The Tao of D&D

Between work and the book, and normal routine, I've also been working on this for a patron supporting my $30 tier, "Wiki Request."  This is a bit of freelance writing, this month related to the creation of magical weapons:

Just a little fun.  I've been rewriting 1st and 2nd level magic spells for my wiki and thinking on ways the spells could be adjusted and applied so that they are more interesting and slightly more practical.  The spell "preserve" has never been a particularly interesting spell, but I think I've put a spin on it that makes it interesting enough for this blog:

Range: touch

On each of the inhabited continents, the same four elements were distinguished as building-blocks for all the substances that could be observed: earth, air, fire and water. Within the game world, it is accepted that these four elements exist, and that they represent the Four Elemental planes. However, science indicates clearly, even in the Dungeons and Dragons world, that science dictates the existence of many more elements than four, and that tradition practices as followed in Earth's history were a load of rubbish.

To be sure, to retain the effects of magic and the presence of elemental beings, both science and elemental theory must be true ~ with the latter explaining many of the magical effects that science cannot explain. Examples of elemental influence on reality would include ...

(continue reading)

Of course, the first thing that most role-players think when finding rules for practicing medicine without the use of magic is, "why bother?"  After all, magical spells are much faster and less problematic, yes?  What party doesn't have a regeneration scroll just kicking around?

Well, my parties, for one. Regeneration is a 7th level spell and requires a 16th level cleric to cast.  16th level clerics are ridiculously rare and invariably very busy.  Think of it this way: the pope can easily lay his hand on your shoulder and bless you . . . but given that there are a billion other people who want the same thing, the simple act of receiving a personal blessing is probably not going to happen for you.

In short, even if the party in an everyday munchkinish game has enough of every kind of healing spell available to ensure never having to worry about getting their hands dirty with ~ shudder ~ surgery, most of the other people filling all the towns and rural countryside of the world probably have little choice about it.

But why should that matter?  Why concern ourselves with what the simple people do ~ we're busy adventuring here!  We can't worry about what limbs or diseases the common folk care to die from ~ right?

This thinking expresses a kind of bubble that most campaigns simply ignore, one where the setting is built wholly upon the party's specific needs.  If a member of the party catches a disease, no problem: we have a spell for that.  If a member loses a limb, boom, here's another.  If a member slips and falls among a patch of razor cactus, we have a handy rod of resurrection right here.  The important thing is that we survive, we keep going, we get the adventure done.  Other people don't matter.

Suppose the party, having just come from killing off an otyugh in some slime filled trough five miles into the forest, returns to the nearest village, all safe and sound.  Quite by surprise, by the middle of the first night, half the inn's residents are mysteriously down with some sort of malady.  The party is awoken by the tramping of twenty pairs of feet going up and down the stairs and with doors opening and shutting, because all of these poor souls have the trots.

The next day, finishing their breakfast, the party notices the bartender and the barmaid are clearly pale and in poor shape.  As they collect their horses from the stables, they see signs of a spreading ailment everywhere: there are slop buckets full of vomit and rumours that half the village has been infected.  As the party is saddling their horses, the chief magistrate approaches them, saying, "Within a single night, there are more than a hundred people who have some sort of disease!  You must have brought it with you, you're the only outsiders here!  What are you going to do about it?"

Well?  What are they going to do?  There isn't enough disease-curing and resurrection to go around for everyone, is there?  And since the party are clearly carriers, as they are unaffected themselves, are they really going to go to another place and spread whatever they've got there, too?  If they leave this horror behind, someone is going to have to deal with it.  Sooner or later, someone is going to have to deal with the party, too, before their selfishness kills half the kingdom - just how hard do they think it will be to identify them and follow the trail of disease and death they leave behind them.

But this sort of thing never happens in most campaigns, because DMs don't think of it.  Evil is something that happens to the party, not to the innocents . . . and the party is never at fault, never put in a position where their clumsy indifference to the world where they live eventually turns up some consequence they can't wave away with a single cleric.

I'm steadily coming to the conclusion that "simple rules" work for most campaigns because the adventures ~ and the problems ~ are kept as two-dimensional as possible.  Simplistic adventures don't demand many rules.  On the other hand, complicated situations and catastrophes can't help but challenge the magic parachute most parties depend upon, because usually they involve more than a population of just three to five persons.

Yes, I do know about the ridiculous healing rules that have been included in the Pathfinder system.  They have been explained to me.  Even those, however, falter when dealing with thousands of people suffering from large scale disasters and holocausts.  No party, ever, has enough resources for everyone.

It's a question of how hard do we want to bring this home for them.  It's hard to feel like a hero when we're lambing it out of town to avoid admitting that we'd rather just let people die rather than risk contracting the disease ourselves ~ even as we make excuses for our behaviour.  Excuses, however, are a lot easier than performing ordinary, mundane, non-magical surgery for 42 hours at a stretch because we are able . . . long after the spells have run out.

Just for a little perspective:

I had great fun yesterday hammering down two magical/religious practices in my world in D&D terms: shamanism and animism.  Of the two, shamanism is more primitive; animism arises out of shamanism in areas of greater technology.  Both magics/religions are intended for cultures that are too primitive for spell or cantrip use - and so the rules for each had to both limit the amount of power that could be used while giving possibilities for how each could provide powers and abilities not associated with standard Vancian magic.  Both are described on the wiki and will provide plenty of reading not included here on the blog.  I recommend reading both pages through and comparing the one with the other (noting similarities and differences).

The strangest addition is Fetishism, which I'm going to post below - just because I think it is so damn interesting.  There may be some flaw in the rule that I'm missing, I hope someone will point it out to me if they see one that makes the ability way too powerful.  I stress that this would be primarily an ability for non-player characters . . . though, of course, it is almost certainly something that I would eventually add to my sage abilities in the future, so that players could partake.

Please forgive the disclaimer at the start of this.  I wanted to make clear the fundamentals of my perception of animism based on pre-European incursions and misinterpretations (which is what most of what we know about animism).

From the Wiki:

Fetishes are objects that are possessed of magical power, that enable the bearer to have power over others. The following is an attempt to separate this practice in my world from the corrupted and largely misunderstood development of 'voodooism,' or 'Vodou,' in later centuries, which is far, far from the practice that actually occurred in Old World primitive cultures. In creating rules for fetishism, I have chosen to ignore cheesy ideals that have long since become awful cliches in film and the Caribbean tourist trade. I simply am not interested in this, and don't feel it would be a good fit for my world - particularly as I am attempting to present many possible animistic regions, not just those of the West African slave states.

Retaining the idea of being able to affect others with fetishes, or talismans, the emphasis here is on positive effects. Fetishes, unlike shamanistic tokens, do not require the sacrifice of an animal or a humanoid - but they do require considerable skill in their creation. (note: this is a skill I would like to eventually add to the bard, but I do not have the necessary rules at this time].

The fetish talisman is created by the animist shaman as follows: the object must be made of a material that has been formed from a living creature: wood, wax or even dung are the most common materials. This is then fashioned in the form of a specific humanoid subject, though the likeness is not expressly important. The subject's hair must be cut directly from the humanoid's head, either willingly or without the subject's knowledge - hair taken by force will not serve. The figure must be made with cloth that the subject has worn more than once. Finally, once the talisman has been made, it must come into contact with the subject for the space of one round (12 seconds). Thereafter, the talisman/doll will serve as an effective animist fetish.

