Review: Empire (by AEG)

Review: Empire (by AEG)

You probably noticed that lately I’ve been in the mood for some domain management rules. Today, I’d like to briefly review a third-party supplement for D&D 3.0 titled Empire. This book was published by AEG – Alderac Entertainment Group – I already talked about one of their books before titled Evil. I remember saying that AEG produced poor books in terms of D&D mechanics and character options, but good books for ideas and generic advice. The book was written by Mike Mearls, who later became one of the lead designers of D&D 5e, and I can say that his writing definitely degraded with time. So, let’s see what Empire is all about.

Building in GURPS

Building in GURPS

As you all know, in order to be a man, one has to plant a tree, build a house, and father a son. GURPS doesn’t seem to have rules for fathering sons or planting trees, but it does have rules for building houses. And why stop at building a house, when you can build a wall around it, then turn your house into a keep, and then add a barbican and guard towers? This topic yet again is inspired by ACKS II domain management rules that require a domain ruler to have a stronghold of a sufficient cost to be respected by those who live in his domain.

Armor Buffs in Sorcery

Armor Buffs in Sorcery

One of the spell classes in Sorcery is Weapon Buff, but fiction and other games often have plenty of armor buffs as well. However, it seems that making armor buffs in GURPS are not as simple as applying Accessibility, Only on armor, -20%.

If you look back to D&D, you will see that armor is a singular item. This isn't true in GURPS, unless you simplify the system a lot, as armor is piecemeal. By RAW, if you use a spell with Accessibility, Only on armor, -20%, you affect only one item from the set you may be wearing, and armor can consist of more than a dozen of items! Imagine recasting the same buff spell to every item and passing out due to losing all FP. This obviously doesn't work (unless this behavious is intended for your magic system).

To buff all armor worn by the target, I suggest adding Area Effect, 1 yard, +25%. However, this may also buff armor of other creatures in the same hex, or, for example, a pile of armor on the ground that is then taken and donned by different creatures. This also will result in unintended (probably) side effects.

Let's add Accessibility, Only worn by a single creature, -5%. Now, we have resolved that issue. However, now you can buff a person's armor, and that person may remove some parts of it and give it to others. That also may be unintended.

Let's add Terminal Condition, Piece of armor removed, -5%. Now, if any piece of buffed armor is removed (voluntarily or forcibly), the buff is dispelled for the entire set.

If you combine all these modifiers, you get Armor Buff, -5%. Technically speaking, by RAW this shouldn't work on creatures that take up multiple hexes, but I suggest simply ignoring it and treating the ability to affect larger targets as a free feature.

GURPS-to-ACKS: Unit Building

GURPS-to-ACKS: Unit Building

ACKS, including ACKS II, focus on advancing the characters from adventurers to conquerors and then to kings. The system devotes a lot of attention to domain management and mass combat, because how else would you do the C and K parts of ACKS? Despite GURPS and ACKS being built on very different frameworks, the underlying simulationism paradigm makes them surprisingly compatible when it comes to non-combat stuff, such as domain management. (Of course, you can remove the simulationism from GURPS, but why would you?) ACKS domain management rules seem to be usable almost without any changes in GURPS, but I will explore that topic in more depth in the future. However, mass combat as it is described in Domains at War: Battles and Domains at War: Campaign does require some changes. There are two ways to go about it: to work out how to derive ACKS unit statistics from GURPS stats, or to rework D@W:B to use GURPS resolution mechanics. In my opinion, the first option is the way to go here, even though you technically have to learn two systems, which is something many will balk at. However, D@W:B is actually rather simple, but at the same time deep and robust - learning it doesn't require that much effort. So, let's outline the work we have to perform here:

Review: GURPS Realm Management

Review: GURPS Realm Management

Back in the day, when a D&D adventurer reached a certain level, he would begin to attract followers, and then would build a stronghold or a tower, and become a ruler of a domain. This aspect of the game was deprecated in D&D 3.0 because… I don’t know why, just because. Still, even D&D 3.0 had the vestigial Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook that is actually a pretty damn good book. However, the actual domain management didn’t exist. There were some third-party supplements that tackled this, and one of the better ones, in my opinion, is Empire by Alderac Entertainment Group (EDIT: I take that back). Domain management always has been on my mind, especially when I was reading rulesets for various PBEM strategy games over the years. But let me stop blabbing about D&D and talk about GURPS – what’s the situation with domain management gameplay in GURPS? It’s not very good.

Review: Dynasties & Demagogues

Review: Dynasties & Demagogues

How many times have you seen a GM go “I want to run a political intrigue game with lots of social interactions instead of a dungeon crawl?” How many times did the GM actually follow through with this suggestion? How many times did the game survive past the first session and not fizzle out along with the enthusiasm of both the GM and the players? I bet you’ve seen that sort of stuff, and I bet that the GM insisted on using D&D or Pathfinder. I believe that even though you can run such games in D&D or Pathfinder, these systems were not made for that. The problem, however, lies not even in the system, but in the fact that few people really know how to run such games. And can you blame them? D&D Dungeon Master’s Guides only tell you about running the traditional dungeon crawl games, and, as far as I know, the more recent editions do a poor job explaining that as well, assuming that the GM already knows how to do that.

