans about what should be done with the strange human children being born to them. After years of debate, the Elvulcan elders decreed that human children could not be allowed to multiply and all of them would be killed. Those who refused to give up their human children and friends were cast out en masse, enchantments placed over the forest prevent them from ever returning or finding it again. These outcast Elvulcans cast off the old ways, built a great city, and have renamed themselves Elfulans. 5 feet tall, slim build, pointy ears.

So, would the players benefit from knowing my clever rationalization for all of this, or should I just allow them to embrace the chaos of it all?

Inspired Blog Inspires

2011-07-07T06:19:00.000-05:00

SheWalksSoftly is not a gaming blog, but the volume of inspiration I've found there is stunning. Miss "Walks Softly" has quite a knack for finding the interesting and weird, then presents it with a dash of humor.

Here are a few of the gems I've found there.

Japanese artist Iori Tomita takes the method of making transparent specimens to a whole new level. Dyeing their cartilage and bones to display this level of detail is simply amazing. These jars are definitely going to show up in the next game I run.

My birthday is coming up. Anyone who popped over to Japan to buy me one of these as a gift for 2,000 ~ 20,000 yen would get a very sincere "Thank you!" in return. You can check out more pictures at the artists' website New World Transparent Specimen.

That's only the tip of the iceberg folks. SheWalksSoftly has plenty more.

A photo from the first Gamma World LARP? I suspect those are actually Perchten masks being worn for a festival, but all I can say for certain is that the picture is awesome.

There is an entire post devoted to pictures of fanged fish. Just because.

These are from the post titled "Tacky Taxidermy Megapost". I suggest you skip it unless you are fond of nightmares. These two cry out to be used in a game though.

These next two she found over at Creature Effects. I need to go mine that site for ideas too.

I wish my library was this cool.

I hope someone else can find a little inspiration within this blog, or at least some sage advice.

Treasure Type: Plants

2011-06-30T07:29:00.001-05:00

This began as a simple list of spices to use as treasure. Then I thought I should add plants used as alchemical ingredients. Then I added medicinal herbs and poisons. Then I thought it might be fun make it a random chart instead. And on, and on, and on.

Now I have this... thing.

It can generate valuable plants for any type of setting. It was originally intended to be used as a treasure table, but it seems far too unwieldy to use during play. I feel like this table is a rough draft, but I'm setting it aside for now. I'm posting it here until I decide exactly what I want to do with it.

To use the table in it's current form, just roll a d20 for each column (except "Special").

"Function" shows the basic reason why people are willing to buy the plant. It's up to the GM to come up with specifics. Crafting might mean that it is a component for alchemy, or something more mundane. It could be that the wood is prized for making musical instruments, or the resin might be used for making a strong glue, or the powder might be useful to blacksmiths for strengthening steel, or whatever. A result of Special means that the plant has some quality that appears magical and might be useful to anyone, roll on the "Special" column to see the type of effect. Special plants are highly prized, especially by alchemists, so any gp amount from the "Price/Unit" column can be multiplied by 100.

"Form" shows the part of the plant that is valued. It might also have been processed into a powder, oil, or whatever. This combined with the results from "Color", "Taste", and "Scent" help in describing to the PCs what exactly they have found.

"Region" shows where someone is likely to find these plants growing wild. It's up to the GM to determine if the plant is common or rare; found in many regions or only this one type. This column only shows the terrain type where the plants are most likely to thrive.

"Price/Unit" and "# of Units" are the treasure table columns. These determine the size and number of containers that the PCs have found, as well as the standard price for a full container. Notes about container sizes and equivalencies can be found back here.

The "Demand" column is used when the PCs try to buy or sell the plant. It shows whether the locals feel strongly enough about the plant to have a special reaction, or if the standard sale price should be adjusted. Litigious means that the plant is illegal for some reason. Taboo means that anyone carrying the plant is frowned upon, and may be asked to leave. Usually this is because of some crazy custom or superstition, but maybe some local monster really is drawn to the smell. Extreme demand means that the PCs could sell the plant for up to 3X its normal value, garner favors, and become very popular with the locals. Fanatical demand means that the locals are zealous about getting the plant, they may even be highly addicted to it. The locals will refuse to take no for an answer, and might even try to kill the PCs just to get as much of the plant as possible.

Low Ability Scores are Cool Again

2011-06-29T04:01:00.002-05:00

I've always had a soft spot for characters with low ability scores. They usually end up with a lot more more personality than the cookie-cutter superdudes who have multiple 18s. The abrasive cut-purse, dumb warrior, or weak and sickly wizard are all welcome in my games, tragically stereotyped or not.

The real challenge has always been convincing the players that these characters are worthwhile. Rolling a bunch of low scores can make a player feel defeated before they even begin to play. No one likes starting out with negative modifiers, especially when compared to some "better" character at the table. I hate starting a session when someone is disappointed with their character. It kills the mood for everyone. I don't like point-buy systems, or re-rolls, so I used to try bribery. I'd give out magic items to these characters, family heirlooms that only worked for members of their bloodline. It helped to remove some of the sting, but wasn't an ideal solution.

Recently, Roger the GS showed me a better way.

Non-humans as consolation! I should have been doing this ages ago. No better time to start than the present. I've been dragging my feet about which species are playable for my Ezzin setting, but I can at least lay out some groundwork and plug in the Ezzin races later.

Ability Scores ___ Modifier

3 __________ -3
4-5 ________ -2
6-8 ________ -1
9-12 _______ 0
13-15 ______ +1
16-17 ______ +2
18 _________ +3

The basic idea here is that all characters default to human. Other species become available if you roll some low ability scores and end up with a negative modifier.

Species _________ Requirements

Halfling _________ Str of 8 or less
Half-Orc ________ Int of 8 or less
Gnome _________ Wis of 8 or less
Dwarf __________ Dex of 8 or less
Elf _____________ Con of 8 or less
Tiefling _________ Cha of 8 or less
Goblin/Kobald ____ 2 Scores below 6

These aren't all going to be available options in my Ezzin setting. Some of them will end up getting replaced by more exotic choices like cyclops and lizardmen, I'm still pondering the setting. Still, I think that this chart is a good place to start.

Containers, Capacity, and Units of Measure (made easy?)

2011-06-22T15:43:00.006-05:00

This all started out innocently enough.

I wondered "How many flasks can be filled from a full barrel?". I didn't like the container sizes in some of my various game books, so I started doing a few calculations of my own. This quickly spiraled into creating a home-brewed system of measurements for my world of Ezzin.

I don't really know what compels me to do these things. No doubt the alcohol helps. Even so, I doubt many others would enjoy a couple days of researching and comparing Sumerian, Roman, Imperial, Metric and US systems of measurement. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

In making this, I had two main goals.

A slick, unified system that's easy to use.
A system that gives the impression of strange and antiquated units, difficult conversions, and odd fiddly bits. For the sake of flavor and atmosphere mostly.

The metric system fulfills the first goal, but not the second. So I set about making my own weird thing. As a whole, I think it turned out pretty well. However, I'm probably biased.

Weight/Volume of Coins
On Ezzin, all coins weigh the same. In truth it's to streamline gameplay, but I think I'll blame it on a powerful guild of merchants who've successfully standardized most systems of measure.

50 coins = 1 pound

A lot of containers will tear open from the weight before they are even half filled by any type of coin, so making the weight identical expedites most bookkeeping on the character sheets. Still, there may be a "weightless bag" or some other craziness requiring me to know just how many coins can fit into a given container. So I compared densities, crunched the numbers a little, and came up with this.

Pp: is about the size of a dime. 30 per $in 3$
Gp: is about the size of a penny. 25 per $in 3$
Sp: is about the size of a quarter. 10 per $in 3$
Cp: is about the size of a thick quarter. 8 per $in 3$

These "amounts per cubic inch" are mainly just to give me some rough guidelines for my estimations. There will always be gaps between the individual coins based on how they randomly fall and stack inside the container. I won't feel bad about rounding here.

Measures of Volume

That merchant guild I mentioned earlier has been especially keen to standardize the containers of every land. This makes it easier to trade between realms and to divide or consolidate goods. These units are used for both liquids and dry goods. These are all approximations. Individual containers might be a little larger or smaller than standard size. Don't be shy about rounding up or down.

Volume

#of $in 3$ --------------- Container/Name ------ Weight of Water

82944 ------------------ Butttun/Wagonload -------------- 512gal/3072 lb
↑ x1.5
55296 ----------------------- Tun/Cartload ----------------- 256gal/2048 lb
↑ x2
27648 ------------------------- Butt/Pipe -------------------- 128gal/1024 lb
↑ x2
13824 ------------------- Hogshead/Oxhead/Gur ------------ 64gal/512 lb
↑ x2
6912 ------------------- 4ft³/Barrel/Large Sack ------------- 32gal/256 lb
↑ x2
3456 ------------ Half-Barrel/Keg/Kilderkin/Sack ------- 16gal/128 lb
↑ x2
1728 -- 1ft³/Talent/Amphora/Bushel/Firkin/Small Sack --- 8gal/64 lb
↑ x2
864 --------------------- Urn//Bag/Saddle Bag ----------------- 4gal/32 lb
↑ x2
432 ------------------ Peck/Small Saddle Bag ---------------- 2gal/16 lb
↑ x2
216 -------------------------- Gallon/Jug ------------------------ 1gal/8 lb
↑ x2
108 ------------------------- Skin/Belt Pouch ------------------------- 4 lb
↑ x2

54 ------------- Liter/Bowl/Bottle/Quart/Small Pouch ----------- 2 lb
↑ x2
27 ------------------ Flask/Pint/Jar/Large Coin Purse ------------- 1 lb
↑ x2
13.5 ------------------------ Cup/Coin Purse --------------------------- 8oz
↑ x2
6.75 -------------------- Gill/Small Coin Purse ---------------------- 4oz
↑ x2
3.375 ----------------------- Egg/Jigger/Shot -------------------------- 2oz
↑ x2
1.6875 -------------------- Dose/Vial/Potion --------------------------- 1oz
↑ x2
0.84375 ------------------------ Spoon --------------------------------- 0.5oz
↑ x5
0.16875 --------------------- Button/Dram --------------------------- 0.1oz
↑ x50
0.003375 --------------------- Grain/Drop ------------------------- 0.002oz

Well, there it is. Later, I'll come up with some dwarvish and elvish words for these units too. Quite a few of those are real world units of measure, but little on that list matches exactly to real world sizes. Those are all approximations, shaved or extended a bit until they line up neatly together. If the players hound me about it, I'll blame the discrepancies on differences in gravity or something. I doubt they'll ask.

