Pathfinder Diseases: Commonplace Conditions

My post yesterday covered fantastical, magical diseases and how I think they ought to be implemented in Pathfinder. Today I want to continue along that same thread, but switch to real world diseases. The kind of stuff which killed our ancestors, and which adventurers in a medieval European themed fantasy setting are more likely to encounter.

To start, I want to make clear what I think diseases in a tabletop game should not be. They should not be a completely random affect. Players should not be constantly at risk to contract them, as they are in AD&D 1st ed. Diseases should never serve as a way for the GM to say “screw you!” to the players. Nor should players who contract a disease ever feel as though they could not have known what they were risking when they exposed themselves to it.

In my mind, diseases are traps. Traps which might be encountered in a dungeon, but can also be encountered during wilderness exploration. I don’t mean traps in a literal sense–obviously diseases aren’t triggered by pressure plates or trip wires. I view diseases as traps because they ought to be designed using the same methodology. When the players are in danger of contracting a disease, they must be able to recognize and avoid that disease through intelligent play, the same way they would avoid a trap. (Disable Device check not included).

For example, lets use the example of a fire trap. The players open the door, and the GM describes the room by saying that there’s an iron table and chairs in the center of the room, both of them slightly warped. The stone floor and parts of the wall are covered in dark smears. Players now have enough information that they should know something is off about the room. They’re careful about entering, and in so doing, they discover that there are a few pressure plates within the room which activate a number of wall-mounted flame jets.

It’s the same when the players encounter the malaria trap. As they travel through the world, the GM tells them that shortly after noon, the forest they’ve been traveling through changes. Up ahead, it turns into a swamp filled with buzzing clouds of mosquitoes. Since the players know they’re playing in a game with disease, they have enough information to deduce that the swamp up ahead will be dangerous to travel through. They might choose to risk it, or go around it, or prepare some manner of mundane or magical protection for it. Regardless of what they choose to do, the world has become more dangerous, and more interesting, and requires them to make more informed decisions. And that’s good.

The question now becomes: Which diseases ought to show up in D&D? They need to be well known enough that players instantly know what kind of danger they’re facing when they contract it, and they should have methods of transmission which are distinct enough that they can be identified as dangerous situations by intelligent players. So I came up with a list of diseases which sprang to my mind, asked around for any I missed, then read the wiki entry for each of them, crossing off any which didn’t sufficiently meet my criteria listed above. I came up with a tentative list of 8 diseases which could be used in your game world.

I don’t imagine it’s necessary, but I would like to say before I begin: I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not a doctor, nor am I a biologist, nor even someone who got pretty good grades in a science class once. What I’ve written below is obviously simplified, and probably contains a factual error or two.

I’m not going to fully detail each of these with game rules, but I imagine all of them could be cured with Remove Disease if it is available. Any permanent effects from the disease would remain irreversible.

Malaria

How you get it: Being bitten by a disease-carrying mosquito.
What it does: Begins with flu like symptoms, followed by severe chills, fever, convulsions, and potentially a coma.

As mentioned above, swamps filled with mosquito are the perfect place for a malaria trap. I particularly like this one because it has an obvious sign of being present–clouds of insects–and there are a few interesting ways to avoid getting the disease yourself. Like a beekeeping suit, for example.

I’m not sure how the symptoms of malaria could be converted into game terms. Some penalties, with perhaps a permanent loss to constitution score? My understanding is that malaria is a disease which remains with you throughout your life, but aside from occasional flare-ups, a disease victim is able to have a relatively normal existence.

Rabies

How you get it: Being bitten by a disease-carrying animal. Most commonly a dog.
What it does: Hydrophobia, followed by mania, coma, and death.

This is one of the few examples where I think the idea of monsters carrying disease is a good one, since it’s actually how the disease is spread. In the real world, it seems as though dogs are by far the primary carriers of rabies, but in a fantasy world any number of creatures could be. A dire wold or giant rat with foam dribbling from their mouth is obviously something that players would want to be wary of.

Once a player has the disease, they can’t willingly enter water for any reason. After 1d6 days, the GM may randomly take control of them for a few moments as the mania begins to take hold. 2d6 days after that, the character dies if they have not had cure disease cast on them.

Leprosy

How you get it: Coming in contact with the breath of a diseased person.
What it does: Skin lesions, numbness, can lead to permanent skin, nerve, limb, and eye damage.

It’s worthy to note that, contrary to popular belief, Leprosy is neither highly contagious, nor does it make your limbs fall off. Since this is a fantasy world, you may wish to use a more fantastic version of the disease.

Since this disease is widely feared, but not actually very harmful or dangerous at all (compared to its hype), I think it makes the most sense for it to deal Charisma damage to the player. Since joints are affected, I think Dexterity damage is called for as well. A month after contracting the disease, the player permanently loses 1 charisma and 1 dexterity both, and the skin lesions begin to appear on their body. If the players allow either their Charisma or their Dexterity to drop as far as 3, then the disease will attack their eyes, making them blind.

Leprosy will never bring a player’s stats below 3.

The Black Plague

How you get it: Bitten by disease carrying fleas, which normally live on rats.
What it does: Large growths appear under the arms or near the groin, which ooze black puss. Within 2-7 days, the victim experiences a lot of blood vomiting, followed by death.

The best thing a player can do to avoid the black plague is avoid anyone infected with it like the plague. Because it’s the god damned plague.

If you’ve never made the time to read up on why exactly the black plague is still so present in human consciousness, here’s the cliffnotes. It killed between 75 million, and 100 million people in the 1400s. Considering that the total world population was estimated to be around 450 million, that means as much as 22% of the human race was killed by this disease. In Europe alone, between 30 and 60% of the population died. And they didn’t just die. They died in horrible pain, vomiting blood, and dying, all in a span of a week. And on top of all of that, the major outbreak during the 1400s wasn’t even the last one. There were further outbreaks of the disease for over 100 years afterword.

To put it another way, the Black Plague came close to wiping out humanity forever.

If your players hear about an area of plague, they damned well better stay clear of it.

Smallpox

How you get it: Smallpox is airborne if you are within 6ft of an infected person.
What it does: Distinctive full-body rash, weakness, nausea, vomiting, 30% fatality rate.

Smallpox is a lot like The Black Plague. It actually killed more people overall, but to my knowledge Smallpox did its killing over a larger period of time, and never took out such a sizable percentage of humanity all at once. In its own right, it is a horrifying and painful disease, and one which the players will want to avoid if they ever hear about an outbreak of it.

At least they’ve got a 70% survival rate if they do catch it, even if they’ll be laid up for a few weeks.

Syphilis

How you get it: Having the sex with an infected individual.
What it does: Painless lesions, rashes, a breakdown of mental abilities.

I’ve heard a lot of jokes about D&D players who engage in sex within the game, and I’ve even heard a lot of stories about it. I’ve never actually encountered a player or GM who was interested in exploring this aspect of the game. So for me, I doubt Siphilis would ever come up. Which is too bad, because it has some of the more interesting effects. I imagine there could be permanent wisdom loss, or perhaps loss of both wisdom and intelligence. Also, unlike most of the diseases on this list, a person with syphilis can continue to live a pretty normal life.

