Wednesday, 3 January 2024

Wizardry: Gate Spells V

Wizardry: Gate Spells V

Let's finish the Gate college. Gate creates an interplanar portal with an option to make it permanent by spending character points. Leomund's Secret Chest hides a chest on the Ethereal Plane. Maze looks like a difficult spell to build on paper, but in practice, I just decided to simply come up with a new modifier for Affliction. Sometimes, this is the best option. Phase Door was a difficult spell, but I think I got it sort of right.

    Gate
    Keywords: None.
    Full Cost: 95 points.
    Casting Roll: Skill.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 4 FP or more; see text.
    Casting Time: 1 hour.
    Range: Touch.
    Duration: 3d seconds or permanent; see text.

    This spell creates a magical portal leading to another plane of existence that you are able visualize clearly (which is only possible if you have visited it previously in person). The gate itself is a circular hoop or disk from 5 to 20 feet in diameter (caster’s choice), oriented in the direction you desire when it comes into existence (typically vertical and facing you). It is a two-dimensional window looking into the plane you specified when casting the spell, and anyone or anything that moves through is shunted instantly to the other side.
    On a critical failure, the gate opens, but leads to the wrong destination, which can be any plane the GM wishes!
    The FP cost of this spell depends on the “planar distance.” To shift between two different layers of the same plane, spend 4 FP. To shift between two bordering planes (such as the Prime Material Plane and the Astral Plane), spend 5 FP. Spend one additional FP per each additional degree of “removal.” Certain very distant planes, such as the Far Realm, may require you to spend 13 FP.
    When creating a gate, the exit point on the destination plane appears with a deviation of 1dx100 miles.
    Optionally, when casting this spell you may spend 10 character points to make the gate permanent.
    Statistics: Jumper (Interplanar; Costs Fatigue, 3 FP, -15%; Drift, Variant, -40%; Extra Carrying Capacity, Extra-Heavy, +50%; Immediate Preparation Required, 1 hour, -75%; Improved, +10%; Magical, -10%; Nuisance Effect, Cannot hurry the jump, -5%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Tunnel, Before, +100%) [95]. Note: The Improved enhancement removes the auto-fail on 14+.

    Leomund’s Secret Chest
    Keywords: Obvious.
    Full Cost: 5 points/level.
    Casting Roll: Skill.
    Components: V, S, F.
    Cost: 1 FP.
    Casting Time: 10 minutes.
    Range: Touch.
    Duration: 60 days or until discharged; see text.

    You hide a chest on the Ethereal Plane for as long as sixty days and can retrieve it at will. The chest can contain up to 1 cubic foot of material per spell level (regardless of the chest’s actual size, which is about 3 feet by 2 feet by 2 feet). If any living creatures are in the chest, there is a 5-in-6 chance that the spell simply fails. Once the chest is hidden, you can retrieve it by casting this spell, and it appears next to you.
    The chest must be exceptionally well crafted and expensive, constructed for you by master crafters. If made principally of wood, it must be ebony, rosewood, sandalwood, teak, or the like, and all of its corner fittings, nails, and hardware must be platinum. If constructed of ivory, the metal fittings of the chest must be gold. If the chest is fashioned from bronze, copper, or silver, its fittings must be silver or electrum (a valuable metal). The cost of such a chest is never less than $4,000.
    Once it is constructed, you must make a tiny replica (of the same materials and perfect in every detail), so that the miniature of the chest appears to be a perfect copy. (The replica costs $400.) You can have but one pair of these chests at any given time. The chests are nonmagical and can be fitted with locks, wards, and so on, just as any normal chest can be.
    To hide the chest, you cast the spell while touching both the chest and the replica. The chest vanishes into the Ethereal Plane. You need the replica to recall the chest. After sixty days, roll 3d daily. On the 61st day, if you roll a 3, the chest is irretrievably lost. Each following day adds 1 to this target number. If the miniature of the chest is lost or destroyed, there is no way that the large chest can be summoned back, although an extraplanar expedition might be mounted to find it.
    Living things in the chest eat, sleep, and age normally, and they die if they run out of food, air, water, or whatever they need to survive.
    Focus: The chest and its replica.
    Statistics: Payload 10 (Based on 10, +20%; Breakable, DR 4, SM-7, -20%; Can Be Stolen, Won’t work for the thief, -10%; Cosmic, Extradimensional, +50%; Immediate Preparation Required, 10 minutes, -45%; Magical, -10%; Nuisance Effect, May disappear, -5%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%) [5/level]. Note: The casting cost of 1 FP is a special effect to avoid the need for maintenance.
 
