Crawl! #3 Arrives!

I got my  copy of Crawl! #3 on Saturday morning and finally had a chance to go through it this morning on the subway. As you can see, this issue's theme is the magic and features rules for NPC magic, Patron Spells for Van Den Danderclanden, Familiars and more. Building each issue around a theme is a smart decision, and there are some real treats in here to make either your adventuring or party-killing lives easier.

As you know, magic in DCC RPG is very different from most other FRPGs on the market. Success is never guaranteed, failure is catastrophic, and, should you be so lucky so cast a spell, the effects will wreak havoc on your targets. While these rules are a blast to use, it can be quite time-consuming to fully implement them for NPCs. Reverend Dak has given us simple rules for handling NPC magic that I will be adopting for my future games. You still make spell checks, but it the effects are static and the spell check is handled similar to a skill check. Also included are rules for critical hits.


The real highlight of this issue are the patron spells for Van Den Danderclanden, the patron that one of Dak's players made and introduced to the world from Craw! #1. If you have spent any time on the Goodman Games forum, one of the most common requests is rules for creating patrons. While you'll find no how-to rules here, these are an excellent example to model yours after. Now that we have the full rules for Van Den Danderclanden, he will beshowing up in my game as soon as a Wizard shows up in the party.

I also really appreciate Raven Crowking's Magic Wand spell, as the rules for doing so were not present in the DCC RPG book. At the same time, you may wish to disallow players access to rules for creating every type of magic item available and just offer them as rare loot. No matter how you approach Wands, these rules will be useful. 

I can't stress this enough: if you're playing DCC RPG and not getting Crawl!, you're really missing out. While your mileage is going to vary from issue to issue, it's a steal at $3.50 (that includes postage!). Besides, if you're not finding the kinds of things you want to see, you could always submit.