The existence of syphilis within a game world could serve as a useful tool for a GM who wants to reign in sex within their campaign.

Dysentery

How you get it: Consuming contaminated food or water.
What it does: Severe dehydration as a result of constant mucus/blood diarrhea. The dehydration can cause death.

Players should know not to eat stagnant water or spoiled food, and dysentery serves to give them an in-game reason to remember that. A player with Dysentery might need to consume a week’s worth of water rations in a day just to remain hydrated. And for the duration of the disease (which, to my understanding, seems to be about 1-2 weeks, depending on medication) the character would be almost completely incapacitated by abdominal pain and…well…pooping.

Tuberculosis, a.k.a. Consumption

How you get it: Contact with a coughing and sneezing person who has it.
What it does: Loss of appetite, fever, chills, fatigue, a bloody cough, death.

Like a number of the diseases above, T.B. is something the player contracts when they come in contact with a person who already has it. The bloody cough is the telltale sign of consumption. Players will want to distance themselves from anyone who has it. If they do contract it, they could probably continue adventuring for a short while, but with heavy penalties. Maybe just long enough to reach a cleric.

Pathfinder Diseases: Magical Maladies

The section on diseases is one of the worst things I’ve encountered in the original Dungeon Master’s Guide so far. It has a page and a half worth of space in the book, but as best I can tell it’s nothing but a fun-leech. Something that Arneson came up with, and Gygax added complications to.* I’m honestly not sure why either of them thought rolling each month to determine if players caught a life-threatening disease would be fun. It strikes me as the kind of mechanic added because the designer places too high a value on creating ‘realistic’ games. Yet both Gygax and Arneson demonstrated elsewhere that they understood the dangers of excessive realism. Gygax even writes in the opening of the DMG:

“As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it [D&D] can be deemed only a dismal failure.”

So I’m really not sure why they chose to go this route. But suffice to say, I think it’s bad.

But the idea of diseases itself is not inherently flawed. Only AD&D’s application of it. And I don’t think I’m alone in that, as I’ve never seen anything even remotely resembling that disease rule in any other edition of D&D, or any retro-clone, that I’ve read. Diseases are still present somewhat, but they’re treated much more like poisons than anything else. The bite of a diseased animal or being cursed is the most common way to get a disease in Pathfinder. And while I don’t think that’s inherently bad, I think we could do better.

But before I move on to discussing my thoughts on how to fix the mechanics of how diseases are contracted, I’d like to bring up a second problem: how diseases are identified. The diseases in Pathfinder include such maladies as “Blinding Sickness,” “Cackle Fever,” “Devil Chills,” and Slimy Doom.” As fun and pulpy as these disease names are, I agree with Delta: diseases work better when they’re rooted in the real world. I get what they were going for (I’ve done it too), but goofy fantasy names like these never sound as good as they do in our heads. I do appreciate that Pathfinder includes more grounded diseases like Bubonic Plague and Leprosy, but I wish they’d stuck to Mummy Rot and Lycanthropy by way of fantasy diseases.

That doesn’t mean that I’m completely opposed to fantasy diseases. I just think they need to be integrated better. A fantastic disease should have a fantastic cause. It should also be more distinct and memorable than 1d4 strength damage once per day until 3 consecutive fortitude saves are made. The two I mentioned above are perfect examples of what I would deem to be good fantastical diseases. Mummy Rot is one of the most dreadful attacks possessed by a low level undead creature, with the potential to completely turn the target to dust. While Lycanthropy is so uniquely fantastical that I don’t even need to justify it. You already know why it’s awesome. For today I’m going to focus on fantastical diseases like these, while tomorrow’s post will cover more commonplace conditions.

Magic users of various stripes control energies well beyond the understanding of normal mortals. Normally these casters are well prepared to handle the energies they summon. However, if for some reason they fail to bring their spell to completion, the magical energies can be released into their body, and left to contaminate them in one way or another, often making them ill.

If for any reason a spellcaster fails to cast a spell after they’ve begun casting it, they are at risk of contracting a magical disease. The GM should roll 1d20 on the chart below. If the result is equal to or less than the level of the spell being cast, then the magic user contracts the indicated malady. If the number rolled is higher than the level of the spell which was being cast, then nothing happens (even if that number would otherwise correspond to a disease).

For example, if a sorcerer attempts to cast a 5th level spell, but is attacked and fails their concentration check, then they are at risk of becoming ill. If the GM rolls a 2, then the caster contracts “Mystic Frailty,” because 2 < 5. On the other hand, if a 6 is rolled, the caster will not contract “Energy Leak,” because 6 > 5. Unless otherwise stated, all diseases last a number of days equal to 1d4 times the level of the spell which was failed.

1 – Glitter Sniffle
2- Mystic Frailty
3- Unsteady Casting
4- School Lock
5- Reachlost
6- Energy Leak
7- Spelldraw
8- Commoner’s Disease
9- Soul Breach

Glitter Sniffle – While most magical diseases are a severe inconvenience, Glitter Sniffle is more of a nuisance. For the duration of the illness, the caster sneezes at least once every 15 minutes. When they sneeze, a glittering, glowing light effect erupts from their nose, momentarily causing a harmless flash of light. Bits of mucus continue to glow for an hour after the fact, which can leave an obvious trail if the care is not taken.

Mystic Frailty – All spells have their effects reduced by half (number of die, number of creatures, duration. Whichever is relevant). Aside from feelings of general mental weakness, the casters spells are much less impaction than they ought to be. Though the caster may put twice as much effort into their attempt to cast fireball, the flames they produce will be significantly less intense than normal.

Unsteady Casting – Magical incantations which normally seem quite simple are more difficult to understand and express. Gestures and magical words are slightly off, causing the spell’s effects to be weakened. The saving throw for all of the caster’s spells are reduced by half. Any spell which normally does not have a saving throw, gains one.

School Lock – Whichever school of spells the cater was attempting to cast from when they failed is the only school which they can cast from at all for the duration of the disease. The magical energies specific to that school have permeated the caster’s body, causing spells of any other school to become mangled, and fail. This effect counts even if the failed spell was from the universal school, or the caster’s prohibited school.

Reachlost – The ability to designate a target for a spell is a complicated one which casters must practice hard in order to perfect. The Reachlost disease completely blocks the caster’s access to the mental muscle they need in order to accomplish that feat. For the duration of this illness, spells can only be delivered as touch spells. Magical items which increase a spells range, or metamagic feats which do so, will not function.

Energy Leak – The magical energies that the caster normally holds within their bodies leak out constantly. Anytime they attempt to cast a spell, they must make a concentration check, DC 10 + [Spell Level]. If they fail, then the spell was lost, and they cannot attempt to cast it. Additionally, the leaking magic attracts many types of magical bests which can sense it. Denizens of the lower planes are particularly sensitive to this trail, often sensing it from miles away.

Spelldraw – The shifting, roiling mass of magical energy within the caster is so powerful that it draws other magic towards it. If any spell’s target is within a number of feet of the diseased caster equal to 10 * the failed spell’s level, then the caster of that spell must succeed on a concentration check (DC 10 + [Spell Level]) or that spell’s target will become the diseased caster. The diseased caster also receives no saving throws against spells while afflicted with Spelldraw.

