Making a Zine

Fall of Autumn is a site with resources, links and locations about zines. One of the links that got my attention pertained to making a zine. I keep thinking in terms of folded 8.5 by 11 paper held together with staples. Here is a link on how to make a perfect bound book of cards. The idea I had was a book of NPCs for Adventurer Conqueror King. Each NPC fits on an index card and would be readily available. I could even add index tabs to mark the level of the NPC.

New Games to Play

Want some martial arts action? Try Flying Swordsmen. Want  a fast and free d20 fantasy game? Try Heroes Against the Darkness.

Flying Swordsmen has only four classes, but all of them can use martial arts. It feel like many of the older clones, but has a fun system for the crazy moves straight out of the old kung-fu movies I watched as a kid.

Heroes against the Darkness has 11 classes. It is well-written and has great art. I appreciated the example character creations. It looks like once you have created a character, then it is a fast-playing game. I’ve not read all of it yet, but it is fun.

Something for the Game You Already Have

With the One Page Dungeon Contest, you’ll always have more than enough adventures for you and your friends. Alex Schroeder talks about what he likes in a one-pager along with his favorites so far. I agree that I also like adventures that allow sneaky characters to be sneaky.

Solo Play that Is Not T&T

Nothing against Tunnels & Trolls at all. It’s great. This is about a solo adventure for USR. Locket Away is an adventure in a non-traditional fantasy setting. This says it better:

You play as a hard-boiled detective in a fantasy realm on a hunt for a mysterious locket that belongs to the beautiful mistress of Prince Talos. Thrilling brawls, seedy locales and strange denizens await you on this investigation into the heart of Jailton.

I’ll let you know how it plays after this weekend. Woot!

Speaking of New Places

Just read about The Ruins of Char’realra – A Failed Dwarven Colony on Mars!

Any Port in a Storm

Bruce Heard unearths an old document talking about the ports of Mystara. It deals with size and capacity, but also provides a ranking system. I’d like to see this adapted to ACKS. You can download the pdf here.

I hope to have more meaningful content sometime soon. Until then, happy reading!

The proficiencies may change, but here are the ones I have so far. These are all in ACKS already:

Acrobatics, Battle Magic, Beast Friendship, Command, Contemplation, Craft, Diplomacy, Healing, Illusion Resistance, Leadership, Magical Music, Mystic Aura, Performance, Quiet Magic, Sensing Power, Unflappable Casting, Weapon Focus

The others so far are reworked feats from the SRDs:

Delay Power, Psionic Armor, Psionic Body, Psionic Fist, Psionic Shot, Psionic Weapon, Speed of Thought, Up the Walls.

Yes, I will be changing the names. I don’t like everything having the word psionic in it. A few more proficiencies are on the way as well.

Adventures in Book Buying

Today I was at Half-Price books pondering another RPG purchase. I don’t get a bit of allowance often, but I was eager to see what deals I could get. Last time I found a TORG book for about four dollars. That was a few months ago, so I figured the stock had changed…

Someone at this branch of Half Price apparently checks eBay for price comparisons. The Birthright box set without War Cards was $30. The 2nd Edition Tome of Magic was way high as well. About the best deal I found was a Metabarrons hardback for $15. I wasn’t able to get it.

What I did find, however, was a book about Southeast Asian history. Specifically, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450 – 1680 by Anthony Reid for about $6. Tanah-Con-Rahn is inspired by Southeast Asia and this is the perfect sourcebook. Not only does it detail daily life, but warfare, urban culture and pastimes. One of the aspects I liked is the discussion about mass conflict. The prevailing mood in conflict was that land was forever, but human capital was limited. Apparently, battles weren’t fought to the last man or anything like that. In fact, cities didn’t have walls. An army would invade, and the citizens would wait in the woods until the invaders left.

The goal of mass conflict was to actually capture people. The measure of power was in the number of slaves and people under a ruler’s control. People were a limited resource, so you didn’t waste them in war. In fact, if you completely wiped out your opposition, you lost the opportunity to capture their forces. Not only did you want to avoid losing lots of your troops, but avoiding lots of theirs.