Clerics, Spheres, Domains, and Spell Tags

Clerics, Spheres, Domains, and Spell Tags

It seems that clerics live rent free in my mind. Back in the day when I was playing D&D 3.5, I was discontent with how clerics worked there. The choice of the patron deity had only very minor mechanical effect - you simply chose two domains from the short list of that deity's domains, gained two usually very minor abilities and a handful of spells added to your already enormous spell list. Thus, a cleric of Corellon Larethian was almost identical to a cleric of Moradin. In GURPS, I made clerics similar to wizards, but limited only to the "domains" provided by the patron god. However, I've been reading some AD&D books lately, and they made me rethink my approach.

Wizardry: Ghostwalk Spells III

Wizardry: Ghostwalk Spells III

Even more Ghostwalk spells!

Candlelight is a weaker Light spell. Since the Illumination perk already provides torch-level illumination, I had to include an arbitrary limitation for Affliction to represent a weaker effect.

Fetid Breath is a cone variant of Stinking Cloud.

Incorporeal Disharmonics is an anti-ghost attack spell in a surprising college - Sound. I really like it.

Iron Bones and Stone Bones toughen the skeleton of... a skeleton.

Leech Ghost Skill is a very complex spell that binds a ghost to another creature and "borrows" some of its skills. In the Ghostwalk setting, this spell is used as a punishment for ghost criminals.

Pleasant Visage makes a ghost less repulsive.

Preserve Ectoplasm is, let's say, situational. Definitely not something you take as a learned spell. It only requires 1 level of control instead of 10 because I said so. Even this way, it's too expensive for what it does.

Protection from Possession is a useful buff when fighting ghosts and telepaths.

Repel Ectoplasm moves ghosts away from you.

Shroud of Undeath makes most undead creatures treat you as undead. However, spells also treat you as undead, so stay away from clerics.

Undead Torch is similar to Fire Shield that can only be applied to undead creatures and that deals toxic damage.

Wall of Ectoplasm creates a wall blocks both substantial and ghostly beings.

And that's all the wizard/sorcerer spells from Ghostwalk that I wanted to convert. I may return later for Demonic Blood Infusion, but that'll have to wait. I have to say, that it feels great being able to work on this stuff after being too busy for so long.

Wizardry: Ghostwalk Spells II

Wizardry: Ghostwalk Spells II

Let's have some more spells from Ghostwalk. Perhaps, this time we'll have more spells that actually deal with insubstantiality.

Dispel Possession can force a possessing ghost out of a physical body.

Disrupt Ectoplasm is a beam that deals damage to ectoplasmic creatures. Don't forget that psionic astral constructs also are ectoplasmic creatures - this spell is not limited to ghosts!

Dominate Ghost is a ghost-only variant of Dominate. Much cheaper, but still expensive.

Ectoplasmic Decay is something of an anti-ghost fireball.

Ectoplasmic Web is an improved variant of Web that also affects insubstantial beings.

Ethereal Alarm is an ethereal-only variant of Alarm.

Forced Incorporeality forces a creature that can shift between being insubstantial and substantial to stay insubstantial.

Forced Manifestation solidifies an insubstantial creature. A must-have for ghost busters!

Ghost Bane Weapon lets a weapon affect incorporeal beings and deal additional damage to ghosts.

Hail of Ectoplasm is an area attack that is effective both against ghosts and material creatures.

Wizardry: Ghostwalk Spells I

Wizardry: Ghostwalk Spells I

I'm not dead! Speaking of being dead, one thing that GURPS does differently from D&D is incorporeality. Insubstantiality in GURPS is an extremely potent advantage. In D&D, it's extremely powerful on low levels, but then, when everyone has lost of magic items, ghosts become less of a problem. The 50% chance of a magic weapon not dealing any damage against an incorporeal enemy never made much sense to me. Even when I play D&D-like games in GURPS, I do not emulate the way insubstantiality works in D&D. I still add Affects Insubstantial, +20% to all force spells/abilities, but no 50% chance for magic weapons or anything like that. However, this makes it difficult to actually interact with incorporeal beings, and if they can interact with you, that spells doom for you. This is why I give incorporeal undead disadvantages such as Dread (Religious Symbols) or Weakness (Sunlight) - I want even mundane character to be able to interact with such creatures somehow.

But that aside, I'd also like to expand the magical options of interacting with insubstantial enemies. The most "ghostly" D&D book that I can use for inspiration is a very obscure setting book - Ghostwalk. So, let's take a look at the magic section and see if there's anything interesting.

Anti-Ectoplasm Shell is a variant of Antilife Shell in the original, but I decided to model it after Repel Stone/Metal to make it able to move inert ectoplasm. Incorporeal beings rarely have high ST values, so this spell is pretty good. No, I will model it on Antilife Shell, because I didn't notice that Repel Ectoplasm also exists.

Bonerattle has nothing to do with ghosts, but is a fun Necromantic/Body Control/Sound attack spell.

Charm Ghost is a ghost-limited variant of Charm that is significantly cheaper. After all, you don't have to destroy the ghost, you can befriend it instead.

Create Ectoplasm is... uh, I don't really know. But maybe somebody will be able to come up with a good use for it. Anyway, it's cheap enough to improvise.

Death Armor is a very cheap self-only buff. Something of a necromantic variant of Fire Shield.

Death Lock works somewhat differently than its D&D counterpart. Now, it simply shuts down all kinds of resurrection, reanimation, revivication, undeadification, and prevents liches and ghosts from reforming, letting adventurers kills them for good. Specialized, but powerful.

Detect Ghost is a limited version of Detect Undead. "Undead" already is a rare category, so I added an accessibility to make this spell slightly cheaper.

Disguise Undead is similar to Disguise Self, but affects undead creatures.