Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 11 Feb 2004 to 12 Feb 2004 (#2004-39) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 13/02/2004, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 10 messages totalling 522 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. The Web Spell (4) 2. Adenture Scenario: The Lesser Evil (2) 3. Racial Classes 4. WotI campaign, at last! (WotI's and MoA's spoilers) (3) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 10:46:06 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: The Web Spell I don't have the rules cyclopedia or the basic set at hand here, so I may be talking out of my hole here. Well if I am, then our group has been misreading the description of the Web spell for years now. But if I remember correctly, there is no Saving throw against the web spell in the OD&D rules. That makes it an awesomely powerful 2nd level spell, since one can immobilise a character of practically any level with it. We have been noticing this many times over the course of our long campaign, but never chose to do anything about it. Well, last time I played a solo game with our mage character, we decided to establish rules for the use of the spell. Nuff is nuff. We didn't introduce a saving throw as yet. Instead I made a GM call and ruled that the Web spell cannot be used against an opponent engaged in melee with the spellcaster. Why? Because melee situations are highly fluid and the participants are moving all the time. The spellcaster would entrap her/himself too! Of course, if she/he wants that to happen, then it's ok. This, and the short range, restricts the use of the spell somewhat. There are still situations where it is useful: 1) blocking the way (a door, a corridor etc.) 2) stopping an enemy that is trying to rush you (given that the enemy doesn't have time to engage you in time - that is, if the enemy gets higher initiative, she/he is too close) 3) using the spell into another melee, if you are willing to entrap your friends too etc. etc. We'll have to see if these house rules work. But what I'd like to know is whether you have made house rules for Web yourselves? How many of you have decided that a saving throw is in order? Yours, Ville ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 03:05:22 -0800 From: Thibault Sarlat Subject: Re: The Web Spell I have always as a DM used the following rules: 1) the web spell cannot entangle people who are more than 3 levels higher than the caster. then i also used the following alternate: 2) the total level of people who can be entangled is 1d4 multiplied by the level of the caster. Yet anyone of higher level than the caster was allowed a dexterity check at -3 to avoid the web I based my modifications on the lock spell description which is of similar level and which cannot allow passage to a people of lesser levl than the caster. ===== Thibault SARLAT a.k.a Clenarius www.mystara.fr.st ICQ 16622177 MSN Messenger: clenarius@hotmail.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 00:23:56 +0800 From: "Francisco V. Navarro V" Subject: Adenture Scenario: The Lesser Evil Hail Mystrans! I offer you another raw product of my musings (emphasis on the raw), which could potentially make a good adventure. Inspiring idea: The human mouth is absolutely teeming with bacteria, most of them potentially lethal if found elsewhere in the body (such as in the respiratory tract or the blood stream). But scientists believe that one purpose such bacterial population are massive and overwhelming is to prevent other species of even more dangerous microorganisms from growing into significant numbers. Translation to adventure scenario (Adventure Template): In the setting (whatever village or town), there has always been a constant threat (The Lesser Evil) plaguing the area. Recently, certain mighty and authoritative forces (probably of the self-righteous Lawful Good type) have decided to effectively erradicate this Lesser Evil (The PCs can even be a part of this prologue adventure). They succeed and and it seems everyone would live happily ever after. Little do they know, that the Lesser Evil had always been there (perhaps placed by some Immortal) to prevent a Greater Evil from rising. So soon after the newfound peace (the calm before the storm), the vacuum left by the Lesser Evil is being filled by a more dangerous, more deadly, more insidious threat... And this is where the PCs come in... Scenario Variations (Fill in the blanks): The Lesser Evil is a tribe of humanoids living in the caves of nearby gorges. Their presence is the caves have long deterred the Shadow Elves (from Aengmor or even Schattenalfheim) from coming to the surface--until the local ruler decided to send the army or several parties of adventurers eradicate them. Now, the local citizens are threatened by nightly attacks of these dark-skinned elves. The Lesser Evil is a coven of medusae lurking in the ruins of the old palace and fortress along the old trade route. The merchant houses have decided to pour enough money onto the