How was mass combat handled? Many times it was either handled through one-on-one combat (champion to champion) or through scaring the other force. The reason a ruler would amass a huge army was to lower the morale of his opponent. One way of lowering morale was to prove that your force had superior magic, defensive or offensive. In fact, when firearms arrived in the area, shots were more often fired into the air rather than at the enemy.

From a game standpoint, mass combat is basically a reaction roll. Before the reaction roll, though, each side could wheel out their crossbreed or extraplanar champion to fight it out. As the fight progresses, each side makes reaction rolls based on how the fight is going. When one fails, the battle is over. If the champion route doesn’t work, it could be a mega-powerful weapon, or mutant elephants. One of the more powerful effects could even be the sudden transformation of the front line into rakshasas.

As an aside, this also addresses another issue, why are the endless forests filled with weird monsters? It’s filled with the losers (or permanently transformed troops) from the many wars and skirmishes throughout the land.

As far as diversions, it seems that gambling on animal fights was quite popular. However, it doesn’t have to be magical creations. It can be roosters (for the lower classes), tigers, even elephants. The big battle might be the weird and bizarre, but it doesn’t have to be.

By the way, stronghold rules would be the same for every class…

Okay, okay, okay. What does this have to do with the ACKS Psionicist?

The Tanah-Con-Rahn setting features variations of the ACKS Psionicist. I want to make certain that the ideas I have for Tanah-Con-Rahn are possible in the rules I present. For that matter, there are a class of people in the space fantasy setting based on the Psionicist. (They are called the Pythagoreans.)

More to come. I hope to finish more tonight and enjoy a good book tomorrow.

I love the idea of a Rune generator, even though I do not draw very well. I may use it to inspire the psionic combat chart…

Of great interest, though is the RPG Class Generator. In a sense, it reminds me of the Pars Fortuna rules. I don’t know how flexible the ACKS system would be to this kind of treatment, but it makes some great results. Here’s the first generated results I got. (Yes, I chose 4 classes.)

This class predominantly features exploring skills, aiding allies, offensive fighting and rituals. They are poor at cultural skills, crafting skills and agility. This class is associated with those from a specific background.

This class is best at speedy movement, cultural skills, battlefield control and a specific nature skill and is also capable with heavy weapons. They have no talent for magical melee combat, healing, physical ranged combat and wisdom. They draw power from the elements. They have one of several signature weapons.

This class is best at cultural skills, defensive fighting, charisma and exploring skills. They are especially bad at stealth, magical melee combat and physical strength. The class is restricted by philosophy.

This class is best at stealth. They are weak at a specific physical skill and cultural skills. They are better known for their non-combat skills.

Nothing hits me strongly about these first four. The first one makes me think of a spell-wielding Ranger. The third makes me think of a cross between a warlord and an invoker and thus more interesting. Let’s try another roll:

This class is good at healing. They are weak at rituals, magical area effects, battlefield control and physical strength. They are best known for a specific skill. Certain subclasses are associated with certain philosophies.

A healer class. I guess you could say that this would be the exact opposite of a necromancer. (Vivamancer?)

This class is good at dealing with metaphysical entities. They are especially bad at mechanical skills, exploring skills and heavy weapons. They have a signature weapon. The class is associated with a particular race.

Metaphysical entities, eh? I think of metaphysical entities as things like Entropy, Chaos, Order, Life, Death, etc. It could be a specific type of mage or a meta-cleric. Meta-cleric meaning that no specific gods are invoked, but more of a metaphysical reality. Very Hindi in flavor…

This class is best at cultural skills. They are especially bad at a specific social skill, exotic weapons and rituals. The class has subclasses which can vary widely in their abilities based on region of origin.

Cultural skills. I have to figure out what that would mean.

This class is good at a specific nature skill, a specific physical skill and defensive fighting and is also capable with speedy movement and physical skills. They are not very capable with fighting multiple opponents, battlefield control and intelligence. Progression beyond a certain point requires an ordeal. They have a signature fighting style.

