Judge Toast House Rules Vol3

     Welcome to another post where I share a bunch of house rules that I use at my table. As always with these I'll Share the rule and talk a bit about why I use it and how it has worked out for us. Here is a link to Vol 2 if you're just joining us and wanna see more!

 

I know a guy: once per session a player may declare that they "know a guy". They are allowed to detail who this guy is, why it's relevant to what is happening right now, and what their connection to the person it. I will then roll 1d10. This is to determine the person's attitude towards the PC who knows them. a 1 is enemies, on sight conflict, and a 10 is good friends, lifelong allies. 

This is a good tool for allowing the players to have just a little more influence on the setting. I feel strongly about the games being a group storytelling activity and your character should know people outside of the party. This is how you show what kind of friends your character had or has. In play I've only ever see one person try to abuse it but naturally the Judge holds veto power over any NPC proposed, so it is an easy thing to keep from being abused.

  

Magical Feedback:  Wizard and similar casters start combat with a d4 in front of them, the "1" face indicated. Each round the wizard successfully casts a spell they increase this die by 1. This number is added to checks made by the wizard to cast spells. When this reaches a 4 the wizard suffers from magical feedback. They must make a roll-under check on their casting ability score or lose the ability to cast spells for 1d4 rounds. a pause of a single round resets this counter to 1. When this is at 4 and the wizard has successfully saved, it remains at 4 and a new check must be made each round they cast a spell.

This is another that comes directly from the Index Card RPG. I really love that book and feel that even if you don't play it, you will find something to take back to your table. Strongly recommend reading it. I really like this as just one extra little way a wizard can get spells off but also maybe dig too deep into the power they utilize and be left with nothing for a short time. This one I've really only used at a physical table but I really liked it when it was at our table.

 

Signature Spell: After a wizard determines their spell list, they then select one spell from that list to be their signature spell. Each time they cast this spell they add double their level to the check. Each level after 1st, they may add another spell to their signature spell list but may never select a spell that they have only just gained, it has to be a spell they have had before gaining the level. they cannot double select a signature spell.

This has always mostly served as a way to give the wizard just a little more juice, a way to tilt things in their favor on at least one spell early on. It also sort of lines up with a lot of appendix N, you see a lot of magic users in that who have spells they use over and over in favor of others. I don't find that it really changes much other than to add just a little more flavor to the character.

 

Research Spells: a wizard may have at any time 2 randomly determined "research spells". These spells are cast using a d14 instead of the usual d20. They also have 2 randomly determined mercurial effects. When a wizard gains a level they may automatically take one of their research spells as one of their new spells, selecting one of the mercurial effects and removing it and now casting it with the usual d20. A wizard may also gain access to these spells early through questing, repeated attempts to cast, or long research periods in down time. Finally, with one week of down time, doing no adventuring or exploring, a wizard may discard one of their research spells and randomly roll a new one.

This is a pretty recent addition to the rules and it hasn't seen a ton of play. When it did we had one guy who didn't cast one of his research spells ever but constantly failed to cast the second one and when he succeeded it usually came in clutch as he spell burned like crazy and borrowed some luck from a funny little kobold to get the spell off. It broadens the wizard's spells selections but doesn't make it easy on them. I like it a lot for this reason. It also means that there is a reason that the wizard somehow gains a new spell fully at each level. I know I took this from somewhere but I don't remember where I found it. If you know who did this first, please leave a comment below so I can credit them.

 

 Second Wind: Any warrior or warrior adjacent class may begin combat with a d4 in front of them with the one showing. Each round they remain fighting they increase the facing on this die by one. when they die reaches 4, at the end of that round they may roll it and recover that many hit points, then reset it to one.

This is such a small amount of healing that it doesn't feel like it changes much but does allow a warrior to feel like a bad ass who is doing things like ripping off their shirt to bandage on the fly. It feels cinematic. This is yet another lifted right from the Index Card RPG (really, check it out!) and I've found that when I play in person it really encourages the warrior to play a little recklessly to try and get that extra little healing.

 

Change to mighty deeds: A warrior (and at my table only the human warrior) may choose three of the following things to apply their deed die roll to:

• Attack Damage
• Attack Roll
• AC
• Saves
• Damage ignored this round
• additional attacks: one additional attack for each time the number on the deed die is divisible by 3, rounded down, minimum 0.

These must be selected before the die is rolled and failure to indicate means the deed die only applies to attack and damage, as the rule book dictates. 

