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The Code of Magic

September 14, 2013 /

While mentally working through the favorite trap/puzzle post (which never appeared), I came up with a way of presenting magic items so that a solo adventurer should learn how to identify something about magic items over time. I assume that the solo adventurer is not a magic-user. My solo games, meaning 1 GM and 1 Player, usually feature a Fighter or a Thief. The system worked really well for a Thief, as it make a lot of sense for the class.

All magic items have a few glyphs on them and a word. As the player gets more familiar with the symbols and decoding the words, they will become better at estimating the particular magic an item has.

Essentially, magic effects are broken up into  eight categories: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necormancy and Transmutation. (I'm sure you recognize these as D&D's traditional schools of magic.) Each categories has its own unique glyph or symbol.

The magical category also determines the first and last letters of a code word that appears on the magic item. For example, any magic item with a Evocation effect will have a word that starts with the letter "m" and ends with the letter "r". The more powerful the item, the more letters appear between the first and last letters. For example, a scroll with a Light spell would have the code word mar while a staff that generates fireballs would be mentafer.

I'll get a pdf up of the entire system, soon. I plan on using Lorc Icons for symbols and a word generator for the rest. For the DIY folks (aren't we all, though?), here a link to get you started from the S&W Companion:

S&W Spells arranged by school

Here Is a Cave

September 12, 2013 /

It looks natural enough...

Honestly, my favorite dungeon type is any, but caverns have a certain element of fun I enjoy as a DM.

For mid to higher level dungeons, I would have a xorn or xarn as a wandering monster. Since the caverns aren't stone walls, these two creatures could pass through the walls like air. It is like fighting a ghost.

It demanded our magical weapons and then just started walking straight at us. After hurling arrows and magic, it still just slowly walked straight at us. We retreated down the corridor taking various twists and turns in an attempt to hide from it. But it just walked straight toward us, even passing through corridor walls to do so.

For some of the same reasons, but also to provide a rival for the party, I wasn't afraid to place a dao in the local vicinity. Since the party and the dao were both after gems, it kept everyone, including me, in check. Once, they even teamed up to deal with a common threat. If I ever put a dao in a cavern again, I'll be certain to also include an older dragon as well. I say that because it will be an option for a teamup to split the mother lode of gems or a fight on two fronts.

Sure I could do this in a typical stone walled dungeon, but it just doesn't feel right to me.

The source of this comes from my inability for many years to figure out how or why a metric ton of 13th century underground labyrinths were constructed. It didn't make sense to me, so I put everything in a cave. Caves are formed by nature, so I could imagine them everywhere. In fact, for a recent dungeon I created, I had an alchemist with a lab in a cave complex that already existed in the side of a steep cliff face. I couldn't see him generating a dungeon, somehow, to house his experiments. I also couldn't see local officials allowing him to keep a lab (and various creatures) inside the city walls.

Now, thanks in large part to ACKS, there is a good reason for traditional dungeons to exist. It's something a mage can make to house his or her experiments, easily. There seems to be a magnet for wandering monsters to seek out such places to live.

Seems legit.

Still, I like the texture of a cave and its natural beauty. It doesn't neatly fit squares on graph paper, if you know what I mean.

Still feeling sick, so that's it for tonight. I may give favorite trap/puzzle a pass as I stink at designing them. I mean, if it comes down to it, levitate the target 200 feet into the air and have the spell stop. The target plunges to their death.

On Tsojcanth, On Guido, On X6 and X1

September 11, 2013 /

On B5, On Greyhawk, On Spelljammer fun...

Not really feeling well, so this will be shorter. After yesterday, you may think my favorite adventure to run was Caves of Tsojcanth. It is fun looking back on it, but in my 12 year old mind at the time, I was just annoyed.

My favorite thing to run was our various homebrew hexcrawls. We started with Greyhawk and marched through Iuz, found the Forgotten City, ventured off the map for some OA fun, and then off the world entirely to brave the phlogiston. I didn't use the Rock of Braal at all, but instead used various asteroids as a home base.

We went to Space 1889 briefly, but spent a lot of time in Greyspace, Mystaraspace (it's what I called it), and parts of Realmspace. We invented our own planets and generally attempted to be Han Solo in various worlds.

Yes, we shot first.

The neogi were the perennial bad guys always chasing the party from sphere to sphere. There were some beholders, but the guys never ventured to some of the really bad stuff. I have formorian ships (giant ant-people), yet another githyanki civil war, ghost ships that drag you into the deep ethereal to make you lost and various other villains.

I had an ancient mariner that was revived after floating in the phlogiston for hundreds of years. (Yes, someone wasted a wish on him.) I had various alternate earths with a Marvelspace complete with Dr. Strange's spelljammer ship.

Awesome stuff.

I had the most fun running the homebrew because of things the players may have found depending on their whim, the dice and whatever notes I had with me. There's something about the possibility of the game that excites me, even in a traditional dungeon crawl. Finding a red dragon in the bottom of a dungeon (Horror on the Hill) was a surprise to me. Later, I was just as excited as the two-way portal to an ancient moon base locked somewhere in the second level of a dungeon since lost to time.

You never know what's over the next hill. Maybe they'll find the flying ship, the rakasta colonies, Star Frontiers aliens or even a hovertank from Centurion Legion.

It all comes back to hoping that the party will find something odd, but more importantly, having fun doing it. I didn't experience this with various college groups, but I always did with the high school group. It was fun times all the way around, even when I got annoyed and tried to kill them on purpose.

Not to sounds cliche, but really, the most fun adventure is always the next one.

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