On the Effects of Magic, 1st level Wizard

This series was originally published in April of 2014.  This is part of an effort to update and archive these posts on the "Links to Wisdom" wiki. It is also available for a free download at DTRPG.

The magical energies contained in the brain could cause side effects. When the wizard acts as a conduit there are risks. As these are first level side-effects, the results should be minor. But higher levels of spells could certainly have more powerful or more far reaching side effects.

This makes wizards somewhat more unique based on the spells they know and can prepare. It also can make them more useful or somewhat of a liability.

Here is a listing of those side effects:


  • Affect Normal Fires: Light wisps of smoke rise from wizards collar
  • Burning Hands: The wizards hands are warm and sweat oil
  • Charm Person: The wizards voice become mildly hypnotic.
  • Comprehend Languages: The wizard experiences a slight delay in hearing all auditory phenomena
  • Dancing lights: When in motion, the wizard appears to shimmer momentarily in multi-colored light
  • Detect Magic: The wizard's sight becomes slightly blurry
  • Enlarge: The wizard becomes slightly larger, and when hit his skin bulges strangely
  • Erase: The wizard's clothes become slightly washed out in appearance
  • Feather Fall: The wizard has the same mass, but weighs ten pounds less
  • Find Familiar: A strange forest scent exudes from the wizard
  • Friends: The wizard's teeth become whiter and straighter, his hair appears luxurious and rich, and he smells good.
  • Hold Portal: The wizard's hair knots at the tips
  • Identify: While memorized his eyes become slightly larger
  • Jump: The wizard's skin becomes slightly elastic
  • Light: The character's skin becomes mildly luminescent. Not enough to illuminate his current space, but in a pitch black room, you could eventually make out his features. 
    • Alternately, his eyes may cast a dim light
  • Magic Missile: The wizard gains a slight echo to his voice.
    • Alternately, flickers of force may appear across his hands and arms
  • Mending: The wizard's clothing shrinks a size
  • Message: The wizard speaks with a mild rasp while this spell is prepared
  • Nystul's Magic Aura: The wizard radiates magic if detected
  • Protection from Evil: The wizard's skin takes on a dimensional sheen
  • Push: The wizard's skin actually repulses nearby object. His hands no longer grasp things directly, there is a very small (~1mm) invisible force surrounding the wizards skin. This does not protect the wizard from spells, weapons, or hazardous materials
  • Read Magic: When the wizard speaks, runes appear in the air for just a split second
  • Shield: The wizard's testicles shrink to the size of peas
  • Shocking Grasp: The wizard is charged with static electricity, zapping anything he touches
  • Sleep: The wizard become tired and his voice is somewhat monotone
  • Spider Climb: The wizard's hands are sticky as if he had just recently eaten an apple or some ice cream
  • Tenser's Floating Disc: The objects carried by the wizard are weirdly supported, seeming to be held up by invisible wires. This does not directly affect the encumbrance of the wizard (although it may reduce the effective encumbrance of items with bulk)
  • Unseen Servant: Objects will fall of tables and jump up out of sheathes without warning
  • Write: The wizard's hands appear inkstained.


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On the Effects of Magic, Cantrips and Rules

This series was originally published in April of 2014.  This is part of an effort to update and archive these posts on the "Links to Wisdom" wiki. It is also available for a free download at DTRPG.

An interesting wizard is a themed wizard.

The original magic-user had a very limited spell list with spells that were very focused on utility in a dungeon.

The original magic-user only had 8 first level spells, 10 second level spells, and 14 third level spells. They have 12 fourth level spells, 14 fifth level spells and 12 sixth level spells.

This gives them a grand total of 70 spells

A magic user in a second edition game has access to over 2,174 spells.

So how do the effects of magic help solve this problem? They introduce costs into being a wizard. Yes, they also give the wizard "extra power" but they do so unilaterally, meaning, also while you are walking through town or the dungeon, not just in combat.

Do you have protection from evil memorized? Congratulations on leaving a trail of chalk dust through the dungeon. Memorize water breathing? drooling next to the fighter while he talks with hobgoblins is going to weird them out. Do you have Wall of Fire prepared? Enjoy your walk through small villages with exclusively wooden buildings.

It can be a lot to keep track of, so the suggestion is to only allow the effects from the highest two levels of spells the caster knows. Upon reaching fifth level, the caster only has the effects of magic from second and third level memorized spells. This keeps the effects to under a dozen, meaning they are track-able.

