Ye olde magic items

Magic items have always been an important part of the game for me. Some people prefer to have more of the action rest on the character’s abilities than what he or she is dragging around through the dungeon, but I like bestowing powerful abilities through items. Items can come and go, so it’s easier to control what level the PCs can play at, and I think the dependency on magic weapons and other objects serves as a good reminder as to the vulnerability of the characters when they’re in the dungeon. Similarly, I feel more comfortable throwing (or being thrown into) a more risky encounter when the PCs are backed up with powerful magic.

That being said, there have been times when certain items have unbalanced the game or had other kinds of distorting effects on how the campaign went. Sometimes that’s a good things, sometimes it’s a bad thing. Even if it’s not the best thing in the world it can turn a session into a memorable experience and help develop character motivation. Here are some examples from over the years. All of them are weapons of one kind or another.

The Glyptar sword: Technically this isn’t actually a magic item. You won’t find it in the DMG or similar guides. It’s actually from the second edition Monster Manual, and is a variant on one of the monsters, the Maedar. The Maedar is the male companion to the medusa, and instead of being able to turn things to stone they can pass through stone as if it were nothing. On top of that, these critters can occasionally find themselves trapped in swords. When that happens they bestow the ability to cut through stone to the sword, effectively turning the weapon into a handy way to get around a dungeon or to break into (or out of) a stronghold or other structure. This can be a more toned down version of the Rod of Passage. Our group received one after defeating a medusa and her maedar mate. Hilarity ensured as he broke people out of jail, cut our way through catacombs, and struck fear into the hearts of golems everywhere.

Acidic Dagger: I think this was a variation on the Dagger of Venom, although instead of injecting a deadly poison it instead produced an acidic substance that would eat through pretty much anything. The DM eventually got fed up with the weapon’s ability to get the party thief out of any situation he could throw at him, a problem which he tried to solve by having the weapon lose its magic through a disenchanter or something like that. However, rather than accepting this and moving on, the player of the character who had the item became obsessed with re-enchanting the item, and dragged everyone on a wild-goose chase to find the means of making it work again. That eventually happened, although it was much more toned down in its new form. Having a player-originated motivation for the campaign was interesting, but I think of all of the items mentioned here, this one was by far the most disruptive to the game.

Breaker of the Ninth Chain: This is a near-artifact level Holy Avenger scimitar from the Ruined Kingdom’s module for Al-Qadim. It’s like a regular Holy Avenger but its damage bonus is against Lawful Evil, it has two or three detection abilities, and it deals double damage against the Geomancers and their allies. The author of the module tried to balance it a bit by making it a bit of a pest, but it was still really, really powerful in our group. We had some trouble with the “end boss” of the module, but having the weapon was really the only thing that made it possible in the first place. Being able to cut down her bearded devils bodyguards in a single hit was just crazy, and as I recall it only took a round of combat or two for the paladin to make puree out of her once he got past her defenses. Even against non-geomancer foes it was still really powerful. I think having the damage bonus against Lawful Evil is a lot stronger than Chaotic Evil. That way you can cut up things like githyanki, beholders, and red dragons like there’s no tomorrow. The sword was eventually lost to THE TALONS card from a deck of many things (in the story recounted in the post before this one), which was both sad but a sign of relief for everyone.

Cliff’s Harpoon: This item doesn’t have a real name, so I’ll just call it by the character’s name. This was actually an item that one of my characters (Cliff Ahab) possessed for many a year. Cliff was a whaler-turned adventurer, so his weapon of choice was a harpoon. He joined an ongoing campaign at level one, so the DM thought he could balance things out with a magic item. The item? A +5 returning harpoon. I will tell you now that the DM rued the day he let that happen. Cliff quickly level up to the point where he could fight well, and with his magical harpoon he was a terror in both melee and ranged combat. Also, he fought with a harpoon, which is just badass. The weapon was eventually destroyed when Cliff was tossed into a pit of molten lava by a lich. He has yet to find a second magical harpoon. I’ve considered retiring him many a time just because it’s no fun playing Cliff without a magic harpoon.