I've included some standard adventuring containers on the list. These units represent standard sizes. Individual sacks, flasks, wagons, or whatever might be a little larger or smaller. Overall though, this makes for easy conversions when the characters move items from one container to another. I can quickly see that a large sack full of dragon scales can be split up into 4 small sacks, or 8 saddle bags, or 4 saddle bags plus 2 small sacks.

You'll notice that the largest unit is equal to a Tun plus a Butt. Called a Butttun... because I'm childish. I also included a button as one of the smallest units, because I like to plan ahead. I'm sure that a Butttun/Button miscommunication will be entertaining at some point.

The smallest unit is a grain of wheat. These grains on Ezzin are a little smaller than the ones found on Earth. Ezzin grains just so happen to be about the same size as a drop of water, which is rather convenient if you want to use the same units of measure for dry goods as you do for liquids. Which I do.

So, what do you think? Is this useful, or am I crazy? I'd appreciate hearing some thoughts about what needs to be fixed, and what works well.

Google search wallows in failure

2011-06-15T11:25:00.001-05:00

Today someone reached my blog by googling "free movie of demons porn and monster porn".

W
T
F
!!!

My blog is nowhere even near the top of that search... but I still feel dirty.

Poisonous vs. Toxic vs. Venomous

2011-06-15T06:03:00.000-05:00

All of these different terms confused the hell out of me for the longest time. I place part of the blame on the monster listings for "poisonous snakes" which would have been more accurately listed as "venomous snakes".

When describing plants and animals "poisonous" or "toxic" means that you shouldn't try to eat it (or even touch it in some cases), "venomous" means that you shouldn't let it bite, sting, or scratch you. Poisonous species are generally immune to their own toxins. Venomous species keep their toxins stored safely within certain glands, but are generally not immune to them. So, it usually goes badly for a venomous creature if it bites or stings itself.

Poison - Any substance that can cause severe distress or death if ingested, breathed in, or absorbed through the skin. Many substances (including water) that normally cause no problems, can be poisonous if taken in too large of a quantity.

Toxin - A poisonous protein produced by living cells in some higher plants, animals, and pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria. A toxin typically has a high molecular weight (as compared to a simple chemical poison), is antigenic (elicits an antibody response), and can be highly dangerous to living creatures.

Venom - a toxin produced in a gland and used by a species in order to subdue its prey. Typically injected via a sting or bite.

I'm friends with some veterinarians, paramedics, nurses, and a budding toxicologist. They say that it would be cool if we could help preserve their sanity by using the terms correctly.

That is all.

Go with Grod my friends.

Joesky Tax:

White Baneberry fruit

White Baneberry (Doll's-eyes)

A small flowering plant sometimes found in temperate forests. The white flowers are produced in spring, developing into berries during the summer which last until the first frost. All parts of the plant are poisonous if ingested, but the berries are especially toxic.

The toxins have an immediate sedative effect on the heart causing the victim to feel weak and tired and are likely to cause a heart attack and death. (Save vs. Poison: success = ½ Str rounded down for one turn, failure = death)

The plant is prized by assassins and poisoners because it is fast acting and it does not cause sickness or nausea like many poisons, so when it is used unsuccessfully it does not always raise suspicions. Cultivation requires lots of shade, regular water, and a crumbly, loamy soil like a sandy clay for good drainage.

The berries are harmless to birds. Birds eat them often, helping the plants to spread their seeds.

Populate this Dungeon!

2011-06-13T15:07:00.001-05:00

I found this map over at Lost Papers of Tsojcanth that is supercool. Tsojcanth for the WIN!!! I am overcome by your aura of awesome. "We're not worthy, we're not worthy".

I did notice some slight room for improvement though. I decided to take the time to smooth out the seams, and polish it up a little, then I keyed most of the rooms. I made 2 versions of 2 maps. The white background is for easy printing; the brown background is for easy editing.

Grab it and turn it into a cool crawl for your group... if you dare! Be sure to go tell Tsojcanth about your creation. :-D

Here are the first copies, I keyed the rooms for your convenience. I don't know why the name of Tsojcanth's post is "69: Random Unsubstantiated Hypothesis", but I thought it was a good excuse to limit the number of keyed rooms to 69. The rooms are numbered 1-40, A-Z, and rooms FF, ZZ, and 88.

Click to Embiggen! Keyed

If you don't like the way I numbered the rooms on the first set, then you can grab this version with just the seams smoothed out. Then number the rooms however you like.

Click to Embiggen! No-key

In the Caverns of the Croaking Chaos (A Fat Frog Adventure)

2011-06-11T01:34:00.017-05:00

In the Caverns of the Croaking Chaos

Trouble Brewing

A small mining community has been beset by strange events after an accident in the mine reveals an ancient underground cavern. While the metal digger golem was smashing at the back wall a huge section of the tunnel collapsed. The rubble forms a rough slope into the natural cavern below. The miners quickly informed the small garrison of soldiers at the nearby smelting furnaces and metalworks.

The garrison commander decides to personally accompany his wizard and all but five men to investigate the caverns and assure the superstitious miners that the mine is safe. Some of the miners follow them into the mine, but wait at the entrance to the cavern. The miners wait for hours periodically calling out to the soldiers below, but there is no answer. Eventually the miners hear strange sounds coming from the darkness below, scuttling movement and an ominous croaking that seems to grow closer and closer. The miners flee, and soon the mine is boarded up to prevent any of the horrors within from escaping to terrorize the town.

Involving the PCs

Some of the townsfolk have begun leaving the town seeking to make homes elsewhere. The PCs could meet them along the road and hear of the troubles at the silver mine.

Lord Bithekous, who bought the mine from afar several years ago, could hire the PC's to investigate the disappearance of his soldiers and sort out the problems at the mine before all the workers he employs leave the the area.

The PC's could be traveling along a road and happen to see the lights of Holder's Township up on the hill. They might decide to go there looking for supplies or a place to rest and get caught up in the action.

A group of brand new characters might have grown up living in Holder's Hollow all their lives, or they might be the garrison soldiers who were left to guard the silver ingots in Smelter's Hold when all their comrades disappeared into the mine.

--------------------------------------------------

Arriving at Holder's Hollow

Holder's Hollow is a small, shallow valley containing a town with a population of about one hundred souls. The town is set upon a tall hill, nestled in the flat depression between the three peaks. Holder's Township is a mining town. Some 25 or 30 of the residents work within the mine itself, or at the nearby smelting furnaces and metalworks. The rest of the town's people make their living supporting the miners, raising goats and sheep, tending large vegetable gardens, or working in the apple orchard.

Traveling to Holders Hollow is simple enough. A small dirt road follows a winding creek up the south side of the forested hill. The trees thin out as the road climbs up, eventually leading to the relative open flatness of the vale. Within the hollow only a few short trees and bushes are dotted among the rocks and grasses. The North, West, and East sides of the hollow rise steeply toward the three barren, rocky peaks. The vale is filled with the sounds of life. Insects and croaking frogs can be heard throughout the day and night.

A few hundred yards into the vale the dirt road forks. To the right, the road goes up the eastern slope toward the Busted Boot Mine and nearby Smelter's Hold. To the left, the road leads over a bridge crossing Croaker's Creek and then into Holder's Township. Straight past the fork in the road a tall column of white stone rises from the bushes, known to the locals as "Froggert's Perch".

-----------------------------------------------------------------

After the PCs Arrive

1st - Arriving at about the same time as the party is a group of about 10 soldiers hired by Lord Bithekous. They are lead by his able and trusted nephew. They have been instructed to secure Smelter's Hold, load all the remaining silver ingots and ore into the three wagons they've brought with them, and bring it all back to the city where he lives. They have all been instructed to stay out of the mine, but the PCs could convince the nephew to post some guards at the mine entrance since it is only a few hundred yards from the Hold.

2nd - When the PCs arrive the people of Holder's Township are all making preparations for their yearly Froggert Festival. Usually a very merry time, this year's festival is much more subdued because of the recent disappearance of the soldiers. However the townspeople set about the preparations with a grim determination. Many tables and chairs are set out near Froggert's Perch, and the campfires and cooking pits are set ablaze. The children will chase each other and play games, the adults will all eat together under the open sky and some might get a little drunk on cider. Almost everyone is looking forward to the culmination of the festival, when under the full moon every man, woman, and child is given the chance to touch the column of white stone and ask (in a shout or a whisper) a favor of Froggart who sits impassively on his perch. It's a good bet that most of the favors asked this year will be for the return of the soldiers or lifting the curse from the mine.

3rd - Shortly before the start of the festival, Father Hessel makes his yearly plea for everyone to abandon their pagan festival. He asks all present to follow him back into town and join him in the temple where prayers can be offered to [popular deity] for the souls of those lost in the mine. Over a dozen people follow him back into town, more than ever before.

4th - During the festival all hell breaks loose. I imagine it would be at the end, just after the first few of the townspeople shout their favors to Froggert asking for the return of the soldiers, but if the PCs decide to head into town at some point during the festival that might also be a good time for the uproar to begin. Frogolytes (10 of them) dart in suddenly and grab revelers at the edge of the crowd. They work in pairs, trying to grab people and carry them away out of the firelight. None of the Frogolytes stay to fight, they all run toward the eastern slope at high speed. Husbands chase after wives, fathers chase after children, and a dog named Enoch chases after his boy Johann. Shrieks and wailing pierce the night.