This empowers the animist shaman to perform two forms of control. The first transfers a condition or ability from the shaman to the subject; the second reverses this, so that a condition or ability is transferred to the shaman. Note that this transfer will last only as long as the shaman concentrates upon the fetish, so that in most cases it will not enable to shaman to take on powers that can then be used, since focusing on the use of that power will cause it to recede.

However, the shaman can bestow the subject with better ability stats (since the subject can take advantage of these, having no need to concentrate), a better to hit table (if applicable), a superior saving throw, greater morality and so on. Hit points cannot be transferred. However, were the shaman intoxicated, that could be transferred; likewise, the shaman could transfer an injury, taking it away from the subject to make the subject were more effective as a combatant, or giving it to the subject in order to cripple him. A disease could likewise be transferred. The shaman could drink poison and transfer that as well; or accept poison from the subject, empowering the shaman to save vs. the poison and survive it while the subject could be sustained before the effects of the poison was returned. There are numerous other ways in which the power of one individual or the other could be shared one way or the other.

Note that the effects of some circumstances, such as a fire or suffocation, could be not be transferred, as the animist shaman could not effectively concentrate on the fetish while on fire or, say, drowning. In general, if the experience is something that would suspend the concentration necessary for casting spells, the fetish cannot be used.

An animist shaman's magic can only support one fetish at any one time. To make another fetish requires that the prior fetish be destroyed, smashing it first with the hand and then setting it afire. This destruction does not affect the subject, as it is not what the talisman/doll experiences that is transferred, but what the shaman feels.

Animism is most common among tech 6 and tech 7 cultures, though there are cults of animism that exist in all cultures above tech 6.

I stumbled across the idea for shamanism a little more than a year ago when working on sage abilities associated with mushrooms and fungi (before I started putting these on the wiki).  Since, the idea of wild magic practitioners has been in the back of my mind . . . and lately it's obvious that for lower tech levels, I need a sort of clericish fighter (not multi-classed) that can fulfill the important role as clan-leader.

My original proposition was that a shaman could 'connect' with the subtle magical world (without spell-use) through the hallucinogenic effect of mushrooms:

". . . from hunted mushrooms, [the druid can] produce a powerful, chewable ball that will grant both hallucinogenic effects and the ability to see into the ethereal plain and speak with intelligent creatures there.  The practice requires the employment of a drum, rattle, gong or pipe, as well as a brief period of dancing and singing (10 rounds) following a hour of meditation.  Once accomplished, the druid is able to speak directly to a companion that has recently died but remains within the time span of being raised from the dead (a period of no more than 29 days).  The shaman may also ensure fertility in a woman for a period of one day or relieve a curse for the space of one week (without permanent effects) . . . Shamanism may not be practiced more than once per week and will drain 10% of the druid's maximum hit points."

I think in principal this still works, hallucinogenic included.  I think it might be expanded to include a wide range of hallucinogenic effects, including starvation, isolation, substances other than mushrooms, near-death experiences and anything else that might disrupt the traditional working of the mind.  Actual power gained would be limited in a number of ways.  Any effect that resembled a spell or cantrip would, by definition, be impossible through shamanism.  And I would like a precedent from some existing cultural tradition (the 'powers' I describe above - pregnancy and curses - have holistic traditions) associated with practiced shamanism.  I think it is all bunk, of course - but it is an important part of human development and if we are going to accept the existence of magic, I can make room for shamans in my world actually being able to do the things they promise.

On the fungi page linked, I defined shamanism as an expert-level sage ability.  That's higher than any of the other abilities I associated with tech-5.  I think this means that most clans would not possess a shaman - we might suppose that such an individual would be present at the tribal level (several clans together make a 'tribe', as clans get together at specific places and times to share knowledge, materials and mating practices).   It still means that the shaman would have to be part of one of those clans when they weren't actually meeting as a tribe.

We could define the chance of a shaman as 40 minus a d8 - and if the result is equal to or less than the number in the clan, it defines the clan as large enough to protect the shaman.  From there, we might propose a 1 in 2 chance that this clan, and not another large one in the tribe, actually has the shaman this year.

I feel once again I need to make a point about the practicality of defining a clan of persons to this degree.  After all, the party is just going to kill them all, nyet?  Yet I wonder if the party would be able to recognize that, after killing a random hobgoblin in the bush, that they would realized the individual was only collecting mushrooms for their clan.  If that hobgoblin turned up to have a flint and steel, would the players wonder how the remaining hobgoblins will light a fire that night?  Will the players look at the age of the hobgoblin and make a connection about this being the clan's best forager?  What if they find a drum - will they realize this poor dead fellow is also the clan's entertainer?  Will they feel bad about killing him?

I doubt it - particularly thinking of the semi-munchkins among my players.  They would probably enjoy the notion that the poor hobgoblin children will go to bed that night without the soft rattle of Uncle Ook's drum.  "Be good for them," they'd say.  "Toughen them kids up."

Nevetheless, I feel I'm on the edge of some discovery here - so we'll keep at it.  Even if it doesn't pan out today, I may have some epiphany five years from now and remember when I went through this experiment.

I promised to talk about Zoroastrianism but rest assured, I'm not going to go deep into it.  If the reader knows nothing at all about the religion or about Zoroaster himself - or Zarathustra, as he's sometimes called - then it's worth digging into the subject, if only to get a conceptualization of a lot of the crap that permeates the texts of both the Bible and the Koran.  However, we'll leave all that on the shelf.

 Of a sort, Zoroastrianism is a strongly observational religion combining elements of alchemy (the conception of the four elements, earth, air, fire and water) with the perceived difficulties that every human faces of whether to perform acts of good or bad.  This is then mixed in with concepts of predestination, creation and existence, some of which are distinctly twists upon Vedic philosophy (Hindu polytheism).  Whereas virtually all the details about the order of the universe and matter are deeply in error, one gets the feeling from reading extensively into Zoroastrianism that the founder and his immediate adherents were trying.   After all, we're talking about an obscure period sometime in the early to mid first millennium, BC.  We shouldn't expect a profound scientific revolution.

This post intends to address a minor point associated with the religion that has been ascribed to Zurvanism, a Persian cult within Zoroastrianism that is responsible for giving us the concept of the Magi.  These are theological thinkers that are mentioned in Herodotus' Histories and also by Aristotle and other Greek writers.  The reader will immediately note the obvious connection between the title and 'magic' - and indeed this is the origin of the word.  The Greek magos, meaning a conjurer or a charlatan, became applied to individuals who read palms, omens and who performed slight of hand, so that 'magician' became any person who could stupefy an audience with such tricks and insight.

Stories arose of the Magi being wise, causing the insertion of the "Three Wise Men from the east" into the Christian myth.  The three stars in the belt of the constellation Orion were called the 'Magi' up until the Middle Ages in commemoration of the event (the stars point at Sirius which was widely considered to be the 'star' that they were following).  The Zoroastrian cult that arose in Rome was that of Mithra (which many will remember from the Conan series as the cult of magicians).  Mithra, curiously, was known to have been born on December 25th - and in many parts of the eastern Roman Empire was heavily associated with the saviour Christ. A diligent study of religious iconography post-Zoroastrianism will turn up all sorts of these things.

But consider my D&D world that takes place in this same environment, with much of the same history.  Suppose that we argue that the Magi were not merely religious hacks wandering about doing card tricks.  Suppose magic is something that's real . . . and that the presence of the Magi in my world's ancient history actually references the moment in time that magic was invented.