Twilight Doom: This is another powerful weapon that Cliff had hauled around for some time. It came from a second edition Forgotten Realms module, although I forget which one. Cliff was able to pry it from the hands of a Death Knight, but not before the creature took one of his hands with the blade. Twilight Doom is, in addition to other things, a sword of sharpness. It’s also a +4 two handed sword that bestows fire giant strength, at least two detection abilities, the ability to heal the wielder once per day, and the ability to disintegrate Lawful Good opponents. Yes, the sword is evil. It eventually corrupted Cliff, but not half as much as it did one of his followers, who, at the sword’s suggestion, lead Cliff into a trap where he could be killed and all of his items taken. That follower now wields the blade, and is a major villain of the campaign.

Sometimes you draw THE TALONS!

The Deck of Many Things is a cruel mistress. It offers some powerful boons to whoever might draw the right card, but more often than not you find yourself facing the grim reaper, trapped in another dimension, or the target of a powerful otherworldly being’s wicked schemes. And yet despite all of those risks it’s very hard to resist a draw from the deck for more than a few dungeon-crawlers. A lot of D&D characters (and, let’s face it, their players) are quire greedy and motivated primarily by the chance to achieve great fame and power, and that ambition can easily blind one to the dangers involved in taking a card. Granted, it can be a practically effortless way to gain a tremendous amount of power or wealth, but from my experience it rarely works out that way.

Why bring this up? A character in one of the groups I play with was recently faced with the dilemma of the Deck, although with an interesting twist. Usually the Deck of Many Things is used for the chance at expanding personal power and/or wealth, and, from my experience, outside of the dungeon and the adventure itself (usually in the safety of a stronghold or the like). However, in this case it was a last-ditch effort to save a friend. The character in question was a paladin, and he and his henchmen had set themselves up as self-styled vampire hunters. The paladin was tricked out with all kinds of incredibly powerful magic items, so he was rarely in any real danger on such expeditions, but his henchmen were quite vulnerable. Still, they went were he went, and more often than not that meant heading out to some isolated graveyard, derelict mansion or the like in search of bloodsuckers. Thus when one of the henchmen was slain by the vampire the paladin decided that he had to do everything he could to save his friend from the horrible fate of becoming an undead. As luck would have it, the vampire’s treasure included a Deck of Many Things, which the paladin decided to draw from in the hope of gaining the means of saving his friend and ally.

Long story short, it didn’t work out that way. The poor sap was hit with everything BUT a card that could help him. He lost a point of intelligence and a healthy dose of experience points, was forced to either change his alignment or be judged (pretty much fatal for a paladin), and, to top it all off, THE TALONS! This was an eleventh level character that had been played all the way from level one, and through some pretty tough modules, so he was decked out. An intelligent Holy Avenger, a suit of enchanted plate mail that offered protection from fire, the Shield of Greyhawk, a powerful ring that warded off energy drain, gauntlets of ogre power, and a cloak of resistance. On top of that he also had a castle/fortress where he defended the weak from the local tyrant and a not-insignificant amount of gold and treasure (for a paladin anyway). But because of one card all of that disappeared in a flash. And to make matters worse, his friends was still dead. And he was no longer a paladin!

That was one of the harshest things I have ever seen in a D&D game. Say what you will about “save or die” and the like, I don’t think I could imagine a more devastating end to an adventure. This character was eleventh level, and by that point in a PC’s career he or she could probably be raised from the dead quite easily, but gaining back everything you lost over years and years of playing is not a task I would want to be faced with anytime soon. In fact, most of us thought that was the end of the character then and there, but the player decided he could continue. It would be hard, but he was determined to give it a go. He borrowed some left-over items from his party-members and set out to redeem himself. His first action? Rescue his dead, soon-to-be-a-vampire friend! That, my friends, is how paladins roll. His reward? Redemption that restored his class and another shot at claiming a holy sword. Now that is turning lemons into lawful good lemonade.

Boardgamegeek meets D&D?

For those not in the know, Boardgamegeek is a user-created-content-driven website about boardgames that has an entry for everything from the everliving Monopoly to the most obscure Eastern European "Guess Who?" variant that you could dream of. Naturally the more popular games have the most thorough entries, but even some of the lesser-known titles have pretty good writes up for those trying to track down a copy or just looking to see what's out there. It's not exactly a social-networking site, but because it's mostly user-created stuff there's a pretty strong sense of identity (if not necessarily community) about gamerdom among the users. There's a lot of useful information available in the form of reviews, session reports, and even rules clarifications and errata, and some of the image galleries are pretty interesting if you're looking to trick out your copy of Settler with a pizzeria theme or whatever. For years the people who ran the site have been talking about doing something similar for RPGs, but it never took off.