5th - The townspeople slowly regroup at Froggarts Perch. Weapons are brought from the town, and Father Hessel tends to any who are wounded. Most are frightened, but some are far more angry than afraid. If the PCs make an impassioned call to attack the Frogolytes or rescue those taken then a number of armed villagers (equal to the highest Cha score +3) will follow them into the heart of the caverns, no morale checks needed until area #5. As the group prepares to leave, Enoch the dog returns. Enoch has dark blood (not his) all around his muzzle, and is limping slightly on his left front paw. Enoch will follow the mob, or even lead them to the pool around Croakers Cave where he lost the scent. Enoch never needs to check morale, EVER. Enoch will not rest until Johann is safe.

The Mob

Determine how many townspeople are going with the PCs. If the PCs refuse their help, then a small group will head into the mine anyhow and try to get their loved ones back or at least some revenge. Maybe 6hp each.

Enoch - Dog, tan and white, quick, big ears, heart of gold, nerves of steel, will stop at nothing to save Johann: Bite (1d4+1), AC (5 better than unarmored human)

Blake Holder - Mine Foreman, wishes he had organized a mob sooner to go after the soldiers: Int 15, golem command rod, wooden shield, leather armor, short sword
Rankel - Blacksmith, looking for his daughter: Str 16, Chainmail with breastplate, Shield, Clank (Pa's old smithing hammer), bag of caltrops, rope and a metal hook
Smefen - Orchard worker, this is his chance to prove his worth: Int 5, hatchet, dagger
Arili - 16 year old, looking for the cute soldier she fancied, likes to kick: Dex 16, wooden shield, short sword
Belthon - Shepherd, looking for his wife: Con 15, Staff, dagger, sling and 20 sling stones
Josef Erhard - Baker, cares for Arili and goes along to help protect her: Dex 7, 2 big knives, red shirt
Father Hessel - Priest, just doesn't want anyone to get killed: Wis 16, will try to save his healing magic for serious wounds, shillelagh(club/walking stick)
Massimo - Miner, totally pissed off: Str 15, Dex 15, leather armor, wooden shield, spear
Nikkon - Town Drunk, is drunk on cider and thinks "this'll be fun": Wis 4, duel-wielding granite and steel beer steins, 5 flasks of moonshine, ridiculous horned helmet
Sulitia - Miner, she just wants to help her friends: Str 17, leather armor, short miners pick, 5 throwing knives
Jaquan - Gardner/farmer, wants to help: Str 12, leather apron, scythe, a knife in each boot
Tercero - Hunter/Tracker, 1 day from retirement: Wis 16, short bow, 10 arrows, hand axe, dagger
Tranter - Smelter, looking for his son but is afraid of tight spaces: Dex 12, spear, hand sickle
(or more) = Some guy/gal with a spear and a dagger

The Frogolytes

The missing garrison soldiers have been twisted and mutated, they are now the frogolytes. They are seeking both captives and silver ingots to donate to their new god who sits beneath the steamy falls. All the frogolytes are now hairless and have green amphibian skin and pale white bellies. I was thinking 15 of them with 2HD each, adjust based on the power of your PCs. Roll mutations for each frogolyte, or just make stuff up.

1 - Can breathe underwater, absorbing oxygen through their skin
2 - Frog legs, can jump 20' in any direction
3 - Frog head, extra attack (bite 1d4 damage)
4 - Frog Tongue, chance to disarm/grab items from a distance
5 - Full Frog, all the above, +12 hp, no armor or weapons
6 - Roll 1d4 twice

Any that are still able will be using their old equipment: shields, spears, long swords, chain mail, and helmets

The mutated commander is giving orders to the frogolytes from area #5, he is there protecting the wizard (who is now the High Frog Priest) as he attempts to summon forth Froggert the Fat.
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Exploring the Local Area

Froggert's Perch

This 10' tall column is made of a pure white stone, and it is covered in many strange markings and petroglyphs. No stone like this exists nearby, it must have been brought here from many miles away. Sitting atop the pillar is a 2' statue of a frog holding a flower in one hand and a basket of flowers in the other. The statue is known to the locals as Froggert, and is the focus of a yearly festival. There are many conflicting stories of how the custom started and how Froggert received his name, but no one in the town knows the truth. The wizard of the garrison spent many hours at Froggert's Perch studying the strange runes.

Croaker's Creek

The waters of the creek begin by flowing out of a mostly submerged cave and into a pond below the mine on the eastern slope. The creek then runs down the slope into the hollow, then down the south side of the hill and eventually into a river many miles away. Croaker's Cave, Croaker's Pond, and Croaker's Creek are either named for the multitude of frogs or the many venomous water snakes who make their home there. It seems that every couple of years someone croaks because of a snake bite.

Smelter's Hold

Smelter's Hold is collection of buildings surrounded by a wooden palisade. The buildings are a few hundred yards from the entrance to the mine. This is where ore from the mine is processed, mostly silver, some steel, and a little gold. One building houses the smelting furnaces. Another, the metalworks, is a large building that houses the forge, castings, and the wizards workshop. There is a large barracks and a separate kitchens and mess hall. There are also two cabins where the commander and wizard made their homes.

Inside the wizards workshop are some incomplete notes detailing his research into many various minerals and a spell able to detect them, a kind of magical surveyer. These notes might be valuable to the right people.

All ingots produced in the metalworks are stamped with the seal of Smelter's Hold as they are made. Occasionally some raw gemstones are found in the mine, but these are always sent to a jeweler in the city for cutting. Shipments are sent out to the city each month, always well guarded and on random dates.

Busted Boot Mine

The mine was owned for many generations by the Holder family. The town grew slowly over many years as more and more families moved into the area. Blake Holder sold the mine to Lord Bithekous about five years ago after racking up a huge gambling debt while cavorting about in the city. Since then Lord Bithekous has spent a lot of money employing the towns people to mine and work the ore, constructing the buildings of Smelter's Hold, employing a garrison of soldiers from the city, and even purchasing a metal golem to help productivity. Bithekous has been fair to the people of the town, and especially to Blake Holder. Although Blake must differ to the wishes of the commander and wizard regarding the smelting furnaces and metalworks, Blake is paid as a supervisor and is the highest authority within the mine itself. Blake holds the digger golems command rod, and has been the only person to command it ever since the cave-in three years ago. Blake still feels some shame about his gambling and the loss of the mine, but he knows it could have turned out a lot worse. The Holders would be very surprised and horrified to learn of the true history of their family and of Holder's Hollow.

A: The mine entrance is supported by an archway made from large tree trunks. Boards have recently been nailed across to block access. The Frogolytes would have busted through if there were no guards. If guards are posted here the frogolytes use only Croaker's Cave to get in and out.

B: These are the old stopes, large chambers carved out from the mining of ore. These chambers are supported by thick wooden beams to prevent cave-ins.

C: The Grand Hall. This area was created by the digger golem. Three years ago, a couple weeks after the golem arrived at the mine, all of the golem's pounding and banging caused a small cave-in. Luckily no one was hurt and the golem was able to smash its way free of the rubble. Since then Blake Holder has taken sole command of the golem, and has used it to create the Grand Hall. The entrance of the Grand Hall is next to the rubble of the old cave-in. Blake has decided to have the golem leave a thick column of rock every 5 to 10 feet, thinking that this would prevent another cave-in from ever happening. Blake has always felt drawn to dig deeper, thinking that a large vein of ore is below the level of the original mine. Using the digger golem has allowed him to dig downward in a slow spiral much faster than he could have ever hoped. Too bad it wasn't silver that Blake was sensing beneath his feet.

D: Eventually the digger golem dug deep enough that a large section of the floor and columns of rock crumbled and crashed down into the cavern beneath. All of this rubble forms a sloping pile that can be climbed up and down rather easily to get back and forth between the mine and the cavern, but the shifting pile of stones makes such a climb anything but quiet.

The entire cave feels warm and humid, all the floors and walls are a little slick with moisture. A person might slip and loose their footing if they tried to run at full speed (Dex check). Ferns, a thin layers of moss, and other plants seem to grow along most of the walls. For some reason these caverns are also full of fireflies, their tiny lights flash intermittently but reveal little. The ceilings through most of these caverns range from 30' to 60' above the floor.

All of the ridges and ledges shown in these caverns are a bit sloped and only about 8' tall. Usually this would pose no problem but because of the moisture and slick rocks anyone attempting to climb up one takes a full round and must make a Dex check to avoid slipping. Anyone climbing a ledge with the help of another person pushing or pulling them up automatically succeeds.

The frogolytes could be anywhere in these caves, and some may be in the mine too. Feel free to have them jump out and harass the party whenever it seems appropriate. They will use hit and run tactics, trying to split up the party and draw them away from area #5. Once the party sees area #5, the frogolytes change tactics trying to slow down anyone running away and taking cheap shots at anyone who flees past them.

1: The Entry Cavern.

The digger golem lies buried in the pile of rubble, but it looks as though the frogolytes were attempting to uncover the golem. Blake can now have the golem free itself with the command rod.

The stream of water is warm and flows into a pool with a large sucking whirlpool as the water flows quickly down a hole at the bottom of the pool. The miners are embarrassed to admit that echoes of this sound may have been what scared them enough to abandon the soldiers and close off the mine.

Any frogolytes in this area will throw rocks at the party and then flee to area #2, the frogolytes are attempting to get the party to follow them out Croaker's Cave and away from the caverns. The High Frog Priest does not wish to be disturbed.

2: The Frog Pools

These pools are full of frogs and tadpoles, snakes also come in here for an easy meal. The pools are connected by a totally submerged tunnel, it is easy to swim though if you have a light to guide the way. In the middle of this submerged tunnel is a branch going up to the whirlpool, but the current is too strong to swim up, making this a one way tunnel.

The exit leading out to Croaker's Pond is not totally submerged, but there is only about a foot or two between the water level and the ceiling of this tunnel. Mind the snakes in the pond, some of them could be venomous. A pair of steep ledges prevents all but the largest snakes from going further into the caverns.

