Okay, I know we weren’t being very original when my designer friend and I decided on a sword-and-shield motif for the Papers & Pencils logo, but this still made me giggle when I found it in one of my old Dragon magazines. And what the hell? I can share whatever pointless minutia I want. It’s my blog.
I really wish one of us had thought of the D20 morning star. We had two really great ideas with the pencil swords and the paper shield, but a D20 morning star would have taken the cake. I may need to steal it if I ever do a redesign!
Ravenloft, both the adventure, and the setting which surrounds it, have always fascinated me. Partially because of my well known love for the macabre, but also because everything about them has a kind of mystique which I find enthralling. The dangers of Ravenloft are always unseen, always shifting, and you never know where you’re going to end up. And Castle Ravenloft itself stands as a figurative edifice among dungeons. My mind’s eye imagines an endless maze of corridors, filled with every kind of danger imaginable. And at the end there is Strahd, a villain so legendary that he’s withstood almost 30 years of marketing and re-marketing without becoming boring.
At least, that’s my view, as someone whose never been so fortunate as to venture into Castle Ravenloft himself.
When I first saw that Wizards of the Coast had created an Expedition to Castle Ravenloft boardgame, it piqued my curiosity. And when my gaming group recently began experimenting with board games (we all very much enjoyed Hero Quest) I took that as an excuse to spend $60 on the game, so the group could have some variety. Last night was the first time we played the game as a group, and we ran through three adventures before calling it an evening.
The game is quite clearly based on 4th edition rules, which I personally found a little off putting, as I have a strong aversion to that ruleset. But even though it uses the terminology of 4th edition (daily/utility/at-will powers, dragonborn, elradin, etc.)the board game is none the less a fully self-contained product. And while my personal feelings made me a little uncomfortable talking about “healing surges” at the table, they function perfectly well as a mechanic for the board game. Even if I do not approve of their use in a tabletop RPG.
The basic premise of the game is very simple. Each player selects a character from the five which are included with the game. The characters all have a race and class, which determine which stack of ability cards they recieve. The players then take four abilities which they’d like to have access to during the game, plus one ability which is fixed and must be taken every time. The environment is created using a stack of dungon tiles with interlocking edges, which are shuffled and placed face down on the table. Whenever a player explores the “edge” of a tile currently in play, they take a new tile off the stack and connect it to the game board. When a monster is encountered, the player who encounters it draws a monster card, and at the end of their turn each round they must play the monster according to the tactics listed on the card. Each game session consists of braving the dangers of Castle Ravenloft to complete a specific objective, which you select from the adventure booklet before play begins.
The game is actually quite difficult. Groups who wander into the dungeon without understanding their own abilities probably will not walk out again. It also helps to have a thorough understanding of the game’s rules; during my playtesting session prior to getting the whole group together I nearly flipped the table because I didn’t realize I was supposed to be picking up treasure cards every time I killed a monster.
Most of the game’s difficulty comes from its manic pace. If a player does not explore any new dungeon tiles during their turn, they must draw an encounter card. Some cards summon traps or monsters, while other cards are spell effects which can damage or immobilize you. The worse encounter cards, however, are those with environment effects which remain in play until replaced by a new environment effect. Most of these effects are a severe hinderance to the party. Some cause damage when a player uses an item, or a once-daily ability. Perhaps the worst environment effect is the one which damages a player if they end their turn on the same tile as any other players, essentially forcing the party to split up.
The only way to avoid drawing an encounter card is to explore a new part of the dungeon, and when you do that you must place a new monster on the newly explored tile. So no matter what, each character’s turn creates a new complication for the party. Plus, some tiles have black triangles on them, indicating that you must draw an encounter card anyway! I must acknowledge the elegance of the design. Since the number of dangers encountered rises with the number of players, the game automatically scales up and down for whatever number of players you have at the table.
Not everything about the game’s design is quite so elegant, unfortunately. My group quickly implemented a number of house rules to combat some of the game’s ridiculousness. For example, we combined the “Hero” and “Exploration” phases of each player’s turn. In the basic rules, players must first do all of their moving and attacking, and only then can they choose whether or not they will add a new tile to the board. That means that if you begin your turn by moving to a tile’s edge, and exploring, then you cannot attack the monster which appears there until your next turn. Apparently every monster in the dungeon has the element of surprise.
We also changed the rules for leveling up. According to the manual, once a player has collected 5xp worth of monsters, then the next time they roll a 20, they may discard those experience points, and flip their character sheet over to the “level 2” side. This is a nuisance kind of rule. In both session of the game where we followed that rule, it ends up with every player sitting on 10 or 15 experience points, waiting for a fucking twenty to come up. Instead, we allow each player to level up immediately upon reaching 5xp.
We’ve changed a few other minor rules here and there, but those are the two largest changes I think.
I am intrigued by the possibilities for expanding this game. It only comes with a handful of adventures, but there’s no reason that we couldn’t come up with our own adventures for the game ad-infinitum. And that’s not even to mention its sister games. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft uses the exact same system for play as two other D&D Board Games: Legends of Drizzt, and Caverns of Ashardalon. The games could easily be mixed together to add a larger variety of monsters, treasure, encounters, and adventurers.
As a final point, I have to mention the miniatures. As a GM, I refuse to use miniatures for anything but PCs. But, for those who do like to have more ornate monster representations on the battlefield, the minis included with this game will be a significant bonus. They’re very nicely creafted plastic, and come from the same molds that official D&D miniatures have come from in the past. And there’s so many of them! Enough, I think, for every monster card in the game to be in-play simultaneously.
Without question, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is worth the remarkably cheap $65 price tag. Any criticism I have for the game is minor, and the amount of fun I’ve already gotten out of it in just a few weeks is impressive. Plus, even if you don’t like the game, your purchase won’t be a total loss, because you’ll have miniatures to play with.