This one I'm pretty sure came from Knights in the North, like a lot of the house rules I use today. So I said this one was only for the warrior at my table because humans in my setting are sort of rare. There are a few race-as-class options that gain a deed die and are their own version of warriors. So this is only for the human warrior to make them stand out just a little more but in the past I have allowed it for the non-human deed having classes and it works out just fine.

 

 

 

 

 

    Well, That is another pack of my house rules. I think there might be one more volume of this where maybe I include a PDF with all of them together, kinda like how Judge AMP did over on Knights in the North. I Find that most of my house rules have integrated pretty seamlessly into the games I run and aren't often missed or forgotten. I generally approach with a philosophy of "does this make someone have more fun?" rather than "does this balance the game?" or "does this solve an existing problem?". I find that a rulings, not rules, approach deals with those other two questions a lot better than making a house rule for every little thing that comes up.

    As always, Thanks for reading and I hope I gave you something to think about or take back to your table, if nothing else I hope you enjoyed reading! 

B-Team Adventures

     One of the things I like to do when I run a game is have the players play only a single character at a time with a few backup characters as the "B-team". In order to allow the B-team to sort of keep up with the party they gain an amount of experience based on the session number rounded down. This cannot exceed the experience gained by the main party that week. The question has often come up, "What was the b-team doing this week?" and I haven't really had a good answer. Until now. Now I have a table to roll on when asked what they were doing that lends itself to making up threads for the party to pull on if they want to or simple storytelling if they don't. Check it out!

 

B-Team Adventures! 

Spell: Honey Cage

Another spell that comes from generating names straight out of Knave 2e. I really struggle to write spells, easily the place where I have the hardest time. So no better way to get practice with it than actually do it. I wanna thank Nick over at Breaker Press Games for this idea. It really has gotten me to leap into the creation of my own spells for DCC and maybe they aren't all going to be the most original or best but it's still getting me to sit down and make something and learn things along the way.

Honey Cage is mostly a crowd control/de-buff spell but there is no reason the players couldn't use it to preserve foods or as a source of nutrition. 

 

Honey Cage 

Champions of Tibault: Session 4

 This is probably one of the first times I really got to use Orcs in Hodas. Our orcs are very much the standard pigmen who are more or less just evil creatures who survive through the suffering of others. I wanted a bag guy race who are consistently evil and won't be talked down from their position or redeemed (unless it's a specific quest for it moment) through a simple talking to. 

    So what makes Orcs in Hodas so evil? Orcs are created, they are not born. Every orc carries within themselves an ancestral memory, how to make more orcs. when a tribe is reduced in numbers enough to risk being wiped out or grows large enough to splinter, an orc's generic memory activates. They dig a pit, they fill it with water, orc blood, and perform rites of sorcery over it. from this spawning pit is where new orcs come from. Living creatures are thrown into these bubbling pits and painfully they are turned into orcs, loyal to the tribe, with no memory of themselves before. Each orc tribe has their own secret they add to the spawning pits, creating unique traits within the tribe. The twisted spine clan, talked about in today's post, add in a grass local to their region, known as coil grass. This gives them the ability to "launch" their upper body up to 30 feet away to make melee attacks before springing back into place. they use this to slingshot ranged weapons and harass on the run.

    This process isn't perfect, 1-in-10 orcs are born with a mutation. They are simply accepted into the tribe as another orc. sometimes it's a conjoined twin, sometimes it's one massive strong arm and one vestigial arm. some tribes even place their dead back into these pits to bring them back, making mutants 1-in-5. 

    This is how I got my bad guy race. They need to kidnap people and put them in these pits to propagate their species. Because they were made to be a weapon of genocide they do not know any different and cannot escape their cycle (unless someone quests for it). In setting almost no one actually knows any of this. they assume people are taken back to orc camps to be eaten or worse and orc women and children simply are not kept among raiders or war camps. The benefit of a small world is that such things aren't widely known. 

 

Session 4:

Party Geared up and rode out to battle against the twisted spine orc clan, meeting them in an open field. They clashed in a bloody conflict slaying more than 20 orcs, including a pair of chiefs, a shaman, and a mutant. Unfortunately the party underestimated the low cunning of the orc tribe and had their retreat cut off by burning grasslands behind them as more orcs raced into battle. Deranged and Halcyon fled through the flames, suffering painful burns and smoke inhalation as they rushed through the fire. Talshu chose to flee along the path of the fire, hoping that her steed would carry her to safety. Unfortunately for her the orc’s alatlatl claimed the life of her horse. Her escape seemed hopeless until Eskel decided to bring honor to himself through deed and steel. He charged the orcs and felt a strong spirit guiding his blade as it found orc flesh. His charge gave everyone enough time to flee to the safety of Tibault. 

