The Witch for DCC RPG

The Witch for DCC RPG v1.0

The Witch is a magic using class that relies on making deals with supernatural Patrons in exchange for magical powers. Whether they are using their powers to climb the political or corporate ladder, or put curses on backwoods hicks who trespass on their property, the witch is a both feared and respected by the common folk.

A few of the the abilities are the same as the Wizard from Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, and are noted as such.

Hit Points

Witches gain 1d6 hit points per level of experience.

Weapon Training

Same as Wizard.

Alignment

Lawful Witches tend to work within communities and occasionally hold positions of political power. Chaotic witches tend to shun society and are often found in remote shacks in the wilderness doing who knows what. Neutral witches are often seen as gurus or seers and are sought for their knowledge and powers.

Caster Level

Witches have a Caster level equal to their Experience Level minus 1. So a first level Witch has a Caster Level of 0. See; the effects of Glowstone, below.

Magic

Witches start the game with Patron Bond and Invoke Patron. They may cast Patron Bond immediately with a single Patron of choice. For the Witch, each patron they bond with immediately grants the three Patron Spells in their description.

Invoke Patron can also be used to learn a standard Wizard spell of any level of the Witch’s choice. The spell’s rank is subtracted from the roll. I.e. learning a Rank 9 spell is a penalty of minus 9 to the Invoke Patron roll. Success means the witch knows that spell permanently and can cast it in the standard way. Casting this spell does not add to the cumulative Patron Taint total.

Two deer-were witches confronting a traveler who interrupted their foul ceremony of dark magic.

Spellburn

Spellburn tables are located in the description for each supernatural Patron. Patron’s love when Witches Spellburn because it’s just another way they can exert some control over the witch.

Supernatural Patrons

Patrons are the key to a Witch’s magical powers. Without at least one patron, a Witch is just a normal mundane shlub.

A Witch may be bonded to a number of patrons equal to their Experience Level.

They can bond with an additional patron at each level of experience. I.e. a 4th level witch can be bonded with 4 patrons simultaneously.

Patron Taint

Every time Patron Bond, Invoke Patron, or any Patron Spell is cast, successful or not, there is a cumulative 1% chance of incurring Patron Taint. The Patron who taints the Witch is determined by which patron is the focus of the spell being cast.

A lone witch in the woods hearing voices only they can hear.

Focus

Witches need a focus to summon the eldritch energies to cast the magic gifted them by their supernatural patrons. A focus is a material object the witch can use to concentrate on to cast magic. Wands, rods, staves, dolls, necklaces, rings, headbands, strands of beads, crystals, cool looking rocks, skulls, bones… a focus can be just about anything.

A Witch needs a different focus for each patron. These items should in some way physically resemble an aspect of the patron. For example; a witch with Dagon as a patron may have a focus of a small statuette shaped like a fish-person, or perhaps a wand with a head made of coral.

Luck

The Witch’s Luck modifier can be applied to Patron Bond rolls, and Invoke Patron rolls.

Action Dice

Same as Wizard

Stay away from strange naked goat women in the dungeon — Stay away from the Goat people

Glowstone

[NOTE: This is shit for my home campaign. It can be ignored by you, the reader]

Witches have an innate relationship with glowstone. The weird glowing rock actually increases their magical power! However, there are some side effects. A Witch does not need glowstone in order to perform magic. However, glowstone provides a bonus to casting magic. The size of the glowstone is directly proportional to the size of the bonus. On the other hand, if a spell check ends in critical failure, the bonus of the glowstone is added to the Corruption roll described in each spell description. The bonus generally increases by 1 for every two carats in size of stone. So a 1 or 2 carat glowstone provides a +1 bonus, 3-4 carat is a +2 bonus, and so on up to a maximum of +10.

Each individual glowstone is attuned to a specific patron. No patrons will share a glowstone. If a witch has more than one patron, and one or some of those patrons are not attuned to a glowstone, they may demand that the Witch find a new stone or stones or else suffer consequences.

