Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 11 Dec 2002 to 12 Dec 2002 (#2002-321) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 13/12/2002, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 23 messages totalling 924 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals (7) 2. Attracting Players to Mystara 3. Drums of Panic? (2) 4. Pool: The Old Rules 5. Vorloi posting? 6. Attracting Players to Mystara Posting? 7. Weapon Mastery Revisited (2) 8. Water/Earth Alphatians? (6) 9. Drums of Panic? and magic item charges (2) ******************************************************************** 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 Dec 2002 11:21:00 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals First of all: wow! I had the feeling that there were a lot of RPG veterans on the list, but it seems to be much more than I thought. A humble bow to all of you who laid your hands on Chainmail... There must be only a few guys around here who even even saw it. I use OD&D, spiced up with some Gazetteer additions, but very little of them. I never used the Weapon Mastery, though. After two years of drooling over the first ever RPG articles in Finnish computer zines, I finally managed to get my hands on the Red Box in 1984. That must have been my first real RPG. There was some sporadic gaming, or attempts to start gaming, with D&D and one Finnish game, until our first and only ever campaign started in 1988. We are still doing the same campaign with two original characters. (Ok, actually there has been one shorter side-campaign starting from the Blade of Vengeance module...) The PCs are on levels 12-15. I have been stingy with the exp on purpose, and our schedule has been slow over the years. Also, dozens of other games have taken up time. I'm from Finland, 30 years old. Ville ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 10:39:51 +0100 From: Felix Holtschoppen Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals Hi, I'm playing OD&D with the RC, some House Rules and some aspects of AD&D 2nd Ed. Never played Immortal-level yet. I like mid-level characters best (4th to 14th level). I've started playing on the basis of the red box about 13 years ago, when I was just a teenager (13 yrs-old). In 1997 I gave up gaming moving to the town I was going to study at. Now I'm just starting a campaign in Mystara Karameikos 1000AC with players that never played any variant of (A)D&D. The PCs are about 3rd level. I'm just beginning to catch up on all the information published on the net. It's fantastic. Great work guys! Having a bit of a time problem, I can really appreciate the predigested material on the net. Oh. I have been a player to AD&D 2nd Ed. in Ravenloft, DarkSun, FR and other RPGs like Shadowrun, Traveller, PP&P, DSA, etc. but I like (A)D&D in its diverse variants best. OD&D is what I grew up with so I'm a little bit nostalgic but I also find it rather easy to play without the gargantuan mount of rules you have in AD&D. Location is Germany. Bye, Felix ----- Original Message ----- From: "JJJ" To: Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 10:23 AM Subject: [MYSTARA] Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals > Comrades, i've played all editions, and each has its vants. & desavants., > THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. > But, as in Dragonlance, Mystara sounded soooo like OD&D, and from AD&D rules > on a believed they never had a grip on the thing. > > The question is: > > How many of you still use OD&D (Rules Cyclopedia or less) in your Mystaran > campaigns? And has anyone played an extensevely immortals campaign? > > ******************************************************************** > 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 Dec 2002 11:03:15 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Attracting Players to Mystara Darth Darknerd wrote: > > I think B6 is a great litmus test for both getting > quality players and also showing players what Mystara > is about. Yes, it's a good introductory adventure, as far as the B series goes. Also good are most of the adventure hooks in Gaz 1. > I am going to work on this module and update it to > D&D3e. Though the one thing I don't like is that the > player's bring down the house. House Radu stats are > much weaker in B6 than GAZ1 Grand Duchy of Karameikos > or GAZ Kingdom of Karameikos, and if B6 is played true > to form, the Radu clan can no longer be used as an > antagonist (or protagonist depending on alliances) in > the campaign. Yes, I'd probably replace the Radu with a minor family which controls a specific district of Specularum, using the B6 stats for them, or use the B6 with more expert PCs, leaving the task of introducing new players to the Davinos adventure from the Gaz. If the Veiled Society becomes a recurring enemy, then B6 can become the climatic adventure of a part of the campaign. Personally, I'd go with the first solution. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 11:00:29 +0100 From: Daniel Mayer Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals Hi, Ville! Though I'm two years younger than you, I began playing OD&D a trifle earlier: 1986 (Yeah, I was young and have been polluted with unicorns and dragons for the rest of my life :) I'm just trying to get a new group to D&D. Except myself only one of them has experience in playing D&D. I *tried* to get them into 3rd Ed..... No chance. If they've no idea of RPG, they aren't able to decide on feats and skills. So I'll start with OD&D, the classic Hack'n Slash to give them the feeling: It's a small edge they're standing on... one lucky hit of the enemy.... After all: Like over 10 years ago: Karameikos is the best place to start a new group. Glantri/Alphatia are the most difficult. And to give a note to immortals: I tried M1-M3. Not playable. Simply because the story (at least of M1) is known to everyone who reads old legends of good old greece. Laren Nightmaster, Tower of Dreams, 28 years, Germany ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 11:13:51 +0100 From: Glim Garrick Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals Hi all, I am 27, coming from Slovakia (small Central Europe country) playing RPG about 12 years. We started with local version advanced through OD&D, ADND to final stage D&D 3E. On average our campaign takes 4-5 years when players are usually at 8-10th level. Played only Mystara (KW mostly) which fully satisfies our needs. I prefered to play ADND and now I am getting used to D&D3E. I recognized that our bunch of players is excellent regardless of version of rules or setting played. We never needed modules (except general info on Mystara and Known World) and DMs always developed great campaign and plot. Now I am DMing party of adventurers set in Karameikos AC 1013 and I am inspired by great and exhaustive work of you guys here on Mystara discussion forum. Noro aka Glim Garrick ____________________________________________________________________ Informacie obsiahnute v tomto dokumente su urcene vylucne pre potreby jeho adresata. Dokument moze obsahovat informacie chranene ako bankove alebo obchodne tajomstvo, pripadne informacie podliehajuce ochrane podla inych pravnych predpisov. Preto Vas v pripade, ak Vam bol mylne doruceny, vyzyvame, aby ste sa zdrzali jeho odtajnenia ci jeho pouzitia pre vlastne potreby. Zaroven si Vas dovolujeme poziadat, aby ste nas o takomto pripade bez zbytocneho odkladu informovali a dokument nasledne zlikvidovali. Information stated in this document is intended only for needs of proper addressees of this document. This document can contain information protected as a bank or business secret, or information protected by other legal regulations. Thus in case of receiving the document by error, we kindly ask you not to disclose, or use the document for your own needs. Likewise we kindly ask you to notify us immediately upon such a case by sending an email message to the sender's address, and subsequently delete the document. Tatra banka, a.s. Hodzovo namestie 3, 811 06 Bratislava 1 ICO: 00 686 930 Zapisana v obchodnom registri Okresneho sudu Bratislava I Oddiel: Sa, vlozka cislo: 71/B ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:15:02 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ville_V_L=E4hde?= Subject: Drums of Panic? The Cyclopedia makes no mention how often the Drums of Panic can be used. Has anyone given the iten to their players, and have you made any house rules on that? 1/day? 3/day? One of my PCs just assassinated Bargle the Infamous and gained his Drums. If I remember correctly, there is a similar omission in the case of Amulet of ESP. Ville ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:16:55 +0200 From: harri mäki Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules Ok since everyone else seems to be answering these interesting questions... I haven't been playing lately very actively. But when we play we use old rules, I mean earlier than Cyclopedia. Have been also playing some ADD years ago. Never reached levels over 10. I started with red box somewhere around 1982 or 83. I can't recall exact year anymore. Anyway, I was in high school and one guy had been as a exchange student in USA and came back with the box. I was immediately hooked. And btw I'm from Finland and now 36. Harri Mäki --- ------------------------------- Tuuli kuljettaa mua mennessään pitkin maailmaa, eikä minnekään Loppua ei näy, sanoo jokainen yksi hullu käy tiellä turhuuden - - - Sunpoint.net tiedustelee: - - - Suliko sähköpostisi? Hae uusi