3: The Fungal Gardens

In this chamber are giant mushrooms and toadstools up to 10' high. This area could make for an interesting combat with jumping foes. It might also be a good place for a myconid or few if you feel like tossing in some mushroom-men.

4: The Winding Way

A small group of frogolytes are hiding in the small, short tunnel at the top of the ledge near the number "4". They will jump out and try to push down the first couple of people to climb up that ledge, then they will attack with spears. This group of frogolytes will make a stand here and try to prevent the party from getting closer to area #5.

5: Temple of the Frog God

As the party approaches the stairs leading up, they hear a voice calling out in a strange croaky language mixed with words in the common tongue. The voice drones on and on.

A long time ago someone used some Stoneshape spells to decorate this cavern temple. The final ledge leading up to this area has stoneshaped stairs on either side of the stream of water, making it easy to enter and exit this chamber. The stream of water is rather hot now, and this chamber has a layer of steam and fog that clings to the floors. Horrible, twisted faces have been stoneshaped into the rock walls as decorations.

A waterfall of steaming hot water gushes from the ceiling in the back off this chamber and falls behind a 30' tall, 20' wide statue of a familiar, fat, flower holding frog made of white stone. The water forms a pool in the back of the chamber, and the statue sits upon an island of stone in the center of the pool. Two smooth stoneshaped bridges go over the hot pool and connect to the island on either side of the hot stream that eventually becomes Croaker's Creek. A half dozen frogolytes on the island make ready to defend the bridges from the party's crossing.

On the island in front of the statue is a round, two-step, dais with a lectern in the center.  In front of the lectern facing the huge statue is a man in a red robe, the High Frog Priest, swaying back and forth as he reads from a huge moldy tome. Between the statue and the dais stand the kidnapped townspeople. Any silver ingots that the frogolytes have managed to steal are piled near the feet of their captives. The captives are dazed, as if in a trance.

The frogolytes and their commander do their best to defend the High Frog Priest from interruption as he continues to speak his croaky words and occasionally calling out in Common for Froggert to accept the sacrifice provided. If any of the befuddled prisoners are shaken or moved, they will quickly regain their senses. Enoch quickly charges, dodges past, and runs between the legs of the frogolytes at the first opportunity so that he can reach Johann. Enoch jumps on Johann, knocks him over and licks at his face freeing him from his stupor.

As soon as the High Frog Priest or any of the tranced townspeople are touched, the former wizard spins around to face the party. His twisted features are an indescribable mockery of all things frog and human. He quickly begins casting a spell, but he never gets a chance to complete it. The great statue opens it's stone eyes and mouth. A great long red tongue shoots out, grabs the High Frog Priest, and draws him almost instantly into a crushing bite of stone, killing him.

The spirit of Froggart the Fat was successfully summoned forth, but without a sacrifice he could not take his true form. Since the High Frog Priest interrupted the ritual, Froggart's spirit was forced to merely inhabit and animate the 30' stone statue of himself. Froggart does not tolerate failure.  The red robed wizard was chosen as his first victim, but not his last. The huge statue begins walking forward, every other round his tongue shoots out claiming another victim who stands within 30' of the statue, either townsperson or frogolyte.

The frogolytes do their best to flee out of the range of the tongue, and to slow down members of the party so that they become easier targets for their bloated, stoney god. Enoch will viciously attack any frogolyte who blocks Johann's path of escape. Enoch will sacrifice himself to save the boy if necessary. The great statue can walk slowly, or it can spend a round making a great hop forward. These hops help him catch up to the fleeing party and also cause the caverns to tremble under his awesome weight, shattering the stone floor at his feet and knocking loose stalactites and falling stones. Don't forget about the slippery cavern floor while the party is running at full speed.

Some of the passageways are too narrow to accommodate the statues 20' girth, so clever party members might use this to their advantage.  Still, his tongue might be able to reach victims who dart down these tunnels too slowly. If the digger golem is commanded to attack the statue it will succeed in injuring one of the legs enough that it can no longer hop. At this point though, the statue will sit on the golem, flattening it to uselessness.

If the party somehow manages to destroy a huge statue made of solid stone, more power to them. They should get a nice xp bonus.

The party could flee through area #2. If so, the huge statue will bide it's time, call it's frogolytes to bring it new victims, and try to slowly build in power.

If the party flees by going through the mine however, the statue will follow. It will crawl though the Grand Hall of the mine, smashing through the stone support columns easily. It will try to catch any victims it can with its tongue, but the many columns make that difficult. As the statue smashes it's way down the Grand Hall the mine collapses behind it. Eventually, as the great stone of bloated awfulness reaches the spot marked with the "C" the ceiling collapses around it, and it is trapped with only it's great mouth exposed. Then the great mouth opens and vomits forth .... Froggart the Fat. Not his true form, but the best he is able to muster at the moment. A great 10' tall frog with 3HD + 1 HD per victim he was able to bite and kill as a statue, AC as unarmored human, a grasping pulling tongue, and a bite (2d4 damage).

Enjoy!

Maps of Real Castle Keeps

2011-06-10T03:01:00.001-05:00

I found some other pictures of interest over at From Old Books, so I thought I'd share them. These are all from the book The Growth of the English House by J. Alfred Gotch, published in 1909.

First up is the keep of Hedingham Castle, Essex.

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Next is Haddon Hall, Derbyshire. Not really a castle, it is actually a medieval country manor house that I find quite interesting. I like that the plans show how the sections were built over time.

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And last but not least is the keep of Warkworth Castle, Northumberland.

1. Vestibule (leading from entrance in basement)
2. Hall.
3. Chapel.
4. Great Chamber.
5. Kitchens.
6. Pantry and buttery.

Most of the unmarked rooms are smaller bedrooms. The square room in the center of the floorplan is actually a shaft that provides a little air and light to some of the interior rooms. I believe that the tower seen in the exterior picture of the keep is the top of the shaft.

Intermission (with maps!)

2011-06-10T02:04:00.000-05:00

Designing a tumbling dungeon is an interesting mental exercise. I have the bones of it worked out in my head, but fully describing how it works is difficult. I need the help of pictures. My whole blog needs the help of pictures.

So, I went off looking for public domain images and wandered the links longer than any sane man should. Wikipedia has a convenient list of such resources here. Bloggerstop was kind enough to post this handy list as well. If any other bloggers out there can suggest other sources, I'd be glad to hear them.

I'll probably end up drawing some pictures of my own in order to show the tumbling dungeon clearly. Until then, here are some maps I found over at FromOldBooks.org. Thank you Mr. Liam Quin.

Here we have the plans of a sixteenth-century mansion, Buckhurst House in Sussex. It would be found near Withyham today, but the house is much older than the village. Withyham is not included in the Domesday Book, although the manor of Buckhurst is, as ‘’Biochest’’ (probably from the Saxon ‘’boc hyrst’’ or beech wood). There have been two houses at Buckhurst for many centuries: the older Buckhurst House, now no more, and the present day ‘’Buckhurst Park’’. The numbers on the plan are unexplained, but I think it's pretty obvious that some contemporary DM must have gone back in time and started up a game.

Click to Embiggen... twice

This is from the book “Laws and History of the New Forest” (1811). It is, I think, one of the most lovely maps I've ever seen. You can see the edge of Salisbury Plain in the West, and Christchurch Bay in the South. I especially like the all the little details, such as the Hurst Castle Lighthouse marked at the southern edge of the map.

One Fell Swoop

2011-06-06T13:37:00.008-05:00

Elbuagnin - Idea Man

I found this bit of inspiration over at Curse of the GM.
He thought of it first --->

Thanks dude!

The basic idea is to set up an adventure where the PCs stumble upon events that are turns of phrase acted out literally. The first would just seem strange, but the mystery builds as more and more are encountered. Are the town's people cursed? Is it magic?

This seems like a perfect fit for my Dreaming Gods campaign. I don't want the Dreaming Gods to be defined only by their portals to other realms, or some random wild magic zones. I want them to influence the world only very rarely, and in strange unexpected ways. This set up is perfect for one such instance. It's an effect that's obviously set into motion by some kind of intellect, but the reasoning behind it seems to make no logical sense. More on that later.

Adventure Notes
I'd start with the PCs traveling along a road leading to the town. Just before they get into town they see a fork in the road, literally. A big metal fork, like a carving fork sticking into the road.

A little further along the PCs see some of the events described in the post I linked above, a mother throwing out her baby with the bathwater, a performer gets his leg broken, ect.

The people might seem surprised by their actions afterward, but they aren't in a daze or stupor at the time. It is more like temporary insanity than any sort of charm spell. They may not remember their strange actions at all.

A man buys a pig in a poke (sack), but discovers that he has been swindled when he lets the cat out of the bag.

The blacksmith grumbles and berates his apprentice while grinding an axe, eventually yelling loudly at the young man for his laziness, grappling with him, and trying to force his nose into the grindstone. Once the PCs intervene (I hope), the blacksmith will snap out of it and be full of remorse and guilt.

A dishonest merchant cooks the books, but he gets burned and is caught red handed.

A magistrate of the local lord is trying to help stop these odd events as best he can. He keeps saying "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help" but invariably causes even more problems, because he is compelled to do things "by the book". He is constantly flipping through his book of laws and trying to punish every minor crime he sees. No one can seem to stop him though, because his pen in mightier than the sword.

By this time I imagine that the PCs will be trying to get to the bottom of all the craziness. I'm not sure how they would start to investigate, but I'll see what they come up with, it could be useful. The PCs won't have to spend much time investigating, because a little bird will fly up and tell them what's causing all the trouble.

All the troubles stem from a man named Swoop. Swoop is the local animal trainer, but unbeknownst to the townspeople he's also a grim killer who takes delight bashing people with a hammer while making awful, awful jokes about "hitting the nail on the head". His last victim cursed him with her dying breath. Though the Dreaming Gods aren't conscious per se, even They sometimes take notice of extreme emotions... especially when mixed with blood. They're moved by the dying woman's basic desire to punish Swoop, but Their reaction is unfocused and dreamlike, causing turns of phrase to be acted out in literal ways in a wide area around the killer.