I know that many players have given very little thought to the logic that an existing magic would be a technology, just as any other development would be.  If magic were real in our world, the origin of that magic would certainly be a major subject in universities (which would seem strange to our eyes, no doubt).  We only give little thought to the concept because magic isn't real . . . and therefore it's origin as a failed philosophy is of very little interest.

Given that it is a D&D world, however, and that characters and their enemies can use magic, we must suppose someone, at some point in time, created the first spell.  No doubt it was a cantrip, but it would have led to a radical revision of the world and its potential.  In my world, that individual who stumbled upon the first form of humanly controlled magic was Zoroaster.

Now, if the reader will allow, I will point out once again (as I explained yesterday) that there are no human cultures in the New World.  Even if there were, they would have crossed the land bridge between the Old World and the new long, long before the birth of Zoroaster.  In my world's case, no human ever did cross that bridge.  My Siberia is full of hobgoblins and norkers (which I perceive as a sort of caveman goblin/hobgoblin that goes back 15-20 millennia in time).  When the humans in my world emerged out of Africa, their descendants ran into these non-human cultures and were turned back.  Therefore, no diaspora into North America, no native human races at all in the New World.

Those races that do exist in the New World have had very little contact with the cultures of the Old.  They would have had some contact with their personal gods, however, so we may grant a developed religion among the Inca and Aztecs, as well as the other races I mentioned in my last post.  However, no Zoroaster, no magic.

So, just as the real Europeans entered the New World with guns that the natives had never conceived, in my world the Europeans possess magic.  That is their edge.  The Bokkeer may have telepathy, but this is a genetic development, not a learned skill.  The Helsith may transform as they age, but once again, they have no control over this.  Wild magic exists everywhere, but the technological construction and adaptation of magic, in the form that we call spells, that doesn't exist except where the breakthrough in logic has occurred.

Thus, a small town of 700 Spaniards can thrive amidst a culture with several hundred thousand natives.  Of course, there has to be considerable care taken, as the potential for Tucapel is far, far greater with these more dangerous non-human races.

It is possible I ruined my offline campaign Saturday.  Yet it was far too tempting to put into place a magic item of extraordinary potential . . . a considerable gift, given that the players did not have to fight to get it.  Rather, I granted the thing to the party because they befriended a sphinx at the point where the creature had -8 hit points, rather than killing it or fleeing it.  The party showed courage, they showed respect, they showed themselves willing to risk their own lives in order to emotionally support an NPC.

In many campaigns, as we discussed last week, I would be giving the party experience equivalent to the value of the sphinx.  There's a number of reasons why it would be impossible to define what that experience would be . . . but it doesn't matter.  As I said last week, I give parties more than X.P.

Sorry I couldn't use this as an example for those discussions - but the party didn't know about it and I couldn't write about it here.

I gave the party this:

I am not a fan of revisionist fiction - which perhaps sounds strange for a D&D player.  My reasons probably spring from a distaste for propaganda, essentially the rewriting of history for the purpose of encouraging people to hate.

Revisionist history supposedly has a higher calling - to highlight a given ideology so that the reader will look at it and think thoughts like, "Wow, it really would have been bad if the Nazis had won World War II."  However, I don't believe this is really the writer's motivation.  I believe the writer is using the revision in order to flagrantly masturbate - and encourage masturbation - about a specific fetish while casually side-stepping the responsibility.

Allow an example of the same sort of thing as regards sex.  Television has always used this same principle in order to include soft pornography under the guise of the morality play.  Television movies like Portrait of a Stripper or Portrait of a Centerfold were just the sort of cheesy, obvious efforts to put wank-material on television in a time before even VHS allowed for renting porn.  Poor literature does this sort of thing all the time: introduce the waif, seduce the waif, show the waif getting involved in something nefarious, show the awful effects of the waif's actions on the waif's family and then have the waif discover the 'evils' of indulging in this terrible, terrible behavior.

There was recently a piece of shit film that came out in February this year that followed that plot to the letter.  Nothing has changed.

For a more direct example of revisionist history, I suggest Norman Spinrad's, The Iron Dream.  If you're the sort who likes revisionist history, I recommend it.  There's no reason your education should be lacking.  It's just the sort of book a munchkin would enjoy.

I suppose it's fine to like these sort of things (I'll have to toss in The Man in the High Castle by Dyck, for those who will be thinking of it right off), but I don't.  I think works like this encourage lazy thinking.  The supposition always depends on ignoring key points about reality in order to emphasize other moments - such as supposing that the Germans were ever going to possess the Crimean oil fields.  The Germans never got remotely close to that, while there's no doubt whatsoever that the Russians would have simply set them on fire, as the Iraqis did five decades later.  But that's an inconvenient fact . . . so we ignore it.

The same kind of lazy thinking pops up all the time in speculation about the effects that magic would have, must have, on a fantasy world, if magic existed.  Druids and other spellcasters, for example, would replace the need to even have farmers.  Mages would obviously invent all our present technology in a few hours, if only they were motivated.  Or magic would destroy any desire for ordinary science to continue development.  Or the existence of dragons, elementals and other huge monsters would surely demand huge changes in city lay-out, fortifications and the like.

Undoubtedly.

Let me repeat, because I don't want to be mistaken for being insincere, sarcastic or facetious. Undoubtedly, magic would massively revamp social structure.  If magic existed.

Only, here is the thing.  We don't know how.  We don't.  We can't know.  We have no experience with magic, no experience with what it would do to society or how people would react, or what things we would change about ourselves.  We can speculate like crazy about those things - and Oh My, Oh My, have writers ever speculated.  But we don't know.

Still, we can be SURE that if someone, somewhere, in a blog sets out to decide for themselves what magic would or wouldn't do, that someone will be cherry-picking which magic will affect which cherry-picked parts of society.  We can also be sure that the conclusion will be pulled right out of the speculator's asshole.

I've seen a lot of this sort of thing, taken part in it.  Arguments like this always descend into the other fellow's cherry-picked shit versus my cherry-picked shit.  It isn't possible to be comprehensive; there are too many spells, too much magic, too little factual analysis available to account for ALL possibilities . . . and yet everyone who indulges in this sort of argument will get bloody-minded that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

Lazy thinking.

Let's take a simple, anachronistic example, as I explain why I have castles in my world, despite the magic that exists to blow castles all to hell.  Spoiler: I'm going to talk about my world now.

Players expect castles.  Castles are familiar, representative of the culture the players understand and therefore appropriate.  Illogical?  Maybe.  That doesn't matter to me.

Yesterday I was asked, quite reasonably, "Do fortifiers in your world make any allowance for airborne menaces like flying casters, dragons, etc."  It was part of a well-founded inquiry into the matters of my world.

Here's the thing.  I gave an answer in the comments field that sort of captures some of my thinking, but the straight answer is "No, I don't."

That's not bloody-mindedness.  I'm just not incorporating castles and other fortifications into my world to keep out non-player characters.  Forts are there to keep out players - and if the players decide to gather together and destroy a fortification with magic, monsters and their own forms of armageddon, they're welcome to do that.

My NPCs don't.   For the same reason we don't use nuclear weapons casually.

A castle is more than a fortification.  It is a statement of authority.  It says, "I have money, I have prestige, I have a will to stop you.  Don't bug me."

Magic isn't just a technology; it is an implied stalemate.  Like Robert A. Heinlein's Solution Unsatisfactory, it is a group of armed assailants standing together in a room, each with a loaded .45, pointed at one another, waiting for someone to do something stupid like start firing.  It is mutually assured destruction . . . and as such, everyone in the world, where it comes to using very powerful magic, must consider what they're doing.