Maze
Keywords: Resisted (Will).
Full Cost (Touch): 39 points.
Full Cost (Short-Range): 42 points.
Full Cost (Ranged): 47 points.
Casting Roll: Skill.
Components: V, S.
Cost: 2 FP.
Casting Time: 4 seconds.
Range: Touch - Unlimited (-1/yard) – Unlimited (standard).
Duration: 9 minutes.
 
You banish the subject into an extradimensional labyrinth of force planes. Every five seconds, on its turn, it may attempt an IQ-2 roll to escape the labyrinth with a Concentrate maneuver. Absolute Direction gives +5 to this roll. If the subject doesn’t escape, the maze disappears after 9 minutes, forcing the subject to leave.
On escaping or leaving the maze, the subject reappears where it had been when the maze spell was cast. If this location is filled with a solid object, the subject appears in the nearest open space.
Spells and abilities that move a creature within a plane, such as Teleport and Dimension Door, do not help a creature escape a Maze spell, although a Plane Shift spell allows it to exit to whatever plane is designated in that spell.
Statistics: Affliction 1 (Will; Based on IQ, Own Roll, +20%; Based on Will, +20%; Costs Fatigue, 2 FP, -10%; Extended Duration, 3x, +20%; Fixed Duration, +0%; Magical, -10%; Malediction 1, +100%; Maze Banish, +200%; Melee Attack, Reach C, -30%; No Signature, +20%; Requires Gestures, -10%; Requires Magic Words, -10%; Takes Extra Time 2, -20%) [39]. The Short-Range version removes Melee Attack, Reach C, -30% [+3]. The Ranged version replaces Malediction 1, +100% with Malediction 2, +150% [+5].
 
    Phase Door
    Keywords: None.
    Full Cost: 65 points.
    Casting Roll: Skill.
    Components: V, S.
    Cost: 3 FP.
    Casting Time: 2 seconds.
    Range: Touch.
    Duration: 3d seconds.

    This spell creates an ethereal passage through wooden, plaster, or stone walls no more than 3 yards thick, but not other materials. The Phase Door is invisible and inaccessible to all creatures except you, and only you can use the passage. You disappear when you enter the Phase Door and appear when you exit. The door does not allow light, sound, or spell effects through it, nor can you see through it without using it. Thus, the spell can provide an escape route, though certain creatures, such as phase spiders, can follow with ease. A Gem of True Seeing or similar magic reveals the presence of a Phase Door but does not allow its use.
    A Phase Door is subject to Dispel Magic. If anyone is within the passage when it is dispelled, he is harmlessly ejected just as if he were inside a Passwall effect.
    You can allow other creatures to use the Phase Door by setting some triggering condition for the door. Such conditions can be as simple or elaborate as you desire. They can be based on a creature’s name or identity but otherwise must be based on observable actions or qualities.
    You may make a Phase Door permanent by paying 1 character point during the casting.
    Statistics: Warp (Accessibility, Only to create a door through wooden, plaster, or stone wall, -60%; Blind Only, -50%; Cannot Hurry, -5%; Cannot Spend Extra FP, -5%; Costs Fatigue, 3 FP, -15%; Extra Carrying Capacity, Extra-Heavy, +50%; Improved, +10%; Magical, -10%; Non-Instantaneous Movement, -5%; Range Limit, 3 yards, -80%; Reliable 9, +45%; Selective Effect, +20%; Special Portal, Wooden, plaster, or stone wall, -20%; Takes Extra Time 1, -10%; Tunnel, Before, +100%) [65].



3 comments:

  1. What was the reasoning behind using +200% on the affliction modifier for maze, instead of something lower. Its not as incapacitating, so the foe can come out ready for bear and with preparations, and if they're working hard it will never last 9 minutes.

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    Replies
    1. I thought that it's a reasonably flexible enhancement. In combat, you can remove an opponent for some time and while the victim can indeed do some preparations while in the maze, your party can do the same and/or deal with the other opponents. Alternatively, you can cast it on an ally to save him from danger and give him a timeout.

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    2. 200% is definitely the safest way to do it. And yeah, the potential to physically remove someone can have some nice use for friendlies. Like following up with a fireball, or saving an unconcious ally. If I were a player I might make a case for 150%, but 200% is enough for sure.

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