Magic in the Margins

[Afgncaap5]

So, I've always appreciated a lot of the assumptions in the Player's Handbook that don't seem to make it to regular play. Maybe its just at my tables but based on conversations I read online I don't see much mention of them either.

Like, take the Read Magic spell. It's primarily for translating the spell scroll I just picked up, or if it's a mid or high level game I might get lucky and be able to use it on a glyph or symbol spell with a decent Spellcraft check. The spell also suggests that it could read any magical writing. I've yet to have a DM tell me that writing was magical apart from spell scrolls or glyphs, though the description calls out the inscriptions on magical weapons or even maybe just "magically enchanted writing". I don't know if that's supposed to be as tricky as "This is a magical code, you can only read it if you're the intended reader" or if it's as simple as "Ah, this is elvish star script. The spell tells me the sword's name is Glamdring, or 'Foe Hammer' in the common tongue." To the game's credit, I have at least seen the magical code thing used in an official module, but as of yet I've not seen DMs actually make use of magical inscriptions very often. And... I don't think it's the fault of my DMs necessarily, I think it's just the mentality of game design can leave this kind of thing out. I've been DMing a few years now and the only time I've used this was to make a bit of poetry warning about taking a special sword in a crypt, but the players hadn't prepared the spell anyway so they just learned that the sword was trapped/cursed the hard way.

Then there's the Spellcraft skill description. I've spoken a bit about this before, but I've always been intrigued by the skill suggesting it can be used to "Understand a strange or unique magical effect, such as the effects of a magic stream." I've yet to see enchanted streams, I know that much. Generally speaking, the only strange or unique effects come from final-boss-ish characters who have unique powers or abilities or tools outside of what the players interact with barring the inevitable combat encounter. I've started trying to add more of this as a DM, though I don't see it ever as a player. I might not be observant enough to notice it, of course. So far my favorite example of this kind of thing actually comes from 5e, where the DMG gives an example of a random encounter table in a sylvan forest, and one of its random possible encounters is with a magical bush that grows glowing berries that make the consumer turn invisible for an hour (or until they attack or cast a spell). And that's a handy bit of magic to give to players; not overpowering (and can't be used immediately) but it's fun and can make the players feel like they've been given an edge.

These "margin" magical effects don't really change much, but they suggest so much more about the world's magic even if the effects are relatively simple and can be reproduced by other spells. Does anyone have any experience incorporating elements like this as a DM, and if so any suggestions on how to get more into the habit of using them? I doubt the DMs who run games I play in will change much about their approaches, but there's no reason I can't start being the change that I want to see in these games.

[Darth Ultron]

Does anyone have any experience incorporating elements like this as a DM, and if so any suggestions on how to get more into the habit of using them? I doubt the DMs who run games I play in will change much about their approaches, but there's no reason I can't start being the change that I want to see in these games.

D&D defiantly lost that magic feeling right at the Start of 3E.

A lot of the odd stuff you see in the rules is just copied from earlier editions...and they don't make any sense in the modern game.

In the Time Before Time, the game was full of Strange, Unknown and Unknowable magic and otherwise effects. Things like magic water in pools, streams or rivers. Animated objects. And all sorts of things. Now the trick really was while the rules did have some examples, it was generally left wide open in the rules for the DM to just make anything.

With 3E, the decision was made to get rid of all the vague stuff and make everything in the game conform to the Offical Rules. Worse, everything had to be simple and direct and able for the players to do. So anything that did not fit, like weird magic, just got left out. And it did not help that few adventures were made, and few had any weird magic anyway.

I have all ways had such magic and things in my games. I love the Strange, Unknown and Unknowable magic . I like things like the painting in the study reads your mind and puts your likeness in the painting or the thorn bushes animate and shoot their thorns.

How to add them to the game, other then just do it?

A LOT of players don't like weird stuff...but at least half of them will ''get used to it''.

[Crake]

D&D defiantly lost that magic feeling right at the Start of 3E.

A lot of the odd stuff you see in the rules is just copied from earlier editions...and they don't make any sense in the modern game.

In the Time Before Time, the game was full of Strange, Unknown and Unknowable magic and otherwise effects. Things like magic water in pools, streams or rivers. Animated objects. And all sorts of things. Now the trick really was while the rules did have some examples, it was generally left wide open in the rules for the DM to just make anything.

With 3E, the decision was made to get rid of all the vague stuff and make everything in the game conform to the Offical Rules. Worse, everything had to be simple and direct and able for the players to do. So anything that did not fit, like weird magic, just got left out. And it did not help that few adventures were made, and few had any weird magic anyway.

I have all ways had such magic and things in my games. I love the Strange, Unknown and Unknowable magic . I like things like the painting in the study reads your mind and puts your likeness in the painting or the thorn bushes animate and shoot their thorns.

How to add them to the game, other then just do it?

A LOT of players don't like weird stuff...but at least half of them will ''get used to it''.

You mean the rules were made to conform to some kind of basic conventions? The very existence of these things open ended lines in the rules give DMs options to include things like strange magical convergances that can be analyzed, or ancient magical texts that were written by long lost magical societies who used the language of magic as their basic alphabet.

There's nothing about the rules that stops a DM from doing what they want. Even modules I've seen will include their own unique quirkiness, so I honestly have no idea where you're getting this idea from, except from your personal experiences at your gaming table, in which case, I'm sorry that you've had such stagnant games.

Maybe remind your DM that while the books define the basic rules of the game, the things written in the books are not an exhaustive list of all things in the world. He can make up his own magical effects, spells, locations and items.

[Malimar]

I don't know about magic streams, but I use magic pools all the time. The pool of sex-change water is the main one that people have found so far.

Love springs are a genre staple, albeit a bit iffier to use in a game.

Your broader point points at how, yes, the game has gotten more regimented over the editions. 1-2e had all sorts of weird and crazy stuff going on; 3-5e have a list of stuff for DMs to pick from and they don't encourage inserting all sorts of weird stuff like earlier editions assumed you would. They don't discourage this, they just don't encourage it.

Some DMs (like me) take some inspiration from the earlier editions and throw in weird stuff. This is one aspect of the OSR (Old-School Renaissance) that you sometimes hear about in tabletop gaming circles.

Just looked at my list of stuff to semi-randomly be inserted into future dungeons, and I lol'd at "mayonnaise machine: insert eggs, mayonnaise pours out a spigot". You'll see lists of OSR and OSR-esque stuff like that every so often from gaming blogs and the like. I posted a list (http://luduscarcerum.blogspot.com/2016/02/81-things-to-populate-your-dungeon.html) or two (http://luduscarcerum.blogspot.com/2016/02/48-more-things-to-populate-your-dungeon.html) awhile back myself.

[Psyren]

I have all ways had such magic and things in my games. I love the Strange, Unknown and Unknowable magic . I like things like the painting in the study reads your mind and puts your likeness in the painting or the thorn bushes animate and shoot their thorns.

There are ways to achieve both of these within the rules, so I'm not quite sure what the issue is.


Does anyone have any experience incorporating elements like this as a DM, and if so any suggestions on how to get more into the habit of using them?

The best suggestion I have is to telegraph. If you want swords with magical inscriptions that hint at their function (or drawbacks) in your games, by all means add them in, but if your players aren't expecting this and don't read it as a result, then you are to blame, not them. Call for the necessary checks, and don't be afraid to give the players information that their characters would logically know. If you have a PC who is experienced with reading magical writing or even with forging magical swords for instance, they should have a pretty decent shot at noticing stuff like that. Similarly, if there is a powerful or knowledgeable nature person in the party, at least realizing that a stream is special is something their characters should be able to pick up on even if the player doesn't specifically ask.

[Fizban]

Like Crake already mentioned, there are modules that do these things, it's just up to the DM to put them in. There is no book of mysterious barely defined magical thingies. If people cleave mostly to RAW stuff, it's because they choose to.

I do like the idea of using Read Magic-able instructions on things more often. The Detect Magic+high spellcraft check did get mained into the Rules Compendium but Spellcraft is already too big.

[Darth Ultron]

There are ways to achieve both of these within the rules, so I'm not quite sure what the issue is.


The thing is the RULES are very bland and straightforward....and they are meant to be. Magic X does X. This is so everything ''makes sense'' and is oddly ''fair'' to someone's eyes. And that brings in the HUGE problem. How do you make something simple like a mind reading painting ''by the almighty rules''. So then you crunch the numbers and get a near artifact magic item...that just does not fit with the simple hedge wizard. But a constant effect mind reading magic item is just very expensive by the rules....more so if it can do other things too. So then you hit the 'wall' of you can't do it ''by the rules''.

And that is just something simple...and something that is all ready made in the game. But when you go for really weird stuff...you simply HAVE to ignore the rules. Like say Time Travel, you won't find any magic of that in the Core D&D rules...so how do you make a Time Travel Tunnel? What do you base it on? The answer is nothing.