problem, sending mercenaries to eliminate the medusae. Unfortunately, their extinction has emboldened a rival coven of lamara, hags, or crones of chaos, to use their shapeshifting magic to inflitrate the caravans along the newly reopened trade route, bringing the threat into the more civilized population. The Lesser Evil is a cult of Nyx*, reported to perform their rituals in the dark of night, celebrating destruction and chaos as a natural part of nature. The Lawful Good church of Ixion have sent their paladins to eliminate these worshippers. But now, a cult of murderous worshippers of Hel or Thanatos have come a-murdering, and the good folk have begun to lose faith that their church can truly protect them. *Note: Though Nyx is a powerful Immortal, she has no single base of worshippers, but probably numerous cults throughout all cultures. *Second Note: Nyx would be a perfect Immortal who would advocate such a balance of evil with a lesser evil. The humanoids or medusae could be worshippers of Nyx, placed there by the Immortal to preserve the Entropic ecology. The Lesser Evil is a horde of disturbing and noxious, but otherwise tolerable undead. They are under the control of an exiled Glantrian wizard (a practitioner of the unstigmatized, perfectly acceptable Glantrian art of "Necromancie Applique" or "Practical Necromancy") or a necromantic cleric of Nyx, who is continuously replenishing his army of undead, to deter an increasingly organzed humanoid tribe in the nearby wildlands. When the mage guild or local temple moves to purge this evil magic from the land, the humanoid threat becomes a reality. (Note: We've come full circle here with the humanoids!) One highly magical scenario: The Lesser Evil is an enchanter, a dimensionalist, a Krondaharan Dream Master, or simply a wizard who has been stuyding the Nightmare Dimension. His tapping into such magic has caused a long history of nightmares, sleepwalkers, insomniacs, addled minds, and outright madness among the local folk. When his arcana practices are discovered, his magical research is stopped. It will be later discovered that what drew the wizard to the area was the opening of a portal from the Nightmare Dimension, and that his practice of magic actually prevented the entrance of brain-eaters and mindflayers... but no more. An Immortal Level adventure: The Lesser Evil is a powerful rogue demon or a group of demons acting independently from the Sphere of Entropy, who are infest a specific area on the Material Plane or even a small pocket plane. Immortal history reveals that the area or plane hides a mystical nexus, which certain Immortal powers believed must be liberated of these chaotic evil beings. The quest is undertaken, the demons are slayed and the nexus opens, and through it enters devils, lawful evil fiends never before seen in the Mystaraverse! It is then theorized that the reason that some long forgotten Entropic Immortal (or even perhaps an Old One) assigned these demons there are to prevent the entrance of devils into this dimension. That's it! Comments or suggestion? When I have time, I'll probably flesh out these ideas a bit more... Kit Navarro Schemer of Evil Plots ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:31:09 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Racial Classes The new Arcana Unearthed book has the option of racial classes, similar to OD&D. Might be something for Mystara 3e? The same rules can be found at: http://www.montecook.com/images/Racial_levels.pdf Havard ===== *** Håvard R. Faanes havardfaa@yahoo.no www.stud.ntnu.no/~havardfa ______________________________________________________ Få den nye Yahoo! Messenger på http://no.messenger.yahoo.com/ Nye ikoner og bakgrunner, webkamera med superkvalitet og dobbelt så morsom ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 08:57:32 -0800 From: Mike Harvey Subject: Re: Adenture Scenario: The Lesser Evil Great ideas, thanks! Mike ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 15:16:12 -0300 From: "Vinicius R. de Moraes" Subject: WotI campaign, at last! (WotI's and MoA's spoilers) Hi, RPG friends. After reading and dreaming of it many times, I'm about to run the WotI campaign. I've got passionate, experienced players that are willing to be converted to Mystara. This happened because of the warm welcome you all gve me, and the motivation I see in every post I read here. Thanks! Well, I've been reading, once more, WotI itself and "Mark of Amber", as it tells us more about Etienne D'Ambreville's fate. However, some questions still remain: 1) Is there anything else that deserves to be read? Wchich "history" books, stories, maps, campaign settings? 2) I have never fully understood the TIMES and PLACES concerned to ED'A's Radiance study and Rheddrian Artifact as a whole: it was a spaceship engine, then the big implosion came, it got buried, was found by a dragon, who took it to its lair, was taken from it by a Dragonslayer, and then what? Has ED'A studied it at the Dragonslayer's castle (I can't imagine Etienne "working from 8 to 5" no studying the Artifact and taking the "bus" - teleport w/o error, actually - to and from home everyday...)