Vulgaria

Way back in 2015 we were adventuring in a far-flung outpost of the Kraken continet, a place called Vulgaria that first appeared in the epic, mega solo, "MIssing Inaction". There roads from Khaboom to Vulgaria are just about non-existant so travel is normally on the underground river canals. The town is ruled by a tax-greedy baron and is ripe for revolution.

The local Wizards' Guild was run by a L7 wizard but the party took him down and a L3 guy stpped into the breach. The place is rather a mess, no little thanks to one pc who is a ghost. They never did help out the people who got them to come here - Calzoni's Circus, a crowd invented by 'Mad' Roy Cram.

Well, we're over to Waihi where Matthew books out the local croquet and bowls club and I think we will end up ina dungeon on the trail of the long-dead Princess Dementia of the Silver Palace, whom a red dragon is thought to have swooped and taken many years ago. I found a D&D adventure free online and decided to muss it up a bit (a lot!).

Seem to have a play-by-email game under way on the wild west coast of the Kraken continet too, fingers crossed.

The 'Lion and the Unicorn' solo is having the artwork finished and I wrote the opening to 'Control Freak', a solo centred on the spirit mastery spell. I also managed the first paragraphs of a new sci-fi story set at the time the pakeha came to Aotearoa NZ.

And I expect we may have an hour's walk with more of the Donald Neuf-Trump grand larceny game and then a skype game with the UK and more of the 'Man Utd' trio, Rooney, Angel and van Persie (well one still counts) and there meeting with a gorgon.

I shall need a holiday tomorrow!

Life After Trollhalla

Sad that's it's gone - I miss it more than I expected. But life goes on and the Trollbridge is taking up the slack. A good place to shelter from the storm and hang out.

I have just sent out a batch of  'Dig Deep and Prosper' free colour maps by Stan and have been pleased by the number of requests.

I have just finished 'The Lion and the Unicorn", a solo centred on Curse Magic (curses, jinxes and hexes) following the pattern of the Labours of Herakles and Deathtrap Equaliser (not a bad pair for inspiration, leaving me just with the perspiration part of genius!).

I am thinking about embarking on a new solo based on the Spirit Mastery spell (formerly Yassa Massa in the non-pc days). It would be based in Caerthaeph't, the city of the 'Joyride' solo, and feature the settings from that adventure).

I have also written a 10,000 word sci-fi story ("The Republican Space Hero") and been reading for Librivox - the part of Israel ands in Treasure Island and 2 sci-fi stories from Astounding Stories from 1931.

The city of Qadouche has been the setting for the 2 ongoing games I've been running this summer, one involving rescue, the other a life of crime. I'm taking part in 2 email games, one run by Doug Mitten set in Khazan, the other based on Larry di Tillio's 'Isle of Darksmoke' (the former long-running and very profitable, the latter just started) and I shall be starting another this week with a guy in Jakarta who asked for 'Dig Deep' map.

Not an inactive summer... and not yet "Missing Inaction" (that was my favourite ever solo to write).

Have a humdinger of a 2016!

Khagh

DT&T - First Level Spells

I remember looking at the 1st Level spells in 7.5 - there sure were a lot compared with 5.5. I thought 'Hold That Pose' was ridiculously over-powered for a L1 spell and lampooned it cruelly - but with game application, it became clear that because it lasted just 30 seconds and could easily fall foul of the khrem resistance mechanic it actually turned out to be an excellent addition, along with 'Dem Bones Gonna Rise' - great fun because you never know what will rise up in most locations.

I knew in advance that HTP was booted out (much discussion on the currently-demised Trollhalla where I pitched in to defend HTP) but what else was going to be in the candy jar?

Numerically, we get 11 spells. I think 5.5 was 10 and 7.5 was 20. So, looks like a harder but simpler row to hoe for the fledgling wizard.

The first new spell here is 'It's Elementary'; this seems to replace 'Call Flame' and 'Call water' from 7.5. I like this being rolled into one 'elements' spell and the WIZ cost (4) is better vis a vis other L1 spells ( 8 and 7 for those 7.5 spells).

'Unerring Bllade' is also here (it wasn't in 5.5 and was L2 in 7.5). It costs 3 WIZ and does 1 point of spite damage regardless of defence. As a GM, I've never had a player use it; as a player, I could think of reasons to cast it but that would be rather contrived. I'm voting this one a dud.

What's missing? 'Vorpal Blade'! It's L2 now... Gosh, it was hardly a game-winner at L1 - one combat round with a bladed weapon's attack doubled... As a GM, I liked it when players forgot to cast it. No, this is a L1 spell for me.

Both 'Teacher' and 'Magic Fangs' used to be L1 spells in 5.5 and are now L2. Teacher needed a big revamp, so fair play. 'Magic Fangs' was ejected from the 7.5 L1 spellbook but was hardly a big deal - they are both L2 now and the former I agree needed a change while the latter could easily be L1 still - is a wizard ever going to pay 2000 GPs to learn it at L2?

'Dem Bones' is now a higher level spell and again I think it could have stayed at L1 but I'm not overly fussed; I regret the loss of 'Sparkle' and 'That's a Natty Beard'. Both fun spells, I suppose they are the sort of spells a wizard can make up on the fly under the elaborated dT&T rules (if that's so, I can live with it). 'Know Your Foe' is gone too and was occasionally useful - maybe it's been kicked upstairs. 'Suppress Khrem' and 'Khrem de la Khrem' are likewise departed but maybe they aren't needed now with no khrem resistance.

