Spes Magna Games

Since A Medieval Holiday is done and selling well at Paizo.com and at DriveThruRPG, I’ve been working my next PDF: Masters of Disguise. This new PDF’s main feature is the masque, a base class focused on deceit and disguise with four levels of spells. I’ve sent version 2 to my playtesters and received even more insightful feedback. I’m certain the masque is going to be an excellent base class once all the fine-tuning is completed.

But the masque isn’t all there will be. Masters of Disguise will also include useful crunch such as:

* Expanded uses for Diplomacy, Disguise, Linguistics, and Use Magic Device.
* More feats.
* More rogue talents.
* Equipment, both mundane and magic.
* A shapechanger bloodline for sorcerers.
* A disguise subdomain for clerics.
* And more!

Here’s an excerpt of the expanded rules for Diplomacy:

Diplomacy
Diplomacy serves many functions. A diplomatic character can help disarm conflicts and schmooze his way through potentially tricky situations. He can also keep abreast of the what’s going, using his gift of gab to gather useful information. But what if the character wants to put out bogus intelligence in order to mislead others?

Check: If you want to mislead those who trying to gather information about you, your Diplomacy check is opposed by your foe’s Diplomacy check. If you succeed, you misdirect your foe’s inquiries. This is typically an ongoing process with new opposed checks required each day.

You can also use Diplomacy for rumor-mongering in order to spread false information. This can make it more difficult for someone to interact favorably with other NPCs, applying penalties to their Charisma checks or other social skills. In order to rumor-monger, make a Diplomacy check opposed by the NPC’s Sense Motive check. If you succeed, the target of your rumor-mongering suffers a -2 penalty on interaction checks with that NPC for the next week.

Action: Using Diplomacy to mislead an information gatherer requires 1d4 hours of work, sowing bogus intelligence to informers. Rumor-mongering requires 1 minute of continuous interaction.

Try Again: You can retry Diplomacy checks made to spread false information and rumor-monger.

Special: Feats, spells, et cetera that modify Diplomacy apply to misleading and rumor-mongering attempts.

Masters of Disguise should be available in January 2011.

My newest PDF, A Medieval Holiday, is available at both DriveThruRPG and at Paizo.com for a mere $1.02 US. This 17-page, printer-friendly PDF offers party etiquette advice, decorating tips, menu suggestions, and recipes geared toward a pseudo-medieval banquet held in your very own home. It also contains the Pathfinder-compatible trencherman prestige class, featuring awesome class features such as Chug! Chug! and Gourmand.

I’ve also been bitten by the spell creation bug. Symptoms include a desire to create one new spell per level for each casting class. So far I’ve completed levels 0 through 4 for bards and level 1 for rangers. Here’s a sample:

Accelerando
School transmutation; Level bard 1
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one creature/level, no two of which can be more than 30 ft. apart
Duration Concentration (up to 2 rounds + 1 round/level)
Saving Throw Fortitude negates (harmless); Spell Resistance yes (harmless)

Targets affected by accelerando enjoy a gradual increase in base land speed. On your turn each round the spell is in effect, affected creatures have their base land speed increased by 10 feet, to a maximum increase of 30 feet. This adjustment is treated as an enhancement bonus. There is no effect on other modes of movement, such as burrow, climb, fly, or swim. As with any effect that increases your speed, this spell affects your jumping distance (see the Acrobatics skill).

Tags: Holidays, recipes

I’m still working on A Medieval Holiday, a PDF that includes party hosting advice, decorating tips, recipes, and a Pathfinder prestige class. Here’s an excerpt from the Instructions for the Cooke section to further whet the appetite:

Pears in Wine & Spices

Category: Dessert.

Ingredients
4 pears, sliced
3 cups sweet red wine*
1 tbs. cinnamon
1 tbs. sugar
1 tsp. ginger
2 tbs. vinegar
few threads saffron

Instructions
1. Boil pears until they just become tender. Drain well.

2. In a separate pot, bring wine and cinnamon to a boil. Stir well throughout.

3. Let the wine-and-cinnamon mixture cool, and then strain to remove any grit, sediment, and clumps.

4. Return wine-and-cinnamon mixture to pot and bring back to a boil. Add sugar, ginger, saffron, and vinegar. Stir until spices are dissolved.

5. Add pears to wine-and-spices mixture. Cook for several minutes until the pears soften slightly and change color.

6. Serve hot or cold. I think they’re better hot, but that’s just me.

* For information about sweet red wines, visit this site. Do not use cooking wine for any recipe. Cooking wines are abominations. Wine left over in the bottle should be consumed by the chef and/or served with dinner.