Commoner’s Disease – Magical energies become completely inaccessible to the caster for the duration of this disease. They are unable to cast any spells whatsoever, but can still use scrolls and magical items.

Soul Breach – This is bad. The magical energies you let course through your body have somehow entwined with your soul, corrupting it. This effect does not end until it is cured, and curing it may be difficult. Each time you cast a spell while you have this disease, make a will saving throw, DC 10 + [Spell Level]. Upon failure, this corruption spreads, and the caster gains 1 negative level.

If the disease cannot be cured, the caster faces a difficult decision about what they value more: casting spells, or being alive?

*My understanding is that the disease rules found in the DMG first appeared in a simpler form in the “Blackmoor” supplement, written by Arneson.

8 Rules for Dungeon Improvisation

During my most recent pathfinder game, a number of my players were absent. Among them was the group’s sorceress, Phoenix Darkmatter. Her absence was particularly relevant because the primary quest of the party currently revolves around her. Without her there to participate, I assumed that the party would want to pursue some other goal, so prior to the game I prepared a number of quest threads in the town they had ended their last adventure in. True to form, however, they completely bypassed everything I had prepared. As I had predicted, they didn’t want to continue the arachnohomnid quest line without Phoenix, but they weren’t even slightly interested in protecting dwarven caravans either. No, this party of low level adventurers recalled hearing about a lich which lived in the southern lands, and determined that killing it would be an appropriate use of their time.

The rogue participated only under strong (and well justified) protest.

Fortunately, a random roll of the dice brought the party to their senses. After nearly being killed by a pack of wolves they randomly encountered while crossing the planes, they settled on a more reasonable goal: find out why the nearby forest was filled with half-ogre monstrosities. It’s a quest thread I had introduced in one of our first sessions. They had never seemed particularly interested in it before. I had to leave the room for a moment to find some of my older notes related to that quest–and what I had was not much. A mad wizard with ogre minions had taken up residence in the ancient elven ruins of Gorak Torar, where he was experimenting on transforming the local Gnoll population into Ogre-kin servants for himself. That’s all I had.

Oh, and the ruins were made of blue-white stone. Because this place was not at all a ripoff of Dire Maul.

The players asked intelligent questions and quickly found a trail of clues leading them to the ruins themselves. They’re starting to get too good at this game, I can’t rely on them fumbling about for too long while I find my bearings. It didn’t take them long after finding the ruins to gravitate towards the large building at the center, and make their way into the dungeon beneath it. A dungeon which I had absolutely no plans whatsoever for. So I improvised.

I’ve always prided myself on my improvisational skill, and everyone enjoyed themselves. It was easily the most fun I’ve had recently, and my players were still talking about the adventure a couple days later. Once the game was over, and I had a moment to review my performance, I went over my methodology for creating the dungeon, and retroactively codified 8 rules I had used to help me go about the task.

Steal. Do it rampantly, and do it shamelessly. Even if you were to completely rip off the layout of an environment your players were intimately familiar with, it’s not likely that they would notice. And if you change a room shape here, and add a few more doors there, a dungeon layout lifted from another game becomes completely unrecognizable.
Don’t make the dungeon fancy, just make it. Don’t waste a bunch of your time thinking about how to make things interesting, or how to create a theme, or complicated multi-room puzzles. You don’t have time. Draw corridors, draw doors, draw rooms, and figure out what’s in them. That’s all you have time for. If you want to add depth, do something simple like a locked door, or a key hanging on the wall. Then you can easily insert the matching element later.
Read -C’s PDF guide On Tricks, Empty Rooms, and Basic Trap Design. The Empty Rooms part is particularly important. Commit as much of this PDF to memory as you can, and use it.
While your players are discussing amongst themselves what they want to do in a given room, that’s your opportunity to figure out what’s behind all of the room’s doors. You don’t need to pay attention to everything they say, but you should already know what’s behind every door of the room they’re in.
You don’t need to worry about anything beyond the rooms which are adjacent to the one your players are in. There’s no need to waste time detailing a room which they might never even get near to. If you have spare time, focus your attention on adding details to the rooms you’ve already got. Something like a trap, a secret door, or some unusual monster or treasure adds depth to your dungeon.
Restroom breaks are a perfect opportunity to expand your map.
Select a small number of enemy types, maybe 2-3, and have those creatures constitute most of the dungeon’s population. Some rooms might have a special monster of some kind, but a small number monster types repeated gives the dungeon a sense of consistency. Don’t be afraid to put those monsters in a variety of situations, though.
If your players are looking for something in particular, it will not necessarily be along the path they take through the dungeon. They will likely pass a number of doors on their way through the dungeon, and it could easily be beyond one of those. If you’d like to handle this with as much agency as possible, roll a D6 each time the players descend to a new level. On a roll of 5-6 (or 4-6 for smaller dungeons) what the players are looking for is on that level of the dungeon. And each time the players enter a new room on that level, roll a D20. On a roll of 19-20, what the players are looking for is in that particular room.

These are just the rules I came up with off the top of my head during the game. I’d be curious to know if anyone else has similar methods, or tips on how I could improve my own!

Campaign Management Toolbox

One of my multitude of flaws as a GM is that I do not run a very organized campaign. Notes are often scattered, and obtuse. An NPC’s name is buried in the middle of a paragraph of the notes from two sessions ago. I don’t want to waste everyone’s time, so I just come up with something new off the top of my head and hope the players weren’t paying enough attention to notice. And that’s terrible. As GMs, we want our worlds to be consistent and life-like. No, our players probably won’t notice if we rename an NPC they’ve only seen once before, but that’s because they need to hear an NPC’s name three or four times before they’ll start to remember it. And if we can’t give them that repetition, then the setting is just a vessel that they use to play the game. It will never become a persistent world in their minds, and thus the game can never achieve its full potential.

Unfortunately, we GMs are but mortal men and women. We do not have the power to hold an entire world within our minds, with all the characters, locations, and events such a feat would entail. Perhaps gods would make better GMs, but players will have to settle for those of us who just think we’re omnipotent. And if we want to pull that off, we need tools. I’ve spent the last week reevaluating and updating the various methods I use to help me manage my campaign, and I think I’ve assembled a tool box which is relatively comprehensive, easy to use while in play, supports a dynamic world, and is simple to keep updated. That last one is particularly important because my note-taking has always been atrocious.

The campaign calendar is one of my newest tools. Based on my old post, Suppositions on Time Tracking, I created a calendar with 7 days in a week, 5 weeks in a month, and 10 months in a year. It might seem arbitrary to deviate from the gregorian calendar most of us are familiar with. However, I didn’t feel the gregorian calendar was sufficiently easy to use. Not only do the number of days in a month fluctuate throughout the year, but since the number of days in a month is not divisible by the number of days in a week, the whole thing turns into a big mess. In my system, each unit of time measurement can be fitted neatly into the next largest unit of measurement without any remainder. The only problem is that the 4 seasons cannot be distributed evenly amongst 10 months. But I just made the transitory seasons (spring and fall) two months long, and the other seasons three months long. That seemed suitable enough to me.

