Tome of Magic

 

I bought a copy of the AD&D2e Tome of Magic in PDF from DriveThruRPG. I would have preferred a PoD hard copy, but they don't offer one for this volume, and I figured that at least I could print the PDF and bind my own physical book.

For those unfamiliar with it, the Tome of Magic is just a collection of additional spells and magic items for AD&D2e, and it also expands the clerical spheres and what-have-you. 

However, the scans from which the PDF has been assembled are not great — they're rather soft, and they're washed out. I could print it, but the results wouldn't be fantastic.

I also have it in RTF format, I think from a CD-ROM that was published some time back in the Dark Ages, so I thought I would just reformat that in LibreOffice and print it that way. I wouldn't get any of the graphics, but to be frank the illustrations in the original weren't all that great anyway, and it's the information I'm primarily interested in.

So I did that, and a mighty labour it turned out to be. Maybe not a mighty labour, as such, but a labour nonetheless. 

I thought that I would do all the basic text styling in LibreOffice and then the final layout in Affinity, but Affinity's collaboration with word processor output is erratic, to say the least. It doesn't believe in LibreOffice's .ODF format at all, and it crashes instantly if I try to import .DOCX. It will accept .RTF, and it also imports all the text styles information, but doesn't actually apply it to any of the text, so I'd have to go right through the whole document and reapply styles to everything.

At that point I lost the will to live, and decided to just print straight from the LibreOffice output.

 Once that's done, the actual binding will be pretty straightforward. I've done a few books now, and I know more or less what I'm about there.

Later... (2026-05-08)

I got the loose A4 printouts assembled and bound, using some of my (not very good) home-made book-cloth. 

The binding is not great, to be honest, but it'll do the job.  I'm in the process of putting together a proper A5 layout in Affinity, including a bunch of illustrations snarfed from here and there, which I could bind properly in signatures if I can ever be bothered.

 This layout is functional, but not terribly attractive, and includes no illustrations at all. I printed it direct from my LibreOffice word-processor output.

The Book of Artifacts

 

This just arrived for me, a print-on-demand product from DTRPG.

It's pretty much what it says on the cover: a whole bunch of magical artifacts for AD&D2e. It also includes some notes on the use of artifacts within an AD&D2e campaign, and a bunch of tables with which to generate the various random powers the artifacts are supposed to have.

I like the concept of these artifacts in a campaign. They tend to be ridiculously powerful and unbalancing, but at least they're each unique. I'm not a huge fan of the vast number of generic +1 swords and Potions of Healing and what-not that tend to give player characters their superhero powers.  I think magical doo-dads should be a bit special, or else they just become a stand-in for modern or sci-fi technology.

Plus, I like the idea that magical things should be just a little bit perilous to the user. Knowing that using an object of Mighty Arcane Power™ might make your legs fall off means that employing it becomes a meaningful action, not just a handy deus ex machina. 

Will I actually use any of the contents of this book? Probably.  They're a hoot.

The key is to make sure that they don't stick around long enough for a character to make them the major part of their personality, or else players will get quite upset when they're taken away, one way or another. Unless that would be amusing to me.... in which case, we'll see. 

Wall of 3d Printed Fire

I found the STLs for this on Thingiverse, but foolishly neglected to take note of exactly where. Hey-ho. This lot took about seven hours to print on my Ender 3, and about another twenty minutes or so to paint.

I haven't really gone in for spell effect models for tabletop minis in the past, but for persistent effects like this they can be quite useful. In fact, 2d printouts, pasted to cardboard and cut, out would be just as useful, and wouldn't look any worse — in fact they may even look better. And they'd almost certainly take me less than seven hours to prepare. But never mind, I've got these now, and they'll serve my needs just fine.

Magic Missile d4

Here's another design for a 4-sided die, this time marked from 2 – 5 for use with the D&D Magic Missile spell.

The file is on Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3115258

Where's the Magic in Magic?

I've spent a lot of time over the years thinking about magic use in fantasy roleplaying games.

The difficulty I have, in system after system, is to make magic magical, and to make it perilous and difficult without becoming uselessly dangerous to the user.

D&D magic, if used by the book, is really rather mundane. It is virtually omnipresent; it might as well be modern or sci-fi technology. At best, it makes the game run like a superhero RPG. The latest iterations of D&D (the 4th and 5th editions) are the most egregious in this respect, with virtually every character class tossing magic around with gay abandon, but it's a feature of the system that has been building right from the beginning back in the '70s.

