Spes Magna Games

Man Day Adventures kicked off our new campaign yesterday. You can read the growing amount of campaign information here. We’re using Stars Without Number with some story-telling roleplaying game tweaks. (Check out my house rules to find examples.)

You may notice that Amazing Future Tales doesn’t have anything to do with my under-development Tiamat’s Throne. My players vetoed science fantasy as a genre, preferring more straightfoward science fiction. That’s cool. It’s not like I can’t use a lot of what’ll get developed for the new campaign in Tiamat’s Throne.

Anyway, the first session was a short one. We were missing two players, and another had to leave early. Even still, we got characters created. Specifically, each player created four 0-level characters. Our first adventure is “The Jungle That Hates”, a character-funnel scenario.

Gary ended up with one of his characters, Jack Owen, being the supervisor at Camp Goodall. I handed him the personnel roster and told him to conduct the morning agenda. Gary got a bit flummoxed by the sudden responsibility of spinning out story elements, so Jack Owen passed the buck to Vanessa Amaro (played by Terry).

Vanessa assigned jobs for the day, dividing up the 16 characters into four teams (except for Wes’s Dave Thomas, who stayed in camp). We then jumped to the first group investigating Mandolarian shag ferns so that we could see how the skill check mechanic works. Wes wanted to see how the combat mechanic works, so we shifted to the second team at the henhouse habitat to have Terry’s A.J. Johnson get jumped by a haggard lunatic.

After that, we had to break for the day. Next session is 18 May. If our missing players make it that day, we’ll add eight more 0-level characters to the character roster, and then unleash the ravening hellbeasts.

Characters that survive the funnel get to advance to first level, and then become the core crew of the campaign’s official focus.

Tags: Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne

Several weeks ago, I read a thread on the Paizo messageboards about the scent extraordinary ability. It was started by a poster confused by the assertion that scent isn’t some sort of automatic enemy detection power that operates in a 30-foot radius. The confusion increased when other posters observed that scent is a natural sense, and that natural senses operate according to the Perception skill.

First, let’s take the rules for scent, which are found in at least three different places in the reference document, and consolidate them into one set of rules:

The scent special quality allows a creature to detect approaching enemies, sniff out hidden foes, and track by sense of smell. Creatures with the scent ability can identify familiar odors just as humans do familiar sights.

Creatures with the scent special quality have a +8 bonus on Perception checks made to detect a scent.

As the Perception skill notes (emphasis added), “Perception covers all five senses, including sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.” The skill’s text further clarifies that “Perception is also used to notice fine details in the environment. The DC to notice such details varies depending upon distance, the environment, and how noticeable the detail is.” Thereafter in the rules follows a table with several guidelines. Let’s take those guidelines, and tweak them where necessary to apply to the scent extraordinary ability.

Table: Scent Perception Guidelines
Detail: Perception DC
Notice the stench of rotting garbage: -10
Detect the smell of smoke: 0
Determine if food is spoiled: 5
Identify a common smell: 10*
Detect a creature: 15
Identify an uncommon smell: 20*

Perception Modifiers: DC Modifier
Distance to the source, object, or creature: +1/10 feet
Through a closed door: +5
Through a wall: +10/foot of thickness
Favorable conditions (note 1): -2
Unfavorable conditions (note 1): +2
Terrible conditions (note 2): +5
Creature making the check is distracted: +5
Creature making the check is asleep: +10
Creature or object is odorless: +20

* This assumes the creature making the check has encountered the scent before. Otherwise, the GM is justified in requiring an appropriate Knowledge check.

Note 1: Favorable or unfavorable conditions include wind direction and the amount of background “noise” from competing odors. For example, if the sensing creature is downwind from the target, the favorable condition modifier would apply. If the sensing creature were in a perfumery, the unfavorable condition modifier might apply.

Note 2: Terrible conditions are like unfavorable conditions, but moreso. For example, an overpowering stench covering the area would apply the terrible conditions modifier.