As an added bonus, changing from the gregorian calendar adds to the atmosphere of the game world. Even if the players never need to think about the game’s calendar themselves, the fact that I now know how the calendar works helps make NPC dialogue seem a little more authentic. If you’re interested, the seven days of the week are Famday, Moonsday, Skyday, Earthday, Seaday, Kingsday, and Godsday. The five weeks of the month are Squire’s Week, Knight’s Week, Baron’s Week, Earl’s Week, and Duke’s Week. And the ten months of the year are the “The Month Of…” Rising, Blood, Healing, Blades, Victory, Restlessness, Glory, Defeat, Wisdom, and Remembrance.

Functionally, I use the calendar to track events over time. I keep track of what in-game day it is when we play, and note down any significant events which happen during that day. I try to avoid too much detail, just making quick notes, such as meeting with an NPC I want to bring back in the future, starting or completing a quest, things like that. Going back through the calendar, it can serve as a log book of sorts. It also helps me track cooldowns. If I tell the players it’ll take a week’s worth of time to research something, then I can mark down when they begin researching it, and I won’t forget when it’s time for them to be finished. This also helps with cool downs, or establishing other time limitations. I am coming to appreciate that the passage of time is potentially one of the most interesting aspects of a D&D game–both on the adventure level, and the campaign level. The calendar should help me use that tool more efficiently.

Part of what makes the calendar relevant is a pair of tools which I’ve taken to collectively calling the Quest Log. The first of the two is a list of the PC’s stated goals. It only takes up a few lines, but it serves as an essential compass to me when I’m preparing for each new session. I know from listening to my players that they’re interested in stealing an egg from a great and terrible mountain-sized spider which lives far to the north east. So if the land between where the players currently are and where they need to go doesn’t have any towns or monsters in it, I know I need to work on that to be ready for the next session. The second part of the Quest Log are a list of ‘open hooks.’

Open hooks are ongoing events which the PCs know about. It is important to note that, while there is some overlap, not all open hooks will be among the PC’s stated goals. For example, my players expressly decided not to involve themselves in the war between the Orcs and the Elves in the Western forest. Likewise, not all of the PC’s stated goals count as open hooks. For example, one of my PC’s stated goals is to acquire the hair of a drow. Unless there’s a contagious epidemic of baldness amongst the drow, this doesn’t really count as an ‘ongoing event.’

Using the ‘Lines in the Water‘ mechanic devised by Eric of Dragon’s Flagon, I assign a die to each of the open hooks. More volatile situations use a die with fewer faces, while more stable situations use a die with more faces. Once every in-game week, each open hook’s die is rolled. If the number is a 1 or a 2, the situation gets worse, if I roll the die’s maximum number, or one less than the maximum, then the situation gets better. I heartily recommend you read the original post on this mechanic to get a fuller explanation. It’s one of the most innovative and elegant mechanics I’ve seen in awhile. By using it, I can quickly determine how my game world evolves around my characters. They’ll learn that an opportunity they choose to pass on will not always be there for them in the future, and I avoid any biases I may have about how I would like the event to develop without the player’s help.

Perhaps one of the most obvious tools in my toolbox is a keyed campaign map. My world is printed on a hex map, the value of which I’ve written about a number of times in the past. I created the map using Hexographer, which is the only digital tool I’m using right now. Everything else is done on paper, and fits neatly into a binder. Each hex on the map is keyed twice. First, each hex is part of a numbered ‘region,’ which is outlined in red on the map. Each region has some very basic information associated with it: ‘World NPCs’ which live there (I’ll get to that later), important locations which exist there, the government of the region, a very brief description of what is currently going on there, and an encounter table.

For example, region 1 on my campaign map is home to no World NPCs, and the only important locations are Honon village, and the Dwarven Trade Road. Region 1 is ruled by the human Korrathan Empire, but is on the edge of their territories. The only thing currently going on in region 1 is that the town of Honon is attempting to rebuild after it was destroyed, and there is a group of bandits which attacks small groups of travelers. Based on that information, I created a small encounter table where there were not many encounters with monsters, since the area is considered civilized territory. There is a 15% chance of encountering bandits, a 10% chance of encountering wolves or dire wolves, and the rest of the encounters are just with traveling merchants or patrolling guards.

For most hexes, the region key is all that I need. However, for added detail, each hex is also individually numbered. Most of these numbers correspond with nothing. But if a hex has something particular in it, such as a town, or a monument, or a dungeon entrance, then that information is keyed to the individual hex number rather than the regional key. Again using region 1 as an example, there is only one hex with anything specific in it. Hex 28.18 contains the lakeside town of Honon. So here I would quickly note the name of the town, and the names and purpose of any NPCs the players have interacted with before. Depending on how important the town is to the game, I may have more information as well, such as the town’s purchasing power or the services it has available. In the specific case of Honon, I once ran an adventure where I thought the players might attempt to barricade the town to defend against an attack. They didn’t, but I’ve got a map of the town none the less, which I keep next to hex 28.18’s individual key in case I ever have another use for it.

The only one of these tools I devised myself is the list of the ‘World NPCs’ I mentioned earlier. World NPCs have a larger sphere of influence than standard NPCs do. They are queens, popes, generals, mighty wizards, and dragons. The players may not have met them, but their actions can none the less affect the player’s environment. All world NPCs have a short description of what they want, and how they want to get it. For example, for Grum Okkor, king of the Trolls, my description might read “Wants to build the first Troll empire. Is banding the numerous Troll dens together. Will attack the Korrathan Capitol city on the Squire’s Week during the Month of Blades in the year 3999. Chance of success: 70%”

World NPCs are my method for making the world seem fluid around the players. Events they’ve heard of are not the only ones which affect the world. If the players are nowhere near Korrothan during the Month of Blades this year, then they may return home to find it’s not a safe place to be anymore. Or, at the very least, they’ll return home to a nation recovering from a brutal war. And if they are in Korrothan during the Month of Blades, then they’ll have the opportunity to participate in the war and save their homeland.

The final tool in my box is a simple list: enemies of the PCs. These are characters which the players have insulted, or harmed in the past, and who are angry enough to seek revenge. Each of the PC’s enemies has a plot. One of them might be waiting for the players to return to their town before they strike, while another might be actively tracking the players down. If the players unwittingly stay in one place for too long, their enemies might catch up!

And that’s everything I’m currently using to manage my campaign. I will admit, it’s a little ambitious considering how bad I normally am at maintaining notes. But I think it’s also structured enough, and minimalist enough, that I should be able to avoid many of my characteristic problems, such as including far more detail than necessary. I am hoping these tools will help me improve, but campaign management is still one of my weakest skills as a GM. If anyone has any advice they’d like to share, or ideas on how I can improve the tools listed above, I’d love to hear about it!

Playing with Unbalanced Levels in Pathfinder

In the Gygaxian Era, it was common for every PC to start at first level, regardless of the level of their fellow adventurers. While it was not unheard of for players to start at a higher level, my understanding is that it was not common. And from what I’ve read, it certainly doesn’t seem to have been something Gygax himself liked very much. If you were a new player in an ongoing campaign, you could expect to start at first level even if the rest of the group were in the mid teens or higher. And if you were unfortunate enough to lose a high level character to one of oldschool D&D’s numerous hazards, and your compatriots either could not access, or could not afford, a resurrection spell, then that was it. Back to first level for you.

