Illusions, DD12 Styled

  One thing that always bothered me is that D&D Illusions are so limited.

How do DD12 Illusions Work

Humans have, as far as we can tell five senses. As examples, Elves are listed as having six, and dwarves have a different focus on their five, as often they travel through caves in the dark and need to rely less on sight and more on feel and sound. The other races have their own variants on things.

So when a Human casts an Illusion, their focus is on Sight. They cast a sight based spell which creates a clever illusion of something, that lasts some time.

In Game terms, they create a 'stealth' score, derived from the casters sense score, wisdom bonus, spell bonus and spells base stealth ability. Opponents need to 'pass' with their perception + sense. The GM makes a stealth check, and informs them if they do or do not think something is an illusion.

If the score to pass is above 20, no roll is needed, the player is informed its as real as real, the GM doesn't even roll dice. The player, seeing that the GM has not rolled dice, knows its either real, or their player has no way to determine if its real or not, and would be wasting their time even trying.

See that? We meta the player, No roll = must be real. Game continues.

The GM can roll for fun, maybe there is something unrelated that the player has spotted. The player stares at the wall, and the GM rolls. He informs them, they have discovered a rare moss, if they can manage to store it in a wet cloth they might gain some gropsits for their trouble.

Don't roll if nothing is there, the roll must redirect to something, else the players will waste time trying to find a hidden illusion, where there is none, or will find the illusion, even though they should not have.

Note, I said HUMAN illusions.

When a dwarf comes across an Illusion of a wall, they instead might add touch + perception. The stealth score of the spell might be stealth 12, +3 all, +12 sight Illusion, expecting the players to have only 2 perception & +2 sight bonus, leaving a score of 23. But the dwarf with a +2 touch bonus ends up with a score of 13 or less. almost 50%.

The Illusion and Image spells from many games are typically for moving, and non moving Illusions. But once discovered to be Illusions, are dispelled, or become transparent, and obviously an Illusion.

This does not compute.

If a spell is dispelled by someone 'disbelieving' in them, surely some kind of psychic link between the Illusion and the watcher is established, surely the spell would remain and just be believed to be not real.

Is an Illusion just a trick of the mind instead?

Is an Image of a wall, a pre-cast spell which affects anyone who comes into the area, to believe there is a wall, and once they disbelieve, the spell is cancelled and the victim can now see the truth? 

In some game systems, this is true enough, where an Illusion is rolled on each character, and those who do not believe, cannot see.

Priestly Illusions in DD12 are like this. The God has placed a belief of the Illusion in their mind, and each person sees or does not see the Illusion. Atheists have auto protection from such Illusions.

Why

I've done it like this, so GMs and Players have more choices. 

Illusions and Images can exist in multiple senses. Images of walls only need sight and touch for the simple versions, maybe sound to counter simple echo checks, but who'll taste a wall or smell a wall?

Illusions certainly need Sound and Sight as they wall and talk, yet maybe touch is less required for the simple wall guards or flames.

Elves almost always sense Illusions as they have no depth to them, no soul. Dwarves have often intrinsic knowledge of the weight of stone or doors, and their skills usually mean they will not fall prey to Illusionary walls, traps or the like.

So DD12 Illusions can be cast between 1st level (simple sounds) to 16th level (fully alive holograms that exist, think, feel and sense on their own akin to the Star Trek Voyager Doctor)

This (in my experience) with a creative players and illusionist, can be a very powerful character. confusing enemies with incorrect character positions, so they always miss attacks, and are so confused they are always hit. enhancing the charisma to get information, using background noises, taste effects on real poisons, fake floors over pits, fake smells over deadly plants, razor blade feeling like soft cushions, and other varieties of illusions to deal with enemies. 

something that's not clearly defined in other games. 

Wall Storming #82 - The Heroes on a Mission

 Way back in #26, some crazy kids decided to make a run for it, this is the continuation of that story.