You mean the rules were made to conform to some kind of basic conventions? The very existence of these things open ended lines in the rules give DMs options to include things like strange magical convergances that can be analyzed, or ancient magical texts that were written by long lost magical societies who used the language of magic as their basic alphabet.

There's nothing about the rules that stops a DM from doing what they want. Even modules I've seen will include their own unique quirkiness, so I honestly have no idea where you're getting this idea from, except from your personal experiences at your gaming table, in which case, I'm sorry that you've had such stagnant games.

Maybe remind your DM that while the books define the basic rules of the game, the things written in the books are not an exhaustive list of all things in the world. He can make up his own magical effects, spells, locations and items.

Any of the Older Edition Rule Books were full of stuff like ''Magical Locations'' and give like five examples of such locations, had no hard Rules, and just said to each DM ''make up your own''. And the game was all about that: ''don't worry about the rules, just make up whatever you want''.

Starting at 3E, it is more not only ''always use OUR OFFICAL rules", but worse ''Buy our New Official Book with our New Stuff in it" as part of the general ''don't make up stuff, we will do it for you..buy our stuff".

And you can tell if a Module writer is Old School or Modern by what they include.

[Psyren]

The thing is the RULES are very bland and straightforward....and they are meant to be. Magic X does X. This is so everything ''makes sense'' and is oddly ''fair'' to someone's eyes. And that brings in the HUGE problem. How do you make something simple like a mind reading painting ''by the almighty rules''. So then you crunch the numbers and get a near artifact magic item...that just does not fit with the simple hedge wizard. But a constant effect mind reading magic item is just very expensive by the rules....more so if it can do other things too. So then you hit the 'wall' of you can't do it ''by the rules''.

You can do both of the things you listed without being "near artifact" either. But even if you couldn't - so what? Just because a hedge wizard is in possession of the thing doesn't mean he's the one who made it. Fantasy is littered with examples of people (both heroes and villains) who end up in possession of magic items and effects far beyond their ability to replicate or understand. "You can't make it" is not the same thing as "it can't be included in the story."


That is just something simple...and something that is all ready made in the game. But when you go for really weird stuff...you simply HAVE to ignore the rules. Like say Time Travel, you won't find any magic of that in the Core D&D rules...so how do you make a Time Travel Tunnel? What do you base it on? The answer is nothing.

This is where I think you're missing the mark - the purpose of the rules is to spark a GM's imagination, not to limit it. They set the baseline power level to do something the expected way, and set baseline expectations about what happens when they are done that way; plot meanwhile comes from people using those rules or circumventing them to do the unexpected.

Take OotS for example - Redcloak and Xykon are trying to harness the kind of power that can kill gods and destroy souls. The rules establish what happens to souls that die normally (Complete Divine specifically, in OotS' case) and things like how they can be raised from the dead, what happens when a vampire kills someone etc. This gave the Giant a wealth of material to draw from. Then he can change things as needed for his plot - now there is something in the world that is more fearsome than death itself, and that even the gods would have a hard time dealing with. This thing drives the plot. But the rules themselves gave a very easy-to-grok foundation that he could build on, that the audience could get on board with quickly, and that even explained why the characters themselves in the story should be so afraid of the thing (generating dramatic tension.) Because those OotS characters who are smart enough know the rules of their world, including what's supposed to happen when they die, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0669.html) and the same holds true for nearly every D&D setting.

So, far from being a limitation, the rules have instead formed a foundation that can get everyone up to speed in the story quickly. They are the individual notes and chords that are used to compose the symphony - a universal language that everyone can understand going in, so that we can all enjoy the work as a whole that much more easily.

[Darth Ultron]

This is where I think you're missing the mark - the purpose of the rules is to spark a GM's imagination, not to limit it. They set the baseline power level to do something the expected way, and set baseline expectations about what happens when they are done that way; plot meanwhile comes from people using those rules or circumventing them to do the unexpected.


I'm saying it had the opposite effect.

With all the Very All Important Rules weighing gamers down, it has stifled and crushed creativity. The more modern gamer is thinking ''how can I use the RULES to have fun'', the Old School gamer is thinking ''how can I have fun". Look through the D&D rules. There are creation rules for magic items, and some vague pointless spell creation rules....and that is it. Does the DMG have a chapter of Rules of Creation? Nope. They just vaguely say a DM can create stuff a couple times.

So, a lot of people take that to mean ''the game'' is ''only what is in the books''. I can tell you as a creative custom DM that the first hint when a character encounters something ''not in the official almighty rules'' , that many a player will whine and cry ''I thought we were all playing the same dull and boring By-the-Book game here!"

[Milo v3]

I've put magic writing in a few places, mainly by having the world naturally sculpt itself into magical text in areas with massive amounts of common magic uses. Like an orchid which if you used read magic on it while viewing it from above it gave some poetic info about the druids which were doing sacrificial rituals in the area.

As for random bits of neat magic, I found that sort of thing pretty amusing so I made a generator years ago (which I've unfortunately lost when I changed computers) which picks a random spell while also picking a random object from a list and I'd have to think up a neat flavourful way for such an object to work. Came up with so many knicknacks.


I'm saying it had the opposite effect.

With all the Very All Important Rules weighing gamers down, it has stifled and crushed creativity. The more modern gamer is thinking ''how can I use the RULES to have fun'', the Old School gamer is thinking ''how can I have fun". Look through the D&D rules. There are creation rules for magic items, and some vague pointless spell creation rules....and that is it. Does the DMG have a chapter of Rules of Creation? Nope. They just vaguely say a DM can create stuff a couple times.

So, a lot of people take that to mean ''the game'' is ''only what is in the books''. I can tell you as a creative custom DM that the first hint when a character encounters something ''not in the official almighty rules'' , that many a player will whine and cry ''I thought we were all playing the same dull and boring By-the-Book game here!"
*Looks at the massive number of homebrewers and third-party for games like 3.5e and PF*
uhhh.... are you sure about that?

[Pleh]

@Psyren: DU's issue is that he doesn't understand the concept of Improvised Roleplay, thus filling the gaps the creators clearly intended to allow DMs to fill in ad hoc seems impossible to him. This has been established and beaten to death in other threads, so there's not a lot of use trying to get any further in that field.

To the OP, I just Houserule these kinds of things into the game all the time. When I am planning it ahead of time, I try to google the magic I was trying to put into the world and look for the closest common relative, check to make sure it is level appropriate (as much as I intend it to be, nothing wrong with players stumbling into something too big for their britches, just don't want to dump a 9th level magic effect on 5th level characters by accident).

I love building worlds with magical environments. I just have to plan ahead to understand the consequences of those things. I have had enchanted forests irrigated with magic water (a la Tolkein) that caused the trees to live unnaturally long and awaken over time. Of course, the magic was fairly low power, so players interacting with the water wouldn't experience much effect, but full immersion could start to apply noticeable changes. The trees, however, being saturated in magic water for decades or even centuries, have taken on absolutely unearthly form.

I have created magical climates where a pervasive Mana Fog over a region of territory literally summons random monsters over time. In general, the first creatures these monsters run into are other monsters, so there's still a self-balancing ecological limit to this climate's effect on the rest of the normal world, but heroes wandering the Mana Mists can expect random encounters at literally any moment.

3.5 does nothing to limit or prevent any of this. The main thing 3.5 does is put enough power in the player's hands that if you introduce a special, specific magic effect like this in the game, you have to let the players play with it, too. They WILL master the concept and work out a way to exploit it. You have to let them do it. That's why I typically like to make any random magic effects in my world have pros and cons to its interaction. They can exploit it, but it will eventually cost them something. Sure, the magic forest water will extend their lifespans or even reverse the effects of aging, but it will also physically alter their appearance, and they will not likely be welcomed home back in civilized society, having an appearance of deformity.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The thing is the RULES are very bland and straightforward....and they are meant to be. Magic X does X. This is so everything ''makes sense'' and is oddly ''fair'' to someone's eyes. And that brings in the HUGE problem. How do you make something simple like a mind reading painting ''by the almighty rules''. So then you crunch the numbers and get a near artifact magic item...that just does not fit with the simple hedge wizard. But a constant effect mind reading magic item is just very expensive by the rules....more so if it can do other things too. So then you hit the 'wall' of you can't do it ''by the rules''.
You're approaching it from the wrong direction. You're thinking "magical painting--must be a magic item". Well, no, not necessarily. Magic items are tools, in some sense, and reliable. Weird magic isn't (always).

The easiest way to make such a painting would be to include a thinaun-based paint (makes the most gorgeous green and blue tones) from thinaun that so happens to include a vaguely telepathic soul (or maybe it acquired telepathic senses over time). Inspired by the rules, little bit of fudging, one magical painting.