In a truly cherry-picked fashion, it is generally assumed that if a druid were to start a wildfire that consumed a significant town, this would be a pity but, oh well, what can you do?

No, no, no.  The status quo has a very strong motivation to not let things like that happen - and to punish those who follow courses of action that change the status quo.  If the players ever get to be big enough to own a .45 of their own, so they can start blasting away with it, everyone in the world will turn around and blast away at the player.  Not just the infringed party.  Not just the person the players wronged.  Everyone.  Because everyone is threatened.

So, leave that castle alone.  Take it by conventional means, sure - that doesn't threaten anyone.  Want to put the gun in your pocket and have a fist fight?  Sure, go at it.  But leave that gun in your pocket.

Do the dragons, elementals and other big monsters understand this?  Oh yes.  They're part of it, too.

I know that this is a strange mindset to have about a D&D world.  Usually, it's assumed that if the players get to a level where they can have wish as a spell, that ability comes along with the indiscriminate right to use it.  Au Contraire!

Use it at your peril.

If the reader has read the combat that I've posted this week, then its possible that you may have noticed some of the same trends that I did.  I knew when the combat was in place on the blog that I would want to talk about those things - so this is the first of two posts (I think it's going to be two) that I plan to write about that.  If you haven't read over the combat, you may miss much of the nuance here.

To begin, I'll copy a comment I wrote yesterday, describing my spellcasting system:

For my spells to function, the character must first 'cast' the spell, which means to gather the energy and control it within; during this time, if spellcasters are jarred or have their concentration broken (by a weapon, attack, another spell, etcetera), then the spell is RUINED and cannot be cast again that day.

Once the spell is cast and ready (and with high level spells, this can take two to five combat rounds), it must be 'discharged,' which means sent out from the spellcaster's body at the thing to be influenced. Thus, the full procedure of using spells is loading the gun/firing the gun.

A transformation of the mandrake root into a minor golem, possessing humanoid like characteristics and a malevolent nature. While the mandragora, or root golem, can be controlled by its maker, it should be known that left alone or unwatched, and though small of size, the creature should be expected to wilfully cause trouble. For this reason, when not watched, it is often best to keep the mandragora contained or restrained in some fashion.

The mandragora is 15 inches tall (the size of a large mandrake root) and composed of hard, moist root material that cannot be harmed by elemental-based spells (though due to its size, strong forces will limit the creature's movement), notably fire or cold. Sustained fire, such as an oven, or super-heated rock will consume the creature, but if it is frozen in ice it will thaw unharmed.

It is formed from the mandrake root, which is itself dangerous to harvest. To bring the natural root alive, remove the roots and bury it outdoors in a hole covered with graveyard dirt to a depth of six inches. Thereafter the soil should be soaked with a quart of cow's milk in the dark of the night for 3-12 nights in succession, until it is seen that a part of the root has appeared above the level of the soil (typically an inch will be extended). At this point, the creator will need to pour into the soil a quart of spoiled or rancid liquid (of any extraction), then cast one of the following spells: animal friendship, charm person or mammal, commune with nature, hold animal, hold plant, speak with animals or speak with plants. Any of these will communicate with the new mandragora, who will then know its creator; the character should then extend an index finger towards the extended root, which will then grasp the finger, enabling the golem to be pulled out from the loose soil.

The mandragora cannot attack in melee or cause damage. It weighs 12 lbs. (much of it water weight infused in its root-body) and can move up to 15' per round (having 3 action points). It possesses short, stubby legs and arms that are each 3 inches in length; the arms possess five 4-inch long roots that can be used to loosely grasp things, so that the mandragora can be directed to fetch loose things or hide objects away (picking up any object up to a pound or dragging any object up to its own weight). It cannot untie straps or laces, cannot effectively rummage through a back pack or open doors, but its root fingers can be used to surprise or frighten opponents or animals, push objects off shelves, tip over objects taller than they are wide (up to its weight). It can throw objects it can carry only a few feet without much force, so that only very fragile objects falling on stone would break. It does not like things hung on its body and will rid itself of these things as soon as possible.

The mandragora, if it is able, will seek any opportunity to sneak away and become a pest to the party or others (particularly if the creator is asleep). If given the opportunity, the mandragora will cheerfully occupy itself with many of the above activities (particularly frightening animals and children or breaking things), dropping items into rivers or over the side of ships and boats, dragging logs out of a fire and leaving them next to sleeping persons, covering itself with mud and rubbing itself on clothes or food, making rustling noises in brush to bring others to investigate, knocking on doors and then running, etc. The creating character can encourage a mandragora to do these things to others by hurling the mandragora in a desired direction, where it is wished for mischief to be made (an enemy camp or habitation), speaking the words, "Give them grief, mandragora."

Because of its size and color, the mandragora will easily approach within a combat hex (5 feet) of a conscious, alert target without being seen. It will surprise normally (2 in 6) even in combat situations. If attacked, it is rated as AC 8 (AC 4 in darkness) and has only 1 hit point - but it is immune to bludgeoning weapons, swords and pointed weapons. An axe or bladed pole-arm, however, will kill it most efficiently.

Returning to the subject of D&D, I wanted to record some of a conversation I was having last night with my own smart life partner, about recipes or formulas for making potions and other magic items. In particular, the making of something I use in my campaigns, called healing salve.

This is a very simple sort of magic that I allow to be purchased.  I don't like the purchase of magic items, but there are a few very minor ones that I consider to be common enough that they would exist in abundance, without overbalancing the power structure that I consider delicately reflects that of the real world, circa 1650.

One such item is the healing salve.  This is a simple packet, typically a liquidy powder, that can be eaten or poured directly into a wound, which restores 1d4 damage virtually instantaneously (call it half a round, or about six seconds).  If the wound is bleeding, the salve will close the wound up immediately, even if it only heals 1 point.  It takes a character one round to administer the salve, either on themselves or on others.  Typically, depending on where the party is in my world, a salve can go for as little as 75 to as much as 200 g.p.  It is often not available, or available in small amounts, and parties will snap up all they can find if it turns up on an equipment list.

On the list of things that an alchemist could fabricate, from yesterday's post, is the healing salve, and there's no question that someone will rush to make it as soon as they are able.  So the subject of 'how it is made' is bound to come up.

The first notion that we're likely to have is that it is made from some part of a given creature's anatomy, so that the party has to rush out and kill the creature, probably in a careful manner, to get the blood or ichor or fingernails of the beast, whatever seems most annoying.  This would then send the party on an endless quest to kill trolls (regenerating makes an obvious healing ingredient), flesh golems (reconstituted life), giant slugs or worms (most sponges, annelids and the like heal rather easily) and so on.  Unfortunately, doing so would make the game into Quest for Worms, which the party would probably pursue endlessly.

Another idea that we had last night was more interesting, practical and most importantly game-friendly.  Suppose that the seeds for the medicinal plants needed to create the healing salve were fairly easy to get, and fairly inexpensive (say, a gold coin per seed).  The seeds could only be planted during a 10 day period late in the spring, and had a 63 day growth period before harvesting.  During that time, they would have to be watched very closely by the druid, which would restrict the druid from doing anything else for 2 months.  Each week, the druid would have to make a roll for every plant, to see if the plant died.  The roll would improve as the druid's study points improved.  There'd be a limit on how many plants a druid could conceivably manage, perhaps a hundred, and attempts to manage more would drastically increase the likelihood of plants dying.

