Savage Dungeons: That Old Black Magic - Making the Magic-User Archetype

While the Fighter Archetype gains Edges common to their background, the Magic-User Archetype must always have the Arcane Background (Magic) and Power Points edges, so that their character flavor will be developed by the spells that they choose.

Since trappings seem to be a hard notion for some old school style gamers to grasp, I’ll be rewriting the spell descriptions from the Open Game License (OGL) and applying the appropriate Savage World Powers. The spell trappings will then become part of the Wildcard PC background by choosing from a prescribed list similar to Edges in the Fighter Archetype Quickdraw Wildcard character creation.

Vancian magic was at the core of the original dungeon crawling RPG, but I am more concerned with reproducing the effect of the spell rather than converting the original mechanics-- this is still a Savage Worlds setting and I do not want to recreate the “fire and forget” style of magic on the whole. There may be certain spells or circumstances that I may include Vancian style as an option or setting rule.

We’ll start with the first and second level Magic-User Spells for the Basic Rules:

First Level Magic-User Spells Charm Person Detect Magic Floating Disc Hold Portal Light Magic Missile Magic Mouth Protection from Evil Read Languages Shield Sleep Ventriloquism

Second Level Magic-User Spells Continual Light Detect Evil Detect Invisible ESP Invisibility Knock Levitate Locate Object Mirror Image Phantasmal Force Web Wizard Lock

An example might look like this favorite first level spell, Magic Missile:

Magic Missile:

Rank: Novice

Power Points: 1 per missile

Range: 12/24/48

Duration: Instant

This spell causes a missile charged with magical energy to dart forth from the caster's hand and strike its target unerringly, as long as the target is at least partially visible to the caster, causing 2d6 damage per magic missile.  If multiple missiles are cast they can target a single creature or several creatures. A single missile can strike only one creature.

At 7 and 14 XP a magic user can cast an additional Magic Missile-- up to 3 per turn. 

Trappings (Choose one):

1.     You learned to cast this spell by careful study with the village fortune teller. Through careful use and manipulation of a special deck of cards you learned that you could send them slicing through the air like razors, hitting their mark every time.

2.     The crazy old hermit on the edge of town who was once the king's Mage has taught you supernatural secrets. By marking a small stone with the correct rune, it becomes magically charged and strikes your target as a bullet of pure energy.

3.     The old wizard showed you the arcane secrets of the universe. By opening your mind and body to the flow of energies around you, you create a glowing blue arrow made of pure energy that sings through the air unerringly hitting your target.

4.     While being pushed around by the village bullies one day you suddenly uttered words in a language unknown to you and while pointing your finger, conjured a bright stream of light energy that instantly struck one of them. You have since been able to remember the incantation and can cast magic missile at will.

5.     While exploring in the ancestral barrow mounds you found an antique book of strange notes and drawings. Most of the book seems incomprehensible, but as you spent months studying it you were able to decipher some of the writings and symbols. By carving an arcane symbol into the air and singing the correct notes, you cause space itself to ripple from your finger and instantly strike any visible creature.

6.     Magic has always been in your family. Your mother has it, your father has it, and you have been taught from birth how to harness the power inside of you and bend it to your will. By pointing your finger at a creature and forcefully speaking a single word, you release a green bolt of arcane energy at your target.

This approach will certainly take the most time when recreating the Basic spells for Savage Dungeons, but I think the results will be worth it.

Savage Dungeons: Goblins and Kobolds and Bugbears, oh my!

 The Basic red box for me was not just about ease of learning how to play the game, but also ease of GMing a game. I want to add that same notion to Savage Dungeons. Like the Quickdraw characters and possibly choose-your-own adventures for players, I'd like to develop  simple paint-by-number styled adventures for beginning GMs.  I am playing with how to present monster stats simply but still remain Savage. Looking at the stat block for monsters in the Basic F20 adventure, there is still a lot of information presented that didn't come up often in a typical dungeon crawl or encounter. After reading the article Instant NPCs for Fifth Edition D&D by +Mike Shea, in which he refers to a blog post Monte Says: PCs versus NPCs in which +Monte Cook talks about simplifying NPC (and creature) details. Monte goes on to talk about how the Cypher system makes it easy to create NPCs and monsters on the fly. In the Cypher system NPCs are represented by one number that is essentially their level of difficulty. In early F20 games this difficulty was represented by the Hit Die as well as treasure type and PC experience point value--Risk vs. reward. In his article Mike concludes that for Fifth Edition D&D, "We likely can't design a system as simple the one in the Cypher system for combatant NPCs. Monsters in D&D have quite a bit of crunch to them with their six attributes, hit points, armor classes, attack scores and the like.", but what about Savage Worlds?looks at NPC creation through the lens of the Cypher System, I began to wonder if Extras in Savage Worlds could be reduced to just a few stats?  How much information is actually needed for a typical combat or non-combat encounter? Since Savage Worlds already makes a distinction between Wildcard and Extra NPCs half the work of simplification is already done, but can we get even simpler? Can we design a "Quickdraw" Extra?