? Or has he taken it to the Chateu to do it? What is the relation from this to Corran? The many references, along the adventure and the History part of "The Immortals' Fury", are confusing, if not incompatible. 3) Would it be nice to read "Castle Amber" as well? 4) Has radiance transformed normal zombies (pre-existant, created out of the Corran's bodies as well as their servants') in Lightinig Zombies OR the has Radiance did it all alone? If the 1st is correct, who made them zombies in first place? 5) What has really happened to Lillian Corran (Baron's wife, page 20, three last lines)? 6) Do I have to ask something special of the players? Something like: "Please, during character creation, if one of yuo are Alpathians, the others must not me Thyatians and vice-versa"? I think trying to conduct players like that is bad for RPGing. Anyway, would it be an extra piece of adventure, of healthy danger to have PCs from countries that are in opposing sides during the war? Or would it give tto much of a headache, more than fun? 7) Any other hints? Many many TIA, vini ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 19:16:13 +0100 From: Felix Holtschoppen Subject: Re: The Web Spell Hi, I found this troublesome, too, so I decided to use the AD&D 2nd Ed. description of the spell instead. Now the victim does not need to possess extraordinary strength to escape from the Web. Of course it's still a dangerous (and potentially deadly) nuisance to everyone webbed but since I rule that you can't effectively fight anyone in the web using normal weapons without becoming entangled as well, this leaves only further spells (which most likely will destroy the web...). So far this worked very well IMC. Bye, Felix ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ville V Lähde" To: Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 9:46 AM Subject: [MYSTARA] The Web Spell > I don't have the rules cyclopedia or the basic set at hand here, so I may > be talking out of my hole here. Well if I am, then our group has been > misreading the description of the Web spell for years now. > > But if I remember correctly, there is no Saving throw against the web > spell in the OD&D rules. That makes it an awesomely powerful 2nd level > spell, since one can immobilise a character of practically any level with > it. > We have been noticing this many times over the course of our long > campaign, but never chose to do anything about it. Well, last time I > played a solo game with our mage character, we decided to establish rules > for the use of the spell. Nuff is nuff. > > We didn't introduce a saving throw as yet. Instead I made a GM call and > ruled that the Web spell cannot be used against an opponent engaged in > melee with the spellcaster. Why? Because melee situations are highly fluid > and the participants are moving all the time. The spellcaster would entrap > her/himself too! Of course, if she/he wants that to happen, then it's ok. > > This, and the short range, restricts the use of the spell somewhat. There > are still situations where it is useful: > 1) blocking the way (a door, a corridor etc.) > 2) stopping an enemy that is trying to rush you (given that the enemy > doesn't have time to engage you in time - that is, if the enemy gets > higher initiative, she/he is too close) > 3) using the spell into another melee, if you are willing to entrap your > friends too > etc. etc. > > We'll have to see if these house rules work. But what I'd like to know is > whether you have made house rules for Web yourselves? How many of you have > decided that a saving throw is in order? > > Yours, > > Ville > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > > ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:48:45 +1300 From: Chris Furneaux Subject: Re: WotI campaign, at last! (WotI's and MoA's spoilers) Quoting "Vinicius R. de Moraes" : > After reading and dreaming of it many times, I'm about to run the WotI > campaign. I've got passionate, experienced players that are willing to > be converted to Mystara. congratulations > 6) Do I have to ask something special of the players? Something like: > "Please, during character creation, if one of yuo are Alpathians, the > others must not me Thyatians and vice-versa"? I think trying to conduct > players like that is bad for RPGing. Anyway, would it be an extra piece > of adventure, of healthy danger to have PCs from countries that are in > opposing sides during the war? Or would it give tto much of a headache, > more than fun? Well it really depends on the characters they want to play. You can't really have Alphatian mages and a Glantrian mage that studies the radiance but thats probally the main restriction. I say that because there isn't just one political opinion in each country. Some Alphatians might want the Radiance for themselves, and be anti-glantri for that reason, where as there may be Glantrians that agree with alphatia about the radiance but can't do anything