Someday, I want to get paid for this. Not necessarily for writing Papers & Pencils itself, mind you. I somehow doubt I’ll ever have the readership required to make advertisements a profitable endeavor. But I’d like to make a living off of writing or game design, or some combination of the two. I like to think that putting myself out there with this website is the first step in that quest, even if it is the first step of many I’ll need to take. Another step I’m working on is educating myself. I’m trying to take an academic approach to learning about games and game design. I read and analyze anything which seems as though it will help me traverse the long road towards a career I can be proud of.
I’ve noticed that many of the most renowned game designers – Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Steve Jackson – have been students of military history, and credited that knowledge with helping them in designing games. It seemed only prudent, then, that I should investigate this field of study to see what it had to offer. So while I was grocery shopping this past weekend, I picked up a copy of the June 2012 issue of “Military Heritage” magazine. It seemed like an inexpensive way to take my first glimpse at the subject, to see what I could see.
Most of the magazine deals with more contemporary wars, where firearms are used. Personally I’m much more intrigued in the medieval period, but there is a feature entitled “Fight in the Fog: Vercellae 101 BC,” which is more relevant to my interests. And the modern information is certainly not out of place. In many ways, a war fought with fantasy elements is more like a modern war than a medieval one. Wizards, elven archers, and dragons stand in for heavy artillery, machine guns, and aircraft.
One of the magazine’s regular features, “weapons,” is a fascinating piece on tanks. I won’t attempt to reproduce all of the information here, but the essential tale is about the first time tanks appeared on the battlefield, in World War I. When the British deployed them against the Germans, the Germans were understandably intimidated. The article covers the early German attempts to defeat this new technology, and gauges their success. Some tactics (such as strapping 7 grenades together) were quite dangerous to the soldier attempting to employ them, while others which seemed like a good idea (such as digging hidden pits for tanks to fall into) proved to be completely useless due to unforeseen elements. The article also covers many of the failings of early tanks which gave the Germans a fighting chance. For one, since tanks tended to draw a lot of fire, it was impossible for them to maintain an infantry escort. Another example given is that a foolish engineer once attached a supplemental fuel tank to the armored vehicle’s topside to give it increased range. What he didn’t anticipate is that this additional fuel was vulnerable to enemy fire, and a number of tank crews were incinerated due to that engineer’s poor judgement.
It was when I was reading this article that at least one use for this information crystallized for me. Here are real life examples of people trying new things in dangerous situations, and real life examples of other people trying to counter them. If my players engineered a tank, would my monsters counter with antitank mines, armor piercing bullets, or flooding the battlefield to mire the tanks? They probably should. When players come up with a crazy plan, the GM’s response to it should be just as clever. Because intelligent creatures will always find remarkably inventive methods of perseverance.
The “Fight in the Fog” feature has a lot of similarly relevant information. For example, it describes how the Roman forces built a bridge across the Po River to provide support to their forward troops, and how their enemy ripped a bunch of trees down and floated them downriver to destroy the bridge. A little later, it describes how the Roman commander modified the design of his army’s spears by replacing an iron peg with a wooden one. This caused the spear to off in the enemy shields, causing the shields to become too unwieldy to use, and forcing the enemy to fight shield-less.
I have not yet read the entire magazine, but if the pieces I’ve read are any indication, this will prove to be not only a useful avenue of study, but a fascinating one as well. And it appears as though Military Heritage is associated with a magazine called Medieval Warfare which may be more my speed. I may well be subscribing to it soon!
It’s Friday again, which means it’s time for another undead-themed post as part of the May of the Dead Blog Carnival! This week’s entry is a new type of magic item which I call an “Undead Item.”
An Undead Item is not simply a magic item with an undead theme. Plenty of magic items have skull or death motifs, and many have effects which are related to undead. But though these items have an obvious connection to undeath, they are not themselves undead items. An undead item has an un-life all its own. While not necessarily intelligent, undead items are created by taking dead matter (such as a limb from a corpse) and empowering it with negative energy through an evil crafting ritual which creates–in essence–a very simple undead creature. A creature which usually cannot move or act on its own, but which instead serves to bestow its powers upon whoever wields it.
It is important to note that while many undead items are named for more well recognized types of undead creatures, the item itself is not necessarily made from that creature. In fact, as with other forms of undead, an undead cannot normally be created from a corpse which has ever been animated before.
Zombie Juice This swirling red concoction comes in vials of about 6 ounces each. If it is imbibed, then unintelligent undead will view the user as ‘one of them’ for one hour per ounce which is consumed. Zombies, skeletons, and other such creatures will not attack the user unless specifically direct to do so by their master. And, in such a case, commands such as “destroy the human!” will not work. The undead creature’s master must very specifically indicate which creature is to be attacked.
If anyone wishes to consume more than 6 ounces at a time, they must succeed on a constitution check (DC: 12 + the number of ounces over 6 which are being consumed). Failure causes the user to be incapacitated for 10 minutes while they violently vomit. After 5 minutes of vomiting, the any effects gained by the Zombie Juice disappear, and the incapacitated user is subject to attacks from unintelligent undead.
Crafting Materials: Blood from an intelligent creature which was alive when the blood was taken but has since died, Unholy Water
Deadman’s Gaze A Deadman’s Gaze appears as an eyeball wrapped in flesh, with eyelids intact. It sleeps much of the time when it is not in use, but occasionally looks around on its own, taking in its surroundings. From the back of the orb protrudes a 20ft long ocular nerve, thick and tough like a rope. Anyone whose skin comes in contact with this ocular nerve will see whatever the Deadman’s Gaze sees so long as their own eyes are closed. Whoever holds the end of the ocular nerve will also be able to control the eye, opening and closing it, and looking in whatever direction they desire.
The eye’s primary use is to scout dangerous areas without putting the user in jeopardy. It has also occasionally been used as a torture device, since it can be used to force someone to watch something they wish to look away from, even when their eyes are closed. One of its most useful applications is as an impromptu nighttime guardian. Someone holding the ocular nerve and closing their eyes will not find it difficult to sleep. They will see what the eye sees as though it is a noiseless dream. The eye will attempt to observe everything it can from wherever it is positioned, and will focus on anything which visually seems threatening, but it cannot sense audio indicators of danger.