In the Microlite D20 version of D&D3e, there are no spell slots as such. Spells cost the character Hit-Points to cast. I don't recall the exact ratio, but it's probably 1 hp per spell level. That strikes me as a useful mechanism to control the willy-nilly flinging about of cantrips like Light and such-like.

I'm thinking of instituting a casting cost of, say, 1d6 + 1 hit-point per spell level to cast, and half that (rounded down) for each additional round of maintenance, With the large number of hit-points most characters have in 5th Edition, along with the ease and speed of recovery, I don't think it would be too onerous a price to pay, while still resulting in a noticeable diminishing of resources over time. It would make items for creating spell-like effects a lot more desirable, and perhaps magical energy reserves (like IOUN stones or something) could be added.

This does nothing much to address the mundane omnipresence of magic in D&D, but one thing at a time.

---

This guy includes in his Generic Adventurer rules just the sort of thing I mean:

"No more memorisation, you know all the spells you know.
To cast a spell, lose maximum HP equal to the spell's level. Maximum as in off the top, not the total. Your total HP will reduce if you max HP drops below it. (this prevents just healing yourself to ignore the difficulty of magic and also allows magic users to not stop casting spell from fear of killing themselves)
If a spell would be unavailable to a magic user of your level (according to default Lamentations rules) it costs double. Example: A level 4 character casting a level 3 spell (not normally available until level 5) would lose 6 max HP when casting it
Your max HP recover after 8 hours rest"

Lamentations characters have far fewer hit-points than D&D5e characters, so I'd stick with the additional d6 hp on casting. I do like the idea that spell-casting wear and tear comes off the character's hit-point maximum rather than their current total. Though I'm not quite sure what he means by "allows magic users to not stop casting spell from fear of killing themselves". I also like the idea of a magic-user being able to cast spells too high for their own level by paying penalty rates, but I think that idea needs a little more attention.

"Sculpt Spells" modification

From the D&D5e PHB, p.117, the School of Evocation:

SCULPT SPELLS
Beginning at 2nd level, you can create pockets of relative safety within the effects of your evocation spells. When you cast an evocation spell that affects other creatures that you can see, you can choose a number of them equal to 1 + the spell's level. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell, and they take no damage if they would normally take half damage on a successful save.

This is a pretty cool ability, and I like it, but I think it's just a little too potent. If a warrior has to think twice about the cost/benefit ratio of shooting arrows into combat, I feel that a wizard should likewise have to weigh up whether or not they really should be dropping a Flame Strike right on their own location.

To that end, I intend to modify it thus:

1. The "pockets of relative safety" become truly only relatively safe. The Evoker can shape their spell to flow around creatures, but the effect is this:
• The creature being avoided gets to add the wizard's spellcasting ability modifier to their saving throw. (If the wizard includes themselves in the spell area-of-effect and already gets to add their spellcasting ability modifier, they don't get to add it again.)
• If they save, they take no damage. If they fail, they still take half damage. If they fumble their save, they take full damage.
2. Creatures in intimate physical contact — e.g., if grappling, or being swarmed by hundreds of flesh-eating beetles — count as a single creature for the purposes of shaping the spell around them. The wizard can choose to affect both of them or neither.

I think this should have the effect that I want, which is basically to keep the ability's usefulness, but remove the guarantees, so that the wizard actually has to consider whether to cast a spell that might damage their allies.

Lesser Lesser Restoration

 This spell is designed as a stop-gap, temporary remedy for ability loss.

Lesser Lesser Restoration

2nd level abjuration 

Casting Time: 10 minutes
Range: Touch
Components: V,S,M (powdered stimulant herbs mixed with brandy) 

You draw a magical circle of runes and sigils around a creature and, while chanting the verbal component of the spell, have them drink an infusion of stimulant herbs in brandy. The spell will temporarily reverse 1d4 points of one characteristic loss. If more than one characteristic is below its normal maximum, the characteristic to be targeted by the spell must be specified when the spell is cast.

The spell can be cast multiple times on the same recipient, affecting the same or different characteristics each time. 

The spell will not raise a characteristic above its normal maximum, nor does the spell address any underlying condition causing the characteristic loss — it will not, for instance, neutralize poison, nor cure a wasting disease. 

Characteristic points restored by the use of this spell disappear at the rate of one per casting per six hours. 

For example, if the spell is cast twice to restore, respectively, 3 points of STR and 4 points of DEX, after six hours one point each of the restored STR and DEX would be lost. If it were cast twice with both castings affecting STR, after six hours, two points of STR would be lost — one for each casting of the spell.

