Monstrous Compendium I

Monstrous Compendium I

See all the crappy monsters was writing up over the years? What a lame statblock, right? Wouldn't it be great to have a more extensive tome with all the flavor information, revised rules, and lots of additional stuff? I've been working on it for quite a while, and the first volume is ready for public release. This version is final in the sense that there won't be anything new, but I may update it with errata. This is only volume I, and there's definitely more where it came from - it just takes a while.

Link - Monstrous Compendium I

Wizardry: Fun with Prestidigitation

Wizardry: Fun with Prestidigitation

D&D, being a combat-focused system, combines all the minor utility spells that wizards would likely to learn to make their day-to-day lives easier into a single spell - Prestidigitation. GURPS is an entirely different beast, with plenty of spells in GURPS Magic that a D&D player would call useless. Then, we even have GURPS Magic: The Least of Spells that is full of them. From what I gathered, the edition that expanded upon Prestidigitation is the most detail is, surprisingly, D&D 3.0 (not 3.5). Generally speaking, D&D 3.0 seems to have much more soul than 3.5 despite being almost identical mechanically. Tome & Blood has a page titled "Fun With Prestidigitation" that says what this spell can do in a much clearer way. So, let's adapt them to wizardry, as there can never be too many cheap spells. After all, such spells make regular improvisation much more attractive.

    Change had to be... changed. Here, it transforms up to 8 ounces of any solid material into something else, but due to Create being limited to bulk material, it cannot create "complex" objects as a product. The original spell could, for example, turn a coin into a ring, but it isn't possible here.

    Chill and Warm had to go, as having Cool and Warm that change the ambient temperature should be enough for me.

    Clean lets you wash dishes, floors, etc. Decided to build it via Telekinesis instead of Control Grime.

    Dampen uses the Rinse perk as a base. An arbitrary Cosmic enhancement changes the way it works, but all the other limitation compensate for it.

    Flavor is a spell that requires jumping through so many hoops that any sane person would probably just call it a perk or something like that. I'm I'm not any sane person. Since we already have Season based on a GURPS Magic food spell, at first, I wanted to just rename it to Flavor, but I noticed that their effects are quite different. You see, Season adds flavors that can be added with seasoning to food. Flavor makes anything, not just food, taste differently. Season has a permanent duration, but Flavor lasts only 30 minutes (it's 1 hour in the original version, but I really wanted to get the cost within 5 points to be able to buy this spell as a learned spell for just one point). Season used Control Food as the base, but here I'd have to use a godlike version of Control that would be at least 30 points base. Create has Solid, Liquid, and Gas as the highest tier of matter, but Flavor is supposed to be able to change the flavor of solids and liquids, so 30 points would probably be too low. Instead, I decided to asspull Control Flavor as a rare category of process-based control from GURPS Powers: The Weird, and use the standard mass-based limit. I even had to use Takes Extra Time 2.5, -25% to squeeze in the final -5% of limitations, because I really didn't want to increase the FP cost for such a minor spell. This let me barely fit this spell within the 5-point goal budget. Now, you can trick a bulette by making something taste like elf meat. Were these rules shenanigans worth it? Probably not, but I don't care.

    Color uses Control Solid as a base, assuming 30 points/level as the base cost. I think this spell can actually be useful in some situations, so buying it as part of an alternative abilities array may be worth it.

    Dirty is the inverse of Clean and is built the same way, even though it may seem dumb.

    Dry is the reverse of Dampen. Instead of building it via Create Water with Destruction, I just added "Reversed" to the Dampen build and called it a day.

    Firefinger is just the Ignition perk with minor changes.

    Gather collects small objects into a pile or container.

    Polish polishes an object.

    Sketch is the most expensive spell here. Compared to Arcane Mark, it allows drawing anything, not just symbols, lasts a shorter time, and can be hung in air or attached to an object. It has a lower casting cost and casting time.

    Stitch is a peculiar spell that lets you sew without a needle or thread, and do so much faster than normal. For this spell, there should be a +4 bonus to the roll, but I transformed it into a -40% decrease in the base task time.

    Tie is very similar to the one above. Interestingly enough, Knot-Tying doesn't care about your ST, so I left it at 1.

Wizardry: Miscellaneous Spells I

Wizardry: Miscellaneous Spells I

Here, we have not spells from a specific D&D book, but some miscellaneous spells I made as sorcery spells before and that I'd like to rework for wizardry.

Censure is a clerical spell that marks the subject as an outcast.

Death Link is a unique spell that binds two souls together so that whatever happens to one creature also happens to another one.

Disarm is a quasi-attack spell that attempts to disarm the target.

Faith Magic Zone is another clerical spell that slows down arcane spellcasting in the area.

Net is a short-range overhead area binding attack.

Portrait is a spell that captures a scene in a globe of glass.

Reveal Magic makes magic items and creatures under magic effects glow within the area. This is something like a mass Detect Magic where others can identify the auras too.

Shadow Double creates a double of the caster made of shadowstuff.

Souldrinker is an expensive ranged Leech spell.

Town Portal is a spell that creates a gate to a city/town with a fountain on the central square that you have visited before. This (and the previous one) is a spell from Might and Magic.

Wizardry: Complete Divine Spells III

Wizardry: Complete Divine Spells III

Murderous Mist is a non-incendiary version of Incendiary Cloud.

Probe Thoughts lets you retrieve memories from another creature.

Sandblast is a weak cone attack with a blinding side effect that I basically bullshitted into existence instead of doing things RAW. I based it on the Sand Blast spell from GURPS Magic: Artillery Spells.

Scent is a simple buff that improves the target's smell. I didn't go with Discriminatory Smell because the memorization aspect of this advantage is hard to use when the buff only lasts half an hour.

Slime Wave creates a wave of corrosive green slime. In the original source, it's an spherical effect, but here I decided to turn it into a cone. "Wave" sounds more like a cone to me.

Standing Wave creates a wave that carries a creature or object in a straight line.

Tidal Surge is another conic wave spell that originates from a body of water. Pretty cool.

True Creation is a character point-powered, improved version of Major Creation.

Lesser Vigor grants Rapid Healing.

Vigor grants Very Rapid Healing.

Greater Vigor grants Regeneration.

Visage of the Deity is a weaker variant of Crown of Glory that also doesn't require spending character points.