Crafting Materials: The eye of a humanoid creature, a sliver of brain tissue from a humanoid creature, an ounce of freshly shorn humanoid skin, 20ft of finely crafted rope.
Dead Messenger This simple skull and jawbone can record any message which is whispered into its “ear.” Once the message has been spoken, a set of necromatic command words are used to determine when the message should be activated. The parameters of its activation must be relatively simple, such as:
A command word, or phrase is uttered within “earshot” of the Dead Messenger.
A creature of a certain type comes within 20ft of the Dead Messenger.
When the area the skull is in becomes illuminated.
When the parameters are met, the Dead Messenger will then repeat the message in its own, guttural, clattering voice. It will continue to do this, repeating the message any time the parameters are met, until it is given a new message set of necromatic commands.
Crafting Materials: One skull and jawbone from the same creature, one silver piece placed between the skull and jawbone.
Food Taster This un-decomposing humanoid tongue is wet with saliva. Though it is not necessary, many are mounted on a handle, since it is unpleasant to hold them in your hand. When a Food Taster is touched to a substance, it will turn green if that substance would have a negative chemical or biological reaction to the user’s body. It can be used to detect any kind of poison, whether it is an ingested, inhaled, intravenous, or contact poison. It can also be used to locate dangerous diseases by touching it to an infected individual. Note that this item cannot be used to determine any information about a dangerous substance, only that the substance is dangerous to the user. Note also that if the user is immune to a substance which might be dangerous to others, the Food Taster will will not turn green in the presence of that substance.
Crafting Materials: One humanoid tongue from a creature who was killed by a poison, venom, or disease.
Grip of Despair Two skeletal hands connected by a single radius and ulna (the bones of the forearm). When not in use, the hands clasp and unclasp, or waggle their fingers, looking for something to grab hold of. When placed on the arms or legs of a small or medium creature, the Grip of Despair functions as a pair of masterwork manacles. In addition to binding a creature, the Grip of Despair cause any creature they grab hold of to act as though Shaken for as long as the manacles are on. No saving throw against this effect is allowed, though creatures which are immune to fear effects are not affected. In addition, any creature bound by a Grip of Despair takes a -2 on all will saves, with an additional -2 for any will save against fear.
Crafting Materials: Two skeletal hands (one left, one right), one skeletal forearm.
Spinal Column Scimitar This +1 scimitar, composed entirely of vertebrae, pulsates with negative energy. When not in use, it can occasionally be seen flexing back and forth with its limited mobility. On a successful hit, the victim must succeed on a fortitude save (DC: 18) or be paralyzed for 6 rounds. Even on a successful saving throw, the victim will be paralyzed for 1 round.
Crafting Materials: The spinal column of a paralyzed humanoid.
Funeral Procession Carriage The body of this carriage has a largely normal construction–though many are ornamented with depictions of skulls or other deathly imagery. It differs from a normal carriage in that it has no wheels, nor any harness for horses. Instead, the carriage is supported and propelled by row after row of skeletal legs which move in unison. Each pair of legs is mounted to a pelvic bone, which is mounted directly into the bottom of the carriage’s coach compartment. The legs are speedy and agile, which allows the Funeral Procession Carriage to move faster, and across more difficult terrain than most carriages could manage.The legs are also capable of shifting to a kneeling position to facilitate easy entry and exit from the carriage.
In order to function properly, the skulls associated with each pair of legs must be included in the construction of the coach. This is sometimes accomplished by mounting the skulls on the carriage, but more often the skulls are broken into smaller pieces, and their shards embedded in the wood used to construct the coach. The shards are spread evenly throughout all the wood of the carriage, and so long as one skull fragment from a given skull remains as part of the coach, the associated legs will continue to function. This prevents minor damage from disabling any of the legs.
Most necromancers are able to control a Funeral Procession Carriage using necromatic command words. Most of these carriages are also designed to accept any commands spoken by someone within the the cabin, though some are intended for use as prisoner transports, and do not include this function.
Crafting Materials: One carriage, at least twenty skeletons (four rows, five columns. Torsos are not required), the brain of a carriage driver.
Jabbering Prophet An un-decomposed head with emeralds embedded in each eye socket. The stump where the neck would normally connect to the head is capped with a metal plate which has been bolted in place. The jabbering prophet speaks constantly about things which seem to be of little or no importance. In fact, these nonsensical utterances are a constant stream of information about the past, present, or future of random creatures which exist throughout the multiverse. Were anyone able to record and catalog all of this information, it would no doubt reveal a great many secrets, but the task would be an impossibly monumental undertaking.
Once every hour, the jabbering prophet pauses for 30 seconds, then its emerald ‘eyes’ look towards someone within its field of vision, and it speaks a prophecy relevant to that individual. This effect can be controlled by facing the jabbering prophet towards a specific individual, and ensuring that no one else stands within the head’s field of vision. The prophecy which is spoken will most often relate to events which can take place within an hour’s time, but occasionally an event of great importance which may not happen for many years will be prophesied. Examples of such prophecies include:
If you travel south, you will be ambushed by orcs.
If you visit the elves, a blade in hand will be more deadly to you than to your enemies.
The Duke of Elloron will deceive you thrice when you meet.
Aside from the pause it takes each hour, the jabbering prophet never stops speaking, though it does know to whisper if its wielder is attempting to be quiet. This causes a -6 penalty on all stealth checks. The sound of the prophet’s speaking can be muffled by cloth, or magically silenced. However, if the jabbering prophet is ever physically forced not to speak (such as with a muzzle) then it will strain to speak until it destroys itself.
Crafting Materials: The head of a diviner 12th level or higher, two emeralds with a spell of True Seeing cast upon them.