Upon regrouping and finding that they were missing their friend the party mourned him while the city celebrated. It seems word had gotten around that he was a hero who single handedly repelled the orc tribe, taking hundreds of them with himself. The tale grew each time a balladeer spoke it and women (were paid) to weep in the streets for him. It seems Eskel had many secret lovers in the city.

During the private funeral Orkov showed his face, and offered to cover the loss of his equipment, no strings attached, as a thank you for the work Eskel did to rid the city of the orc problem. The party refused and chased him out of the funeral but later Deranged accepted the deal with the understanding that he could recall the debt at any time, adding strings now that he had been insulted.

Blog d100: Stories From Games

 Another post in the blog d100 series, the challenge came from Buster over on 19 Sided Die and the table comes from d4 Caltrops. As always, if you make a blog post based on this challenge or even just that table, please let me know in the comments! I would love to link other blogs in the OSR sphere.

 

Rolled 16: Do you have any stories from games that players cannot stop talking about? 

      In short, yes, plenty of them. I've played with mostly the same group of people for decades now. There are stories they remember vividly. All the ones they talk about the most come from having someone join our group and totally miss the memo on the tone. I'll give you one of my favorites below, it's a long one, fair warning.

The Fall of Steve Galaxy

    This was a superhero game. I told everyone involved that this was supposed to be a superhero game. This was repeated often as we rolled out our characters using palladium's Heroes Unlimited. So a player rolls up a guy with some space and gravity themed powers, he could make holographic projections of his memory, he could turn into a void of stars, tractor beams, a couple other small things. His character is named Steve Galaxy, I didn't know at the time it was a lazy mimic of Steven Universe. His character showed up in a space suit with helmet and everything. He did a hero machine portrait with a bunch of buckles hanging off the suit and a helmet full of stars. It looked pretty good.

     

    Other important characters are Grimsby, a rat man made using the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rules who was super fast and had super hearing. Also, Hex, a witch who was the mystic study hero category, basically a wizard similar to Dr Strange or Dr Fate. Hex was a returning character and had some history in the setting.

    The setting of this game was a city that had been bottled, like Kandor. The villains in the city greatly outnumbered the heroes and quickly cut up the city into territories. The police and heroes maintained control of only a single sector of the city, unable to push too much further.

    

     The session when Galaxy first started to show signs of madness began with the PCs having just defeated a villain, his slice of the city unprotected. This villain was also the wizard category, he had been drawing power from his entire territory by skimming a little bit of mana off the top of every person in it every day. With so many people he was really powerful, The previous session faced the players with no choice but to kill him, knowing that he had a backup body somewhere else and killing him would only remove him for now.

    The Heroes decided that the people in this part of the city needed to be moved to a safer part. They made a deal with a villain named Glimmer, who owned another part. He would take in these people... but Galaxy realized that he wasn't getting a reward for this. He demanded Glimmer give him something in exchange for all these people. Grimsby protested briefly but was pinned to the wall with a tractor beam, Hex was not present, she was looking for other heroes in the city to help with the move. So Glimmer offered Galaxy a house, a really nice one with all the bells and whistles. This seemed to make the hero happy and he accepted.

     

    The plan was for Galaxy to use his powers to make the people think he was the messiah figure in their worship of the villain that used to protect them, and lead them on a pilgrimage to safer lands, the promised lands. This was accomplished easily when he used his powers to mimic the wizard they defeated.

    Hex, out in the city was able to find a crime fighter she knew well, a vigilante named Slayer, and his team of crime fighters. He was horrified that the Heroes were handing over all these people to Glimmer and said he would protect that section of the city with his team, not to hand over the people to a villain.

    Hex agreed and called Galaxy and Grimsby on the radio, she explained that Slayer was a hero, that he would protect the people, that she had known him for years, that he could be trusted, and that the people shouldn't be placed in a villain's hands. 

 

    Galaxy's player looked across the table to Grimsby's player. What passed between them in their minds in this moment I'll never know. Galaxy's player simply said "do you wanna trail of tears this shit?" and Grimsby's player agreed. While the rest of us were reeling from the horrific choice of description from their plan they started to lay out how they told everyone that "Slayer is coming to kill you, leave your stuff and run!" working everyone into a mass panic and starting their panicked rush into Glimmer's slice of the city.

