SPELLS #1 (GLOG magic)

This is the first part on the "spellbook" section of my houserules. It's extremelly difficult for me to write those, but its something I been wanting to do since always. I had some ideas in mind but the magic system from the GLOG looked interesting. I adapted it freely: in short... 

Anybody who knows at least one spell, has one Mana Dice (MD). Magic Users know a spell at level 1, but any bonus on wisdom will also give one to any given character.

Magic Users represent, in-setting, people with latent gifts that has earned the right to bear a staff (this is taken from A Wizard of Earthsea and I liked the implications it had on the books, making the staff act as a badge of office for the casters). So, whenever they are holding their staves, MUs have an extra MD (in the original PDF, Goblin Punch makes this bonus come from the wizardly robes, but I preferred to put the focus on the staff instead)

Independently from this staff bonus, they get an extra MD at levels 3, 6 and 9.

S P E L L B O O K :

notes: 

references to turns are equally valid in combat, in dungeon or in overland travel. This means that spells will sometimes last during 4 hours and sometimes during 10 seconds with the same mana. This is intentional and I think it can work, I think it can represent how the caster behaves differently under stress than having time to make proper preparations, meditations and rituals.

I also dont use HP, with Hit Dice being the unit, and everybody getting a death save at 0 HD. Generally, MUs get one per level, while fighters get two. This has made me write carefully all the spells that do or heal damage.

BIRD: You become a bird of your choice (but always the same). You suffer double damage in this shape. This transformation lasts for [sum] turns. Every turn beyond that you must save vs paralyzation or become trapped in this shape.
Inventory slots equal to your bird-shape strength do transform with you, the rest falls or must be carried in your claws. Use this table as a guide:

Robin: AC as plate, STR 6, 24 miles per day
Crow: AC as chain, STR 8, 100 miles per day
Owl: AC as chain, STR 10, 50 miles per day. Good nightvision, bad dayvision.
Hawk: AC as leather. STR 12, 200 miles per day. Consumes 2x turns.

HEAL:  Whoever is being healed rolls as many d6 as the [sum]: For each 4+, he recovers 1 HD. If you invest 2 or more dice, you can divide two [sums] between healed allies and healed amount. A dead comrade can attempt a new death save after this, using the caster's save, but no more than once (no matter how many casters attempt it after that)

SHIELD: Duration: [sum] turns. Caster and whoever is near him gets AC = chain, + a chance to block all projectiles during this turn with a 5+ in 1d6. You can spend a MD to re-roll this dice once per turn.

LIGHT:  Duration: [sum+level] turns. The staff of the caster emits light enough to read. Investing 2 dice or more raises this intensity up to a car's lights, but consumes 3x turns. Without a staff, this spell doesnt light much beyond the caster's silhouette dimly. 

DISGUISE: Put an illusion over something to make it look like another thing. Both the real and the illusory objects or beings must have a trait in common: a characteristic color, a shape, a similar sound, etc. This lasts for [sum] rounds, though a result of 12 or more will make it "permanent". Still, all illusions will degrade over time by acting or being used in a way that doesn't suit the disguise.

FIRE: Invest 1 MD to lit something small and flammable, such as a pinecorn or a torch. The result is the turns it will take to uninterruptedly concentrate to do it (every 4+ counts as zero)
2 to lit something flammable, but bigger.
3 to create a wall of fire on a narrow stone corridor: it will remain as long as you concentrate, +1 turn for each caster level.
4 to create a ring of fire around you in the same way.

To make a fire attack, you must invest 3 or more MD: The highest one is ignored. The remainding results are divided in two [sums]: one of them is the mandatory number of targets (if there are enough targets in the area, you must harm them all, including yourself if you have fired at point blank. Ignore if there are not enough targets). The other number is the damage dealt to each of them in HD, with a save vs dragon breath meaning half damage, rounding down.

DIVINATION: This spell requires an oracle you carry with you (1 slot) and some time of rest. Every question you ask requires to invest one MD. The answers are always going to be single or composed NOUNS, never verbs or adjectives, nor yes or no; and the GM should be as specific as he can without breaking this restriction.
Every answer you reveive using this spell is then recorded on a vocabulary list that you forge little by little and that can contain a maximum of 6 words. Once you got all six, every question you make must be answered with one of that words or not being answered at all (whatever the GM thinks is more appropiate)
You could say its a spell that becomes less powerful as the mage does the opposite, and that is interesting. This is the reason for which some MUs need to find other MUs to contrast their readings, even if its less leveled up partners.