Perception also notes that “the most common [Perception check] is an opposed check versus an opponent’s Stealth check to notice the opponent and avoid being surprised.” This, however, doesn’t seem appropriate when dealing with scent. Stealth’s description at least heavily implies it is limited to avoiding detection via sight and hearing. This prompts a question: How does a creature actively avoid detection by another creature using the scent extraordinary ability? Two skills seem most applicable: Knowledge and Survival. Let’s start with the latter.

Survival deals with “surviving in the wild”. It seems reasonable that this includes the knowing what needs to be done to avoid detection via scent. In most situations, avoiding scent detection is covered under the “hunting and foraging” application of Survival. A survivalist can be more proactive. Given appropriate equipment and 1 minute, the survivalist can make a Survival check. The result is treated as the base DC for scent-based Perception checks. These preparations fade at a rate of -2 DC per hour under normal conditions, but the survivalist can always reapply his scent countermeasures (making a new Survival check to set a new scent-based Perception check DC).

Knowledge skills can also give a survivalist an advantage in that the survivalist can tailor his scent to be more undetectable to a specific type of creature (such as animals or magical beasts). This requires the survivalist to have at least 1 rank in the applicable Knowledge skill, such as Knowledge (nature) for animals or Knowledge (arcana) for magical beasts. The survivalist must make a DC 15 Knowledge check. If successful, he adds +2 to his Survival check to mask his scent, +1 more for every 5 points over 15 he scores.

Now, let’s put all of this together.

Rob, a ranger, and his wolf animal companion Tejas explore a complex of caves and tunnels. The GM knows Rob and Tejas are nearing a cave in which several troglodytes have recently fought and killed an intruding ogre. The trogs pick over the ogre’s corpse while Rob and Tejas approach.

Tejas has the scent extraordinary quality. In this section of the caves, the trogs are downwind of Rob and Tejas as cooler surface air flows down into the warmer caverns. Downwind sets a scent range of 15 feet, but this is tripled to 45 feet due to the trogs’ stench.

The GM rules the base DC is -10 since the trogs’ stench is at least as noxious as rotting garbage. The air currents are not favorable to Tejas, increasing the DC to -8. At 45 feet, the closest range that Tejas can detect the trogs, a further +4 modifier is applied to the DC, yielding a final DC of -4, which is child’s play for the wolf’s keen nose. At a range of 45 feet, Tejas detects the trogs and growls a warning to Rob. At this time, Tejas only knows the scent is within range. If Tejas takes a move action, he can determine the direction of the scent.

Unfortunately for Rob and Tejas, they are also being stalked. A doppelganger has picked up their trail and follows at a range of about 90 feet. The doppleganger is upwind of Tejas, but it doesn’t have a particularly strong odor. Thus, the doppelganger is out of Tejas’s scent range of 60 feet (30 feet doubled for the target being upwind).

As Rob and Tejas approach the trogs, they slow down to move stealthily. The doppelganger is not immediately aware of this, but by the time it’s within 60 feet of Tejas, the adventurer and his wolf are also fairly close to the trogs.

The base DC to detect a creature is 15. A -2 modifier for favorable conditions applies since the doppelganger is upwind, but a +5 modifier for terrible conditions also applies due to the pervasive trog-stink. A range of 60 feet imposes a further +6 modifier, yielding an initial 24 DC. Tejas can probably make this Perception check. If he doesn’t and the doppelganger waits until Rob and Tejas fight the trogs, a further +5 DC modifier for being distracted might be applicable.

Let’s say the doppelganger has ranks in Knowledge (nature) and Survival. It takes time to mask its scent before tracking Rob and Tejas. It gets a 25 on its Survival check and a 20 on its Knowledge (nature) check. This latter check grants a +3 bonus to the Survival check result. In this scenario, instead of a base scent Perception DC of 15, Tejas confronts a base DC of 28, not including modifiers for conditions, range, et cetera. Suddenly, Tejas’s ability to warn Rob of the doppelganger’s presence doesn’t look so promising.