This can work well in a game with specialist wizards who have limited spell lists and generalist Magic-Users. Generalists can learn any spell, but specialists can only learn spells from very specific limited lists of 8-10 spells a level. Specialists however can use or exhibit only the side effects from preparing spells when they wish due to their mastery and control, whereas generalist mages always exhibit the side effects.

Cantrips

“Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.”

Wizards of any sort may do any of the following at any time:

  • Touch someone to cause an involuntary bodily reaction at any time on a failed saving throw vs. paralyzation. (fart, bletch, blink, nod, yawn)
  • Produce a small lighter sized flame
  • Chill an object smaller than 1 cubic foot to 40 degrees. 
  • Clean one man-sized creature or smaller, or one 10' x 10' x 10' cube or smaller. Cleaning the cube takes the magic one turn.
  • Summon one diminutive vermin or insect
  • Kill one tiny vermin or insect
  • Control up to 1" of hair growth or removal.
  • Cause one object on his person to appear in his hand or an object in his hand to disappear off his person.
  • Travel while hovering 1" off a solid surface for up to 10'
  • Repair or mend small (minute) breaks or tears
  • Warm or cool an area by 10 degrees F.
  • Perform minor changes on small objects (change the color of parchment, turn a diminutive bat into a diminutive bird). These changes last from 1 day for very minor (color) changes, to 1 turn for subtle changes, to 1 round for drastic changes.
  • Open or close a regular door. Levitate objects weighing 1 pound or less within 10' of the caster
  • Cause a soft chime to ring
  • Animate diminutive objects for 1 turn

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On The Thursday Trick: The Kissing Maiden

This post was originally published in December of 2011. If you're interested in Tricks and Traps like these, be sure to check out Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas, collecting all of these along with beautiful illustrations. 

In honor of the only trap in Skyrim to cause me to die. Twice.

Swinging Grate (Melee Attack)
Trigger: Pressure PlateEffects: None
Save: WandsDuration: Instant
Resets: AutomaticBypass: None (Avoid)
Disarm

Description: Often triggered by a pressure plate that releases tension, this trap swings forward impaling anyone standing in its way. This can be a single sharp post (al' la the original Conan movie), an entire wall, or even a statue of a beautiful woman. The trap often comes equipped with a counterweight for automatic rearming.

Detection: In the vast majority of cases this trap must be visible. It can be camouflaged or concealed, but the impaling mechanism can be seen. Common means of camouflaging the trap include vegetation growing on the mechanism, dim light, and angled walls and corners.

There are often blood spots on the floor and end point of the traps arc of execution. Even if successful, there will rarely be a body, due to its tendency to become impaled on the trap itself. If struck by a trap with a body already in it, damage might be mitigated. Bodies or skeletons hanging without supports on the wall might be another way to detect this trap.

More subtle means of detection include the hollow space where the counterweight resides. This will often be in either a wall or floor. The trap can be disarmed, but this almost universally results in the trap being triggered because it is under tension. Having a firm grip on the trap and releasing the tension slowly is one option, another is to not be where the trap is triggered.

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On the Ecology of the Devil Swine

 


"Ain't every day your food tries to eat you." -Ropherius militia butcher , 

Nomenclature: Devil Swine, Pig Demons, Orcs, Beastmen, Feral worts

Description: Pigs that walk as men, or perhaps men who are secretly pigs

Things that are known:

  • They are shapeshifters, appearing as either pigs, men, or pig-men
  • They cannot change their form under the light of the sun
  • They consider human flesh a delicacy
  • They are immune to normal weapons
  • They have the ability to bewitch, bewilder, and bind humans as servants and slaves

