Spes Magna Games

Over in the OSR Google group, Iacopo Maffi suggested folks create an OSR Christmas calendar. He also suggested a specific theme for each day. Here’s my first day, presented in both 1E and 5E flavors.

In the woods not too far from the village? Strange happenings. Animals are more skittish, and no one has heard birdsong for at least a fortnight. Nights seem darker, colder. Animals are more skittish, and no one has heard birdsong for at least a fortnight. On the nights of the full moon, an impossible metal tower rises among the trees. A monstrous women dwells in the tower. What does she look like? Who knows? We know she’s there. Everyone has heard her hellish screams echoing in the tower’s bulbous superstructure. Those brave enough to approach the tower during the night when the moon is full have heard pounding and scratching, trying to break free. What are we doing about it? We’re farmers and herders. What can we but wait?

Rapunzhel is the tormented revenant of a young woman drowned in a water tower due to a cruel prank perpetrated by several of her classmates in the 1960s in a small town in southern Georgia. The water tower became unmoored from any specific reality, and now it shifts from world to world, seemingly at random. The tower always appears near a rural community of modest size. It remains for several months, but only becomes visible and material during the nights of the full moon. Most nights, Rapunzhel remains trapped in the tower, raging against her fate and her captivity. She always manages to escape, however, and, driven by her mad rage, she fills the night with blood and horror. When dawn breaks after her rampage, she and the tower vanish, shifting to another world.

Rapunzhel is a water-bloated corpse, moist and rotting. Her white hair writhes and flails, twisting and stretching and seeking. Her weeping eyes blaze with feral hatred.

1E Stats
Frequency: Very rare (unique?)
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 5
Move: 15″//15″
Hit Dice: 8
% in Lair: 90%
Treasure Type: Nil
No. of Attacks: 2 + special
Damage/Attack: 1-6/1-6 + special
Special Attacks: Entangle
Special Defenses: See below
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Average
Alignment: Neutral evil
Size: M (5-1/2′ tall)
Psionic Ability: Nil
Attack/Defens Modes: Nil
Level/XP Value: VII/1,075 XP + 10 XP/hp

Rapunzhel attacks with her talons and her wildly flailing hair has grown to impossible lengths in her undeath. Her hair attacks up to 1d4 medium-sized targets within 10 feet. A small-sized target counts as 1/2 a target, and a large-sized target counts as two targets, et cetera. Targets struck by her hair must make a saving throw versus paralyzation or become entangled in a mass of squirming, constricting hair. One per round on its turn, an entangled target may attempt to escape the hair by making a successful bend bars/lift gates check; otherwise, the target takes 1d4 points of damage from constriction. A creature not entangled in hair may use an edged weapon to cut the hair, which is AC 5 and takes 8 hit points to cut through; all hit points must be inflicted by same creature.

Rapunzhel cannot be harmed by nonmagical weapons. Once per round, when she is missed by a melee attack, Rapunzhel may immediately teleport without error to another spot she can see that is no farther than 9″ away. Being undead, she is immune to sleep, charm, poison, and effects that require a living target. She swims quickly and easily, and she has no need to breathe. Rapunzhel can be turned as if she were a vampire.

5E Stats
Medium undead, neutral evil

Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 127 (15d8+60)
Speed 40 ft., swim 40 ft.
Ability Scores STR 18 (+4), DEX 16 (+3), CON 18 (+4), INT 10 (+0), WIS 15 (+2), CHA 13 (+1)
Saving Throws Dex +6, Wis +5
Damage Immunities necrotic, poison; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Condition Immunities charmed, exhaustion, frightened, poison
Senses darkvision 90 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages English
Challenge 7 (2,900 XP)

Actions

* Multiattack: Rapunzhel makes three attacks: twice with her claws and once with her hair.

* Claws: Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6+4) slashing damage and 7 (2d6) necrotic damage.

* Hair: Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (2d4+4) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 15). Until this grapple ends, the creature is restrained. Rapunzhel’s hair continues to constrict each grappled target once per round at the end of Rapunzhel’s turn for 1 minute or until the target escapes.

Reactions

* Defensive Teleport: Once per round, when a creature misses Rapunzhel with a melee attack, Rapunzhel may teleport up to 20 ft. as a reaction, doing so at the end of the turn of the creature that triggered this ability.

Tags: 1E AD&D, 5E D&D, horror, monsters, OSR Christmas Calendar

My entry for James Holloway’s first Monster Man contest.

Oruka

Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 5-20
Armor Class: 6
Move: 12″/15″
Hit Dice: 3+3
% in Lair: Nil
Treasure Type: Nil
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 1-6
Special Attacks: Slice
Special Defenses: Two-dimensional
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Semi-
Alignment: Neutral
Size: S (1′ diameter)
Psionic Ability: Nil
Attack/Defens Modes: Nil
Level/XP Value: IV/110+4/hp

Oruka are strange, ring-shaped creatures with dim intelligence that are native to the Astral Plane, but partially exist on the Prime Material Plane at the same time. Their senses extend into both planes simultaneously. They move by rolling or by flying. On the Astral Plane, oruka are maneuverability class A, but on the Prime Material Plane they are much clumsier (maneuverability class E).