These rules helps define scent’s limitations while at the same time leaving creatures with the scent extraordinary ability an impressive level of awareness of their environment. Allowing Knowledge and Survival to work as scent countermeasures adds new tactical options that reward investment in these skills not only for PCs but also for NPCs and monsters.

Tags: game play, Pathfinder monsters, Pathfinder RPG, scent

It’s been awfully quiet around this site lately. In the real world, however, it’s been one thing after another. Of course, with the school year having begun, I’m back in the classroom. I’m still at Aristoi Classical Academy and still teaching 5th grade, but this year I’m concentrating on English grammar, reading comprehension, literature, and history. Nearly half my students are new to the school, and it’s almost always quite an adjustment for new students. Classical education is not what other public schools tend to do. Since it’s quite an adjustment for many of my students, it’s also been quite an adjustment for me. On top of the challenges that I must help my students face, we’ve also got a ton of new curriculum materials that I have to read and process. I’ve been teaching since 1996, and I don’t think I’ve ever been this busy as a teacher.

Speaking of school, my son Giant Boy has started high school. The local public school is not up to our standards. The private schools are too expensive (even with tuition assistance). Over the summer, while my wife Katrina and I pondered what to do, Katrina discovered that our parish runs a homeschooling program. Color me surprised. We checked it out, and it’s a great fit to what Giant Boy needs. One day a week, he attends school. The teachers who volunteer for the program include tenured professors, retired teachers, and grad students. One of those tenured professors taught a class on Virgil I took when I was in college. The teachers give the students agendas for a week’s worth of reading and work, and there is a high degree of rigor in what they’re expected to do. It’s not easy for any of us, especially since my wife and I only have homeschooling time in the evenings and on the weekends, but Giant Boy is doing well. Best of all, he’s getting to take some classes that really target his interests in history and theology.

Before Giant Boy started this program, I was working with him on biology, Oedipus Rex, and part of Will Eisner’s now-published course materials for graphic storytelling. We really need to get back to these classes. I’m shooting for starting these back up after New Year’s. Of course, that means more work for me. Busy, busy.

Also, I’m still running the “We’re Not in Arkansas Anymore!” campaign for my Man-Day group. We’ve not been meeting as regularly as normal, however. Seems like the busy-bug has bitten more than just me. I’m a session or two behind on updating the campaign log. That another item on my Get Done List.

To top everything off, I guess I need to explain the picture to the right. Last Sunday, 9 October, on the way home from Mass, I had a myocardial infarction. The scariest part of the entire ordeal was the needles. I’m absolutely terrified of needles. The chest pains? Unpleasant but bearable. The shortness of breath? Irritating, certainly, but not that bad. Having an IV put into my arm? That was enough to reduce me to frightened sobs. The oddest part of the experience was the fact that the cardiologists (and we have some of the best cardiologists in the world here in Houston) couldn’t find any cause for the heart attack. I have zero risk factors: no smoking, no drug abuse, no significant family history, no high blood pressure, no arterial blockages, no irregular heartbeat, et cetera. I guess I’m just lucky.

I’m out of the hospital now. I was back at work after missing only one day (since Columbus Day was a holiday to begin with). I’m on a daily regimen of some pretty standard meds, plus I get to carry nitroglycerin just in case the chest pains return (or I need to blow up something small).

In other words, to make a long story short, I’ve not gotten any Spes Magna writing done lately. With luck, and a little creative time management, that should change over the next few weeks. Dodeca-Weather is still at the top of my Get Done List. I’ve got four pages of notes from playtesters and proofreaders to consider before the final PDF gets released. I’d like to say it’s going to get done by the end of the month. Who knows? Maybe it will.

Tags: Heart Attack

I wrote this piece for Game Geek 16, now available at the previous link for free.

In Game Geek 10, I talked about the importance of tailoring adventure scenarios to the player character’s strengths. My starting point was the ranger’s favored enemy class feature. The basic claim: If a ranger has undead as a favored enemy, then that ranger needs to encounter undead monsters often.