painamalla tästä! http://www.sunpoint.net/SunAds/click.htm?mode=footer&id=68&jump=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sunpoint.net%2F ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 07:00:36 -0800 From: Darth Darknerd Subject: Vorloi posting? Did my post get here about the Vorloi not being Thyatian? I cannot find it in the digest... __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 07:02:54 -0800 From: Darth Darknerd Subject: Attracting Players to Mystara Posting? I did a post about Attracting Players to Mystara, but the post is absent from the digest... Did everyone read it? Or is it missing? Email me directly, just in case. - Joaquin __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 13:36:47 -0200 From: JJJ Subject: Weapon Mastery Revisited Good Mystarans, Now that i know most of you still follow the good-old-times rules, i will pose an intriguing question: WEAPON MASTERY! It has always been said that this rule totally unbalances the game. I agree fully. D&D and its monsters were created without the WM rules from the Master Set in mind, so everything became a great mess. Many players truly love WM, thinking of it as the only weapon system that truly reflected something about trainnig in ALL editions, not to say being a lot of fun for players! (i for myself like 1st ed AD&D rules on weapons, more like Chainmail...) After so much gaming, i recently developed a house rule that is being quite good, letting players have their damned WM and the challenge of monster being still what it was in Boxes past (expert, companion, etc...) That is what i make: all monsters, but PC classes, were given an "Monster Mastery", which functions like this: Rank HD AC Absorb/Weapon Extra SK 3 - 1 hp - EX 6 -1 2 hp - MS 9 -1 4 hp deflect(1) GM 12 -2 8 hp deflect (2) Any monster of the listed HD or higher gains that advantages: a bonus to AC, an hp absorption for weapons ONLY (not magic) with a minimum of 1 point of damage, and Deflect ability. In my game deflects are handled differently, like this: If you have been beaten by a natural roll of 13, you must roll highr than 13 to deflect, NO saving throw thing.... Also, WM "to hit" bonuses were cancelled and became this: Rank Primary Secundary All (for wpns with P=A) BS - - - SK - - +1 EX +1 - +2 MS +1 - +2 GM +2 +1 +3 The rationality is to mantain the AC vs. Thac0 game balance usual, with monster who were supposed to be of a higher level of danger having an bonus to AC that cancels the bonus to Thac0 (as you can calculate from the first table), except for P=A weapons which have a slight advantage (as they are supposed to). The hp wpn/absorption handles the increasing damage of the players in relaiton to the expected danger of creatures, thus making a 12HD dragon TRULY dangerous for characters of low level, but who have EX mastery and do 2d8 dmg! I repeat that this hp/abosrb does not apply to magic, as it is balanced for the game. A good example is the Striking spell. Even if first level fighter, str 14, hits with a dagger (and a 20 roll....) and old red dragon he would do damage like that: [1d4+1(str)] (check absorption, in this example it is always 1hp damage, as the dragon absorbs 8hp/weapon] +1d6 strinking spell (full damage inflicted on the dragon, for it is magic!!!) In the case of goblinoids and other weapon using monsters i MANTAINED all monter mastery and gave weapon mastery to some (like Bugbears being SK in mace). These cases are better handled on a case by case basis. PCs and NPCs with traditional classes (fighters, clerics, elves, etc...) DO NOT have any of the monster mastery effects. This makes battles a lot more dangerous, but as both parties have the same abilities, i believe its good as it is. "Do you players want WM? So be ready for its effects, humph....." :) Anyway, i am througly playtesting it since with my current campaign. My players are around 8-9th level, and the new rule is doing very well!!! As a last piece of advice, i do not permit two-weapon fighting, except for the shield-wpns. the -4 penalty is to little, and to put a higher one wouldn't suffice for increased WM damage. That's it. Comments??? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 07:40:33 -0800 From: Darth Darknerd Subject: Water/Earth Alphatians? In Mystara, there's the flaems that appeared in the Highlands, and there are those that landed previous to them and formed Alphatia. A secret society within the Air-Elementalist empire fled and formed a colony on Honor Island to practice Fire-Elementalist magic there in secret. What about Earth-Elementalists and Water-Elementalists. They existed in Alphatian's original homeworld, and I am sure they managed to survive? I just imagine mega-tsunami spells, whirlpool spells, or even spells that change the water composition so that ships cannot have bouyancy for Water Elementalists, and An Earth Elementalists can have earthquake, meteorite spells, or spells that cause huge spikes to come out of the earth, or canyons to open. Also, Earth elementalists could possibly change coal to diamond, or silver to mithral, etc. :-) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 00:14:34 +0800 From: "Francisco V. Navarro V" Subject: Re: Water/Earth Alphatians? Hail Mystarans! Hail Dark One! With regards to the earth and water elementalists, I would like to think that these two schools of elementalists did not survive the destruction of Alphatia. First of all, their schools were the minority. Most Alphatians went air magic or fire magic--or more accurately, the pure Alphatians (pale skinned with dark hair) went air, while the common Alphatians (mixed breed with the copper-skinned, red-haired Cypri race) went fire. (Perhaps the earth and water schools were associated with some other minor races on Old Alphatia?) Another idea (which I get from RW mysticism, i.e. Four Elements of the ancient Greeks) is that fire and air are the masculine, active, Yang elements, while water and earth are the feminine, passive, yielding Yin elements. Following this, while the fire and air elementalists are busy duking it out in a world war, the water and earth elementalists would probably be quietly keeping their peace, finding some place to hide and simply survive. If the water and earth elementalists did manage to survive, they may have hidden under the sea or deep in the earth, maybe in some other planet in the Old Alphatia dimension. IIRC, there were suggestions that these elementalists also made their way to the Mystaraverse and are hidden away in one planet or another. But I prefer to think that these elementalists were weaker than their air and fire counterparts, and thus not able to crossover from one dimension (Old Alphatia) to another. At best, they would have retreated into the Elemental Planes, and they would probably have given up their Old Alphatian heritage by then. FYI, in the Glantrian Secret Crafts, the Secret Craft of Air Elementalism came from the Alphatian continent and the Secret Craft of Fire Elementalism has its roots in Flaemish fire magic (and thus Old Alphatia as well). The SC of Earth Elem. was introduced by the Malapietras and has its roots from extraplanar powers, probably straight from the Plane of Earth (Is this right Giampaolo?), and the SC of Water Elem has the most mixed of histories, taking water magic from many fragmented sources (including sea mages of Darokin, Ierendi, Thyatis, and Minrothad, and undersea magic from the undersea kingdoms), and set up by Thyatian mages. Most likely, the two SC have no relation with the water and earth elementalists from Old Alphatia. Kit Navarro The Mad Enchanter from Glantri ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darth Darknerd" To: Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 11:40 PM Subject: [MYSTARA] Water/Earth Alphatians? > In Mystara, there's the flaems that appeared in the > Highlands, and there are those that landed previous to > them and formed Alphatia. A secret society within the > Air-Elementalist empire fled and formed a colony on > Honor Island to practice Fire-Elementalist magic there > in secret. > > What about Earth-Elementalists and > Water-Elementalists. They existed in Alphatian's > original homeworld, and I am sure they managed to > survive? > > I just imagine mega-tsunami spells, whirlpool spells, > or even spells that change the water composition so > that ships cannot have bouyancy for Water > Elementalists, and An Earth Elementalists can have > earthquake, meteorite spells, or spells that cause > huge spikes to come out of the earth, or canyons to > open. Also, Earth elementalists could possibly change > coal to diamond, or silver to mithral, etc. :-) > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. > http://mailplus.yahoo.com > > ******************************************************************** > 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 Dec 2002 17:26:26 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Weapon Mastery Revisited JJJ wrote: > Good Mystarans, > > Now that i know most of you still follow the good-old-times rules, i will > pose an intriguing question: WEAPON MASTERY! > It has always been said that this rule totally unbalances the game. I agree > fully. D&D and its monsters were created without the WM rules from the > Master Set in mind, so everything became a great mess. Well, for very low levels it worked well--it gave fighters an edge with a specific weapon, while reducing their efficacy with all other weapons. At high levels it was nearly impossible to handle, though... > In my game deflects are handled