Post by Athkethin on Feb 2, 2016 13:40:17 GMT -7
I came across an old copy of LNA2: Nehwon at my FLGS*, and snapped it up for the whopping $2.00 they were charging. Since Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are a crucial party of the Sword & Sorcery genre, I thought it would be interesting to see how AD&D dealt with adapting Lieber's stuff. Since a few of us on here have been toying with methods of making D&D magic fit the mold of traditional S&S stories, I thought I'd relay some of what I found.
First off, an elegant and simple solution to combat magic: extending casting times for spells.** Spells that take a round to cast in "normal" D&D take an hour, spells that normally take an hour take a day, days go to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years, respectively. Right there, we get rid of the blaster-caster issue that has many of us concerned. The book also has a rule that states a spell, once cast, cannot be cast again until a week has passed. That isn't to say that it takes a week to prepare the spell - just that a week must pass before the spell can be prepared again.
To offset these limitations, all wizards gain the ability to sense magic being cast within 300' per level of the caster once they reach level 5 (50% + 5% per level of the spell being cast). If they concentrate on the magic, they can determine its distance from them.
Black wizards (the game makes no distinction between clerics and wizards, except that clerics are called "white" wizards and normal D&D wizards are called "black" wizards, with various limitations on each) also suffer physical effects from working with magic - a somewhat milder version of the Taint adaptation I posted a while back. Each time a black wizard gains a level, they roll 1d12 on the following chart and suffer the corresponding (permanent) effect:
1 Lose sight in one eye
2 Lose all of your hair
3 Lose all sense of smell and taste
4 Lose 1-6 points of Charisma
5 Your touch spoils wine
6 Your face becomes misshapen and hideous
7 You become hopelessly enraged at the sound of laughter
8 You develop a limp, reducing your speed to half normal
9 Develop an irrational and complete fear of dogs
10 Develop an irrational and complete fear of horses
11 Lose endurance and must rest one turn (10 minutes) after each turn (10 minutes) of activity
12 Develop an allergy too all food unless it is treated with a rare herb
If you get the same result twice, it just means that somehow you managed to avoid any scarring during that stage of your development.
White wizards are just D&D clerics, and don't suffer the physical effects above - though they lack the power over undead.
Anyway, I thought that these ideas had some potential for simple tweaks to both add a definite price to spellcasting and to make it more esoteric and academic. I don't think I'd use either without some adjustments, but it's definitely food for thought.
* One of the numerous supplements published for AD&D during the mid 80s to mid 90s trying to adapt the stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser to the game
** This can be accomplished in an even simpler and more limited fashion by using the initiative modifiers on page 271 of the 5e DMG, of course.
First off, an elegant and simple solution to combat magic: extending casting times for spells.** Spells that take a round to cast in "normal" D&D take an hour, spells that normally take an hour take a day, days go to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years, respectively. Right there, we get rid of the blaster-caster issue that has many of us concerned. The book also has a rule that states a spell, once cast, cannot be cast again until a week has passed. That isn't to say that it takes a week to prepare the spell - just that a week must pass before the spell can be prepared again.
To offset these limitations, all wizards gain the ability to sense magic being cast within 300' per level of the caster once they reach level 5 (50% + 5% per level of the spell being cast). If they concentrate on the magic, they can determine its distance from them.
Black wizards (the game makes no distinction between clerics and wizards, except that clerics are called "white" wizards and normal D&D wizards are called "black" wizards, with various limitations on each) also suffer physical effects from working with magic - a somewhat milder version of the Taint adaptation I posted a while back. Each time a black wizard gains a level, they roll 1d12 on the following chart and suffer the corresponding (permanent) effect:
1 Lose sight in one eye
2 Lose all of your hair
3 Lose all sense of smell and taste
4 Lose 1-6 points of Charisma
5 Your touch spoils wine
6 Your face becomes misshapen and hideous
7 You become hopelessly enraged at the sound of laughter
8 You develop a limp, reducing your speed to half normal
9 Develop an irrational and complete fear of dogs
10 Develop an irrational and complete fear of horses
11 Lose endurance and must rest one turn (10 minutes) after each turn (10 minutes) of activity
12 Develop an allergy too all food unless it is treated with a rare herb
If you get the same result twice, it just means that somehow you managed to avoid any scarring during that stage of your development.
White wizards are just D&D clerics, and don't suffer the physical effects above - though they lack the power over undead.
Anyway, I thought that these ideas had some potential for simple tweaks to both add a definite price to spellcasting and to make it more esoteric and academic. I don't think I'd use either without some adjustments, but it's definitely food for thought.
* One of the numerous supplements published for AD&D during the mid 80s to mid 90s trying to adapt the stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser to the game
** This can be accomplished in an even simpler and more limited fashion by using the initiative modifiers on page 271 of the 5e DMG, of course.