This style of play has gradually fallen out of style, to the point that many players are unaware that it ever existed. And many modern gamers who are aware of it (either anecdotally or by experience) are openly scornful of the idea. The general consensus among many of my fellow modern gamers is that players who are significantly lower level than the rest of the party will be left with nothing to do. Rather than ‘pointlessly punish’ players for being new to the game, or losing a PC, the GM should let them begin at least two levels below the average party level. And in fairness, there is a logic to this argument.

For my part, I’ve always been at least interested in this kind of play. Which isn’t to say I always thought the idea was good. Quite the opposite, I often joined in on conversations deriding this type of play. I thought it might be a fun way to spend an evening sometime, but never expected I’d enjoy that kind of fundamental imbalance in my games. It might have worked in earlier iterations of the game, I thought, when even high level characters were not particularly powerful. But in the modern game, the difference between a high level character and a low level character is too large. The villains in a high level game would wipe the floor with a low level PC!

Last October, however, I learned I had been wrong. Low level players in a high level game were not useless. Nor were they boring for the people playing them. In fact, that game was an immense amount of fun. As I noted at the time, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular player have quite so much fun before. But that was a one-off session. The situation was unusual, and I was unsure of whether that level of fun could be maintained across an entire campaign. If level imbalance were the rule, rather than the exception, would it still be fun?

In the hopes that it would, my Current Pathfinder game is using much stricter rules for character creation. The group I’m playing with has grown slowly, from the three original members, to a fourth two sessions later, to a fifth the session after that, and even a sixth two sessions after that. By the time the most recent player joined the game, the rest were already pushing level three, but I had them start at first level none the less. And while the lower level characters are certainly less capable than the higher level ones, there is not a sense that they’re contributing any less to the group’s success. Often the low level players are able to completely change the course of a battle because they come up with innovative tactics for the party to use, or because they let the higher level characters occupy the monsters while they attempt something clever.

As the average party level gets higher, though, I’ve been more wary about starting players all the way at level 1. The last two members to join the party did so with +1 weapons at their disposal, because I was worried about alienating those players by throwing them into a game where they felt as though they were at a disadvantage.

Earlier today, however, I ran a game where one of the highest level PCs in the party met their end. The player made two extremely poor decisions in a row, and she paid for it when she was reduced to -27 hit points in the first round of combat with three ogres. While the rest of the players continued to explore the dungeon, I told her to begin rolling a new character. I figured that once she was done, I’d have the party encounter her as a prisoner who would join their party, so I told her not to bother rolling starting gold or buying equipment.

Shortly thereafter, the party encountered the ruler of the dungeon: a 6th level evocation specialist wizard with a gear-less paladin chained to the wall. I didn’t know how much the new character would be able to contribute to the battle, but I figured that in the wrost case scenario, one of the other adventurers would free her and give her a spare weapon so she could join in on the fight.I waas particularly worried when I learned that the player had forgotten to select either of the feats they were entitled to as a first level human.

But oh, was I surprised.

First, they asked if they could make a strength check to break the chains that were holding them to the wall. I allowed it, but set the DC pretty high. She not only made it, but she surpassed it by enough that I told her she had pulled chunks of brick out of the wall along with the chains. She asked if she could swing them as weapons, and I agreed. So in a fluid motion, she both broke free from the wall, and smashed the wizard’s two goblin minions in the head with chunks of stone, killing one, and reduing the other to a single hit point. Already she’d significantly affected the battle by effectively removing two nuisance fighters, but I’ll grant you, her success here was largely the luck of the dice.

But she wasn’t done yet.

On her next turn, she asked if she could tackle the wizard, who had just cast fireball on the rest of the party, reducing most of them to dangerously low HP. I told her to make a combat maneuver check, and she easily surpassed the measly combat maneuver defense of the wizard. She tackled him to the ground, and the two rolled down the stairs of his dais together. On the wizard’s next turn, he cast the only spell I thought would still work–shocking grasp. He rolled an 18 on his concentration check, and sent 6d6 volts of electric energy through the shiny new character, reducing the level 1 paladin to -6hp.

The following round, the rest of the players in the group managed to finish the wizard off, but each member of the party was on death’s doorstep. Two of them had only a single hit point remaining. If not for the round of distraction afforded to the group by the paladin, the battle would have resulted in a TPK.

Let me say that again: A level 1 paladin without any equipment, weapons, or feats, managed to single-handedly turn the tide of a battle which was designed as a challenge for 6th level characters.

If you think low level characters can’t have an impact on a high level game: you are wrong.

Legend of Zelda Adventure System: Levels, and Adventurers

In my experience, there are two kinds of leveling systems. The first is designed around the idea that the player will always have another level to strive for. The majority of the game, if not all of it, is played below the maximum level. This is mostly used in games where levels offer only minor benefits, or in games where acquiring the next level is the primary motivation for play. The other type of leveling system serves as a kind of extended tutorial. The game is fully featured and plenty of fun during the leveling process, but the gradual acquisition of levels serve as a means to gradually introduce players to the abilities they’ll be using at max level.

Both methods have their place, but I’ve always felt a certain frustration with the former option. As much fun as the game may be, the last few levels always have some really fascinating abilities that you can’t wait to get your hands on. But you know that if you ever do get them, it won’t be too long before the game is over anyway. Most console RPGs are like this, in my expereince, as is Pathfinder. Those games where levels offer only minor benefits, such as more traditional versions of D&D, are a little less frustrating in this regard. There aren’t any fancy abilities at max level you’re eager to get, so when you end the game 80% of the way through the leveling process, you don’t feel as though you’ve missed out on something you were looking forward to.

I want to model the Legend of Zelda Adventure System on the latter type of leveling system. The game should be just as fun once you’re done leveling as it was before. At max level, characters become more concerned with finding magical or wondrous items to aide them in their future adventures. And individual character progress continues, because health increases separately from the leveling structure. A max level character will probably only have between five and ten health, which isn’t much! They’ll need to continue adventuring if they want to increase their survivability.

As an example of how the leveling system works, here’s the current class description for the Adventurer class. The adventurer is the class which I think best represents Link himself. It’s a little bit like a rogue, a little bit like a ranger, a little bit like a monk, but not quite any of those. And while many of the adventurer’s abilities were never demonstrated by in the Zelda series, I think they are true to the spirit of the gameplay.

Adventurer

Equipment: Adventurers may use light armor and shields, as well as any type of weapon, without penalty. An adventurer who wears heavy armor does not gain the benefit of any of their special abilities unless otherwise stated.

Level	Abilities Gained
1	Spin Attack
2	Long Jump
3	Attack +1
4	Climb, Battle Maneuver +1
5	Sneak
6	Attack +2
7	Run
8	High Jump, Battle Maneuver +2
9	Attack +3
10	Great Courage

Spin Attack: Make an Agility Check. If the check is successful, make a normal attack against all adjacent enemies. Such an attack can not specifically aim for a creature’s weak spot. If the agility check fails, you may still make the attack, but at a -3 penalty to hit and damage rolls.

Long Jump: You can jump up to 20ft distant without needing to make a roll. You can reach distances of 21-30ft with a successful agility check. A long jump can’t end on an area more than 1ft higher than the area the character began on.