differently, like this: If you have been > beaten by a natural roll of 13, you must roll highr than 13 to deflect, NO > saving throw thing.... OK, deflects bogged down the game way too much: I remember the duel in CM1 lasting an entire session... I think it was the last time I used WM in a game higher than name level! This variant looks much better than the original. > As a last piece of advice, i do not permit two-weapon fighting, except for > the shield-wpns. the -4 penalty is to little, and to put a higher one > wouldn't suffice for increased WM damage. You could have two-weapon fighters fight at reduced WM level (-1 favorite hand, -2 off-hand). This way, you reduce the damage as well. You can't fight two weapon unless you are at least skilled in both weapons. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 17:31:18 +0100 From: Giampaolo Agosta Subject: Re: Water/Earth Alphatians? Darth Darknerd wrote: > > I just imagine mega-tsunami spells, whirlpool spells, > or even spells that change the water composition so > that ships cannot have bouyancy for Water > Elementalists, and An Earth Elementalists can have > earthquake, meteorite spells, or spells that cause > huge spikes to come out of the earth, or canyons to > open. Also, Earth elementalists could possibly change > coal to diamond, or silver to mithral, etc. :-) In Mystara, Earth and Water elementalism seem to be more popular with the Thyatians (Glantrian-based, as in Caurenze and Sablestone, or otherwise) than with the Alphatians. Perhaps the other Alphatian factions migrated to different planes or planets. Or perhaps they migrated to Alphatian colonies on Mystara, just like the Honour Island faction. In the latter case, they might have moved to Thyatis and Ylaruam, thus explaining the presence of the Caurenzan Earth Masters and the presence of a strong wizardly tradition in Ylaruam. -- Giampaolo Agosta http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 18:37:47 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: Drums of Panic? --- Ville_V_Lähde skrev: > The Cyclopedia makes no mention how often the Drums > of Panic can be used. > Has anyone given the iten to their players, and have > you made any house > rules on that? 1/day? 3/day? > > One of my PCs just assassinated Bargle the Infamous > and gained his Drums. > > If I remember correctly, there is a similar omission > in the case of Amulet > of ESP. _And_ Bargle's bracers of Defence AC 4, but I guess those are self-explainatory. Kinda. IIRC the Drums of Panic are described in PC1, Tall Tales of the Wee Folk, as they are a favoured magic item of the Fauns. I might be mistaken though. Cheers! Håvard ______________________________________________________ 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 Dec 2002 20:36:50 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Matteo_Barnab=E8?= Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals > New Poll: There seems to be a strong following on the list for Italy, what >are the other countries or states are being represented, and how long has >everyone been playing? I belong to that strong following of indomitable Mystaran supporters for Italy ;-) I play D&D since 1991; I still use the OD&D system with my "historical" group, where I am the Dungeon Master and the setting is, of course, Mystara! (btw, I'm also a player in an other campaign base on 3E rules). My reference book is mainly the Rules Cyclopedia, heavily integrated with home rules designed by Marco Dalmonte (another Italian member of this list and of the Mystaran Almanac team) and me; these additional rules concern most of all magic (i.e. regional "schools" of arcane magic), enchantment of magical items (developing the rules described in the Rules Cyclopedia, Gaz.3 and DotE), specialty priests (with a different portfolio and exclusive spells for clerics and paladins/avengers of _each_ Mystaran immortal), and, our last effort, new resources for OD&D thieves (most of all "secret talents" that can be gained starting from 9th level, introduced to balance the thief class, too weak in our opinion). My mystaran campaign is going on since 6 years (and over 7 years have passed in mystaran time: last date on PCs' calendar is 15 Thaumont 1007) and it's centered in Karameikos; now PCs are reaching middle-high levels (about 17th-20th level) and are very tightly entagled in Karameikan politics: the cleric of the party, in particular, rules his new-founded Barony to the north of Luln, and he's working extremely hard to retain his power in a situation which is becoming always more complicated (mostly due to a Thyatian involvement...). Although I've read and appreciated the Immortals' Fury adventure and its developments described in the almanacs, I'm not faithful to those events, and I'm following