And that's actually it - that's all the spells from this book that I'd like to have in my games. While in Complete Arcane I skipped only a handful of spells, here I skipped most of them, I think.

Wizardry: Complete Divine Spells II

Wizardry: Complete Divine Spells II

Crown of Glory is a character point-powered spell that gives you an awesome aura and lets you be understood universally. You also glow.

Crumble is a character point-powered attack spell that can be used if you need to get rid of something fast. 20d on average deals 70 damage, which is enough to crumble a 6"-thick brick wall, 1"-thich mild steel wall or door. At most, this spell deals 120 damage, which can destro a 1'-thick stone wall. Still, this spell is not very powerful for its cost.

Unluck is similar to Curse of Ill Fortune. This one has a short duration, milder penalties, and doesn't negate Luck.

Curse of Lycanthropy is a spell that permanently afflicts the victim with lycanthropy. While disadvantageous Alternate Form is a disadvantage, I still have to use an advantageous variant because the lens is a meta-trait that also includes advantages despite having a negative point values. To be able to vary the afflicted forms, I should've used either Alternate Enhancements or Cosmic Power by RAW, but I decided to sidestep this issue with a variable material component. Otherwise, this spell would've become much more expensive and pretty much unusable.

Death Pact is something of a conditional resurrection spell that is cast as a buff on a living creature instead of a dead body. Required a lot of rules-stretching.

Decomposition is a spell that makes wounds around the caster fester, dealing extra damage.

Divine Sacrifice is the first spell that costs HP to cast instead of FP. It temporarily buffs your Striking ST.

Hawkeye is a spell that lets you see farther.

Maddening Scream is an incapacitating spell that makes the victim run around and scream wildly. I had to come up with my own modifier for that.

Wizardry: Complete Divine Spells I

Wizardry: Complete Divine Spells I

I've just finished selectively adapting spells from Complete Arcane, but there is another major book - Complete Divine. While this one does have some spells for wizard, it has many more spells for clerics and druids that just won't work as arcane spells in terms of flavor. Thus, it's time to give divine spellcasters some love.

Anger of the Noonday Sun creates a blinding flash centered on you that also damages undead and oozes. In Complete Divine, this is an exlusive druidic spell, but I feel that it's a perfect Sun domain cleric spell.

Beast Claws gives you claws.

Beget Bogun is a highly specific spell to animate a bogun - something like a druidic homunculus.

Blast of Force is an invisible force beam attack.

Bolt of Bedevilment (singular) is a beam spell that may daze the target.

Bolt of Glory is a beam spell that damages undead, evil outsiders, and Negative Energy Plane natives.

Briar Web is a version of Entangle that doesn't work underwater but also deals minor impaling damage if the grappled victim moves or struggles. It's also one point cheaper, so it's an objectively better choice unless you want to venture underwater.

Castigate is a verbal rebuke that causes pain to creatures not of your alignment or deafens those of your alignment. Mostly useful against outsiders and divine spellcasters.

Chain of Eyes is a pretty cool spell. I felt lazy, so I just slapped Cosmic on the advantage and called it a day.

Druidic Spellcasting Revised

Druidic Spellcasting Revised

It's time to solve the druid question. I have a problem with druids in GURPS - I love druids conceptually, but mechanically... let's say that they are subpar in most situations. For the most part, this is due to their power modifier. In this post, I'd like to talk about the power modifiers, about druids in general, and try to rework my druidic spellcasting framework into something more functional.

Wizardry: Food Spells II

Wizardry: Food Spells II

I've been neglecting one of my favorite GURPS Magic colleges, and that is the College of Food. It may seem silly to many, but in my opinion, this is an extremely welcome addition and the most unD&D things that Magic has. It does provide genuine utility both in downtime and in adventuring situations, and I definitely can see why some wizards would like to learn some of these spells from the in-universe standpoint. From a point of view of an actual player, I will try to make these spells cheap enough to be used with normal improvisation.

I do not recall any such spells in D&D books, but if I'm mistaken, feel free to call me a midwit in the comments.

Cook is a spell that lets you save time and effort with cooking. I'd love to know this spell.

Decay is a spell for jerks.

Distill concentrates a liquid, just in case you want a stronger alcoholic beverage.

Far-Smelling was decoupled from Far-Tasting. *snifffffffffffffffffff* Quite pungent indeed! Technically speaking, this should have been an Indefinite spell, but I made it instantaneous because I can. The most important thing here is to spell this spell's name correctly.

Far-Tasting can be used to identify potions and poisons without actually drinking the liquid in question or even without opening the container.

Hunger is a fatigue attack spell. Its Thirst counterpart is not present as it's covered by Horrid Wilting.

Know Recipe can be a useful spell not only for chefs, but also for alchemists.

Mature gave me a lot of food for thought, pun unindended. Back in the day, I made this spell as an expensive Affliction that afflicts Unaging with Age Control. Now, at first I thought I'd do it via Control as per GURPS Powers: The Weird, but that would be way too expensive. Instead, I went with the simplest option available - Create. Now, you simply transform food/drink into matured food/drink. Simple, cheap, and exactly what the original spell in GURPS Magic does.

Monk's Banquet lets you circumvent the need for sustenance entirely.

Poison Food is a rather expensive delayed damage spell.

Prepare Game can be quite useful, carefully separating a slain animal into meat, bones, skin, etc. for cooking and crafting. In addition, the spell does it 60 times faster than you'd be able to do it manually.

Preserve Food has shorter duration than its GURPS Magic counterpart. Since I'm making these spells for my games, this one incorporates a houserule that makes Unaging cost 5 points instead of 15. If you're not using this rule, increase the cost by 9 points, or pretend that this is Immunity to Rot [5].

Season can enhance (or worsen) an existing meal's flavor.

Seek Food is much more expensive, but it can be very useful even in adventuring situations. Even more useful to predatory casters.

Test Food is a crucial spell for court wizards.

Water to Wine does exactly that - turns water to wine.

Druidic Spells: Complete Arcane Spells

Druidic Spells: Complete Arcane Spells

And here we have a bunch of spells from Complete Arcane adapted for druids.

Wood Rot is the only druid-exclusive new spell that is a simple corrosion touch attack that only works against wooden objects and plant creatures.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells IX

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells IX

It's time to finish this book.