At the end of the 9-week period, the remaining plants would be harvested.  To transform these plant into a packet of healing salve per plant would take three weeks, which wouldn't be expensive but would require intensive effort by the druid (nothing could be allowed to interrupt the process).  At the end of the effort, the druid would produce perhaps 60-80 packets, depending on the success of each operation.  Cost, as I say, would be about 1 g.p. per packet.

However, having now created these healing salves, the party could do nothing to make more of them until the following spring!  That means, although they can make a ton, for 12 months, the number is limited, and they have to be reserved.  Each one that is used is used with the recognition that these have to last.

Moreover, as planting time approaches, the party must somehow return to one of those parts of the world where the plant grows, or miss a whole year of crop growing.

I really like this system, as it encourages freedom for a lot of the year for the party, so they are not endlessly hunting some animal, while at the same time still offering a limitation to how much salve they can reasonably make.  It helps stabilize the party's wanderings, and promotes a community association for the months when the party returns 'home' to grow more plants.

This is game play on a very powerful, meaningful level ... and as I was told yesterday by Maxwell Joslyn, it does the heavy lifting for me.

I can't imagine there's anyone out there reading who hasn't come across this yet, but I had been working on redoing my sage abilities from ages ago.  The Work blog, that hasn't gotten that much attention, has new content, mostly applied to the cleric.  I've just put up a first one for the druid, which doesn't include as much as I'd like . . . but it talks about Alchemy, which I'd like to discuss here.

Here's the reprinted Alchemy section:

Amateur: distill liquid, identify substance, prepare ingestive poisons, smelt natural metals
Authority: fabricate minor acids, ointments & salves, identify uncommon substance, isolate gas, prepare insinuative poisons
Expert: fabricate & identify major ointments, paints & potions, smelt magical metals
Sage: fabricate exceptional elements

Each of the above presumes that the druid is in possession of the necessary space, tools, furnace, materials and ingredients required to create each of the above substances. It should also be clear that, unless the druid possesses other skills that may originate elsewhere, the various metals, earths, liquids and so on that are created cannot be then manufactured into items. For example, while the expert may be able to smelt mithril, it does not follow that the individual would then be able to process that metal into a sword or armor. Such would require an artisan with those skills. Similarly, while the druid might be able to create a potion of fire resistance, it does not then follow that this ability could be installed into a suit of armor or a helmet. The druid can create the potion, not the effect as it would occur in other mediums.

Moreover, note that none of the above is created by spell or magic, but rather by hard, difficult work. Some items, such as the creation of the portable hole (which is a pure elemental substance) would be subject to danger rolls, in keeping with the DMG’s discussion of such things. The creation of these things will take time, effort and coin, along with potential loss of health.

I received the comment below on a 2010 post, from Taren. It's a good chance to change the subject. The comment has been slightly tailored; be sure to have a look at the whole:

"I have a question about your handling of the spells... so let's say a caster has his 8 spells learned and those are what he has available for the day... and forever (until he goes up levels). How do you handle the idea of having the character discover new spells or learn from a defeated wizard's spell book? Do you allow the character make a change to his list at some point, and have that be the new list henceforth? Would your character have to wait until he acquired a spell slot at a new level? I ask because I have in the past liked giving unique spell books or spells as part of a hard-won treasure. I'm wondering how you handle that sort of thing."

Starting with the post about magic changing the world, I've been hearing things suggesting that magic is seen very differently by many people in the blogosphere than how I see it. Two examples (among many others) would be the ability of one person to pour magic out from their hands like a flooding river or the idea that 1 person in 10 could be possessed of magic. I find both ideas ... bewildering.

Let us say that magic exists, but that it hasn't been 'discovered' yet. That is, the exact sequence of phrases, gestures or mindset hasn't been stumbled upon, or perhaps it was but it has long since been lost ... and all this time we've been living in a world with magic, but that it's hidden to us. This would mean that everything we've learned from science (which is a methodology and not an ideology, though it is often described as one by those who do not understand how it works) retains its merit. Moreover, physics continues to function as it always has, only that it can be circumvented by means that we as yet do not understand.

A sword, then, still swings through the air like a sword. It still resounds upon armor, it still cleaves flesh. The physical means by which the sword is compelled remains one that is exhausting, and one that takes experience and training to employ well. It is an effort, not merely physical, but mental as well, and as one swings a sword for several hours, surviving in a battle that rages on and on, one's mind degrades from dehydration, sugar depletion, excessive hormonal activity and so on. Hell, five minutes of such work would be enough to leave the fighter panting and needful of a moment's respite ... which good training acknowledges, as full-on physical and mental activity is debilitating.

We must assume, then, that magic, engendered somehow from or through the user, either as a source or a conduit, must also be at least mentally exhausting. Consider that I want to do something simple, something first level, like employing spider climb to scale a wall. What is the spell, exactly? What are the physical manifestations? Game editions don't care about things like this, because they're not about imagination, but rather about mechanics, but let's examine what must be happening. The fingers and body of the recipient must be somehow modified in order to make them able to climb the wall. The body is reshaped, perhaps with Peter Parker's finger spines, or it is magnetized in a manner that allows adherance even to non-metallic surfaces. At the very least, the recipient's body has been loaded up with POWER, which it is presumed has no effect upon the recipient either mentally or physically. The person can just climb walls now. That's the only change.

What kind of remarkable control does that require? I should think, if any sense of reality is there to be embraced, it must be a spectacular amount of control. Overloading the recipient in some manner could conceivably kill them, whereas too little power will have no effect. This is incredible fine-tuning on the dial, which the user of magic must employ with perfect ability. How long does it take to learn to tune this finely? Can it be picked up in a day? Or does it take a long time? If one has already learned to tune other spells, does it automatically follow that every spell is tuned to the exact degree?

How about this flow of power? Sitting here quietly, not producing magic, only compelling my fingers to move quickly over a keyboard, I can feel the effort. My knuckles feel the tinge of arthritis. I occasionally make a spelling mistake, which I fix, or I make a typo I don't notice at all. I'm acting quickly, but I'm in a quiet room, without distractions, thinking my way through this post and feeling relatively quiescent. I would find it particularly difficult to write this post in the midst of a raging battle.

So as a user of magic, I'm fine-tuning this immense power that is flowing through me, feeling my stress rise, my blood pumping harder to compensate for the effort that only my brain is using, just as an astronaut learns to control their body functions, their stress, which is amazingly difficult to do when out in space and in an extraordinarily dangerous environment. Using the mind in that environment is taxing in the extreme. Similarly, the user of magic is in the midst of a battle ground. He or she has no armor, no meaningful weapons, and they have to concentrate amid swordblows and movement, screaming, men dying, while they fine-tune the shit of out that magic to a perfect, non-dangerous degree. As the power pours from them, or through them from another plane of existence, how many calories does that burn? What is the depletion to their platelets and their hydration? How is it they're able to cast spell after spell without any apparent effect to their ability to move, walk, breathe and so on?

Training. Lots and lots of training. Phenomenal amounts of training. Training that goes past what's done with the sword, far past what is done with one's hands in a stressed environment operating complex and precise apparati. Training on levels we haven't yet sought for. As much training as a doctor receives. Potentially much more.

Let's consider a doctor. The first knowledge they gather is general knowledge - and there is a hell of a lot of that. To become a general practitioner requires terrific amounts of memory, and the ability to regurgitate that memory at will, preferably without many mistakes or having overlooked something. This takes years. And then, if that doctor wants to learn to do something specific, like heart transplants, this takes even MORE time. The process is slow and methodical and requires not only patience, but aptitude. Merely knowing how to do it or having the will to do it does not necessarily mean that one has the emotional strength to gut out the process. Many, many doctors who want to be specialists in some capacity don't make the cut. That is why there are so few people who can perform those very difficult surgeries that some of us need, and which we must be flown to Atlanta or Geneva in order to receive.