a substantially different timeline, in which PCs choices play a significative role (at least in the local Karameikan reality). and now about the first pool > And has anyone played an extensevely immortals campaign? I've never played or DMed an immortal campaign and probably I won't do in it in the future (or at least, in the next future); however, I think it'd be a very challenging and intriguing campaign, considering how wide and composite is the Mystaran pantheon! Out of doubt, if I had to conduct an immortal campaign I would refer the "Codex of Immortals" book included in the "Wrath of Immortals" boxed set instead of the old Immortal Boxed Set (the Gold Box) which I consider uselessly complicated. bye, Matteo ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 15:09:20 -0500 From: Geoff Gander Subject: Re: Water/Earth Alphatians? Darknerd wrote: > > What about Earth-Elementalists and > Water-Elementalists. They existed in Alphatian's > original homeworld, and I am sure they managed to > survive? Quite recently I posted a writeup of the Lost Art of Hydromancy, one of the four original elemental schools of Alphatian magic. It's in the Vaults. Geoff -- Geoff Gander, BA 97, MPA 02 Carnifex Loremaster/Mad Roleplayer Master of the Elemental Plane of Bureaucracy au998@freenet.carleton.ca : www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/2091 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 09:43:37 +1300 From: Chris Furneaux Subject: Re: Drums of Panic? and magic item charges > The Cyclopedia makes no mention how often the Drums of Panic can be > used. Has anyone given the iten to their players, and have you made > any house rules on that? 1/day? 3/day? > If I remember correctly, there is a similar omission in the case of > Amulet of ESP. I have a simmilar problem. When using the rules from DotE to create magic items (I think they are in the RC too) you can make the item have a permanent instead of charge based. Now clearly I can understand this for duration spells (e.g. ring of invisibility) but for instantanious spells?!? calculated at the cost of 50 charges. So far I have not allowed it yet, but I was wondering what other people have done. The drums I assume fall under the same catagory. One of my players wants to make a teleportation device that can be used as often as he likes to transport people between two locations. Essentially he wants to be able to move large numbers of people (say a couple of thousand) as quickly as possible. I'm still toying as to what my decision is going to be, but if he builds it and uses it fully there is definately going to be a price that he hasn't counted on... *insert evil DM laughter here* Oh and at the receving end of the teleportation portal, if he can't be sure of the accuracy of the destination he intends to build a large pool. Too high, land in water, too low, arrive in water. Off to either side, same thing. and if the water proves inefectual (people drowning and such) theres always the option of reverse gravity beneith the platform. Chris. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 12:59:32 -0800 From: Joe Kelly Subject: Re: Drums of Panic? and magic item charges If you can get your hands on the Four volume Magica Encyclopedia it should = be in there, as there are magical items from all the TSR campaign worlds. :) JK Wolf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 13:03:07 -0800 From: Joe Kelly Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals I play in Canada, with a group of 8 players. We use the 2nd ed. as it is = the most available and that is what I mostly have, but I do use 3e = adventures and convert them. We have been playing for 2 years now real = time The last year has been in Freeport, Ierendi and this is their home. I use = many city module books to help me flesh it out. We have only covered about = 3 weeks PC time as we only get together once maybe every two weeks if = that. Cheers! JK Wolf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Dec 2002 13:24:04 +1300 From: Chris Furneaux Subject: Re: Water/Earth Alphatians? > What about Earth-Elementalists and > Water-Elementalists. They existed in Alphatian's > original homeworld, and I am sure they managed to > survive? > > I just imagine mega-tsunami spells, whirlpool spells, > or even spells that change the water composition so > that ships cannot have bouyancy for Water > Elementalists, and An Earth Elementalists can have > earthquake, meteorite spells, or spells that cause > huge spikes to come out of the earth, or canyons to > open. Also, Earth elementalists could possibly change > coal to diamond, or silver to mithral, etc. :-) This is just some thoughts on the schools and their uses. I always took earth and water spells as being a little more passive then fire and