Rumors and other whispers in the dark:
  • All leaders of men, kings of nations, and priests of gods are secretly devil swine.
  • They lair in forests and marshes because they are grown as fungi on rot-pits built by existing devil swine.
  • Devil swine aren't devils at all. They are demons that represent human vice run amok. Each one is a personification of a cardinal sin: Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Pride, Sloth, Lust, Wrath. Humans that fall victim to these are transformed into Devil Swine.
  • Devil swine never fight fair. They are fond of ambushes.
  • Their brains reside in their stomach, and become increasingly agitated as they become more and more hungry.
  • They have the ability to summon and control Peccaries, small omnivorous wiry boars with short straight tusks
  •  They don't charm humans, they show them their true selves. Their minds are so pure of id, that it breaks down any civilization humans have convinced themselves they possess, gaining control of their minds as an extension of the devil swine's own needs
  • They have white skin, because the outer layer of their skin is a constantly shedding layer of decaying flesh
  • Devil swine don't charm men, they are infected with a luminous fungal growth that they spread. This infection is sentient and controls both the devil-swine and men
  • When you run from a suidae, they gain boldness and the character of a man. It is important to show no fear. The slightest hint will give them the power of men
  • Devil swine are invisible to anyone aiming a ranged weapon
  • Devil swine are the most filthy of any living creature
  • Though they speak and walk on two legs, there is no taming the wild and chaotic nature of the Devil swine
  • They carry a curse, because they have been the only animal to wound a god
  • Devil swine create new children by using their tusks to remove bark from trees, the resultant pulp grows into a devil swine by the next new moon
  • Any contact with a devil swine will curse you with a malign disease
  • The devil swine is actually the ancestor of man, the legendary pig-monkey
  • The body of a devil swine doesn't contain meat, only unwholesome moistures and humors
  • It's not moistures and humors that fill the body of the devil swine, once slain their bodies become formless lard
  • All devil swine suffer from constant copremesis
  • Devil swine do not talk through their snouts, but rather through long slits across their necks, from when they were slain as pigs
  • No more than one devil swine is allowed to die on any day, so killing just one will drive them all away
Variants Devil swine are shapeshifters, but are not 'true' lycanthropies. But there have been tales of them being able to share or extend their shapechanging magic to dogs, snakes, and rats also, allowing them to take the form of men, so long as they serve the devil swine
Combat Tricks Devil swine never engage in prolonged combat, preferring hit and run tactics. They ply their victims with food and worthless treasures
Food spray: The devil swine sprays out all the food that's in it's mouth along with bile, stomach acid, and a bit of wine. Everyone nearby is at -2 on all their rolls until they can take a turn to clean themselves off. Not cleaning yourself off within 2 hours will cause you to contract 2-5 diseases.
Leg Run: Instead of taking any other action, a devil swine in combat can drop to all fours and run through the legs of the target. The target must save versus paralyzation/Dexterity/Reflex or fall prone. The devil swine can move up to 40' behind the target
Valuable Resources A bezor extracted from a devil swine is said to be very powerful, and the rendered fat of their bodies can be a useful base for candles, slaves, and waxes.

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On Locks and Keys: Redux

This post was originally published in 2014. This is part of an effort to update and archive these posts on the "Links to Wisdom" wiki.

So for the past year or so, we've been playing with the BURP lock system in Numenhalla.

After extensive playtesting, we've found it to be somewhat unsatisfactory.

BURP Lockpicking

In short, a lock has a number of pins. Each pin has an action that will set it, allowing you to go to the next pin. If you guess an adjacent option the pin gets stiff. If you guess an option farther distant, the pin jams.

The actions are, Bump, Undulate, Rake, and Probe.

Pro's:
If you have a Dragon Shadow Double Pin brand lock (BBUU), and the players record the sequence, then the next time they run into a Dragon Shadow Double Pin, then they already know how to get past it.
You can have related locks (Like a Dragon Shadow Triple Pin (BBBUUU)) allowing players to use their previous collected "Lockpick spellbook" to assist with future locks.

Con's:
The process of selecting which pin is completely random and uninfluenced by player skill.

Why? There is always a "Best Option" and when there is more than one choice, there's no information to use to decide which is best, making the choice random. Since all the player choices are random, you could essentially just calculate a percentage chance of success and roll the dice to save time!		 You could calculate a percentage chance of success and roll the dice to save time!

I wonder where I've seen that before?

A new solution

What we're looking for is a minigame that involves player choice and considers character skill. Mastermind seems like an excellent option (for example), but it isn't a mini-game. It's really a whole game, and would occur far too frequently in a megadungeon environment with many locked doors.

So here's my new solution!

Yahtzee locks
Locks have a set number of pins. The number of these pins is unknown to the lockpicker.
Players receive a pool of D6's. They may roll these dice once and turn in the dice in to pick a certain number of pins.

For example, if you turn in a single pair, let's say two 4's on the dice, that will set a single pin. If you turn in a set of triples, you set two pins. A full house (a pair, and triples) will set four pins.

If you have a lockpicking skill, at certain thresholds/levels/whatever, you gain the ability to reroll any number of the dice you wish, once, twice, or more. If you have a reroll and your dice come up 1,2,2,3,4,4 you could choose to reroll the two's and three's to go for more fours, or reroll the 3 to get a full house. The 1 would be pulled from your die pool.