Now, here is our user of magic. Let us call him Bob. Bob has had his training (an extra 2d8 years according to the DMG, but traditional elves have had even longer to get good at this - or maybe they're stupider than humans and it takes them longer to learn the same spells humans do). Bob has spent his years trying to move a feather and light a candle, and while a lot of the stuff his tutor tried to cram into Bob's head hasn't taken yet, Bob is strong enough to throw spells 3 times a day (I'm going to go back to original D&D ideas here, so suck it up Pathfinder lovers). After three, he isn't "out of spells" ... he's exhausted. He's blown his ride. His heartrate has hit the ceiling, his mind is mush, and he's doing pretty well at that point to throw a weapon - badly - at an enemy. He hasn't practiced his weapon throwing skills because he was trying to get that fine-tuning just right, so that he didn't blow himself up when he tried to cast his shield spell.

But as Bob does more of this, and grows experienced, he realizes in a flash what his master was trying to say about that damn sleep spell over which Bob never got the hang. We would say Bob was second level, but really he's just learning to control his heart a bit better, to give himself more endurance, and that fine-tuning is coming easier to him ... now he can throw four spells before hitting his wall. And at 3rd level he can throw five, and at 4th level he can throw seven. And so on. That wall is getting farther away, he's learning little tricks and he's picking up on methods of channelling that energy that never occurred to him in the dull laboratory of his tutor. Bob is seeing his way to being a wizard.

This makes sense to me. What does not make sense to me is Bob stumbling into a tomb, finding a scroll, and instantly being able to cast that spell at will ... like a surgeon watching some innovative brain operation, shoving aside the attendant surgeon and then taking over the operation. That's the sort of thing that happens in bad television in the 60s, where the doctor is a TV Star ... but I can do without it in my D&D world.

Can a user of magic suddenly change their minds about the spells they have? Can a surgeon suddenly be an engineer? Or an astronaut? No. It took a lot of practice and training to use THOSE spells. This is how the process is conceived of in my world. I recognize that it compels the player to live with the spells they have, but ... sorry, no sympathy. Work with what you've got. That is the game. Circumventions in skills and abilities are ideas that were spawned by players who could not learn to work with the skills they had. Next time they play a user of magic, they can try different skills. They can try a different class. But no, I'm not interested in do-overs with the same character.

From the above, it should be possible to reason out the rest of Taren's questions. It isn't about how I apply the mechanics to my game. It is all about how the reasoning behind the game demands mechanics that FIT the process.

This sort of thing just so ... irks me:

"•Medical care. Healing/Cure/Remove Poison/Remove Disease/Regeneration Spells/Potions. Why aren't these mass produced in a manner which any local town healer, from all but the most backwater villages, can simply prescribe them to the townsfolk to remove any ailment that may afflict them. In many fantasy settings such potions are assumed for PCs. They aren't even rare or special treasure. The assumption of these items means there shouldn't be sickness in the setting at all, unless it's some sort of magical sickness that is specifically created to be ignored by these effects. So no black plague, no smallpox, no flu, no colds. Got a sniffle? Take a small dose of remove disease, and your cold will be stopped in its tracks. Body parts should be temporary except for the poor. A regeneration spell or potion existing means that rich folk never have to worry about losing limbs, because they can simply pay to regrow them. Pirates shouldn't have peg-legs. Warriors shouldn't be using prosthetic.

•Sustenance. Create Food and Water. And all items that mimic these effects. In the Pathfinder rules I can find half a dozen examples from cursory study that create food and water out of nothing. To clerics it's a third level spell. And many items that mimic it. So why are there farmers? Why is farming even a viable vocation when a family could reasonably obtain some way of creating food and water out of nothing? Shouldn't all towns have an unlimited supply of water, at the very least? A decanter of endless water (Pathfinder) is 9000 gp. Shouldn't this be a town's first priority when collecting taxes? It is literally an endless clean water supply, add in some water wheels, and you have endless energy generation as well. All but the most poorest of towns should have clean running water at all times.

•Material Creation/Transmutation. There are spells in Pathfinder that allow creation of any non-magical substance. I imagine it to be much like Full Metal Alchemist's Alchemy. You transform some matter into other matter. Easy peasy. The static gold values of creating this matter is ridiculous. Especially when you can make more gold, or diamonds, or platinum, or what have you. Why would anyone use 'real' money? A minor creation (Pathfinder) spell can replicate up to 1 sq. ft. of gold coins. Why would anyone trade in raw materials, when you can just make your own with a little preparation. Transmutation is a cheaper way to make desired materials."

The thinking demonstrated above is very much like the sort of logic politicians employ when they start to talk about incentivization. The proposal goes, "If we pay doctors per patient, they'll work harder to make sure they see more patients." Cue all the politicians acting surprised when it turns out doctors aren't seeing patients long enough to give proper diagnoses, or faking the existence of patients, or double-booking patients to make sure they're not in a situation where they can't make money because people haven't arrived in time for their appointment.

Take the question about a town getting 9,000 g.p. together in order to obtain a decanter of endless water in order to run the town's waterwheel. That's right, there it is, dangling above the waterwheel, all precious and valuable and useful, and naturally no one in town, or the environs around, see any reason to steal it. Moreover, every town in the world can get one of their own, right? There's no problem manufacturing thousands and thousands of these things, it's not like they're made of rare materials that can only be found in one small corner of the world - certainly the supply of those materials is UNLIMITED, right? Of course right. Don't be stupid. And never mind that water is FREE, and that anyone with a bit of skill and the willingness to work can build a waterwheel of their own using the completely natural flow of water that happens to be draining from the nearby mountains. Nope! When a town's got to be built, no one thinks, let's build it next to the free water and use that to run things, they think immediately, let's appeal to the high level mage and build the town in a totally random place. After all, there's nothing else to be gained from the presence of water beyond that it will run the town's water wheel. It's not like there's fish there in a mountain stream, or nearby forests supported by the stream, or animal life, or mines that need sluices and such. Hell no. We've got a water wheel run by bottle. What the hell else do we need all that other shit for?

Every now and then some roleplayer will produce a series of questions like this with the air of, "Hey, didn't think about this, did you?" As if, somehow, by asking the question they've instantly demonstrated the silly preconceptions we have about magic or its influence on economics, politics, health, etc., etc. It matches the occasional question some fanboy asks in the IMDb user review session, where they think they've discovered some plot hole, but in fact they just weren't paying attention.

Take that first one. Of course the town healer can manage the whole town, right? Heck, I don't know anything about Pathfinder, so I'm just going to assume from this that in that system the healer can heal all day long, continuously, no matter what the problem or issue the residents might conceivably have. "Cut your finger? Sure, come one, we'll take a look. My, looks like you've broken your arm. No problem. Lazy eye - sure, get that fixed up for you. Oops, kidney failure. No worries, lay down. That looks like a pretty serious case of being dead. Heck, easy as pie. No, no worries, come one, come all, I've got healing to spare, every kind of healing, no maladies too weird or difficult for me!" And what the doctor can't cure, why he's got a shelf just chock full of unlimited potions of every kind, 'cause those suckers aren't made with rare materials either.

