Wizardry: Shining South Spells II

Wizardry: Shining South Spells II

Land Womb is an interesting spell that lets you hide from detection spells underground for some time.

Lightning Fog is a powerful combination of Fog Cloud and Lightning Storm.

Mycontil's Last Resort explodes your body. It has a very expensive material component to avoid having armies of fanatical weak mages exploding themselves.

Rock Catch is a situational spell that lets you catch thrown rocks. Useful when fighting giants.

Sea Legs is a very situational spell that nonetheless could be very useful on a rocking boat.

Sparkles is a variant of Glitterdust that cannot blind, but has a longer outlining effect. This is mostly a spell for festivals with a side effect of revealing invisible creatures.

Stone Trap turns a block of stone invisible and suspends it in the air until somebody walks under it.

Stonefire is an expensive spell that burns through rock and creates hot smoke.

Suspend is a spell that suspends an object in midair for a couple of days. The enchantment rate was derived from Impulse Buys, assuming ST 10.

Wall of Pain is, well, a wall of pain.

Wizardry: Shining South Spells I

Wizardry: Shining South Spells I

It's been a while since I've converted any spells, so let's switch gears and do some spells from Shining South.

Arcane Sensitivity is a perk-level spellcaster detection spell.

Circlet of Enervation is basically the same as Enervation points-wise, but is more efficient in terms of FP usage. However, it balances that out by requiring an expensive focus and a rather rarely-used skill.

Coral Growth can be used to expand a piece of coral into a structure.

Daltim's Fiery Tentacles is a fiery variant of Evard's Black Tentacles.

Darsson's Chilling Chamber is similar to Cool, but has different range, duration, casting time, and area of effect shape. I think it is justified to be a separate spell.

Darsson's Fiery Furnace is the inverse of the previous spell.

Dispel Fog destroys natural and supernatural fog in an area.

Easy Trail is a spell appropriate to druids, clerics of nature deities, and wu jen. It allows moving unimpeded through undergrowth.

Mass Entropic Shield is a mass version of Entropic Shield.

Mass Jump is a mass version of Jump.

Fiery Vision is essentially a variant of Scorching Ray that uses a different skill to hit and requires no gestures.

Kyristan's Malevolent Tentacles is yet another variant of Evard's Black Tentacles.

Sorcerous Enchantment Gripes

Sorcerous Enchantment Gripes

Not that long ago, I wrote a huge post about enchanting. Now, it has become more relevant to me, as I've begun writing Enchanted Item Compendium. However, as soon as I started it, I immediately encountered problems, and I'd like to write another rambly post that, hopefully, will help me fix the situation.

Chaos Shaping in Limbo

Chaos Shaping in Limbo

Right now, I'm writing up the slaadi for my GURPS Monstrous Compendium, but to do it properly, one has to explore how the plane of Limbo works in D&D and how to adapt the mechanics to GURPS. This is not going to be simple. What you see is a combination of the mechanics from the Planes of Chaos 2e boxed set and Manual of the Planes 3e book.

I'll note that some effects are intentionally left vague because I don't feel like going into too much detail right now - I just have to get the basics covered to be able to progress.

Wizardry: New Summoning Spells

Wizardry: New Summoning Spells

If you've seen my rant about summoning, then you know that I've made some new spells there. The new ones will be repeated here for convenience, and all the old ones that were based on the Ally advantage have been rewritten (including Animate Dead). However, I also needed to make some new ones, and you can find them here. GCS libraries will be updated soon.

Summoning in D&D and GURPS

Summoning in D&D and GURPS

Summoning is an iconic area of magic that is present in many TTRPG systems and fantasy stories. Evil cultists summon fiends, priests call upon extraplanar divine allies, wizards summon spirits of the dead to learn forbidden knowledge, and adventuring spellcasters summon things like… celestial badgers to fight off goblins. While I do not have experience with many different TTRPG systems, the experience I have with D&D 3.0/3.5/PF tells me that people often considered summoning wonky and/or broken, usually referring to “breaking” action economy and allowing the summoner to gain access to certain spells and abilities he wasn’t supposed to have. Right now, I’m running a test GURPS game where the only player character is a summoner with the various wizardry summoning spells (and teleportation too, but that’s another topic). Even though there has been barely any action, the game raised lots of questions in terms of game mechanics, in-universe metaphysics, and game design. This calls for an in-depth analysis of summoning in D&D, GURPS, and possibly even other systems to untangle this mess.

Integrated Creation Income

Integrated Creation Income

Permanent creation in GURPS is something that is often difficult and/or unsatisfying. Normally, matter created via Create advantage stays around for 10 seconds, and then you have to spend character points to stabilize it. In the majority of cases, these 10 seconds really aren't worth the points you spent on Create, which isn't that cheap of an advantage. I've already written up two "abilities" that would help with that - Permanency Points (based on Impulse Points) and Creation Income (based on Independent Income). However, I woke up in the middle of the night with a thought - "What if Creation Income was integrated into the Create advantage?" After all, you've already spent the points on Create, why is it required of you to spend more points?

How Does Detect Even Work?

How Does Detect Even Work?

So, I got into another rules argument (first with a friend, then with myself) that left me buttblasted and made me once again realize one of the flaws of GURPS - it's been made by multiple authors, like Freddy Krueger, the bastard son of 100 maniacs. My friend pointed to one of my Detect-based spell builds and said "What the hell is going on here? First it says that it detects every appropriate object nearby, but then  it says that a successful roll detects the nearest one." I already started typing up a response, saying "Eat sh-" but then I thought "Wait a second, he might be right. I better research the topic before telling him to kick rocks." Oh boy, I was expecting a mess, and my expectations were exceeded.

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.