    We rolled some dice and a few people were trampled in the panic. I described this to them and they shrugged, "the price of protecting my subjects" Galaxy's player said.

 

    Slayer himself went to the hospital first, to ensure that anyone who couldn't be transported was safe and not left behind. He took his team with him to deal with looters and sent his right hand man, Copperhead, to go talk to Galaxy who he assumed didn't get the message.

    Copperhead catches up on his motorcycle and flags down Galaxy who is flying overhead. Copperhead explains that there are people to protect this area now, no one needs to be sold to a villain. Galaxy explains that he is not going to do that, he has a house waiting for him. Copperhead takes out his gun, a small automatic, and aims it up in the air at Galaxy.

    Out of game, Galaxy's player knows that automatics in this system are dangerous, even to superheroes. He knows that if Copperhead empties the magazine he has a real chance of losing half his hit points.

    Galaxy lowers himself into the crowd, using them as shields, "I'm their god now Copperhead, They will follow me." Is all he says. 

    Copperhead understands this and knows he can't handle this alone, he gets on his motorcycle and leaves. Galaxy's player declares that he waits until copperhead gets up to speed and tries to tractor beam the motorcycle out from under him, openly declaring he wants to kill Copperhead. Fortunately he misses and Copperhead gets away to report to Slayer.

 

    For a brief moment Galaxy has clarity, he actually stops the crowd and the player is thinking about what he's doing. Then Grimsby empties the magazine of his weapon into the ground and starts the stampede again.

 

    Not long later Slayer makes his appearance, in his own way. Somewhere in the distance the pair hear a gunshot and a bullet ricochets off Galaxy into Grimsby's leg. They ask where the shot came from, the players angrily demand to know exactly where the sound came from... in an open field with an echo. Grimsby's player reminds me that he has super hearing. I tell him that is important as the second shot rings out and hits his leg after bouncing off Galaxy, now that he knows to listen for it he is able to tell the direction. I tell him it is coming from behind them, near a bridge they just passed over. This doesn't quite track because Galaxy is being hit in the front. The players never communicate with each other about this. Galaxy simply flies in the direction of the sound while bullets continue to bounce off him and into Grimsby. 

 

    Eventually Grimsby's resolve breaks, he picks a random direction and runs. We roll it, I laugh and show my notes to another player. He randomly chose the direction Slayer was in. So Grimsby comes face to face with the vigilante. The rat has super speed but Slayer is significantly higher level and has quickdraw. Slayer wins initiative and quick draws a tranqu gun, pumping Grimsby full of enough sedatives to knock out a horse. Grimsby's world goes dark.

    Meanwhile Galaxy has found the source of the gunfire, or at least the decoy Slayer placed. He finds a 9mm glock that has a device attached to it and is loaded with blanks. He quickly gathers that every time Slayer pulls the trigger on his presumably silent weapon, this thing fires a blank to direct attention away from him. He decides he is going to fly in the opposite direction of the remote gun, guessing (correctly) that Slayer is in that direction.

     

    Grimsby comes to and his legs are bandaged. Slayer explains that he's not a medic and Grimsby shouldn't move too much or his bandages might come undone. Shortly after this, Hex arrives with the rest of Slayer's team of crime fighters. Grimsby figures he's beat for now and waits, quietly getting his rat hands out of the zip cuffs that aren't meant to contain someone like him.

    Then Galaxy arrives. He assesses the situation and immediately declares that he is going to try to kill everyone.  He says he is going to create a vacuum bubble around them and declares that everyone dies instantly in a vacuum. The more experienced players at the table remind him that this is a game with rules, his power actually takes 1 minute to knock someone out, 5 minutes to kill, as the rules say. The people below, a mixture of PCs and heroic NPCs start to react and Galaxy flies away at his best speed.

    This is Grimsby's moment. He snags a flashbang grenade from one of the PC's a military style hero, and pulls the pin, dropping it at his own feet. This buys Galaxy enough time to get a lead. Grimsby recovers slowly, his super hearing causing his ears to suffer incredible damage, but he breaks his bandages and crawls into a sewer. Slayer sends most of his team after Grimsby. Hex grabs Slayer, puts him on the back of her broom, and flies after Galaxy. Galaxy has a lead and they have the same flight speed but Slayer has a gun.