Or wait, the easiest way is to make a haunted painting, probably. Doesn't even care about caster levels or mind-detecting spells, it's just a monster of some CR with treasure: one painting.

So, yeah, 3.5 supports weird magic just fine.

[Psyren]

So, a lot of people take that to mean ''the game'' is ''only what is in the books''. I can tell you as a creative custom DM that the first hint when a character encounters something ''not in the official almighty rules'' , that many a player will whine and cry ''I thought we were all playing the same dull and boring By-the-Book game here!"

That's a trust issue, not a rules issue. If you can't introduce something new (or uncommon) and quell your players with a simple "trust me," then there is probably some other issue going on there (and you might want to consider if GMing for them further is worth your time.)

In my groups, our GMs have done this kind of thing all the time, and several of us know the rules back and front enough to tell when it's happening. That doesn't mean we throw our toys out of the pram because we can't get dessert this time, it means we sit patiently and see where they're going with it.



*Looks at the massive number of homebrewers and third-party for games like 3.5e and PF*
uhhh.... are you sure about that?

And hell, even within the 1st-party RAW itself there are a lot of clauses that are open to GM interpretation. Like the "physical energy" clause in Teleport or the "unreasonable commands" clause in Planar Binding.

[Cosi]

So, a lot of people take that to mean ''the game'' is ''only what is in the books''. I can tell you as a creative custom DM that the first hint when a character encounters something ''not in the official almighty rules'' , that many a player will whine and cry ''I thought we were all playing the same dull and boring By-the-Book game here!"

The rules are a contract between the people at the table that lay out shared expectations. Giving the DM the power to unilaterally alter that contract is a bad idea, and the fact that you think you cannot produce interesting stories without that power reflects incredibly poorly on your skill as a DM. Seriously, flip it around. How would you feel if one of your players made up a new power for themselves and tried to justify it by saying "oh I didn't realize we were just playing a Dull and Boring By-the-Book game". I think there are roughly zero people who would be okay with that. And yet there are a non-zero number of people okay with DMs doing the same.

[Afgncaap5]

In the Time Before Time, the game was full of Strange, Unknown and Unknowable magic and otherwise effects.

I like that terminology. Lately I've been adding "tags" to my games (more as a way to help me organize things in my head instead of something for my players to worry about.) It might be good for me to add Strange, Unknown, and Unknowable as tags to some of the things in my games; this magic stream is Strange, but nothing the player's can't figure out. This archway has some Unknown magic, but we can deal with it. That Mind Flayer's chalice is Unknowable in its workings.

Possibly unnecessary, but if the players won't see it then it shouldn't change much.



How to add them to the game, other then just do it?

A LOT of players don't like weird stuff...but at least half of them will ''get used to it''.

I dunno... most of my players seem to really like the little experiments I've been doing with it lately. The Infinite Corridor (admittedly ripped off a bit from Zork/The Lurking Horror) was well received, as was Shumov (see below). I think if I can do weird things without breaking the verisimilitude, the players will probably be okay with it. I hope, at least.

But like you say, maybe the best way to get used to doing this kind of thing is to "just do it" until it's habitual and not something that feels like a crazy break from the way "the game is."


The rules are a contract between the people at the table that lay out shared expectations. Giving the DM the power to unilaterally alter that contract is a bad idea, and the fact that you think you cannot produce interesting stories without that power reflects incredibly poorly on your skill as a DM. Seriously, flip it around. How would you feel if one of your players made up a new power for themselves and tried to justify it by saying "oh I didn't realize we were just playing a Dull and Boring By-the-Book game". I think there are roughly zero people who would be okay with that. And yet there are a non-zero number of people okay with DMs doing the same.

I think it's reasonable to expect that DMs can come up with new things more readily than it is for players to come up with new things, as that's the principle job of DMs. And while I do agree with your point that the intent of a lot of the rules is to spark the imagination, I'm growing increasingly worried that it just, like... doesn't. There's a kind of culture at work that, however well meaning the books, creates imagined ceilings while it gives the intentional springboards.

Like, for instance... one of the ways I've toyed with this recently was with an intelligent item named Shumov, the Chess Shield. He was a talking shield with a chess-pattern on his face and a pouch that a lot of tiny, animated chess pieces could sit in. I tried to figure out how much he was worth by the rules of D&D, and tried to figure out a way for him to come into the possession of the level 3 party, and, well... I couldn't do it. While I love the intelligent item rules, they just didn't work for the purpose of giving the party a bombastic, rambunctious sidekick at a low level, especially not one who had bonuses to checks on History, Strategy, or Diplomacy. That guy probably completely smashed the Wealth By Level guidelines, even if I upped the difficulty of the swarm of chess pieces that attacked the players when they first found him, but he also did nothing to upset the party's game balance (effectively being little more than a Masterwork Shield when used mechanically).

This is, I think, related to why 5th edition put more pages into its book to discuss roleplaying. Some people pointed out that they didn't need the book to tell them that part, but other people found the book's approach refreshing, as a good reminder that it was a part of the game.

[Elkad]

The rules are a contract between the people at the table that lay out shared expectations. Giving the DM the power to unilaterally alter that contract is a bad idea, and the fact that you think you cannot produce interesting stories without that power reflects incredibly poorly on your skill as a DM. Seriously, flip it around. How would you feel if one of your players made up a new power for themselves and tried to justify it by saying "oh I didn't realize we were just playing a Dull and Boring By-the-Book game". I think there are roughly zero people who would be okay with that. And yet there are a non-zero number of people okay with DMs doing the same.

Who said anything about unilaterally? DM just has the advantage, as it's his game. The players get to make changes as well, they just need the DMs approval.

My games are chock full of custom stuff. Maybe half is mine.
Some is completely custom, some is just changing around existing stuff.


Player comes to me and says "My Enchanter wants Cloud Mind" "The Psi Power?" "Yeah" "Looks like a perfectly fine 2nd level Enchantment spell to me. Pay your research cost and roll your Spellcraft check."

Or "My Abjurationist wants a version of Mage Armor in his school" "That's a fair change. I'll give you a choice of making it a 2nd level spell, or only being +3 and range:personal" Player decides, pays, rolls. (Incidentally, both exist, 2 separate players made opposite choices there.
Plus some other variants. Like a Transmutation one.)



Heck, half the spells in the rulebooks are "custom" from early Greyhawk. Thus why they have the names of the player character attached to them all.
Same with magic items. Someone (a player or a GM) had an idea, statted it out, and it went from a single game item to a campaign world item to a place in a rulebook.

This forum tends to restrict itself to RAW, but there is absolutely no reason any individual campaign should do that. Even Pathfinder Society uses houserules (generally nerfs, but houserules all the same). It just publishes them.

[Lazymancer]

In the Time Before Time, the game was full of Strange, Unknown and Unknowable magic and otherwise effects. ...

With 3E, the decision was made to get rid of all the vague stuff and make everything in the game conform to the Offical Rules. Worse, everything had to be simple and direct and able for the players to do. So anything that did not fit, like weird magic, just got left out. And it did not help that few adventures were made, and few had any weird magic anyway.
It's not 3e. It's inevitable consequence of Dragonlance era. Once you start railroading, you need to keep strength of PCs level-appropriate (and, consequently, have WBL).

Weirdness is incompatible with this paradigm. You don't know what players can pull off. Despite modern education, some of them might develop ideas. They'll either weaponize weirdness (goodbye level-appropriate strength) or monetize it (goodbye WBL - and level-appropriate strength).


So far my favorite example of this kind of thing actually comes from 5e, where the DMG gives an example of a random encounter table in a sylvan forest, and one of its random possible encounters is with a magical bush that grows glowing berries that make the consumer turn invisible for an hour (or until they attack or cast a spell). And that's a handy bit of magic to give to players; not overpowering (and can't be used immediately) but it's fun and can make the players feel like they've been given an edge. ... Does anyone have any experience incorporating elements like this as a DM
One carelessly added lake of acid could replace carefully prepared adventure just by existing. Party will spend their time creating bottling facility and smuggling flasks of acid (naive GM thought that monopoly of Guild of Alchemists on acid can stop anyone), and end up trying to lobby new laws by bribing initial BBEG to represent their interests.

Unless your players are railroad-broken (and will limit their interactions with weirdness to tourist-level sightseeing), be prepared to old school it, when players will attempt to grow more bushes and sell their CL 60 invisibility potions (assuming it is still min/CL).

[Lazymancer]

"My Abjurationist wants a version of Mage Armor in his school" "That's a fair change. I'll give you a choice of making it a 2nd level spell, or only being +3 and range:personal"
I'd say a retconning this one is more appropriate. By any sane logic, Mage Armor should've been Abjuration. Abjuration Champion even assumes that it is so.

[Crake]

Any of the Older Edition Rule Books were full of stuff like ''Magical Locations'' and give like five examples of such locations, had no hard Rules, and just said to each DM ''make up your own''. And the game was all about that: ''don't worry about the rules, just make up whatever you want''.