Sometimes a patron may declare that the stone they are attuned to is too small, and a larger stone must be procured.

Or, a Witch may come across a larger glowstone than what they have and wants to attune it to a patron already associated with a stone in their possession.

In both cases, a new Patron Bond spell must be performed, but because the Witch and the patron already know each other, the spell check succeeds on any roll other than a natural 1.

If no Corruption roll is described, the Witch rolls on the following;

1 no Corruption, 2-4 Minor Corruption, 5-7 Major Corruption, 8+ Greater Corruption.

Fae Idea for Dungeon Crawl Classics

I was reading Phantasmagoria #1 and the 2019 Gongfarmer’s Almanac and came across two specific things that gave me an idea.

GA19 has a Faerie character class. Phantasmagoria has a Gremlin class. I don’t care much for the standard DCC Elf class.

So I’m going to combine them!

My idea, and this is still in the rough stage is the following…

Fae Folk

At character creation, when rolling Backgrounds, there will be a Fae background. Rolling that, gives you a sub table of Faerie, Sprite, or Pixie. All three are fundamentally the same in terms of powers and abilities. They can fly, they are tiny, they use tiny weapons and equipment, their alignment is Neutral, and they have limited innate magical abilities. Physical appearance wise, Sprites have wings like bees or dragonflies, Faeries have wings like butterflies, and Pixies don’t have wings at all. Skin and hair color can be any color imaginable. Clothing is optional.

Still with me?

When the zero level Fae character reaches 1st level, they get to choose a path of advancement. They can stay a faerie, sprite, or pixie and remain Neutral in alignment (and a first level character will get increased and cooler powers and abilities, of course). These dudes are like the peasants/commoners of the Fae folk, while elves are more like nobility and goblins are black sheep.

They can choose to be a Lawful Elf or a Chaotic Goblin.

Elves

Elves are like the fae nobility. Their alignment is Lawful as they are members of the Seelie Court and know and abide its laws (at least when someone important is watching). They are fighter/wizards like in standard DCC RPG, but their patron is ALWAYS an Elf Lord (either the King of Elfland or one of the several elf patrons from Angels, Demons, and Beings Inbetween Volume 2: Elfland edition). Elves no longer get free Mithril shit at level one because it doesn’t make sense and is dumb. Instead they gain the following cool power; Magical sneakery! They can move silently and leave no tracks in snow or dirt, and make no sound when walking on dead leaves or sticks.

Goblins

Goblins are Chaotic and small. They owe no fealty to any elf lord or lady. They aren’t necessarily evil; more like mischievous. They enjoy playing pranks, sabotaging technology (like the Gremlin from Phantasmagoria), and avoiding actual work. Goblins have some limited spell casting ability like summoning small nasty critters, spoiling food and drink, and stuff like that.

Total Party Kill

Art by Paul Bonner

For the second adventure in Hubris, I chose the DCC RPG zero level funnel, Sailors on the Starless Sea.

I chose this one because there were only two level 1 characters left from the last adventure, and I’ve never gotten to run what many consider to be the “classic” DCC funnel.

Since we’re playing in Hubris, though, I had to change some things.

While planning/prepping, I determined that the main bad guys I was going to work with were the Murder Machines, Black Queen, and Floating Island of Terror.

So I changed all of the beastmen from the original adventure into Murder Machines. To do this, I simply upped their AC by 2 and decreased their Hit Points.

I took out the vine-horror monsters entirely.

The final battle on the island within the Starless Sea was changed too. The Murder Machines were taking the kidnapped villagers to the island and throwing them (under the direction of a priest/artificer and his acolytes) into a machine that was powered by magma and magic. This machine converted the villagers into Murder Machines. The idea being that the Black Queen was creating these seeding operations all over the place to cause mayhem.