I don’t know why this makes me think of a monk, but with an animal companion or totem of some sort.

Happy rolling!

Then, I found ACKS. It is probably the closest thing to the amalgam of B/X, AD&D, Spelljammer and Rules Cyclopedia I played with my high school group. Half of all the game worlds I’ve done are forms of that high school rule set. The other half are either d20-ish or Savage Worlds.

So, I set out to create a toolset that would allow me to fairly quickly create a bunch of ACKS material to share. I discovered Markdown and various Markdown editors and began to write. I thought that by using Markdown, I could save time writing. After everything was written in Markdown, I could convert it to odt files (with pandoc) and put it in LibreOffice to compile into a Master Document. From there, Calibre would churn out eBooks in various formats and Scribus would help me with the PDF.

After a month of trying to get Markdown, Textile and other markup scripts to work for me, I’ve discovered that it is just easier to use LibreOffice to begin with. OSR games have lots of tables. Markup languages either do not allow easy typing of tables, or do not have an app that allows a quick preview of what you’re writing. Being dyslexic, I need that visual feedback to make sure the table itself is formed correctly. (LibreOffice can do spell checking.)

So, now I am back to setting up templates and Autotext entries in LibreOffice. I used mail merge to build the list of psionic powers. The psionic class has been typed up (with all tables except the one for psionic combat.) After tonight or tomorrow night, all of that should be in place.

So I apologize for the delay in releasing the ACKS Psionicist. I have been working the entire time, just on the wrong things. So it’s time for content, content, content. The only interruption will be getting the Player’s Companion and making sure the class fits into the system well enough.

Feel free to follow Sycarion Diversions on Google Plus. I’ve gotten help from two folks there to come up with name titles, explain psionic combat and talk about how the psionicist class got its XP Progression.

Aiming for Memorial Day for the Psionicist and Kelyn of Ilrion. Then Tiezerekan  or Tanah-Con-Ranh by the end of the summer.

Still, the point is, I’ve spent several hours I don’t really have reading on G+. Not a complaint, just an admission of my ADD.

So for the ACKS Psionicist Class, a few things:

• Point-based system.
• Magic does not equal psionics. In other words, psionics are not just another form of magic.
• There are wild talents, but almost 98% of the individuals with a wild talent become a psionicist because…
• …there is a game reason to be a psionicist. Mages must have a gift to cast spells – you have it or you don’t.
• Wild talents are treated like proficiencies.
• No multi-classing with a psionicist.
• Powers from OD&D and Dragon#24 are included, but there are new powers, too. The choices of power reinforce the assumed campaign premise for their existence, so they may seem a bit odd.
• What? No psionic blast? How will the phrenic scourge inspire fear the hearts of adventurers? The answer is that it will be really, really nasty.
• Powers do not have levels like spells. Yes, there are ritual powers.
• Psionic combat is different.

One of his favorite things to do is to ask what an object would be like in a magical ‘land’ where it could walk and talk. For example, he will ask things like, “what are dolphins like in Dolphin Land?”

Today’s question was, “what are letters like in Letter Land?”

This got me to thinking about a place in the Astral Sea where everyone can cast 1e style cantrips with a simple sound. This would be little things like burp, hiccup, spice, clean, etc. However, more powerful magics require multiple individuals speaking their spell together. This is analogous to letters coming together to form words.

I don’t want to do anything as complex as determining which individual cantrips come together to form more powerful spells. Most languages with an alphabet (as opposed to a syllabry) have individual sounds that form words together without assigning a meaning to the individual sound. For example, in the word “fun” in English, the letters by themselves have no meaning.

What this means is an entire culture where individual spellcasting is practically non-existent or somehow culturally abhorrent. There wouldn’t be mages or clerics in an adventuring party, but the party as a collective whole could perform magic.

What this allows is a party that is connected together by their religion adventuring together. The collective whole functions like a cleric (heal spells, turn undead, etc.) but individually, the members have different functions. In a D&D sense, the party would basically be variations of fighters and thieves.