air. Air has a clear advantage over earth as air tends to have the flying spells which makes it difficult to be offensive against. Earth is more likly to have growth and protection spells. As for water, I could imagine some good offensive water spells (e.g. dehydrate) and would be good at counteracting fire and some earth magic, but isn't as offensive as fire magic. In general I would associate the elements with the following types: Air - Movement - Speed Earth - Protection - Strength Fire - Destruction (and use of energy) - Power Water - Life/Creation - Resistance/Endurance Air is thus good for protection as you can 'avoid' damage and good for assult as you can move things to damage. Earth is good for protection as you can resist attack (stoneskin etc) and damage attackers. Problem is reach off the ground is limited so other schools strengthen the magic. Fire is the manipulation of energy. Almost entirely offensive and the best defence is a good offence here. I would be inclined to put heat and cool spells in this catagory as one is use energy and the other is drain energy. Anything that uses 'pure' magical energy would be in this catagory. Water I would associate with summoning spells, growth, life, death and possibly change (although that could also be earth). Because of the magic types that each element encourages and the mindsets that they are likely to attract I would be inclined to say that Air and fire tend to be the most aggresive. Fire would be direct, while air is best in retaliation. Fire teaches to strike hard, while air schools teach to avoid damage, redirect attacks and to 'use your oponents strength against him'. Water would likely just be able to 'absorb' attacks and earth would take attacks and thus not feel the need to be aggressive as damage goes avoided. Because of the mindsets that come with the desire to study earth and water magics it is likely that they simply avoided the conflict and left the others to sort themselves out. They would not pursue the rivalries and so would be unlikly to end up on the same planet again. Chris. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 23:29:03 -0200 From: JJJ Subject: Re: Water/Earth Alphatians? > > What about Earth-Elementalists and > > Water-Elementalists. They existed in Alphatian's > > original homeworld, and I am sure they managed to > > survive? Dark Sun modules form 2nd Ed. can came in handy for this discussion, there is a lot of material about elemental magic. Even though it is essentially for the priest classes the ideas and many spells can be easly adapted for D&D. For those of you who read Dragon Kings, the elemental-priest classes could be adapted to an "Wizardry Elemental", representing a type of mage transmutation for Alphatians, sort of a lich thinking: "Eternal and Powerful!HA hA HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!" ;) As for the question about significants, Earth seens a lot like healing and ressurrection magic. As a mother-earth logic. Maybe spells that confront undeath, heal, druidically nature-based. Has anyone played Might & Magic? The middle games (6 through 8) had spells categorizaed by elements in a very interesting way. As Water represents the rivers and oceans (which goes everywhere) teletransportation spells felt in to that category! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 23:07:17 -0400 From: Paul Westermeyer Subject: Re: Pool: The Old Rules & Immortals > How many of you still use OD&D (Rules Cyclopedia or less) in your Mystaran > campaigns? And has anyone played an extensevely immortals campaign? I don't play Mystara, just own many of the books. Though I'm constantly tempted to start a Mystara campaign up. I missed out on OD&D, I started with it, the Basic (I started in 1980) and then Expert sets, but I liked the more diverse alignment system and race/class system of AD&D so I converted before any more of the OD&D stuff came out (before Mystara was Mystara, when it was still just the map in X2). I converted to Greyhawk, and then to FR before I realized this really cool world had grown out of the OD&D stuff. By then, funds left me unable to explore it until it was OOP! :( I still play 2e, I just don't like 3e enough to spend the time to master it or the money to buy it (and I was a 3e play-tester, so please no attempts to 'convert' me!). -- "We sleep safely in our beds, only because rough men stand guard in the night, ready to visit violence upon those who would do us harm." H.G. Wells. Paul Westermeyer, westermeyer.3@osu.edu Phd Candidate, History, Ohio State University Instructor, Humanities, Columbus State Community College ------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 11 Dec 2002 to 12 Dec 2002 (#2002-321) ****************************************************************