Wicker Men

Wicker Man
Climate/Terrain: Any
Frequency: Very Rare
Organization: Band
Activity Cycle: Any
Diet: None
Intelligence: Non(0)
Treasure: Special
Alignment: Neutral
No. Appearing: 1-20
Armor Class: 8
Movement: 6
Hit Dice: 1/2
Thac0: 20
No. Attacks: 2
Damage: 1d4
Special Attacks: None
Special Defenses: Resistance to piercing weapons
Magic Resistance: Special
Size: Medium(5' tall)
Morale: Special
XP Value: 30

Wicker Men are the alternative to animating skeletons. They're slow, do not speak, and considerably weaker than skeletons in terms of combat effectiveness. The trade off is that a well funded lower level mage can make many of these creatures to serve him.
Combat: Wicker men only attack if their orders include combat. Like skeletons they may only understand simple instructions. Wicker men attack by bashing opponents with their wooden arms. On an attack roll of 20, their arm splinters, resulting in 1 less attack for them each round. Piercing weapons only do half damage to them. Electrical attacks have no effect. Fire effects do double damage. Being mindless constructs, Wicker men immune to enchantments, charms, and hold spells. They are also immune to fear and never roll for morale. When a Wicker man is reduced to 0 hp, it falls to splinters on the ground, along with the 3 gems used to animate them.


Create Wicker Man
1st level Wizard 1st level Cleric Spell
School: Enchantment, Necromancy Sphere: Plant
Range: Touch Components: V,S,M
Duration: Permanent Casting Time: 1 turn
Area of Effect: Special Saving Throw: None

By use of this spell, a wizard may turn 5 cp worth of common sticks, along with 3 gems(two of which must be the same type and each worth at least 10 gp) into a wicker man. The wicker man follows the commands of the Caster until destroyed, or until one of the gems are removed.

Armor of the Berserker

My all time favorite Manga is Berserk. In it, the main character, Gatsu(Guts), is given a hell hound headed set of cursed platemail. The armor turns off the victim's sense of pain, allowing the person wearing it to push themselves past their mortal limits. Below is an altered version I'll be introducing into my campaign to try to get the fighter to put the War back in warrior(rather than having the wizard keep taking point).

Cursed Armor of the Berserker
Black platemail armor, with a savage looking Hell Hound headed helm. The armor physically radiates an aura of rage, detectable by any intelligent being. Creatures under 1 HD must make a Save vs. Paralyzation or react as if subject to a fear spell to the creature wearing this armor. All social rolls made while wearing this armor are at a -4 penalty, except for Intimidation, which are made at a +2 bonus.
When first putting on the armor, the character must make a save vs. Death Magic, or permanently lose a point of Constitution as the armor consumes some of the users life force. The process is very painful, and the character is unable to take any action for 1d6 rounds.
When the character is first subject to an attack, whether it succeeds or not, the player must make a save vs. spell or be subject to a berserker rage. The wearer may willingly fail the roll, but if he passes, he must make another save every time he is hit.
When the character enters a berserker rage, the DM should take note of the character's current hp. From this point onward, the player does not know the current health of his character. The character automatically gains a +1 bonus to attack, and +2 to damage.
Every time a blow lands against the wearer, the wearer gains a +1 cumulative bonus to attack and damage(stacks with the initial bonus), this can occur no more than 1/round. This bonus continues to stack until combat is over. On rounds where the character is not harmed by attacks, the armor itself causes 1 hp of dmg.
While in this state of berserker rage, the wearer is immune to pain, fear, or charms. He also does not drop at 0 hp, but continues fighting until he reaches -10 hp(and falls over dead) or all targets are dead.
The wearer attacks the closest target(friend or foe), running through walls of fire if necessary to reach his target. The primary target is whoever struck the first blow against the wearer.
The armor may only be removed in one of Four ways. The first option is that the wearer is killed. Usually however, by this point the character has suffered such extensive damage that there is only a 25% chance that any sort of raise dead/resurrection spell would work. Reincarnate works normally however. The second option is a Wish/Miracle spell, which allows the character to remove the armor normally. Putting the armor back on however, would result in the character being under the curse again, taking another point of Con dmg. The third option is for the character to receive a Remove Curse Spell. This spell allows the character to make a new Save vs. Death magic. If passed, the armor may be removed. If the save fails, all further saves to remove the armor are made at a cumulative -1 penalty.The last option involves a quest in which the wearer must face his own inner beast. If the wearer wins, the armor may be removed and worn without any penalties, and the wearer will only be subject to berserker rage when he desires to enter it.