WINTER BLAST: Projects a cone of cold. You need to invest an initial MD to bring winter cold, but omit this step if you happen to be in a snowy or icy scenario. 
For an additional MD, everyone on the area must save VS paralyzation every turn or his MV becomes 10' for this turn. Every further failed save will also deal 2 HD damage to the target. Failing three times in a row will freeze the target straight away. They get bonuses to this save if they are prepared against the cold (by using heavy pelts, for example) or being far enough from the cryomancer.

Mantaining concentration on this spell requires the caster to invest a new MD each turn, or suffer 1 damage from congelation him/herself. As soon as you stop doing it, the cold reverts to "just cold".

 

An in-game bestiary (some play report inside)

My new game is going so great. All of them are long time friends, with the exception of a kid, nephew to one of them. I'm getting a lot of advantage of them never having actually played D&D so I am selling all my quirky houserules such as GLOG magic and all d6 pool resolution as "this is the real game guys". And they are really liking it, but not as much as me. They keep me asking for information about new spells (so I have actual pressure writing my long procastinated spellbook). It feels awesome when you just met for a coffee or a walk and they just ask you things about what they found in that dungeon the other day. I know I am doing something right.

One of them happened to be devoured by a ghoul recently; precisely right after he had spent the previous night drawing a portrait of his character (Krim, see above). He died like a hero, tanking a doorway, and two hobbits managed to finish the ghoul shortly after. When the player rolled his new character for the next session, he told me previously that he wanted something:

As I wrote recently, I give characters a "once in your life" object at any time, that must be related to your life background. This is mostly a trick to make characters have at least some tenuous background without the need of writing it prior to play, but has no further impact unless your intelligence is higher than 13 (see full entry if you want). He (an intelligence 9 fighting man) said he wanted to be a former sage, and have a bestiary book as an object.

I quickly saw the potential in this: They are all new players, unfamiliar with the deep lore of D&D beyond what has permeated Final Fantasy, Warhammer and others. This could be a fair way to introduce information that other players take for granted; and the player was actually paying a cost for it: his special object.

So I made it like this: As the character appeared the next day and brought up his book, I made him roll 3d6 and take the middle one: It was a four.
So, his bestiary would give him information four times, after that it would be considered exhausted (actually a great quality I guess). The information would be only about monsters, and it would only have information 50% of the time; you must make a concrete question (are ghouls vulnerable to something?). Failed searches would not tick down uses.

For now they have been only used it twice: One for learning that ghouls are vulnerable to holy water, and another for knowing that ghoul touch produces paralysis. It seems that whoever wrote that book knew a lot about ghouls! Maybe the book is no other than Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules itself!(the fictional book from the Chtulhu mythos)

Before that, the magic user had been picking ghoul drool from its grotesque corpse with his bare hands. They left the room by a new path; the magic user leading the march. I resolved to not have him be paralyzed until two turns had passed for some reason (it felt right). Just at that time, they found a silent, armored knight giving them the back, and then turning his head slowly towards the newcomers.

The magic user got paralyzed right away starting from his hands. The rest of the party (three hobbits, fighting man was dead by then) took him out of the room quickly, all paranoid because they thought it was the gaze of the knight which had caused such effect. They spent the rest of the session recovering a broken mirror from another room (which currently still has a very angry doppelganger inside) and then trying to attack the knight using a mirror to see him, or just shooting at him with the eyes closed. Luckily, they soon understood they had to flee. I had a really bad time trying to not tell everyone of them how cool it was that they were acting so well in a way, but on completelly erroneous assumptions!

I think I am going to put some more books around the setting. Not all of them bestiaries, but can work the same way as that one with other topics; maybe they can even be bought at shops for some ton of money, or even found as treasure. Maybe small town wise men can work like that too: weird people that funnily has an answer to a current problem, and then proceeds to not say anything interesting at all in a lot of time or ever.

(Idea sketch) defensive/offensive combat maneuvers

Some idea I had for combat rules for a given game.

Armor numbers being something like: 

Light armor: 3
Better armor. 4
Best armor: 5

Then you have a panoplia of weapons with one assigned dice each, for example:

Greatsword: d10
Sword:d8
Dagger:d6

etc.

If you get your weapon and hit greater than the armor, you deal a hit (scratch a heart away, roll for damage or whatever you like to do afterwards)
But after you have rolled "to hit", you can choose to convert that result in your armor score this turn, then roll for attack again.
This can be used for both defensive and offensive maneuvers, and represent the parrying potential of certain weapons, while also adding some "choice" into combat.