The high priest/artificer had another trick up his sleeve, though; the Mega Murder Machine! Five victims were transformed into a single gigantic murder machine with a cannon arm.

The two leveled characters were a Cleric of the God of the Terrible Whisper and a regular DCC Wizard.

The rest were zeroes created using the Crawler Companion app.

The players decided to scale the rubble outside the castle rather than go in the front entrance. This led to the first death as the rubble gave way and crushed a zero. They then found the entrance to the cursed tomb of the warlord (being from the area, they knew the story of the warlords of chaos from ancient times. I used it as a red herring) where they slipped and slid and almost died from freezing to death. Eventually they made it back to surface inside the castle. They ignored the stone, the wizard discovered the bonus magical effect of the well.

The burnt church scared them so much they didn’t want to check it out at first but eventually figured out the connection between the incense and the ooze monster. They took the incense with them.

They attempted to leave the castle through the front gate but the murder machines above dropped the portcullis, narrowly missing one of them. The wizard cast a spell that made one of the zeroes gigantic, and they lifted the portcullis up, then kicked in the door to the tower, and clobbered the murder machines running across the top of the wall. The other characters entered the tower and were ambushed by more murder machines who killed several of the characters.

After defeating the monsters, they found the bodies of dozens of villagers and even some left alive. Those living villagers joined their ranks as additional zeroes.

They found the skulls in the pool and took some of those with them as they descended down to the starless sea.

Most of them went insane from trying to read the ziggurat, but after being beaten senseless, they summoned the boat and went aboard.

The kraken attacked as they ignored numerous clues I gave them about the incense or sacrificing a victim, etc. Couple more were killed before they did enough damage for the kraken to retreat.

When they made it to the island they were down to the two level ones and three zeroes.

The original adventure has the final battle consist of 20 beastmen, three priests, and a demon. That wasn’t going to work here. I dropped the number of baddies to 5 murder machines, a priest, 2 acolytes, and a MEGA Murder Machine.

The PCs managed to get a surprise attack in before the bad guys knew what was going on. After the battle started, things did not go well for the characters. Their zeroes all died almost immediately. Some of the captive villagers got some courage and fought back against the bad guys (two more zeroes for the PCs) but were killed.

Finally, after defeating all of the Murder Machines, the Mega Murder Machine, and the Acolytes, all the player characters were dead except for the Cleric and the Wizard, but the Wizard was unconscious. The Cleric faced off against the evil Priest of the Floating Island of Terror. The priest had already used his black powder pistol and was down to a dagger. The Cleric had a sickle. They both sucked at attack rolls.

Eventually, though, the evil priest hit and killed the Cleric.

The end.

Total Party Kill.

My first TPK in 25 years of gaming.

The interesting thing about it was that the players didn’t really mind. They thought the adventure was fantastic and want to play it again!

Cyborg class for DCC RPG

The Cyborg

This class is born of my dislike for other Cyborg classes created by other people.

by Ramon Perez

No matter your background, you were found by someone or something and changed into a machine.

Your living body was removed piece by piece until only your conscious brain remained. This was placed into a cybernetic body to be used as a shock trooper and slave by your creator. The process was torturous and mind-bending.

Something went wrong.

The implants and programming are not under the master’s control, but yours. You have free will and complete control of your new body.

Hit Points: 1D10 per level of experience. Hit points do not heal; you must be fixed.

Weapon Training: All weapons are traited as trained. You cann’t wear armor of any kind.

Alignment: You are free to choose any alignment.

Attack Modifier: Same as Chaotic Thief

Intimidation: Your artificialness is disturbing to most and you suffer a penalty of one step down the Dice Chain when making Personality Checks.

Luck: If you have a Luck modifier, it also affects your Action Die when attacking, making Self Repair rolls, and any attempt to interface with a computer.

Cyborg: Due to your body being over 90% artificial, you are effectively no longer human in the biological sense.

You require merely a cup of nutrient paste per day and a single cup of water to maintain what biological parts you have left.
You still require oxygen, and so breathe with artificial lungs.