Starting at 3E, it is more not only ''always use OUR OFFICAL rules", but worse ''Buy our New Official Book with our New Stuff in it" as part of the general ''don't make up stuff, we will do it for you..buy our stuff".

And you can tell if a Module writer is Old School or Modern by what they include.

I honestly have no idea where you get that impression. Things like touchstones from standstorm, planar touchstones from manual of the planes/planar handbook, DMGII's magical locations, complete scoundrel's legendary sites, all of those are just examples and urge the DM to add in and make their own. I think you may be in a bit of an echo chamber with regards to how you think other tables run it, because the playground only ever uses absolute RAW to discuss/give options, but I personally have plenty of different strange magical placestm of my own design, and I never once felt like the books were urging you to avoid making your own and to just use what was written in their books. If anything, the ones who make me feel that way are the posters on this very forum.

[Darth Ultron]

*Looks at the massive number of homebrewers and third-party for games like 3.5e and PF*
uhhh.... are you sure about that?

Well, like just about all Hombrewers just make simple things to add to the game like items and classes and classes and more classes. Yes, there are a couple ones that make other things...but most just add on to what is there.

You see a ton of ''look at my spell 'fire ray' it does 1d6 damage a level and burns stuff'', but you only see a little of ''this spell splits the caster into one copy of themselves per level..and"


You're approaching it from the wrong direction. You're thinking "magical painting--must be a magic item". Well, no, not necessarily. Magic items are tools, in some sense, and reliable. Weird magic isn't (always).

So, yeah, 3.5 supports weird magic just fine.

Oh...show me the part where in the rules they say ''go ahead an make up any weird or strange stuff you want to for your game''. The rules don't allow for ''other'' things. Sure any DM can add them...but there are no rules for them...not even vague guidelines.

And that is the problem, as people then think they should not be part of the game.


The rules are a contract between the people at the table that lay out shared expectations. Giving the DM the power to unilaterally alter that contract is a bad idea, and the fact that you think you cannot produce interesting stories without that power reflects incredibly poorly on your skill as a DM. Seriously, flip it around. How would you feel if one of your players made up a new power for themselves and tried to justify it by saying "oh I didn't realize we were just playing a Dull and Boring By-the-Book game". I think there are roughly zero people who would be okay with that. And yet there are a non-zero number of people okay with DMs doing the same.

Well, first off Players just can't make up stuff...they are players. Though sure they can make something and ask to have it approved by the DM.

Your a great example of what I'm talking about: For you the game is just the rules. You are playing it like a board game....page 22 says this and we must do that.

Your the kind of player that would run out of my game and house screaming because you could not handle Old Kara the Hedge Wizard having a mind reading panting. Like you'd be in basement somewhere looking through every book and saying over and over again ''paintings can't read minds''.

Of course many good players can accept it with a shrug and say ''oh, cool touch'' and just keep on playing the game...


I dunno... most of my players seem to really like the little experiments I've been doing with it lately.

As some other posters have said: even a hint of something Strange, Unknown and Unknowable....and, of course, not in the Offical Game Rules, will make some people mad, angry or worse. So you need to be careful.

Though many players to like or even love it. Though you can never really know until you just toss it out there and try it.



Like, for instance... one of the ways I've toyed with this recently was with an intelligent item named Shumov, the Chess Shield.

Good example, and a good example of how the rules don't always ''work''...and why it is just fine to just make something and ignore the rules.

Like just last weekend I had a Haunted Bookcase in a library full of rare books. Haunted by a ghost librarian who would let folks take books off the shelf to read, with in 10 feet, but would attack if they did anything else. And the ghost could trap a thieves soul in one of the books to make them a 'book guardian' of sorts to ''pay'' for their crime. Of course, a ghost possessed and animated Bookcase with a ghost that can cast telekinesis and Trap the Soul at will is like a CR 30 monster...buy the rules. Though luckily I have mostly good players, and Jennifer caught on to the ''vibe'' of the ghost real quick and talked to the ghost and role played, as she figured out that if she sincerely was a ''library patron seeking knowledge'' that the Bookcase Ghost would help her.


I honestly have no idea where you get that impression. Things like touchstones from standstorm, planar touchstones from manual of the planes/planar handbook, DMGII's magical locations, complete scoundrel's legendary sites, all of those are just examples and urge the DM to add in and make their own.

Except those are all bad examples. Wow...just look at all them Touchstone Spots....like take a feat and you can cast a Boring and Dull by-the-book spell a couple times. Wow.

And sure they stuck some stuff in at the 3.75 stage of D&D....right before it was ended. Why not put that stuff in the Core Rules?

At least 5E says in the rules ''you don't all ways have to use the rules'' and ''do whatever and have fun''. So when a player complains (see above) a 5E DM can point to that ''rule''(as everything writen in a D&D book is a ''rule'') on page 102.

But they do it classic 3X....''ok, make up your own stuff....but use our almighty rules, always and buy our stuff. And you sure don't get anything close to creation type rules...

[Cosi]

Like, for instance... one of the ways I've toyed with this recently was with an intelligent item named Shumov, the Chess Shield. He was a talking shield with a chess-pattern on his face and a pouch that a lot of tiny, animated chess pieces could sit in. I tried to figure out how much he was worth by the rules of D&D, and tried to figure out a way for him to come into the possession of the level 3 party, and, well... I couldn't do it. While I love the intelligent item rules, they just didn't work for the purpose of giving the party a bombastic, rambunctious sidekick at a low level, especially not one who had bonuses to checks on History, Strategy, or Diplomacy. That guy probably completely smashed the Wealth By Level guidelines, even if I upped the difficulty of the swarm of chess pieces that attacked the players when they first found him, but he also did nothing to upset the party's game balance (effectively being little more than a Masterwork Shield when used mechanically).

That's not what I'm talking about. That has rules. I can predict what it is going to do, because its powers are composed of defined mechanical elements that behave in particular ways according to the rules. I have no opposition to composing rules elements in ways that are based off the rules. You want to have a guy who is a Warlock/Ninja? Sure. You want a Staff or poison, animate objects, and haste? Sure. Those are, in my mind, analogous to having a PC who is a Beguiler/Mindbender/Shadowcraft Mage/Archmage with some non-core feats rather than a straight Wizard.


Who said anything about unilaterally? DM just has the advantage, as it's his game.

No, it isn't. It's everyone's game. You're all sitting at the table, trying to build a story together. The idea that it is "the DM's game" because of where he sits at the table is as stupid as the idea that it's "Frank's game" because we are playing at Frank's house, or "Sarah's game" because Sarah paid for pizza, or "Dave's game" because Dave owns the books, or any other thing. It's the group's game, because the group is playing the game. Putting one person in charge of the game is privileging that person's experience over the rest of the group, which doesn't end well. Worse, it ends with people justifying putting more and more power in the hands of the DM because they "put so much work into managing the game".


Well, first off Players just can't make up stuff...they are players. Though sure they can make something and ask to have it approved by the DM.

The DM is a player too. He's at the table, playing the game. The notion that he should have extra powers because it's "his game" is, as mentioned, toxic.


Your a great example of what I'm talking about: For you the game is just the rules. You are playing it like a board game....page 22 says this and we must do that.

"The game" is "the rules". "The rules" are why you play a game. If you wanted to do free-form, improvisational group storytelling, you could just do that. I've had fun doing exactly that. But the point of the rules is to constrain possible actions to fit within a particular narrative or type of narrative. Having four people doing that, and one person doing "whatever he wants" is worse on every imaginable axis than having all five people doing one or the other.


Your the kind of player that would run out of my game and house screaming because you could not handle Old Kara the Hedge Wizard having a mind reading panting. Like you'd be in basement somewhere looking through every book and saying over and over again ''paintings can't read minds''.

Yeah, screw me for wanting the behavior things in the setting to be explicable to me so I can make informed decisions about my characters actions to give them a more coherent arc and personality. I can't imagine why I'd ever want to do that. Wait, no, I know exactly why I want to do that -- because it's a roleplaying game, and for roleplaying to be possible, the world has to be predictable, and it can't be predictable if you can unilaterally change it.

If the game gives you what you want, there ceases to be any role-playing involved, and frankly, "guess what number Darth Ultron is thinking of" is not much of a game.

[Crake]

Except those are all bad examples. Wow...just look at all them Touchstone Spots....like take a feat and you can cast a Boring and Dull by-the-book spell a couple times. Wow.

And sure they stuck some stuff in at the 3.75 stage of D&D....right before it was ended. Why not put that stuff in the Core Rules?

At least 5E says in the rules ''you don't all ways have to use the rules'' and ''do whatever and have fun''. So when a player complains (see above) a 5E DM can point to that ''rule''(as everything writen in a D&D book is a ''rule'') on page 102.