I’ve been working on my time tracking in recent sessions, and as an experiment I included a boss which underwent a transformation as time went on. She was a sorceress named Anyetta the Many Eyed, and she had a peculiar fascination with spiders. That fascination led her to the decision to create a powerful ritual to give herself certain arachnid attributes. If the party encountered her within two hours of entering the dungeon, they would have caught her while she was casting the transformation ritual. Had they fought her, she would have likely been a moderate challenge as a level 3 sorceress against a party of level 1 characters. After the casting of the ritual, there was a 20 minute window of vulnerability while the transformation took place. She would have been immobilized, and easy prey (assuming the party recognized her as a villain). Following the transformation, the sorceress gained a number of powerful abilities that made her into a pretty dangerous encounter for 1st level players.
As it so happened, it took the party about 5 hours of game time to find her. They attempted diplomacy first, but after giving her some information they probably should not have, she attacked. Fortunately for them, the boss turned out to be a glass cannon She managed to nearly one-shot one of the characters, but the rest of them made better reflex saves. Since she was a sorceress it only took a few hits to leave her dead on the floor. There wasn’t even enough time for any giant spiders to come to her aid. The party looted her corpse, which had some of the best treasure I had placed in the dungeon, then began to search the room. They found a lot of strange alchemical stuff they didn’t understand, and a lot of books with notes about how the ritual was performed, but nothing of great value.
Or so their foolish GM thought.
“Hey Phoenix,” the ranger said to the party’s own sorceress. “Do you want to give this ritual a try?”
“Sure, that sounds fun!” the sorceress replied.
From behind the GM screen, I mumbled a quiet “oops!”
There was a time when I would have said no. I would have come up with some reason why it wasn’t possible for the player to make that kind of unconventional leap in power. Maybe I’d indicate that in studying the books the player would learn that Anyetta’s formula was flawed, and that she would have died of natural causes after a week or two. But that’s not how I GM anymore, and I’m not sure why it ever was. Usurping the villain’s plan is exactly the type of thing I would do as a player. It’s honestly thrilling to have players who are as madcap in their approach to the game as I am. So I told the sorceress yes. She would be able to repeat the ritual, but that it would require a great deal of time and preparation to complete.
We ended our session shortly thereafter, with most of the party returning to town to sell their loot (and, incidentally, establish a museum) while the sorceress remained behind to study. A few hours later when I was putting away my folding tables, I began to ponder the next gaming session. For a few days I’d been half-assedly working on an idea for the next adventure. Something to do with dwarves and giants, in which the party would end up in a large dwarven citadel where they could take care of city-things. For a moment I turned my attention to my sorceress’ desire to become a spider-woman. I was just as intrigued by the idea as my players were, but I wasn’t sure how I wanted to handle it. It would be a significant jump in power for the player, once which could unbalance the game in her favor. It also didn’t seem right to simply let her gain the powers after spending a couple weeks casting spells.
That’s when I realized that by allowing my player to pursue an unconventional goal, I was no longer in a position of needing to provide them with an adventure to pursue. They had chosen their adventure: turn the sorceress into a spider woman. Now all I had to do was set the parameters of that adventure. I won’t go into too much detail here, since my players do occasionally read this site, but suffice to say that the task will require the players to go on a number of small side adventure. By the time they’re finally ready to start casting the spell, they’ll have spent somewhere between 3 and 6 sessions on the task, if they’ve remained focused. And while they pursue this goal, they’ll be far more engaged in the game than they ever would be if I was the one trying to create their motivation.
My players are the ones guiding my game now, and I couldn’t be happier that they’ve taken the reigns.
For the record, by the way, this is the template the sorceress is pursuing:
Arachnohominid Template
When a humanoid creature gains the arachnohominid template, six additional eyes grow at even distances from each other around the base creature’s head, and eight large spider legs grow from their back. These legs are large enough that when the creature is standing on them, their humanoid legs will be half of their height off of the ground (about 2.5-3ft for a human). An arachnohominid creature is also able to spin webs through nodules on their fingertips, and control other arachnids to a limited degree.
Unfortunately for the arachnohominid, these alterations are extremely difficult to hide, and are likely to cause fear and mistrust in most of the civilized world.
Type Type changes to Monstrous Humanoid (Do not recalculate Hit Dice, BAB, or saves.) Senses Darkvision 60ft, +4 to perception checks, considered to be looking in all directions at once. (cannot be “back attacked.”) Armor Class Natural armor improves by +2 Abilities Strength and Dexterity each improve by +2 Feats The base creature gains Toughness as a bonus feat. Speed When on the spider legs, the creature’s speed increases to 60ft. The creature can move at this speed even when climbing along walls or ceilings. Special Abilities
Able to climb on walls or ceilings as though affected by a permanent Spider Climb spell.
Can spin webs to entrap foes. Webs can be placed and hidden, or spun around opponents within 30ft during combat. In the latter case, a reflex save of DC [10 + 1/2 character level + Dex Modifier] allows the creature to avoid the attack. In either case, a DC 20 strength check can break the webs, or any attack which deals 5 damage to the webs (AC: 5, Hardness: 0).
A small, fast moving tendril of web can also be used to deliver touch spells up to 30 ft. The arachnohominid must succeed on a ranged touch attack [1d20 + BAB + Dex Modifier against Touch AC] or the spell fails.
Spiders obey the mental commands of an Arachnohomnid. Larger spiders are entitled to a will save DC [10 + 1/2 Arachnohominid HD + Cha]
I find a lot of pleasure in writing about books which I’ve read. Whether I’m excited about a module I’d like to run, or lambasting an author for being sexist, it’s a lot of fun for me. I believe it also serves a useful, or even essential, purpose. The written word is a medium through which an exchange of ideas takes place. If I simply read something without sharing my thoughts on what it, then all I’ve done is absorbed ideas. I may be a better person for it, but that’s not how an exchange works. It’s not until we discuss a book with others that we’re fully engaged with the ideas presented therein. That’s a large part of why I place such a high value on post comments. Expressing my thoughts is one thing, but it’s nothing really special until someone else connects with what I’ve expressed, and shares thoughts of their own.
Word of warning: majoring in philosophy may cause melodramatic outbursts about the value of ideas.
