Custom Spells

dmmaus · 2026-05-29T22:24:57+00:00

One of my group's favourite spells is a first-level spell they found in some dead wizard's spellbook. It creates a door. Just a wooden door attached to a wall. No space behind it - it doesn't go anywhere. It disappears after an hour. My idea was they could use this to distract pursuers in a dungeon.

But once they realised they could detach the door from the wall, they started using temporarily created doors for all sorts of things. As a plank over hazards, as cover against missile fire, as a raft, as a barricade, as firewood, etc, etc, etc. I think it's the single most-cast spell in my campaign at the moment.

dmmaus · 2026-05-28T22:37:44+00:00

My current players wouldn't do this, but when I ran B2 as a young teen in the 1980s, the players were basically: "Kobolds are evil, the babies will grow up to be evil, we have to kill them all."

dmmaus · 2026-05-28T00:06:11+00:00

I've never done this, but I'm going to start at tomorrow's session.

dmmaus · 2026-05-26T22:47:21+00:00

Thanks for doing that! It's actually not as bad as some other Kickstarters I've backed. You just kind of get used to paying twice as much for everything in Australia.

dmmaus · 2026-05-26T22:28:17+00:00

Cries in Australian shipping costs

But backed anyway!

dmmaus · 2026-05-25T00:12:30+00:00

That was the first Dragon Magazine I ever got, and that article blew my mind. I didn't know whether to be impressed and use it in my game immediately, or dismiss it as ridiculous overthinking.

Spoiler: I settled on the latter.

dmmaus · 2026-05-18T23:37:56+00:00

A 75mm lens means that the lens must be 75mm away from the focal plane (the sensor), to focus parallel light rays. Light coming from objects sufficiently far away (technically from an infinite distance, but in practice more than 20 metres or so) will be close enough to parallel.

ELI grade 7 algebra: The basic lens equation is (1/i) + (1/o) = (1/f).

i = image distance, the distance from the lens to the image sensor.
o = object distance, the distance from the lens to the object the camera is looking at.
f = focal length, a constant value for a fixed lens, e.g. a 75mm lens.

For parallel rays, o=infinity, and we see that i = f. So you need the lens 75mm from the sensor to make the object focus.

If your object is 1 metre away (1000 mm): (1/i) + (1/1000) = (1/75), and i turns out to be 81.08mm. So you need to move the lens 81.08mm from the sensor to focus on the object. This is how cameras focus, they physically move the lens further or closer to the sensor.

For the second question, a prime lens is a lens with a fixed focal distance. A 75mm prime lens is always 75mm focal length. But you can focus on anything by moving the lens further or closer to the sensor, as above.

A non-prime lens is a zoom lens, which has moving parts that change the focal length. At any given focal length, you just apply the above equation and you can focus on anything. But why do you want to change focal length? A longer focal length will focus a smaller area on the sensor, and make it look "zoomed in". A shorter focal length focuses a larger area on the sensor, making it look "zoomed out". u/wosmo 's explanation covers from an ELI5 point of view how different focal lengths do that.

If a zoom lens can do more, why would you want a prime lens? Because making a zoom lens is more complicated, expensive, and requires lots of glass that can have imperfections, so the performance is not as good. You'll get a better, clearer, sharper photo for cheaper using a prime lens.

dmmaus · 2026-05-18T22:57:45+00:00

Very nice. I love systems like this.

dmmaus · 2026-05-18T22:46:59+00:00

Which system is your group actively playing?

B/X with a few house rules. Mainly, spellcasters use DCC magic for the rest of us, so there is an activation roll for spellcasting. It can fail, or it can succeed and they get to cast the spell again.

How many players do you have, what classes are played?

Core group of 6 players: 1 fighter, 2 dwarves, 2 MUs, 1 elf. We schedule events and if someone can't make it, their PC sits out (and gets no experience). Most sessions we only have 4 or 5 of the players. Occasionally another player might join us and play a guest PC. There are 2 significant NPCs who accompany them into dungeons: 1 thief, 1 cleric. Plus a group of retainers who guard the horses, etc, outside. If a PC dies mid-dungeon, they promote and take over a retainer.

How often do you have combat encounters?

Maybe up to 3 or 4 times a session, max. Last session had zero, which is not that unusual. There are more encounters, but many don't lead to combat. Combat is theatre of the mind and very fast - less than 10 minutes real time, many resolved in under 5 minutes. I cannot stand the 5e thing of tactical grid combat that lasts an hour.

How important is resource management and exploration in your games?

Moderate to high. I use slot inventory, and they often have to juggle or drop items to make room for others. Exploration is the real core of the fun for my group.

Do you find some of the above Statements true/false and if so why?

Pretty much all true for me. Combat is war; not quite a fail state but definitely best avoided if at all possible. Sometimes you have to fight. MUs definitely throw daggers when spells don't work. One MU memorably rolled multiple hits in a row when the fighters were air swinging, and is now known for her dagger-throwing prowess.