Transmute Rock to Lava transforms merely one hex of rock to lava. This still has a potential to deal a lot of damage, but the dissipation rate from the center is fast, and the duration is very long.

Curse of Ill Fortune doesn't afflict the target with Unluckiness, but prevents it from using Luck and gives a -3 penalty to most rolls. Temporary attribute penalties in GURPS always felt off to me. You can afflict the target with -4 to DX, but it will not affect parries. And I think that the rules concerning this are inconsistent with other rules that impose penalties. Usually, I ignore the active defense part. Here, I decided to add Task Modifier, Broad Range, -3 to Active Defenses, +60% from GURPS Meta-Tech (it did appear in a very late Pyramid issue before that too). Why is it only +60%? Seems that it should be at least +90% because Defense Bonus costs 30 points, but this doesn't take into account power defenses. Ah well, who cares.

Vitriolic Sphere is an acid variant of Fireball (it actually works a little bit differently in the original source).

Wall of Bones conjures a semi-permeable barrier of sharp bones.

Wall of Gloom is Deeper Darkness in a wall form.

Withering Palm is a necromantic spell that weakens the victim.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VIII

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VIII

Resonating Bolt is a sonic line attack spell.

Ring of Blades surrounds you with a ring of orbiting blades.

Secret Signs is actually a pretty cool spell. It allows you to transmit a message non-verbally, but is more limited than proper telepathy.

Sign of Sealing creates a magical explosive lock on a door or object.

Sphere of Ultimate Destruction creates a mini black hole that disintegrates anything it touches.

Spirit Binding is a more limited variant of Planar Binding. More likely to be used by shamans than wizards.

Spirit Needle is a bit convoluted, but I think it's very cool, even if expensive. I feel that this spell is based on some Oriental myth, but I cannot confirm that. Anyway, this is a metal spell that can hinder incorporeal creatures, which is nice.

Spirit Self lets you project your spirit out of your body.

Steam Breath is a simple steam cone attack.

Stony Grasp is a stronger variant of Earthen Grasp that can be cast in rocky areas instead of earthy areas. Only 1 point more expensive.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VII

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VII

Otiluke's Dispelling Screen creates a barrier that dispels any magical effect that crosses it.

Pain is a weak and relatively cheap debuff.

Poison Needles is a high RoF spell that deals minor piercing damage and follow-up toxic damage.

Prismatic Ray is a beam attack with a random damage type.

Programmed Amnesia is basically identical to Mental Surgery from GURPS Psionic Powers. In D&D, this is a 9th-level spell, but here it costs only 20 points. Interesting.

Protection from Charm is a buff that protects from compulsion effects.

Rain of Needles is a quite weak area attack spell.

Reciprocal Gyre is an interesting spell that deals damage based on the number of buffs or debuffs affecting the target. In GURPS, you are unlikely to have more than a couple of them, so it shouldn't get out of hand. I had to borrow the Margin-Based enhancement from Affliction and apply it to the entire advantage.

Refusal is a spell that wards an area against spellcasters. No mages allowed!

Repair is a single spell instead of all the Repain Minor/Light/Serious/etc. Damage spells. Healing by RAW cannot work on inanimate objects. I found a forum post that introduces new modifiers to be able to do that, but that leaves out constructs that count as animate beings. Thus, I decided to go for a +50% modifier to cover both of them, I think that works fine.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VI

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells VI

Boy, this book sure has many spells, even if you filter out the ones you don't want.

Kiss of the Toad is a poison touch spell that requires a toad tattoo. This is a limitation because the tattoo can be removed either by mundane means or with the Erase spell.

Leomund's Hidden Lodge is a variant of Leomund's Secure Shelter that is protected by an illusion. Costs a character point to reduce the point cost.

Lightning Blade is a lightning variant of Flame Blade.

Low-Light Vision is a buff that lets the subject see better in the dark.

Magnetism is a magnetic tractor beam. Cool stuff, even though the limitation are deep below the -80% cap even despite my increasing the range tenfold compared to the original.

Melt is a more limited variation of Thaw from Frostburn.

Metal Skin turns the subject's skin into metal, providing DR and reducing DX.

Orb of Acid/Cold/Electricity/Fire/Force/Sound are simple missile spells of different flavors. The original spells also have some... strange additional effects that don't make much sense.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells V

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells V

Freezing Fog is a cold variant of Incendiary Cloud.

Ghostform is an expensive spell (both in terms of points and FP), but insubstantiality is a very powerful effect, so that's appropriate.

Hail of Stone is a simple area bombardment spell.

Heart of Stone is an interesting spell. At first, I wanted to include a character point cost, but then saw that it can be dispelled like any other spell, so it shouldn't as overpowered as it may seem at first.

Heart Ripper simply tries to rip the target's heart out of its body.

Ice Blast is a cone breath attack that drains FP. Since this is a contact agent, this is an expensive but powerful spell. Also, we're back to converting ice spells!

Ice Knife is a cheap ice missile spell that may produce fragments. Fun stuff.

Illusory Pit is exacrly that - a specialized illusion spell to create pits. Actually, a pretty powerful effect.

Internal Fire is a spell that burns the target from within. Gruesome.

Iron Scarf is the most simple of the scarf spells - it just gives you a melee cutting attack.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells IV

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells IV

Familiar Pocket is a situational spell for those wizards that have small and vulnerable familiars.

Fiendform lets you transform into a demon, devil, or another fiend.

Fiery Eyes is a spell that lets you set objects ablaze with your gaze.

Fire Breath is a very simple jet spell.

Fire Shuriken is a 1-point spell that, however, requires Thrown Weapon (Shuriken) skill and doesn't have scaling damage.

Fireburst is another simple fire spell that is basically a fireball centered on you. No, it doesn't harm you.

Fist of Stone transforms one of your hands into stone. The effect is quite weak, so I included a limited form of Cumulative for free just so you could transform both of your hands with two castings and a limited for of Injury Tolerance (Homogenous) for free, because come on!

Flensing is a gruesome spell that required some rules-bending to work properly. It is quite expensive as a result, but appropriately so.

Force Whip (it actually got renamed to Sonic Whip in Spell Comendium) got reworked significantly compared to its original form. Now it's a proper weapon without the fancy sonic fear effects. I like it more this way, and it's nice that now you have an excuse to use the Force Whip skill. This spell also required some RAW-stretching, but who cares?