The ones that I'm including at L1 in my games are:

• Hold That Pose
• Vorpal Blade
• Magic Fangs

 These L1 spells still need a minimum INT and DEX of 10 to cast.

Correction - 'Know Your Foe' is still there - dozy me!

Spirit Mastery Game

...was listening to a shuffle on my iphone when the Stones' "Under My Thumb" came up. Great song and it nudged me to thinking about the Spirit Mastery spell and what an unscrupulous wizard might get up to with it....

Neither the 5.5 nor the 7.5 rulebooks explain it that well - is the victim aware of the foreign control, does he/she remember, what does 'subdue' really mean???

The game idea developed in to being a L2 wizard (Donald Nerf) coming to a town with no powerful wizards and very few at all . Donald had just given up his dungeon delving career as too dangerous, having just acquired a Spirit Mastery ring.

I house-ruled that the victim could not resist while under the spell and, if the wizard, commanded the victim to forget, it would take a higher INT SR by the victim than the level of the wizard for the act of control to be remembered.

We stuck Donald in Cartheph't, a small town I wrote a solo about when my car was stolen, and decided petty crime was the norm there with the only security for wealth being that the banks limited themselves to a 20% rip off.

After some though as to how to misuse his ring (sic), Donald booked a meeting at the bank to ask for a loan. Being a wizard, the bank agreed to see him and was soon in an interview room with the uninspiring assistant manager, Mr. Serpell.

Donald stunned Mr. Serpell while he was rummaging in a drawer for a loan agreement and then used his ring. Next he got Serpell to take a loan out in his own name and then to transfer money into his account from Mr. Serpell's account. Serpell's loan was a at 30% per annum rather than the 20 Donald had been quoted.

He topped things off by telling Mr. Serpell he was very good friends with Donald and this had been a social call. Mr. Serpell did not make a L3 SR on INT so he failed to recall what has happened to him.

Donald know has his sights set on the eligible and nubile daughter of his boss, Michaeldobber...

Armour Ablation

dT&T makes warriors have a SR on LK to avoid armour damage IF they choose to make use of their double-protection advantage and it has to be used during battle. OK, let's think about that....

First off, what advantages to warriors get over wizards and rogues? In 5.5, really just the double protective value for armour; in 7.5 they also go one extra add per level for a weapon in combat (now I thought that was so infinitessimally small a bonus that I made it a whole dice per level, something that hardly made them dominate the game). In dT&T, they get the armour bonus plus the whole dice per level for weapons BUT they alone may suffer armour damage under game mechanics as opposed to GM fiat.

Secondly, does armour damage seem reasonable? I'd say yes - not essential and few want to take away from the pace of the game by cluttering it with clunky rules but worth considering.

Third up, is the new rule simple? A LK SR - what could be easier? I think we can remember that and get it down without loosing the plot.

Fourthly, is it fair? (I accept fairness is not guaranteed in life, the game or anywhere I've been.) I think not...

dT&T already does away with INT SRs for wizards casting spells (Hah! but I won't!) so why ping the less desirable warrior? More pressingly, why shouldn't everyone run the risk of armour damage? How about a LK SR for anyone whose armour takes more hits that its maximum defensive capacity? Take that, wizards and rogues! It just takes more whacking away to get a warrior to run the risk of holey armour.

I like the notion in dT&T that warriors can make running repairs to their armour and that of their mates.

So - I give this rule change a plus but will house-rule it myself in the Elaborative Spirit :)

Solos for Higher Level Characters

I was asked what to recommend - but I don't have many that would fulfil the specifications...

As for my efforts, The Arena of Khaboom has its moments as does Strangebrew, while Wizard Went a-Wooing caters for L13 wizards.

Here's my suggestion...

1. Saving rolls: either a) follow 5.5 and make 1,3 a failure as well as 1,3 or b) raise all INT, LK and DEX SRs so that you need a minimum of 6 to make the roll e.g. your INT is 54 so you need a L9 SR for success (you can imagine a tougher situation to fit the level of the SR).
2. For MRs, roll 1d6 then:

• 1 or 2 - start with a MR that gives 50% of your combat adds (e.g. your CAs = 100 so base MR is 100) then add 2d6 DARO x 10
• 3,4 or 5 - start with 75% (e.g. with CAs = 100 the base MR is 150)
• 6 - start with 100%

You can do something similar for foes with attributes, substituting 50, 75 and 100% with their CAs equaling 75, 100 and 150% of your CAs depending on the roll of 1d6.
There - that might give you more of a challenge!

Elaborations

I realise that the Elaborations section is one big permission slip to discard any of the core rules and to do something another way!

There are good examples given but it is hard not to extrapolate the approval to go your own way.

I think this is excellent!

There is still at times a semi--preachy tone (like where we are told in the core rules that the 7.5 idea of spells sometimes failing for wizards - i.e. needing an INT SR to cast - is not right because, after all, warriors never lose their double-armour protection bonus (well, actually they kinda do because of the new ablation core rule!) but, what the hey!, we can let that go amongst old friends.

So, whereas I was going to critique the notion of giving bakers an extra 2d6 on every SR to bake a loaf of bread (representing the number of years they have trained/worked), I am just going to say 'thanks' for the nice ideas and a very big 'YAY!' for the top brass' 'yes' to tinkering.

Another big tick marked up in the Ledger of Judgement.