Spes Magna Games

Blitzkringler
Hit Dice: 4
Armor Class: 4 [15] (8 [11] unarmored)
Attacks: Two-handed sword (1d10 plus 1 point of lightning damage)
Saving Throw: 13
Special: Immune to cold & lightning
Move: 12
Alignment: Lawful
Challenge Level/XP: 5/240

Blitzkringlers are a mysterious race of lawful warriors who inhabit arctic regions. When dealing with those who are nice, blitzkringlers act benevolently. Against those who are naughty, blitzkringlers can be terrible.

The red-and-white suits of fur and leather worn by blitzkringlers are equal to chain armor. Blitzkringlers prefer to fight with two-handed swords. Any metal weapon wielded by a blitzkringler inflicts an extra point of lightning damage with a successful hit.

Tags: monsters, Swords & Wizardry

I’m gearing up for a new year of Quid Novi?, my (allegedly monthly) newsletter. This is the fourth year I’ve been writing this gaming resource, and I hope to do a better job with it in 2013 than I did in 2012. The focus for Quid Novi? is shifting away from Pathfinder/d20 System to old school RPG clones with special emphasis on Stars Without Number and Swords & Wizardry.

Quid Novi? will feature an assortment of, well, features, including:

* Awful Afflictions: New curses, diseases, and poisons to torture your players’ characters.
* Bazaar of the Bizarre: New items to augment your villains and reward victorious heroes.
* Chance Encounter: New monsters to claw/claw/bite those who try to steal their stuff.
* Treacherous Terrain: New terrains and traps to befuddle your players’ characters.
* Words of Magic: New spells for casters of all classes.
* Recommended Reading: New links to some of the best RPG blogposts I can find.

Subscribers also get a 33% discount on all Spes Magna Games PDFs purchased at Paizo.com. Free subscriptions to Quid Novi? can be processed at this link.

Empathy
Empaths are often viewed with mistrust. Many believe they secretly manipulate the emotions and actions of populations. That Imperial agencies often employ empaths to assist in various functions, including those of the police state, doesn’t help improve empaths’ reputations. A subject who makes a successful Mental Effect saving throw against empathic intrusion becomes immune to that level of empathy for 24 hours, albeit not to other empathic powers of different levels.

Passive Empathy (Level 1)
The empath continually detects emotional “background noise” in a way analogous to how the human ear continually detects ambient sounds. The empath’s sensitivity may permit him to perceive things that others relying on conventional senses would miss. At the GM’s discretion, an empath may be permitted to make a relevant skill check (such as Perception or Tactics to detect an ambush) with a +2 bonus. If the empath chooses not to spend the activation cost after this power triggers, the sense goes numb for the next 24 hours.

Active Empathy (Level 2)
The empath may determine the current emotions, including emotions the target is attempting to suppress. The empath may also project his emotions, including false emotions, into the mind of the target. The target may make a Mental Effect saving throw to prevent empathic projection. On a successful save, the empath can only read current, surface emotions.

Empathic Succor (Level 3)
The empath transfers the target’s stress, fatigue, and wounds to himself with a touch. Each activation heals 2d4 hit points in the target, plus the target’s Constitution modifier. A minimum of 1 hit point is always healed, and the empath cannot give the subject more hit points that his normal maximum. The empath suffers damage equal to half the amount healed to the target, minus the empath’s Constitution modifier. The empath suffers a minimum of 1 hit point damage regardless. Use of this power adds 1 System Strain point to the target.

Limbic Assault (Level 4)
The empath taps into the target’s amygdaloid nucleus and triggers the flight or fight response. If the subject fails a Mental Effect saving throw, he acts as if confronted by a life-and-death peril for 1d4 rounds. The empath cannot control the specific form the target’s response will take.

Empathic Tracking (Level 5)
The empath can gradually expand the radius of his passive empathy in order to locate a target subjected to the empath’s activate empathy within the past psychic’s empathy discipline level in hours. The initial radius equals 10 yards, and the radius doubles each minute of concentration (to a maximum radius of 5,120 yard after 10 rounds of concentration). The target is permitted a Mental Effect saving throw to avoid detection. If detected, the empath knows the approximate direction and distance to the target for the next 1d4 hours.

Emotional Calm (Level 6)
The empath radiates calmness and confidence in a radius equal to 5 feet per empathy discipline level. Everyone within the radius enjoys a +1 bonus to skill checks and attack rolls and a +2 bonus to saving throws against effects that affect the emotions. Emotional calm persists so long as the empath concentrates, an activity which precludes most other actions.