Casting the spell using a 3rd level or higher spell slot increases the amount of ability points restored by 1d4 per level above 2nd.

Spell-casting house rules

Initiative : minus 1d6 + spell level 

So, if you're casting a cantrip, your initiative score is reduced by 1d6. If you want to cast a level three spell, your initiative count would be 1d6+3 less.

If you take damage, or have to endure some sort of environmental hardship before your initiative comes up, you must make a Concentration save to be able to cast the spell. If you fail, your action is used, and the spell is not cast (though the spell slot, nor any material components, are not used up). You can still move and take reactions and bonus actions if appropriate.

Rituals : casting time one hour per total levels plus 1d4 hours.

For example a level 4 ritual would take 1+2+3+4=10+1d4 hours to cast. Note that partaking in a ritual, either as caster or recipient, does NOT count as resting.

Corruption : casting without a patron or via ritual may result in corruption.

Note: I haven't really thought this one completely through, and I'm not sure quite how workable it would be. I really just want some mechanism that might encourage people to consider before using magic willy-nilly.

Channelling magical forces directly through one's own body, without the buffer created by a ritual or magical intermediary, is potentially hazardous to one's spiritual well-being. There are certain physical signs of magical corruption, but more important are the mental effects: gradually (if it's not already there) the magic-user's alignment shifts around towards chaos and evil.

There are rituals designed to remove magical corruption, or to transfer it to some other unfortunate.

When you cast any spell, make a DC 5 + spell level save vs. your magic-using characteristic. If you fail, you gain one point of Corruption. I'll let you know what that means as and when it occurs.

Note: Warlocks, Clerics, and Paladins are deemed to get their magic through magical intermediaries. Other spell-casters will have to come to their own arrangements if they want a patron.

Note: It occurs to me that this would make an excellent game-mechanical reason for a spell-caster to have a familiar, which would act as a magical conduit as long as it's within line of sight and thus remove the risk of corrupting one's own self with all this magical jiggery-pokery. It would also explain the intimate psychic connection between familiar and "master". I shall therefore Make It So.

Don't bother me, I'm Concentrating

I've been looking over the D&D5e rules for maintaining concentration on spells, and I was a little bit startled at how lax they are. It's assumed that as long as you don't actually get stabbed in the guts, you can easily maintain focus on a spell.

Well, I am a lot meaner than that.

In my game, if you do anything more mentally taxing than walking along a reasonably clear path, you will have to make a DC10 Concentration check to keep a spell that requires concentration going.

Have to jump out of the way of a runaway cart? Concentration check. Being pestered by an annoying beggar-child? Concentration check.  Want to take a swing at an annoying beggar-child? Concentration check. Climb a ladder? Concentration check. Suddenly subjected to very loud noises or flashing lights or other dance-club phenomena? Concentration check. Someone throws a bucket of cold water over you? Concentration check.

If you take damage, the DC for the concentration check is 8+ the amount of damage you've taken. A separate check is required for each individual lot of damage, not for each attack — so, if you get hit by three spines from a manticore's tail for and take 4, 6, and 8 points of damage, you'd make three checks at DCs of 12, 14 and 16 respectively, not a single check at a DC of 30 even though all the damage came from a single attack.

If that seems harsh to you.... well, tough. Suck it up, and stop being such a big cry-baby.

Spell books

This is a page from an alchemical manuscript in the Getty collection, and it's a pretty good fit for how I imagine the instructions for casting spells to be written out in spell books in my campaign.

There's no explicit "Tak ye ane silvere bowle by Midnyte ynde fille it with ye Teares of Ane Pure Mayde..." sort of instructions here.

The numerical sequences would have relevance only to whoever it was who wrote them down, or to someone who had deciphered his or her unique system of notation.

The images might be literal renderings of how material spell components must be laid out, or perhaps they're just mnemonic aids to achieve a particular mental state. Or maybe both. Again, unless you know the specific system used by the original writer, having access to the page itself would be of limited usefulness.

As you can imagine, copying out a spell description like this would take plenty of time, concentration, patience and skill, and certainly wouldn't be the sort of task one would want to undertake in the primitive conditions of your average monster-infested dungeon.

So until you've managed to decipher the systems of notation and illustration as used by the person whose book you've just stolen acquired found, it's not going to be of a great deal of use to you. It's still valuable though, so don't lose it.