New Magician/Elf Spell: Fireball

FIREBALL
Third Circle Magician/Elf Spell

The caster hurls a ball of fire at its target causing a massive explosion.

Supplies for Fireball: a ball of wax
Lore Master Ob to Learn: 7
Scholar Ob to scribe scroll: 7
Scholar Ob to scribe into spell book: 7

Fireball Casting

If casting during a conflict, no test to cast is necessary. Declare this spell as your weapon at the start of a round during a conflict. See effects.

If casting outside of a conflict, use the factors below.

Fireball Factors

Apply Condition: Injured, Dead.

Area of Effect: everybody, everybody but myself, everybody but me and my allies.

Environmental Effects: easily flammable objects catch fire (grass, paper, clothing), a fire hot enough to forge steel is started, shatter solid, flammable objects (wooden doors, trees, houses)

Fireball Effects

On the round Fireball is cast, use the Arcanist skill in place of the Attack action skill during a kill, capture, or drive-off conflict.

On a successful test, the number of successes are subtracted from each opposing member's hit points. For example, if you roll 2 successes against three goblins, each would lose 2 hit points for a total of 6 lost from their overall disposition.

Too Close to the Sun: In close quarters the caster catches everyone in the blast, both friend and foe. For every two successes rolled (round up), each member of the caster's team including the caster loses one hit point.

After using Fireball, the caster is considered disarmed until they declare a new weapon.

100 Magic Twists for Torchbearer

• The caster is teleported to another area on this plane
• The party is teleported to another area on this plane
• The caster summons monsters native to this area
• The spell becomes permanent
• A powerful storm is summoned
• Undead rise from the ground and swarm the area
• The caster is polymorphed into an animal form
• One item in the caster's pack disappears
• Night turns to day
• Day turns to night
• All food the party is carrying spoils
• The season changes overnight
• A portal opens to another plane
• The party is teleported to another plane
• Earthquake!
• All water the party is carrying becomes salt water
• All metal objects the party is carrying become rusted and worthless
• Plants and trees sprout and bear magical fruit
• A hole in the ground opens, revealing a staircase
• Everyone in the party ages 1 year
• The caster's appearance permanently changes within their stock's normal range of features
• The caster becomes the opposite gender permanently
• A perfect clone of the caster appears that may act separately and independently--both now roll half the number of dice rounded down on all tests
• Each character's enemy is immediately summoned to the area
• The caster's doppleganger from a mirrored plane is summoned to the area--can you tell them apart?
• One feature of the caster permanently mutates into something animal, alien, or monster
• The caster feints and enters the mind of a nearby creature
• One item within the caster's pack becomes sentient and can communicate telepathically
• Someone close to the caster dies (not a player character)
• Plants in the area wilt and die
• A useful item appears in the characters pack (they may or may not notice their pack get heavier)
• One item within the party becomes giant in size, impossible to lift or move by any ordinary means
• All liquids the characters carry turn to sand
• The failed spell disappears from the caster's spellbook
• The spell fizzles with a bang, attracting the attention of anyone and anything nearby
• Misfire! A fantastic bolt of energy injures one or more party members
• The contents of the caster's backpack or sack are replaced with a nest of insects or snakes
• The caster falls into a deep, magical slumber
• The caster summons a magical storm (rain of blood, rain of fire, rain of toads)
• The ground becomes quicksand
• The caster attracts the attention of a ghost who haunts this area
• Time speeds up--conditions are earned every 2 turns, light sources last half as long rounded down
• The caster becomes mute
• The caster becomes deaf
• The caster becomes blind
• All food and water within the party becomes poisoned
• A third eye appears on the caster's forehead--who sees what you see?
• All of the character's liquids gain magical properties
• The character feels a pain in their arm, upon inspection someone of something has carved a message into their skin
• All of the character's weapons become animated and engage the party in a conflict
• a major illusion leads the party astray
• A sinkhole opens
• A tree sprouts and grows higher and higher until it reaches the clouds
• One of more party members catch fire
• One or more party members becomes frozen in a block of ice
• Zero gravity--the party begins levitating, floating higher and higher
• One of the jewels in the party becomes a soul gem, trapping the character's inside
• The party becomes invisible
• An item becomes permanently cursed
• An Angel falls to earth just moments away from completing its holy mission
• Delayed Transmission--the spell goes off but at the most inconvenient time
• The spell fails but is not wiped from the caster's mind
• The caster summons an invisible wall around the party
• The spell is reversed
• The party is surrounded by a wall of fire
• The caster becomes possessed

To determine the number of people affected or the number of turns an effect lasts, use the spell circle level (ie a first circle spell affects one person for one turn).

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.

Magic is Not Science

Nearly the entirety of the fantasy genre embraces magic as a dangerous, unpredictable force. Those who practice it are looked upon with some combination of fear, suspicion, and awe. Historically, those who were accused of practicing witchcraft or sorcery were ostracized and usually killed in some horrific fashion, like being tied to a post and immolated. Yet, if you pick up any recent edition of the world's premiere roleplaying game, there are no consequences for using your arcane powers carelessly. Even worse, failed castings seldom result in the kind of catastrophic misfires one expects from reading any amount of fantasy lore.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG reintroduces that danger. You'll never see a Wizard or an Elf cast a spell to illuminate a room. They'll never cast Cantrip (Prestidigitation) to impress their slow-witted friends by levitating their mugs of ale at the tavern. The risk is simply too great. When the time comes to invoke their arcane powers, Wizards will make pacts with demons, cut off fingers, cast aside prized possession to ensure they achieve the maximum effect.

Unlike D&D, you make a spell check each and every time you cast a spell in Dungeon Crawl Classics. Rolling less than twelve is always a failure. Rolling a natural 1 means dire consequences. You will lose that spell for the day, suffer a misfire, and you may gain corruption. Conversely, the higher your roll, the more powerful the effect, which allows the lower level spells to remain useful for the entire game.

Another major difference is the availability of schools and libraries from which to conduct your research. In DCC RPG, they do not exist. A Wizard's spellbook is guarded with his life. Most arcane knowledge is accumulated by exploring the dangerous parts of the world, taking to the planar realm, or doing the bidding of dark forces.

I find this take refreshing. The versions in Pathfinder and D&D feel too much like an exact science. Perhaps the best way to sum up this representation of arcane power comes from Joseph Goodman himself: "Low level wizards fear for their lives whereas high level Wizards fear for their souls."