^^^

That's twice in a row with starting new pages on this thread ... and I started a couple of new pages the other day, too, somewhere else.

It's getting kind of spooky ...

bbarsh wrote:One of the best kept secrets in first ed. is the versatility and variety of solid level one spells. From magic missile to unseen servant.

Now second level spells...

Yeh, I use a lot of 2nd level spells from other sources to spice up the campaign because frankly the selection for 2nd lvl stuff sucks.  They range from the totally useless (Bind, Deafness, Irritation) to very specific condition spells (Midirection, Whispering Wind, Shatter), to non adventuring twaddle (Fool's Gold, Deeppockets, Leomund's Trap).  2nd Level spells suffer from no large damage type spells and instead concentrate on defensive type spells. There are really only a few essential 2nd lvl spells, everything else is just decoration:

Web, Strength, ESP, Stinking Cloud, Mirror Image, Invisibility, Detect Invisibility, Knock

I would probably never get anything but the above, and multiples of those at that.
   Cases could be made for spells like Flaming Sphere, Levitate, Rope Trick, Magic Mouth, and Wizard Lock coming in handy.  Unfortunately many of the spells are save and no damage like Melf's Acid Arrow, Blindness, Scare, Tasha's Laughter.  This makes them hard to use in combat situations since nothing might result from casting such.
 I had a player who thought up several interesting and intriguing uses for Magic Mouth.  It makes perhaps the best alarm or guard system of any low level spell as you can be very specific about the triggering event. I knew another guy that made a good combo out of Wizard Lock and Rope Trick to escape; the party would run into a room, cast WL on the door (so the door would have to be knocked down), giving him time to cast Rope Trick and have everyone hide undectably.  It worked pretty good a few times, butagain there were probably better spells he should have been getting like Web or Mirror Image.

Mike B.

Beyondthebreach wrote:What is it with the lemurs?  

No idea.  They seemed like decent replacements to elves, and I needed a woodland critter.  Plus, they get a surprise bonus: "oh...look at the cute little lemur...I go try to catch it." *magic missle*  

Beyondthebreach wrote:Hey, but seriously, have you seen the movie Madagascar?  Lots & lots of cute computer animated lemurs in that movie.    You should check it out for some campaign ideas.  

Great movie.  I may have to stealthfully borrow parts of it for an adventure...

bbarsh wrote:Nothing like Lemure boy's guys, but still I remember something...

Lemur, not Lemure.  Those are oozing proto-devils, I'm talking about monkeys.

Most powerful 3rd level spell by a long chalk... Haste.  Affects one creature per level.  Suddenly every fighter, henchman, thief, conjured ally etc... in the party is twice as deadly.

If I recall in 3E they decided to tone down quite a bit.

"Holy double hasted great spinning great cleave of opportunity Batman!"

deimos3428 wrote:

Beyondthebreach wrote:What is it with the lemurs?  

No idea.  They seemed like decent replacements to elves, and I needed a woodland critter.  Plus, they get a surprise bonus: "oh...look at the cute little lemur...I go try to catch it." *magic missle*  

Beyondthebreach wrote:Hey, but seriously, have you seen the movie Madagascar?  Lots & lots of cute computer animated lemurs in that movie.    You should check it out for some campaign ideas.  

Great movie.  I may have to stealthfully borrow parts of it for an adventure...

bbarsh wrote:Nothing like Lemure boy's guys, but still I remember something...

Lemur, not Lemure.  Those are oozing proto-devils, I'm talking about monkeys.

   As for proto-devils and lemurs......

   In Latin, lemures are the Roman spirits of the evil and malicious dead...also known as the larvae...as opposed to the benificent lares.

    The genus of animals known as "lemurs" were named after the Latin lemure because of their haunting cries in the night forest.  Some species of lemurs were actually known by their night cries long before they were ever actually seen and identified.

    No known lemur sorcerers have ever been classified by science, but their association with scaring the hell out of people is long established.

    Possibly the only lemur sorcerer on record might have been one of the Knights of the Dinner Table characters, whose crossbow-wielding PC was once polymorphed into ring-tailed lemur in an episode of that comic strip.  In an all-too-apt and familiar moment, the player insisted that his polymorphed character should still be considered strong enough to fire his magical crossbow.  "We should look it up," he says.

Mark  

MShipley88 wrote:Possibly the only lemur sorcerer on record might have been one of the Knights of the Dinner Table characters, whose crossbow-wielding PC was once polymorphed into ring-tailed lemur in an episode of that comic strip.  In an all-too-apt and familiar moment, the player insisted that his polymorphed character should still be considered strong enough to fire his magical crossbow.  "We should look it up," he says.

These guys are a quite a bit larger than lemurs, standing about 3' to 4' tall.  Their maximum strength score is 15, so a crossbow wouldn't be an issue, if the technology existed.  (They're roughly in the middle of the bronze age, but I didn't take all that much history in high school.)  

Anyway, I'll quit babbling on about the campaign setting.  If anyone's interested in a prototype "Gazetteer" version of it, let me know.  I'd appreciate all the feedback I can get as I don't have an editor.  Send me a PM.

I'm planning on "publishing" the first part shortly, as part of the ODDearth project: http://oddearth.tridrpg.org/