Starting with the most common of fantasy monsters, I created my Basic version of the Savage Worlds Goblin:

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Climbing d4, Notice d6, Stealth d6, Throwing d4
Charisma: -1; Pace: 5; Parry: 4; Toughness: 4
Weapons: Short Sword (Str+d4), Spear (range 3/6/12; Str+d4)
Special Abilities:
     • Infravision

For the most part the average goblin's role in a typical dungeon setting tend to be fighting, creating mischief, and draining the PC Wildcard's resources. with that in mind, the most useful information about goblin Extras is their Fighting (d4) and Throwing (d4) Skill, Parry (4), weapon damage (Str+d4), and Infravision. Aside from Infravision, all the base difficulty of a goblin extra is 4 or d4. A Wildcard Extra stat block in Savage Dungeons might look something like this: Goblins (d4, Parry 4, Toughness: 4, Damage: 2d4,  Morale d4, No. Appearing 1+1 per Wildcard, Special: Infravision)

To check the numbers I ran some simulations on +Richard Woolcock's Build Comparison and Savage Worlds Battle Simulator which are fantastic resources. Compared to his Goblin stats the d4 goblin is slightly less intimidating, but in numbers will definitely keep a party of novice wildcards on their toes.

I'd love to get some feedback on this concept. Do you think its a viable solution to rate Extras based on a single die type?

Savage Dungeons: BECMI, Ranks, and a look ahead at the Magic User

  In our recent discussions here at The Middle-kingdoms HQ, we've talked about how Savage Dungeons should be modular in its approach adding new parts as characters (and GMs) go up in Ranks— Basic would use only the simplest core rules, Expert will add more moving parts, Companion/Master being the  version using all of the core Savage Worlds Deluxe rules, and Immortals using the complete Savage Worlds Deluxe rules plus some additional setting rules for epic play. It's still unclear how far we'll take this concept, but we'll have a better idea as we play through each. 

 

The current proposed breakdowns are:

·       Basic Setting Rules - Novice to Seasoned Ranks

·       Expert Setting Rules - Seasoned to Veteran

·       Master Setting Rules - Veteran to Heroic

·       Legends Setting Rules - Heroic to Legendary Ranks

·       Immortals/Epic?

We’re working on the Basic Setting Rules for character generation and we have been able to playtest the Quickdraw Wildcard creation using only Wildcard attributes predetermined by archetype and an edge. The edge is either chosen from a list of character backgrounds or can be rolled for as a random table. Hindrances and additional edges can be introduced after the first or second game session in a similar playbook fashion or perhaps written into the adventure. As I said in the first post, Quickdraw Wildcards were originally conceived as a way to quickly introduce Savage Worlds to my family play group who were mostly familiar with Labyrinth Lord and had never played Savage Worlds, so far they are working out great. We’ve been play-testing the Fighter Archetype and will start work on the Magic User Archetype next. Since trappings seem to be a hard notion for my old school style gamers to grasp, we’ll be rewriting the spell descriptions using the spells from the OGL and then applying the appropriate Savage World powers. 

We’ll start with the first and second level Magic User Spells for the Basic Rules.

First Level Magic-User Spells Charm Person Detect Magic Floating Disc Hold Portal Light Magic Missile Magic Mouth Protection from Evil Read Languages Shield Sleep Ventriloquism

Second Level Magic-User Spells Continual Light Detect Evil Detect Invisible ESP Invisibility Knock Levitate Locate Object Mirror Image Phantasmal Force Web Wizard Lock

I found with the Savage Worlds Basic Character Record Sheet that if I keep things familiar enough the transition from Labyrinth Lord to Savage Worlds is easy and fun. I look forward to posting some of the spells as and the Magic User Quickdraw Wildcard as it progresses.

Savage Dungeons: An Idea

What started as a way for me to get my Basic/Expert D&D playing family into Savage Worlds as well as help me learn how to be a Savage Worlds GM, has evolved into something more. In order to entice my family into playing Savage Worlds I created a Savage Worlds Basic Character Record Sheet. I wanted to give them something that looks familiar and it worked.

My Basic Savage Worlds Character record Sheet

In order to help the learning curve, because my family of players ranges from 8-20, I also trimmed the character creation process and some of the rules down a bit. Classes became archetypes and Edges and Hindrances became racial traits and in some cases just cool stuff your character can do. At first there wasn't much choice in customization other than choosing fighting over shooting or magic user over fighter, but for new players learning the rules that was just fine. 

B2: The Keep on the Savagelands?

The more we played this basic version of Savage Worlds the more we realized we wanted to play this version. Most of our adventures so far have been short random dungeon crawls, but now we're ready for something with a bit more meat on the bones. So I began looking at my old Basic D&D adventures to convert. (B2: The Keep on the Savagelands?)

After posting a fun photoshop mock up of what a B/X D&D/Savage Worlds mashup rule book cover might look like it became apparent that we were not the only players wanting more of this old game reimagined. I'm not necessarily saying a word-for-word conversion, but Savage Worlds with the trappings of Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons, after all if we wanted to play Basic D&D then that is what we would play. My initial goal is to create something that is as close to the core rules as written and maintain the flavor of Basic D&D. 

Stay tuned!