Sycarion Diversions

Home of the Odd Duk

Author: Bear (Page 144 of 212)

Stream of Consciousness

September 11, 2011 /

I try not to broach the fourth wall too much and directly address readers. Indulge me for just a few words to talk about the nature of my posts versus the intent of the downloadable stuff.

When I generate a post, I'm not going for something free from errors. In fact, I welcome any comment about glaring omissions, bad ideas, or kindly inquires about my sources. I even look forward to non-abusive-dude-what-were-you-smoking rants. The point is, many posts are a way to write down ideas in a public place. Some of these half-baked ideas may be developed further, some will not. A series of posts may contradict each other. Take for example the development of the Arcanist. It began with a nod to OpenQuest and will end with a new skill/proficiency mechanic, nods to OpenD6, and the ability to give cantrips to NPCs. Following the threads may be an unholy mess...

Downloads (mostly pdfs and odf files) are intended to be higher quality. I want it to be a finished product suitable for including in a game if anyone wants to use it. So when the Arcanist PDF comes out, it will be the result of effort in layout, ODF template creation, Scribus work, and editing by one or more of my non-gaming friends.

I haven't done any downloadable stuff  since I began regularly posting again this March except for the first draft of the Arcanist. I didn't take it down, but I did make an apology for it's poor execution. In the big scheme of things, it's no big deal, but it did bother me for a long time that I got this idea in my head that I had to publish something, even if it was bad.

Posts will come streaming along like the text of Finnegan's Wake, but when an idea is finalized, I hope the resulting download will be something worthy of your consideration.

Without any suitable way to end this, here's a poll that relates to the previous post about a creature similar to a fire elemental. If the Elemental Plane of Fire doesn't exist, what would you call the plane of origin where one of the species that lived there was pretty much the same as a fire elemental?

[poll id="1"]

Primordials

September 11, 2011 /

My son has a rich imagination centered around two flying dolphins. Usually, they swim around the sea taking to the air to visit other friends in faraway places. Some of these faraway places are "Kansas", "Mexico", "Ice Cream Land", "Pie Land", and "Different Water".

Not wanting to miss out on his multi-verse hopping, delphine adventures, I asked him about some of these far away places. He described Ice Cream Land as a place that was made entirely of ice cream. Ice cream people lived there. Ice cream dolphins and sharks lived there, too.

Before I get too far, yes, I asked about "Different Water". He said that is was like the ocean, but in a different place. That's all I got. He's five, so I'll cut him a break for now.

In any case, I pondered what would creatures of Ice cream land be called? They're like elementals, but not composed of a single element (unless you consider ice cream an element). I wanted a name that would represent their composition of the fundamental 'stuff' to be represented. So, I happened upon primordials and the name has stuck so far.

The spark my son's imagination provided was to imagine a multiverse without the Ptolemaic/Wu Xing elemental planes. What if the other planes were made of various complex compounds, but were just different?

In addition to pondering these planes, I happened upon a note for an adventure seed about summoning a fire elemental that broke free of the summoners' control. I wanted these new planes to have creatures composed of fire, but how would that work?

First, how would a fire-creature survive? There needs to be a source of oxygen. Instead of breathing, though, it should get oxygen by eating something. Searching the interwebs, I found sodium chlorate, a key component in some chemical oxygen generators. Skipping down to a wikipedia entry on Oxygen Candles, I figured that these fire creatures could make these candles to eat. The fantastic element I needed to add was a plant native to that plane that contains lots of sodium chlorate. Assuming that existed, these Fire Primordials could make food with this plant and iron filings. When ingested, it would produce oxygen for about six hours. Better yet, their digestive tract has naturally occurring iron, so that they only need to ingest this plant.

So now, I have shemped the fire elemental, plus I have an exotic plant that could be used as more adventure seeds.

Let's add in some more twists. The Fire Primordial wouldn't have access to this plant while it is in our world, so it would have to know enough to heat up salt water and somehow pass electricity through it. So, I figure that this creature should be intelligent. Given that Andras now has a system that allows just about anyone to cast a cantrip level spell once a day (with about a 50-50 chance of success), I figured that his 'spell' would be just enough to deliver a short electrical charge. The spell has no value in combat.

Then I formed a picture in my head of this Fire Primordial sitting in a cave with a large stone mug filled with salt water. He heats the water (he is made of fire) and casts his cantrip. Now he has a "tea" of sodium chlorate to drink. I also figure that he doesn't need to eat as much because our world has more oxygen in the atmosphere than his own.