because the majority disaggrees. A Thyatian might side with Alphatia to try to save Thyatis from a war, just because Glantri is being stubbon. There are many ways out but what you really need is the logic behind why the party comes togeather and stays togerather I think. > 7) Any other hints? Try to keep players wondering whats going on. Make the major events surprising and shocking. You don't want them to know the loss of magic is comming, and try to describe the technological things from an IC perspective. They don't know what a spaceship is so it shouldn't be made obvious to the players that it is something technological. It should be amazing and uncomprehensible. As the saying goes, 'anything sufficently advanced is indistinguishable from magic'. Also you will need to decide if there is one week without magic or two. WotI is a bit messy. I think many have one being a day of dread instead, but thats a long way down the road anyway. Get the PC's involved in world events as much as possible and keep them busy doing things that arn't directly in WotI. Also some people have had success combining X10 into WotI's adventures. Chris. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 07:14:50 +0800 From: "Francisco V. Navarro V" Subject: Re: WotI campaign, at last! (WotI's and MoA's spoilers) Hail Mystaran! Hail Vinicius! Congratulation on your achievements! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vinicius R. de Moraes" To: Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 2:16 AM > > 3) Would it be nice to read "Castle Amber" as well? That is exactly the way to put it: Castle Amber would be *nice* to read for MoA, but not necessary. The CA adventure is a simple D&D "castle crawl." It was set some time in the past history of Glantri (mentioned in MoA) at features the weird castle and the weird members of the d'Ambreville family, during its time in the Land of the Mists. The final part of the adventure (actually, not fully fleshed out) is set in Laterre (though it's not named as such yet). What's nice about MoA is it actually revisits the CA adventure! Most of the weirdness is intact, and some are even fleshed out a bit more (such as the personalities of the mad d'Ambrevilles), so the PCs actually get to the the "normal" d'Ambrevilles during the early part of MoA and see them at their utterly mad state in the "Land of the Mists" sequence. There are minor alterations though (i.e. intsead of a brain-eater, they have a mindflayer), but that doesn't change the feel and flavor from the original. Kit Navarro Glantrian Bureaucrat ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 23:41:22 -0500 From: Dan Eustace Subject: Re: The Web Spell I use a save vs. spells. Otherwise it is imbalanced. Example: 1st level MU can web a L36 Fighter, when there are few other spells that could even hope to stop him. Hold person gives a save, dance requires a hit roll, power words have hp restrictions, etc. A save was the easiest and made the most sense IMC. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ville V Lähde" To: Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 3:46 AM Subject: [MYSTARA] The Web Spell > I don't have the rules cyclopedia or the basic set at hand here, so I may > be talking out of my hole here. Well if I am, then our group has been > misreading the description of the Web spell for years now. > > But if I remember correctly, there is no Saving throw against the web > spell in the OD&D rules. That makes it an awesomely powerful 2nd level > spell, since one can immobilise a character of practically any level with > it. > We have been noticing this many times over the course of our long > campaign, but never chose to do anything about it. Well, last time I > played a solo game with our mage character, we decided to establish rules > for the use of the spell. Nuff is nuff. > > We didn't introduce a saving throw as yet. Instead I made a GM call and > ruled that the Web spell cannot be used against an opponent engaged in > melee with the spellcaster. Why? Because melee situations are highly fluid > and the participants are moving all the time. The spellcaster would entrap > her/himself too! Of course, if she/he wants that to happen, then it's ok. > > This, and the short range, restricts the use of the spell somewhat. There > are still situations where it is useful: > 1) blocking the way (a door, a corridor etc.) > 2) stopping an enemy that is trying to rush you (given that the enemy > doesn't have time to engage you in time - that is, if the enemy gets > higher initiative, she/he is too close) > 3) using the spell into another melee, if you are willing to entrap your > friends too > etc. etc. > > We'll have to see if these house rules work. But what I'd like to know is > whether you have made house rules for Web yourselves? How many of you have > decided that a saving throw is in order? > > Yours, > > Ville > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 11 Feb 2004 to 12 Feb 2004 (#2004-39) ***************************************************************