Thinking further, though, it may not make sense to have a dichotomy between divine and arcane magic at this point. Combining the spell lists, so to speak, leaves open the question of how the party could turn undead. As a tangent, being undead could come to mean in this culture, that the individual no longer has their cantrip and cannot contribute to a community casting a spell. Being undead means a loss of identity and a loss of community which is why undead are so feared.

As a tangent to the tangent, individuals that lust for power would work on a different kind of magic that the society would find abhorrent outside of necromancy. Necromancy is bad enough, animating bodies that have no identity or community. This new form of magic would seek to artificially create a community so that an individual, instead of a group, could cast more powerful spells. This could be something like a secret room in a stronghold that imprisons individuals or as odd as somehow combing individuals as an amalgam. The Amalgam would be abhorrent to the society because it is not willing community and because of the stripping of identity of many so that one can become its own community.

Back to adventuring parties, there are two ways to increase diversity in the spells that they can cast. One way is for individuals learn more cantrips. This would not be a frequent event. An individual may learn three or four cantrips in an entire lifetime. (No, they cannot combine them to cast spells for themselves.) The other way is to increase the size of the party over time. This would give new members of the party a meaningful way to contribute without functioning strictly as meatshields. (Meatshields aren’t bad. I use them in other settings. In this society, though, I’m not sure the idea of meatshields would fit.)

Another thing this idea allows is for a village to be able to ward off a big bad monster without necessarily hiring some mercenaries to do it. The entire village can come together to cast one “big” spell to banish a demon or ward off an ancient dragon.

It occurs to me that there should be a class of individuals that study magic so that it is known who to put together in order to cast a spell. Individuals know their cantrip(s), but someone outside of the individual would need to know how to put them together. (This could be this society’s idea of leadership.) Thinking of Fighters as people that solve problems with weapons and strength and Thieves as people that solve problems by using their skill, one of the skills a thief (or an LOTFP specialist) would be the study of magic. In essence, he or she would be like a sociologist.

This would also make certain monsters, like orcs, dangerous at all levels of play. Increasing the number of orcs increases their sword power *and* their magic power. Hmmm.

Passing thought – maybe dragons can still be individual spellcasters, one of the many reasons that they would be feared, but their power would come from the amalgam type of magic mentioned earlier. Dragons wouldn’t eat people, but keep them for the ability to be a spellcaster.

For ACKS, the party may need to be able to gain proficiencies as a group. I need to think about that some more. What do you think?

Just some food for thought on a Saturday. Feel free to steal and use for your purposes if it spurs some ideas.

Looking to expand the Kelyn NPC from the previous post. The post about his unusual companion, Mishabroo, contained information about the mage at various levels. I hope to make it into a PDF with full stats of Mishabroo, two (only two) new proficiencies, new spells, new creatures and hopefully some new magic items. April is really busy, so I’m not sure of the timeline.

It will be stated per the ACKS rules, but hopefully won’t be too hard to adapt to other systems.

I worry about proficiency inflation, so I only add two. One of them is a mage class proficiency related to mages that train under Kelyn. It will be similar to the Black Lore of Zahar proficiency. The other has to do with Kelyn’s ability to quickly create formulas for magic items.

The spells will deal with Kelyn’s unusual focus on constantly improving Mishabroo, his fear of teleportation and psionicists and his dislike of blasting spells like Fireball and Lightning Bolt. One of the spells will be Call Primordial – this is related to a series of posts I did on primordials a few months ago. Some of the other spells, including ritual spells, will come from the SRD.

The new creatures will initially come from his early cross-breeds and constructs. Kelyn has a preference for constructs, mostly because he is trying to duplicate Mishabroo and is unable to do so. Other creatures will be stated forms of the primordials mentioned earlier.

Kelyn won’t have a fully detailed repertoire in order to allow GMs to customize him into their campaign. The snapshots of Kelyn through history should also allow adventures in time.

As far as the new magic items, a couple of them will appear to be of little use to the PCs. Hopefully these items can serve as hooks for possible new quests.

Most children with the gift do not begin to manifest the gift until twelve or thirteen years old. Even the local mage marveled at his tender years. She immediately began his training despite the fact that Kelyn’s family could not afford the training. She was more concerned about him controlling the power rather than money. She felt responsible to do what she could to help.

