Wizardry: Complete Scoundrel Spells II

Wizardry: Complete Scoundrel Spells II

Evacuation Rune is a very complicated spell. At first, I wanted to skip this spell, but then decided that if you massage RAW a little bit, you can get something workable.

Fatal Flame makes a creature explode upon death.

Mimicry is basically the Mimicry advantage.

Scry Location is a variant of Scrying that is tied to a location instead of a creature. In addition, the sensor cannot move, and a failed casting makes it impossible to scry on anything within a mile for a day.

Siphon lets you drain charges of a magical item to replenish your own magical energies.

Spell Theft lets you steal an ongoing spell effect. Yeah, One Power, Spells, -50% is a bit off, but I don't care.

Wizardry: Complete Scoundrel Spells I

Wizardry: Complete Scoundrel Spells I

It really seems that the dice want me to complete the "Complete" series of books. Complete Scoundrel is next in the queue (with only Complete Champion left), and this one has a relatively short spell chapter, but an interesting one.

Animate Instrument makes an instrument play by itself.

Aquatic Escape is a spell that quickly transforms you into a small fish for a short time.

Assassin's Darkness is a spell that creates an area of darkness that you can see in normally.

Blockade creates a short-lived block of wood. Originally, this was a 5-by-5-by-5 feet cube, but I had to include an alternative hexagonal version to make it work better on combat maps in GURPS.

Catapult is a spell that I find interesting - it lets you throw an object/weapon using Innate Attack (Projectile) instead of the usual skill, and possibly with higher ST than you have.

Create Fetch is an interesting spell that is somewhat similar to Create Servant from GURPS Magic. And yes, the HP casting cost is intentional.

Enlarge Weapon increases a weapon's SM by one. Prepare to unzip those scaling rules.

Wizardry: Miscellaneous Spells IV

Wizardry: Miscellaneous Spells IV

I do have another book with spells in the queue, but before I go there, I have to add some miscellaneous spells.

Analyze Portal is a complex spell that really shouldn't be one. I had to stretch RAW a bit here to get the desired effect.

Detect Gems is a simple detection spell that detects gems. I need it because the gold dragon has it as an innate spell-like ability, and I see no reason for it not being a generic spell available to wizards.

Shape Metal is a metal version of Stone Shape.

Blood Magic: Vile Spells

Blood Magic: Vile Spells

Obviously, Book of Vile Darkness had some spells that are appropriate to blood mages. Thus, here's a quick conversion of them for this spellcasting tradition.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells VIII

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells VIII

At last, I'm done with this book!

Stupor is an incapacitating spell with a long duration. However, it also has a long casting time. As per original source, it is intended to be used on already helpless creatures.

Suspend Disease temporarily removes harmful effects of diseases already affecting the subject.

Tongue of Baalzebul is a devil-flavored charisma spell.

Tongue Serpents is a weird summoning spell.

Touch of Juiblex is a slime-flavored almost-instant kill spell.

Unliving Weapon turns an undead creature into a bomb. Note that this isn't a buff spell, so you may cast it on hostile undead!

Utterdark is a very large AoE darkness spell with a very long duration, but also high casting time and cost. Oh, and fiends can see pretty much fine there.

Vile Lance is the first example of a spell that deals vile damage.

Wall of Chains creates a semi-permeable barrier of chains.

Wall of Deadly Chains is the same as above, but with loose chains attacking everyone near the wall.

Wall of Ooze creates a semi-permeable wall of corrosive, paralytic slime.

Wave of Grief is simply a despair-flavored Fear.

Wave of Pain is a cone debuff spell with a short duration.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells VII

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells VII

Psychic Poison creates some psychic poison for you. (I still have to reprice them.)

Slow Consumption is a villainous spell that lets you slowly drain the lifeforce of, for example, prisoner.

Snare Astral Traveler is a very situational spell, but quite deadly in the appropriate situation.