Mass Fly is a mass version of Fly. Expensive, but this is a very powerful effect, so it's okay.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells III

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells III

Now, let's have som fun spells.

Decapitating Scarf is a wu jen metal spell that lets you flick a silk scarf at enemies to decapitate them. Stylish!

Defenestrating Sphere is one of my favorite spells ever. What can be better than throwing enemies into windows?

Discern Shapechanger could've been built using Detect, but I think a variant of See Invisible works better and is more simple.

Duelward is an active defense spell that nullified any spell that directly affects the caster. At first, I wanted to make this a self-only buff that afflicts a single-use Static, but this is much more fun and interactive.

Earthbolt is an earth spell that strikes in a line along the ground. Very cool. I remember this spell being used in one of my D&D games in the past.

Earthen Grasp calls an arm made of earth to grapple the victim.

Elemental Ward is an elemental-specific variant of Antilife Shell with some extra rules.

Emerald Flame Fist is a complex spell that lets you illuminate an area for a short time or set an enemy ablaze with a touch.

Enhance Familiar imbues your familiar with Luck just in case you don't want to lose it due to a poor die roll.

Entangling Scarf is another spell that turns a silk scarf into a metallic lariat.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells II

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells II

Accuracy is difficult. I already adapted Exacting Shot from Complete Adventurer to give +2 to attack rolls with a ranged weapons, and increased Accuracy would be worse despite the underlying advantage having the same cost due to hitting the -80% cap. Thus, I decided to make this one last longer, but provide a +3 bonus to Acc to compensate. Now the two spells should be competitive.

Body Outside Body is an interesting spell just because it uses an advantage that you barely ever see in use - Duplication. This is a powerful spell, but it has an appropriately high cost.

Chameleon is a simple illusion that lets the subject blend into the surroundings.

Cloud Chariot is a costly spell that lets you travel really fast but requires character point expenditure.

Cobra's Breath is a cone poison attack and the first time I'm using Blood Agent as an enhancement.

Commune with Spirit is mostly intended for the oriental wu jen class and shamans, but I see nothing wrong with adding it to the variant Spirit College that I'm using. This is the first time I'm using the Medium advantage.

Corpse Candle is a spooky spell with a janky build. Illuminates the area and outlines invisible and ethereal creatures.

Creeping Darkness is a mobile and shapeable variant of Deeper Darkness. In the original version, it also blocks sound, but I found it inappropriate.

Dancing Blade is a simple spell in concept, but not in execution. I tried to write something of a flowchart for how it is supposed to operate.

Mass Darkvision is just a mass version of Darkvision.

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells I

Wizardry: Complete Arcane Spells I

The next book on the list will be Complete Arcane. This one has a long list of new spells because it introduces three new spellcasting classes. There's going to be plenty of combat spells (this book introduced the wargame class, after all), but many of them probably are going to be redundant. We'll see!

Absorption is a self-only buff that lets you absorb other spells.

Anticipate Teleportation is a pretty cool spell that delays all teleportation effects in the area and reveals their destination.

Arc of Lightning is a unique lightning attack spell that causes a lightning bolt to run between two distant targets.

Arrow of Bone turns an arrow or a crossbow bolt into a deadly necromantic projectile.

Backbiter - now that's what I call a fun spell. I remember it being used in my D&D games of the past. It has a very unintuitive build under the hood.

Bands of Steel is a spell that conjures metal hoops that pin the victim's limbs to the torso.

Blackfire is an interesting necromantic spell with contagious effects.

Blades of Fire is a slightly unusual weapon buff spell that may affect two weapons at once and does not require gestures. Thus, you can use it when dual-wielding.

Blast of Flame is quite boring - just a wider and longer version of Burning Hands. But why not? I made it take longer to cast to prevent this spell from making its shorter version redundant.

Random Disease Generator

Random Disease Generator

Diseases in RPGs are very much underused. How many times have you seen Resistant/Immunity to Disease? And how many times have you seen a disease actually come up in the game? The answers are probably “occasionally to often” and “never”. It’s understandable – diseases are passive threats that, depending on their severity, either mildly inconvenience you or force you to rest for a long time akin to crippling injuries. If one PC caught a debilitating disease, then everyone has to wait for him to recover, or the GM just goes “Okay, you find a suitable priest, pay him $100, and he cures you. Let’s keep going.” Diseases probably work much better if you’re using 1:1 time. But I’m writing not to advocate for 1:1 time (mostly), but to tackle an adjacent problem – GURPS has barely any diseases statted up. There is one in GURPS Basic Set, some in GURPS Bio-Tech, and a couple in, surprisingly, GURPS Tactical Shooting: Extreme Conditions. In addition to that, GURPS has a generic “infection” that sort of makes things better. I did write up some D&D and Pathfinder diseases in the past, but how do you decide on what disease does the character catch?

A few days ago, I opened the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide and found a bunch of tables for random disease and parasitic infestation generation on the first pages. To be honest, they look pretty damn good, and they inspired me to adapt them to GURPS. As always, I’m not doing a 1-to-1 conversion, because GURPS has a different degree of granularity, and I have to take into account more parameters than AD&D did. I hope this will be useful!

Wizardry: Cityscape Spells

Wizardry: Cityscape Spells

I've forgotten Cancel Spells, so let's fix that. In addition, let's convert the few spells from the Cityscape splatbook.

Cancel Spells is not a D&D spell, but a GURPS Sorcery spell that is nonetheless very much necessary, so here it is. It's unique in that it's a universal spell that doesn't belong to any college.

Peacebond is a spell the locks a weapon to its sheath. This is not an offensive spell, but something cast by magical law enforcement who hate fun.

False Peacebond is the same, except that one individual chosen at the time of casting can draw the weapon freely.

Detect Weaponry is another spell for the fun police in impolite societies.

Impeding Stones creates an area of unstable terrain on rocky surfaces.

Leomund's Spacious Carriage creates a carriage and a pair of horses to pull it.

Secret Weapon gives a big Holdout bonus to hide the enchanted weapon.

Zone of Peace is an area of no-fun-allowed.

Summon Pest Swarm is a cool spell for urban druids.