Attack: At levels 3, 6, and 9, an adventurer becomes more adept at making attacks with their weapon. They may add the indicated number to their attack rolls to determine if an attack hits.

Climb: The adventurer can move vertically or horizontally along walls so long as the walls are reasonably rough, such as an old brick wall, or a rough stone wall. The adventurer can also support themselves between two walls no more than 6ft apart for an indefinite period of time. With a successful agility check, you can move up to your normal movement speed while climbing, though failure results in a fall.

Battle Maneuver: At level 4, and 8 an Adventure becomes more adept at performing battle maneuvers, and more resilient against them. They add the indicated number to both their Battle Maneuver Attack, and Battle Maneuver Defense.

Sneak: A sneaking adventurer is able to move with complete silence, and hide themselves within deep shadows. While sneaking, an adventurer can move only half of their normal speed. While hiding in deep shadows, an adventurer must remain still while someone is looking at them, or they will be seen.

On particularly noisy ground, such as dry leaves or a creaky floor, the GM may rule that an agility check is needed to move silently.

Run: For a number of rounds equal to their Body score, an adventurer may move up to six times their normal movement rate.

High Jump: May leap up to 6ft straight up without the need for an agility check. May reach heights of up to 10ft with a successful agility check.

Great Courage: The adventurer becomes completely immune to any form of fear effect, be it mundane or magical. This ability works even if the adventurer is encumbered by heavy armor.

Streamlined Skill Rolls

I have a really bad habit.

I have numerous little creative projects I’m working on at any given time. I enjoy it, but I always overestimate the time I have available to work on them. I tend to stress a lot about devoting enough time to each project, and I end up forgetting to make time to rest. More importantly, I don’t make time to play games, or read stories, because it takes time away from creating them. But working without pausing to recharge my creative energies quickly reduces me to a withered husk. Seriously, it’s gross.

The worst part of it is that I don’t even get any more work done when I push myself beyond my limits like this. I just procrastinate a lot at my desk, re-watching JonTron videos for the billionth time (Bro, seriously? Seriously bro? Make more videos) or bothering my ladyfriend while she’s trying to study or draw. And since I spend the whole time feeling guilty about not working, these deviations from my work don’t actually rejuvenate me at all. They just wear me down more. It’s a stupid thing to do, and I somehow never realize I’m doing it until its been going on for at least a few days.

I recently realized I’d been at it again, so the other day I closed all my browser windows, cleared all my notes off of my desk, and sat down on the floor to read the Dungeon Crawl Classic RPG core rulebook, which I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while. Shortly after I started reading, I got to the chapter on skills, which opens with this excerpt:

”A character’s 0-level occupation determines the basic skills he can use. If the player can logically role-play the connection between his occupation and a skill in a way that the character’s background supports the skill in question, then his character can make what is called a trained skill check.”

Without reading another word, I slammed the book closed, and grabbed my notebook, because I knew how I would build a skill system based on that starting point. Once I had written mine down, I finished reading the skills chapter in DCC to confirm that I hadn’t just come up with the same thing they had. I think it’s different enough that I can legitimately call it “mine” without feeling unethical. Particularly considering I used something similar to the basic concept when I made Twittertop RPG. And that was months before I had a copy of DCC.

At character creation, each player should choose a profession. This is what they did in their life before they became an adventurer. A list of examples might include farmer, merchant, school teacher, sailor, scribe, or blacksmith. The profession is not limited to those, but it should be something similar. “King” would not be an acceptable choice. A good rule would be that if a profession cannot be easily found in a small town, it is probably too specialized to be selected.

During play, if a player would like to attempt something which would not be covered by the skill-set they have from their class (such as navigate a ship by the stars, accurately evaluate the price of a painting, or repair a broken sword) , they may argue that they know how to perform this task based on their profession. If the GM agrees, then the character may attempt the task with a “trained” skill check. If the task being attempted is not covered by the character’s profession, then they can still attempt an “untrained” skill check.

Both trained and untrained attempts have four levels of difficulty, which are determined by the GM. They are Easy, Challenging, Difficult, and Impossible. Note that these four levels are not necessarily the same between trained and untrained characters. If a farmer wants to plant a field, that would be an easy task, while for an untrained character it would be a challenging one. While navigating by the stars would be a challenging task for a sailor, but an impossible one for—say–a baker.

If a task is easy, it can be completed without any roll. If a task is impossible, it is failed automatically. For challenging or difficult tasks, a D20 is rolled against the appropriate difficulty number, which is determined by the character’s level.

This chart would be universal, and used by any character regardless of their class. So each character would have a total of three numbers associated with their skills, which only need to be updated according to the chart’s progression as the character levels. No bonuses or ability scores need be factored in, though circumstance bonuses & penalties may apply.

What do you think?

Zelda Adventure System: Rationale Behind the Game's Experience Mechanic

When I’m trying to cut the fat from a creative project, I’ve found it helpful to examine its aspects by positing the question: What is my overall goal, and how does this support that goal? It’s a simple question, but you might be surprised how useful it can be. At least it’s useful to me; I make no claim to greatness in any form of creative endeavor. Perhaps I’ll outgrow this question as I improve my skills. For now though, when working on a website, or a narrative, or a game system, this question helps me in identifying artifacts which sneak their way into my work. These artifacts may have had a point once, and simply no longer do because of the ways the project has changed. More often, though, they originate from my own false assumptions, or just lazy thinking.

A good example of this is something I’ve struggled with in writing. There are a lot of phrases we’re all used to seeing. We’ve come to accept and even expect their presence. Phrases such as “like there’s no tomorrow,” “going over it with a fine toothed comb,” or “ran like the wind.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with these phrases. We all know what they mean, and sometimes they can work for a writer. But just because we know the meaning of these cliches, doesn’t necessarily mean we understand them. If I were to write that a character “ate like there’s no tomorrow,” everyone would understand that I meant the character ate a great deal. They would understand it because they’ve heard that phrase all their life, and the meaning of it is etched into their minds. But when they hear it they don’t actually think about what it means. They don’t make the connection between the act of eating a great deal, and the existential panic that would fill a person who believed there was no future. The phrase has lost the depth of its meaning through overuse.

And again, that’s not always a bad thing. Everything has its place, whether it’s because the context of the piece makes the phrase more relevant, or because it works for the characters. But, as a rule, I prefer to avoid these cliches. I don’t always succeed, but it just seems like lazy technique to me.

The same thing can happen in role playing games. That’s why, when I set out to make the Legend of Zelda Adventure System, I set aside each of my basic assumptions about what a role playing game should include, and asked “what is my overall goal, and how does this support that goal?” about each one. Elements like ability scores, character classes, dice based combat, and experience points.

And, as it turns out, experience points didn’t make the cut.

Lets talk about the reason experience points work the way they do in Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. When Gygax and Arneson where first constructing the D&D game, the primary goal of the game was to acquire as much treasure as possible. In pursuit of treasure, the players would go on grand adventures, improve their skills, and gain items to help them win treasure more efficiently. Even the things that players spent that treasure on were largely to make them more effective at acquiring treasure. To encourage players to keep their focus on treasure, it made sense to tie character progression to treasure acquisition. And so for each 1 gold piece worth of treasure recovered, a character would gain 1 experience point . It’s a genius bit of mechanic crafting on our forefather’s part, and many games (notably those in the OSR) still use it today.