You have a bonus of one die higher on the Dice Chain to Fortitude checks against poisons and toxins.

Tactile senses are virtually non-existent. Any check requiring a sense of touch is performed at a minus 4 penalty.
Your body is very dense and sinks to the bottom of water.
You can hold your breath for up to 15 minutes
An internal computer implant displays information within your vision much like a Heads Up Display.
Computer Interface: You can interface directly with other computers. Depending on the computer system’s security, a skill check may be necessary.

Self-Repair: You have an innate knowledge of how to repair damage to your body. However, you are only proficient enough to repair 1 Hit Die worth of hit points or 1 point of Ability Score per day. To do this, you must make a Self Repair trained skill check of medium difficulty every time you attempt to repair yourself.

Armor: Your armor is your bionic body itself.

Your Armor Class is equivalent to Scale Mail.
You cannot wear additional armor.
Critical Hits against you roll at a minus 2 on the critical hit table, with a minimum result of 1.

Physical Strength: Your muscles are a combination of hydraulics and myomer threading.

You have a base Strength Score of 16 now, replacing your previous Strength score. This can still be burned as normal, but does not naturally heal; you must be fixed.
You inflict 1d4 damage with your punches and kicks.

Cybernetic Implants (choose two or roll twice on the following table at first level). Other cybernetic implants can be procured and installed as you adventure.

Heavy Armor: Your armor is bulkier and provides an Armor Class of Full Plate.
Sensor Hand: One hand contains a sensor suit
Tool Hand: One hand can transform into any simple non-weapon tool.
Arm Weapon. A single weapon can be built into one arm. If ammunition is necessary, you have enough for 1d5 rounds of combat.
Machine Strength: Your Strength score now has a base of 18. Punches and kicks inflict d5 damage.
Faster: Your movement speed is doubled.
Jumper: You can jump 10 feet high or across without a running start. Double distance if running.
Telescopic Vision: can magnify distances up to 15x.
Camera Vision: can take still or video images and store them.
Secret compartment: You can choose where the secret compartment is located on your body, but the amount it can contain is determined by the size of the location.
Self-Destruct Mechanism: This implant was originally installed so that your former master could control you. Somehow, you gained control of the switch. With a mental command, you can set it on a timer for up to one hour, or self-destruct immediately. How you self-destruct is up to you; however, the area of effect is no more than a five foot radius around you.
Targeting Assistance: By taking time to compute targeting information, you increase your chances to hit. The first round grants a +1d3, the second a +1d4, the third a +1d5, and so on up the Dice Chain.

Advancement Table

Level 1: Attack: +1. Crit Table/Die: 1d10/III. Action Dice: 1d20. Ref: 0, Fort: +1, Will: +1

Level 2: Attack: +1. Crit Table/Die: 1d12/III. Action Dice: 1d20. Ref: +1, Fort: +1, Will: +1

Level 3: Attack: +2. Crit Table/Die: 1d14/III. Action Dice: 1d20. Ref: +1, Fort: +2, Will: +1

Level 4: Attack: +2. Crit Table/Die: 1d16/IV. Action Dice: 1d20. Ref: +1, Fort: +2, Will: +2

Level 5: Attack: +3. Crit Table/Die: 1d20/IV. Action Dice: 1d20. Ref: +2, Fort: +3, Will: +2

Level 6: Attack: +3. Crit Table/Die: 1d24/IV. Action Dice: 1d20+1d8. Ref: +2, Fort: +3, Will: +3

Level 7: Attack: +4. Crit Table/Die: 1d30/IV. Action Dice: 1d20+1d12. Ref: +3, Fort: +4, Will: +3

Level 8: Attack: +4. Crit Table/Die: 1d30/IV. Action Dice: 1d20+1d16. Ref: +3, Fort: +4, Will: +4

Level 9: Attack: +5. Crit Table/Die: 2d20/IV. Action Dice: 1d20+1d20. Ref: +3, Fort +5, Will: +4

Level 10: Attack: +6. Crit Table/Die: 2d20/IV. Action Dice: 1d20+1d20+1d10. Ref: +3, Fort: +5, Will: +5

Post-Apocalyptic Cybernetics for DCC RPG

Stolen from Image Search

This post mentions the Umerican Survival Guide. It’s an excellent third party setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics.