Sorrow is quite different from its original counterpart, but I decided that having a spell that causes Chronic Depression would be fitting here. Is it worth this many points? Probably not, but I added the secondary permanent effect to make it a bit more worth the cost.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells VI

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells VI

    Lahm's Finger Darts is... a very strange spell. In the original source, this is basically a magic missile variant that uses your fingers instead of magical force and deals Dex damage for some weird reason. Now, you can temporarily lose your fingers for a RoF attack that ignores range penalties. Against unarmored targets, this is very powerful (but you can just use a weapon). Against armored targets, you will understand why Lahm didn't invent anything else. By the way, why is this spell listed after Liquid Pain? Somebody at WotC must have forgotten the alphabet.

    Mirror Sending requires some elaborate conditions and is more expensive than Sending, but has no familiarity penalties, and lets the caster see the target and his surroundings, which can be very advantageous. I just slapped a +100% Cosmic on it and called it a day instead of figuring out a complicated and probably ridiculously expensive build via linked Clairsentience.

    Morality Undone is a spell that turns somebody evil. In the original source, this is temporary, but here it is permanent, but reversible. Perfect for various evil cultists.

    No Light is a very simple and cheap spell that creates an area of darkness.

    Preserve Organ is a more limited version of Gentle Repose.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells V

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells V

Forbidden Speech makes the subject unable to communicate about a single topic in any way.

Graz'zt's Long Grasp is a rather expensive but cool spell that lets you detach your hand.

Impotent Possessor forbids a possessing creature to do anything but leave the body it is possessing.

Imprison Possessor forbids a possessing creature from leaving the body it is possessing. Yes, these two spells can be combined to utterly screw ghosts.

Imprison Soul is a spell that lets you trap the subject's soul in a gem or other receptacle. This is similar to Trap the Soul, but does have enough differences.

Liquid Pain is a spell that extracts a drug from a creature suffering great pain.

Illusions, Duration, and Mobility

Illusions, Duration, and Mobility

I might have been doing illusions wrong.I got asked "Eggplant, you dumbass, why does your Mirror Image say that your illusions cannot move? There is nothing in the statline that would imply that." At first, I wanted to tell that person to blow it out his ass, but then I realized that I might be the one who needs to do that. Then I looked at the Illusion advantage more closely and realized that this is one big mess that needs untangling. Let's see.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells IV

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells IV

There is no end in sight - the spell chapter of this book is huge.

Drug Resistance temporarily prevents the subject from getting addicted to drugs.

Ectoplasmic Enhancement is a buff that makes a ghost or a very similar creature more difficult to injure.

Evil Weather is a divine spell that creates vile weather effects that I wrote up in a very old post of mine.

Extract Drug lets the caster create drugs from mundane materials.

Eyes of the Zombie is a very cool possession spell.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells III

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells III

Darklight almost broke me. The phrasing in the original source is incredibly confusing, and despite the simple-looking build, it took me a long while to arrive to it. Yeah, this is a 60-point spell while the original is a 1st-level spell, but effectively this is a limited Invisibility Sphere that also negates darkness penalties in an area. Also, it can be cast on both creatures and objects, and takes only one second. What a weird spell.

Death Grimace is a rather flavorful spell that is merely a perk in GURPS.

Demon Wings is a divine spell that gives the caster demonic wings.

Demonflesh is a rather boring divine buff, but one that various demon lord cultist would appreciate.

Despoil is another divine spell that makes a huge area of land barren.

Devil's Tail is another divine spell that grants the caster a spiked tail. Again, good stuff for all those hostile cultists, not so much for your typical player characters.

Devil's Tongue gives the caster another "arm."

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells II

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells II

Call Dretch Horde summons 3d dretches in exchange for a soul.

Call Lemure Horde does the same, but with lemures.

Call Nightmare uses a soul to summon a nightmare.

Charnel Fire completely destroys a corpse. I had to come up with a new modifier because building this ability by RAW results in a point cost so high that the spell just isn't worth it. I have no shame.

Clutch of Orcus is a very cool divine spell that incapacitates or maybe even kills the target.