But they do it classic 3X....''ok, make up your own stuff....but use our almighty rules, always and buy our stuff. And you sure don't get anything close to creation type rules...

I mean, you're saying all that, but you're not really giving any examples. I never once got the impression from the books, either when I was first starting, or now, that I should avoid making my own stuff. And there's plenty of literature in the DMG that says to forgo the rules in lieu of fun, have you actually ever read that book? I've found most people actually haven't read the DMG, instead just learning the game by word of mouth from friends that introduced them into the game, or just carrying over from previous editions. Especially since a good chunk of the DMG is entirely just a guide and helpful things to know for running a game, rather than any definitive rules, and as such people just skip past it, thinking they know better, or that they don't need to read that stuff.

Unless you can actually direct me to any official literature that backs up your assertions, I really have to assume that you've just spent too much time on this forum, and have had the concept of the almighty RAW drilled into your mind far too often to really be able to see beyond it.

[Darth Ultron]

The DM is a player too. He's at the table, playing the game. The notion that he should have extra powers because it's "his game" is, as mentioned, toxic.

The DM has more/greater power then the players....this is so stated in the rules.



"The game" is "the rules". "The rules" are why you play a game. If you wanted to do free-form, improvisational group storytelling, you could just do that. I've had fun doing exactly that. But the point of the rules is to constrain possible actions to fit within a particular narrative or type of narrative. Having four people doing that, and one person doing "whatever he wants" is worse on every imaginable axis than having all five people doing one or the other.

Playing by-the-rulebook is dull, boring and toxic. You can only have fun for a short time doing the ''the character takes action two as per page 22 of the rules''.




Yeah, screw me for wanting the behavior things in the setting to be explicable to me so I can make informed decisions about my characters actions to give them a more coherent arc and personality. I can't imagine why I'd ever want to do that. Wait, no, I know exactly why I want to do that -- because it's a roleplaying game, and for roleplaying to be possible, the world has to be predictable, and it can't be predictable if you can unilaterally change it.

If the game gives you what you want, there ceases to be any role-playing involved, and frankly, "guess what number Darth Ultron is thinking of" is not much of a game.

I guess that your of the Player vs DM mentality where you think ''playing the game'' is being hostile and toxic to the DM and always trying to ''one up'' them with your amazing system mastery..while looking for rules loopholes and exploits for yourself.

And I know you won't get this concept....but you can role play no matter what the rules are or say. Though I know this is hard for Roll Players to get: that even if your character only has a +20 to hit, you can still role player your character as a prince of a small island elven kingdom that is looking for a long lost artifact. And, yes, once again, as your player character sheet does only say +20 to hit, you can still open your mouth and speak, when, for example, and NPC asks who your character is: You can say ''Prince Zerlu of the Elven Island Kingdom of Ro", and all without even looking at your player character sheet again and seeing your character only has a +20 to hit.

The answer to that question is: 42.



Unless you can actually direct me to any official literature that backs up your assertions, I really have to assume that you've just spent too much time on this forum, and have had the concept of the almighty RAW drilled into your mind far too often to really be able to see beyond it.

Well, lets see...does the DMG have rules for creating anything other then boring by-the-rules magic items?

Is there any rules on say spell creation? Not all the fluff...rules.

How about rules on monster creation?

Or how about the big one: rules for any ''other'' stuff....like say making a pool of magic water.

[Cosi]

Playing by-the-rulebook is dull, boring and toxic. You can only have fun for a short time doing the ''the character takes action two as per page 22 of the rules''.

I don't think you understand how rules work. Actually, I know that, because you are literally always wrong about everything.


I guess that your of the Player vs DM mentality where you think ''playing the game'' is being hostile and toxic to the DM and always trying to ''one up'' them with your amazing system mastery..while looking for rules loopholes and exploits for yourself.

Again, that is not the attitude. That is the attitude you are cultivating when you empower the DM to alter the rules on his terms. In a non-toxic group the group as a whole agrees to rules that are mutually desirable, so no-one has any incentive to look for loopholes. The idea that you need the DM to enforce the rules is symptomatic of a dysfunctional group. If you can't trust people to just follow the rules, you should not game with them. You should not put someone in charge to attempt to deal with that.


And I know you won't get this concept....but you can role play no matter what the rules are or say. Though I know this is hard for Roll Players to get: that even if your character only has a +20 to hit, you can still role player your character as a prince of a small island elven kingdom that is looking for a long lost artifact. And, yes, once again, as your player character sheet does only say +20 to hit, you can still open your mouth and speak, when, for example, and NPC asks who your character is: You can say ''Prince Zerlu of the Elven Island Kingdom of Ro", and all without even looking at your player character sheet again and seeing your character only has a +20 to hit.

That's not roleplaying. You can chant your personal mantra all you want, but to roleplay, to actually play a character, you need to understand what the effects of your actions will be (in probabilistic terms at least) and you cannot do that if the DM reserves the right to unilaterally alter things at any time.

[Milo v3]

Well, like just about all Hombrewers just make simple things to add to the game like items and classes and classes and more classes. Yes, there are a couple ones that make other things...but most just add on to what is there.

You see a ton of ''look at my spell 'fire ray' it does 1d6 damage a level and burns stuff'', but you only see a little of ''this spell splits the caster into one copy of themselves per level..and"
So what if most people only do minor things? There are people who make whole new magic systems, whole settings which require new rules, complete reworks of large aspects of the game. For godsake, I myself have been part of a project where we were adding super science rules to 3.5e which gave people so much creativity which lead to so many weird magical things. I haven't actually met a 3.5e group which didn't have houserules/make things up/reflavour things.

But regardless.... so what if not everyone remakes giant parts of the game? That doesn't change the fact that people do add in stuff, people do change stuff, many people add in things into the middle of a game and only try to think up any rules for them if something would come up like deciding what spell school an effect would be if someone ends up casting Detect Magic.


At least 5E says in the rules ''you don't all ways have to use the rules'' and ''do whatever and have fun''.
You say that as if that's something special about 5e.... I can't actually think of an RPG which doesn't have those two.

[Crake]

Well, lets see...does the DMG have rules for creating anything other then boring by-the-rules magic items?

Is there any rules on say spell creation? Not all the fluff...rules.

How about rules on monster creation?

These things are decidedly outside of the scope of the thread, though yes, it has guidelines for those things. Not detailed ones like 5th edition, but 5th edition's detailed guidelines simply result in every spell feeling functionally the same. Having rules for creating anything but by the rules magic items would be oxymoronic, because as soon as you create rules for them, they're now by the rules. Spell creation is similar, in that it just says "if you want to make a spell, compare it to other spells and use your judgement to decide what spell level it should be. There needn't be any rules beyond that really.

Monster creation on the other hand, I would agree with you on that, having some kind of guideline for building your own monsters would have been very useful, but again, not the scope of this thread.


Or how about the big one: rules for any ''other'' stuff....like say making a pool of magic water.

Now, to the point: Having rules for this kind of other "stuff" would literally just bring you back to your own complaint, which is that there can't be rules for this sort of thing, because as soon as there are rules, there's no more mystery, so asking for rules would be counter productive to your goal. As to my question on where the books discourage DMs from making up their own things, the only thing you've pointed me to is... a lack of rules about making your own rules? All that says to me is that 3.5 developers didn't feel like players at the time needed rules to make their own stuff, they could just... you know.... do it.

Has it ever occured to you that perhaps back when you used to play earlier editions, your DM had far more time, and far less pre-compiled material at hand, meaning they were forced to make up their own stuff? Then when 3e came along, a combination of less time to prepare due to responsibilities in life, and an increased amount of available official material meant they simply chose to use pre-written rules rather than making their own, which in turn manifested in your experience as 3.5 being far more rules focused?

Fizban said it way earlier in the thread:

Like Crake already mentioned, there are modules that do these things, it's just up to the DM to put them in. There is no book of mysterious barely defined magical thingies. If people cleave mostly to RAW stuff, it's because they choose to.

There's honestly nothing I can find that in any way discourages players from making their own material, beyond simply an enormous amount of pre-made stuff. Your players/DMs choosing not to make their own stuff because there's already material available doesn't mean that the system discouraged them, it just means that they weighed the cost and benefit of doing so, and decided to work with the material that already exists.

[Milo v3]

Monster creation on the other hand, I would agree with you on that, having some kind of guideline for building your own monsters would have been very useful, but again, not the scope of this thread.
Those are in the Monster Mannual. I also find it funny he thinks that there was no guidelines for homebrewing for things aside from items. They've got a step by step of making a new class for godsake, and the whole point behind Prestige Classes was specifically to build your own to give all your homebrew organisations unique powers.

[Crake]

Those are in the Monster Mannual. I also find it funny he thinks that there was no guidelines for homebrewing for things aside from items. They've got a step by step of making a new class for godsake, and the whole point behind Prestige Classes was specifically to build your own to give all your homebrew organisations unique powers.