The Umerican Survival Guide is the organized and edited setting book based on the zine, Crawling Under a Broken Moon.

Both of these are great resources for the DCC Judge who wants to add some post-apocalyptic flavor to their games.

Back in the day, I basically grew up playing Rifts and Ninjas & Superspies. Within those two games, cybernetics are featured very prominently. Even though there are classes in those games who specialize in having lots of cybernetic stuff, characters of any class can use cybernetics, albeit to a limited degree.

In a post-apocalyptic world where cybernetics are available, it would make sense for them to be available to everyone, for a price, and full-on cyborgs would be pretty rare (due to initial buy-in cost and then cost of maintenance on top of that).

So in my game, I’m ditching the Cyborg class completely, and making a list of cybernetics that are available to any character. These can be relics from the past found as loot or items that can be purchased and implanted for an expensive fee. Basically, cybernetics in my game are the same as magic items in a fantasy game. Some even have a limited number of ‘charges’ to use their effects before becoming useless. Some cybernetics are simply mimics of normal biological organs used for medical purposes. Others are tools and others are weapons.

Here is a short list of cybernetic parts organized by body location. I haven’t come up with pricing or availability yet. I think it would probably be better for the less complicated items to be used as loot from adventuring (a found pre-apocalypse medical storage facility or something) but I suppose loot could also come from carving stuff out of dead bodies of slain bad guys. It’s your group, man.

Eyes

Polarized vision
Thermo-Imaging
Telescopic
Video recording
Microscopic
Passive Nightvision
Panoramic vision
Full Spectrum

Arms

Multi-tool hand
Hydrolic extendable arm
Jackhammer arm
Sensor hand
Forearm computer
Climbing cord
garrote
Finger camera
Palm taser
Retractable razor nails
retractable wrist claws (like Wolverine)
Hydrolic and/or myomer musculature for increased strength

Legs

Hydrolic and/or myomer musculature for increased speed
Increased jumping ability
Hidden compartment
Tank treads instead of legs
Four legs instead of two
Extendable legs

Torso

Oxygen storage cell
toxin filter
Artificial organs
Hidden compartment

Regardless of how it is acquired, cybernetics must be installed, and to do that a trained medical technician is necessary. A perfect piece of cybernetics won’t work if it is installed incorrectly!

Scummy chop shop: Cheapest installation price, part works for d4 weeks, 65% chance of infection from non-sterile equipment.
Decent chop shop: a little more expensive, part works as it should, 50% chance of infection.
Professional facility: more expensive, parts works as it should, 15% chance of infection.
Super deluxe facility: very expensive, part works better than it should, no chance of infection

Maintenance costs would be 10 percent of the “cost” of the part, per week.

So a Wizard with a Microscope eye that has a cost of 1000gp, would have to spend 100gp per week to maintain the eye.

If the maintenance cost is not met, the part gradually loses its abilities. Use the following as a general guideline

All abilities of the part are reduced by 25% after the first week of no maintenance.
Reduce by 50% after the second week
The part is unusable after the third week

Some parts may not have abilities that track in a way that they can be reduced as above. In those cases, the part simply stops working altogether.

Moss Dwarf Class for Dungeon Crawl Classics

Moss Dwarf!