In my current We’re Not in Arkansas Anymore! campaign, one of my players runs Rob Braden, a former baseball player turned ranger whose favored enemy is fey creatures. Rob’s player Wes expressed concern that whatever favored enemy he picked would turn into that type of creature Rob would never bump into again. I assured Wes that would not be the case, and fey enemies continue to play a major role in the campaign’s events.

Most recently, the PCs have been investigating a criminal gang’s attempts to fix the upcoming first annual baseball tournament in Harvest, the region’s primary agricultural community. As part of their investigations, Rob and his allies have discovered that the renegade elves of the Wild Hunt are involved. At the same time, I introduced the Dark Taint into the campaign lore.

The Wild Hunt

My campaign has a few god-like beings known as Entities. One of these entities is the Wild Hunt, a chaotic neutral being whose followers can be chaotic neutral, chaotic good, or chaotic evil. The Wild Hunt’s domains are Animal, Strength, Travel, and War, and the Wild Hunt is the main entity worshiped by elves in the region.

Most elves are closer to the chaotic neutral and chaotic good spectrum of alignments, and the Wild Hunt’s influence among them can be volatile but is seldom malevolent. My campaign’s elves aren’t sophisticated, effete tree dwellers. Instead, they are a warrior people of strong passions ruled by codes of personal honor and divided into dozens of competing clans, each led by their own elfking and elfqueen. These elves value strength of arms, the ability to stalk and catch prey, and the comraderie of their elfsovereigns’s drinking hall.

The chaotic evil aspect of the Wild Hunt is different. Those who follow this aspect revel in strong passions but reject personal codes of honor. Instead, they see all of life as a battle to survive. The strong prove their worthiness by hunting the weak. Whatever happens is the will of the Wild Hunt. Those destined to prevail survive. Those not destined to prevail die.

The consequences for surviving on the chaotic evil side of the Wild Hunt are more than just spiritual and moral depravity. The monstrous acts also warp the adherent’s flesh and mind. Elves that serve the Wild Hunt’s chaotic evil aspect often become subject to the Dark Taint.

The Dark Taint & Quick Templates

The changes associated with the Dark Taint eventually lead to one of two transformations. Either the elf becomes a dark elf, or else he becomes a grimlock. In my campaign, both dark elves and grimlocks are fey creatures and degenerate forms of the Wild Hunt’s chaotic evil elven followers. Unless noted otherwise, transformations are cumulative.

Initial Stage Dark Taint – Dark Elf Transformation
An elf on the road to becoming a dark elf first passes through a first stage transformation. The elf’s appearance changes slightly. His flesh darkens. His hair become lighter. His eye color fades. Elves in the first stage of the dark elf transformation have the following modifications:

* Ability Scores: -2 Int, +2 Cha.
* Senses: Lose low-light vision. Add darkvision 60 ft.
* Spell-Like Abilities: The elf can cast dancing lights once per day, using his total character level as his caster level.
* Special Attacks: The elf gains the Poison Use special ability. This lets the elf use of poison without risk accidentally poisoning himself.
* Weakness: The elf suffers from light sensitivity.

Final Stage Dark Taint – Dark Elf Transformation
An elf that survives with the Wild Hunt’s chaotic evil aspect long enough becomes a full-blow dark elf. Apply the following modifications:

* CR: Increase CR +1.
* Type: The elf’s type becomes fey (elf).
* Ability Scores: +2 Dex.
* Senses: Increase darkvision to 120 ft.
* Defensive Abilities: The elf gains DR 3/cold iron. He also gains Spell Resistance equal to 6 plus his class levels.
* Spell-Like Abilities: A dark elf can cast dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire each once per day, using his total character level as his caster level.
* Weakness: The elf no longer has light sensitivity. Instead, he suffers from light blindness.
* Lost Racial Trait: The elf no longer has the Elven Magic racial trait.

Not all elves who acquire the Dark Taint become dark elves. Some become grimlocks. These two templates represent this gradual transformation.