Yeah, that's true, about the monster manual I mean, though it's a really short section, and really just reads as a "what makes a monster" section, since it really just kinda explains the building blocks of a monster, which I suppose is what you need to make your own, but at the same time, it doesn't do a good job at helping you estimate the power level of the monster you've just made.

[Pleh]

it really just kinda explains the building blocks of a monster, which I suppose is what you need to make your own, but at the same time, it doesn't do a good job at helping you estimate the power level of the monster you've just made.

Yeah, the general rule of thought in creating new content (as they laid out for us) seems to be "start by taking something close to what we made to give yourself a baseline and then make careful, incremental changes so you can more easily map the power changes with each step."

Might have been more meaningful if their CR system made any real sense beyond a vague notion that worked sometimes better than others.

[Darth Ultron]

I don't think you understand how rules work. Actually, I know that, because you are literally always wrong about everything.

Works kind of like this:

1.someone some where scribbles something down on a page...that gets printed in a book
2.A DM, or player, reads the book.
3.The DM, then just does whatever they want, and to a far, far, far, far lesser degree so do the players(with the Dm's approval)



That's not roleplaying. You can chant your personal mantra all you want, but to roleplay, to actually play a character, you need to understand what the effects of your actions will be (in probabilistic terms at least) and you cannot do that if the DM reserves the right to unilaterally alter things at any time.

Um, you can Role Play a Character just fine without...um...''understand what the effects of your actions will be ".



Now, to the point: Having rules for this kind of other "stuff" would literally just bring you back to your own complaint, which is that there can't be rules for this sort of thing, because as soon as there are rules, there's no more mystery, so asking for rules would be counter productive to your goal. As to my question on where the books discourage DMs from making up their own things, the only thing you've pointed me to is... a lack of rules about making your own rules? All that says to me is that 3.5 developers didn't feel like players at the time needed rules to make their own stuff, they could just... you know.... do it.

Well, first off it would be nice if there was more of an emphasis on making stuff, and a couple lines that say something like ''players just be quiet and play the game''.

But yes, I would not want very detailed rules for like a ''+1 per spell point per spell effect or such''.....but they could have the more vague Rules about Rules.



Has it ever occured to you that perhaps back when you used to play earlier editions, your DM had far more time, and far less pre-compiled material at hand, meaning they were forced to make up their own stuff? Then when 3e came along, a combination of less time to prepare due to responsibilities in life, and an increased amount of available official material meant they simply chose to use pre-written rules rather than making their own, which in turn manifested in your experience as 3.5 being far more rules focused?


Well, D&D 2E had a TON of stuff....


Yeah, the general rule of thought in creating new content (as they laid out for us) seems to be "start by taking something close to what we made to give yourself a baseline and then make careful, incremental changes so you can more easily map the power changes with each step."

Might have been more meaningful if their CR system made any real sense beyond a vague notion that worked sometimes better than others.

This is my point....it is vague and just says ''copy us and you will be fine''.

Of course the problem is...even if you just ''copy'' the rules....most of the stuff they made is broken, does not work or is crazy.....and that only goes way more once you add anything past Core. A lot of things just don't make sense.

Like a whole TON of martial feats don't do all that much....you get like a +1 to one roll, sometimes, if you make a DC roll. Though some feats do give amazing abilities. Some spells are huge wastes, where they do very little...and yet some spells are amazingly powerful. And so on.

So if you pick a bad feat(or a hundred) to ''base'' off....then your making a feat like ''A character gets a +1 on strength checks to open doors''...and if you base it off a good feat, you'd have ''by taking a -3 to hit the fighter can ''increase all numerical things in a combat action to their maximum''.

[Bronk]

So, I've always appreciated a lot of the assumptions in the Player's Handbook that don't seem to make it to regular play.

Like, take the Read Magic spell. It's primarily for translating the spell scroll I just picked up, or if it's a mid or high level game I might get lucky and be able to use it on a glyph or symbol spell with a decent Spellcraft check. The spell also suggests that it could read any magical writing. I've yet to have a DM tell me...

This is one of many little built in potential plot hooks for DMs to use, but players you could easily write their own! Since you're the DM, I agree with what another poster said... just start putting magic writing into your game, and be sure to tell people about it. It could take the form of a cool name for a weapon, or glowing writing on a wall that could be a clue, that kind of thing.



Then there's the Spellcraft skill description. I've spoken a bit about this before, but I've always been intrigued by the skill suggesting it can be used to "Understand a strange or unique magical effect, such as the effects of a magic stream."


Those are fun ideas, and I've used similar ideas in my games as well. The idea though, is that it helps to know in advance what the deal with them is.

For a magical stream, I agree with the other poster... if the water is useful, players might try to take more advantage of it than just drinking out of it once. A spellcraft check would help with that! They could find out "You can drink this water to gain X. The magic is tied to the location." That sort of thing will soften the blow if you don't want them to be able to bottle it for later use or sale, and so on. Or maybe it's protected by something that gets offended if you disrespect the place.

In fact, in my game, I've been placing magic pools here and there, and I've been encouraging a druid PC to move them around.



So far my favorite example of this kind of thing actually comes from 5e, where the DMG gives an example of a random encounter table in a sylvan forest, and one of its random possible encounters is with a magical bush that grows glowing berries that make the consumer turn invisible for an hour (or until they attack or cast a spell). And that's a handy bit of magic to give to players; not overpowering (and can't be used immediately) but it's fun and can make the players feel like they've been given an edge.


I agree with another poster: This is the kind of thing that can have a DM scrambling if they aren't prepared for questions like: How many berries are on this bush? Can I plant the seeds and grow more? Does the answer change if my character is an elf or a fey creature? How long do they last? Forever, or the length of time a regular berry lasts? How much can you sell them for? The price of a level 60 potion, or some percentage of an invisibility ring?

It can easily be overpowering, if you let it. There are a few plants in 3.5 to base this sort of thing off of. The fey cherry tree and the wish fern both have built in limitations on how easy their benefits are to gain and keep, as well as how soon and how often they can be harvested.



I dunno... most of my players seem to really like the little experiments I've been doing with it lately. The Infinite Corridor (admittedly ripped off a bit from Zork/The Lurking Horror) was well received...


This type of thing can be accomplished at low levels with illusions, or teleportation traps, or portals. At higher levels, with planar effects.



Like, for instance... one of the ways I've toyed with this recently was with an intelligent item named Shumov, the Chess Shield. He was a talking shield with a chess-pattern on his face and a pouch that a lot of tiny, animated chess pieces could sit in. I tried to figure out how much he was worth by the rules of D&D, and tried to figure out a way for him to come into the possession of the level 3 party, and, well... I couldn't do it. While I love the intelligent item rules, they just didn't work for the purpose of giving the party a bombastic, rambunctious sidekick at a low level, especially not one who had bonuses to checks on History, Strategy, or Diplomacy. That guy probably completely smashed the Wealth By Level guidelines, even if I upped the difficulty of the swarm of chess pieces that attacked the players when they first found him, but he also did nothing to upset the party's game balance (effectively being little more than a Masterwork Shield when used mechanically).


This could be done inexpensively by having the initial swarm thing be a trap, and the item be the bare minimum intelligent magic shield that has a cool paint job and has a box of chess pieces glued to it. The whole thing would cost 2,170g or so.

Or, it could be a mundane item with 'Nybor's Psychic Imprint' cast on it. It would have to have a gem embedded in it somewhere, but if the original person's mental stats were average enough, it could be an arbitrarily cheap one.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20041215a

Long story short, I think the ideas you've come up for your game were great, and wouldn't have necessarily been game breaking even if you didn't seem to have great players too.




I like things like the painting in the study reads your mind and puts your likeness in the painting or the thorn bushes animate and shoot their thorns.

How to add them to the game, other then just do it?


I don't think either of these two examples pose much of a problem, even using the rules.

The painting doesn't need to read minds - in fact, why would that necessarily tell it what you look like? It just needs to duplicate the first level 'silent image' spell. Done. Now it's a painting that duplicates whoever stands in front of it, and can be made by a low level character.

If you want a more powerful painting that does read minds, and you absolutely have to give it to a low level person, there's no reason you can't do that. If the price thing bothers you, just make it a minor artifact. They have no price, and that's what they're for.

Animating thorn bushes, specifically ones that shoot thorns? I'd go with a woodling manticore, or a topiary guardian version, or maybe just a trap.



Like just last weekend I had a Haunted Bookcase in a library full of rare books. Haunted by a ghost librarian who would let folks take books off the shelf to read, with in 10 feet, but would attack if they did anything else. And the ghost could trap a thieves soul in one of the books to make them a 'book guardian' of sorts to ''pay'' for their crime. Of course, a ghost possessed and animated Bookcase with a ghost that can cast telekinesis and Trap the Soul at will is like a CR 30 monster...buy the rules. Though luckily I have mostly good players, and Jennifer caught on to the ''vibe'' of the ghost real quick and talked to the ghost and role played, as she figured out that if she sincerely was a ''library patron seeking knowledge'' that the Bookcase Ghost would help her.