Druidic Spells: Frostburn Spells

Druidic Spells: Frostburn Spells

Now that I'm done with wizard spells from Frostburn, I still have to druidify some of them. The book actually assigned many spells to the druid spell list, but since I separated Cold/Ice and Water into two different colleges, most of the spells are not going to make it in. At least for now, because I like the concept of an arctic druid, but I want to restrict the list to "standard" stuff first. Aside from the adjusted spells from previous posts, there are new spells that are exclusive to druids, mostly related to weather manipulation

Dire Winter drastically lowers the ambient temperature for one day in a huge area. An expensive spell for powerful druids using cooperative magic or ritual casting.

Evergreen is a spell that makes plants (both regular ones and animated ones) resistant to cold for almost a week.

Fimbulwinter causes intense winter for 8d weeks. A very powerful spell where I had to stretch the rules a bit, but I think the result is fine, and the cost is appropriate for the effect.

Ice Age is an even bigger version of Dire Winter. I intentionally didn't include a character point cost because I think it would be too cheap if I did that. Now, it's a ritual casting spell that seems to have an appropriate cost. Don't mess with druid circles.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells VIII

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells VIII

Suppress Flame is a weird spell. The effects aren't very strong, but it is a 6th-level spell that also requires an expensive and rare material component. Here, I drastically reduced the duration and removed the need for the material component.

Thaw is the inverse of Flash-Freeze.

Thin Air decreases atmospheric pressure in an area.

Wall of Coldfire creates a wall that deals damage of this exotic frostburn type.

Zone of Glacial Cold creates a zone of cold that deals damage and nullifies Infravision.

That's it, isn't it? No, we still have the epic spells! Well, at least one of them that I'd like to keep.

Coldfire Blast doesn't really feel like an epic spell. Just a frostburn fireball.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells VII

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells VII

Mantle of the Icy Soul by RAW should cost 450 (!!!) character points for each casting!, but I think that 33 is more reasonable. After all, you are imbueing the subject with a 33-point meta-trait, and the spell itself is something of a point tax to be able to do that to others.

Meld into Ice is an ice variant of Meld into Stone. Ice is a category that is four times cheaper, so this spell is very affordable. By default, it also includes snow, so I had to remove this capability with a limitation.

Mindfrost is a weak damaging spell that freezes the mental pathways of the subject.

Move Snow and Ice is an ice variant of Move Earth. Ended up being a point more expensive due to the inclusion of snow.

Numbing Sphere is a cold variant of Flaming Sphere.

Obscuring Snow is a snow variant of Obscuring Mist.

Pass through Ice sounds like a variant spell, but it actually isn't. The swimming part is something unique and interesting.

Raise Ice Forest is interesting. Did you know that there's a formula to calculate a volume of a tree? No I do know that. A 15-foot-tall tree with a 5-foot-diameter trunk at breast height has a volume of 4.155 cubic meters or 146.733 cubic feet. With ice having density of 53 lbs/cubic foot, an ice tree would weigh 7777 lbs.

Shivering Touch is a melee cold spell.

Snow Walk is a simple buff that lets the subject move and fight on snow unpenalized.

Snow Wave may seem very expensive for what it does, but you can layer the created snow! This is a very powerful battlefield control spell.

Snowdrift is a snow variant of Ice Shape.

Snowsight is peculiar. How do you give yourself an ability to see unimpeded through falling snow? Penetrating Vision, even with Specific, even with Accessibility, Only falling snow would be extremely expensive. But think about it logically (*hits pipe*), if darkness is a kind of Vision penalty that is completely ignored by Dark Vision, why not create a variant advantage that ignores all Vision penalties for falling snow? I think that is sensible.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells VI

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells VI

Oh, dear, we've reached the letter "I", and that means that we're going to have a bunch of ice spells.

Heartfreeze encases the heart of the target in a block of ice. This deals cold damage and has a chance to stun on cause a heart attack.

Heat Leech is a cyclic freezing attack spell.

Hibernate forces the subject into a deathlike trance. Could be useful when cast both on enemies and allies.

Ice Castle conjures up an entire castle made of ice. Instead of doing it via Create or Snatcher, I decided to go a roundabout way and do it via Jumper.

Ice Darts is a rapid fire ice attack spell.

Ice Rift is an icy variant of Earthquake.

Ice Shape is an icy variant of Stone Shape.

Ice Shield is a very limited variant of Stoneskin.

Ice Ship conjures a vessel made of ice.

Ice Skating lets the subject ignore combat penalties on ice and improves top speed.

Ice Slick lets you do one of Sub-Zero's special moves.

Ice to Flesh is an icy variant of Stone to Flesh.

Ice Web is similar to Web, but also deals frostburn damage.

Icicles is a triggered trap spell that isn't actually a variant of an existing spell, surprisingly.

Ivory Flesh turns the subject's flesh white for camouflage purposes.

Leomund's Tiny Igloo lost its furnishing and became a specialized form of bulk snow creation. To calculate the requires Create level, I had to calculate the volume of the walls in Unigraphics NX.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells V

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells V

I think that when I'm done with this book, the Ice college will be the largest one.

Frost Weapon is a simple weapon buff that adds cold damage.

Frostbite is a Malediction spell that deals fatigue damage.

Frostburn (the spell) deals frostburn (type) damage that was introduced in Frostburn (the book) and not mentioned anywhere else. In D&D, it reqruies a caster level check to heal magically, doesn't heal naturally in temperatures below freezing, and it cures cold creatures. Here, I made it so it cannot be healed at all unless the victim is brought into a warm area.

Mass Frostburn is an area version of Frostburn.

Frostfell is a very high level spell in its original form, but here I decided to turn it into a limited version of Cool that has a fixed temperature shift, no range, and a very long duration with a possibility of making it permanent. It also is affordable!

Gelid Blood imposes the normal side effects of cold damage without actually damaging the victim. Kind of sucks, doesn't it? But I guess it could be situationally useful, as it is less expensive than, for example, Frostbite.

Glacial Globe of Invulnerability is a fire-specific version of Globe of Invulnerability.

Glacial Ward makes the subject very resistant to fire spells that directly affect it. There actually aren't many of spells that this spells would be useful against, at least for now.

Glacier is a limited form of Column of Ice.

Glaze Lock jams a locking mechanism with ice, making it harder to pick.