Inspired by the Moss Dwarf class found in Wormskin vol 1, by Norman and Gorgonmilk

*used with permission

Booyah! The Moss Dwarf of Strathos are short, squat humanoids with brown wrinkly skin, long stringy green hair and beards, and often covered with all manner of moss, mold, and fungus. They typically forgo wearing clothes apart from a loin cloth, and never cut or crop their hair or beards, which are also tangled with creeping plants, and maybe a bird’s nest or two. Moss Dwarfs live for centuries; when they die, their bodies quickly rot away like fallen tree trunks, forming a rich compost. Moss Dwarf prefer to live in the darkest parts of the forest or underground in shallow, natural caves.

Zero level characters are rolled up as any other character. Moss Dwarf backgrounds replace those of the Elf on the background table. Starting coin, however is only 5d6 copper pieces. On the plus side, Moss Dwarf weapons and armor (as found in Wormskin vol.1) are half the price of their regular equivalents.

Moss Dwarf backgrounds replace numbers 29-38 on the DCC background table.

Roll	Occupation	Trained Weapon	Trade Goods
29	Forester	Staff	Herbs, 1 lbs
30, 31	Artisan	Trowel	Clay, 3 lbs
32, 33	Farmer, Mushroom	Shovel	Mushrooms, 8 oz
34, 35	Rancher, Worms	Hoe	Compost, 10 lbs sack
36, 37	Birdwatcher	Net	Loyal songbird
38, 39	Assistant Brewer	Large Paddle	Gallon of beer

Here is what you can do…

You can see in the dark! Up to 60 feet.
You can speak the Moss Dwarf language, which is squelchy and wet and dank sounding.
You as a Moss Dwarf can attempt to identify animals, monsters, or other beings native to Strathos as a Trained Skill.
You are invulnerable to harmful fungal poisons/infections and spores.
You are, however, have a curious vulnerability to metal. You suffer a -1 penalty to hit your opponent when wielding a metal weapon, and a -1 penalty to Armor Class (AC) when wearing metal armor. Moss Dwarf do make their own armor out of plant and animal materials, and weapons of wood and stone.
Weapon Training: While fighting isn’t usually a Moss Dwarfs first choice of action, living in wilderness areas gives them cause to defend themselves. You are trained in the following weapons; blackjack, blowgun, club, stone axe, sling, spear, and staff.
Hit Points: A Moss Dwarf gains 1d6 Hit Points each level.

At first level, roll on the Talent Tree table to determine your Moss Dwarf Talent. Talents can be thought of as natural magical powers innate to each Moss Dwarf. Each Talent Tree has a total of four Ranks before it is mastered. The talent you roll at first level is permanent and cannot be changed. At each subsequent level, you have the choice of rolling again on the Talent Tree table to start an additional Talent Tree at Rank One, or you may increase a currently known Talent Tree by one Rank. Talents of any particular tree must be learned in order.

Note: In the source material, Talents are called Knacks. I’ve changed the terminology in this particular case because in this version of the class, there is no upper limit as to how many talents a Moss Dwarf character can have, unlike the source material.

Level	Attack Bonus	Crit Die/Table	Action Dice	Reflex	Fortitude	Willpower
1	+1	D6/III	d20	+1	+1	+1
2	+1	D6/III	d20	+1	+1	+1
3	+2	D8/III	d20	+1	+2	+1
4	+2	D8/III	d20	+2	+2	+2
5	+3	D10/III	d20	+2	+3	+2
6	+3	D10/III	d20+d14	+2	+4	+2
7	+4	D12/III	d20+d16	+3	+4	+3
8	+5	D12/III	d20+d20	+3	+5	+3
9	+6	D14/III	d20+d20	+3	+5	+3
10	+7	D14/III	d20+d20	+4	+6	+4

Particular Talents are unchanged from Wormskin vol. 1 (where they are referred to as Knacks), so to see those, you should definitely purchase at least volume 1 of the series. Once you have that, though, you’ll probably buy the rest of them (like I did).

Unlike other classes, Moss Dwarf titles are based on Talents mastered, instead of level attained. Those titles include the following; Critter Friend, Lock Siren, True Sniffer, Pouch Filcher, Root Summoner, String Charmer, Timber Listener , Master Fermentor.