When Kelyn began his training, the mage soon discovered that he had a great talent for magic. He had a knack for learning the language of magic very quickly. At the time, his ability to manifest magic seemed to be quite limited.

After two years, though, the mage doubted her ability to handle him and recommended that the family send him to her mentor in the city of Ilrion. The family did not want to be separated from Kelyn, but painfully agreed that it was best. The mage supported his training to avoid inflicting double pain on the family.

On the journey to Ilrion, he managed to make his favorite toy move on its own. Although roughly formed from odd-shaped wood scraps, Kelyn loved this toy because it was made by his father. Kelyn managed to hide his toy’s power for a number of years while he trained.

When he ended his training at the age of 17, he made an unusual request at his graduation. The custom was that a graduate could only take one item from the house and the clothes on their back. Most graduates took the opportunity to take one of the magical devices the great mage either made or found on his many journeys. Kelyn asked only for Mishabroo, the toy made for him by his father. The great mage knew that it had some magical power, but he dismissed the animated toy as a trifle.

Those that know of  Kelyn of Ilrion are well aware of the error of that assumption. Mishabroo is the feared companion of Kelyn. Despite its rough appearance, unchanged since its creation, Mishabroo demonstrates a wide range of powers.

Since Mishabroo was awakened on that journey to Ilrion, Kelyn has imbued it with many abilities. Mishabroo has been given a level of intelligence and an ability to communicate through telepathy. Mishabroo can also plant any memory it possesses into the mind of another creature. These memories include many that Kelyn has placed there himself. If Mishabroo is somehow teleported away from Kelyn, it will always reappear at Kelyn’s side a short time later.

In combat, Mishabroo can grow to twenty feet tall. It can also transform into stone or iron at any time. It can also extended any one of its limbs out to double its current height. When this power is manifested, the hand and limb appear to be attached by a thick rope. The rope is not visible until this specific power is manifested.

Using Kelyn and Mishabroo

Kelyn is ultimately fated to become a god of magic. When Mishabroo has all the powers described above, Kelyn is almost a demi-god in power. At this point of Kelyn’s life, he has researched several unique spells, he has created all manner of constructs and bizarre creatures. He has traveled the Astral Sea and is able to summon any primordial he wishes. He has traveled to the stars and knows how to construct a spacefaring ship.

If Kelyn is encountered just as he is graduating, he will be a 4th level mage. At this point, Mishabroo can communicate through telepathy and has the intelligence equivalent to a dog. Mishabroo can also extend his limbs, however he cannot grow in size, nor manifest any of the other abilities listed above.

Kelyn is at his weakest at this point if you use the ACKS rules. He is not able to create scrolls, potions, etc. He can only imbue Mishabroo with powers from spells he already knows. This means his spell book contains: ESP, Phantasmal Force, Extend Limbs (a custom spell taught by his mentor) and any other spells the GM wishes to provide.

Once Kelyn is able to research spells at 5th level, he begins to amass formulas for creating magic items and generating his own spells. His spell book should include many custom spells, including the processes to call specific primordials.

At levels between 4 and 14, here are some guidelines for the powers that Mishabroo has and certain spells that should be in Kelyn repetiore:

6th level – Mishabroo can visually plant a memory in any creature. Kelyn has just begun to place his own memories into the Mishabroo. Mishabroo can also communicate telepathically and has the intelligence of a dog. Kelyn should have at least Clairvoynace, ESP, Phantasmal Force, Extend Limbs.

7th level – Mishabroo can manifest all powers listed above and can grow to twenty feet in height. Kelyn should have all the spells listed above plus his own spell Grow Wooden Objects. This version allow him to increase the size of any wooden object up to 20 feet tall or double its normal height, whichever is greater. Intelligent creatures get a saving throw.

9th level – Mishabroo can manifest all powers listed above and can turn to stone or iron. Kelyn should have all the spells listed above and the custom spells, Transmute Wood to Stone, Transmute Wood to Iron and Transmute Iron to Stone. All these spells are similar to transmute mud to rock and are reversible. Kelyn should also be able to reliably summon three types of primordials.