Empathic Projection (Level 7)
The empath can project a single emotion into the target’s mind, causing the target to be overwhelmed by the emotion and to act accordingly. While the empath can choose the emotion to project, he cannot control the target’s specific reaction, which will depend on the target’s experiences, psychology, et cetera. The projection lasts for 2d4 rounds. A successful Mental Effect saving throw by the target resists this power.

Transempathic Succor (Level 8)
The empath transfers stress, fatigue, and wounds from one or more targets to one or more targets, all of whom must be touching. Each activation heals 4d4 hit points in the targets, plus the targets’ Constitution modifiers (applied individually). A minimum of 1 hit point is always healed, and the empath cannot give a subject more hit points that his normal maximum. The damage healed to the targets based on the dice roll is distributed equally among the willing recipients participating in the transempathic succor. Each participant subtracts his Constitution modifier from this damage, but each participant suffers a minimum of 1 hit point damage regardless. Use of this power adds 3 System Strain points to the each healed target.

Moral Dissolution (Level 9)
The empath forces his way into the emotional centers of the target’s psyche and wreaks horrific damage. If the target fails a mental saving throw, he becomes an emotionless shell incapable of meaningful action. The target is permitted a new Mental Saving throw every 1d4 days to overcome the condition. Until he recovers, the victim is so overwhelmed by ennui that he cares for nothing, not even for satisfying his most basic desires for nourishment. This power can be used on a given target only once per 24 hours.

Tags: Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne

The badlands world of Rigel presents several challenges to its population. The absence of indigenous life above the microbial level means that food must be either imported from off-world or grown locally from non-native stocks.

Unfortunately, Rigel’s soil is slightly toxic. Elaborate cleansing and filtration systems are necessary to provide potable water and arable land. Rigelian social groups struggle for control of these resources; the losers get a small share to prevent open warfare. The needed resources have become the foundation of the Rigelian monetary system.

Tags: Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne

For Tiamat’s Throne, I want to accomplish three things:

1. Create an interesting sandbox setting for sci-fi/fantasy gaming.

2. Increase the amount of narrative control the players have over in-game events.

3. Reduce the prevalence of binary action resolution.

I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on number one. The handles for numbers two and three, however, were proving rather slippery. I want something that can be attached to Stars Without Number (SWN) with a minimum of disruption to the core rules.

In other words, the narrative control elements need to be like a prepositional phrase in a sentence. You can remove a prepositional phrase from a sentence and still have a sentence. Whatever I add for narrative control needs to be the sort of thing that can be left out of the game completely without impacting playability. This way, a gaming group that doesn’t like changing the scope of narrative control can still use SWN and Tiamat’s Throne without having to rewrite the rules.

Dungeon World (DW) appears to provide the means by which I can accomplish goals two and three in one fell swoop. Let’s look at how this might work with combat.

Success, but…!

In DW, failure within a certain range below the target number isn’t necessarily a failure. (I’m thinking the range will be within 3 points of the target number for combat rolls.) Let’s call this kind of failure a qualified success. When a qualified success occurs, the player should have a choice between at least two options, one of which grants a some degree of success coupled with a negative consequence. The exact nature of the qualified success depends on the player’s narrative input, and it starts with in-game narration of the desired action. For example:

GM: While you’re in the corner trying to open the door into the abandoned station, you hear a hiss just in time to turn and see a Denebian ripper lunging out of the mist, claws extended and jaw snapping.

Player: Ag! I duck out of the way, trying to get behind the beast while blazing away with my automag.

GM: Sounds good. Roll away. Three defense checks versus 25 and one attack roll versus AC 5.

Player: Three! Yipes! *dice clatter* Defense is 25, 22, and 7. Crap. Attack is a 12, which means I hit AC 8, even with burst fire.

GM: You easily evade the first attack. The other two, not so much. You can get behind the beast, but you’ll get raked by a claw in the process, or you can stay in front of it but avoid the claws entirely.

Player: Let’s get behind it. I don’t want to be pinned into the corner.

GM: Alright. You also get bit. The ripper’s claws and fangs tear through your flesh as you dive around it. *dice clatter* Take 7 points of damage. The beast now has its back to you. The impact and injury spoils your aim, but your attack roll is a qualified success. Thoughts?

Player: How about I still hit, but I slip and end up on my back?

GM: Sounds fair. The bullets thud into the ripper’s hide as your rush by. Unfortunately, you only make it about fifteen feet before you lose your footing on the icy ground.

Considerations

As with DW, this sort of action resolution pretty much removes many considerations related to initiative and tactical movement from the game. The same idea can also be applied to saving throws and skill checks, but the qualified success range for skill checks probably needs to be more narrow since skill checks are based on 2d6 rather than 1d20.

More thoughts on this topic will be forthcoming.

Tags: game play, Stars Without Number, Tiamat's Throne