Consume Likeness lets you shapeshift into a creature by eating a portion of its flesh.

Crushing Fist of Spite feels like something Bigby came up with when other wizards laughed at his invented spells.

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells I

Wizardry: Book of Vile Darkness Spells I

The Book of Vile Darkness (for D&D 3.0) is a rather infamous book. I recall writing a review of it a year ago or so, pointing out its shortcomings and praising certain parts. But that aside, let's focus on the chapter with spells. The book has a surprising amount of pretty damn cool spells (and some of them aren't vile at all). However, I will say that the author was quite lazy here. There are many spells that are simply duplicates of innate abilities of fiends (for example, Dance of Ruin is based on the vrock's ability, Dancing Chain is based on the kyton's ability, etc.) Some spells wouldn't be out of place in any other book if you ignore material components, such as a heart of a dwarven child, or a bone of a small child that still lives. These components feel like something tacked on just to make the spell edgy.

    Also, the book introduces a whole bunch of new "components" for spells. There are some spells that are limited to demons, devils, fiends, or undead. There are also spells that require the caster to be suffering from a specific disease, which sounds really hard to pull off (especially when 99% of GMs ignore disease rules). Spells that can be cast only under the influence of a specific drug are easier. There are also spells that require the caster to be in a specific evil location - also fine. Certain spells require a captured soul as a component - nothing against this. Finally, there are "Corrupt" spells that deal ability score damage to the caster. In GURPS, you could represent that with the Corrupting, -20% limitation, but I'm not a big fan of that. Instead, I will use a massively extended Backlash, even though that won't be RAW.

    Now to the spells themselves:

    Absorb Mind is an interesting spell. If one were to translate it 1-to-1 from the original source (like I initially did), one would arrive at a more expensive and limited form of Speak with Dead. Thus, I had to step away and make it work slightly differently. I didn't want to skip this spell, because the fluff is cool.

    Addiction is a vile spell with a catch - the caster must be drugged too. Addiction can be either a physical or mental disadvantage, so by RAW, you can only use Mind Control to impose addictions to drugs with a psychological dependency. I decided to ignore this fact as a special feature.

    Angry Ache is a simple pain debuff.

    Befoul poisons water in a large area.

Wizardry: Races of Eberron Spells

Wizardry: Races of Eberron Spells

I've never been a big fan of Eberron. Sure, there were some interesting parts, but the setting itself just didn't grip me. However, the races that are usually associated with this setting are pretty cool. The warforged are... surprisingly difficult to stat up in GURPS (you can see the entry in the Monstrous Compendium) but also interesting in terms of flavor. Changelings, shifters, and kalashtar also are pretty neat. I appreciate the existence of the artificer class and its psionic variant, and the setting giving the deathless some extra attention.

But who cares? I'm here for the spells. Races of Eberron has a quite hefty spell chapter that is about 10 pages long, but most of the spells are either rather bland, redundant, or lame. The common gimmick is that many spells are restricted to certain races and enhance their racial abilities. I actually like that, but these specific spells just don't work that well in GURPS. There also are Mindset spells that give you a bonus as long as the spell is prepared. If we cut all that, we get only a handful of spells worth adapting.

Force Shapechange is a spell against werewolves, shifters, doppelgangers, and other shapeshifters. By RAW, I was supposed to link a Neutralize with Derange to the Affliction, but that would be wonky and expensive. Instead, I decided to introduce the Force Shapechange, +20% enhancement that feels right. Also, I arbitrarily increased the duration from 9 seconds to 10 seconds because Alternate Form and Morph take 10 seconds to use by default.

Inflict Damage is the same as Inflict Wounds, but only works against constructs. Taking into account that many constructs have very high DR, this may be useful.

Mass True Seeing is a mass version of True Seeing.

Misrepresent Alignment is a clerical spell that changes the target's alignment for the purpose of detection spells.

Scorpion Tail is another clerical spell that gives you a poisonous stinger.

Unseen Crafter is a spell that lets you set up a crafting process and go out for a week or so.