Problem is, some books have too many ideas in them for a single post to be sufficient. Gary Gygax’s original Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is one such book. This is a seminal work, and arguably the most notable of Gary’s life. When Wired magazine set out to name the 9 books every geek must read, they listed this book first. I’ve never heard anyone speak ill of it. Proponents of every edition of the game revere it. Second, Third, and Fourth editions may all have had Dungeon Master’s Guides, but Gygax’s treatise is the Dungeon Master’s Guide. I obtained my copy about two months back, and have been impressed time and again with what I’ve read. I am repeatedly struck by the sense that subsequent editions of the game ‘missed the point.’ That the way I learned a concept while reading the 3.5 DMG was an inaccurate rephrasing of what Gygax originally put down here.
As I embark on my first read-through of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, I am taking copious notes, and will be posting my thoughts regularly. This will not be a continuous series, because we just finished one of those, and also because I’m a slow reader. Nor will it be a comprehensive series. I’ll be writing with an eye towards ideas which interest me personally. Such as mechanics which might be useful to me in my own games, or concepts which I find particularly innovative or odd.
This first post covers up to ‘Changing Alignment’ on page 25.
Dice: There is nearly a full page worth of information on probability curves and different ways of producing random outcomes. This is essential information which every GM should be aware of. I had a poor mathematics education, and when I finally learned about this stuff whilst reading blogs and other articles on the Internet, I felt upset that I hadn’t fully understood the implications of different types of dice rolling. When I found out that this information was actually included in the original DMG, that made me upset all over again. Why wasn’t this included in the third edition DMG, or in Pathfinder’s core rulebook? What other information was deemed more important than this?
Characteristics for Player Characters: I’ve always allowed my players to select their height and weight themselves, because I regarded it as role playing information. Half the time the field remains blank, and I’ve always been fine with that. Gygax’s insistence that height and weight be randomly generated have gotten me thinking, though. If I know the party’s weights, then I could set weight limits for pressure plates. If I know their heights, I could tell them where the spinning blade 3ft off the floor hits them. I’m not quite ready to add two additional rolls to the character creation process in my games, but it’s something to think about.
Player Character Non-Professional Skills The secondary skills system has always struck me as elegant. It has its limitations and its failings, but I like the idea of deriving a host of character abilities from that character’s profession. I’ve already discussed this somewhat in my skills overview entry for the profession skill.
Starting Level of Experience for Player Characters Whenever I have new players, I try to make sure there’s at least one experienced player at the table. I’ve found that the experienced player’s example helps the newer players connect with how the game works. Gygax makes the exact opposite recommendation. He goes so far as to say that if you have both new and experienced players, that a GM should place them in separate parties, to allow the neophyte players the opportunity to explore on their own. I wonder if this is a viable choice in a Pathfinder game, where players are much less likely to enjoy having their characters killed shortly after beginning play. None the less, I think I may try this with my next group of newbies.
Unnatural Aging I very much like the idea of spells which advance a character’s age. Many of Pathfinder’s most powerful spells sometimes feel as though they lack impact, because casting them comes with no great cost. In D&D 3.5, many of these spells required a character to sacrifice a large amount of experience points in order to cast them, which I never liked. It lacks a sufficient game world explanation. It’s just a meta game mechanic which unsuccessfully attempts to reign in the power of casters. Magical aging, on the other hand, is well rooted in the fantasy genre. I like the idea that a character is so drained by Altering Reality that they lose three years from their life. And it does reign in a caster’s power significantly: each casting of the spell brings them ever closer to their character’s death from old age.
Disease A few days before I picked up the DMG to begin this project, one of my players asked my why disease did not play a role in the game. “Rabies is a serious threat, and any minor animal could be a carrier for it,” he said. I told him that disease was not a larger part of the game because it wouldn’t be fun: there’s no meaningful way for a player to avoid disease, nor any meaningful way for them to combat it. At best, I said, it would be a way for the GM to tax the players resources by forcing them to heal themselves occasionally, even if they’d taken no damage. When I said it, I felt very Gygaxian. My position on the matter meshed with what I knew of Gygax.
But apparently not, because every month Gygax writes that players have a base 2% chance to contract a disease, and a 3% chance to contract a parasite, with both probabilities being modified by relevant environmental factors. I do not understand how this could be fun for the players. I’d be very curious to hear from anyone who has actually played a game with this rule in effect.
The Paladin’s Warhorse In World of Warcraft, both the paladin and warlock classes have special “class mounts.” These days the ability to summon these steeds is gained automatically upon leveling, but when I first started to play the game years ago, there were lengthy and difficult questlines which had to be completed in order to obtain these mounts. I found the quests to be a great deal of fun, which made me appreciate my mount a lot more once I had it, and I have often regretted the fact that these quests are no longer part of the game.
Apparently the same is true of Dungeons and Dragons. As long as I’ve played the game, the paladin’s Warhorse has simply been a celestial creature which the paladin summons upon reaching a certain level. However, according to Gygax, this summoning spell only gives the paladin the ability to see his or her future companion in whatever local it is currently in. The Paladin must then travel there, and bond with the mount in person. And who knows what quests will be required along the way! This sounds a great deal more fun than the way it is done in Pathfinder, and I fully intend to use this from now on.
Thieves and Assassins Setting Traps Something I noticed in my preliminary page-flipping is that Gygax occasionally asked his players to produce sketches demonstrating their technique in accomplishing certain tasks. Here, he dictates that anytime a character wishes to set a trap, they should be required to produce a simple drawing illustrating how the trap functions. As a frequent player of rogues, I find this idea to be positively brilliant. I’ve often sketched simple trap designs just for the fun of it. I honestly think I would use traps more if I was actually required to provide a physical diagram of how it would work.
My only concern is that some players might be intimidated by the need to actually diagram their traps. My understanding of mechanics is rudimentary enough that I would let something work if it makes even a small amount of sense, but I can still imagine that some players would find the prospect daunting.