BrOSR and GURPS

BrOSR and GURPS

A few months ago, TheRyujinLP introduced me to the Joy of Wargaming YouTube channel, something for which I'm thankful. Aside from providing interesting battle reports, solo RPG playthroughs, and other RPG and wargaming-related videos, this channel introduced me to the concept of BrOSR (a portmanteau of OSR and Braunstein), something I wasn't aware of before. I watched some videos (both from the proponents and detractors) and read some blogposts. The most material can be found on Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog, but it was surprisingly difficult to find posts that clearly explain what BrOSR is. However, he who seeks will find, so I'll link you two posts that explain the concept very well:

1. BROSR Principles: A Primer (the blog of the Joy of Wargaming host, be sure to check this one out, it has a lot of good stuff).

2. How to Play D&D Like A Wargame (this post really could use some editing, but that's rich coming from me out of all people).

All this for the most part assumes AD&D or similar games, but the principles themselves are universally applicable. I found the concept of BrOSR fascinating, but since AD&D and GURPS are so different, it made me think - what principles can and cannot be applied in GURPS? So, here's a rambly post that'll probably bring me some heat.

Preface: I've never played AD&D, and I'm merely dipping my toes into the subject - there's a chance that I do not understand some of the concepts properly.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells IV

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells IV

Detect Fire is a divine-only spell in Frostburn, but I decided to arcanize it. After all, we have a useful Fire spell that isn't related to blasting stuff, which is very nice.

Dispel Cold and Dispel Fire work very differently in the original source. Here, I decided to turn them into limited versions of Dispel Magic. Now, instead of a very expensive spell of dubious utility, you have a much more affordable spell of much less dubious utility. Also, the Fire college yet again gains a non-blasting spell!

Ease of Breath is a very situational but cheap buff that lets you breathe in a thin atmosphere.

Entomb traps its victim in a block of ice.

Flash-Freeze transmutes water into ice and earth into perma- sorry, I mean everfrost. What the hell is everfrost? Google only mentions this book and a League of Legends item.

Flesh to Ice is merely a variant of Flesh to Stone.

Float is a non-reflexive version of Wave Blessing from Stormwrack.

Divine Favor, Pulling Rank, Agency, and Investment

Divine Favor, Pulling Rank, Agency, and Investment

GURPS Powers: Divine Favor is something like proto-sorcery. Despite the "proto" part, it feels more like a magic system than a raw framework. The gist is basically the same - you have a "base" advantage, and your learned spells/prayers are taken as alternative abilities. The difference is not only in the flavor, the way spells/prayers are constructed, but most importantly in that base advantage.

Making Sense of the Great Wheel Cosmology

Making Sense of the Great Wheel Cosmology

I always loved the D&D Great Wheel cosmology, even though nowadays it makes “players” go “aaaaah, I have to keep more than two things in mind, my brain can’t handle it, help me, this is too complex!” I think what D&D 4e did with it was a criminal offense. The Great Wheel has a rich history, both in-universe and in a meta sense, because things changed a lot between editions, even if you pretend that 4e never existed. Karilan, my homebrew setting, uses the Great Wheel cosmology as well, but with all the aforementioned changes and inconsistencies, this doesn’t say much. In GURPS, the cosmological structure actually sometimes matters, as certain spells and abilities take penalties based on a “planar distance.” Thus, a post is required that will set everything in stone and fill the gaps with headcanon.

Snakes, Hexes, Reach, Height, Oh My!

Snakes, Hexes, Reach, Height, Oh My!

Oh, dear... There's something that's been bothering me for a long while - snakes. The way they work in GURPS just isn't intuitive and, to be honest, convoluted and poorly explained. More often than not, rules just don't make sense. Serpents of Legend and Combat Writ Large (Pyramid #3-77) made some things clearer, didn't explain other things, and raised new question. So, it's time to consolidate the rules and patch up the holes to the extent of my abilities.

Review: GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers

Review: GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers

In my opinion, “magic-as-powers” is the best way to represent supernatural powers in GURPS and also is the most GURPS way. GURPS Powers is an essential book that discusses this topic in great detail. Despite this, GURPS doesn’t have many worked examples for some reason. You only have two – GURPS Psionic Powers and GUPRS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers. I already made a video/post about why I do not even consider Sorcery a magic system, and much of the same applies to Divine Favor. There’s also GURPS Powers: Totems and Nature Spirits, but it feels… undercooked. It has some nice bits, but I consider it a very weak book overall. GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers is a book that people rarely even mention, but it has been on my to-do list for quite a while. I was postponing it despite the requests I was getting because I was afraid I won’t be able to do it justice. So, let’s finally talk about it.

My Introduction to Tabletop RPGs

My Introduction to Tabletop RPGs

Today, I watched a video on Tenkar’s Tavern OSR channel where the host told a story about how he got introduced to the tabletop RPG hobby, and it made me think about my past – how I got introduced to the hobby, and how many people I introduced to the hobby. So, let’s reminisce!

Unique Racial Skills in GURPS

Unique Racial Skills in GURPS

GURPS is very customizable, and you probably know that. You can build almost any ability that you can imagine by using the framework of advantages and modifiers. However, there is a part of the system that GMs seem to be more reluctant to touch – the skills. The long skill list intimidates many players, but excites some of them, including yours truly. But even with such an exhaustive list, sometimes you find that something is missing. There are no guidelines for creating a new skill, and that’s understandable. I mean, how would you even write such a guideline? I guess you could turn a heavily limited advantage into a skill, but that wouldn’t always work. Aside from the commonly available skills, GURPS also has power skills that are tied to certain abilities. However, there is something that I’ve never seen mentioned – racial skills.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells III

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells III

Conjure Ice Beast is a summoning spell that conjures an ice construct with some special abilities. I'll have to update/rework the actual lens, but the spell will not change.

Conjure Ice Object creates an object made of ice, but unlike Minor/Major Creation, it doesn't require a sample and is not limited to objects normally made of organic materials.

Control Temperature was split into Cool and Warm a la GURPS Magic. I already made these spells as druidic spells, so here we have the arcane versions.

Crack Ice shatters an area of ice, but does not affect ice creatures (unlike the original spell).