11th level – Mishabroo can manifest all powers listed above and can teleport back to Kelyn if it is teleported away from Kelyn. Mishabroo has the equivalent intelligence of a monkey. Kelyn should have all spells listed above and the custom spells Prevent Teleport, Reverse Teleport, Track Teleport, and the ability to call at least five types of primordials. In addition, Kelyn can also creature items that temporarily increase the target’s Intelligence.

14th Level – Mishabroo has all the powers listed above and it has the equivalent intelligence of a human (INT 9). Kelyn has many ritual spells at this point. These include Dimensional Lock, Protection from Spells, Maze, Trap the Soul, Clone, Mage’s Disjunction, Astral Projection, and Time Stop. Kelyn has also written the Codex Primordicalus – a complete guide to summoning any primordial.

The idea is to roll randomly to pick 2d6 monsters from your bestiary of choice. (Fiend Folio, MM2, Monstrous Compendium from 2e, etc.) Then turn those monsters into PC races for a campaign setting.

I pulled out my Dragon Warriors Bestiary and rolled 8 creatures. Sabre-Tooth Tiger, Tapestry Wards, Caitshee, Titan, Wild Boar, Ire Goblin, Okeman, and Water Leaper. I tend to over-think things, so bear with me as some of these are more fleshed out than others.

Mamen (Tapestry Wards) – These creatures were magically brought into this world from a two-dimensional plane to serve a cruel wizard intent on using them to build an unstoppable army. The Mamen escaped the control of wizard, but not before gaining the ability to appear as three-dimensional humanoids. Three generations later, some Mamen have come out of seclusion to explore their new home. The fourth generation Mamen have adapted mostly to three-dimensional existence, but still rely on talismans made for them at birth that allows them to maintain their three-dimensional shape.

Mamen have the ability to remove their talisman and re-attach it at will. This allows them to become invisible (turn sideways) and attack while invisible (like a monofilament weapon). A strike from a two-dimensional Mamen does 1d8 damage at first level, but increases as the Mamen increases in level.

Mamen cannot be clerics, but can be any other class.

Caitshee – These humanoids have a slight feline appearance in the face due to the inverted triangle shaped nose. They are resistant to magic and can disrupt magic with a certain range per level. This includes disrupting the magic of a party’s mage.

Due their magic resistance and magic disrupting abilities, there cannot become mages. Caitshee prefer to be rogues.

Ire Goblin or Bugbear – Nothing too new here except that a few smaller, orange splotched and weaker Bugbears can be psionic. Otherwise, Bugbears cannot be psionic.

Titan – When the gods defeated the Titans, the titans that survived went into exile and lived with other humanoids. The children of those Titans became the epic heroes of legend. The grand-children of those epic heroes are what other races call Titans today.

Physically, they appear human ranging from six to seven feet tall. They prefer to be clean-shaven and wear their hair short. Titan villages are fairly common near Zominakapra and Puli settlements.

Titan can be any class they wish. When a Titan character is created, a d6 is rolled. The result determines which ability score receives a +4 bonus. Depending on rolls, it is possible for a Titan to have a 22 score for an attribute, though that is quite rare.

Zominakapra (Boars of Zominthos)  – These boar-men have the torso and lower body of a man and the head of a boar. Despite their fierce appearance, Zominakarpa are quite thoughtful and intelligent. Zominakapra can communicate with pigs, but rarely do so preferring the company of others.

They can often be found exchanging ideas and philosophies. Those that practice sorcery form societies that mutually benefit all members. Research and discovered spells are eagerly shared with other members. For this reason Zominakarpa characters that choose to be sorcerers gain an additional spell per level for their spellbook.

Despite their perchant for intellectual pursuits, Zominakarpa are swift and deadly in combat. Those that choose to be fighters gain the ability to temporarily use primal rage to wreak havoc on their targets.