Tags: Food, Holidays

One of my current projects is Scyld Heim, a campaign book that hopes to emulate a pseudo Viking/Dark Ages setting. In such a setting, a character’s ancestry is an important part of who he is and what he can accomplish. To reflect this importance of a character’s ancestry, I’m working on rules for lineage. The following is an excerpt of the current draft of these rules.

New Ability Score: Lineage

Lineage represents the heroic accomplishments of a player character’s ancestors. These deeds reverberate across time, affecting a character’s fortune. Of course, this assumes the character has a positive Lineage modifier. Characters with a +0 Lineage modifier have no significant ancestral achievements, while characters with a negative Lineage modifier labor under the burden of a blighted family tree.

Effects of Positive Lineage

Lineage potentially affects a single attack roll, combat maneuver check, saving throw, skill check, or ability check. Before making any of the aforementioned rolls, a player may decide to add his Lineage modifier to the d20 roll.

Each time a player decides to add his Lineage modifier to a die roll, his character’s Lineage modifier temporarily reduces by one point (minimum +0).

Effects of Negative Lineage

A character with a negative Lineage modifier is affected differently. Before an attack roll, combat maneuver check, saving throw, skill check, or ability check, the DM may decide to apply a character’s negative Lineage modifier to that single d20 roll.

Each time the DM applies a character’s negative Lineage modifier to a die roll, that character’s Lineage modifier temporarily increases by one point (maximum +0).

Recovering Lineage Modifier

A character’s Lineage modifier resets to its original value after a 10-Minute Rest Period, but only for the cost of one honor point. Otherwise, a character’s Lineage modifier resets once per day.

First, some news intended to make me a little bit of money. Ars Metamagica is available at DriveThruRPG for $1.50 US. Here’s my brief sales pitch:

Underwhelmed by metamagic feats? Wish your casters had more flexibility when modifying their spells? Then get Ars Metamagica today.

This 13-page, printer-friendly PDF describes an alternate metamagic system that replaces metamagic feats with a metamagic check mechanic. Spellcasters daily select a palette of metamagic arts with which to modify their spells. Whether a prepared caster or a spontaneous caster, the spell-slinger makes a metamagic check at casting time to successfully reshape the magical energies. Success means greater customization of spells, but failure risks magical feedback. Also included are these:

* Specific recommendations about modifying class features, spells, and other rules impacted by Ars Metamagica.
* Five new feats that let casters dig deeper into the metamagic arts.
* Two new traits for casters with an affinity for the metamagic arts.
* A new type of metamagic rod that works with rather than replaces the metamagic system.

On the homefront, a year of underemployment and unemployment came to end on 9 August. I’ve been hired as the library coordinator and part-time physical education teacher at Aristoi Classical Academy. This isn’t quite the job I was wanting. I’m much better teaching history or literature. Still, there are benefits that cannot be ignored. The princpal, who I’ve worked for before, is top notch. I’ve not met anyone who understands classical education for children better than Mr. Johnson. Also, my kids are enrolled now, which got them out of the achievement-challenged public school we suffered through last year. Lastly, I have a job. Employment beats unemployment.

Yesterday, the family and I trundled over to the dollar theater. (It’s really a buck-fifty theater, but why quibble?) We watched the homage to the original Karate Kid. Surprisingly more affecting than I anticipated, but I ought not have been caught flat-footed. I’ve maintained for years that Jackie Chan is a fine dramatic actor, albeit finding examples of these talents is harder since he overwhelmingly favors action-comedies. Best of all, it wasn’t a remake of the original so much as a re-imagining. Also DVRed Shane and High Plains Drifter for the family to watch. Two very different but excellent westerns riffing the theme of the mysterious drifter facing injustice.

But back to writing.

I’ve done some more writing for Game Geek. The most recent issue includes me opining about the virtues of in media res as a storytelling device in adventure design. My thoughts about how only substandard DMs nerf character abilities in order to make situations more challenging are likely to show up in October’s issue.

Worked a bit on Quid Novi? XVII. I’m off-schedule with Quid Novi? due to adjusting to the new job, but issue 17 will hit subscriber in-boxes this coming Sunday, 12 September. The upcoming issue will include a Chance Encounter, a Five-Room One-Shot (probably inspired by a favorite Jonny Quest episode, and some more Recommended Reading.

Well, that’s it for now. Good gaming!