Sacred Magic: Level 5 & 6 Spell List

The upper two levels of sacred magic, before we get on to the Great Mysteries.

Some of these spells are controversial ... O Death (and her little sister Level Drain), where is thy sting? James Raggi left raise and restoration effects out of his Lamentations rules entirely, to make the scary stuff scarier. The level drain argument has been hashed over many times - in a world running rife with wights, wraiths, vampires, spectres and so on, is it really fair to let drained levels stick? I figure it is easier to include the appropriate spell and let DMs exclude it, than the other way around.

Divine Intervention, if it was just Word of Recall, would properly be Silver magic. I've added more creative ways for the Divine to get you out of trouble, closing the lions' mouths, building a cage of fire around you ... of course, the god/DM is the one who chooses.

LEVEL 5

#	Name	Color	Range	Duration	Save

1	Restoration	Gold	0’	None	None
Returns one drained level
2	Drain Life	Black	30’	None	Body (Con)
Drains one level from target
3	Life Protection	White	0’	1 day	None
Protects from black magic and level drain
4	Raise Dead	Gold	0’	None	None
Returns to life a body dead for up to 1 day/2 caster levels, with 1 hp; takes 1 hour to cast; may only cast once/caster level
5	Slay Living	Black	5’	None	Body (Con)
Kills a living being
6	Consecrate/Desecrate	White/Black	0’	Perm.	None
Renders a 30’ square area permanently holy with bless effect for holy beings and reverse bless for unholy; Desecrate is vice versa

LEVEL 6

1	Heal	Gold	90’	None	None
Restores all hit points to living being, removing all diseases and poisons
2	Harm	Black	30’	None	Body (Con)
Removes all hit points except one from living being
3	Holy Word/Unholy Word	White/Black	90’	Special	None
Kills (2HD or less), blinds for 3 turns (6HD or less) or stuns for 3 rounds (7HD+) all hearers in range not of caster’s religion/alignment
4	Symbol	White/Black	30’	1 round	Will (Wis)
Causes incapacitating pain, sleep or charm for 2d10 turns to all who see the symbol within 90’ and do not save
5	Regeneration	Gold	0’	None	None
Regrow missing limbs/organs for living person, or restore full dead body from bones or parts
6	Divine Intervention	White	30’	None/  1 day	None
For caster and up to 5 others, either teleports to known sacred location in 30 miles, or creates other peaceful solution to danger for 1 day

Alignment-Free Paladin

Something I wrote in my previous post got me thinking ....

A paladin bound by twelve clearly defined behavioral commandments similar to the one about accumulating treasure, for example, would work a lot better in play. Cut loose from the alignment system, that class would have the additional interest value of varying just how far you can get from Lawful Good and still play within the rules.

So let's say that instead of having to maintain a Lawful Good alignment, the paladin must abide by these rules and goals - and importantly, when two of these conflict, to follow the one higher up (lower numbered) in the list.

1. To fight against the forces of Evil and/or Chaos (Good and Law)
2. To aid and protect the weak and oppressed (Good)
3. To show mercy to the vanquished and the weak (Good)
4. To fight fairly and without ruses in personal combat (Law)
5. To tell no lies (Law)
6. To betray no oaths (Law)
7. To promote and uphold the religion of your deity (Law & Good)
8. To avoid indulging carnal lusts (Law)
9. To avoid excesses of drink or feasting (Law)
10. To respect and obey the clergy of your faith (Law & Good)
11. To obey and serve your feudal superiors (Law)
12. To hold no wealth that cannot be carried on a mount until you become the lord of a castle (Good?)

It's the ordered nature of this list that is important. Under this ranking, the fight against Evil can justify departures from all the strictures below it. This is the kind of paladin that sees it as justified to toast orcs with oil, kill evil prisoners, or trick an evil priest. He'll still be a self-righteous asshat when fighting bandits or neutrals ... or does he have to be? As long as he doesn't personally partake in torture, he has lived within the letter of the law. He can just go off and pray as you slaughter those baby lizardmen.

