Tag Archives: Deathbringer

Adventures in Gaming, Home Brew Hacks

Blighted Krevborna: Session 2.5: Wandering in Castorhage & New House Rules.

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Oh the best laid plains. We were supposed to have a session two weeks ago. Well, we sort of did. Having my players spread geographically that means VTT time. About an hour into the session, I lost power. I know you’ve heard lots of bad things. This time it turned out somebody ran into a transformer and blacked out a decent hunk of town. That meant the session was interrupted and didn’t get that far. And it was a bit difficult to get the momentum going again.

On the bright side, the final player got to join. So here’s the new character. Elisa the Plague Doctor. She’s a farmer from a decaying backwater town and her parents were wrongly executed. Her true love ran off to live a life of crime. So that rounds our party.

The party did release an evil sorceress but they are tying to kiss to her. They realized that they a fake inheritance. And made friends with one of the local thieves. All fun in Castorhage. Like I said, it wasn’t that exciting of a session. Sure there was lot of role play and getting to know the city a bit more.

But the extra time between sessions did let me digest some stuff. I’m using Deathbringer as primary rules source. There are now skills just attributes so those go up quicker than a lot of other games. Compared to other d20 systems, you just used the “modifier” and don’t even write down your good old 3 to 18. The core rules is that you get +1 every odd level. The players weren’t happy about that so I made them offer. Fine you gain a +1 each level but it’s random. They ate it up.

The other rule that I added was something that was bugging me for a long time. And I think I finally came up with a solution. We’ve all watched the movies where there’s an epic sword fight but the characters are also kicking and punching. But we don’t really do that in gaming. I wanted some of that element added. So if they miss their attack roll by 1 then they still hit but with an unarmed attack.

So there you go. The biggest thing was some adjustment to house rules and laying the foundations for more plots and troubles.

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Adventures in Gaming, Home Brew Hacks, Spells

Using ICRPG for Ritual Magic

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Yes, I’m a homebrewer/rules hacker sort of guy. It’s what I enjoy doing. Tweaking all sorts of various rules to fit what think would be the best a campaign. Now, my current campaign is mostly based on Professor DM’s Deathbringer with some ICRPG elements and my own weird imagination.

I’m not using all of ICRPG. I might do a campaign for it later on but right now I’m just using it as one of my favorite GM Tool Kits. One of the things that I’m not really using is EFFORT. Well, not completely any way. Normally, EFFORT is basically damage. It’s used to complete dramatic or time sensitive tasks. Make a d20 roll and if you beat the Target Number then you do “damage” to the task. What you roll for damage depends on the character and whatever equipment that they might be using. For this campaign, I decided to use EFFORT only for some very special circumstances. That is for magic. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to only focus on a couple of uses. Summoning demons and banishing/exorcising them.

OK. Here’s where you’re going to learn more about ICRPG. First, the GM will set the Target Number. This should be from about 10 to 18. Sort of the overall difficulty. It’s part art and part science setting that number. Then how much EFFORT will it take? That’s the easy part. It’s Hit Points. So how EFFORT do you do with a successful roll? Well, if you’re just using magic words and waving around your hands that’s d4 (Basic). If you’re using better and better spell components, materials, tomes, or whatever then work you’re way up the die chain; d6, d8, d10, and d12. What about bonuses? Since I’m not using the full ICRPG rules that would be INT bonus to casting but the magic using types would add that to their EFFORT. Roll that Nat 1 along the way then things go bad. Roll a Nat 20 then that’s a crit.

This will probably freak out the folks who are used to ICRPG and folks who don’t know it, will be scratching their heads. Think about it. Apply it how you want. And have fun.

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Monsters, News, Rants & Reviews, Spells

Deathbringer: Magic & Monsters. Oh My!

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I make it no secret that I’m a fan of the simple Deathbringer rules. They are simple without being too rules lite. They are pretty much compatible with any edition’s adventures. And it’s really easy to hack. One thing that I find is a feature is that there’s no spell list nor any monsters. Why? Well, why add the same old monsters and magic again? Really. Just use the version you want.

There’s tons of books of monsters and spells and since I’m an old-school kind of guy I figure I should dig around a pick a few that are off the beaten path.

Shadowdark/Cursed Scroll Zine: The core book will be released soon but I’ve got my hands on the beta rules, the quick start, and Cursed Scroll. Sure there’s the usual spells but there’s also a few that take a bit of grim dark turn. The spell descriptions are to the point. No extra blah. And it uses zoned combat and a roll-to-cast system. This is what I’m using in my current campaign.

Black Libram of Naratus: While this one is designed for Castles & Crusades, it’s not hard to convert. And yes there is a warning that these aren’t meant for player characters since they are pretty evil but then making a few available could an interesting and corrupting touch.

Realms of Crawling Chaos: You want some Lovecraftian monsters and spells. Well here you go.

Teratic Tome and Lusus Naturae: Both by Rafael Chandler. If you want weird, gory, and completely out there and usual not safe for work and some adults. Then take a look. Really, there’s some crazy, dark stuff in there.

Check out the Dark Arts series by Kai Putz. You get a bit of everything monsters, magic items, and spells. And all dirt cheap.

Yeah, I know I didn’t include probably someone’s favorite. And just maybe right now, I’m getting in the mood for a weird, grim dark type of campaign. But more about that later.

Unpleasant dreams!