The Evil GM - Ring of Bewitchery - Edition Neutral

Ring of Bewitchery 

by the Evil GM

Price:15,000 gp
Type: Ring
Weight -

Description:

The wearer of this ring has the ability to charm or manipulate any two legged humanoid of man size, it does not affect undead or large monsters. If the target fails their saving throw he instant becomes enamored with the wearer. The target will do anything to please the wearer within reason of the love target now feels over the wearer. Normal logic does apply here for the Referee as they will adjudicate what falls under the bounds of the enamored target and any such acts that will cause the target to do something they would not normally do (such as jump off cliff or kill a friend) will result in a saving throwing to break the charm. The target may have fallen for the wearer, but still has their own free will to make the final decision. (Rule of thumb, a loved one will what they can to please the one they love, but if it goes against their nature and them question it in their head, saving throw is needed). The target will get a chance to break the charm based on the following, referencing the target's intelligence:

The Evil GM - Mood Music during play?

I was sitting down with a friend this weekend as he was planning his adventure for his game during the week and he was running plots by me to see if they sounded good or not so good. 

Then he looked at me and said, "Well what if we grab some cool music and play it on a small speaker to help set the mood for each new area they enter. So if they are in a tavern some nice tavern music can be playing in the background."

I said to him if that's what he wanted, go for it, but ask the players first, seeing how they feel. Then I explained to him that in the games I've played in, that had "mood music" I felt it was too distracting and gave me a headache. 

But I also said that was me, everyone has different feelings about the situation and its best to ask or say to the group, "I am going to try a little mood music and its too annoying distracting please let me know."

What you think about "Mood Music"?

The Evil GM - Monster Mondays - Ice Goblins

Ice Goblins

Armor Class: 6 or 14 (depending on system)

Hit Dice: 3

No. Atks: 2

Damage: per weapon or d4 claw

Specials:

• Hide in plain sight (in icy/snow areas only) 
• If standing completely still an ice goblin can blend in with the surroundings and can only be spotted if being actively looked for. (Difficult check required)
• Unrestricted vision in snow like conditions
• Ice Goblins have no issues seeing through snow falling that would normally restrict vision.
• Bonus to balance, walking, climbing and running on ice.
• Ice Goblins have no issues standing on, moving or climbing ice, its treated as a normal flat surface for them.

Weakness: Heat/Fire - each attack does double the normal damage.

For all other purposes these goblins can be compared to the system of your choice for the basics, unless modified above.

If an Ice Goblin is taken from its cold environment, it will slowly die as they need the cold to survive.

The Evil GM - New Deity - Tymorn the Cannibal

Tymorn the Cannibal

Type: Titan

Alignment:Chaotic Evil

Symbol: Bloody hand stump

Spheres of Influence: War, Rage and Hate

Typical Worshipers: Barbarians, tribesman, Humanoids of the wild

Avatar Hit-points (Human like form): 360
Armor Class (Human life form): 25 (-5)

Colors Related to god: Black and red

This Titan, when he comes down to stomp on the world, is 25 foot human like being known across the land as a powerful foe, crushing his enemy into the ground and feasting on their dead body during celebration. This god is only known to make a physical appearance when a kingdom has become too “bloated” or too “full of themselves” portraying that no one can oppose them.

His name is only whispered among people, as peasants feel saying his name too loudly will only draw his attention upon them. Some small kingdoms have taken to showing this so called god, respect and honor by sacrificing a person once a year, and having a celebration in his name. The thought process behind this is to show love and admiration of the god, so as he will not crush their entire kingdom into nothing.

The Titan is known to wear all black with hints of red in his normal garb, with a symbol of a bloody hand stump as his symbol.

Followers of this god tend to be primal people, such as Barbarians who live off the land. Followers will also adopt the life style like the Titan, and fill their lives with rage, hate and try to stomp over their foes, and rewarding themselves with the flesh as an offering to appease their god.

The Evil GM - Characters on the path to Immortality?

I was looking at my shelf the other night and saw my old Basic D&D boxsets. My eyes fell upon the immortals boxset by Frank Mentzer.

Images came back into my mind of how much I enjoyed playing games in the earlier editions with as he so been dubbed in my podcasts, "The Great Joe DM". Queue the celebrated Angelic music.

How we played characters and were always looking for an angle to get our character into the Demi-god status or on the path to "immortal-hood". Yes I used that word instead of immortality, because of  the way it was an actual "class" you can become. Class might not be the right word, maybe just saying "thing" is the right word.

At one point, my friend was trying to become a lich and every adventure was based on his character becoming a lich in the end result. Not sure why he thought that was so cool, but he did for whatever reason attempt to do so. I guess it was as silly as my quest for my fighter to become a Death Knight, it was something we saw as teens and thought, "that would be AWESOME".

As my mind drifted, I soon started to question of how I haven't seen that many players doing the same things we did in the past as far as becoming a "legend". For years and years I've seen players have an end goal of becoming something that will keep their character living on forever. 

Nowadays, it seems everyone just players a character, not giving it much care at all. I am not saying that one edition is better then the other and it encouraged a player to care more about their character. 