Lycanthropy Firstly, Gary and I are very much in conflict about what should cause a paladin to fall. Here it’s written that a paladin should fall if they are infected by a werewolf, because the second personality (the chaotic evil werewolf) causes the paladin to no longer be “pure enough for that honored state.” I’ve written at length about how a GM should handle a paladin’s oath and the possibility of a paladin falling, and I stand by those views.
Secondly, I like the approach Gygax takes to allowing players to gain control of their lycantrhopy–though I dislike his ultimate view of what lycanthropy represents. According to the DMG, a character with lycanthropy must live with the condition for many years before they’re able to control the transformation. And even once they can, it takes years longer to perfect their control. However, as far as I can tell, being a were-something never becomes beneficial to the player. In many ways I am a product of modern fantasy storytelling, I view lycanthropy less as a curse, and more as a superpower.
What I think I would like to do in my games is run the first stage of lycanthropy much as Gygax recommends. Players will be out of control when they transform, and probably won’t even be aware that they undergo the transformation for several months. In their alternate form, they will act as a beast, according to their alignment. However, as years go by, they could begin to control it. Perhaps after 6 months or a year they could control when they transform. And after a year or two, they could be in full control of themselves while in the alternate form. That way, both visions of lycanthropy are given some purchase within the fantasy world. On the one hand, it is a curse which will cause players to suffer a great deal for a very long time, and they will probably want to get it removed. However, if they choose to stick it out, it can eventually reap significant rewards.
Alignment The 9-point alignment system found in D&D can often feel clunky. Shoehorning every philosophical outlook into one of these nine categories feels forced, and to his credit Gygax admits that. In his explanation of the alignment system, Gygax phrases things in a way which I’ve never heard in all of my years of gaming. One which makes a lot of sense, almost to the point of being stupidly obvious: the alignment system helps determine who you are most likely to align yourself with.
This is not to say that groups of similarly aligned creatures cannot be opposed or even mortal enemies. Two nations, for example, with rulers of lawful good alignment can be at war. Bands of orcs can hate each other. But the former would possibly cease their war to oppose a massive invasion of orcs, just as the latter would make common cause against the lawful good men.
Alignment Language I’ve long been aware that early editions included languages specific to each of the alignments. In addition to common, a human paladin would speak “Lawful Good.” I always thought this sounded like an absolutely ridiculous idea. And while the book doesn’t entirely sell me on the concept, it does mention a number of points which have given me cause to reconsider my previous distaste for the idea.
Alignment languages are not full languages. Their vocabularies are extremely limited.
Think of alignment languages like Latin–which is a dead language that was none the less used for centuries as the universal tongue of the catholic church.
Speaking in an alignment tongue is considered remarkably rude when not alone with members of like alignment.
Changing Alignment Gygax writes that any change in a character’s alignment should result in the loss of 1 level of experience. I can’t find any justification for this, it seems very strange to me.
Favorite Quotes from this Section
“As this book is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player possessing it as something less than worthy of an honorable death.” -Gygax, DMG, Page 8
“Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D is assuredly an adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author’s opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either.Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity.” -Gygax, DMG, Page 9
“An example of the use of wisdom can be given by noting that while the intelligent character will know that smoking is harmful to him, he may well lack the wisdom to stop (this writer may well fall into this category).” -Gygax, DMG, Page 15
“[Regarding Hide in Shadows] As is plainly stated in Players Handbook, this is NEVER possible under direct (or even indirect) observation. If the thief insists on trying, allow the attempt and throw dice, but don’t bother to read them, as the fool is as obvious as a coal pile in a ballroom.” -Gygax, DMG, Page 19
This coming weekend, more than half of my group is unavailable for our normal game. I don’t want to send the Rogue and the Barbarian on an adventure all by themselves, so I’m arranging something a little different for this session. Late last year–before the Rogue or the Barbarian joined my gaming group–I ran a free Pathfinder module called “We Be Goblins.” It was immense amounts of fun, and the whole group agrees that we’d like to return to those goblin characters and play some more, but we’ve yet to get around to that. However, since neither of the players attending this session were there when we played through the module the first time, I figure this will be a good opportunity to introduce them to goblin culture.
The adventure was pretty easy with four players, so I don’t imagine it will be overwhelming with only two, and I’m trying to rustle up a third. However, I don’t really want to let these players use three of the four pre-made characters which come with the module. Chuffy, Mogmurch, and Poog. Because if we ever do get around to playing the goblins as a full group, I don’t want more than one person in the group to feel attached to a given character. The guy who played Rita really didn’t like her and has already asked to change characters, but that still leaves two potential players who wouldn’t have characters of their own to play.
To that end I made two new goblins in the same style used in the module: Gork Stabslicer the Barbarian, and Yrt Gutmuncher the Ranger. I even filled both of their inventories with garbage, and wrote little songs for them to sing, like the four original characters had. And given that a lot of people find this site by searching for the module in question, I thought their sheets might be of interest to anyone who will be playing the module with a group of more than four players.
Gork Stabslicer Male Goblin Barbarian 1 CE Small Goblinoid Init 4; Senses Perception +5; Darkvision 60ft.
Defenses
AC 21, Flat Footed 16, Touch 16 [10 + Dex(4) + Hide Armor(4) + Size(1) + Dodge(1) + Shield(1)] hp 14 (1d12 +2) Fort +4 Ref +4 Will +1
Offense
Speed 40ft Melee Warhammer + 5 (1d6 + 3 /20 x3)
Stats
Str 16 (+3) Dex 18 (+4) Con 15 (+2) Int 8 (-1) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 9 (-1) Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 17 Feats Dodge Goblin Trait Advanced Distraction (1/day use a swift action to gain +2 AC for one round.) Skills Ride (+8), Stealth (+12), Acrobatics (+8), Perception (+5), Survival (+5) Languages Goblin Gear Warhammer, Hide Armor, Light Wooden Shield (Old barrel top), 32 silver pieces, loaf of stale bread, Book with all the pages torn out, 3 iron ladels, pet toad in a birdcage named “lil’ Gork,” a wizard’s hat, a small jar of jelly beans.
