Polymorphic dispel

There's this Harry Potter bit where two wizards are fighting each other and at one point a cloud of daggers manifests, flies at the one, and then turns into a swarm of birds, back again into something else, in a back-and-forth of attack and defense. I always thought that was cool shit.

What I'm getting at dovetails with the famous rants by Scrap Princess about shitty spells. "Dispel magic" is something a wizard can do, but it is boring. "Counterspell" is also boring. It's good to have, but turning magic off will never be interesting. 

 So I came up with this instead.

Note how Dumblydore's green fire gets turned into a snake? Now THAT's a way to dispel green fire.

 

 Polymorphic dispel
Range: 200’ whatever      T: magic effect     D: permanent or duration of original spell      reaction
Make an opposed INT check to the caster of the spell you want to dispel. On a success, you may change one word in a spell into any other word as long as it rhymes. The DM will rule if your dispel rhymes and is possible. If it is, the spell is altered in accordance with your wording in some way that changes, lessens, or negates its effect. If it is not, nothing happens and your spell dice are refunded. Rules and restrictions:

• You must invest as many dice as the level of the spell you attempt to dispell
• Components of compounds count as one word ("fire" in fireball is one word)
• You can't use a rhyme dispel that's already been used this session.
• It is not necessary to know the spell’s official name; you may also do this with the description given by the DM.
• The DM decides if a dispel is possible. However if she thinks it's impossible, she may ask "and how do you see that working?" because maybe the players have a better idea.
  
• When cast in combat as a reaction, you can't take too long thinking. You must declare it by saying “Dispel!” immediately after (like, 5 seconds) the DM describing an effect, and from declaring “dispel!” you have 10 seconds to formulate (rhyme) your dispel. (Example: “Fireball, uhh, uhmm, wireball!?”) 

The "dice invested" is of course because I love the GLOG. This is NOT playtested in the slightest.

Effective polymorphic dispels:
Fireball - lyreball    (the fireball turns into a clump of lyres that strike you for 1d6 damage)
Fireball - wireball    (the fireball turns into a clump of wire; roll DEX or be immobilized)
Fireball - briarball    (the fireball turns into a clump of tangled roots, same I guess) 

Wall of Ice - Wall of Mice    (self explanatory)
Wall of Ice - Hall of Ice        (still there but now the opposite of a wall)
Acid Arrow - Aphid Arrow    (you get covered in bugs, maybe they suck your blood a bit for 1d4)
Acid Arrow - Arid Arrow       (you get dehydrated)

Cloud of daggers - Trout of daggers     (daggers clump together in the form of a trout that swims through the air and will fight for you for 1d6 rounds)

What about cloud of naggers? Turn it into faces whining?

Lightning bolt - Lightning colt. A horse made of lightning gallops around the battlefield. Roll reaction to see whose side it's on.

Bad:

Fireball - Higherball (how would that work? Unless it would make you float upward)
Fireball - Shireball (I don't see it)
Fireball - Choirball (Well, maybe. All the examples I wanted to give as "bad" are actually okay).
Wall of Ice - Wall of Thrice (What is this!!! These are all great!!! Projectiles fired into it turn into triples)

Also works in other languages

Vuurbal - glazuurbal - the fireball turns into a glob of cake glazing that smacks you right in the face.
Wolk van messen - Wolk van bessen     (the daggers all turn into berries) 

Why polymorphic dispel?

It allows players to modify magic effects to circumvent or negate them WITHOUT just being an off switch and WITH adding a lot of chaos.

The treasure is behind a forcefield! Ordinarily, you would dispel it. Now you could go uh humm, horsefield? Or would that be worse? Worsefield? No, definitely not. Reimbursefield? And turn the field into a field that gives you 1 GP the first time you walk through it. That doesn't rhyme, actually. Okay, remorsefield. You walk through it and it makes you sad. But you get to walk through it.

This FEELS like magic to me. This is like a cognate to the things we imagine mages to do; study spells, trying to understand them, find a flaw they can exploit. This is Gandalf yelling spells at the Moria door that don't work. This is all MUCH better than just saying "I dispel :) "

ALL of this is more interesting than turning the force field off and it STILL allows you to walk through it.

Why not polymorphic dispel?

There's a couple of spells that definitely would become problematic after a while. Magic missile? Best I can do is Tragic Missile. Cloud of daggers even has only a couple of variations. 