Until now!

User-created content and RPGs seem to go hand in hand, so this could be a great thing. Blog-networks and webforums take care of that need to some extent, but everyone is spread out, tucked away in their private corner of the interwebs so there isn't a lot of chatter between group A and group B. But I also wonder if the faction-oriented mindset of so many gamers will keep the new site from taking off like BBG did and becoming something of a hub for the RPG community (do we even want/need that?). BBG always had the "Euro-games" vs "Ameritrash" thing going on, but that was always mostly a joke about the diversity of the industry and the way games are produced. However, RPG people seem to be a bit less humorous in their identification with one playing style over another, and basically have no interest in other games unless it's about telling other players how stupid they are for playing system X rather than Z, so I guess we'll have to see how that shapes up. The way in which the site develops might depend a lot on what kind of people start laying down the ground-work with the opening salvo of reviews and the like.

I also wonder to what extent RPGs need that kind of a database like website. Most boardgamers I know have a fair share of games and are always looking to pick up something new, so having access to that kind of information is really useful. However, RPG people tend to stick with one or two systems for as long as they can. Yeah, new editions will shake things up, and sometimes when you relocate you have to go with whatever you can find, but my impression is that the D&D people aren't going to be looking up information on In Nomine as much as they will be arguing over the merits of supplement X and edition Y in the forums.

That being said, one thing I really like about this site is that the focus is on games rather than the discourse surrounding games. I don't doubt that there will still be digressions about gaming philosophy or theory, but I think the way that the site is structured around individual games should keep everyone on message. Maybe people won't be able to talk about previous editions of D&D without going on about what "old school really is" or the what not, but I think it should shape up better than what the blog community has turned into over the past year or so.

No posts for awhile

I'll be absorbed in language study for the next two months (plus change), so there won't be any new posts her for awhile.

Five modules worth checking out

Everyone’s played through the classics like B2, G1-3 and such, but there are plenty of interesting modules and adventures out there that don’t get enough credit. The shift toward official campaign settings in second edition basically made it company policy that a lot of the best stuff would never been seen by a wide audience, but for those who are willing to comb through the archives of TSR inc there’s still plenty of good stuff to be unearthed. Here are some of my favorites that don’t seem to get a lot of love.

“Into the Silver Void.” From Dungeon #43. Dungeon was pretty much the place to be for generic second edition modules, although my impression is that the magazine was always overshadowed by the higher production values of the boxed sets that were put out for the various game worlds. This one, written by Steve Kurtz (one of my favorite authors), is a high-level adventure against the githyanki. It involves some psionics, but thankfully the module tells you how to run those abilities properly, so it’s easy to find equivalents spell-abilities or to fake it with a simplified system. The first part of the adventure takes place on the prime and involves a recently constructed outpost, but the second part takes you to the Astral plane on a delve into a Githyanki fortress. My group found the second part to be almost impossible in a straight up fight, so stealth and diplomacy are advised. The adventure is well written, has some interest magic to throw at the players, and makes a nice use of a great foe and a memorable setting.

“Stormcrows Gather.” This was actually published through Dragonsfoot, an online 1AD&D community. You can download it for free at their website. This is actually the third part of a series of mods dealing with a diabolic menace in a pseudo-viking setting, and of the three I think it’s the best (although the first one is also great). It’s more of a series of locations and encounters than a drawn out narrative, which is nice for DMs like me who like to drop stuff into their own campaign worlds. There are some nice rivalries between factions to play around with, some compelling NPCs, and a creative twist on the “showdown” for the end. Lots of magic items are included, some of which may be considered too powerful for the recommended level range. To the best of my knowledge this has nothing to do with the Stormcrows campaign journal on Dragonsfoot, although it was written by the DM for that group.