If you're still with me, let's add one more item to the mix. Do you know what happens when you mix sodium chlorate and sugar? Big explosion. So this Fire Primordial can be killed by ingesting sugar. In other words, sugar is a poison to him. I can imagine a couple of beet farmers keeping the creature at bay by throwing beets at it. In some ways, it appeals to my sense that ordinary people should have a way to fight off a creature like this, even if it has a low chance of success.

Now to finish the adventure tentatively entitled "Escape of the Fire Primordial". In the meantime, I need to think of a name for the plane of his origin. Eldur? Gasira? Nar? Fy-Heem?

Rolling for Non-Weapon Proficiencies and Skills

September 8, 2011 /

I did a lot over the Labor Day weekend. I didn't have much time to write. However, I kept battling a preoccupation with NWP and Skills in Andras. Having a roll-under d20 mechanic meant inventing an arbitrary starting point. I didn't want NWP and Skills to start with high scores because there was nowhere to go.

I had this vision of a Mage having a 17 Spellcraft at 2nd level. The problem? A 2nd level Mage being able to identify a large number of spells when he/she has two in their personal spell book. Over time, this Mage can only gain two more ranks in Spellcraft.

I could assign a lot of modifiers, but I don't want to make a modifier table for every NWP and Skill if I can help it. I could return to the slot-purchase method that is more true to 2e.

I briefly considered a roll-over mechanic and setting DC scores. But I do not want a d20 or 3e mechanic if I can help it. Nothing wrong with it, but the feel changes from something almost like 2e into something very much like 3e.

Looking at some things in my collection, I found a 2d12 roll-under mechanic. It is a great system, but alas, not OGL or Creative Commons.

Then it hit me on Sunday, but I didn't have a chance to write it down until now. I kept mulling a d20+d10 roll-under mechanic. It feels less like 2e, but doesn't feel like 3e. Will I keep it? I don't know yet.

Here's some math behind a d20+d10 mechanic:

  • There are 200 different die rolls.
  • The bell curve is actually a long plateau.
  • Using ability scores, even an 18 ability score only gives you a 62.5 percent chance of success.
Roll Roll <=
2 0.50%
3 1.50%
4 3.00%
5 5.00%
6 7.50%
7 10.50%
8 14.00%
9 18.00%
10 22.50%
11 27.50%
12 32.50%
13 37.50%
14 42.50%
15 47.50%
16 52.50%
17 57.50%
18 62.50%
19 67.50%
20 72.50%
21 77.50%
22 82.00%
23 86.00%
24 89.50%
25 92.50%
26 95.00%
27 97.00%
28 98.50%
29 99.50%
30 100.00%

In thinking about Theives' Skills, this mechanic allows me to set Climb Walls at DEX for a 1st level character. In 2e, the character starts with a 60% chance of success and can increase that ability up to 90% at first level. Starting with DEX and allowing a character to go up 6 ranks only does the same thing if the Rogue has an 18 DEX. I like that a lot. Speaking of Theives' Skills, d20+d10 also allows me to set values very close to OSRIC percentages for success for NPCs.

This mechanic also enhances my ongoing struggle with creating a skill-based Mage. The skill to cast a spell starts with INT and increases by INT Bonus at every level. So, for an INT 16 Arcanist, they begin with a Spellcasting Skill of 16 and increase by 2 at every level.

In doing the numbers, this also simplifies the modifiers based on spell level. An Arcanist casting a 1st level spell has no modifier. A 2nd level spell has a -5 modifier to Spellcasting Skill. A 3rd level spell is -10 and so on. So much simpler! In looking at creating spells using the OpenD6 system, it is also possible to create 0 level spells. They would have a +5 bonus to Spellcasting skill.

With 0 level spells, this mechanic also allows for a little bit of house magic by NPCs. Assuming an INT of 12, an NPC would have a better than 50/50 chance of casting a 0th level spell. Considering the minimal effect, this is enough to make things interesting without severe unbalancing.

The effects of 0th level spells would include things like divining one answer to a yes/no question, fists do 1d3 lethal damage for one round, divining the last image seen before death from a fresh corpse, a oen time +3 skill bonus for one usage of a Thief skill, etc. All of these effects are dependent on a lengthy casting time and verbal, somatic and material components. Without these four things, the effects are more comparable to 1st and 2nd level spells.

Lots of options are still available, but it's food for thought. You have any thoughts?

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