Oruka have height and width but no depth. They can make a sideways turn and become invisible, detectable only via true seeing or similar means. In this state, oruka can move (but not attack), passing through the thinnest of spaces as long as the space is wide enough to admit the oruka’s diameter. With another sideways turn, an oruka becomes visible again, and these creatures can make one sideways turn per melee round. When an oruka is turned and invisible, it cannot be affected by any attack that does not also reach into the oruka’s other plane of existence. When visible, oruka suffer triple damage from piercing and slashing weapons.

Oruka attack by slicing through their targets, which are treated as AC 10. Dexterity and magical bonuses modify the target’s AC, but armor itself provides no protection.

Oruka travel in flocks that move about in elliptical paths, searching for food on the Prime Material Plane. These monsters seem to be carnivorous given their aggressive behavior, but exactly how they feed is not clear. Scholars theorize that oruka somehow absorb blood from prey that they slice.

Tags: 1E AD&D, monsters

So, my son Christopher is going to, for the first time, take the reins as DM for our twice-monthly Saturday game. He wants to run 5E. If he’d have said this a few months ago, I’d have probably balked, but entirely out of ignorance and a general distate for trying new things that aren’t edible or alcoholic.

In more recent months, however, I’ve had a chance to play 5E, first in Austin at Tribe Comics & Games. (More about this here.) My assessment of 5E after that one game was, “It’s not going to make me rush out and buy 5E books or find a local 5E game to play in. Not really my cup of tea any more.” True to my word, I did not rush out buy any 5E books. I did buy the Player’s Handbook shortly before my second foray into 5E.

Since then, I’ve played 5E a bit more, most recently at the Lone Star Game Expo up near Dallas. My appreciation for 5E has grown. I’m still not really sold on the organized play aspect of 5E, largely for the same reasons that I stopped bothering with Living City and RPGA before they both went belly up. Perhaps I’ll write about those reasons later.

As I just said, my appreciation for 5E has grown, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some things that I’d like better if they were done differently.

“Like what?” you ask.

Fair enough. How about this? 5E is a step back toward the old school, but it’s not a big enough step in some ways. I still don’t like the one-XP-table for all classes that was introduced with the d20 System. A thief, or rogue, should not require the same XP to advance in levels as does a magic-user, meaning a wizard.

I’m also not a super fan of d20 System multi-classing, where a magic-user/thief would pick which class to advance in each time he earned enough XP to go up a level. I like XP being divided evenly between the classes.

That said, there is one thing I do like about 5E XP advancement, and that is the idea that levels 1 and 2 are sort of like apprentice levels. It takes 300 XP to reach 2nd level, 900 to reach 3rd, and then a big jump to 2,700 XP to reach 4th.

What happens when I drive about 50 miles each day getting to and from work is I have time to think, or more accurately, time to let my mind wander. During one of my mental meanderings, I mused about combining 1E style level advancement (including multi-classing) with 5E. Let’s compare what the rogue and wizard would like using my crazy idea.

Notice that I kept the apprentice levels. Like I said, I like that idea. Then, for 3rd-level XP, I took the maximum XP for 1st-level from 1E, and added that value to 900. Thus, a 1E thief is 1st-level until he 1,250 XP, so 1,250 + 900 = 2,150 XP to reach 4th level. After that, I sort of followed the XP patter from 1E by doubling the previous level. I know the ratios don’t follow this pattern all the way up, but I didn’t feel like doing that much math today. Using this chart, a rogue advances in levels more quickly than a wizard, which I like (and, no, I don’t really care about balancing the classes so that their equal at every level because (A) that’s impossible and (B) that’s not old school).

Now imagine, if you will, an elf rogue/wizard. At 1st level, he’d have the abilities of both classes because he’d be an elf rogue 1/wizard 1. He’d roll HD and average the results to find hit points, be able to use rogue armor and weapons, cast spells, et cetera. He joins an adventuring group. 500 XP later, his single-classed comrades are comfortably 2nd level, but he’s still a rogue 1/wizard 1 because he has to split his XP evenly between his two classes. When he’s earned 5,000 XP in total, he’s a rogue 4/wizard 3 since each class has 2,500 XP applied to it. A single-classed wizard would be 4th-level, and a single-classed rogue would be 5th-level.

Crazy? Probably, but it’s a craziness that I liked in 1E.

Tags: 1E AD&D, 5E D&D

Tempus fugit, often when I’m not paying attention. It’s been way too long since I posted anything here.

So, what’s new hereabouts?

Well, I sort of started working more on the final draft of Boogie Knights of the Round Table, my epic RPG about bold heroes singing and dancing against the machinations of the Man. I’ll not mention any sort of release date. I am tired of making promises regarding Spes Magna Games products that don’t get kept. If missed deadlines were wishes, frogs wouldn’t bump their butts when they hop.

I also found a great deal on Amazon.com for a 1E AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. I lost mine years ago. For years, I’ve been saying to myself, “Self, you should get a replacement.” (I’m sensing a leitmotif of procrastination in my life.) My new DMG is in really good condition. There’s not a single bit of highlighting, underlining, or what not on any of the pages. Even the blanks for the artifacts are still blank.

To celebrate my new DMG, I’ve made up a few 1E monsters. You can find them by clicking on this sentence.

Enjoy!

Tags: 1E AD&D, Boogie Knights, monsters