Example:

Your PC, armed with Light Armor and a Sword, fights an enemy who has Best armor and a Greatsword.
You know that the greatsword will easily hit an armor of 3 with a d10
You attack first, and roll the sword's d8, and get a 6 (which is over the enemy's armor score)
You can choose between dealing a hit OR adopt a parrying style, converting the 6 into your armor score for the round and trying your luck rolling "to hit" again.

The same idea can be used aggresivelly: Lets say that you rolled a 1 instead. You can choose to keep that first roll as your armor (lowering your armor to a score of 1) but you would get to roll again and maybe take your enemy's last hit.

Certain weapons can be worked out so they have different damage dice on the first roll than in the second, to illustrate they are more defensive or offensive in nature. For example, a spear can have a d10 on the first attack, capable of defending up to 10 ac, but have a secondary attack of d6.
Great axes can be done in reverse: a first attack of 1d6 and a second of 1d12. The first one will probably get you exposed in order to deal the big, bad second attack.

As always, unarmed combat is difficult to model, as anything worse than a d6 will never go through best armor unless the enemy chooses to adopt a worse ac for some reason. One possible way to do it is to have unarmed combat go like (First attack d4/Second attack d6)

Shields can be done by adding an extra d6 to the first attack roll, choosing the best of the two. In this way, it provides help both in the defensive mode and the offensive mode. The shield die cannot be used to deal damage, only to be put as armor... unless the master decides otherwise. I must make the numbers so the combination of sword and shield doesnt deal both better defense and attack than a greatsword, which would render it useless.

how I do character backgrounds

 Image: Ilya Shichkin

Right now, I have my players choose between four classes: Hobbit, Elf, Fighter and Magic User. Normal people doesn't have levels on any class. They are "level 0" to say. 

Thieves come from a "Thief" background, while Rangers come from a "Ranger" background. Those are in addition to the class they might have. The trick is that no matter which one they choose, it doesn't actually take mechanical effect unless the PC's intelligence has any bonus. 

I am also a fan of backloading complexity, so I tell them to choose background during play, never at character creation.

Now, the long explanation:

As I explained on previous entries, Wisdom is the magical ability score, while...

Intelligence is strictly non-magical. You have a list of backgrounds that are mostly dressing, but when you have an intelligence bonus you get an extra die when performing related tasks (lockpicking, bushcraft, navigation, etc. That kind of marginal stuff). Not only that, but once per character you can retroactivelly produce an item on your inventory that is related to your background or is on the basic items list of the closest rulebook at hand. This is often the main bonus of it.

This means that, unless your intelligence goes beyond 12, your background might give you RP opportunities, or let me, as the GM, give you specific information through a different lens or influence the way that NPCs react to you; but normally it won't give you mechanical benefits. Your ability scores might grow a little bit over time (2 in 6 chance to increase one by 1 every level) but if your intelligence is low, you have little pressure to choose your background. You can even not to choose any at all.

However, if your intelligence is high, is probable that you want to get the most advantage of it. So you will probably want to see the list of OFFICIALLY APPROVED BACKGROUNDS. Notice that by design, they will never give you combat bonuses:

Thief: pick locks, sleight of hand. You get to roll 1d6 per INT bonus, with 5+ being a success.
Ranger: +1d6 per INT bonus while foraging/surprising on the forest (other terrains, like desert, mountain, urban... can be chosen instead)
Sailor: +1d6 per INT bonus on any roll related to piloting a boat.
Engineer: Allows for the Dwarven "structure knowledge" roll, and if a PC has this, you dont need to hire an engineer when you build a castle.
Sage: You can investigate yourself instead of hiring a sage for 2000gp: roll after spending significant downtime into investigation, each 5+ is a success. You can only choose a broad field of knowledge to be a sage of, but you can choose it anytime. You get an extra die if you have access to a library or similar.
Animal Trainer: As BX specialist, requires a success to advance in training every downtime
Armorer: As BX specialist. Low Int armorers can be assistants or smiths.
Alchemist: As BX specialist, a success is needed for each attempt at a potion.

You can make your own, of course, but as always, my advice is that they shouldn't be strictly better than an existent one. To narrow down the exact abilities of a background, a good measurement is to pick an existing skill and enhance it, or allow a PC to do him/herself the work of an specialist. 

Note: Only the thief and ranger backgrounds have been actually tested XD. It sounded clean in my head but now I see it written looks like a mess.