Rules Light Houserules

We have a new to tabletop RPGs player in my "regular" gaming group, so I decided we should use a stripped down version of the 2nd edition rules set. Got rid of weapon speed to affect initiative. Also got rid of the proficiency system, and am using common sense to dictate encumbrance. There are two additional rules however that aren't in the game that I'm currently using.

Languages
I didn't want character creation to take all night, so I made a ruling stating that both the initial players(both playing humans) understood common. I also told them the additional number of languages they could automatically know. When they came across a group of orcs, I let them make an intelligence check to determine whether or not they know orcish. Those who pass, understand orcish and fill up one of their language slots. I also stated(because the warrior could only automatically know 1 additional language beyond common) that if the character wanted to learn additional languages, they'd have to be taught in game, which could take a lot of in-game time.

Shields
Trollsmyth had a really awesome idea about this very topic. However, I felt it wasn't exactly what I wanted. Each time a character with a shield would be hit by an attack or attack spell(magic missile, lighting bolt, a breath weapon against appropriately sized shield), the character may choose to use his/her shield to absorb the damage.
The shield type determines how many blows the shield can be used to block in this fashion. Bucklers may block 1 melee or projectile each round, Small shields 2 melee or 1 projectile each round, Medium/Kite shields can block 3 melee or projectile attacks each round, and Large Shields can block 4 melee attacks or 6 projectile attacks each round. Tower shields are a special case in that they can block all attacks be they projectile or melee in a round, but only if they come from a single direction. Magical shields may block 1 more additional attack for each +1 bonus they have.
When a shield absorbs the damage, the shield needs to make a save. For simplicity, I just use the PC saves, whichever one feels appropriate at the time based on the damage being absorbed, but item saves could work too based on the materials the shield is made out of. If the save is passed, the shield survives the blow and may be used again. If it is failed the shield instead breaks, and must be repaired or replaced. Damage only gets through the shield if the save is a natural 1, or the attack roll was a natural 20(in which case, the shield breaks anyway). Magical shields gain a bonus on their saves equal to their +X.
The trade off is that the PC no longer gets an AC bonus from the shield(unless it's a magical shield).
In addition to all this, a character able to use shields may sacrifice all the blocks in a round with any shield except Tower to make an additional attack with his/her shield. The damage is Buckler 1d3/1d2, Small 1d4/1d3, Medium/Kite/Large: 1d6/1d4

To Chgowiz

I sincerely doubt you actually read(or even know of) my blog, but I've been reading your blog for more than a almost a year now. I'm not entirely certain as to what transpired that caused you to terminate your blog(from the bits and pieces I've managed to put together via a google search it had something to do w/ drama in forums or something), but you are very much missed. You're one of the people who inspired me to leave WoW to return to my RPG roots, and ultimately the person responsible for me getting my SO into gaming. Your blog has always been very interesting to read, and I'm rather jealous of your miniature painting skills.
Please please please come back to writing blogs soon. Even if you decide to start blogging under a different name, or scale back on amount of posts so you don't burn out.


edit: well, it looks like your blog may be running again, and I hope it stays up. Too many great articles I haven't fully copy/pasted to word yet!

a better system for action points?

While I don't normally use them in my games, looking over some old work of mine regarding a Dark Sun/Iron Heroes game, I came across a bit of altered mechanics for them that I think merit mentioning in this blog. The normal action point rules are pretty standard from normal 3rd edition, but I did add a mechanic from White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade for players to regain points.

Each PC starts the game with an action point pool of 5, and the pool expands by 1 per every level.
The character may spend points(as many as he wants as long as he has the points to spend), and gain a bonus to any given roll. The player may only spend the points before the DM determination as to what the result of the roll is.
Each character chooses a Nature/Demeanor archetype(presented in the V:TM book) at character creation, and any time the character does something that would result in V:TM characters regaining a Willpower point, they instead regain an Action point.