Later in D&D’s development, the rules were changed so that experience points were gained from killing monsters rather than from recovering treasure. Around the same time (I’m not sure which came first, as I wasn’t playing back then) the focus of the game shifted from acquiring treasure, to killing monsters*. And while treasure remains an important part of the game, this shift in importance is evidenced by the greater focus the game’s combat system has been given as time goes on. A game which was, at one time, primarily about dungeon crawling, now includes variants where the game is reduced to nothing but combat. (Or at least, that’s how I assume 4^th edition “Encounters” works. I don’t actually know much about it, but the point stands).

I think, for players, the goal of the game is defined by whatever helps their character become more powerful. If acquiring gold is what helps a player become more powerful, then they’ll do whatever they can to acquire that gold. Monsters are just an obstacle between them and more power for their character. And as an obstacle, the player is just as happy sneaking past them as they are killing them. But if the character gains their power from killing monsters, then the treasure is more of an afterthought.

So, if experience points helps to define what the players will focus on, the question becomes: what is the goal of the Legend of Zelda Adventure System, from a player’s perspective? And to answer that question, I need to ask “what is the goal of a Zelda game, from the player’s perspective.”

To save the kingdom is the obvious answer, but that’s a long term goal. One might also say that the goal of D&D is to found a kingdom, but there needs to be short term goals which can culminate in that larger goal. Something small which the player can accomplish on a somewhat regular basis in order to feel as though they are making progress.

In a Zelda game, completing dungeons is the short term goal. With only a few exceptions, any time spent outside of a dungeon in a Zelda game, is just time which is being used to prepa jre for the next dungeon. You can collect heart pieces, or do side quests, or what have you. But the main quest can only be progressed by finding the next dungeon, and completing it. And what defines a dungeon as complete? Defeating the boss monster. Or, in LOZAS terms, a Great Monster.

I don’t want to reward fighting every monster, because as I’ve mentioned before, Zelda monsters are more puzzles than they are opponents. I want players to view avoiding monsters as a good alternative. I only want to reward defeating Great Monsters–powerful beasts whose great evil corrupts the land. But defeating great monsters is something player will have to struggle for for a long time. It may take an entire session, or two, or three to finally find and defeat a great monster. So it doesn’t seem right that players should gain traditional ‘experience points’ which they can put towards an eventual level.

That’s why in the game’s current form, defeating a great monster automatically grants all players who were involved in the fight a level. That way, the game’s ‘goal’ is clearly established for all the players, and they’re given a strong enough incentive that they’ll pursue that goal vigorously.

*For the record, I think that if the D&D 3^rd edition developers had taken the time to ask my question, they would have realized that the only reason to use large XP numbers is if XP is tied to GP. Recognizing that, they would probably have come up with something like the simple XP system I use. Unless they consciously chose to stick with large XP numbers purely for the nostalgia factor, which would be stupid.

The Legend of Zelda Adventure System: Problems

As a game designer, I’m a complete novice. More of a novice than I thought I would be, actually. After rebuilding every game I’ve ever played so many times, researching game design theories, and running this blog for a year, I thought game design would come a little more naturally to me. I didn’t expect to be some kind of prodigy or anything. I’ve been alive long enough to realize that every new venture will prove more difficult than it seems from the outside looking in. All the same, I’ve been surprised by the challenges of designing a game from the ground up.

What I’ve learned is that even though I have a solid grasp of some elements of game design, there are others which I’ve simply never tried fiddling before. Yes, I’ve rebuilt Pathfinder a dozen times, but I only changed the parts that I was interested in improving. There’s a lot more to the game which I never had to think about, because I never felt like it needed to improve. I let the game’s original designers handle those elements for me. Now that I’m trying to build a game from scratch, I’m ill prepared for the task of building a fresh approach to these elements.

Dungeons, for example, have proven to be a larger problem for me than I suspected they would. When I was originally deciding what my goals were for the Legend of Zelda Adventure System, I knew that dungeons would be a large part of it. In a Zelda game, most of the play takes place within dungeons, so it makes sense that much of the LOZAS system would be dungeon focused, yes? But a Zelda dungeon isn’t like a D&D dungeon, and I would like that to be represented by the system, rather than simply letting the game become another D&D clone.

I recognize that I’ll need to make compromises. As I’ve said before, throwing pots and pushing blocks doesn’t translate well to tabletop. A lot of Zelda dungeons have “timing” challenges, where you need to move through the room at a certain rate to avoid obstacles like monsters, spinning blades, or bursts of flame. Challenges such as those won’t function when the game isn’t being played in real time. However, in other ways, I think there are elements of Zelda dungeons which can be translated to tabletop. For example, many Zelda dungeon have a focus on traveling between sub-levels repeatedly in order to progress through to the end. There’s also the tradition of a dungeon requiring multiple keys, as well as including a map, compass, and ‘big key.’ These are things which could work well as a tabletop challenge.

What I would like to do is create a simple method GMs could use to build dungeons in this style. Something not unlike Gary Gygax’s “appendix A” in the DMG, which could be used to randomly generate dungeons, although this would not be entirely random. Ideally it would require a little more time and decision making on the part of the GM, while still streamlining the dungeon building process enough that it doesn’t require hours to accomplish the task. But this is new ground for me. I’ve never been the greatest at designing dungeons in the first place, so completing this aspect of the game has proven to be a challenge. Maybe I’ll scale back on just how ambitious it is, but I’d like to give my vision a solid try before I start making concessions.

Another element of the LOZAS system which has been something of a puzzle to me is combat. I’ve already posted a collection of notes I have for the system, but in many ways I’m not satisfied with them. As one commenter pointed out, combat in Zelda isn’t like combat in existing games. It is neither combat as sport nor is it combat as war. It’s combat as a puzzle. Enemies move in a very particular way and have a particular method of attack, and the goal of the player is to get past them, either by avoiding them or by killing them. But killing them is only a single method of completing the puzzle, and not always the best one.

Like the timed obstacles I mentioned above, I don’t think there’s any real way to translate this style of combat to tabletop, because again, it’s not in real time. However, I would like to capture its spirit as best I can. At present, the system which has developed from my notes is the best I’ve been able to come up with. but I can’t help but feel that there’s a better option out there. Something which further reduces combat time, while still forcing the player to think about combat enough that it isn’t something they can simply skip over.

I like the idea of having numerous monsters which are used sparingly, and having each monster require the players to come up with some kind of tactic to defeat it. Hitting it with swords will work eventually, but it would never be as effective as coming up with a clever solution. Such as, in the case of a leaping skeleton, tricking it into leaping off of a cliff or into a pool of lava.

So yeah, these are some of the problems I’ve been encountering lately as I work on the Legend of Zelda Adventure System. And just so we’re clear:

I love it.

I won’t deny that there was a certain satisfaction to the early stages of the design process, when ideas for how to improve the game were just falling out of my head faster than I could write them down. But this, honestly, is better. Even if it’s a little less fun in the short term. Hitting a wall and learning how to climb over it, that’s REAL problem solving. That’s how I know I’m not just retreading old ground. I’m not regurgitating something I’ve seen before and simply forgotten about, or combining elements from other more successful games. I’m learning.