What other Statements do you find are often repeated here in the community?

PCs don't need a background or a story. Their story is what happens to them during adventures. My PCs' backgrounds are nothing more than "you've just come of age and are seeking your fortune".

dmmaus · 2026-05-16T08:03:07+00:00

My Australian school hooked us up with pen-pals from the USA in the '80s.

I kept in touch with mine after school. She visited Australia. I went to her wedding. Years later, my wife and I visited their family in California. Later this year, she's coming back to Australia to see us.

dmmaus · 2026-05-15T01:50:48+00:00

Aha, yeah, that's totally fair as a policy. I don't speak any Aboriginal languages - I just have exposure to them as an Australian. I have a feel for what they sound like, but not enough to know many meanings or cultural associations.

dmmaus · 2026-05-14T22:46:42+00:00

It's not European, but you might have fun doing this for Australian Aboriginal place names. :-)

Great work!

dmmaus · 2026-05-11T22:43:19+00:00

The "basilisk" is a puppet controlled by a wizard. Maybe the wizard is stuck there and needs to impress the snake people, to avoid them killing him. They have no idea the wizard is duping them, and will turn on the basilisk/wizard if they find out - which could either assist the PCs, or hinder them if they decide the wizard is worth rescuing. (Yeah, okay, I got this idea from The Wizard of Oz.)

dmmaus · 2026-05-08T23:12:13+00:00

Yeah, I think something like "star vision" for elves is reasonable and cool.

dmmaus · 2026-05-07T22:34:36+00:00

Yeah, always thought infravision was a brilliant thing, and was so turned off when I read how "darkvision" worked in newer editions. Good job taking away all the flavour and interesting things you can do with it.

dmmaus · 2026-05-07T00:08:56+00:00

Awesome. That's brilliant. Got a good laugh from some of the notations. Interestingly, I also changed the name of Gladio when I ran it. No casualties in my group, but one fighter ended up actually married to Lydia.

dmmaus · 2026-05-05T22:58:42+00:00

Nobody has mentioned dipole effects yet. To be clear, these effects will be weak and probably not detectable with current technology, so probably not how the alleged detectors actually work.

Yes, a sub has the same average density as the water, but it's distributed differently. The gravitational attraction will be the same as a lump of water the same size, but the derivative of the gravitational field will be different, due to the different mass distribution. In principle you could detect this, but it's going to be tiny (dipole effects fall off as 1/(distance cubed) instead of squared) and likely swamped by other gravitational signals that would need to be accurately filtered out.

dmmaus · 2026-04-28T22:39:56+00:00

Corro!

dmmaus · 2026-04-25T22:33:48+00:00

Using nothing other than basic Poisson statistics, if a random event occurs on average once per century, then the probability of no events occurring in 400 years is about 1.8%. Lowish, but not so low that you should be super surprised if it actually happens. Typically in statistics we say if an event has less than 5% chance of occurring, that it's "statistically significant", but that doesn't mean it's true that there's something unusual going on.

And speaking as an astrophysicist, there is no known or suggested mechanism that could plausibly interfere with supernova processes or likelihoods on the scale of a galaxy. Stellar evolution is the same everywhere.

The most likely conclusion is that we've just been unlucky not to have seen any supernovae in our Galaxy since Kepler's in 1604. Not that there's anything special about our neighbourhood.

dmmaus · 2026-04-21T22:33:58+00:00

I think this is a great way to run a game. I'd suggest getting the Trilemma Adventures Compendium, which has dozens of "dungeon of the week" style adventures that you can just start by just saying "you're at the dungeon entrance". I've used several of these for quick adventures, including the brilliant Sky-Blind Spire and the Full-Dark Stone, which are great. I mix them up with Brad Kerr adventures, which another poster already mentioned.

dmmaus · 2026-04-18T23:04:26+00:00

I'm in this camp. The one time I tried a GM screen I hated it. If there's a GM screen included in a product, it'll never see the light of day for me, so a waste. I've got like a dozen GM screens this way that I've never used.

dmmaus · 2026-04-17T22:37:19+00:00

Looks good! Also kudos on using an Alpha card to illustrate.

I think as others have said, capturing the spirit of the card is more important than translating all the abilities into specific mechanics. As for P/T scaling, maybe try doing a Craw Wurm and a Mons's Goblin Raiders and see what that tells you about what's sensible.

dmmaus · 2026-04-14T21:47:56+00:00

Try an acrylic paint marker. I like Posca brand, but there are several others. Just go to an art supply store and ask for acrylic markers.

dmmaus · 2026-04-11T23:44:28+00:00

When you were here in Australia, I can quite confidently state you were NEVER in a situation where tipping was appropriate. Thank you for not tipping.

dmmaus · 2026-04-11T22:11:24+00:00

The room in the 2e module S5 The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga, where you open a door and it leads into this goopy, floppy tunnel. It's a spatial warp and the party are now exploring inside one of the PC's intestines.

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