The Runners

My notes are sketchy and my memory hazy, but here's the basics, Instead of treating the session like a mission, go out, gather info, gather goods, return, the Team thought they could escape. They travelled fast, they hooked and killed a zombie that got in their way, but the kept going at pace, they really gave it a good go, after a full 3 hours walk, they got to the outskirts of the city, nary a zombie in sight, or so they thought.

As the Sun rose in the sky, the nearby zombies warmed up, and sensed movement, so they rose up, crawled out of places, and worse yet, the entire 'field' nearby, was a moss covered swamp. it "looked" like a grassy field. 

Over 100 zombies started to crawl out of the swamp, as the characters sat in a nearby house and ate their provisions.. they exited the house to see a field of movement. 

The players were in shock, the characters too. Should they run for it? but if this is what's here, how many more are out there? what if its worse, what if its better? eventually, the crash of a nearby building, alerted the players to a 2nd mob of zombies coming from behind, and much closer. This cemented their choice to run home.

sadly, they didn't get very far when a 3rd mob emerged from side streets, they were almost surrounded. two of them were scratched, they ran for the gate, banged on the door, and were let in.. they told their story, and were sadly executed before the disease would take them.

The Story was the trigger point.

A leaf.

A green leaf.

They'd seen a green leaf on their travels, maybe a bush, maybe a branch of them, but they swore it was there. some kind of nearby wooden fort, had a tree in it, with some green growing.

This was pondered by the Adventurers guild.

Wallstormers #50

A group of trained warriors were sent out to see the location of the leaf, by correlating the maps, the adventurers guild figured they knew the location. They sent out their best. 

None returned. Yet, the guild had seen an approximate path of where they had travelled. Wall guards tracking them as seen between buildings or along known paths, timed, smoke rising in a position, maybe an indicator as to the fortress. 

Screams of something horrific, moans for days, none returned. 

WallStormers #82

Now we come to the Adventurers guilds next attempt. Rumours amongst the clergy and the noble houses, they insisted on sending their greatest heroes. A priest of the house of klarg, known for his true affiliation, the house of rokboi, God of Retribution and Fire. The high Ranger of the noble guild of Rangers, and the greatest warrior in the last several years, Lion Wrangler himself HRUN. 

They were sent out, together with a local guard (to ensure they can re-enter the walls) via a special gate, known only to a few, to investigate.

As expected, they returned. They found the tree, they watered it, blessed it, and sprinkled holy water on the roots of the tree, claimed it had held back the horde but they too were surrounded, waves of zombies, ones who held weapons, were armoured, fortress of protection, with traps, spiked pits, and a tsunami of baby zombies (accounts may have been exaggerated ) they returned as heroes.

People are ecstatic, life has returned to the outside, joyously, the people have renewed vigour.

Wallstorming #81+

 #81

Gate Exit, team goes out into the street, 'peers' into a few buildings, manages to grab some cool items, but spends too much time outside and the zombies gather, they run, things get dropped, the get to the main gate.

#82

Players sneak out in the early hours, (lost ones) descend down a rope (bed sheets) to the roof of a 3 storey building, south wall section 3?/4? into the house, which was well searched. that said, someone had died in the floor below, sitting on his stash. the team raided the dead, returned to the city, using the raid goods (door hinges) to buy membership into the build of adventurers, and a banded club and gloves

But on return to the wall for a 2nd exit, the guards of the wall wanted THEIR cut of the raid, 

The 'blood' from previous times was crawling up the walls, so they used silver forks to create a 'barrier' after raiding a house, finding some silverware and a candelabra, upon exiting, the guards waited, they complied, handing over a jewelry box and some silverware. returning to the adventurer guild, they upgraded their gear, boots being the primary (so they don't step in blood)

The 3rd exit, they came across a fabulous haul in the ceiling space of a building, someone had stashed their boxes of goods, and cast magical protection on the boxes inner panels. Under normal circumstances, breaking the seals might have simply ceased the spell, but our intrepid adventurer knew how to percieve the veil of magic, and re-read the casting runes.. incorrectly. 

There is now a very faint shimmer in the air around the building. no-one knows what happened. 

Wall Storming #80

 Key Points:

#79

Entered 'trades entrance" checked out the stores, then upstairs, zombie in bed, killed it, pushed bed out onto street. 