Swoop can no longer sleep at all because there is "no rest for the wicked" so he is now "barking mad". If confronted he will "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war". Obviously the dogs he trained are this man's best friends.

The solution to this town's problem is a "no-brainer", the killer just needs to be decapitated. Then all of these troubles can be wrapped up neatly with "one felled Swoop".

Some other things that may be worth including:

A nest of vipers
Bats in a belfry
A skeleton in the closet
Frog in the throat
A fish out of water
I heard it through the grapevine
Go out on a limb
Paint the town red
A wolf in sheep's clothing
Beating around the bush
Raining cats and dogs
Apple of my eye
A pot calling the kettle black
Pulling the wool over your eyes
Spill the beans
A sight for sore eyes
Bury the hatchet
A sick puppy
Saved by the bell
Dead Ringer (but not the real McCoy)
Music's charms sooth the savage beast
Fruit of your loins (yeah... maybe not this one)

Busted!

2011-06-06T09:52:00.002-05:00

I was driving home from my job at the "dream factory" when my thoughts on adventures and obscure combat rules were rudely shoved aside by some flashing blue and red lights in my rear-view mirror.

I tried to break the ice with a little humor, but that worked out pretty much as you would imagine.

Reenactment

Seriously though, I've been pulled over all across the US (because I'm a menace to society, obviously) and I have to admit that the cops here in Illinois are by far the nicest and most pleasant that I've ever encountered. I just wish they'd stop hassling me. This time it was because my left turn signal wasn't working. Oh, and I wasn't wearing my seat belt while going 30mph on a city street... because I'm a rebel like that.

Oddly enough, my car was at the mechanic for 2 days last week while they worked on my turn signal and brakes. Their electrician never made it in to the shop though, he had to go to the hospital instead. So when I picked up my car I made an appointment to bring it back this Tuesday so the electrician could fix the signal. Not soon enough I guess.

Oh well, it all just serves as a reminder to me.

All the world's an RPG,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
always seeking fun in spite of house rules that suck.

Abulafia, why do you taunt me?

2011-06-06T00:35:00.002-05:00

Abulafia seems really cool. It's basically a special wiki that allows anyone to create their own random generators. I love random generators, and I have a few of my own that I'd like to add to the site.

The trouble is that I can't create an account. Their "log in/create account" page only seems to allow the "log in" part. The sysops seem willing to listen to questions, but rather than give an email they suggest putting questions on the discussion page... which I can't do until I log in.

I've looked and looked, but I haven't found any trapdoors or secret passages.

Does anyone know the trick to creating an account there? I feel like I'm missing something obvious.

The Wonders of Ezzin

2011-06-05T12:20:00.014-05:00

Inspired by these posts on Rather Gamey and Jeff's Gameblog, I've decided to create a growing list of the Wonders of Ezzin.

These wonders will come in many forms and might be either natural, magical or created. The only requirements will be their great renown and awesome spectacle. More likely than not there will be some dungeon or adventure to be found nearby, but mearly traveling to look at these famous destinations will also be rewarded.

I'll write up a short but colorful description for each wonder, to be read aloud when the PC's see it for the first time. Then each character who gazes upon the wonder will be awarded some XP.

I'm thinking a reward of 1d10 x 100xp sounds good, but maybe I'll use different dice for different wonders. I like the idea of including a random roll to represent the subjective taste of a person to find certain wonders more impressive than others. Each wonder will probably also have bonuses for certain species or circumstances.

I had thought it would be easier to imagine a bunch of unique wonders, but right now I can only seem to think of wonders from history or literature. I'm not above stealing ideas, so I'll probably come up with something based upon each of the pictures I've included here. I'll have to wait for inspiration to strike to get some truly unique wonders, maybe I should focus on wonders made with magic? .....or wonders of magic, hmmm.

I suppose I should also lay the groundwork for an XP reward for creating wonders. Because (after they find a few of these) the chance the PC's will go out of their way to build a new wonder is about 100%. Maybe, 1xp per 1gp spent on the construction? It would probably just be easiest to have them gain a level once the wonder is completed. The wonder will have to be impressive enough that people would write poetry and sings songs about it forever... obviously.

Die Bag of Fate - Part III

2011-05-29T08:49:00.007-05:00

The mechanics for the Find Traps skill has always bothered me. I understand the need for the GM to roll that d20. They shouldn't be able to tell the difference between no trap, or failing to find it. Still, I really dislike rolling for a PC action, especially if they end up dead because of it.

I've been thinking lately that a smaller version of the Die Bag of Fate might be a good way to resolve Find/Remove Traps rolls. This way the player can still determine the fate of their character, but only I will know the result. For example...

Vinny the Squid decides to check a locked chest for traps. He has a F/R Traps of 25%. Rather than pre-trapping the chests on my dungeon map, I decide there is a 50/50 chance for any given chest to be trapped.

I load a bag with 8d-whatevers; 2 red, 2 green, 2 purple, and 2 blue. I tell Vinny's player to pull one of the dice without looking and then roll it. The players don't get to know how the bag works, they just have to trust me, but they all get to watch the roll.

The color of the die determines success or failure.

Red = Success
Green = Fail
Purple = Fail
Blue = Fail

The number rolled on the die determines the type of trap.

1 = Poison needle in the lock (hand that was pricked swells to twice normal size and Save vs. Poison or 2d6 damage)
2 = No Trap
3 = Acid mist sprays out when chest is opened (1d4 damage and Dex check or sprayed in the face, -1d4 to Cha)
4 = No Trap
5= Chest Explodes! ... a little, chest is still in one piece (contents of chest ruined, Cha check to see if Vinny wets his pants)
6 = No Trap
7 = The lid is spring loaded, once it is fully opened it will snap closed with great force and sharp teeth-like blades shoot up from the upper and lower edges (Dex check, if failed roll d6 to see how many fingers are lost, 5 = hand, 6 = arm past elbow)
8 = No Trap
9 = Biological weapon released upon the contents of chest (Anyone who handles the items Save vs. Death or contracts The Rot)
10 = No Trap
11 = Spring mechanism fires a small blade covered with blue powder (1-2 damage, powder causes uncontrollable shaking and spasms, movement is halved, save vs. poison or movement is 0 and must be carried away)
12 = No Trap
13 = Chest Explodes! ... a lot! (As per fireball spell, 6d6 damage to all in area Save for half)
14 = No Trap
15 = Rusty spring fails to fire a small blade covered with blue powder (because it's nice to catch a lucky break sometimes)
16 = No Trap
17 = Gravity emitter (everything in the room flies toward the chest, damage as per falling)
18 = No Trap
19 = Chest makes many clicking sounds that echo through the room growing loader, then nothing (Once the clicking stops, if any weight greater than 50 pounds comes within 5' of the chest then a 10' radius column of stone ceiling falls directly onto the chest. Save vs. Rod/Staff/Wand or die, miss by one point means they live but both legs are trapped and only 1d6 hp remaining)
20 = No Trap

I'll want to change the color of success fairly often so that the players don't catch on to how it works, but that's easy. Just roll any die; odd moves success up a color, even moves success down a color. I can use that same roll to switch the "No Trap"s between odds and evens.

Granted I'd have to rework the contents of the bag whenever his skills improve, but that's infrequent and not too much hassle. I can use dice of different sizes too, if I want to make certain types of traps more rare than others.

Skill Percentage_____Total Dice______Successful Dice
------ 5% ---------------------- 20 --------------------- 1
----- 10% ---------------------- 10 --------------------- 1
----- 15% ---------------------- 20 --------------------- 3
----- 20% ----------------------- 5 --------------------- 1
----- 25% ----------------------- 8 --------------------- 2
----- 30% ---------------------- 10 --------------------- 3
----- 35% ---------------------- 20 --------------------- 7
----- 40% ----------------------- 5 --------------------- 2
----- 45% ---------------------- 20 --------------------- 9
----- 50% ----------------------- 8 --------------------- 4
----- 55% ---------------------- 20 -------------------- 11
----- 60% ----------------------- 5 --------------------- 3
----- 65% ---------------------- 20 -------------------- 13
----- 70% ---------------------- 10 --------------------- 7
----- 75% ----------------------- 8 --------------------- 6
----- 80% ----------------------- 5 --------------------- 4
----- 85% ---------------------- 20 -------------------- 17
----- 90% ---------------------- 10 --------------------- 9
----- 95% ---------------------- 20 -------------------- 19

Up in the Air

2011-05-27T19:03:00.002-05:00

The more I look at using Labyrinth Lord for the surface of Ezzin, the more houserules I want to add . It really shines as a system for dungeons, but there is probably a better fit for the wilderness and cities above. I had chosen Labyrinth Lord arbitrarily in order to avoid an extensive search, but alas, it has begun. Searching extensively is now what I do.

For a while I was leaning more toward OSRIC, then the d20 System, and later still Mutant Future (minus the future bits), but there were still hundreds of free games I hadn't even looked at yet. Currently, Bandits & Basilisks is tempting me to come up with my own set of bare minimum rules. Then later I can hang various houserules on that framework. As the characters travel within the dreams of the gods (different game systems) my players and I are bound to find some rules that we enjoy and want to add permanently.

So here I am, contemplating adding a new free RPG to the metric asston that already exist. I'm something of a perfectionist, so I have no idea how long this might take me. Someone please talk me down from this ledge, it's scary.

I'm open to suggestions of other game-systems. Something with interesting wilderness or flying creature rules maybe? Or any suggestion really, after three eight hour days of sifting through free RPG's I'm not even sure what I'm looking for anymore.

Infravision, Ultravision, and other forms of sight on the planet Ezzin

2011-05-25T18:06:00.018-05:00

During my time running games, I always found that some of the most used but least discussed rules involved vision. I was constantly describing to the players what their characters saw. Yet the rules on infravision and ultravision were either vague or outright obtuse. So, I've made some vision guidelines of my own.