Song
Gork like slicing, Gork like stab, Cut up longshanks into ham! Make the dogs and children flee, On their faces I will pee!
Yrt Gutmuncher Female Goblin Ranger 1 CE Small Goblinoid Init 4; Senses Perception +6; Darkvision 60ft.
Defenses
AC 19, Flat Footed 15, Touch 15 [10 + Dex(4) + Hide Armor(4) + Size(1)] hp 11 (1d10 +1) Fort +3 Ref +6 Will +2
I’ve always had a passion for the macabre. In particular, I am very fond of all things pertaining to undeath. My preference tends towards the unsettling majesty of gothic fantasy, but I’m not above enjoying a B horror movie or two. So when I was asked to participate in May of the Dead, I didn’t hesitate. I don’t exactly need an excuse to fill this site with my darker imaginings, but since I have one, I thought it would be a good opportunity to work on a number of undead-themed posts in a row. Each Friday during the month of May, I’ll be animating a new undead-themed post. And if you’d like to read more, there are many other websites participating in this little carnival.
For this first post, I’d like to discuss zombies. Though they lack the elegance of an animated skeleton, and are currently suffering from their severe overexposure in recent years, the zombie is none the less a fundamental fantasy foe. And while the classic shambling cadaver will never go out of style, it is diminished by its own omnipresence. What is a GM to do? How can we inject a sense of danger back into a creature which players have faced so many times that they know the creature’s statblock and abilities like the backs of their character sheets?
We reinvent it.
Part of the reason zombies are so enduring is because they are the most fundamental kind of undead we can imagine. They are dead bodies, which none the less are capable of moving on their own, and want to hurt the living. You might say that a zombie is a blank slate, waiting to be given the kind of unique attributes which can turn it into a truly memorable monster. Pathfinder has already done this, somewhat. In the Bestiary, the zombie entry contains a small section titled “Variant Zombies” on page 289. Detailed therein are the “fast zombie,” and the “plague zombie,” both of which are pretty self explanatory. The former are faster than normal zombies, and the latter can infect victims with a zombifying disease. Here are a few other ways I’ve come up with to reanimate your player’s fear of zombies:
Exploding Zombies These have become popular in zombie-centric video games which need a way to ramp up difficulty without straying too far from their core theme. The idea makes a certain kind of sense: when a person dies, their decomposing body creates a lot of gas. Normally this gas is expelled gradually, but if we can stretch our imaginations far enough to accept walking dead in the first place, then we can certainly imagine that all of these gasses somehow end up trapped inside the corpse. Perhaps inside a bloated and distended stomach. This state could be an accidental byproduct of the reanimation process, causing perhaps one in every ten or twenty zombies to become an exploding zombie. Particularly sinister necromancers might create these undead bombardiers intentionally, and unleash a horde of them on an unsuspecting adventuring party.
Pungent Cloud Zombies Speaking of gasses, why limit ourselves to something as ostentatious as an explosion? I find undead are always the most enticing when they’re a little mysterious, and subtle. Those same gasses produced by decomposition could form an oppressive miasma. A single zombie would only effect those standing in adjacent squares, but each zombie reinforces the cloud of fear and despair which surrounds them. A large enough horde might affect anyone standing within a mile of them. Those affected would have their intellects clouded, and their bodies made sluggish. Wizards would find they could not recall their most powerful (read: highest spell level) incantations, and fighters would seem to miss a lot more than they normally would (-5 to attack rolls).
Slightly Intelligent Zombies Traditionally, zombies are mindless. That’s almost part-in-parcel of what it means to be a zombie. If a necromancer needs a servant which can think, they create a ghoul. A zombie is created when a necromancer needs a large force which will obey them without question. But lets say that a group of zombies is created by an erratic necromancer, or perhaps has no master, but has managed to avoid destruction for years or even decades. Why not give them an intelligence of 2? That’s not enough that they could learn speech, or form any kind of society. But it is enough that they could communicate on a very basic level, and even form simple tactics to better defeat their enemies with.
Somewhat-to-Highly Intelligent Zombies Zombies created by a downright insane necromancer, or who have lived for a century or more, might become as intelligent as you or I. It is unlikely that they would recall, or care to recall, anything about their life, but their intelligence would provide them with a unique advantage in their un-life. It is doubtful that any such zombie could ever be anything but evil, since their continued life depends on negative energy and consuming the flesh of the living. But as villains, they might be truly formidable.
Necrotic Bite Zombie The dangerous nature of a Zombie’s bite is an important element in most zombie fiction. For some reason it’s never really made the leap to game mechanics, leaving Pathfinder zombies to rely on their slam attack. Necrotic Bite Zombies gain a +0 bite attack which deals 1d6 damage. Anyone who is hit by the zombie’s Necrotic Bite must make a fortitude save (DC is equal to 10 + half the zombie’s HD + the zombie’s cha modifier). If the fortitude save fails, roll 1d10 to determine where the victim has been bitten. A result of 1-2 is the right leg, a result of 3-4 is the left leg, a result of 5-6 is the right arm, a result of 7-8 is the left arm, a result of 9 is the torso, and a result of 10 is the head. The skin around the bite becomes black and flaky, like skin which has been severely burned. This effect slowly spreads throughout the day. After 24 hours, it grows enough to spread to an adjacent part of the body. The spread can be stopped either with magical healing, or by amputating all affected body parts. Aside from severe discomfort, the necrotic zombie bite has no negative mechanical effects until it has fully spread throughout both the torso and head of the victim, at which point the victim dies and rises as a necrotic bite zombie 1d6 minutes later.
Zombification Zone A particular dungeon could be enchanted in such a way that anything which died within it would be raised as a zombie within 1d6 minutes of death. This would include any creatures which the players slay, or any players which die within the dungeon. Just as the players leave a room after clearing it, they would be accosted from behind by the very creatures they thought they had just destroyed!