Crunchy Snow is complicated. There's one thing that GURPS lacks - irresistible afflictions, so such spells are very difficult to build. For example, take a look at Nightingale from GURPS Sorcery: Protection and Warning Spells - it's incredibly convoluted. If I were to build this spell are a variant of Nightingale, I'd end up with a spell that is very expensive, extremely situational, and that doesn't work like mundane crunchy snow. I can't use Control Snow, because snow is a solid, and hence I'd have weight-based limits. Control Sound with limitations is more valid, but ridiculously expensive, because "Sound" costs 20/level. However, if I say that "Snow Crunchiness" is a Rare category of "energy", then I get a spell that is much more affordable and consistent with the crunchy snow crunch from GURPS Tactical Shooting: Extreme Environments. Yes, the statblock looks scary and is six times longer than the spell's description, but the spell itself is quite simple.

In Defense of Fantasy Kitchen Sink Settings

In Defense of Fantasy Kitchen Sink Settings

GURPS is a very setting-dependent system. The setting and the game’s premise define what options are available to characters from the myriad provided by the books. This is why there is no generic “GURPS game” even though “generic” is in the name of the system, and this is also why it can be difficult to provide any character-building advice unless a lot of context is given. GURPS has many different published setting books with different levels of depth and detail – some have multiple books written about them, and some are merely paragraph-long elevator pitches in the midst of text. However, GURPS is a generic and universal system and hence can be used to play in any setting, be it something you came up with or something published for another system. GURPS Adaptations has a lot of good info on how to adapt other settings.

Weapon Breakage Variant Rules

Weapon Breakage Variant Rules

You probably know that the rules for weapon breakage in GURPS Basic Set (even with expansions from LTC2) aren't perfect. People complain about them a lot. Personally, even though I don't like some parts of them (for example, the fact that they work completely different from rules for Striking at Weapons), I always used them. Pyramid #3-87 has the Broken Blade article that makes the rules for weapon breakage much more involved. While I like that approach, it does require some extra homework (working out breakage thresholds for all the weapons) and extra rolls, which is something many people abhor. A friend approached me and said that his GM is buttmad about the Basic Set weapon breakage rules and that he'd like something like simplified Broken Blade. However, as we were fiddling with those rules, I had another idea - why don't we unify the rules and instead of using different damage rules for different objects we apply Damage to Shields (p. B484) to weapons?

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells II

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells II

    Oh boy, here we go. This is going to be a long one.

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells I

Wizardry: Frostburn Spells I

Frostburn was one of the early D&D 3.5 supplements that caused a little bit of online controversy, apparently. I'm actually very fond of this book, and I believe that it's full of good inspirational material for any arctic-themed fantasy GURPS game. Sure, there are some odd bits here or there, but it's okay overall. The book has a surprisingly large spell section, so let's GURPSify it.

    Anticold Sphere conjures a protective spherical field that grants DR against cold damage. It's a bit too expensive, but I'm not sure how to bring the cost down without character point expenditure. This spell fits more as a hardcore improvisation spell.

    Arctic Haze is a variant of Fog Cloud that affects Infravision but takes longer to cast. I decided to remove the damage component of this spell.

    Aura of Cold is something like Fire Shield, but with a larger area and no incendiary effect.

    Binding Snow is a frostfell variant of Entangle.

    Blood Snow is a relatively weak area effect spell for frostfell environments.

    Boreal Wind is a variant of Gust of Wind that also deals cold damage.

    Brumal Stiffening reduces DR of an object.

Random Encounters in GURPS

Random Encounters in GURPS

You all certainly are familiar with the random encounter tables. These could be wandering monsters in the dungeon, or random wilderness encounters. Do we have such tables and rules in GURPS? We actually do, but they are pretty well hidden.

Druidic Spells: Stormwrack Spells

Druidic Spells: Stormwrack Spells

The previous four posts had quite a few spells that would make sense as druidic spells, so let's rework them with the Divine power modifier. For some of them, this will affect the cost quite a bit.

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells IV

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells IV

    I'm not done yet.

    Stormrunner's Ward makes a ship more stable during storms.

    Stormwalk is a very flashy way to teleport.

    Swim is a simple buff that grants Amphibious.

    Thalassemia thins the subject's blood, dealing toxic damage.

    Turbidity is something akin to Obscuring Mist but for underwater use.

    Urchin's Spines is a fun buff that covers the subject in poisonous spines.

    Water to Acid is self-explanatory.

    Waterspout is something like a reverse Maelstrom and uses a very similar build.

    Wave Blessing is a naval variant of Feather Fall that can be cast reflexively. At first, I wanted to do this ability as Walk on Liquid with a made up Passive limitation, but then decided to make things simple. After all, Fat and Very Fat increase buoyancy and give bonuses to Swimming, so why not do it this way?

    And now I'm done. I didn't convert all the spells from Stormwrack - I only did it with those that I would allow in my games.

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells III

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells III

    Stormwrack sure is a book that makes your noggin' going.

    Part the Waters is an epic spell that ended up being less expensive than I thought it would. The build was borrowed from GURPS Powers: Divine Favor and changed up a bit.

    Planar Navigation is a plane shift spell that transports an entire ship to a different plane. I decided to apply some of the limitations to Jumper instead of Affliction because... because I just did, okay? Also, two rolls were combined into one, yet again because I said so.

    Pressure Sphere is an underwater pressure-based area damaging spell.

    Quickswim makes the caster swim faster.

    Red Tide creates a circular surging wave that may wash others away and also poison them.

    Sink makes the subject lose buoyancy.

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells II

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells II

    Let's have some more spells from Stormwrack.

    Detect Ship is an interesting sensory spell with a complex build.

    Disguise Ship cloaks a ship in illusion.

    Favorable Wind... man, this is one of those complicated spells. GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Low-Tech say that a craft's speed depends on the wind, but doesn't provide any details. How strong should the wind be? How strong of a wind risks tearing the sails? Fortunately, GURPS Vehicles 3e answers this question by providing a motive force formula that depends on the craft's weight, sail area, and wind force on the Beaufort scale. It also says that typical water move of a vessel is calculated as for a light breeze (Beaufort Degree 2), and sail breakage may occur on Beaufort Scale 6 (strong breeze). GURPS Magic has the Beaufort Scale table on page 194, and we can see that Beaufort Degree 2 (light breeze) equals to wind speed of 4-7 mph and Beaufort Degree 6 (strong breeze) equals to wind speed 25-31 mph. Multiply those speeds by 2 to get wind Move in yards per second. The spell as it is written in Stormwrack produces a 30 mph wind, whic is definitely not favorable wind, as it would tear sails. I will decrease it to a light breeze of 4 mph. The spell produces a line of 20 hexes, and Control 3 lets you affect 19 hexes. As a kind GM, I will round it up to 20. To get the speed of 4 mph (Move 8), I'll have to add five more levels of Control that do not increase the area of effect.