Lets see... This could have been accomplished with a regular ghost, those books from dragon magazine that fly around by themselves, and having the rest be a magical 'trap the soul' trap that the ghost knows how to activate. Since you can disarm a magical trap but not loot it and resell it, it doesn't matter what it costs. The CR for the trap would be 10 at most, and the ghost could be whatever is necessary to be level appropriate.

[Cosi]

Um, you can Role Play a Character just fine without...um...''understand what the effects of your actions will be ".

No, you can't. Roleplaying is about answering one fundamental question -- "what would my character do?". To answer that question, you need to know who your character is (which, yes, is independent of the rules), but you also need to know what your character can do. Because combining "who is my character" with "what can my character do" is how you get an answer to "what would my character do". But if the DM reserves the right to unilaterally alter things, you can't know what the effects of actions are, because the DM could just change whatever their nominal effects are to something else. And if you can't know that, you can't know what your character can do, which means you can't know what your character would do, which makes roleplaying impossible.

[Darth Ultron]

No, you can't. Roleplaying is about answering one fundamental question -- "what would my character do?". To answer that question, you need to know who your character is (which, yes, is independent of the rules), but you also need to know what your character can do. Because combining "who is my character" with "what can my character do" is how you get an answer to "what would my character do". But if the DM reserves the right to unilaterally alter things, you can't know what the effects of actions are, because the DM could just change whatever their nominal effects are to something else. And if you can't know that, you can't know what your character can do, which means you can't know what your character would do, which makes roleplaying impossible.

Um, what? It is like you have never played an RPG before...

Example: A clueless player who does not know any rules, but can still Role Play, might say:

Player: Ok, so I walk down the wall away from where the guard can see me and make sure no one else is around that I can see.

DM: you see no one around.

Player:Ok, so can Zum climb the wall?

DM: Maybe, roll a d20 and add your Climb skill ranks to it.

Player: *rolls* Ok, the total is 17.

DM: Nods, ok, Zom climbs up the wall no problem.

Just look at the player role play...and not even know one rule or ''everything that might happen''.

[Milo v3]

Um, what? It is like you have never played an RPG before...

Example: A clueless player who does not know any rules, but can still Role Play, might say:

Player: Ok, so I walk down the wall away from where the guard can see me and make sure no one else is around that I can see.

DM: you see no one around.

Player:Ok, so can Zum climb the wall?

DM: Maybe, roll a d20 and add your Climb skill ranks to it.

Player: *rolls* Ok, the total is 17.

DM: Nods, ok, Zom climbs up the wall no problem.

Just look at the player role play...and not even know one rule or ''everything that might happen''.

Thing is, if the character actually had something like a -5 penalty to climb there is no reason why the character would have tried to climb the wall because they'd know they suck at climbing walls, but there is no way for the player to know that because they didn't read their sheet. There are situations where not knowing what your character can actually do, means you're not roleplaying properly.

[digiman619]

I don't know about magic streams, but I use magic pools all the time. The pool of sex-change water is the main one that people have found so far.

*pantomimes picking up a phone and listening to it and then hanging it up* Yeah, Rumiko Takahashi called. She wants her set peice back (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranma_%C2%BD)

[Darth Ultron]

Thing is, if the character actually had something like a -5 penalty to climb there is no reason why the character would have tried to climb the wall because they'd know they suck at climbing walls, but there is no way for the player to know that because they didn't read their sheet. There are situations where not knowing what your character can actually do, means you're not roleplaying properly.

THIS is the big problem with a lot of Modern Gamers. If their character has even the slightest shadow of anything even remotely negate they over react and whine and cry. Like if their character has even a -1 in something, then that character is useless. Everything MUST always be a huge positive. Unless the character has a +20 in climb, the player won't even try to climb up a five foot wall.

To climb a rough stone wall the DC is only 10...so the poor character with a -5 can still do it, if they roll high enough. But...even if the poor character fails the roll...well, it is not the end of the world. The character is not obliterated and the player is not ''forced to never ever game again''.

And knowing the numbers is not Roll Playing properly....but they roll playing is already bad, so it does not matter much.

Just take the two players, each with a character with -5 to climb:

The Role Player, that does not know their character has the -5

Player:Ok, so can Zum climb the wall?

DM: Maybe, roll a d20 and add your Climb skill modifier to it.

Player: *rolls* Sees the result and apply the modifier Ok, the total is 12.

DM: Nods, ok, Zom climbs up the wall no problem.

Now take the sad Roll Player:

Player Whines and Cries: My character Zom is useless! With the -5 to climb that means my character can never, ever, ever,ever climb anything ever! So, my character does nothing.

[EisenKreutzer]

THIS is the big problem with a lot of Modern Gamers. If their character has even the slightest shadow of anything even remotely negate they over react and whine and cry. Like if their character has even a -1 in something, then that character is useless. Everything MUST always be a huge positive. Unless the character has a +20 in climb, the player won't even try to climb up a five foot wall.

To climb a rough stone wall the DC is only 10...so the poor character with a -5 can still do it, if they roll high enough. But...even if the poor character fails the roll...well, it is not the end of the world. The character is not obliterated and the player is not ''forced to never ever game again''.

And knowing the numbers is not Roll Playing properly....but they roll playing is already bad, so it does not matter much.

Just take the two players, each with a character with -5 to climb:

The Role Player, that does not know their character has the -5

Player:Ok, so can Zum climb the wall?

DM: Maybe, roll a d20 and add your Climb skill modifier to it.

Player: *rolls* Sees the result and apply the modifier Ok, the total is 12.

DM: Nods, ok, Zom climbs up the wall no problem.

Now take the sad Roll Player:

Player Whines and Cries: My character Zom is useless! With the -5 to climb that means my character can never, ever, ever,ever climb anything ever! So, my character does nothing.

The roll play/roleplay distinction hasn't been relevant to rpg discussions since the mid 90's.
It is perfectly possible to create an optimized character and roleplay at the same time. See the Stormwind Fallacy (https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/60ed6s/optimizing_vs_roleplaying_the_stormwind_fallacy/).

What is relevant is the fact that people play roleplaying games for a wide variety of reasons. In the theory community, we sometimes call these reasons Creative Agendas, but I'm not going to get into the details of rpg theory. Some players really enjoy the game mechanics aspects of roleplaying games, and approach the activity as a game first and foremost. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach, it is a valid reason to play rpgs.
Other players approach roleplaying games as mediums for group storytelling, or to explore fictional worlds. These approaches are equally common, and equally valid.

Expressing concern for your characters mechanical abilities and how they impact your narrative choices is not some crime against good roleplaying. It is a natural expression of a Creative Agenda. if some players priorities are different than your own your first reaction should not be disdain or hostility, it should be curiosity and understanding.

[Milo v3]

THIS is the big problem with a lot of Modern Gamers. If their character has even the slightest shadow of anything even remotely negate they over react and whine and cry. Like if their character has even a -1 in something, then that character is useless. Everything MUST always be a huge positive. Unless the character has a +20 in climb, the player won't even try to climb up a five foot wall.

To climb a rough stone wall the DC is only 10...so the poor character with a -5 can still do it, if they roll high enough. But...even if the poor character fails the roll...well, it is not the end of the world. The character is not obliterated and the player is not ''forced to never ever game again''.
What? :smallconfused:

I didn't whine, overreact, or cry, and I didn't suggest the player in the scenario would either. I just said the character probably wouldn't attempt something they know they're bad at as their plan, they'd likely try to come up with a method that makes sense for the character's abilities and personality, and that ignoring their character isn't roleplaying in any way.

You make some very odd and aggressive leaps in logic.

[noob]

It is possible to use together leap to conclusions and pounce and battle jump.

[Crake]

THIS is the big problem with a lot of Modern Gamers. If their character has even the slightest shadow of anything even remotely negate they over react and whine and cry. Like if their character has even a -1 in something, then that character is useless. Everything MUST always be a huge positive. Unless the character has a +20 in climb, the player won't even try to climb up a five foot wall.

To climb a rough stone wall the DC is only 10...so the poor character with a -5 can still do it, if they roll high enough. But...even if the poor character fails the roll...well, it is not the end of the world. The character is not obliterated and the player is not ''forced to never ever game again''.

And knowing the numbers is not Roll Playing properly....but they roll playing is already bad, so it does not matter much.

Just take the two players, each with a character with -5 to climb:

The Role Player, that does not know their character has the -5

Player:Ok, so can Zum climb the wall?

DM: Maybe, roll a d20 and add your Climb skill modifier to it.

Player: *rolls* Sees the result and apply the modifier Ok, the total is 12.