I want to keep this more or less scientifically accurate (or at least plausible). I've seen a great many explanations of infravision and ultravision on the internet, many of these descriptions are just plain wrong. RPG's taught me a lot of things as I grew up, and may be responsible for my infatuation with science and curiosity about how things really work. Knowing that I might one day run games for school aged kids, I do not want to misinform them (as I sometimes was) about the nature of light and vision.

Granted, most of the science here is a gross simplification, and some bits are just plain fabrication... but I think I've got the bones of it, and the basic concepts are nailed down pretty tight. If you notice things that could be improved upon, please let me know. I'd be happy to make this more accurate if I can.

Normal Vision

The humans of Ezzin default to this form of sight. The light visible to humans represents only a thin sliver of the full spectrum of light.

Human eyes perceive light because of light sensitive receptors called cones and rods. Rods detect the brightness, while cones detect color. There is only one type of rod, and these are very sensitive even in dim light. Some creatures (like dogs) have eyes with no cones, only rods, so they see only black and white. Humans have three different types of cones, one detects blue, another green, and the third detects red. All the colors that humans experience are from combinations of those three colors. This rainbow of color goes in the order of lowest frequency to highest as Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Most creatures need time to adjust their eyes after a sudden flash or dimming of light. In certain situations a wisdom check may be used to determine if a character was blinking or looking away during a flash of light. If flash blind or suddenly thrust into the dark of night, it can take 3 rounds before any details can be seen. They can still run or attack during this time, but risk knocking over furniture or hitting allies. Incidentally, this is why pirates sometimes wore an eyepatch over one good eye. Then if they had to run quickly into the darkness below decks they could simply switch the patch to their other eye. This allowed them to work below decks without having to wait for their eyes to adjust. Handy if you're in a battle and need to find the gunpowder really fast.

I'll probably never use this chart during a game, but it might be useful as a point of reference. It is based upon a table I found in the AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide, with some changes of my own. If anyone knows of a better chart, please let me know.

Quibish's Visibility Chart
Unobstructed outdoor range of normal human vision in feet.
At these distances a character can identify the basic form of a man-sized creature.

                 Daylight ..... Twilight ..... Full Moon ..... Moonlight ..... Darkest Night

Clear             1600           1200              600                  300 100
Overcast       1200             800               400                 100                 80
Light Fog      800             500               250                 70                   60
Rain/Snow    400             300               150               50                   30
Heavy Fog      100              80                 40                    30                   20
Blizzard          50           50                 30                    10                   10
Sandstorm        40              40                 20                    10                   10

Low-Light Vision (Eyeshine)

Many animals have better night vision than humans do. Some of this is because they have more rods in their eyes than humans. A larger sized eye or pupil would also aid night vision. Most often though this enhanced vision is due to an interesting adaptation of the eye possessed by many creatures (which humans lack entirely) called the tapetum lucidum.

The tapetum lucidum (Latin: "bright tapestry") is a reflective layer of tissue in the back of the eye. Light passes over the rods and cones then reflects off of the tapetum lucidum and passes over the rods and cones a second time, thus increasing the apparent brightness seen by the individual. Many animals have this adaptation such as, fish, sharks, owls, spiders, crocodiles, dogs, cats, cows, goats, rodents, marsupials, bats, and many other nocturnal and sea creatures.

Only the most knowledgeable sage would know the tapetum lucidum's proper name and function, most people know it simply as "Eyeshine" because of the occasionally visible effect of the light reflecting out these creatures pupils. Eyeshine is possessed by a few sentient species on Ezzin, including the elves. Elves can see twice as far as the distances listed on the chart above. Elves can somehow adjust their eyes after only 1 round, instead of the usual 3 rounds that humans need after a sudden flash or extinguished light source.

It should be noted that eyeshine does not produce light, only reflects it, so it is of no use at all in dark caves and dungeons where light cannot penetrate. Also, eyeshine gives almost no advantage when standing near a light source such as a torch or campfire because, just like humans, the range of sight is limited by the radius of illumination provided by the artificial light. The GM may allow characters with eyeshine to see a foot or two farther into the gloom though, allowing these PC's to react before others in the party in certain situations. Creatures outside the circle of torchlight will sometimes be revealed by their eyeshine, those within the circle would see only a pair of shining eyes reflecting the torchlight.

Eyeshine can be of any color. Usually creatures of the same species will all have the same color of eyeshine if all other factors are the same, but different colors of source lighting or angles of reflection can make the eyeshine appear as a different color.

Infravision

Infravision allows heat to be seen. Heat gives off light at a frequency so far below the color red that the cones in the human eye cannot detect it. This frequency of light is called infrared. Some creatures on Ezzin (such as the goblinoid races) have cones and rods in their eyes that are able to detect infrared. Infravision is useful for detecting the warm bodies of prey, especially within caves and dungeons devoid of normal sources of light. The range of this form of vision is limited because the creature constantly sees its own body heat, like a human peering through a glowing mist or fog. A sudden burst of heat can blind infravision just as a flash of light can blind normal vision, requiring 3 rounds for the eyes to adjust.

Creatures like goblins who only possess infravision rarely venture out during the day. Emerging from cool caves to suddenly look out at objects heated by hours of sunlight can be painfully bright, making it difficult to see detail in any object more than a few feet away. Even once their eyes adjust, the sun is much brighter in infravision than when seen with normal vision. Infravision is usually given a flat range of 60', 90', or 120', this is the range at which man-sized and man-temperatured objects can be seen. Objects that are smaller and cooler will need to be closer before they are noticed. Some very hot objects (red dragons, fireballs, lava) can be seen far beyond this range, even if only seen as big blobs of heat in the distance.

Certain magics can allow humans to see infrared. These spells typically alter the three types of cones so that they respond to infrared rather than the normally visible frequencies of light. Humans so effected would see the same rainbow of colors, but changes in color would represent different temperatures. Normal vision would be lost for the duration of the spell. Such vision might appear similar to this:

COLD [black - blue - purple - red - orange - yellow - white] HOT

Theoretically, magic users could alter their spells to reverse or mix up the order of the colors between cold and hot, but most in Ezzin use this version of the spell.

More powerful magics can provide a very different form of infravision. Rather than alter the three existing types of cones in the eye, these spells grow a fourth type of cone sensitive to infrared, essentially producing a new primary color that can mix with the original three. This new color was dubbed "Ulfire" by the mage who first used such magic. Mixing ulfire with the other primary colors adds a new rainbow to be perceived by the individual. The first use of this spell is extremely disorienting, as the individuals' mind struggles to interpret these new signals in tandem with the signals from normal vision. Powerful headaches, nausea, and vertigo are common until repeated use allows the mind to adjust to interpreting these new signals. Once mastered, individuals will be able to see every detail and color that they would with normal vision and be able to see variations of heat as well. These individuals would be able to see anything visible with either type of vision, but this combination does not extend the range of infravision or limit the range of normal vision.

Some things to keep in mind while using infravison:

Objects hot enough that humans can see them glow visibly will be blindingly bright in infravision.

Glass and water are opaque to infrared because they absorb heat so thoroughly. Infravision does not work underwater, nothing can be seen except the surface temperature of the water. In fact, even a mist, fog, or heavy rain could obscure heat beyond 10 feet away.

Smoke and dust are nearly transparent to infravision. Infravision can be a great help when searching for people or exits while inside a burning building filled with smoke.

The profile of a cold creature would stand out easily if it were in front of a warm stone wall.

Undead are always slightly cooler than ambient temperature, constantly sucking in heat from their surroundings even in arctic conditions. Ghosts and spirits normally invisible to humans can be seen as dark patches of cold by those with infravision.

Cold-blooded creatures are nearly invisible to infravision because they are usually the same temperature as their surroundings. Even rapid movement would only give away it's basic size and position. No details would be seen until a few rounds of continuous movement began to warm the creature.

Warm bodies leave warm footprints, unless walking over water, snow, or ice. These footprints fade quickly and disappear within 2 or 3 rounds.

Mirrors reflect light well, including infrared. However, even a thin layer of glass over the mirror will considerably dim the infrared light reflected, so a disk of polished metal may work better. Also, a mirror carried around in a pack is bound to absorb some body heat over time, making the mirror itself appear to glow a bit... interfering with the reflection.

Visible light is invisible to the goblinoid races, just as infrared and ultraviolet are invisible to human eyes. Because of this, goblins have no words or concept of color, but they have many words for various temperatures.

Hide in Shadows is not used by creatures who see only with infravision. The concept is simply foreign to them. Even a creature who understands the nature of light and shadow would find it very difficult, because shadows cannot be seen with infravision. However, such creatures would still make use of cover.

Hiding from creatures with infravision can be very difficult. Shadows and colored camouflage will be of no help. Covering yourself with cold mud or slime might disguise you until it is warmed by your body heat. Ten feet of thick fog could hide your heat. Going underwater would work very well... until you had to breathe. Hiding behind large rocks or trees blocks heat effectively, although eventually a fire or warm body would warm the air nearby producing a telltale glow, unless dissipated by wind. It may even be possible to hide in what would normally be plain sight by standing near a large source of heat such as a chimney, forge, or a large creature. It's possible that the air itself might even hide a person if it were very close to 98.6°. A spell like Invisibility to Infravision, or a magic item such as an "Evercold Blanket" could prove useful.

Ultravision

Above the color violet are shorter, more energetic wavelengths of light that are invisible to the human eye. This sliver of the light spectrum between violet and x-ray is called "Ultraviolet" or "UV". Ultravision allows creatures to see ultraviolet light. UV is found in sunlight (6.8% of sunlight is UV, 54.3% infrared, 38.9% visible to humans), electric arcs (lightning), and specialized black lights.

Creatures on Ezzin who only see in ultravision are basically screwed. The atmosphere of an Earth-like planet blocks most of the UV from its sun, electric arcs aren't common enough to be a viable light source, and black lights aren't readily available. Fire does NOT produce UV light. Creatures who only see UV would (I think) quickly be wiped out through natural selection. Therefore, most creatures on Ezzin with Ultravision also have an additional form of vision AND produce their own bio-luminescent UV light source.