“Isle of Sahu,” from the Complete Book of Necromancer. This was also written by Steve Kurtz, who has unfortunately retired from writing anything for D&D. It’s a pretty thin sketch of a campaign, but I’ve found it to be chock full of good ideas, and have developed a major recurring villain out of it for my own campaign. Evil necromancers have been done to death, but Kurtz’s “dark Arabia” that bears the influence of Smith and Lovecraft is a gem. The NPCs and deep historical background really help to flesh the setting out and inspire new paths to work with. There is a lot of work for any DM who wants to use this on their own, but I think that this kind of a rough sketch can often be the best kind of aid for putting your own unique spin on a module. I’ve long been planning to revisit this one, but I don’t think I can convince the group to head back to the island given their previous experience!

“Kingdom of the Ghouls,” from Dungeon 60. This is a long, long quest, and will probably take as much time as the D series to run through. It’s an underdark campaign, but the twist is that it’s not about the drow. Instead you get a new kind of undead adversary, who presence in the world below has shaken things up for the familiar faces of the rogues’ gallery. There are a number of memorable encounters, many of which will challenge even the most well-equipped and battle-hardened party. The downside is the “army of light” part in which the heroes are expected to collect allies within the underdark for their assault upon the ghoul kingdom, which I don’t think was handled in the best way. It’s hard to pull that kind of mass combat off really well. Still, this is a nice change of pace from the drow, and it’s always nice to have a unique monster to toss at the players to throw off their expectations.

“Under Xylarthen’s Tower.” This is something that Jeff Rients (of gameblog fame) wrote for a WinterWar con a few years ago. It’s for OD&D, and captures the mix of peril and humor that goes so well with the “old school” style of play. I ran a mid-level party through it and they still had some problems with the deeper levels, but I think a low level group would do fine if they were cautious and willing to head back to the surface every now and again. A good variety of monsters are included in the dungeon, some of which are faction oriented and some of which are solitary. There’s also some interesting magic scattered about, such as the efreeti statue on the first level and the wooden frog idol in one of the deeper levels. The dungeon has a few stairs and tunnels that go to levels that haven’t been mapped, so be prepared to break out the pencil and paper if you players start to progress deeper into the complex.

Making the Mystic of Nog Work

The Mystic of Nog is a class (kit actually) that I’m sure a lot of people aren’t familiar with, so I’ll try to explain it as best I can. It’s a wizard kit from the wonderfully bizarre Complete Sha’ir’s Handbook for the Al-Qadim setting. Despite its name the Sha’ir book actually has very little to do with Sha’irs, and is really an alternate “Complete Wizard” book for the Al’Qadim campaign world. The book has some of the most imaginative stuff produced during the second edition period, such as the ghul lord kit (which is a necromancer that casts spells using his hit points) and spells like Tattoo of Power (which allows casters to store spells on their bodies). It’s been one of my favorite sources of inspiration for a long time.

Anyway, the Mystic is one of the kits from said book, and, fitting with that pedigree, is one of the strangest and most difficult to use kits every published. The popular interpretation is that it was meant as a second edition replacement for the absent monk class, and given the kinds of abilities listed in the Sha’ir book I tend to agree. The Mystic’s gimmick is that instead of casting spells it can “write” magic into its body and increase its physical abilities. Thus ability scores can be raises and monk-like abilities (such as catching missiles or powerful punching damage) can be gained through the sacrifice of spell levels. The kit also fit into the history of Al-Qadim quite nicely, particularly for those who were interested in the "Ruined Kingdoms" angle.

The problem with the kit as published is that it’s so weak and difficult to play that it’s just no fun. You have to give up half of your spell levels to the Mystic abilities, and the cost of these abilities is balanced to fit their power. Thus all of the fun stuff is pretty expensive. The problem is thus that at lower levels characters will have little or no spells to cast, will have generally weak Mystic abilities that don’t add a lot to the experience (such as raising DEX from 12 to 13 or being able to gain a +1 to hit bonus for one round), and will essentially be a level behind a regular wizard due to the fact that the first new spell slot for each spell level must be spent on Mystic abilities.

I’ve played two Mystics that have tried to address this problem. The first was a multi-classed Mystic/Priest called Ool Mantlar, who was sort of a hermit with a panache for strange magic and healing. Priest spells could not be spent toward the Mystic requirements, but a greater variety of scrolls and other items could be used. It was still a very limited class, and very slow to level, but it did break away from some of the inflexibilities of the original kit. I eventually retired the character and decided to try again.