Again, the player decides when to turn in dice to set pins and they don't know how many pins the lock has.

Anytime you roll a 1, that dice is removed from your pool for this lock. You start each new lock with a fresh pool of dice. If you fail to set all the pins, you jam the lock and it will no longer open.

Viola! Meaningful player choice, a reason to track locks, and something that takes into account player skill.

Here is the table:
Dice Set Number of Pins set
Doubles 1
Triples 2
Four of a Kind 5
Five of a Kind 8
Small Straight (4 in a row) 5
Large Straight (5 in a row) 8
Full House 4


  • Characters get a number of dice (1d6) equal to 1/2 their level (minimum 1) in their lockpick die pool.
  • Thieves/Experts get a number of dice (1d6) equal to their level + 1 in their lockpick die pool.
  • Characters get a number of bonus dice equal to their AC bonus from Dexterity added to their pool.
  • You need lockpicks to pick a lock
  • Masterwork or excellent lockpicks allow a free reroll.
  • For percentile editions, every 20% you get in your lockpicking you get an additional 2 dice and an additional reroll.
  • For Skills, the middle road: Untrained devices just grants you your dice as listed above. For each level (Skilled/Expert/Master) you gain +2 dice and a free reroll. So a master in devices would have +6 dice and could reroll 3 times. (Note that experts still get their 1 free mulligan per level, which can apply to any single die rolled in this pool)


How many pins does a lock have? Generally a number of pins equal to 1d6 per dungeon level.

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On Monday Musings I

Hi.

This blog used to smash down all kinds of theory and ideas. Except now, most of them are mainstream. I'm not going to be doing the same thing I was doing in 2008 or 2012. I'm over here in 2021. I'm making things with those theories and ideas. 

I have three scheduled games a week. I'm aware of the fan who only buys and doesn't play, but opposed to the late 90's, these consumers are in the minority. 

Becoming a professional has changed things, I understand situations more clearly. I won't be writing about it here on this blog, for essentially the same reason that I had to become a professional before hearing these things. That's the kind of stuff that happens during conversations during my office hours. 

One of my favorite creators is Bodie. He publishes Dungeons & Dragons material that is almost entirely illustrated in the manner of Adventure Time via Shin-Chan in a Fist of the North Star World. He's like the R. Crumb of modern gaming. I play D&D with him on Mondays.  It starts at like 9 am but he lives on the other side of the planet.

The thing I find most disturbing about this weird nationalistic obsession sweeping the globe is that my livelyhood is dependent on the U.K, Brazil, Czech republic, Israel, Spain, France, and Portugal. Those make up the (slight) majority of my sales.

I grew up in a place filled with bitter and angry people. Those kinds of people are no longer part of my life. I'd like to be clear—I've worked with plenty of people who have anhedonia. The inability to regularly feel happiness did not make them miserable. I once worked with a client who was insanely rich, but was in a car crash at 16 that left him seriously disabled. I never met a more positive person. The people I met and know in south and central Arkansas are acerbic and miserable by choice. 

It's really amazing and wonderful to no longer live in a world with those people. Not only is the area I'm currently in more positive; my time on-line is filled with hard-working people who don't have time for hostility and despondence. 

So I get to play D&D on Mondays. The players include Bugbear Bubbles who makes soap and bath bombs with D&D dice in them, and Insomniadoodles who's an artist and accessibility/VR streamer. These are great people. 

You don't usually party wipe in fifth edition. Bodie was testing his new adventure — the Bonehole. We considered the names "The Graveshaft" or even "The Wyrm in the Bonehole" or "The Wyrm in the Graveshaft"

You’ve been hired by an alliance of small towns to pay a visit to the lair of Domegus the Wretched. For months, the powerful necromancer has been robbing fresh graves in the dark of night. You’ve been tasked to discover why Domegus is taking the dead, and if possible: prevent her plans from reaching fruition. Reliable information tells that Domegus is currently away from her lair, providing a perfect opportunity to sneak in. You’ve also been informed that a confrontation with Domegus would surely end in an unpleasant end for the entire party.

Did I mention we all died? We even got a gruesome death scene. We woke, bound, and watched Domengus the Wretched sacrifice us to the wyrm in the bonehole. It was an amazing time. 

His work is primarily visual, it's set up to work with Foundry. I'm not a big fan of virtual table tops, for the same reason I'm not a fan of character builds. For me the adventure is in the exploration and choices—the adventure. I just use a whiteboard and video chat when I play online. But I have to say, they sure are pretty maps. Super-engaging for players. 