This is why I added "or what the DM said" because that will vary a lot more (as you're not supposed to refer to monsters by name including the spells they cast IMHO). Still, it requires playtesting to figure out if this is viable. Other iterations:

• You get to add one adjective to the spell (it must be a material adjective, not something like "weak" or "ineffective"). So you get fireball - watery fireball. Or heavy fireball, and it falls down. Or slow fireball. It's all not as fun as the unpredictability of the rhymes, but there's more options. However I think a "best" option will soon present itself.
• You get to change (add, remove) one letter in the spell. A lot more limited but not dependent on if a word is good for rhyming.
• You get to change one word into one other word that has some sort of semantic relation to the other (opposite, similar). So fireball - waterball or fireball - firemarble. I kind of like the second one. It's kind of like finding a loophole in a law. Okay, fireball it is, but I get to dictate what kind of ball. Still not as diverse or interesting as the rhyming.
• Alliteration. If it doesn't rhyme, it must start with the same letter and have the same amount of vowels. Fireball - flowerball. Freedomball  (AOE Open). Fishingball. Fragileball. This might actually work to add more variety into the system.

Hopefully it doesn't bog combat down too much. I'm hoping that because it requires spell dice to be invested, players won't be using it all the time.

PS

 It feels weird to post here again. I have a gnome in my brain that makes me intensely interested in DnD about every 2 years for a couple of months. The name of this gnome is secret.

 However he's been pulling at the wires again and here I am again. So.

 

New mage class: Earthsea Mage

I often dislike magic systems in games. It's often sterile, boring, or a very specific solution to a very specific problem.

Very rarely does it feel like magic truly connects to the fabric of the universe, to the very nature of existence.

By Tim Robbins

It does feel like that in Ursula le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea.

So I built a GLOG class of this type of magic.

Get ya pdf here

Summary:

• It's very wonky. There's only 4 spells and 1 unique ability. Yeah, you heard me. 

• It's subtle. There's no explosions here. Rather, there's a deep and subtle manipulation of almost anything.

• The spells are: Call, Command, Summon, Change. That's it; but you can use them on almost anything. Much will be up to the DM.

• You can only enchant something if you have the True Name of said anything. Finding out the True Name is an unique, once-a-day-ability.

d20 Escaped Spells

We all know that spells are actually spirits from another dimension that a wizard traps in his brain.

But we usually don't bother with the implications of that. He always meets them in books, doesn't he? He *could* meet them face-to-face, right there in the dungeon. Wild Spells. Escaped Spells. Spirits, for all intents and purposes.

Roll on this table for a random spell encounter. Or use it when your player's spells gain sentience.
Here they are.

by Apofiss.

1. Meln. A small, pink candlelight floating without a candle. Will strike up a conversation. 
1. Personality: hey heeey, my man! 
2. Speaks: like a ridiculously disarming friend with this voice who hasn't seen you in a long time. 
3. Wants: everyone to get along. 
4. Spell: Charm Person. The person regards you as a good friend and ignores the obvious spell you just cast on them. If you invest at least 4 dice into this spell, the duration becomes permanent.
2. Tutatat. Looks like any of the perfectly normal d3 following: 1. a red apple 2. a fresh fish (1 out of 6 odds it's swimming through the air) 3 a silver spoon. Ideally players take it with them before they realize it's a spirit. 
1. Personality: very, very shy. Will be embarrassed if the players figure out what it is. 
2. Voice: like a 4 year old girl, including the child-like cadence. 
3. Wants: to hide and to be hidden! 
4. Spell: Disguise.
3. Sashaan. An upside down green-stained copper mask wreathed in blue flame. 
1. Personality: seemingly harmless, but will express alarming interest in cutting tools and facial injuries. 
2. Voice: hoarse and after a while kind of creepy. 
3. Wants: to replace and become a face. All human corpses in the dungeon are missing their faces. 
4. Spell: Death Mask
4. Xoixoi. A floating eyeball in a reddish vortex. If it spots you it will scream and scream and scream until you can calm it down (CHA check). This may attract enemies, for which it will apologize.
1. Personality: skittish and anxiety-riddled. 
2. Voice: high and hysterical. 
3. Wants: for everyone to DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT, CHRIST. 
4. Spell: Alarm. Becomes a floating eyeball for [sum] / 2 hours; if it sees an intruder it will scream; you’ll hear it at any distance.