Boneblade Zombie Zombies are often covered with jutting bones. It can be an exposed ribcage, a broken femur, or just a forearm without a hand. Boneblade Zombies have been specifically crafted to maximize the number of jutting bones, and to sharpen those bones to razor points. The slam attacks of these zombies deal 1d8 +6 piercing damage, and they gain +2 natural armor bonus to AC.
Minion Zombies When I was first learning about 4th edition, the concept of minion NPCs was one of the first things to really turn me off to the game. As a rule, I don’t like the inclusion of enemies which functionally exist for the purpose of being defeated easily. As an option, however, I think it could be a flavorful alternative to the zombies presented in the bestiary. When a level one party is fighting a necromancer, and 5 zombies enter to assist him from the next room, the players are in pretty serious trouble. While zombies are not particularly difficult to hit, they are capable of doing a fair amount of damage. And since each one has 5 damage reduction on top of 12 HP, the party is going to need to devote at least a few turns to each one. If, on the other hand, you remove the damage reduction from each zombie, and reduce their HP to 1, the necromancer could call 30 zombies into the room to help him! Since Zombies are cannon fodder anyway, it makes sense for them to be easy to destroy. And since they don’t lose any of their ability to harm the players, they still pose a serious threat.
Plant Zombie Rather than being animated by negative energy, zombies could functionally be created by a flower which grows in the skulls of dead people. The roots weave throughout the brain, and stimulate it to produce movement. The blood and flesh of the living are used as fertilizer, allowing the plant to sustain itself, and a puff of pollen on the corpses of the dead would allow it to reproduce. Functionally this would be no different from a normal zombie, but don’t discount the value of fluff in making something old feel new again.
Parasitic Zombies Did you know that zombies are real? There are a variety of real life parasites which take control of their host creatures. One such parasite, the lancet liver fluke, was featured by The Oatmeal, and its life cycle serves as a good example of other similar parasites. Insofar as I’ve read, all of these parasites take control of a specific type of organism, then do their best to get that organism eaten by one of its natural predators. The parasite then reproduces in the colon of the new host, and its eggs are released into the world when the creature poops. In reality, I’ve never heard of these parasites taking control of anything larger than a small fish, but in fantasy such a parasite might be used to take control of humans. Once controlled, the brain-dead humans would function essentially as zombies. They would attack anything in their path, sustaining themselves on the flesh of others, with the ultimate goal of being devoured by a dragon, or other large human-eating creature.
Beloved Zombie These zombies are sometimes created by experienced necromancers with a particularly sadistic bent. Each zombie is under the effect of powerful illusion magic, which causes anyone who sees the zombie to believe it was created from the remains of a deceased loved one. Any attack roll made against such a zombie is made at a -1 penalty per HD of the zombie. Low level beloved zombies might simply appear to be the viewer’s long dead grandparent who was kind of a dick. Whereas a high level zombie would appear to be the recently deceased son of the viewer, crying while he plays with all of the viewer’s dead childhood pets.
Anyone who plays tabletop RPGs eventually starts coming up with ways to pervert the concept. A group will only play good and neutral heroes for so long before they start to consider playing evil characters. They’ll only play as humans, elves, and dwarves for so long before they start to wonder what it would be like to play as an orc or a goblin. It’s only natural for a person to look for unusual and flavorful experiences, particularly in a game which is already about exploring the fantastical. Even Gygax would purportedly send his D&D players into Western or Science Fiction scenarios–still wielding sword and spell. Deviations like these can be great fun. and it was while entertaining these perversions that I struck upon the idea of having my players take the reigns of mindless undead creatures.
I would start with a dungeon, probably on the smallish side. Perhaps only a single level. It would be filled with everything you would expect to find in a dungeon: interesting rooms, treasure, traps, and so forth. It would even have adventurers. The only thing it wouldn’t have is monsters, because that’s where the players come in. Each player would take command of a single skeleton or zombie with a very simple task: prevent adventurers from defeating the necromancer who was kind enough to animate them. They would be given a map of the dungeon, as well as guidance from their master’s divinations about the location of the invading adventuring party. They would be free to use any tactics they wished to defeat the adventurers. I, in turn, would move the adventurers through the dungeon, rolling for damage when they passed a trap and buffing them up a bit each time they encountered treasure.
I would do my best to defeat the zombies, but until the adventurers slay the necromancer, a new zombie or skeleton will always join its fellows within 1d6 rounds of its predecessors death. So no matter how many the adventurers kill, they’re fighting an uphill battle through the dungeon. Any time an adventurer is slain, one of the undead may spend a full round eating its corpse to regain all of their health. Any time the undead succeed in causing a TPK, all of the individual undead involved gain 1HD, and are allowed to add +1 to their damage rolls henceforth.
The cool thing about the idea is that player death really doesn’t matter all that much. When a player has invested a lot of time into creating, or playing a character, it can be a sobering experience for that character to die. It’s one of the big weaknesses of Pathfinder’s involved character building process. But when all of a character’s abilities and statistics are found under “S” and “Z” in the Bestiary, there’s no character creation process to go through. And since the new character appears a mere 1d6 rounds later, I imagine it won’t take long for players to start wantonly sacrificing themselves to create barriers, or to lure adventurers into deathtraps. And while a character who has leveled up might be a little too valuable to just throw away, I doubt any player would grow so attached to a few more HP and a +1 to damage that they’d feel at all sad to lose the character.
The way I imagine it, this would be a pretty fun evening of gaming to run. A brief deviation from the norm to cleanse everyone’s adventuring palette. Little will the players realize the insidious information they’re inadvertently providing to their GM: tactics. It’s just a side benefit really, but I know I’ll be watching my group carefully to see what they come up with. And I’ll be sure to use something similar against them next time they’re unfortunate enough to be level one adventurers taking their first wary steps into a dungeon.
In truth, this is closer to a board game than it is to an RPG. The only reason I wouldn’t call it a board game flat-out is because of tactical infinity. There are no limits to what the players can do to defeat the adventurers, so long as they can convince the GM that the idea is plausible.