Let's take a closer look at the Dwarves, shall we?

The Dwarves of Ezzin have evolved antennae which can glow like black lights. This output of light is controlled consciously and has two basic settings when in use. The first is totally invisible to human eyes, the second can be seen by humans as a faint blue/white glow in the tips of their antennae, almost equal to the brightness of a firefly, enough to see from a distance on a dark night but far less bright than a candle. To the Dwarves both of these settings give off UV light which allows them to see a 60' radius. This expenditure of energy is not negligible and may account for the Dwarves renowned appetite, and fondness for alcohol. Dwarves cannot maintain this glow for more than a few hours at a time, and must snack and drink throughout the day if they wish to produce the glow for extended periods without becoming fatigued.

Dwarven eyes have four types of cones. Three types see visible light just as humans do, these are sensitive to red, green, and blue. The fourth type is sensitive to a band of UV light, the Dwarves call this color "Jale". Thus, the dwarves see four primary colors which can all mix together, as opposed to the three seen by humans. Dwarves see many more colors in a rainbow than humans can. Because of this dwarves have little respect for human artistry, they see imperfections and color clashes where humans do not, likewise dwarven color schemes can seem ugly to human eyes.

There are rumors that the Dwarves have developed a secret language based upon the flashing of their antennae. It is said that they can communicate silently over great distances by interpreting the number and length of their flashes. Much is suspected, but little is known for certain... the Dwarves do not speak of such things with outsiders.

One odd side effect of this UV light production is fluorescence. Some chemicals in minerals, plants, or animals will absorb some the higher energy UV light produced by the Dwarves' antennae, and reflect or emit lower energy light that is visible to the human eye. Thus, sometimes when dwarves use their antennae, humans will see certain minerals, plants, or animals near the Dwarves begin to glow. The dwarves can also see these effects. Dwarven "magic" is based mostly upon superstition regarding such fluorescent effects (which may explain why you don't see many effective dwarven magic-users). Fluorescent minerals are highly valued in dwarf society, treated as gemstones (gemstones often fluoresce). These minerals might be used as construction materials, ground up to be used in inks, and for many other purposes. The "magical" properties of these minerals are usually based upon the colors that they fluoresce. Minerals than glow Blue/White under the antennae glow are usually considered protective or lucky, but keep in mind that dwarves often see colors a bit differently than other species.

If you thought Dwarves were sensitive about their beards, you won't believe the care and attention they give to their antennae. If severed, Dwarf antennae will grow back after 2d4 weeks. Healing spells will only close such wounds and stop bleeding, regeneration magic however can drastically reduce that time.

Darkvision

Darkvision looks essentially the same as normal vision, except that it displays only shades of black and white, and just so happens to work in total darkness. Many games use darkvision to replace infravision and ultravision because it is easier to imagine and has far fewer idiosyncrasies. Most sane GM's are wise to embrace it.

I, however, am not especially wise nor sane. I like all the interesting quirks provided by strange types of vision. I think it's fun to watch the players think outside the box and try to trick their opponents, and infravision/ultravision provide more opportunities for that sort of thing. I still plan to use darkvision for a few underground species though, because variety is nice, and the same tricks shouldn't work against everything.

Aura Perception

This ability belongs in this list least of all, those who possess it are called "Seer". Aura perception is more of a psychic ability than a form of vision, but the minds of those who can perceive it often overlay such information within the signals from the eyes. Yet, even if blinded, those with the gift will still be able to "see" the magic of the Dreaming Gods around them. Some seers can also "see" or feel magic that is behind them, out of their line of sight, but they are at a loss to describe how.

Some magical effects can be seen by anyone, light spells or fire magic especially. A seer sees... differently, the underlying forces are exposed. A seer can see spells as they are being cast, rather than just the effect at the end. Even the portals of the Dreaming Gods can be seen, though they sometimes appear without warning.

To see magic is a terrible thing.

Magic-users wear their prepared spells like a swirling fog. When cast, magic does not flow like water or gust like wind. Magic slithers and darts, it is very much alive. At times it even seems aware, staring back at those who watch it. It often looks much like a snake, slithering toward its target, and then striking like lightning at the completion of the casting.

Some seers can recognize the types of magic from the colors that they perceive, but such skill takes much practice. Even then, some peculiar spells might be seen in false or conflicting colors. Some of the most renowned seers claim that there are eight colors of magic, one for each school. The seven colors of the rainbow, plus an eighth color that some call Octarine.

It should be noted that the rune magic of the Azhuloughmahni cannot be seen by any seer, or revealed by any known magic. It is separate, different than the magic of the Dreaming Gods. It can only be revealed by looking for the runes themselves, which must be drawn or carved upon the enchanted object or person.

Invisibility, Darkness, and other Magical Effects

There are many sorts of low level specific invisibility. Invisibility to Undead, Invisibility to Infravision, Invisibility to Ultravision, just to name a few. The generalized spell "Invisibility" causes any frequency of light to pass directly through a subject, rendering them invisible to all forms of vision (though very sensitive seers might see the aura of the magic).

The spell "Darkness" does just the opposite. No frequency of light can penetrate a darkness spell, so no form of vision can see inside.

Some powerful magics were created in ages past by a magic-user known as Three-Eyed Gheairgo. It is said that with one eye, he saw as goblins do, with the second he saw as the dwarves, and the third eye that he grew for himself could see the Dreaming Gods themselves. Some say that it was Gheairgo who named the colors Ulfire, Jale, and Octarine. He had many apprentices, and he researched and attempted to cast spells upon them so that they could also see all of these things. None survived. Some wept tears of blood and lived long enough to say things like "It's so beautiful" or "My Gods, it's full of stars", but none lived longer than a few minutes after the casting. Three-Eyed Gheairgo went into seclusion after the death of his fifth apprentice, ROY G. BIV. There are many tales of his demise, but who can say which is the truth?

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Well, this took longer than I intended. Perhaps I should have split this into a few different posts, but it's finished now so it might as well stand together. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I was highly influenced by webpages about the merits and use of infravision, especially the one at General Starlight. Others who seem to despise infravision also helped in a way. Nothing pushes me to try harder than people telling me that something cannot be done, such as rants like this.

I would be remiss not to mention that I borrowed "Ulfire" and "Jale" from "A Voyage to Arcturus" by David Lindsay. "Just as blue is delicate and mysterious, yellow clear and unsubtle, and red sanguine and passionate, so he felt ulfire to be wild and painful [and] jale [to be] dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous."

I borrowed the color "Octarine" from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. A color which only wizards can see. It is described as being approximately a sort of fluorescent yellowish-greenish-purple', which may be based on the splashes of afterimage one sees after staring into a bright light.

I thank you, my readers. I hope you had fun. I appreciate your time, and welcome any comments.

4 Days Left: DungeonMorph Dice

2011-05-18T15:40:00.001-05:00

My readers probably already know about DungeonMorph Dice.

What you might not know is that the 2nd bonus goal of $17,000 has been reached today. So, now there will be 3 different sets of 5 dice. That's 15 different 6-siders! Thank you Joe Wetzel. The project is wrapping up on the 22nd. So now is the time if you want to contribute a little more to get that new set. Dice will be on sale for a while after that, but backing the project before the 22nd gets you first dibs. There are also some cool pledge items that might not be available later.

Here is a quote from their update page describing the 15 dice.

Set one will have a die with a few temple/worship area designs, a great halls die, a barracks die, a dining areas die, and a "specials" die. Each die would have 3-4 designs that fit the theme (but would still be somewhat generic--for example just drop the altar icon from a temple design and it can be a performance hall), 1-2 designs that would be more generic and 1 side that would be mostly corridors. This helps you be relatively sure you'll have some rooms for guards sleeping and a dining area, etc by picking the appropriate dice.
Set two would be caverns. These wouldn't be broken down in a similar way, but each die would have a basic caverns design, a design with some submerged areas/pools, a design with multiple levels/ledges, etc.
Set three will be more dungeons. This set would have a crypt die, a mage's study/labs/library die, a cellblock, an area with traps/ambushes, and maybe another barracks or another "specials" die. Again, 3-4 designs would fit the die's theme, but 1-2 would be fairly generic and 1 side would be mostly corridors.

Telecanter's Tumbler - The Map

2011-05-18T10:59:00.009-05:00

I mentioned previously that saw tumbling dungeons over at Telecanter's blog. My initial thoughts went something like this...

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A tumbling dungeon! How novel, how fun. I'm going to build one!

um... How do I map it?

Putting a three dimensional object on graph paper is ... possible... but what I really need is a 3-D model that I can keep at the gaming table. Something small enough that I can hide it behind the DM screen. Even then, I worry that someone might see it. Part of the fun will be watching the players try to map this thing, so I don't want a model sitting around for someone to catch a glimpse of and say "Ah HA! I understand it now.".

If only there were a way for me to camouflage the model. Ideally, I'd want to make it so inconspicuous that my players could stare right at it, watch me turn it to match the tumbling of the dungeon, and never think there was anything strange about it at all.

Oh!, here we go...

Problem solved!

I'll just reverse engineer a tumbling dungeon from this handy model of one that is disguised as my trusty d6.

Done! Now I've got the layout in my head, all fifteen rooms, fourteen passages, eight tiny tubes to allow water and sand to flow between rooms, an entrance, and a different exit.

Huh, that wasn't so bad. Now all I have left to do is populate and decorate the rooms and... oh, wait.

I have to describe all this on my blog using only pictures and text so that other people can understand it well enough to use in their own campaigns. Hmmm, let me think....
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*DAYS LATER*

Alright, grab a d6 and set it in front of you so that it matches my picture up there, 6 is on top, 4 facing toward you. Imagine a room at the middle of each of the six sides of the die. Your d6 has conveniently numbered them for you. Now imagine a 7th room in the very center of the die, each wall, floor, and ceiling there has a passage leading to one of the first six rooms. Good so far?