Initial Stage Dark Taint – Grimlock Transformation
The elf becomes more muscular. His facial features become more bestial, and his eyelids grow thicker, turning his eyes into squinty slits. Apply these modifications:

* Ability Scores: +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Cha.
* Senses: The elf loses low-light vision. He gains blindsense 40 ft. and scent.
* Tough Flesh: The elf gains a +2 natural armor bonus.
* Lost Racial Traits: The elf no longer has the Elven Magic and Keen Senses racial traits.

Final Stage Dark Taint – Grimlock Transformation
The elf’s transformation into bestial grimlock is complete. His eyelids have grown shut, and the eyes behind them have atrophied. He becomes strongly muscled and monstrous in both appearance and appetites.

* CR: Increase CR +1.
* Type: The elf’s type becomes fey (elf).
* Ability Scores: +2 Str, -2 Int, -2 Cha.
* Senses: The elf gains a grimlock’s heightened nonvisual senses. Lose blindsense 40 ft., and gain blindsight 40 ft.
* Defensive Abilities: The elf gains DR 3/cold iron. The elf also gains immunity to gaze attacks, visual effects, illusions, and other attack forms that rely on sight.
* Racial Hit Die: The elf gains one racial HD (1d6). He acquires skill points equal 6 + Int modifier. The following are class skills for the racial Hit Die: Acrobatics, Bluff, Climb, Escape Artist, Perception, Sense Motive, Stealth, and Swim. Also, add Will +2 to base saving throws.
* Tougher Flesh: Increase the natural armor bonus to +4.
* Lost Racial Traits: The elf loses the Elven Immunities racial trait.

Tags: drow, Game Geek

Here’s an old classic I restatted for Pathfinder:

These small, slender, extremely fast-moving creatures are said to be a race of brownies who dabbled in magic and mysteries better left alone. Thus, legend relates, the little folk were changed into evil creatures of great maliciousness towards humans, demihumans, and other little people. They dwell in dark woodlands and wild, evil areas.

Quicklings speak several languages, although at a high pitch and too quickly to be easily understood. The quickling race is short-lived because of their accelerated rate of motion. Mature at about 1 or 2 years of age, quicklings die between 12 and 15 years of age.

Quickling
CR 2; XP 600
CE Small fey
Init +8; Senses low-light vision; Perception +1

DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 15, flat-footed 10 (+4 Dex, +1 dodge); Mobility
hp 11 (2d6+4)
Fort +2, Ref +7, Will +4; +8 racial bonus vs. spells and spell-like abilities
DR 3/cold iron

OFFENSE
Speed 80 ft.
Melee dagger +6 (1d3-1/19-20), or
Ranged dart +6 (1d3-1, 20 ft. range increment)
Special Attacks really fast
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd)
At will – animal trance (DC 13), daze monster (DC 13), levitate, shatter (DC 13), soften earth and stone, ventriloquism (DC 12)

STATISTICS
Str 8, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 15, Wis 12, Cha 13
Base Atk +1; CMB -1; CMD 14
Feats Dodge (B), Improved Initiative (B), Mobility (B), Weapon Finesse
Skills Acrobatics +9 (+29 when jumping), Bluff +6, Escape Artist +9, Knowledge (nature) +7, Perception +6, Sleight of Hand +9, Stealth +13, Use Magic Device +6
Languages Aklo, Common, Sylvan
SQ magic resistance, natural invisibility, quicker than the eye

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Magic Resistance (Su): Quicklings are notoriously difficult to affect with spells and spell-like abilities. They enjoy a +8 racial bonus on saving throws against such effects.

Natural Invisibility (Su): When taking no more than a 5-foot step in natural terrain, a quickling enjoys invisibility (as the spell).

Quicker Than the Eye (Su): When moving, a quickling appears to be little more than a blur. Foes suffer a 20% miss chance to strike a quickling any round that is moves more than a 5-foot step.

Really Fast (Su): A quickling can take an extra standard or move action each round, even when surprised.

ECOLOGY
Environment any forest
Organization solitary, pair, or group (4-16 plus 1 1st-level quickling or 1 3rd-level quickling and 2 2nd-level quicklings if 11+)
Treasure standard

Tags: Fey