The second was a transmuter specialist who I dubbed Fid Gord. This model provided a greater number of spells levels to be spent and also allowed for the character to “keep pace” with a normal spell casters progression due to the bonus spells of the specialist class. In order to focus the character even further we also decided that he could only use alteration magic, and that his focus would be on spells that effect the body or have some relation to the earth. It was still a difficult class to play during the earlier levels, but once he acquired the “First of Stone” ability (which imitates the monk’s unarmed damage) he became incredibly powerful in melee.

Originally I had the character research a 3^rd level variation of the “Fist of Stone” spell from the wizard book. This had the same effect as the official spell, but it gave him two attacks a turn instead of one. Coupled with haste (and sometimes enlarge) this turned the Fid into a one man-wrecking ball. For example, during the Geomancer’s campaign the character took down an earth monolith by himself in only two or three rounds of combat. After that we decided to limit the Fist of Stone ability to a single hand so that he wouldn’t be too overpowered.

Here’s the character as things stand now:

Fid Gord, Earth Genasi Mystic of Nog (transmuter) 11 XP: 443,152

Chaotic Good, Worships: Arthur of the Jug

STR: 15 DEX: 17 CON: 16 INT: 14 WIS: 9 CHA: 10

AC: 0 thaco: 18+3

HP: 50

Nonweapon proficiencies: ancient history (gor), tattooing, spellcraft, dancing, musical instrument (pipe)

Weapon proficiencies: staff, darts

Languages: common, dwarven, giantish, goblinoid, trollkin

Racial abilities: 8 AC natural, pass without trace 1/day as 5^th level druid, +1 save vs earth

Possessions: talisman of protection +5, IOUN stone that store six levels of spells, rod of passage (5), skull of Iman Suhail (commune 1/week),Amulet of life protection,

2 oils of fiery burning

Mystic abilities: +1 CON (1 level), +2 DEX (3 levels), detect magic at will (3 levels), Eyes of Foreseeing (1 level), +1 STR (1 level), stone hands (5 levels), improved THAC0 (6 levels, +3), stunning blow (3 levels), immovability (2 levels), leap (3 levels), silent walk (1 level), enhanced hearing (1 level), denial damage (5 levels)

Magic-User Spells: 2/2/2/2/1

1: color spray, read magic, cantrip, burning hands, enlarge

Researched: fist of stone

2: strength, fist of the adder, alter self

Researched: iron skin

3: fly, haste

4: stoneskin, polymorph self

5: passwall, teleport

He got his start as part of a raiding party to Khunmar’s Mine, which is an excellent sketch of a dungeon that you can find online (I’ve lost the link unfortunately). We probably made it three or so levels into the mines before getting fed up with all of the ghouls and decided to look for greener pastures. After that we ran through some of the Al-Qadim modules (including the geomancer campaign) and some Celt Campaign related stuff involving the Cauldron of Plenty.

I’ve been trying to think of some new spells for him to research. I’d like to have a longer term variant of shocking grasp, but that might also prove to be too powerful. Keeping with the elemental theme I’ve also considered a spell that turns his fist into a flametongue weapon. In general he seems to do well with hand-to-hand related spells (despite his low THAC0), so I’ll probably continue to push that direction.

The character’s greatest moment actually came during the final showdown of the Geomancer campaign. All but two members of the party had been cut down by the minions of the “Ninth Chain,” the final surviving Geomancer. Fid and the party paladin (Bran Oldenhaller, wielding the semi-artifact holy avenger scimitar “Breaker of the Ninth Chain”) were trying to stay alive while fighting off devils, elementals, and the geomancer herself. The dispelling aura and magic resistance of the holy avenger were keeping Bran save from most of the magic being thrown at him, but he was slowly being cut away at by bearded devils and the like.

Fid’s solution? Teleport out of the dungeon and find another adventuring party who would be willing to lend a hand. Our campaign world is a shared campaign that involves a number of different groups, so interaction between one party and another was not unheard of. This kind of thing had not been attempted before, but the DM allowed it. Fid was able to retrieve a high-level sha’ir (and her efreeti companion) and a fire genasi fighter/mage. The sha’ir teleported everyone back to the dungeon and they all made quick work of the devils and other minions. Bran had thankfully survived the two or three rounds he had to spend on his own, and with a little bit of luck and supporting magic was able to throw down the final geomancer with his enchanted blade.