And if you ask me, that’s the whole point of doing anything in the first place anyway.

Legend of Zelda Adventure System: Sage Spells

On Monday I detailed my current plans for how magic will work in the Legend of Zelda Adventure System. But a big list of magical mechanics isn’t much use without some specific spells to provide context. Below are all twenty three of the spells I’ve created so far. That should be plenty to start testing the game with, since even a max level character will only know 11 spells.

You may notice, as you look through this list, that there are very few spells which could easily be labelled “offensive” spells. My vision of the sage is that it serves as a utility class, rather than a damage dealing class. In part, this is informed by my own preference. Whenever I play a caster, I like to load up on spells which allow me to help everyone else do their jobs better, rather than spells which put me in a pivotal role. More importantly, I hope that by restricting the magic user to support spells, it will be virtually impossible for the class to become overpowered the way magic users in Pathfinder are.

Heal: May restore 1 heart container to anyone who has been injured by laying a palm upon them. Does not work if the target of the spell is dead, and cannot be used to grant health beyond a character’s normal maximum

Push: May be cast from up to 10ft away. The target is knocked back 10ft. If something stops them from being knocked back that far, the target takes damage equal to 1/2 the extra feet they would have moved. If the target will be pushed into something dangerous (lava, off of a cliff, etc.) and they pass something which they might grab onto, they are entitled to an agility check to try and grab it.

Levitate: The target may move up and down through the air at will. They must be touched by the caster in order for this spell to be cast. There is no limit to how high or low they can go, and they can move at any speed they wish. The spell has a duration of 1 minute per level of the sage who cast it.

Water Walk: The sage must have some water available to cast this spell, which they sprinkle upon the feet of of the spell’s target. The subject may they walk on water as if it were solid. Only their feet are affected by this spell, so if they fall over the spell is broken. Water is not very solid footing.

See Through Wall: Sages may cast this spell upon a surface up to 10x10ft in size. Once cast, the sage can see through up to 10ft of solid material, to the other side. The vision is slightly blurred and tinted the color of the surface which is being looked through. This spell is unable to penetrate lead. Some villains line important chambers with the material to prevent spying.

Floating Disk: A silvery disk materializes in the air, roughly 4ft in diameter. The disk floats between 1 inch and 6ft off of the ground, and can carry the weight of several full grown Hylians before the spell shatters. The sage moves the disk with their mind, it can be moved up to 60ft away from the sage, and does not need to be within their line of sight.

Conjure Plank: An extremely sturdy plank of an unknown solid material forms in the air in front of the sage. It is 12ft long, 3ft wide, and 4 inches thick. While suspended by its ends, it can support a fully grown Hylian jumping in the center of it without being damaged. Despite its strength, even a weak person can easily lift the plank with a single hand.

Passwall: The sage, and anyone touching them or their clothes, is able to walk through a wall as if it were an extremely viscous liquid substance. This spell does not allow anyone to see what is on the other side of the wall, nor can they breathe while within the wall. Any part of a person which exits the wall after entering it cannot re-enter the wall unless the spell is cast again.

Detect Hidden: Secret doors within the same room as the sage begin to glow a bright blue color for all to see. This effect works regardless of the nature of the door. It can be a section of wall which slides away, a loose stone on the floor which hides a gem beneath it, or a trapdoor in the ceiling which would drop acid on the party.

Ghost Sound: The sage can create any sound they can imagine, and make it seem as though it is coming from anywhere within earshot of themselves. This spell must be cast with the eyes closed, and requires intensive listening and hand gestures for the sage to successfully indicate where the sound is coming from.

Summon Animal: Through a number of verbal incantations, including whistling, the sage may summon a natural creature to do its bidding. The animal must be one which would be present within a mile of the Sage’s location, and it must be able to reach the sage unobstructed. A horse could not be summoned to the 10th sublevel of a dungeon, but a spider or bat could be. Note that this spell does not work on monstrous creatures, nor can it be used to tame specific creatures, such as one which is threatening the players. It takes 1d10 minutes for the creature to arrive at the sage’s location, and it will obey the sage to the best of its ability for 3 hours. This time will be lessened if the sage treats the animal poorly, or could be lengthened if the sage treats the animal particularly well.

Counterspell: Cause the spell of another sage to fail. The spell is cast using subtle hand gestures and blinking patterns, making it difficult to detect. It can be cast either in a “general” way, causing the next spell cast within 100ft to fail, or it can be cast at a specific target, causing their next spell to fail.

Airblade: A blade of focused wind cuts through the air in a slashing motion, dealing 1d6 slashing damage at a range of up to 60ft.

Speak with Plants & Animals: The sage is able to speak the language of plants and animals for the length of a single conversation (however long that takes). Remember, though, that not all plants and animals will be eager to help.

Telekinesis: The sage can use this spell to lift and move an object of up to 50 pounds. The ability functions up to 100ft away, but cannot move any object at more than a slow, clumsy wobble.

Control Fire: If fire already exists, the sage can manipulate it with their mental powers. They cannot make it larger without fuel, but they can shape it, make it flare up momentarily, cause images to form in it, or cause tendrils of it to lash out.

Freeze Water: By blowing upon the surface of a body of water, the sage can can freeze it solid. The larger the body of water, the thinner the ice will be. A 10ft diameter pond could be frozen completely solid. A 20ft pond could be frozen with ice about 6 inches thick. A 30ft pond would only have a thin layer of ice atop it. Alternatively, this spell can be used to create a 10ft block of ice within a larger body of water.

Magic Shield: Mystical energy forms into the shape of a red circle 1ft in diameter. The circle is solid, opaque, and moves of its own volition within about 3ft of the spell recipient’s skin. It can successfully block one projectile per round. If the spell’s recipient is attacked by a magical projectile, or a particularly heavy one (such as a thrown boulder) then the shield will block it, but be destroyed in doing so. Otherwise the spell lasts for 15 minutes.

Raise Fog: A thick fog rises from the ground in a 50ft radius from the caster. This fog magically fills that space, and after that acts as normal fog. On a sunny, windy day, it will quickly dissipate, while in an underground cavern it might remain for hours before slowly settling back to earth.

Sleep: A single target within 30ft suddenly falls unconscious, sleeping soundly. This effect cannot be resisted, but once they are asleep a splash of water or a slap will wake them.

Sphere of Darkness: A 10ft spherical area becomes completely engulfed in magical darkness. No light can penetrate this sphere. It can be cast either upon an object, or a location. Once cast, it will remain tied to that object or location until it fades away an hour later.

Orb of Light: The sage can conjure a 3″ orb of heatless light which is insubstantial, but can be held or mounted as though it weren’t. Bright light fills a 15ft radius from the orb, with dim light for 20ft beyond that. The light otherwise acts normally. It will not magically bend around hands, bodies, or other objects.

Fear: The target of this spell will fixate on the scariest thing in their immediate vicinity, and will become cripplingly terrified of it. They will react according to character, either groveling for mercy, cowering in fear, or simply fleeing for their lives.