Sometimes I think that role-players think a town of 400 people describes the whole population. "Yep, that's right, there's the town, and ten feet beyond the town, there's NOTHING. No camps, no farms, no cottagers out there in the woods, no hunters or woodsmen or people eeking out a living hunting and gathering. Everyone around HERE lives in town, ain't no other way to live. What's that you say? Roor-ral? What the fuck is that? Ain't nobody roorral. We don't believe in it. A man would have to be an idiot to build a cabin out in the woods, by themselves, where there weren't no taxes, laws, restrictions on space, rent, vagabonds, thieves or elders to tell him what for. Why, that'd be like living in a free country! Where's the damn sense in that?"

So naturally, there's no roorral people to fill up the healers time, never mind that the roorral population made up 90% of the total during the Medieval period. And every 'backwater village' can afford a healer, they've got nothing better to do - we know from our OWN experience that doctors LOVE living in butt-fuck nowhere and attending to every town with 100 or less people. That's the real life, none of this in the city living for them. And the potions they need to fix up the locals - why, those roll in on carts that are just full of them, thousands of potions a month, piled so high that's there's no need for anyone to think about stealing them. Why, if someone really wants potions of their own, they can plant a potion tree in their back yard and be fixed up for life!

Yep, sure can't be any of them nasty pestilences, no sirree! More than enough potions and healers to manage the swell of 25 million dead that Europe had to suffer. That ain't nuthin to healers in Pathfinder, uh uh. Why, as soon as a rat with fleas even lives with a family in the local ghetto, the healer snaps awake in the night, knows instantly where the danger is and flies on a magic carpet (heck, everyone's got one!) to the soon-to-be diseased house and puts a stop to that nonsense. In its goddamn tracks. Right you are!

Yep, there's anything you want, just for the asking. Makes you wonder why players go out to fight monsters. Why, we can build theatres and conjure up the monsters right here, let you smack em around for the local people, who don't have even have to pay to see it. No one's employing any of those modern practices of phony scarcity. This is the middle ages! That shit hasn't been invented yet! There's food enough for all, money enough for all, raw materials of every variety for all, and an entire magic using slave class to provide As Much As We Want. No charge, no expectations, no serious remuneration, just plenty to go around. And if some town gets it into their mind they're going to make people pay for stuff, why them wizards just turn up, pour material wealth on the population and end that local economy right off! We ain't having none of that shit here, not in a Pathfinder game.

There's a bunch of ways I could have written this. Like, I could have mentioned that being able to produce gold doesn't necessarily mean being able to produce coins of perfect weight, size, artistic merit, etc., or getting the alloy balance right - since, as the author plainly doesn't know, gold coins are not made of 'gold.' Pure gold is soft and useless for coins, and the metal stamp defining its wealth would quickly be destroyed by the coins bouncing together in a sack. The whole artistic thing, though - it has always seemed to me that magically created food isn't necessarily 'great' or that magically created flutes possess perfect pitch. Just because one can conjure a painting doesn't make the mage Matisse. There's more to the production of finery than the conception of finery, and those out there who cannot understand the difference have clearly never tried to make something they've conceived. It is always better in the mind that it in in reality ... and I see no reason why a wizard shouldn't be as subject to this rule as anyone else.

But rather than beat that point home, I have tried instead to interject a bit of silliness here. There will forever be masters of the fanboy mechanic who will dismiss the actual structures of human behavior and economics, or the lessons of history or politics, in order to pronounce their extraordinary genius in cracking the 'science' of what-would-the-world-be-like-if. The practice, if the reader must know, is perhaps the worst sort of masturbation in the internet community. It has the appeal that anyone can bullshit their way along with it, without there ever being any danger of being proved right or wrong - it is the perfect angels on the head of a pin argument. I'll stick to Occam's Razor, thank you. The simplest answer - that in fact, nothing would be changed, because we would all still be human - seems best to me.

I'm sure if the world really could be made better for the existence of magic, we'd find a way to fuck it up.

Since I am working on the cleric class, tweaking and adjusting the elements of the class within my game, I find myself faced one more with the question, one that came up before on this blog (not that I can find the post).

What effect does a cleric's preaching have?

There certainly should be an effect.  A cleric preaching to a crowd is a highly symbolic act, one which defines the very nature of clericism - the pronouncement of 'truth,' carrying it to the people so that they may hear the spoken word, this is definitive.  The word is the embodiment of the cleric's religion; the practice of speaking it is an exhibition of bravery and resolution, the statement that say "This I believe, and that belief shall not be hidden!"

Many of us believe things; we secretly hold something to be true, but we dare not say that thing out loud for fear that it will lose us friends, respect, even our jobs or our freedom.  The boss is an idiot.  I do not love my wife.  I wish my best friend would stop going with that bitch/bastard.  When a cleric stands up and says, "I believe in an invisible force that says YOU must live your life differently," this takes guts.  An audience may not like it.  Prostelytizers have been killed before.

So somehow, the power of sermonizing must embody these characteristics.  It must be empowering; it must influence; it must be something practical for the cleric to do, but it should  be something potentially dangerous, too.  It must be useful.  It must be practical.  And while it can be magical, it can't step on pre-existing magic.

For many campaigns, the problem is already solved by the enthrall spell.  When a cleric wishes to sermonize, he or she need only employ this spell:

"Enchants creatures who fail to make save vs. magic. Creatures less than 4 hit dice suffer a –4 penalty to their saving throws. Creatures that are neither human nor demi-human enjoy a +4 modifier to their saving throw.  The cleric’s charisma is temporarily raised to 21. Listeners who fail their save will, in any event, continue to listen so long as the cleric continues speaking."

Somehow, this doesn't suit me.  To begin with, I don't allow my clerics to change their spells from day to day - which is my means of reducing the power of spellcasting (damn, can't find that post either).  Briefly explained, you pick your spells and those are your spells.  No changing.

It's a cheap fix anyway.  People don't get up and walk out of a temple when the priest starts speaking.  It isn't a "saving throw" problem.  The cleric ought to be able to affect everyone, but to a much lesser degree ... so that, in a slightly upgraded manner, people still leave the church or the circle feeling enlightened, invigorated ... and even intrigued with some matter about their lives.

It's difficult to manage a magical effect in D&D that isn't bold and forthright.  Magic missile ... now that is simple.  Bang, hits automatically, causes damage.  No gray areas.  How do you run a magical effect that "enlightens" but does not flat out affect the listener like a suggestion spell?

I've been building a straw man here, because the answer is actually easy.

D&D has so many ways to moderately push the numbers that there's always something that can be done.  Another problem I've been working on has been the 'sage abilities,' which I think I mentioned last week ... but if I forgot, here's a link to what they've been for about three years.

I am enormously unhappy with these - primarily because of the lack of use players have put them to.  The mage in the online campaign, played by 'Lukas' or Oddbit as he is called, has employed his architecture knowledge a fair bit; everyone who has taken "beasts" in the cleric list has definitely made use of that to know more about what's attacking them.  There has been dabbling on a few other topics.  But its not giving the guts I need to make the talents work, and I know that's because they're far too vague.  My fault, not the player's.

So I am working through the lists to make them more concrete, which I know is going to be a year-long job, requiring a lot of brain hemorrages and imaginative effort.  Mostly, I'm looking to enhance these things so that they can be played very simply.  A set % per level chance at success, and very definite results that can be expected, which offer a wide range of talents and abilities - even some magic.