    Fins to Feet is a spell from the Little Mermaid.

    Kuo-Toa Skin would've been a boring buff if it simply granted Slippery, but the granted immunity to webs makes it more interesting.

    Maelstrom is a spell based on Whirlpool from Sorcery.

    Mordenkainen's Capable Caravel creates an entire caravel with a spectral crew. I tried hard to make it not character point-powered, but I just couldn't do it without discarding the spectral crew.

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells I

Wizardry: Stormwrack Spells I

You might know that I like to include aquatic hazards in my games, and I am a big fan of underwater adventures. Thus, let's convert some spells from Stormwrack, a D&D 3.5 supplement about under- and overwater adventures.

Aboleth Curse has the same effects as an aboleth's slime.

Air Breathing is the reverse of Water Breathing.

Airy Water is an interesting spell. Building the spell required a spreadsheet, but you only have to do it once - it's much better in play.

Blackwater Taint is a necromantic/water spell that saps heat and lifeforce out of enemies.

Blackwater Tentacle creates a blackwater tentacle somewhere that attacks a designated target.

Dark Tide is a very expensive spell with a huge area of effect. Water becomes dark and toxic for a long time.

Depthsurge is an underwater explosion spell. Rules for underwater explosions from Pyramid #3-26 are incorporated.

An Ode to GURPS

An Ode to GURPS

I’ve been quite negative towards some of the recent GURPS releases, so let me talk about something positive – why I love GURPS.

Monster: Slag Giant

Monster: Slag Giant

I've been asked to convert the slag giant from Pathfinder. This is a simple monster - just a crossbreed of a stone giant and fire giant. They have a demeanor closer to that of a stone giant, but an aptitude for smithwork of a fire giant. In the original source, they could also do extra damage to objects, but I consider that a gamist ability not worthy being on the statblock - if you want that, learn the Breaking Blow skill. Also, I'm sure it's possible to make a "giant slag" joke here somewhere.

Move and Ready and All-Out Ready

Move and Ready and All-Out Ready

This has been bothering me for a while, so I decided to make two new maneuvers for my games. Initially, I wanted to also have Committed Ready and Defensive Ready, but I thought that deez two should be enough for most of the cases. No need to overcomplicate things.

All-Out Ready: You take a Ready maneuver, making no effort to defend against enemy attacks. If the action in question requires a roll, such as a setup maneuver for a technique or readying an item while grappling, then you get +4 to DX-based rolls or +2 to ST-based rolls.

Movement: You may remain stationary, turn in place to face any hex, or run forward. If you turn or move forward, you may perform the desired action at any point during or after the move. If you move forward, you may move up to two hexes or expend movement points equal to half your Move (round up), whichever is more, and may not change facing at the end of your move.

Active Defense: None! You may make no active defenses between when you take this maneuver and your next turn.

Move and Ready: Move as described for the Move maneuver, but also take one poorly coordinated action from ones listed under the Ready maneuver. This requires a DX-2 roll; failure means you fail to perform the Ready action, but still suffer the defensive penalties for this maneuver. Failure by 5+ or a critical failure means that you drop the object you were readying, spill the potion you were trying to drink, or fumble your action in a similar way. If the Ready action was to turn an ability on or off, then make a Will-2 roll instead.

Movement: You receive movement points equal to your current Move score – but trying to do two things at once gives you ‑2 on all rolls to avoid falling down, and to avoid obstacles or traps.

Active Defense: Any – but you cannot parry or block with the object you’ve just readied, and you cannot retreat.

The Ultimate Enchantment Post

The Ultimate Enchantment Post

Now that GURPS Meta-Tech is out, I should finally set in stone how enchanting will work in my games. Ironically, most of the rules will have nothing to do with GURPS Meta-Tech and instead will be based on the enchantment system from GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery. After all, the rules in that book are clear, concise, consistent both in terms of game mechanics and in-universe economics, and flexible. I will try to cover everything in this post to make the amount of cross-referencing as little as possible.

Wilderness Exploration Procedure

Wilderness Exploration Procedure

Lately, I've been reading ACKS II Judge's Journal, and I can say that I highly recommend this book - it's a great resource regardless of what system you're playing. One thing it made me realize is how useful it can be to have a clearly written sequence of actions required to resolve a particular task. For example, the book has sequential procedures for dungeon exploration, wilderness expeditions, trading, etc. Why not do that in GURPS? The obvious answer is that every GURPS game is different and uses different rules. However, you can do that for your specific game, and that should make things more simple. Let's try writing a wilderness exploration sequence for a game ran my way. This is not a mandatory sequence, but something of a checklist that sometimes may require changing or can be ignored altogether.

Addendum to GURPS Meta-Tech Review

Addendum to GURPS Meta-Tech Review

Earlier this morning, a wrote a review of GURPS Meta-Tech with my first impressions. Almost all my free time today was spent thinking about the book and reading some parts more thoroughly. And you know what? My opinion actually worsened.

Review: GURPS Meta-Tech

Review: GURPS Meta-Tech

GURPS Meta-Tech is finally out! I was excited for this book, but I did have my worries. In short, I’m both pleasantly surprised and disappointed. The book was written by Christopher Rice who has a broad range of writing quality – he wrote some of the best Pyramid articles but he also wrote GURPS Realm Management. The book also had the same questionable “marketing strategy” as GURPS Realm Management, which was one of my reasons to start worrying – I’ve already got burned once. So, let’s actually open the book and see what it is about.

GURPS-ACKS Conversions: Why?

GURPS-ACKS Conversions: Why?

You probably noticed that lately I’ve been interested in ACKS – Adventurer, Conqueror, King System, and that I’ve even written some conversion notes. I have been asked a question – why am I doing this? Here, I’d like to give an extended answer.

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.