"Such a shame ... if anything should happen to that pixie kindergarten ..."

The door is even open to a hypocrite paladin, someone who keeps a couple of useful, shady associates around to do unbidden "jobs" outside the letter of the paladin code. After all, is this much different from the PC paladin who travels with a pack of chaotic good and neutral folks? Certainly, adding the requirement "to only associate with those who themselves follow the Paladin's Code" means you are either in for a solo adventure or a very monochromatic party.

By such easements and accommodations a paladin can find herself sliding from Lawful Good to Lawful Neutral. Or, if the fight against evil requires disobedience of superiors and carnal dalliance, from Lawful Good to Neutral Good. And see, I like paladins to have different alignments. For the DM to wield the alignment whip, as I argued last post, is something that can take a lot of energy and spontaneity away from the campaign. If class benefits depend on rules of behavior, I would prefer those to be written out as specifically as possible, while keeping alignment as a mirror of the character's action.

There is also another way to handle paladins who let others do their dirty work, one that doesn't involve bad angel dreams. True knights are not just a moral, but a social elite. What kind of gossip gets spread about paladins that hang out with thieves and go tomb raiding? What kind of duel challenges, anathemas, and snubs might follow?

Of course, a DM wishing a different kind of paladin can swap around the priorities. Perhaps now, the strictures about kindness (2 and 3) take precedence over the fight against Evil. Now we have a character who must practice fair play for all, even orcs. Or put chastity first and you have a paladin who won't sleep with the witch even if this means she'll wreck a whole village in spite.

Two more points to ponder:

1. Can different paladins have different rankings of the points of the Code?
2. Can version(s) of the Code serve as a more general method to define, regulate, or even replace alignment for everyone, not just paladins?

I'll get back to that second point once done with the nuts and bolts of Sacred Magic, when I'm ready to unleash my thoughts on metaphysical settings and alignment in general. You might guess, however, that my answer will be a resounding "yes."

D&D Is Not A Role-Playing Game

Well, at least the original edition was not a game about role-playing - any more than Clue is.

In both games you get a character to pilot. It's up to you whether you are going to speak in character, allow the character's identity to influence your play choices. You can get all professorial as Professor Plum and make a bee line to the library, or you can just plod along as a competent problem-solver with a purple pawn.

On the other hand, we have all known people at the D&D table who just didn't go in for theatrics, accents, or back story. They played their characters as well-balanced, flexible, unremarkable protagonists. I have no doubt that they enjoyed the danger, exploration, problem solving and treasure finding of the game as much as the others. They may have even been playing closer to the pulp-adventure model than the more characterized players. More often than not, the hero of a 1930's adventure or sci-fi tale was a rough block of a character with an Anglo-Saxon name and few personal characteristics. It's a technique whose visual equivalent has been described in comics by Scott McCloud: through the abstracted narrator or protagonist, the reader gains a greater personal immersion in the fictional world.

There are few if any rules in the original D&D game that direct, enforce or reward role-playing. A Lawful alignment was the player's to lose, giving only social benefits. It's anyone's guess, for example, whether a Lawful cleric who acted evilly would lose their powers or just turn into a Chaotic one. Otherwise, characterization was left up to the players and, of course, the referee as master NPC roleplayer.

It's AD&D that started holding mechanical game benefits hostage to role-playing. The most notorious case was the paladin, but also rangers and druids, assassins, and clerics (with the authority given to the DM to skimp or change spells for bad alignment playing) had to watch how they acted. The vaguely defined moral universe of the alignment system created a culture of pettifogging casuistry, where "do baby orcs have souls" and other choice questions were debated throughout the rec-room seminaries of the land.

While everyone accepts this as part of the AD&D games and smirks nostalgically at alignment shenanigans, I'd argue that this is not the most shining moment of the system. A paladin bound by twelve clearly defined behavioral commandments similar to the one about accumulating treasure, for example, would work a lot better in play. Cut loose from the alignment system, that class would have the additional interest value of varying just how far you can get from Lawful Good and still play within the rules.