Wizardry: Legacy Underdark Spells

Wizardry: Legacy Underdark Spells

Usually, I determine books from which to convert spells randomly, and this is one of such cases. I rolled Weapons of Legacy. Does anyone even remember this book? Back in the day, I remember it being not well received and almost forgotten. I actually like the concept of the book, even if the execution wasn't very good (allegedly, because I've never used it myself). The gist of it is that you get a unique weapon that gains new abilities as you level up. GURPS actually has this as the Named Possession perk. Weapons of Legacy has only a few spells, and only one of them is worth even looking at when it comes to adapting to wizardry.

Sever Legacy doesn't simply remove the Named Possession perk, but also all the similar [X] Bond perks. You may notice that the duration is Truly Permanent even though the statblock has Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%. Why? Because look at the spell. Do you think it is worth 32-40 points? Would it be better if it were 15 points more expensive? "Permanent" by default must include a dispel clause, and "spend 1 point to buy the perk again" is probably enough. This is mostly a spell for NPCs to use against the PCs. I can imagine it being more useful in Oriental settings, with all the samurai and ancestral swords.

All right, but a post with a single spell would be lame, so I rolled another book and got Underdark. Now that's a good one. Some of the spells already were adapted, but there are some interesting ones left. Perfect.

Amorphous Form is a spell that turns you into an ooze. Perfect for assassins and other infiltrators.

Blindsight adds a new sense to the subject. I changed the wording of the Vibration Sense advantage somewhat to make it more clear what it does.

Burrow gives the subject tough claws that can be used as weapons or shovels.

Clarity of Mind is a rather boring buff spell that is nonetheless useful.

Drown is a save-or-die spell that I didn't build via Choking, +100%, because the suffocation rules in GURPS are... all over the place. I'm paying for effect, so this is a variant of Heart Attack here.

Locate Node is the first of the spells that deal with "earth nodes." The earth nodes are very similar to the ley line nodes in GURPS, so I decided to make this spell more generic and treat earth nodes as ley line nodes with flavored mana.

Mass Burrow is a mass version of Burrow for situations when you really need to do some digging done quick.

Node Door is a teleportation spell that only works between ley line nodes.

Node Genesis creates a new ley line node.

Node Lock hides the ley line node from others and penalizes attempts to use/affect it. I made it with Obscure because... because I did, okay?

Portal Barricade temporarily closes a portal.

Portal Stabilization temporarily increases the Malfunction number of a portal.

Portal-to-Portal Redirect allows you to change the destination of a portal.

Portal Reformat adds or removes keys to a portal (this is related to D&D portal metaphysics).

Portal View makes a portal transparent from one side.

Stick is a perk-level spell that affixes one object to another.

Stone Metamorphosis lets you transmute rock.

Stone Sphere allows you to play bowling in the dungeon.

Tremorsense adds a new sense to the subject. I remember that in the past I used to build it as Vibration Sense with Environmental, Ground, -20%, but Subsonic Hearing is a more appropriate option, according to GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses.

Viscid Glob is a rather powerful spell that engulfs creatures in sticky goo.

Wall of Dispel Magic is self-explanatory.

How Does Injury Tolerance (Diffuse) Even Work?

How Does Injury Tolerance (Diffuse) Even Work?

I've been working on the four basic elementals to add them to Monstrous Compendium II. I really want to get them right, because elementals are quite important - they can be enemies, they are the most frequently summoned creatures, they can be used as allies or shapeshifting forms, etc. Three of the four elementals (air, fire, and water) are diffuse beings. So, let's take a look at Injury Tolerance (Diffuse) in more detail.

Wizardry: Complete Mage Spells III

Wizardry: Complete Mage Spells III

All right, that's the final post with spells from this book. As you can see, there are only three posts compared to nine for Complete Arcane. I threw out plenty of spells indeed.

Rebirth of Iron is a very limited spell that removes HT and DR penalties caused by rust and corrosion. Can be very useful if you lack bronze gear when delving into an underwater dungeon.

