Thursday, April 19, 2012

Telecanter's Spell Like Effects

By Jacob H • Thursday, April 19, 2012 • 0 Comments

If you don't read Telecanter's Receding Rules, you're missing out on a load of awesome.

One of the great resources he has over on his page is a random table that generates "Spell Like Effects". The original idea was to generate a totally random daily effect for The Crown of Cedifer the Sullen.

My Co-DMs and I decided to flip things around a bit, roll up a bunch of random effects, and then figure out a magical item based on what the dice decided. We had a surprising amount of fun, and every time someone got stumped by one of the results, someone else was able to come up with something that just... worked.

Here's a list of the effects we rolled up, and you can find the items we created to fit these effects below the jump. The elements rolled for each line are: Mode, Intent, Range/Degree, Duration, Effect, Medium.
  1. AoE, Attack, Sight, 3 hours, Summon, Terrain
  2. Distance, Attack Attack, 30ft, 1 day, Conjure, Sound 
  3. Touch, Utility Transport x2, 50, 2 turns, Evoke, Animal
  4. AoE, Defense, Sight, 1  day, Distort, Mineral
  5. Touch, Defense, Sight, 3 hours, Animate, Air 
  6. Distance, Attack Attack, 10, Instant, Compel, Water
  7. Distance, Attack, 20, 5 turns, Compel, Water
  8. Wielder, Transport Defense Utility, 10, 5 days, Delude, Vegetable
  9. Touch, Attack, 20, 2 turns, Shield, Demi-Human 
  10. Distance, Transport, Sight, 2 Rounds, Evoke, Light
  11. Distance, Attack Defense Attack, 60, 2 rounds, delude, humanoid
  12. AoE, Transport, 70, 3 hours, Dispel, Space/Dimension
  13. Wielder, Attack, Sight, 4 turns, Conjure, Demi-Human

Riffing - NPCs

By Jacob H • • 0 Comments

We had a phenomenally successful brainstorming/riffing session today and have now fleshed out the back stories of "all" the major players that inhabit Swordfish Bay. I really can't wait to get everything moved from a bulleted format to "prose".
To sample 6 NPCs, hit the jump

Friday, April 13, 2012

The Bath House

By Jacob H • Friday, April 13, 2012 • 1 Comments

The Ground Floor of the surviving Bath House on Hot Springs Island. There's a second floor, a maintenance level, and a cave level containing The Contraption that heats and pumps all the water. The goal was to map out the "pristine" version, then I'll go in and hit it with destruction by collapsing walls, floors, etc.

The area colored green indicates areas on this level that are not technically inside the dungeon. This includes the entrance to the establishment and the large "Loitering Garden" before the "Grand Entrance" to the Baths.

Blue areas indicate pools. Many would have been thermal, but there were likely cold springs and mud pools too. Full details still undecided. 

While the secret doors would not have been very secret to the Elven clientele of this establishment they served as the servant paths for the cleaning/restocking crews, and so were unnoticed in their own way. As I make this post, I realize that I'll need to have some stairs going up to the second level from the servant areas as well.

I worry that it's too symmetrical for a dungeon, but since this was originally built to be a pleasure house, I think it will work once some destruction due to time kicks in.

Edit: Each square is 10' so this place is HUGE.