Of course, there is a side branch of development toward games with true role-playing mechanics, whether built into the system as with Pendragon, or included as options, as with the personality flaws in GURPS. Other systems on the indie/experimental side pump the importance of role-playing even more. And many DMs in D&D, too, have had the practice of rewarding in-character play with experience points.

I personally don't see XP for role-playing as necessary to the D&D game. Role-playing is something that should be its own reward because it's fun. Many players take to it even if only on a basic level (grunting fighter, flighty elf). If done well, the whole table benefits as the audience. But what I don't want is having to hand out XP that encourage players to do bad roleplaying (although even that can be entertaining in its own way); that pay off on prima-donna character motivations that work against the party in a game best played cooperatively; or that make people who aren't really cut out for play-acting feel left out. Nor do I want the spontaneity of the role-playing to fall victim to the overjustification effect. "Woops, session's closing soon, better get in my stock catch phrase so I can cash my XP check."

Now, I'm aware the "controversial" D&D != RPG statement has been made many times before. What I want to do here is make it a positive, instead of a slam on a game seen as too combat oriented. As with the other player-skill aspects of old school gaming, just because there aren't rules for roleplaying in D&D doesn't mean it won't happen. The good thing about D&D, done right, is that there's always a safe place at the table for the person who would rather just play an adventure game.

Sacred Magic: Level 4 Spell List

With little commentary ... the fourth level.

1	Mass Cure	Gold	0’	None	None
Heals 2d8+2 damage to each living being in 10’ radius
2	Mass Protection	White	0’	3 hrs	None
Gives 2d8+2 extra hit points to each living being in 10’ radius (unholy sources do half damage against them)
3	Mass Wounding	Black	30’	0	Body (Con)
Does 2d8+2 damage to each living being in 10’ radius from target
4	Cure Poison	Gold	0’	None	None
Removes the effects of poison from a living target
5	Protection from Poison	White	0’	1 day	None
Makes a living target immune to poison
6	Poison	Black	5’	None	Body (Con)
Poisons a single living being
7	Banish Unholy/[Holy]	White/[Black]	30’	1 day	Will (Wis)
Sends unholy [holy] being to its own plane, or to its lair for a day if it is of this plane. Save is at +/-1 for each HD/level of difference.
8	Holy[Unholy] Weapon	White/[Black]	0’	1 day	None
Gives weapon +1 per 4 caster levels to hit and damage, bonuses doubled against unholy [holy] creatures
9	Cure Critical Wounds	Gold	0’	None	None
Heals for 6d8+6 points of damage
10	Cause Critical Wounds	Black	30’	None	Body (Con)
Wounds for 6d8+6 points of damage

Constitution vs. Fortitude/Fortune

In social science, when a number of variables characterize a single entity - say, six stats that define a character - one mode of analysis looks to see whether given pairs and groups of variables tend to cluster together in the observed world, or are orthogonal, having little to do with each other.

One of the original appeals of The Fantasy Trip's three stat system (ST, DX, IQ) is that these three stats are pretty near orthogonal. You can see combinations of high and low in each of them as being about equally credible.

Intuitively, the six stats of D&D are a harder sell.

Wisdom, like Intelligence, tends to be a slippery subject. I really tend to define those more as "intuition" and "learning" to avoid the confusion between character and player abilities. They are filters through which the player receives information in character, rather than fetters placed on the player's common sense and problem solving ability. As such, it is easy to think of a weaker link between the two, making for dotty professors with low WIS and high INT or canny urchins with low INT and high WIS.

Charisma, probably can exist with any level of mental or physical aptitude, and the charismatic moron makes for good comedy if nothing else. (I suppose by now you can tell why I hate Comeliness, quite apart from its tendency to lead games down the path of the drool-soaked adolescent hornfest.)

But what about STR and CON? Uh yeah, the guy with high CON and low STR is a big barrel-chester ... with little T-Rex arms. Or, the guy with high STR and low CON has huge muscles ... and a debilitating condition, maybe tuberculosis, that reduces his fitness.