Okeman – The okeman vary widely in height, body type and coloration. All okeman have dense skin, can move quickly and are susceptible to fire. They can range from four to seven feet tall. They can be thin or thick. Their color can range from light grey to dark brown to any color in-between. Their multi-colored hair contains yellow, auburn, a bit of orange and traces of green.

Okeman believe that everything has an associated spirit. Stones have spirits, tree have spirits, rivers, mountains, even blades of grass are believed to have spirits. Any Okeman employ a unique form of magic that they call Galli Nir. Magic is generated by the proper alignment and invocation of specific spirits. To aid with proper alignment, Okeman mages use a vast array of pre-made charts to help with protocol when addressing the spirits. Their belief and work with spirits leads the Okeman and Puli to be very close allies.

Okeman avoid things made of wood as they believe that all wood contains the vengeful spirit of the tree that it came from. Their respect for tree spirits makes them close allies with the Puli.

Okeman are skilled in leather and stone craft. They also have great strength. All okeman have the ability to call down lightning which does 1d8 damage to all within 30 feet, including the Okeman.

Water Leaper – These albino limbless toads  are extraordinarily  adept at using teleportation magic and other spells that help makes things or people travel easier. Water leapers themselves move around on floating platforms which they call life chairs.

Water Leapers have very little physical defense and can only attack through the use of magic. Once per day, they can concentrate and strike an opponents with a magical disease that targets the bones of the body. Successful usage of this power will either turn an opponents’ bones to jelly.

Puli – Despite being relatives of the Caitshee, they do not have magic resistance or magic disruption abilities. Physically, Puli are quite similar. The most striking difference is seen in the long, curved fangs of the Puli.

Puli can be any class, but they are known for their magic. Their particular form of magic relies on ghosts and spirits to access magical powers. Many times, the spirits serve as a conduit of energy, but there are a few times that they are called upon to act more directly.

Puli clerics do not turn ghosts or spirits. They seek to command them instead. A Puli cleric that successfully commands or controls ghosts or spirits are granted an additional spell to cast. The ability works once per day at lower levels, but can be performed more frequently for powerful clerics.

The system uses thirds and halves, so custom classes are easy. 1/3 Cleric gets two categories, 2/3 Cleric gets four, 150% gets 8 categories.

For the Human Template, anyone choosing 200% for Divine gets all 11. I would like to have 12, but even one of my five additional categories is a bit of a stretch.

Looking at the sample Paladin at the link: d6 Hit Dice,  three categories, melee weapons as “Monster” and missile weapons as a Magic-User. I like the idea that not all Paladins are the same.

Will a 1/2 Cleric get a category at half strength? That’s up to you. It complicates the formulas used to determine success. Since it’s a custom class, though, you can just make a table for success.

If you go the full strength route like me, I simply changed the XP values for Divine. Basically, it matches the Arcane table. This breaks the system for calculating a regular Cleric, but since I allow a spell at 1st level, I use a different chart for Clerics anyway.

One other route could be to have a Piety score. By default it could be Level/3 for non-Clerics and set a Hit Dice limit on using the categories. This means a Paladin with Healing is not healing 2d6 hit points until 6th level and reaches a ceiling of 5d6 at 15th level. The other advantage of going this route is that you don’t have to say “no spells at 1st level”, the only category that can be used at 1/3 power is healing and that only equates to 1 or 2 hit points.

Still some details to work out. The Paladin still feels too powerful even with my change to the XP Table. (Which is 2125 XP to advance to 2nd level on my adjusted charts instead of 1750 xp on the standard chart.) Also, changing the Divine chart has consequences for non-human clerics.

Postscript

Here is the conversion of the Turning Formula for ACKS:

1d20 + ( 3 * (level of cleric – hit dice of undead) )
Hit dice of undead is increased by one for every special ability (asterisk next to HD number)

Success is adjusted roll of 10 or better

For example, 1st level cleric turning skeletons:

1d20 + (3 * (1 – 1) ) or roll 1d20 with a 10 or better.

As Keith Davies mentioned in the original G+ post, there’s a better way to state it:

d20 + 3*level >= 10 + 3* (undead HD + special)