Spes Magna Games

First, an announcement: A to Z is a collection of Spes Magna Games blogposts written during the April 2012 A to Z blogging challenge. All 26 blogposts have been subjected to revisions, edits, and other improvements. The end result is a 40-plus-page, printer-friendly PDF featuring fluff and crunch such as:

* Alternate rules for channeling energy, energy drain, exploding dice, jumping, monks, outsiders, and x-ray vision
* Bromantic poetry
* GM advice about how to motivate your players to be more invested in your game
* Luck, a new ability score
* New archetypes, one each for the magus and the rogue
* NPC villains such as an awakened psionic gorilla

All of this and more can be yours for less than a cup of gourmet coffee at both DriveThruRPG and Paizo.com.

Next, a big turtle!

The methoataske is a truly enormous ambush predator, very much resembling an alligator snapping turtle larger than a house. It tends to strike from camouflage, lunging forward to swallow its prey whole. If harrassed after gulping down a victim, a methoataske is likely to retreat to deeper water.

Methoataske
CR 13; XP 25,600
N Colossal animal
Init +4; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +32

DEFENSE
AC 26, touch 2, flat-footed 26 (+24 natural, –8 size)
hp 319 (22d8+220)
Fort +20, Ref +11, Will +12

OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft.
Melee bite +24 (4d8+22 plus grab)
Space 30 ft.; Reach 20 ft.
Special Attacks swallow whole (4d6+22 bludgeoning, AC 26, 62 hp)

STATISTICS
Str 40, Dex 10, Con 29, Int 1, Wis 17, Cha 10
Base Atk +16; CMB +39 (+43 grapple); CMD 49 (53 vs. trip)
Feats Blind-Fight, Improved Blind-Fight, Improved Initiative, Improved Iron Will, Iron Will, Lunge, Skill Focus (Perception), Toughness, Weapon Focus (bite)
Skills Perception +32, Swim +29; Racial Modifiers +8 Swim
SQ armored stomach, camouflage, hold breath, shell

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Camouflage (Ex): The rough shell of a methoataske is particularly well adapted to camouflage the creature in its native environment. Creatures must succeed on a DC 28 Perception check to notice an unmoving methoataske. Anyone with ranks in Survival or Knowledge (nature) can use one of those skills instead of Perception to notice the methoataske.

Armored Stomach (Ex): A methoataske’s body is difficult to cut through—its stomach gains a +4 bonus to its AC and has double the normal hit points when determining the success of a creature attempting to cut its way free.

Shell (Ex): As a move action, a methoataske can pull its extremities and head into its shell. It cannot move or attack as long as it remains in this state, but its armor bonus from natural armor increases by +4 as long as it does.

ECOLOGY
Environment temperate or warm water or shore
Organization solitary or pair
Treasure none

Tags: Pathfinder monsters

Do you want a small slice of fame? How about a small slice of fame with a side of free PDF? If so, I need playtesters/proofreaders for three PDFs:

Dodeca Decor: In this PDF there are many tables, 12 of which have more than 20 different dungeon details each. Most of the dungeon details don’t come with any specific game effect. They’re merely decorative or inspirational. In the former case, a merely decorative element may inspire your players into fits of speculation and investigation that lead nowhere. In the latter case, you the GM may have one of those great aha! moments and what started as merely decorative may become functional or even dangerous.

The Swamp Isle of the Croaking Priestess: This short adventure pits the PCs against a boggard army led by the Croaking Priestess herself. The PDF includes full stats for the Croaking Priestess, links to d20pfsrd for quick rules references, tips for running the adventure, and a cross-section map of the isle. Let the blood flow, and don’t fall off your lilypad!

A to Z: All 26 of my A to Z Challenge blogposts are collected in one volume. Edited, revised, and improved, these blogposts feature foes for your PCs to fight, alternate rules, two archetypes, as well as advice, wit, and wisdom.

All playtesters/proofreaders get credit on the table of contents page and a free copy of the completed PDF. If you’re interested in helping, please email me at mark at spesmagna dot com.

Dodeca Weather helps restore the noble d12 to a position of respectability and importance by making it the randomizer that determines your campaign’s weather from day to day.

This printer-friendly, 20-page PDF presents a plethora of tables that help GMs determine daily weather by taking into account season, climate, altitude, and terrain. Dodeca Weather consolidates and expands weather rules in one location. It also includes a reproducible weather worksheet to help organize weather in weekly blocks.

And you get it all for less than $1.00.

For those of you who prefer DriveThruRPG, here’s the link.

Tags: Pathfinder RPG, weather

Due to a flood of requests (Well, really three of them.), I’ve started to compile all 26 A to Z blogposts into a single PDF that will at least be distributed for free to Quid Novi? subscribers. I’m shooting for a release date of no later than 31 May.

I’m also about ready to start would should be the last round of edits for Dodeca Weather, a new PDF compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that will add more detail to your campaign’s meteorological verisimilitude. This product is months overdue, and I really can’t blame all of that delay on my heart attack. I’ve just been in too much of a funk, which is not a good thing. (While being in a funk is bad, funk music is good, and certain ways of being funky can also be good. What a strange world we live in!)

I also nearly finished with Dodeca Decor, a smaller PDF that includes hundreds of decorating tips for your dungeons.

If I stay on track, both of these should be available to the gaming public by the end of May.

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