We ended up having to pay the two (N)PCs most of the magic we had liberated from the geomancer, but completing the quest and restoring the peace was reward enough. Most of the other characters from the party who had been slain were also raised in one way or another, and those that weren’t were later revived after we sought out the Cauldron of Plenty.

how I survived S1: the tomb of horrors (and received a lucrative book deal to tell the tale!)

I stumbled across this the other day and thought I’d share. I don’t know if people will find it funny or not, but what the hell. I actually used to read SomethingAwful quite regularly back in the day and remember there being a very funny D&D related photoshop event a few years back. If I can find that maybe I’ll post it as well. Anyway, this might rub some of ye olde grognards the wrong way, since it is after-all having some fun at the expense of one of the holiest of holies, but I think it’s done with affection. There are other entries in the same series about the Monster Manual and the earlier version of the Deities and Demigods book for AD&D.

Seeing this also reminded me that, yes, I have in fact run a character through S1 without perishing. First kid on my block! This was some years ago, and done with pre-generated characters since at the time no one had been able to play a character to high enough a level to attempt the module. I believe this was also the first published module we have ever played through. Before that everything had been homebrewed to a crispy brown perfection, although the first D&D related item I ever bought was a Dragonlance module which I had ripped apart in order to build a pseudo-D&D system from the ground up before any of us had the real books. Another thing unusual about the S1 game was the Alex was the DM, something which I’ve only witnessed maybe three or four times in all of our time playing together.

Anyway, the set-up for S1 was as such: my character was an evil human necromancer/occult priest of sorts, and he had hired out some mooks (the other players) to help him raid a certain tomb of a particularly frightening quality. Said mooks included a halfling thief (played by Mike, who basically always plays a halfling thief) and a dwarven berserker type dude (played by Greg, who was likely intoxicated with Warhammer at the time). Alex also provided some gnoll henchmen for us, who were lead by a medium level flind captain. All the PCs were above tenth level as I recall, although I don’t remember the exact spread. We also had a bunch of magic items, which was rare for us since the DM was usually a stingy old sod (that would be me). In retrospect we were probably too low in numbers to give the tomb a realistic shot, but we didn’t know any better at the time.

Despite that handicap we lucked out through a lot of the early traps and encounters. We may have lost a few gnolls along the way, but they were there to die anyway, right? I would like to think that our early survival was due in large to my character having memorized tons and tons of divination spells and all of us having a backpack full of random items to poke through holes and test the ground with. Mike and Greg had actually attempted to play through the tomb once before (albeit unsuccessfully, and without getting very far into the module as I have heard), but they didn’t seem to remember much about it. It’s possible that Alex changed some of the stuff around, since I think he also had the second edition reboot.

S1 was the first trap-oriented dungeon I had ever run a character through, so it was a whole new kind of experience for me. I knew the mod by reputation only, but that was enough to be extra careful with everything. I was also smart enough to let the other guys go first through every door way and to open every chest on their own. That paid off near the end of our trek, when both of the other characters (and most of the henchmen) were blasted to atoms by the wishing gem in the room/hall near the mummy dude. Mike’s thief couldn’t resist the temptation of such an item, and upon grabbing it naturally wished for great treasure. He was of course then crushed under the weight of a few million gold crowns that were produced by the gem to satisfy his greed. The others then crowded around to see what was up, just in time to get a face full of explosion. My wizard-dude was the last man standing!

The quest came to an end after I beat up the mummy-thing in a nearby room. That took up most of the magic my character had available to him, and I was foolish enough to believe that the decoy had been the real Acerak (spelling?). To my horror, Alex then made me work my way out through the tomb in excruciating detail. Having failed to keep a record of the dungeon that meant testing each door for traps all over again. After a healthy chunk of time I was able to escape, none the richer, but still breathing.

That might not count as “completing” the module for some, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I freely confess that there is no way my character could have survived a one-on-one show down with the demi-lich (or really any other encounter at that point), but I think getting out of there in one piece is reason enough to celebrate.