Today we’ll be looking at the Cursed Sorcerer. The intent here was to have a sorcerer whose magic came from an old curse put on their family, which they then took advantage of in order to gain power.
I like the theming, and I like the narrative. The mechanics? Not so much.
And as much as I’d love to crack a joke about this creation being cursed, I can’t really justify that. It just has some issues, that’s all.
Welcome back to the Introspective, where I tear apart years-old homebrew in the pursuit of game design understanding. It’s also all my own work, so don’t feel bad about the poor creator of the work – he’s the same one doing the tearing-down in the first place.
Today we’ll be looking at the Council Warlock, one of my more contentious homebrews. Narratively there was the whole “mortal creatures as a Patron” thing, while mechanically it ran afoul of the age-old “INT vs. CHA” argument for the warlock class.
And I think there’s interesting points to make about both. So let’s begin, shall we?
Continue reading “Homebrew Introspective – The Council Warlock”
Last time, we looked at the entirety of Al’Qadim: Arabian Adventures except for one thing. Today, we look at that one thing: the sha’ir.
“Why wasn’t this a class? How is this a wizard?”
Those are the first of my notes from reading about the sha’ir. Things only went downhill from there. The sha’ir is maddening.
So without any further wait, let’s go!
Continue reading “Late Review – Al’Qadim, Arabian Adventures (Part 2)”
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a character option here – more so due to coincidence than any conscious decision. Plus all that nonsense with the OGL is really not ideal. But all the same, I feel examining homebrews is an interesting way of looking deeper into the philosophy and mechanics of the game.
By examining my own homebrews, I can even ensure there won’t be any angry creators coming after me! So let’s take a look, shall we?
Continue reading “Homebrew Introspective – Generalist Wizard”
In the end, I really did want to go over some of the specific themes I had in mind while detailing The Living Dungeon, and so here we are! I wasn’t originally intending to do these so soon after the original articles, but I’m not in charge of the content pipeline. Come to think of it, I also don’t know who is in charge of it, or if it exists at all.
As a warning, this will include some body horror – the original iteration of this idea was intended to be an aberration-themed nightmare after all. But not all of them are. Just to make doubly sure, all the body horror options will actually have the words “body horror” in their section headers.
With all that out of the way, let’s dive right in!
Continue reading “Dungeon Designs – The Living Vault Addendum”
Welcome back to Dungeon Designs and our discussion of “The Living Vault” – a dungeon which aims to feel more alive than any other in existence. Last time, we went over the basic stats for the Living Vault as a creature and an active participant in players’ dungeon crawl. This time, though, we’re going to be focusing more on the actual “dungeon” aspects of this concept.
And don’t worry – anatomical expertise is not required because I sure don’t have any.
Continue reading “Dungeon Designs – The Living Vault, part 2”
While “save-or-die” isn’t really what we’re talking about here, it sure makes for a catchy buzzword. But instead of that, we’ll be looking more generally at the evolution of the saving throw in general – from its humble and confusing beginnings to the modern day.
Also get the d20’s ready. When I say the old system is confusing, I mean like in the confusion spell. Hope you’ve got a good Wisdom save bonus.
Just as a note, it may take a year but by god do I follow up on my stupid title jokes.
In the past, I created a shadow magic wizard that focused on using quasi-real shadow illusions to fake evocation and conjuration spells. I did a couple revisions and planned on coming back to it, but ultimately I think its dead.
But the question remains… why? So today I’ll be taking a look at why shadow magic didn’t work, why it exists in the first place, and why it inherently doesn’t fit in modern Dungeons and Dragons.
Back in ye olden days, when clerics were clerics, wizards were magic-users, and fighters were fighting-men, there were plenty of weird things in the game. However, where you can normally brush aside such bizarre ideas as mere twisted memories of fever dreams of days gone by, these are things that I, unfortunately, have physical evidence for.
Today we’re going to talk about druids and how you had to literally kill (or at least defeat) a druid of a level higher than you in order to advance in level past 11th level.
Yes, it was weird. Very weird.
Continue reading “Advanced Editions – There Can Be Only One (Druid)”
In this series of posts, my goal is to look at all the little things from earlier editions that just didn’t quite make the cut for 5th Edition. Some were excluded for good reason, while others just didn’t quite fit in – but besides just talking about them, I’ll also be doing what I can to port them over.
For our first topic, we have the ever-terrifying Level Drain (also called Energy Drain). This is what made undead scary back in the day, alright? This made them so horribly scary.
Continue reading “Advanced Editions – A Draining Discussion”