I'm sure we've all resorted to these explanations but they just seem kind of forced. STR and CON, as defined, don't really seem orthogonal.

But let's take a look at what CON does. In almost every case, it increases the survivability of the character from immediate threat. Its role in hit points, saving throws, and system shock rolls over various editions speak to this. So why not make it a metaphysical rather than physical trait?

Fortitude, or Fortune. Someone high in this ability possesses a strong will to live, almost a sense of invulnerability at high scores. They are fortunate - not in the sense that they can lift up their shoe and find a gold piece stuck to the sole, or roll random encounters with wish-giving unicorns. No, they are fortunate where it counts, at the thin edge between life and death.

Snails: Low Fortune from minute 1

Someone low in this ability may be big and strong, but they have a weak will to live, or at the very least have some doom or fate upon them from sources unknown. Not particularly sickly looking, but certainly ill-starred  compared to their fellows. For folks watching the movie at home, there are tell-tale clues - the nickname "Lucky"; this adventure being their "one last score" before they settle down; a desire to see the world and do great things, touchingly expressed; being comic relief; the party's one example of an ethnic minority; a red upper garment.

Fortitude/Fortune then takes its place as Charisma's sibling - two physical, two mental, and two metaphysical stats. All more or less orthogonal. All I have to do now is settle on a name .. Fortune ... Fortitude ... maybe something starting with Con that calls back more readily to the original stat ...?

Sacred Magic: Level 3 Spell List

Okay. After a sojourn in Spain, and being laid low by a nasty bug, I'm back on the case. In actual play news, rumor has it a couple of local friends are looking to get into some roleplaying, including a girlfriend who has never played before and is rarin to go. Stay tuned...

Some notes:

Animate Dead spells are always hard to balance. The 4 zombie/8 skeleton max per level is a decent compromise, letting lair-sized armies accumulate without being ridiculously strong.

There ain't no disease rules like Runequest disease rules, attacking stats directly (Yet another reason why 3E D&D can also be subtitled "Runequest Wins!").

The full writeup will have a table of suggested curses. Things like "Misses the first time in combat against any opponent," the old reliable charisma busters, "takes double damage from swords/animals/fire/etc." At this level, the black magic diseases and curses are nasty, more about vengeful NPCs than combat effective PC's. 

Protection from Disease: Your friend under carousing rules ...

1	Animate Dead	Black	30'	None	None
Animates 2 skeletons or 1 zombie per caster level. Caster may control undead equal to two castings of the spell, and have undead equal to four castings.
2	Hallow Dead	White	30'	None	Monster
Protects 1 corpse per caster level from animation or conversion to undead, and does 1d6 damage/caster level to all undead in 30' radius, save for half.
3	Curse	Black	30'	None	Mind (Wis)
Target either does 1 worse on all his or her rolls until dispelled, or some other curse approved by GM (not more powerful than other 3rd level Black magic)
4	Remove Curse	Gold	0'	None	None
Removes a supernatural curse from target
5	Fortune	White	0'	1 day	None
Target is protected from supernatural curses, does 1 better on all his or her rolls, and gets 1 reroll this day (as Prayer)
6	Protection from Disease	White	0'	1 day	None
Target is immune from contracting new diseases
7	Cure Disease	Gold	0'	None	None
Target is healed of one disease
8	Cause Disease	Black	30'	Until cured	Body (Con)
Target contracts a disease (choose random ability, lose 1d6 points/day if save fails, until dead at 0; 3 saves in a row heal disease)
9	Circle of Protection	White/[Black]	10'	1 hour	None
Unholy [holy] beings cannot cross 10' radius circle
10	Cure Serious Wounds	Gold	0'	None	None
Heals 4d8+4 damage
11	Protection from Serious Wounds	White	0'	30 min	None
Gives 4d8+4 temporary hit points (unholy sources do half damage against them)
12	Cause Serious Wounds	Black	30'	None	Body (Con)
Harms for 4d8+4 damage