The big change is the addition of the bookcreator plugin. Once I get it working correctly, I should have a post here describing it in detail.

So a quick brain dump here in an attempt to get going:

Odd Retroclone Idea One:

Wanted to be successful with M20 Odd Duck inspired by this post. Basically, the spell list would be substituted with the spells from The Fantasy Trip. Conversion of the spells has been problematic. I finally figured out that IQ level =! M20 spell level. ST cost also doesn’t seem to translate as some spells have 50, 60 or 100 ST cost while many others range from 1 to 10.

I created a spreadsheet to rank them relatively to each other. An IQ 14 spell that cost 1 ST would be a higher level than an IQ 8 spell that cost 2 ST. The formula is not that complicated as I opted out of trying to determine a normalized distribution. Besides, I’m not that good at normalization (in math or databases) anyway.

I may never finish it. Ugh. It’s a good idea that I just cannot implement.

Odd Retroclone Idea Two:

I also have some bizarre deathwish to create my own retro-clone. It would be a complete vanity project that ‘feels’ like the amalgam of B/X, 1st and 2nd edition AD&D with some new found love for BAB and other d20 conventions. The other oddity would be how everything is inspired by Paul M. Crabaugh. I will include a class generator (which only needs options for illusionists) and a monster generator. I am about 33% done with the generator – it only generates non-magical beasts at the moment.

What compels me on this idea is a mystery to me.

Part of it mentions the critters.pl script greywulf hosted on the old m20 site. I couldn’t find the original, but I found my modified script for M20 (my other post has it modified for Action!).

CODE:

#!/usr/bin/perl
srand(time ^ $$ ^ unpack “%L*”, ‘ps axww | gzip’);
$usage=”usage: $0 number maxhd\n”;
$ARGV[0]=~/^(\d+)$/ && ($numb = $1) || die $usage;
$ARGV[1]=~/^(\d+)$/ && ($maxhd = $1) || die $usage;
%rule = (
‘W’,'VF YF YF YXF YXF YXYF B’,
‘B’,'PB YNF YNXF YNXF YNXYF YXYNF’,
‘P’,'a ambi ante circum cis co de dis ob per prae se sine sub’,
‘Y’,'Ca Ce Ci Co Cu Cy Da De Di Do Dy’,
‘X’,'Ce Ci Co o’,
‘V’,'a e i o u’,
‘F’,'Ca Ca Ca Cae Cos Com Cus Cus Cus Cus Cus Cium Cium Ces’,
‘C’,'b b c c ch ch d d d g g l l m m n n p p ph r r r s s s t t th th v x z Rr sH Ll’,
‘D’,'b b c c ch ch d d g g l l m m n n p p ph r r r s s s t t t th th v x z Rr sH Ll h qu gn pt’,
‘R’,'b b c c c ch ch g g p p ph t t th th’,
‘L’,'c ch p g f’,
‘H’,'c ch cl m n p ph pl pr qu t th’,
‘N’,'n c l r’
);

for (1..$numb) { print &parse(‘W’), ” : “, &stats, “\n”; }

sub parse {
$_=pop(@_);
/[^A-Z]/ && return $_;
@TMP=split(/\s+/, $rule{$_});
$_=splice(@TMP, rand @TMP, 1);
for (split(”)) { print &parse($_); }
}

sub stats {
$tst = int(rand()*13)+1;
$hd = int(rand()*$maxhd)+1;
$hp = int($hd*4.5)+int(rand()*4*$hd);
$ac = 10+$hd+int(rand()*5);
$tohit = $hd+int(rand()*4);
$dmg = int(rand()*2)+1 . ‘d’ . (int(rand()*6)+1)*2 . (rand>0.6?’+':’-') . (int(rand()*4)+2);
%weapon = ( ’1′ => ‘Bite’,
’2′ => ‘Claw’,
’3′ => ‘Talon’,
’4′ => ‘Gore’,
’5′ => ‘Slap’,
’6′ => ‘Slam’,
’7′ => ‘Sting’,
’8′ => ‘Tentacle’,
’9′ => ‘Weapon’,
’10′ => ‘Weapon’,
’11′ => ‘Weapon’,
’12′ => ‘Weapon’,
’13′ => ‘Weapon’,);
$type = $weapon{$tst};
#    $type = (rand>0.6?”By weapon”:”Natural”);

return “HD$hd (${hp}hp), AC$ac, $type +$tohit ($dmg)”;
}

Adult Granite: HD 21d12+105 (241), AC 28, Bite +27 (2d8), or Breath 8d6 stream of rocks DC 25,  phys+DEX to dodge for half, or thorwn rock 2d6+7.