DM: Nods, ok, Zom climbs up the wall no problem.

Now take the sad Roll Player:

Player Whines and Cries: My character Zom is useless! With the -5 to climb that means my character can never, ever, ever,ever climb anything ever! So, my character does nothing.

Uhh, for DC10, with a -5 penalty, you'll fail by 5 (meaning you'll fall from the wall) more often than not. Climbing moves at 1/4 speed, so most players will only be advancing 5ft for a climb check, so if the wall is 20ft high, you need four consecutive successes, which entails rolling a 15+ (a 30% chance). Failure while above 10ft also incurs 1d6 falling damage. So not only is the chance of successfully climbing the wall about 0.2%, there's also a siginificant chance that you'll fall quite often and take a not insignificant amount of damage for a low level character.

So yes, if you had a -5 penalty, you probably wouldn't try to climb the wall. Unless you've also got 6 int.

[digiman619]

Uhh, for DC10, with a -5 penalty, you'll fail by 5 (meaning you'll fall from the wall) more often than not. Climbing moves at 1/4 speed, so most players will only be advancing 5ft for a climb check, so if the wall is 20ft high, you need four consecutive successes, which entails rolling a 15+ (a 30% chance). Failure while above 10ft also incurs 1d6 falling damage. So not only is the chance of successfully climbing the wall about 0.2%, there's also a siginificant chance that you'll fall quite often and take a not insignificant amount of damage for a low level character.

So yes, if you had a -5 penalty, you probably wouldn't try to climb the wall. Unless you've also got 6 int.

Besides, it's generally in-character to not want to risk serious by doing that, and wantiing to find an alternate way to get over that can be legit roleplaying and not whining.

[Darth Ultron]

The roll play/roleplay distinction hasn't been relevant to rpg discussions since the mid 90's.
It is perfectly possible to create an optimized character and roleplay at the same time.

I agree it is possible.....in theory.


I didn't whine, overreact, or cry, and I didn't suggest the player in the scenario would either. I just said the character probably wouldn't attempt something they know they're bad at as their plan, they'd likely try to come up with a method that makes sense for the character's abilities and personality, and that ignoring their character isn't roleplaying in any way.

Well, the above is not what you said. Your backing up fast. You said: " if the character actually had something like a -5 penalty to climb there is no reason why the character would have tried to climb the wall because they'd know they suck at climbing walls".

So your saying a character with something like a -5 sucks and should never even try. So now your back tracking to the more reasonable ''the player should just be aware of their character's abilities.

[EisenKreutzer]

I agree it is possible.....in theory.

It’s not just possible in theory, people do it all the time. Optimization and roleplaying are not opposites, or mutually exclusive.

[Malimar]

It's been awhile since I've been so annoyed at an argument.

I agree with Darth Ultron in broad strokes but the details they're using to back their argument up make me hate agreeing with them.

Whereas Cosi appears to be misunderstanding the fundamental premise of what they're arguing against (and if their argument were actually applied to what they're arguing against, they'd probably be metagaming). Sure, you need to understand your character's capabilities, but why do you need to understand the fundamental strangenesses of the IC world when your character doesn't? (Even a wizard or an archivist, a devoted studier of the arcane, most likely doesn't understand, say, the ultra-obscure principles of nexus, to take an example from my setting.)

[Darth Ultron]

It’s not just possible in theory, people do it all the time. Optimization and roleplaying are not opposites, or mutually exclusive.

Again, this is all theory. The kind of stuff that gets talked about and posted on game boards.

And, sure, I know everyone is the theoretical exception, but there are thousands of players who, for example, can't have a character role play lying unless that character has a super high optimized mechanical roll playing by-the-rules thing on their sheet to do that...and automatically succeed, of course.

[EisenKreutzer]

Again, this is all theory. The kind of stuff that gets talked about and posted on game boards.

And, sure, I know everyone is the theoretical exception, but there are thousands of players who, for example, can't have a character role play lying unless that character has a super high optimized mechanical roll playing by-the-rules thing on their sheet to do that...and automatically succeed, of course.

Do you have any kind of evidence to back up that statement? Because I think it's not only anecdotal but also mostly hyperbole.

[Darth Ultron]

Do you have any kind of evidence to back up that statement? Because I think it's not only anecdotal but also mostly hyperbole.

Ah, of course, the old ''evidence'' defense....classic. But really lets not side track the thread.

[EisenKreutzer]

Ah, of course, the old ''evidence'' defense....classic. But really lets not side track the thread.

Ah, the old «ah, the old so-and-so defense» defense.
Because who needs evidence when you can back your arguments up with absolutely nothing.

You can of course be dismissive without even touching my question, but it doesn’t really strengthen your position or your arguments.

[Milo v3]

Again, this is all theory. The kind of stuff that gets talked about and posted on game boards.

And, sure, I know everyone is the theoretical exception, but there are thousands of players who, for example, can't have a character role play lying unless that character has a super high optimized mechanical roll playing by-the-rules thing on their sheet to do that...and automatically succeed, of course.
We don't even need "theoretical exceptions"... one of the other things which gets posted on game boards is play-by-post. You can easily just scroll down and see examples of people roleplaying and being a modern gamer and optimized all at the same time.

99.9% of gamers do not match how you've described modern gamers...


Well, the above is not what you said. Your backing up fast. You said: " if the character actually had something like a -5 penalty to climb there is no reason why the character would have tried to climb the wall because they'd know they suck at climbing walls".
That's not backing up... That's me saying an example of a situation where "if you don't know your characters abilities you're going to end up roleplaying wrong".


So your saying a character with something like a -5 sucks and should never even try.
It does suck, any character with an int score above 8 wouldn't give it a try.


So now your back tracking to the more reasonable ''the player should just be aware of their character's abilities.
No, I'm saying if you're not aware of your abilities then you're not going to roleplay correctly, which isn't backtracking because I said this earlier: "There are situations where not knowing what your character can actually do, means you're not roleplaying properly." as part of the "if the character actually had something like a -5 penalty to climb there is no reason why the character would have tried to climb the wall because they'd know they suck at climbing walls" post.

[digiman619]

Milo, you're wasting your time. You have run smack into what I like to call one of the Walls of the Playground; posters who are otherwise rational human beings but refuse to budge on a given topic. DU here is convinced that all "modern players" (which may or may not be a 'back in my day' argument, but I don't have conclusive data on that one way or another) are whiny, entitled brats who only care about power gaming. Cosi is convinced that the problem with 3.X and its Tier system was that everyone wasn't as powerful as the Wizard, and that outside of a handful of broken spells, T1's need no zero nerfing whatsoever.

And lest you think this is me bitching about my fellow posters, I am one as well; you will never sell me about the pros of Vancian casting (i.e., spell slots). I think that they are inefficient, game-and-story breaking, and level-locks all the cool concepts rather than make lesser ones (ie., no one is allowed to fly until 5th, even though there are tons of cool concepts that require it), While I also have a trademark subsystem that I often recommend, most of my selling points on it are "look how much this lets you do that Vancian is too rigid to allow".

[Darth Ultron]

You can of course be dismissive without even touching my question, but it doesn’t really strengthen your position or your arguments.

If I could make a thread about this topic I would....

[Crake]

If I could make a thread about this topic I would....

There actually happens to be nothing barring you from doing so.

[Darth Ultron]

There actually happens to be nothing barring you from doing so.

Sadly, there is.

[Afgncaap5]

I agree with another poster: This is the kind of thing that can have a DM scrambling if they aren't prepared for questions like: How many berries are on this bush? Can I plant the seeds and grow more? Does the answer change if my character is an elf or a fey creature? How long do they last? Forever, or the length of time a regular berry lasts? How much can you sell them for? The price of a level 60 potion, or some percentage of an invisibility ring?

Oh, the DMG has a few notes on the number of berries, the reliability of taking the berries, and ways that players overusing the bushes might kill the viability of it as a resource. Careful players could go back to it, take what they need, and head back to civilization every time, but the rules in that random option lean toward overuse causing the extermination of the bush's magic (and going back to it repeatedly would call on the various other random encounters that might come up as well, so it's not without dangers.)

[Cosi]

Cosi is convinced that the problem with 3.X and its Tier system was that everyone wasn't as powerful as the Wizard, and that outside of a handful of broken spells, T1's need no zero nerfing whatsoever.

Why are you phrasing that in terms of the tiers? I thought that I was at least as obvious about my objections to those as I was about my feelings on class balance.

[digiman619]

Why are you phrasing that in terms of the tiers? I thought that I was at least as obvious about my objections to those as I was about my feelings on class balance.

Because as far as the average Playgrounder is concerned, "Tier 1" is short for "Wizards, Clerics, Druids, Archivists, Artificers and Spell-to-Power Erudites", which are the classes that currently have the power level that you want the rest of the game to be elevated to.