This isn't some kind of sponsored post. I work with Bodie a lot, and getting murdered in a total party kill is fun! I got immortalized as a zombie, and my character was kind of a brute. He deserved his fate. 

There's a subsection of people who believe that someone earning a living making stuff is degenerate. It's my assessment that this sentiment comes from people who have failed and want to see others fail to make themselves feel better. I came to this conclusion because I'm spending time with creators, community builders, artists and more. Making stuff ain't easy, and making it good is harder. We should be so lucky to have an industry that supports this stuff. 

Getting those negative Nancy's out of my life (turning off blog comments, going private on twitter, and only conversing with people who are a part of my communities) and getting to work has been the most positive change I've ever made in my life. I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad or jealous. I'm telling you you can leave behind negativity, childish petulance, moral guardians, and sardonic sarcasm stemming from bitterness and join me. 

We are all still flawed people who are growing and learning—this is no claim of superiority. The difference is, when people in these communities face struggle, they share it. They take steps to deal with it in an appropriate manner and are supported for doing so in the community. It's idyllic. There's no drama in these communities (at least, not in the years I've been a part of them.) 

The internet is changing things, and I think negativity in fandom is dying. I saw a cartoon make fun of Snyder fanboys. People with derogatory attitudes are dismissed or ignored. It's not like this is a situation that's fixed. It's a situation that requires constant effort and improvement. But it's happening. Objectively people are better off now and moving in that direction. In the 90's topics in the RPGA were "You aren't allowed to portray any non-heterosexual relationships in association games.". Could you imagine someone making that rule today?

The future is happening and it's going to be difficult, and creators, people who make things and struggle to manage the administration of society, in my experience, have no patience for disruptive elements. And really, if you're coming into an environment to get your needs met by throwing around threats or having a tantrum, you're not going to want to stay when instead of reacting and addressing the content, people instead assist people with coping. If you want to be mad, you won't be there. 

See you tomorrow!



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On Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas

Hi all!

My new book, Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas is out in PDF on DTRPG. It will be on Kindle and in Print on Amazon by early next week, and on DTRPG in softcover and hardcover by mid-march.

It turned out—well—people seem to really like it. There's a huge preview on DTRPG, and the video below is a pretty thorough walkthrough of how useful and beautiful it is. If you are wondering why I don't post as much lately, I personally drew well over 100 illustrations for this book. Here are some samples.





It's already got several 5 star reviews. Here's a video review of a preview copy:


You are already a great Dungeon Master. You run a game really well.

What's the difference between a room and a chamber? What's the difference between a mausoleum, a sepulcher, and a crypt? Would disarming traps be more exciting if you understood how those complex mechanisms worked? What does a magic trap look like? What does a solar room look like and what's usually inside?

What's in it?

Over 100 Illustrations of Lavish environments Guidelines for escalating threats while respecting player agency Hundreds of ideas for tricks and traps.

No longer will your players complain about traps or unfair encounters. Now when they meet their doom, they will blame themselves for their own foolishness! Be as cruel and devious as you want with these guidelines on how to do so fairly!

Looking for something to spice up an encounter? Pick one of hundreds of options of traps, rooms, walls, tricks or more! Fill rooms with ease, design encounters in ways that give your players the freedom to put their own characters in hot water!

What's it for?

Referees who run games and understand their role in facilitating the groups adventure. This book provides guidance on how to create encounters that respect players and allow you to make encounters as exciting and dangerous as you want, without fear of being unfair. Imagine a group excited to discover a trap. Fill in your gaps of knowledge raising your confidence and making you a master ready to lead players on an adventure.

These objective procedures give referees tools that fire a desire in players to dive into your creative world, discover its detailed history, and make their mark on it. Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas gives you the tools to eliminate doubt and provides a library of ideas that will take you decades to exhaust. It will be a vade mecum, at hand for every environment and dungeon you create. Design a dangerous dungeon, concoct an ingenious trap, develop a diabolical arena, all with confidence and without concern. Give yourself the power, all with simple and clear guidelines!

This is a book used in every game you run. Your next campaign, the one after that, the one after that. . . Not one wasted word. Every page is crammed with content and creativity. No filler. Tools that describe devilish traps and devious decoys. Explore your own Artifices, Deceptions, and Dilemmas today!

Buy it now, Today!

Hack & Slash 

Follow, Twitch, Newsletter, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating)

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