Now imagine eight more rooms, at each of the sharp corners on the d6. The four corners closest to room6 are named 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D. Room6 has a passage in each wall leading to each of it's lettered rooms, and a passage in the floor going to room7. The four corners closest to room1 are named 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D. Room1 has a passage in each wall going to each of it's lettered rooms, and a passage in the ceiling going to room7. The similarly lettered rooms line up above and below each other.

Yeah, that's confusing. How about a poorly drawn picture?

That compass is pointing North, and shows the direction of the tumble as Dropward and Riseward.

That picture isn't to scale by any means and the rooms aren't all cubes, but I hope it gives you an idea of the layout. Now I can talk about individual rooms, and if I say "Passage 6 to 6D" hopefully you know that I'm talking about the hallway on the top left side of the map. I also have a compass there pointing North, and showing that the direction of the tumble is from East to West like the sun traveling through the sky.

Let's start tumbling! Get your d6 ready if you want to play along at home. Right now room6 is above room7, next tumble room5 will be on top, the tumble after that room1 rises, the next tumble puts room2 on top, the fourth tumble puts room6 at the zenith and now our dungeon matches my drawing again. So, let's refer to the four different tumble orientations as 6up, 5up, 1up, and 2up. If I forget to specify, it's pretty safe to assume that I'm thinking in terms of 6up, just like the map.

Room3 is always North of room 7, room4 is always South.

I neglected to show the entrance, which I imagine to be a spiral staircase coming from the ceiling of room6. The exit is another set of spiral stairs set into the floor of room1. About twenty feet past the rooms, these stairways have a gap, like a straight crack going around all four walls. The gap is just large enough that you can squeeze your fingers into it, but not your hand. PRO TIP: You want to be on one side of the gap or the other when the dungeon tumbles, not half and half. This entire dungeon is inside a giant stone sphere, the gap is the edge of that turning sphere. Mind the Gap!

Also, I didn't show the tubes that start from the eight corners of room7. One tube going to each of the lettered rooms, leading to the middle of the sloped floors in 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D and the middle of the sloped ceilings in 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D.

Last thing, I'm also considering adding more passages. I don't like that most of the rooms have a single entrance/exit, but that does makes it easier to keep track of all the water and sand moving through the dungeon. Maybe I'll put curved passages in a ring around room7 connecting rooms 2 and 5 to rooms 3 and 4, or maybe I'll add some secret passages connection rooms 6, 5, 2, and 1. The point is, I'm probably going to be making changes to that map.

.... and if anyone is still reading this, I salute you. We have the bones of the dungeon now. Next time I'll start talking about individual rooms and it'll be less of a chore to read, I promise.

Oh, and Telecanter did advise me to keep the layout simple, so don't blame him for this monstrosity. He tried his best.

Gaming with Music, on Ezzin

2011-05-17T02:44:00.017-05:00

I'm writing this in response to a question I saw over at Jeff's Gameblog.

My Dreaming Gods campaign is still in the brainstorming stage. I'm planning to experiment with a lot things in the land of Ezzin, but making more use of music is one that I am particularly excited about. You see, I want music to influence magic in strange ways, but I'm still tinkering with the magic system too. Maybe groups of singing monsters can produce magical effects? I also want to tie music to the alignment system and the various beliefs about Dreaming Gods themselves, like this...

Law - Sing soothing music and lullabies to the Dreaming Gods, because life is easier when They slumber peacefully. These people believe that their world will cease to exist if the Dreaming Gods wake up.

Neutral - Some might make music to mimic the sounds of nature. Others might be attempting to raise the awareness of the Dreaming Gods so that They become lucid dreamers. Some zealots might even demand silence at all times, perhaps even attacking anyone who speaks above a whisper. Still others might not care one way or another, or refuse to believe in the Dreaming Gods at all.

Chaos - Sing loud, and/or badly. Metal music goes here, as do most of the Dwarves of Ezzin. These people attempt to awaken the Dreaming Gods with high volume, a lot of percussion, disjointed rhythms, dissonant chords, and the sounds of war. They believe that Ezzin will become a paradise once the Dreaming Gods wake up.

Along this train of thought, some of the "magical artifacts" brought from the dreamlands will be things like boomboxes and ipods, which some people will interpret as having religious significance. So, you might have a cult dedicated to Dio the Metal Lord or some such.

I was also thinking of having a troupe of NPC Dwarven bards called "Zed Leppzin". They have learned songs from one of these artifacts, and play them on magically enhanced instruments/tools of destruction. Their renown is legendary. They are on a neverending tour of the lands, leaving a string of shattered and liquor-less Dwarven cities in their wake. I giggle uncontrollably at the thought of the party of PC's defending a city full of drunken, partying Dwarves besieged by an army of orcs while the notes of the Immigrant Song ring throughout the city.

However, I still have concerns about music lyrics being too distracting during games. So I am considering equating racial languages to real-world languages...

Common = English
Elvish = Portuguese
Dwarvish = German
maybe,

Then I could use music sung in those languages to represent folk music of different races. This might work if everyone at the table is a dummy like me who only knows how to speak English. Then I could get away with having an elvish singer named Seu Jorge join the party, just so that I have an excuse to play some David Bowie songs sung in Portuguese (this one too).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely convinced that using so much music at the gaming table is wise. However, I feel that the potential for awesome is too great to ignore. I'll be posting on this topic again, once I have something substantial nailed down.

What do you think?

Underappreciated Monsters - Number the First Part II

2011-05-16T16:07:00.030-05:00

Giant Ants of Ezzin - Formicium garganteum (and related species)
No. Enc.: 1 or 1d4 every 3 rounds (5d20 hive population + 1 huge queen)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 210' (70')
Armor Class: 3
Hit Dice: 1
Attacks: 1
Damage: 1d6
Save: F2
Morale: 6 (12 if frenzied, or in hive)
Hoard Class: VI (in each debris/refuse chamber)
XP:100

Giant ants are typically 6' long and 3' tall. They attack with their snapping mandibles, if they cause maximum damage and had an attack roll of 20 then their target's hand, foot, or limb is severed. They have a thick armored exoskeleton, but a hit to their thin neck or waist can kill them quickly. Each one weighs about 100 pounds, can carry 500 pounds and run full speed, or up to 1000 at half. They cannot climb sheer surfaces or crawl along ceilings like normal ants, but can use their strong grip to climb trees or cracked and pitted walls at half speed.

They are scavengers, omnivores, and will carry back to the hive anything that doesn't put up much of a fight. They are not usually aggressive toward man-sized humanoids unless the hive is starving. Giant ants are active year round in the tropics but, in cooler regions, survive the winter in a state of dormant torpor. They are not usually found in caves or dungeons since they cannot tunnel through stone. Encounters in the wilderness may be a single worker scout looking for food, or a food gathering column of workers traveling back and forth between the hive and a food source. Giant ants will usually retreat when attacked or threatened, but if one is killed the others nearby will go into an attack frenzy. They will never retreat if inside their hive or protecting the queen. The huge queens can live for up to 10 years, and workers live from 1 to 3 years. The smaller males survive only a few weeks. Giant ant larvae take 6 months to develop into adults.

The Hive

The hive consists of many tunnels and chambers, at the center is the immense birthing chamber and the huge queen. The hive will have two larvae per adult worker during the warm seasons, but none survive during a cold winter. Larvae are constantly being moved by workers between the many feeding/nursery chambers. Larvae are brought to chambers close to the surface during the day for warmth, and then taken to deeper chambers at night to avoid the chill. Other chambers are full of debris and refuse cleaned from the tunnels, nurseries, and birthing chambers. These debris pits might contain items or treasure from past victims. As a rough guideline for designing hives, let say one birthing chamber for the queen, plus one nursery and one rubbish chamber per 10 workers.

Other Species

Just as there are many different species of ants, so too there are many species of giant ants. Above are the rough statistics for Formicium garganteum, other species of giant ant are usually similar but may have additional traits and quirks. The particular traits of the species encountered can be determined by random roll, or by choosing any number of the following.

1. As above. No extra traits.

2. Jumping. This species' four back legs have been specialized for jumping. Can jump 20' across, or 10' straight up.

3. Soldiers. +1d20 to hive population due to increased security. Double the percentage for any treasure roll. 1 of every 5 workers appearing is instead a 8' long soldier with a huge head: HD3, Move 150' (50'), Damage 1d10, Morale 8 (12), XP 300

4. Fungus Farmers. +2d20 to hive population due to food production. Many extra hive chambers are fungal gardens, workers bring rotting plant material into the hive and harvest the fungus after spreading the spores. -4 to morale unless protecting the hive or queen.

5. Livestock Farmers. +2d20 to hive population due to food production. Could be any creatures that the ants can reasonably pick up and carry without much fuss. Herds usually graze outside the hive while the giant ants herd and protect them, but some species keep their herds trapped inside the hive and feed them things that would otherwise go into the debris pits.

6. Symbiotic Relationship. +1d20 to hive population. The giant ants have some friends who share their hive. Maybe these friends help protect the hive, or share food with the ants, or produce heat that is good for the ant larvae. These friends could be anything, animal, plant, or mineral.

7. Acid Spitters. + 1d20 to hive population. This species can spit a stream of formic acid up to 20' once per day. No damage, but it can blind or stun an enemy for 1 or 2 rounds. Stinging in the eyes, sinus, and throat persist until washed away.

8. Stingers. + 1d20 to hive population. This species of giant ants all have stingers on the tip of their gaster. These ants can sting and bite fallen foes in the same round. Stinger damage is 1d4 + [something awful] if save vs. poison is failed.

9. Electric Ants. Hive population is halved due to special diet. This species can discharge an electric shock once per day that can flow through metal armor and weapons. Shock causes 1d4 damage and save vs. petrify/paralyze or fall to the ground and twitch for one round. These ants horde and sometimes eat gold, silver, and iron which may be why their exoskeletons are so conductive. These shiny exoskeletons are highly prized by alchemists. Electric ants can smell silver and gold coins and will try to take them, attacking if necessary. Horde Type: I (in each debris/refuse chamber) and VII (in each nursery)

10. Roll twice more.

As always, you can choose to just make stuff up too.