#80 Left Via Sewers (same as 79) navigated down some streets, took side alley, found interesting building, Wheat Silo plus attached buildings as part of structure.

Entered office building, blew dooer off hingeds, spotted zombie, found and killed it, but was difficult fight, players all thought this was A LOT harder, zombies done die from brain death or loss of head. 

Entered nearby building next to the main tower, was office like, some shovels and tools. Weird round door. tried to use wax or zombie guts to open it. something on othr side

climbed tower, opened lid (small 2m sized lid) and saw shadows of giant rat, 2 heads 6 arms.

dust? no flour.

flour + flame = boom.

ok.. sheild up.. boom, hero is slamed into ground, others take damage, creature is screaming. 

Bottom door is blown off, arm of creature attempts to skewer player.

They decide enough is enough,. sneak back, 

but army of zombies & smart zombie are on their way, they choose back alley and discover pancake man, they roll him up and take him & the magic pancake stone to the city. 

Survival! group can level up

[game idea] Dwarven Tunnels

 The Concept: Players plan out tunnels to dig up materials, the problem? lack of food.

This idea came to me a while ago, I'd love to make it, but time.. as usual. 

Here's my notes from way back, somewhere between 1994 and 1999.

-- start:

In the beginning, players need to find 'shroom halls' to provide food for your dwarves, next you connect to other players to trade.

Next goblins discover your halls and come in, taking away food sources, other creatures get introduced.

At a critical moment in the game, 'shroom halls' get infected, undead darkness takes over some areas and the Dwarves have to defend themselves, this is when they begin to gain new metal advances to forge weapons to push them back.

* Uses the Kingdom Underground system

* seperate resources into metal / farming.

* Farming resources required for population and technology improvements.

* metal resources required for buildings, armour, weapons, tools, forges.

* tech tree needed for stuff. 

--- that's it, that's the notes.

Now, being interested in deck builders, I'm wondering if it would be possible to create it in such a way.

Start the game with some shroom hall cards, a wood pickaxe, a wood shovel. the wood shovel you can draw a card from the soft soil cards, the pickaxe from the soft rock cards. Are these a deck of shuffled items, or are they sets of cards to be chosen.

To include goblins, you'd need to shuffle them into the decks, somehow spacing them under other cards, to make it interesting, when you draw a goblin, you play it on someone who has the least number of goblins & or monsters.

I'd want tunnels, that when drawn are placed on the table, slowly building up a network, maybe trade would change the whole game, so unsure about it.

You gather food tunnels to support your cards? maybe its your hand limit? or your draw or both, maybe the forges are draw cards, and your food is your hand limit, some food types might give you extra draw/hand limit, when you get a goblin, its place over your food location which limits your hand limit.

Goblin defeat cards are in the stone age cards, but they'd trigger larger monsters, Maybe defeating a monster give you an insta boost, but if you get stuck, other players can defeat your monster.

Seems to be a trend here, wood->stone->bronze->iron->steel->mithril? 

Each deck of age cards gets shuffled, the top card (cards?) revealed, wood is a smaller deck

Tool cards need to be a choice, maybe they're limited, you don't want too many else your deck will get clogged up. 

It might be a bit boring to just have each deck, each deck having some 'problem' that blocks a tunnel with some effect, and once you finish the last deck the game is won? no, I think it needs to be some kind of changer, I think it'd be interesting, plot wise, to say, the dwarves needed to descend quickly, so they don't get 2nd wood items, players are quickly introduced to upgrading, maybe its worth getting several stone picks quickly replacing your wood one, or maybe even, the wood one 'snaps' when you upgrade it? 

maybe you can place 1 tunnel per turn for free, extra tunnels require discarding pickaxe cards, from here I'd need to test the game idea. more ideas will emerge about when to have things upgrade, how to thin the deck, aka deck building, The obvious one is taking build cards from your hand and placing them in your grid, which is why I think restricting it to 1 per turn, or maybe you always draw 1 and play 1 to make your deck size stay the same,

That's the basics.