For example, a knowledge of Aesthetics, knowing better how performance and art has the potential to influence, could mean moderately greater effects for some spells (duration, area of effect, range), or an improvement in the use of physical tools ranging from weapons to mountain climbing equipment, or an increase in the value of property and equipment.

Let's break down Metaphysics ... which, if there was ever a topic that seemed impractical for a D&D player, this would seem to be it.  But metaphysics is, after all, a greater comprehension of reality, and how to live within that reality.  So we can presume that an advanced knowledge of "reality" might offer the following special abilities (still limited by a set % chance of success per level of the character):

Perception:  a deeper comprehension of the nature of time enables the player to grasp more deeply its passage, so that if the % is rolled, time can be slowed so that the player is able to experience two rounds where others would only experience one - however, this can only be accomplished for a limited period, so long as the % is rolled and no more than 5 (possibly 10, needs gameplay) 'rounds' per day.

An alternate to the above would be to shorten distances to be crossed by half, so that while time remains the same players are able to step two spaces where they were ordinarily move one.  Another alternate might be that the player could perceive distances visually, so that their vision was magnified 30x (equivalent of binoculars).

Asceticism:  The body's natural functions can be overcome so that the player would be less dependent upon food or sleep, reducing the requirement for either by 50%, with this having no effect upon the player's combat or other abilities, when the % is rolled.

Sustained Life:  The character is able to keep themselves alive even though their body has technically been "killed", to as far as -15 hit points, for a period of 1 to 4 minutes, giving time for the player to be healed by ordinary means, if the % is rolled.

I perceive a lot of differing rules like this, somewhat similar in some ways to the skills that pop up in a lot of games, but based on knowledge and not skill.  In a sense, there's no difference, except that in the above it would also be taken for granted that the player knew just about everything there was to know about metaphysics, to even have a chance at performing these strange abilities.

So back to the sermon.  I think an elegant solution is suggested by the ceremony found in the Unearthed Arcana, that gives a +1 to any roll for an individual when they are first baptized into a religion.  This is a pretty crappy effect for a ceremony like that, but it would be marvelous for a congregation as they left the local temple.  Everyone in the neighborhood gets a +1 modifier to one thing, probably to be used up that day?  Marvelous.

It probably won't mean much to many the gentle reader, but I remember Sundays where the morning was screwed by church ... and the afternoon seemed strangely special afterwards.  I think, subject to certain other conditions (done on holy ground, affecting only believers, that sort of thing) that this would be a great talent to allow a cleric to perform.

My players in the Online campaign are interested in writing their own scrolls, and as I haven't written about magic creation on this blog before, I'd best do so now.

This is my solution to the problem of scroll creation - it addresses no other magic.  I should probably write those rules at a later time.  First, I want to say something about the possession of magic by players.

I don't feel excessive magic does anything for the game.  What would "excessive" be?  If the players are solving more than a fifth of their problems with the use of a magic item, then there's too much magic.  I don't mind the occasional use of a fireball wand or such - but the players should be aware that there isn't another fireball wand waiting in the next treasure.  That sucker should be precious ... and therefore, not to be used until the player's backs really are against the wall.

If you're running a world where the fireball wand is the first thing the mage uses, that is a sign that you are giving your player too much magic.  Why?  Because they don't need to think, that's why.  They don't need to be careful.  They have their deux ex machina in hand, and the dramatic relevance of your world is suspect.  Of course, if you just want to run a bunch of people slaughtering things, without experiencing real threat, that's fine ... but you and your buddies are morons, and you have no business reading this blog.

I like the party to have magic.  My parties soon learn that magic cannot be bought, and that if they cannot find it, they'll have to make do without.  Even when they do find it, knowing it may not get replaced at once tends to make parties appreciate magic.  Thus, when considering the creation of scrolls by mages, difficulty has to be the watchword.

Not all casters should be able to create all scrolls.  The higher the mage, the easier it should be ... but every level of spell requires new challenges, and while an 8th level caster may have little trouble with 1st level spells, 4th level spells should be a considerable challenge, and 7th level spells impossible.

I like a base % chance of success.  This is equal to the caster's level above that needed to cast the spell, multiplied by either the caster's wisdom or intelligence.  Thus, a 4th level mage with a 17 intelligence would have a 51% success chance to create a 1st level scroll, and a 17% chance to create a 2nd level scroll.  Mage and Illusionist cantrips are considered zero-level for the purpose of this calculation.

To have any real chance of scroll creation, the caster would need to obtain three rare books - none of them unique, but somewhat difficult to find.  They would be large, 14 in. high and 10 in. wide, with around 480 pages, costing upwards of 1,000 g.p.  They would be massive tomes, which would be made of delicate parchment, sensitive to damp and dryness, and therefore difficult to transport.  I conceived of these books last night, and I think they would begin a whole list of books I'd like to eventually add to my Printer's equipment list.  The rarity would mean that the three books were hard to find, and once found, hard to replace.  The titles would be,

Tobin's Materials & Measures - including the list of what was needed, how to recognize good material from bad, and what considerations must be noted depending on the time of year and location of the effort.  Thus, without this book, a caster would likely choose the wrong toad's liver for the spell, or pick a sparrow's wing that had lost its potency, for failing to know what is it that makes a good pick.

Six Degrees of Ink: A Master Mixer's Manual - there's more to using magical ink in a scroll than purchasing a bottle at the apothecary's.  Inks must be mixed and managed according to precise specifications, depending on the spell and the quality of paper - which itself can ruin a good scroll.  Here are the rules to choosing how to remix ink in order to precisely create the results a caster desires.

Leomund's Incantations of the Written Word: Unexpigated - a thousand symbols, chants, guidelines and methodologies for infusing the spoken word into permanent written form, in order to freeze magic so that any able to verbalize the written word thereafter can release it into the world.  If the spell is to work when anyone reads it, there must be a code that is followed, or the power of the spell is locked into the word so that it cannot be released.

A caster could create scrolls without the above books, but for calculating success the caster's intelligence or wisdom is reduced 4 points for every book not possessed.  Thus, a mage with a 17 intelligence who possesed only Leomund's Incantations would have a 9% chance per level of success.  Still possible, but the difficulty of remembering so many details would make the matter less likely.

This brings us to the ingredients, and the means to manage the ingredients.  I don't insist on mages using "material components" in casting spells ... but said components are convenient for scroll creation.  I have included some spell components in my Apothecaries' list, pricing the described items in the Player's handbook.  Every material component that was to be used would require a metal cage for living items, a bowl for liquids (wooden if harmless to consume, metal if otherwise) and a glass container for anything either animal, vegetable or mineral.  A glass rod would also be required for each item, a mortar and pestle, a brazier, chalk and paint for drawing symbols (one oz. per spell level), a blank scroll of parchment 12 in. wide and 14 in. long (per spell level), plus 2 ounces of magical ink (per spell level).

I may add more to this at a later time.  For now it seems an adequate description.

The actual writing of the scroll will require 1 week per spell level, which must be accomplished in a completely quiet and undisturbed place, indoors, where there is both natural light and continued provided light (a candle or torch or lantern per spell level must be kept burning continuously).  The caster cannot pause to cast other spells during this time, nor can he or she take time to investigate other matters, leaving the scroll creation to wait.  Others must be on hand to keep candles or otherwise lit and provide food, and an apprentice must be on hand to keep materials clean and rid the laboratory of the smallest vermin that might ruin the creation.  Excessive noise, such as a battle or even someone shouting, increases the chance of failure by 1% per round of distraction.

Only when all this has been managed is the chance for success rolled ... and if it fails, all material components, paper and ink have been ruined.