Magic as a Character Creation tool

Yesterday, I talked about how magic is the defining factor that allows a 0-level character to gain class levels. No, this doesn't happen EVERY time a person is exposed to magic(though a DM in a High Magic campaign could allow it), but often enough to allow a few relative nobodies to band together to eventually become heroic powerhouses.
Listed below are a few ideas on how magic can be used(and in some cases HAVE been used) to explain why the PCs have class levels as part of their backstories.

- Race: Some races; Elves, Gnomes, and even Dwarves, are often portrayed as being innately magical, hence the higher incidence of classed characters in their societies as compared to human societies. You don't even have to be a full member of the race(such as half elves, or just a human with elven blood somewhere in his ancestry) to explain this.
- Magical Training: Most campaigns handle wizard training in 3 ways, either they're played in a fashion similar to 3rd edition sorcerers(magic is their birthright thanks to some sort of magical bloodline), They function on a Master-apprentice system, or their are magical colleges that young aspiring wizards may train at. Any way you do this, the wizard is exposed to large doses of magic and making them classed is the easiest of any class type out there. It also works well in settings where you want the majority of priests to be spellcasters.
- Touched by the Divine: This works best for clerics and Paladins, but there's no reason this couldn't work for any character. At some point during the character's life, he became exposed to divine power, perhaps an accident resulted in him being taken before a cleric for many days of magical healing. Alternately, perhaps the character was forced at some point in his life to call down the power of the gods directly into himself(perhaps to save a sibling or parent from a group of kobolds or giant rats).
- Trained by the magical: The Fae, Dragons, Celestials, Fiends, the undead, and various other creatures in the world are all magical in nature, and each one has skills similar to those of PC classes. It could be possible with DM permission to have a character trained by one of these creatures.
- Magical Locations: Perhaps their is more to that haunted house you went into as a kid. Maybe it had been the site of a terrible spellbattle in the distant past. Alternately, maybe the tree that you spent the majority of your time sitting under as a child grew from a seed planted in the remains of a dragon, or atop an ancient gateway for the Fae.

The rarity of 0-level characters

One thing that always irked me about game supplements from TSR was the almost complete lack of 0-level characters in their product. If these people were so numerous, how is it that every town seemed to have at least a 1st level cleric, and why every king of every nation was a 9th level something or other, when the DMG clearly stated that the majority of churches, rulers, and fighting men were merely single HD 0-level characters. They also never explained what exactly caused a character to become classed.
I'm not saying that such a practice as "no 0-level npcs" is a bad thing. In some settings, it actually makes more sense, Dark Sun for instance, where the world is far more brutal, and 0 level characters wouldn't even make it in the cities. But other settings, such as Forgotten Realms, Mystara, and Greyhawk should have fewer high level(level 7+) characters in positions of power.
I realize, as a DM, that I could always change such characters, but I've long been a fan of maintaining the integrity of settings, because altering something to that effect really does seem to change the mood of the characters and thus the setting, at least for me.
I'd agonized over this for most of the time I've played 2nd Edition, but sometime last year, my aspergers-induced anal-retentiveness finally forced me to sit down and figure out a way to make sense of this from within the settings and not from a game designer standpoint.
The first thing I thought about, was the classes themselves. What made them different from the standard run of the mill character. Fighter? Specialization. Cleric? Magic. Wizard? Magic. Thief? Well, never really did figure out why thieves didn't just spring up out of the ground at the drop of a hat. That covered the four "Core" classes but what about the others, what about their flavor set them apart from the rest of humanity. What made a paladin different from the everyday knight, a ranger different from the average woodsman, or a Bard different from any other minstrel, sage, or storyteller? What made characters in Birthright, Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, or even from our own world's legends so much more badass and hardcore than the rockstars, politicians, and clergy from the real world(why wouldn't the average soldier be a fighter? Why wouldn't every good DM out there not have a level or two of Bard? Why are all martial artists not monks?)
The answer finally hit me like a ton of bricks. The common thread between the classed characters from legends and the worlds we play in was that classed characters had been exposed to magic. Think about how much magic took place in old sagas and tales. How many of them carried magic weapons, or called down the fury of magic itself?
This does have some rather fun implications after you think about it for awhile, and gives you another angle for character creation and world design. It makes you think about the role of magic in your campaign and setting. In low magic prevalence settings(of which TSR and WotC made depressingly few of outside of the Historical supplements), it makes the player characters that much more unique.
Over the next couple days I hope to post a few additional thoughts on how this might impact world design and character creation.