Elemental Reductions

Session 5 Previous AARs:   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 4 Strata Under the Temple Sessions 2 & 3   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 1 Case of Characters Player Characters Beep - Thief 3, Halfling, played by Soddentowel  Evara - Thief 3, transformed into a Hagamido Saurian, played by Gwenchant "Red" Kolva - Thief 3, played by Socrates Steve - Wizard 3, Human, played by Soddentowel Zago - Wizard 3, Goblin, played by Socrates Zaphiel - Cleric 3, Elf, played by Gwenchant NPCs Gasatano - Fighter, Hagamido Saurian Polima - Wizard, Hagamido Saurian Malita - Cleric of Bufamela-Sa, Hagamido Saurian Events While resting in the Hall of Scholars after fighting the Gray Ponderer, a secret door opened in the northern door, and the party was surprised by an emaciated Hagamido female in robes.  It manically attacked with an icy touch, and seemed to be immune to their weapons.  The party rallied and struck at the creature, but it seemed immune to most of t...

    Hello Friends! It was a blast to host RPG Blog Carnival 's 2024 year-end topic, Beyond Vancian Magic ! Thank you all so much for your input!  In no particular order, here's what some of you shared as your response to the topic, along with attempts at summaries: Robgoblin kicks things off with Skills for the Magic-User .  Starting with propositions for turning read magic and detect magic into skills, then suggesting some innovations with counterspells, upcasting, and harsher spell recovery to bring wizards closer to linear power progression. Xaosseed shares a spell point and spellburn system of magic , which briefly talks about the system Xaosseed uses to add more risk to magic when magic-users run dry, and shares a wish list of what the perfect magic system would have. VDonnut Valley gives us Beyond Vancian Magic - Wizards of Sword of Don II , which talks about magic of the culture in the wake of the fall of the Bronze Towers of Marano.  Where onc...

Summoning Elementals "It is known that the one can summon an elemental so easily, it can happen by accident," the teacher said. "It is known," the students intoned. "So it is important to know how to create circles of protection."   The teacher picked up a piece of chalk from the table next to him, and held it up. "The simplest circle can be done with nothing more than a piece of chalk, or if one is most desperate, a finger drawn in the sand or dirt."  He gets down on the ground at the front of the courtyard the class was sitting around, his knees creaking.  He pauses for a moment and looks up to the class with an amused grin on his creased face. "It is said the witches of the north use very sharp knives for this, so that they may draw one anywhere!" He returns to his focus on the ground, and draws a simple circle, then a second one centered inside the first, half the height of a man, with a band a hand-span wide separating them. Then h...

Elven Trinkets Gifts from elves! They have a detectable but faint aura of magic. The mechanics should not be disclosed to the player, except through game play.   If more than one token is carried at a time, only the one closest to the token carrier's body is the one that is in effect.  If there is any contention or ambiguity, none work.   Some GMs may want a token to have been carried for a full day before the bearer can activate it. d100 Item Mechanics 1 Panther Claw The bearer deals 1d4 normal combat damage with unarmed combat. 2 Golden Egg If the person carrying this dies, they are reincarnated, consuming the egg in a small spontaneous fire.  They appear within a turn knowing the party and 75% of their previous incarnation's memories, although their knowledge may be different. 3 Golden Twig If the person carrying this takes a hit which would kill them , the twig instead turns into a normal dried twig, and crumbles into multiple pieces, and tha...

A short post today.... I have two ideas for inserting education into playing D&D with kids: For savings throws, instead of rolling a save in the conventional way, roll two dice to generate a math problem.  The dice you roll are arbitrary, probably based on grade level or math ability somehow, but the idea is you present the two values as the arguments for a mathematical operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and so on).  The player has so many seconds to do it, possibly with a pencil and paper, or possibly only via mental math.  If they get it correct, they proceed. For casting spells, they have to translate a sentence from their native language to a non-native language, speak it into google translate, and have it return their original native language sentence. A variation on 2: to execute a scroll, have them read something in the non-native language in question to google translate, and see if the correct native language word comes...

Session 4 Previous AARs:   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 2 & 3   Strata Under the Temple Sessions 1 Case of Characters Player Characters Beep - Thief 3, Halfling, played by Soddentowel  Evara - Thief 3, transformed into a Hagamido Saurian, played by Gwenchant "Red" Kolva - Thief 3, played by Socrates Steve - Wizard 3, Human, played by Soddentowel Zago - Wizard 3, Goblin, played by Socrates Zaphiel - Cleric 3, Elf, played by Gwenchant NPCs Gasatano - Fighter, Hagamido Saurian Polima - Wizard, Hagamido Saurian Malita - Cleric of Bufamela-Sa, Hagamido Saurian Events In walking through the Gate to the Land of the Dead to exit Bufamela-Sa's dream, Evara was the only one who decided to accept his offer to become a Hagamido.  She gave up her Orcish ancestry, and in return became a Hagamido (crested saurian). The party transitions to the last room in the crypt they had been in, with Gasatano, Polima, and Malita.  They talked.  The Hagamido noted...

This is completely from my recollection, and so likely full of errors. Session 2 The party had ended last session by resting on the mountain outside the caves, taking Boop's corpse outside, where his brother Beep was watching their things.  They returned through the tunnel to the circular room, entering on its north side.   About fifteen feet across, the ceiling glowed with a warm yellow light, illuminating the whole room.  Strange script was inscribed in a circle about seven feet across located in the center of the room.  A door is set to each of the other cardinal directions.  They chose to go through the door to the east. The room to the east was unnaturally dark, limiting the light of their torches to only about fifteen feet.  after exploring, they noted that it was square, about twenty-five feet across, with a well in the middle, a door  in the center of the east wall, and another five feet from the west end of the north wall.  They checked t...

  Hello Friends! I'm thrilled to be hosting December's RPG Blog Carnival topic, Beyond Vancian Magic ! I'm not a hater, but I'll admit I prefer different systems being different, and clerical and magic user magic systems are basically the same.   I'm looking forward to seeing your interesting takes and contributions on evolving past that kind of magic system.  While I chose this topic about half a year ago, it's come up recently on r/osr, in the post Vancian Magic - What It Is How It Works and Where Did It Come From? Here are some ideas to get you started if you don't already have something in mind: Creating entirely new magic systems, or emulating those of other works, such as those by Brandon Sanderson or Jim Butcher. Spellcasting based on the undead turning table, as illustrated by ktrey of d4 Caltrops suggested using in Alternative Spell Casting . Expand on existing the existing "Vancian" system: Make spells truly Vancian, so that they a...

This is a follow-up on my last post, Happy Gunpowder Treason Day! for this month's  RPG Blog Carnival topic: Haves and Have-Nots: Social Classes in Fantasy Worlds . Unfortunately, I didn't have time to fully flesh it out. As a starting point, I'm a fan of Chgowz 's  " Three Hexes " campaign starter format.  Here's a sketch of my take on that: Premise: The campaign takes place in a magical England analog, Anglia, in the early 1600s.  King James is expanding the support of the Church of Anglia in its schism from the Orthodox Church and the High Cardinal's rule over religious matters.   With minor tweaking, this could instead be The Three Musketeers or something in Prussia. Themes: Conflict between crown loyalists and orthodox loyalists: The Crown loyalists (or "Loyalists") call the other side disloyal foreigners: Trying to crush the everyday people who haven't demonstrated their loyalty to the Crown under their heels. And some of them t...