Its just a passing notice I had while thinking about the early days. 

Now I know for certain, D&D 5E and Dragon Age really seem to encourage a player to really get into and build their character, not seeing him as a piece of paper, but more then that.

What are you thoughts?

The Evil GM - Simple Grappling system? (Edition Neutral)

I was messing around with the idea of a quick and dirty grapple system for my games. I wanted something simple enough it can be resolved in a matter of a roll or two but not so simple one side over powers the other.

So I decided to take the method of rolling by taking the attackers d20 roll and adding any Strength bonuses vs. the defenders d20 roll +Strength bonuses as the base.

Then I decided that depending on their size you’d also roll an additional die such as:

• ·         Small – d4
• ·         Medium – d6
• ·         Large – d8

After you roll this secondary die, you minus it off your opponents result total

Example: John is playing a Halfling who gets a d4 secondary die to his roll, while Tim is playing a human who gets a d6 as his secondary die.

• ·         John rolls a 15 + 2 (str mod) = 17
• ·         John rolls d4 and gets a 3
• ·         Tim rolls a 18 +1 (str mod) = 19
• ·         Tim rolls d6 and gets a 2

-         -  John’s new total is 15 (17 total minus Tim’s d6 roll of 2)

-          - Tim’s new total is 16 (19 total minus John’s d4 roll of 3)

Tim is the winner of the grapple.

Now people are most likely saying, well what about if its small vs. Large? I decided that when its small vs. Large the secondary die totals are swapped, giving a small the d8 and the large a d4.

Of course this method is based on humanoids only and should be modified when using other sizes.

Just some thoughts.

The Evil GM - Horn of Spirit Summoning - Edition Neutral

The Horn of Spirit Summoning
by the Evil GM

Price:5,000 gp
Type: Horn
Weight 3 lbs



Description:

This horn appears as a blackened normal horn to the average character. Upon closer inspection the horn feels as if all eyes are upon you while you hold it. The air feels cold, and the little hairs on the holders neck stand up as if an eerie feeling is running up and down their spine.

When the holder blows the horn, all those around and that can hear the horn, feel the air get cold, the area become silent, as a slow wind picks up.

If there is a spirit with in 500 feet of this horn, it will instantly be drawn to the horn sound. The spirit will continue to follow the user of the horn, until its dispatched or at least one hour of game time has passed.

The Evil GM - Ring of Longevity - Edition Neutral

The Ring of Longevity
by the Evil GM

Price:25,000 gp
Type: Ring
Weight -



Description:

The ring appears to be an ordinary ring made of solid gold, with one tiny blue gem embedded in the center of the ring. When this ring is put on, it provides the wearer with life-sustaining nourishment, refreshing their mind and body. The user does not need to sleep at all for 1 week at a time. During this time period the wearer does not need to eat or drink. As the week continues, the wearer's skin starts turning a slight hue of blue, until becoming purple. When the wearer's skin becomes purple, he has 1 hour to take it off or start taking d4 damage for every 10 minutes the ring is still being worn.

The side effects of this ring are depending on how long its worn, and if a full week (7 days) is used, the wearer will need to sleep and recover for 32 hours with out interruption. If its worn and taken off earlier see table below:

1 day or Less - 8 full hours of rest
2 days            - 12 full hours of rest
3 days            - 16 full hours of rest
4 days            - 20 full hours of rest
5 days            - 24 full hours of rest
6 days            - 28 full hours of rest
7 days            - 32 full hours of rest

Spellcasters that need to prepare spells, follow the same rules for preparing spells, it does not allow a spellcaster to prepare more spells per day.

The Evil GM - Meta Gaming Pisses me off.

Today I was cruising around on the Wizards of the Coast forums, and looking for some 5E stuff and I came across this post, entitled “KnowYour Enemy”.

I figured, "hey this could be interesting" as I opened it up awaiting the slow speed here at work. My eyes narrowed and then became wide as I noticed the last line of this post:

                “…This guide will attempt to do extensive analysis of the monsters, as published, so that you may better make informed decisions and avoid any unpleasantness…”

So I continued to read this, and the guy really went into detail of each of the monsters even providing charts.

This was excellent PLAYER knowledge, NOT for CHARACTERknowledge, but it’s written for players who want to Meta-Game think. This in my opinion, defeats the whole purpose of playing the character in the game. Why? Because how would a level 1 character who’s never experienced anything know to use this or that spell, or weapon on a creature they've never seen?

OH I KNOW HOW, META GAMING.

This stuff pisses me the f#$k off and is also the main reason, I change every creature’s stats, increasing (and decreasing) AC. No creature in my game is a “Standard stock from the book” creature.

Can I do this? Yup, I am the DM, I am running the game, and it’s my world. 

I understand if you’re running a module and it’s already printed there, and you want to keep to the notes to make your life easier, but you can still change that as well.

I am not sure how people can play a game and enjoy doing this.

A Gamer's Prayer for this holiday season!

Oh, Konami!
Up-up, down-down, left-right, left-right, B, A.
Up-up, down-down, left-right, left-right, B, A!
Up-up, Down-down! Left-right! Left-right! B! A!
Start!