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Tag: Andras (Page 3 of 13)

Looking at OpenD6 Spells

December 20, 2011 /

I had mentioned a long time ago that I was looking at the Spell Building system in OpenD6 Fantasy and OpenD6 Magic for Andras. The main reason was that I wanted a spell building system in Andras that wasn't too cumbersome, but offered some real choices.

It's true that doing this makes magic quite scientific. Instead of bemoaning that fact, I will create a Mage class that takes a scientific view of magic. While the development of the Arcanist class has hit a couple roadblocks, I believe it will work a lot better now that this investigation of the OpenD6 spells is complete.

For those looking on with interest, anything shaded green is something that I corrected. For whatever reason, some of the calculated difficulties in the original pdfs are not correct. In a couple cases, there is a missing spell attribute or the wrong effect value.

One worksheet sorted all the spell by difficulty, another presents them all in a format similar to the OpenD6 Spell Design Worksheet. The "raw" or original values and descriptions are on pages called Raw.

I hope this spreadsheet will be useful to D6 fans. For me, now I can make analysis, pick spells and work out values that are closer to retroclones. I may end up sticking with meters and kilometers, but we'll see.

Here is the spreadsheet in M$ Excel Format:

D6 Spell Spreadsheet

Here it is in LibreOffice or OpenOffice Format:

D6 Spell Spreadsheet

Soon, I hope to add it to the Downloads page.

Anabe

November 8, 2011 /

The plane of Jugu is a vast swamp dotted with areas of relatively dry land throughout. A skilled primordial summoner learns of Jugu at some point in their career due to the vast numbers of Anabe found here.

The Anabe range in color from bright red to deep blue and every color in-between. Typical Anabe are a pale yellow or a sickly green color. They are recognizable for the large caps on the back of their oval shaped heads. They are roughly humanoid and stand about five feet tall. They have very long arms - their three-fingered hands almost reach their feet. Their faces appear to have two eye slits and a larger horizontal slit where a mouth should be. They have the appearance of a tight-lipped smile with their eyes closed.

Anabe do not organize socially. They are the lone semi-intelligent creature on their plane and do not have enemies there. Many Anabe live a solitary life in search of food and reproduction. To reproduce, an Anabe removes a small portion of their cap and throws it to the ground. In two weeks, a small Anabe begins to emerge from an egg-shaped plant. At five weeks, the Anabe is fully grown and ready to scavenge for food.

All Anage are immune to all diseases, even supernatural ones like mummy rot. Anabe are also immune to all poison. They also regenerate wounds very quickly.

Individual abilities vary widly. It is believed that all the many special abilities of the Anabe have not yet been discovered. When encountered, roll on the table below to determine the summoned Anabe's abilities:

Roll 2d6
1 Roll 2 Hurtful Abilities
2-4 Roll 1 Hurtful Ability
5-8 Roll 1 Hurtful and 1 Helpful ability
9-11 Roll 1 Helpful Ability
12 Roll 2 Helpful Abilities
Roll 1d8
Hurtful Ability Helpful Ability
1 Insanity Cure Insanity
2 Priest Bane Priest Boon
3 Change Color Remove Color
4 Generate Poison Cure Poison
5 Generate Disease Cure Disease
6 Grow Shrink
7 Clean Water Foul Water
8 Weaken Strengthen

Notes:

Both Insanity and Cure Insanity are temporary effects lasting 2d8 hours. Saving throw negates the effect.

The Preist Bane is an experience so blasphemous to the priest that he or she can only cast 1st Priest spells for one day. If the priest cannot cast 2nd level or higher spells, the priest will not be able to cast any spells for one day.

The Priest Boon is an experience so enlightening, the priest can cast one spell at a level higher than his or her highest level. If the priest can only cast up to 4th level spells, the priest will gain the one-time ability to cast a 5th level spell of his choosing. If the priest can already cast 7th level spells, the priest gains the ability to cast two 7th level spells.

The effect of Change Color or Remove Color lasts for 2d8 days.

The Cure Poison and Cure Disease abilities are permanent. The poison or disease  generated by the Generate Poison or Generate Disease abilities is up to the GM.

The Anabe with the grow ability can transform to 1d4 times its normal size. The shirnk ability grants the Anabe to ability to shrink to 1d4 times its normal size.

The ability to Clean Water can remove contaminants from enough water to last four people for one day of hard traveling. The ability to Foul Water affects just as much water. Both effects are permanent.

The Weaken ability does 1d4 points of Strength damage. The Strengthen ability grants 1d4 additional points of Strength. Both effects wear off at the rate of one point a day.

What’s in a round?

November 4, 2011 /

While going through and rebuilding the spells with the spell building system, I ran across a big problem. Many of the spells were computing to second level spells, but were considerably weaker than spells listed in the PHB or even in the d20srd.

I couldn't figure it out until I realized my mistake.

I played D&D with 10 second rounds. I wrote Andras for 1 minute rounds. When I started using the spell building system, values for minutes were an order of magnitude higher than values for rounds.

I tried to rewrite the table as I hadn't changed much from d6 Fantasy at that time. Yet, the more I tried, the less it worked. I say that, but I think I got close only to realize that I had accidentally built something a little too close to EABA's master table of values.

One minute rounds just don't work for the spell system. The cost is pretty high for a spell that lasts more than a couple one-minute rounds. So, I decided to abstract the whole thing.

In one round, you can move half your move rate and attack. Kick over a table, jump on top of it and swing off the chandelier? Ok, you can do that in one round. Cast a spell? sure. Cast two spells with a casting time of 1? No. Move ten feet and cast a spell with a 6 casting time? Ok. Negotiate with the gelatinous cube? Unless you have a Speak with Goop spell already in effect, it won't do you much good, but sure, you can talk at it.

(I've actually had someone try to reason with a gelatinous cube. It didn't end well for neither negotiator nor cube.)

Point is, if you look at the spell building table, you find a round is 10 seconds. However, in the player's guide, that won't be mentioned.

If I can rebuild the table I will, but until then, this is what I got.

Hopefully, I'll be back with more content on the weekend. I also hope to have some news about the OSR Co-op

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