Wednesday, May 02, 2007

reader replies

I got a couple of comments in the post relating my recent Lords of Creation game that I wanted to respond to today.

passerby asks "A generic LOC question...are the articles in Heroes magazine any good?"

I'm not the best source of info on this subject, passerby. I don't own all the relevant issues of Heroes (the short-lived Avalon Hill house organ for their equally short-lived RPG line). The issues with lots of Glorantha material are particularly hard to get, unless your pockets are as deep as the Runequest fanatics. Mine are not. And to be honest, since most of the LoC articles were written by Tom Moldvay I'm hardly in a position to be objective. Let me just say that I like what I've got and plan to snap up any others I can get for cheap. Every article I've ever read by Mr. Moldvay has struck me as good research by someone in love with the task at hand.

Jerry Cornelius comments "dude, you've just gotta post the stupid Dracula tricks chart!"

No problem, Jerry.
Stupid Dracula Tricks (roll d20)

1) Boo! [Fear effect on everyone within 50', make Luck Roll or take no action. Reroll each round until the fear is shaken off.]
2) Kung Fu! [Activate Physical Control, +6 to-hit and damage]
3) To me, my pets! [Summon Animals, arrive in d6-1 rounds, equal chances of d10 Tentacle Wolves, d6 Three-Headed Cobras, or d3 Cycloptic Lions]
4) Dragon up! [Shapeshift to Dragon, 50% chance of breathing fire immediately]
5) Come to me, my dear! [Fascination on one PC, Luck Roll to avoid switching sides, Victory Jones -3 to save.]
6) Get Tough! [Activate Dermal Armor, defenses increase by 6.]
7) You can't catch me! [Fly out of melee range.]
8) Your mind powers will not work on me. [Activate Mind Block.]
9) Cackle maniacally. [No other action.]
10-20) Just punch some fool.
If I were in charge of developing D&D 4E every monster with more than one special power would get a chart like this. DMs would not be obligated to use these charts, but sometimes when you're trying to run 6 demons it becomes the opposite of fun to figure out what each creep is going to do each round.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:39 PM

    Coolsville. With all those powers I'm surprised the PC's made such short work of him. I mean Dracula's bad enough, but a Dracula Dragon?! (clever bit of etymologically monstering, btw).

    "Jerry"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dragon action chart (roll a d3):

    1) Claw, claw, bite
    2) Claw, bite, claw
    3) Bite, claw, claw

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:52 AM

    Not so!

    1) Grab a handful of coins and throw it
    2) Fly up out of bowshot and survey situation
    3) Go get a big rock and drop it on someone
    4) Cast a spell
    5) Pick someone up
    6) Tail swipe for knockdowns in wide swatch behind
    7) Wing buffets for knockdowns all around
    8) Roar (fear)
    9) Swoop around and taunt
    10-15) Claw, claw, bite
    16-20) Breathe

    ReplyDelete