Repelling Shield is a more expensive, but more fun version of Shield. This one may knock the attacker's weapon on a shield hit.

Resinous Tar is the opposite of Grease.

Steal Summoning is a spell that lets you control a summoned being.

Storm of Needles is a simple piercing cone spell.

Summon Weapon would've been incredibly expensive if built via Snatcher, so I had to ignore RAW and use Create to get a reasonable point cost.

Touch of Years is the first spell that ages the subject, making Extended Lifespan and Unaging slightly more important.

Toxic Tongue lets you spit contact poison.

Vigilant Slumber lets you wake up when a specific condition is met.

Wizardry: Complete Mage Spells II

Wizardry: Complete Mage Spells II

We're nowhere near done with Complete Mage.

Endless Slumber is a permanent version of Sleep. I kept the value of Sleep at +150% because the fact that the subject doesn't need to eat or drink is counterbalanced by injury waking the subject up. Somewhat.

Finger of Agony is an expensive, but debilitating spell.

Flaying Tendrils gives you four tentacles of a mind flayer.

Genius Loci is a super-flavorful spell that no player character probably will take.

Jet of Steam is Gust of Wind with an additional burninng damage.

Melf's Slumber Arrow imbues an arrow with the power of sleep.

Otiluke's Suppressing Field is a cheaper alternative to Antimagic Field that suppresses only one college and also allows to "burn through" the ward with enough skill.

Otto's Imperative Ambulation forces the subject to move around.

Painful Echoes causes pain and makes the subject more vulnerable to sonic attacks.

Wizardry: Complete Mage Spells I

Wizardry: Complete Mage Spells I

Let's switch gears and instead of adapting difficult and important concepts make some filler content. Yet again, I determined a D&D book randomly from which to convert spells and got Complete Mage. This is a late 3.5 book that suffers from some late 3.5-isms, but its selection of spells is rather large. I expect to throw many of them out. Let's see how it goes.

Allied Footsteps is actually a pretty cool spell that lets an ally know where you are at all times.

Animate Weapon lets you attack with your weapon at range, but requires you to touch the weapon first and maintain constant concentration.

Arcane Turmoil is what I call a late-3.5 spell. You have an existing main effect plus something minor and often barely related. In this case, the main effect is, surprisingly, not damage, and both effects make sense together thematically. It's not a very practical spell to learn with points, but I can see it being useful against undead spellcasters, such as liches and deathlocks who rely on ER and buffs. In any case, my standard cope when it comes to very situational spells is "some spells were invented not to be learned, but to be enchanted."

Boiling Blood actually was converted before as a blood magic spell, but now there's a generic arcane version.

Cacophonous Alarm is another variant of Alarm that is restricted to the audible version. I really do not mind this variation - it is a little bit cheaper, but also fits into the College of Sound.

Catsfeet is a "swift" spell that improves your balance.

Caustic Mire is a spell that I wanted to skip at first, but then thought that the College of Acid really could use another spell, especially since it is something more interesting that just corrosion damage. While this spell is expensive, the bad terrain penalties are quite harsh, and the flammable fumes effect is interesting. The statblock, however, is huge and convoluted.

Wizardry: Lightning Spells II

Wizardry: Lightning Spells II

I got a request to create some lightning spells because the College of Lightning is very small. I looked through some D&D spells (I try to see if there are any existing spells that can be adapted before I plug holes with GURPS or original spells).

Forked Lightning is a lightning version of Burning Hands.

Lightning Bug is a lightning version of Magic Missile.

Lightning Curtain creates a wall of lightning.

Lightning Lash borrows the name from a D&D spell, but the effects from a GURPS Magic spell.

Lightning Reflection lets you bounce lightning attacks back at the attacker.

Lightning Rod is an interesting spell that turns a metal object into a single-use lightning rod against electrical attacks.

Lightning Shield is one of my favorite defensive spells (used to be called Lightning Armor in GURPS). The original D&D spell for some reason incorporates an acidic version because... I don't know. Electric erosion?

Lightning Storm creates a spherical spark storm.