    Shots ring out and Galaxy is injured, losing control of his Void form and falling from the sky. Specifically, Slayer targeted Galaxy's arms, not wanting to kill the lunatic. Galaxy plummets and says he's going to tractor beam the ground. With both his arms being shattered and flapping like wet noodles. He somehow manages to land the attack roll, landing safely on the ground and running into the woods, bleeding profusely.

 

    Hex and Slayer land. The pair puts together all of their shared skills as hunters, detectives, and crime fighters to track down this man who is bleeding profusely as he runs through the woods, while the player is loudly saying he shouldn't be able to be tracked. They follow the blood trail and find that it leads directly to a prostitute... alone in the woods. It's obvious to Hex and Slayer that this is Galaxy using his holographic projection power to change his appearance. 

    Slayer growls, "you could have been anything." and it feels like this old vigilante might not be talking about just what Galaxy could have turned into.

 

As Slayer takes out the tranquilizer gun Galaxy nods his surrender, unable to raise his arms, "gotta know when you're beat." he says slowly.

    When the trigger is pulled he rolls a d20 and declares dodge, shouting, "but that shouldn't stop you from trying!"

    He fails to dodge and his world goes dark and the tranquilizers put him under.

 

There is a part two in this story where Galaxy makes some... Interesting choices in custody but this is already feeling a little too long. If this gets some interest I'll follow up with the other half, maybe tales from past games will become a regular thing here.

 

 

As always, here are the links to others who have been running the Blog d100 or replying to the original post:

 

Buster on 19 Sided Die gave us "I'll run it one day"

 

Over on Mythscribe we got "What are four legendary treasures one might search for in your game?"   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magic sword: The Retort

 
The Retort was forged with clear intended purpose. The Elven weapon master who built it poured his people's disdain for self important eternal creatures who think they are clever. Other immortals who play at being clever by playing games of riddles with many answers, ego stroking mind games and gotcha contracts. Elves believe that these things do not make an immortal clever but make all immortals look petty and foolish. So in an act of extreme pettiness The Retort was made as an answer to all these other immortals, an answer to all their games, riddles, and contracts. It served well in the hands of the elven people for millennia, where it was drawn, games ended, and contracts burned. Eventually the sword was lost when a mortal with their own agenda attacked the elven people.

    The Sword then became the subject of many elven campaigns against the human kingdoms. As these wars went on, the world changed around the elves, Dragons went into hiding, Demons stopped bothering with the mortals, Sphinxes dwindled into numbers they couldn't recover from, and wizardry became fringe hobby and seen as madness. When The Retort finally found its way back into elven hands they deemed they no longer needed it and laid it to rest in a place of honor, a grave similar to that of an elven hero, where it remained until it was stolen, its status only discovered when the seals on the tomb were broken to answer a resurgence in self important immortals. 

 

The Retort

 +5 Elven Chitin Neutral Long sword

16 intelligence, communicates through telepathy and speech

 

4 Banes:

• Demons: +1 damage
• Dragons: Beacon of Hope, Berserker fury 
• Sphinxes: Banishment
• Wizards: Death Dealer
• Elves: Berserker fury 

Special purposes: 

Forged to take no sides and seek the void.

 

Powers: 

• Type I: Detect traps 40'
• Type II: Flame tongue 
• Type II: Whirlwind attack
• Type III: Spell Healer 

Omen:  

Weapon sometimes appears as a non-magical short sword or dagger, when attuned can be changed at will 

 

Attunement:

Wielder must refrain from making any noise for 1d6 days

 

Beast Chitin:

Critical range increased by +1

 

Elven:

Wielder may use strength or agility for to-hit and damage rolls 

Monster: The Thought Collector

     It sure feels like it's been a while since I've done a monster post! A lot of long winded discussion style posts but not a lot of the usual immediately usable monsters, magic items, and classes I really enjoy putting out. So this week we are going to get back into monsters a little with the Thought collector!

 

    The thought collector can be a good hazard on a recent battlefield, or even a threat that shows up in the middle of a fight and potentially wants to claim the memories of a fallen party member before the body can be rolled over. If using this to make the idea of leaving a body behind to come back and roll over later less appealing I would suggest that there are signs of it's presence in the area before it shows up. Corpses who clearly died from one wound but then later got a fresher wound in the head should be plenty. Used in this way it can put pressure on recovering a body right away. If showing up in the middle of a fight it becomes an element that might not immediately be known and could put a little more fear into PCs, pushing them to really consider how much they want to risk.

 The Thought Collector