And now for the Basic Fantasy Statblock

Dragon, Granite

Granite dragons have thick, rock-like scales with small black spots on them. The scales also tend to become for red as they age. They prefer to live on top of ancient mountains or near stone quarries. In order to properly digest their food, they swallow heavy stones in a gizzard type of organ. The bite of a granite dragon is severe due to their hardened teeth. When fighting, a granite dragon prefers to be near a source of rocks. When their breath weapon is not available, a granite dragon will attempt to hurl boulders. Granite dragons are capable of great cruelty. They enjoy swallowing humanoids whole and listening to their cries as they are ground into pieces by the stone in their gizzard. Outside of this rare pleasure, granite dragons are motivated by the urge to live, breed and collect valuable items.

Granite dragons are immune to poisonous gases.

So, there will be content on my site from this point forward designed specifically for the BFRPG. This month will include new dragons, as well as statblocked content from Nevermet Press.

Did I forget M20? No, I start with M20 and work my way forward. I also intend to provide M20 statblocks for everything as well.

Here’s to a reboot of Sycarion.com

As far as acheiving balance, though, I began to think about how races are defined in Microlite20. Most races are defined as a bonus or penalty to one of the three attributes. Humans get a +1 to all skills with no adjustments to attributes.

The balancing mechanism is that all adjustments total 2. For humans, having a +1 bonus to all four skills is equivalent to a +2 Attribute adjustment. For example, Elves get a +2 MIND adjustment, Half-Orcs get +3 STR and -1 MIND, Half-Elves get +1 MIND and +1 to any two skills.

With three attributes and four skills to fiddle with, M20 seems to be the perfect place to look at the mechanics of creating new races easily. To limit the number of options, I decided to set up a few parameters for this exercise:

• There can be only one penalty and it can only be a -1. This could a -1 to any attribute or -1 to any two skills.
• The largest bonus will be a +3.
• Avoid setting specific skills to receive a bonus or penalty. It should be an adjustment to any 2 skills or to all 4 skills.
• Add in as many pre-defined races from the macropedia that still fit within the above parameters.

The result is the attached spreadsheet below:
Racial Template Options

Looking through the results, some are quite interesting. For example, a race that receives a +1 to Mind, +1 to all skills and a -1 to STR. This would mean that there is a race that is just as adaptable as humans, slightly smarter, but slightly weaker physically. Of all the possibilities, the one that appealed to me was a somewhat evolved human.

Others have definite possibilities, especially a race that would receive a +1 bonus to all attributes, but a -1 to any two skills. (This may seem like a cheat to get a super character, but M20 is a skill-based system.) This creates a race that is smarter, stronger, and more agile than a typical human, but less adaptable. This makes me think of the invading aliens from In the Balance by TurtleDove.

This only takes care of the mechanics. For those that tend to look for how a race can benefit them in combat, not much more needs to be done. For others like me that get into the fluff, getting this part nailed down provides suggestions for what a race is like without removing many possibilties. Using a good random generation like this one can fill in some of the details.

I admit, I’m a nut when it comes to fluff like this. I think about the form and function of a different race. For example, giants in my world have a different material in there bone makeup. It is stronger than regular bone material by an exponential factor. This makes them feared adversaries, but also threatened by others that seek to harvest the hardened bone material. The reason for this change is that a 12 ft tall human could barely walk and would break bones at the slightest movement.

I have other examples, but I hope this provides a good baseline for creating new races. I hope to detail more of these just to see how far it can go. If you find any entries on the spreadsheet you find interesting, let me know.

The thing is that no part of SpellJammer is or was Open Game Content. The d20 mini-game in Polyhedron 151 is great, but as stated on the first page, NOT open game content. 100% proprietary. Andy Collins’ site has references to material left out of the Polyhedron article, but all of that is also NOT open game content.

The name Spelljammer itself is a registered trademark of Wizards of the Coast. This post will not challenge that trademark. Other items of the setting are also trademarked and proprietary. I say this because SpellJammer cannot be used to reference the idea of magical spacefaring adventure despite the similarity in concepts.

As such, let me begin by saying I want to extend the M20 ruleset (including standard races and classes) to an extra planetary setting. The working title of this setting will be Aetherflow, abbreviated AF. I will attempt to write this from scratch using other M20 materials developed by others as well as my own ideas.

Another part comes from a desire to give back to a game system I love.

While I have a few minutes, wanted to jot down some ideas:

Nyoka – Supreme deity of dragons. Often referred to as Nyokala Dithi, the Story Dragon. Has three children known by various names:

Veles (the Shepherd) – God of the metallic dragons. Also known by other names.

Ket – Serpentine God of the Chromatic Dragons. Also known as Tiamat.

Isuan (the controller) – Aloof god of the gem dragons.

Sang is Nyoka’s avatar. He hold court over the Lung Dragons of the East.

Outside of Nyoka’s influence are the three Pearl Dragons. Their origins are a mystery.

They can take the form of a humanoid or a dolphin. Their scales are smooth and take the appearance of dolphin skin at all stages of their lives.

White Pearl – usually evil. Hates humanoids.
Black Pearl – usually good. Loves humanoids, especially elves.
Dark Pearl – usually neutral. Tends to be the studious one – more spells or psionic ability.