Magical Mutant Ape Men!!!!

I’ve been workin’ out the kinks of a race-as-class for a while now. It’s become an obsession.

First, I wanted to build it for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Then, a heavily house-modified version of LotFP. Now, I am using Dungeon Crawl Classics.

These Ape Men (Women, People, whichever you prefer) were normal run-of-the-mill ape creatures that were suddenly and recently uplifted by some unknown magical means.

While this is specifically written for DCC, it can easily be modified for any early edition DnD type game.

Yon, the Magical Mutant Ape People

You are a mystically mutated primate with human intelligence and speech! At some point in the near past, your entire species was rapidly evolved to its present state by unknown means. You are a second generation Yon, and you and your people have no real culture of your own. You pick the appealing parts from other cultures to adopt.

You are of a size in between dwarf and human. And you have a vestigial tail that is effectively useless and about half as long as the rest of your body. The exact details of how you look are up to you, the player. Keep in mind though, that based on your character’s visual looks, all other low level Yon will look like you.

Here are some of the things you can do

You receive d6 Hit Points at every level! This is in addition to the hit points you had at Zero level.

You’re trained in the use of the Battleaxe, Club, Dart, Javelin, Spear, Staff, Two-handed club, and Warhammer.

You have big sharp teeth that causes a nasty bite. You can bite as an extra attack when in melee combat! (ATK: d14, DMG: d3+Strength Modifier)

Your feet can grab and hold things. They aren’t nimble enough to be of any use in combat or to juggle, but they can hold your body weight by holding onto something. The big toe is used as a primitive thumb. You tend to walk and run on all fours.

Unlike other classes, Yon gain random mutations as they are exposed to magic. Roll on the Magical Mutation Table once every time you are affected by a magical effect that alters you in some way (fail a save vs Magic). Examples include; Failing a save against a spell, or drinking a magical potion that requires a saving throw.

Cleric or Deific magic does not have this effect.

Luck Modifier does apply; higher your Luck mod, the more likely you’ll have a beneficial mutation.

Level	Attack Bonus	Crit Die/Table	Action Dice	Reflex	Fortitude	Willpower
1	+1	D6/III	1d20	+1	+1	+0
2	+1	D6/III	1d20	+1	+1	+1
3	+1	D6/III	1d20	+1	+2	+1
4	+1	D6/III	1d20	+2	+3	+2
5	+1	D6/III	1d20+1d14	+2	+4	+2
6	+1	D6/III	1d20+1d16	+2	+4	+2
7	+1	D6/III	1d20+1d20	+3	+4	+3
8	+1	D6/III	1d20+1d20	+3	+5	+3
9	+1	D6/III	1d20+1d20	+4	+5	+4
10	+1	D6/III	1d20+1d20+1d14	+4	+6	+4

Yon Titles

As Yon don’t have a culture or society to call their own, they don’t have level based titles. Yon typically take the titles of other classes that they look up to and want to emulate.

Magical Mutation Table

Magical Vulnerability! You take a -1 penalty to all magical saves.
Big giant head! Your skull, specifically your brain case and brain, grows disproportionately larger than the rest of your body. You can Mind Blast everyone (friend or foe) in a 5 foot radius for d3 damage on a failed Will save of DC 10+your Willpower or Luck modifier. They are -1 to all rolls for d4 rounds. You can do this once per day, for every time you roll this mutation result. Further, the damage increases by one die step, the DC increases by +1, the range increases by 5 feet, and the penalty for all rolls decreases -1. Using this power is painful and causes a piercing headache that forces a penalty of d3 to all your rolls for one Turn. Every time this is rolled, the penalty to all die rolls is made worse by one die step.
Skin toughens! Bonus to Armor Class: +1 every time this is rolled. This is not in addition to worn armor. There is no penalty the first time you roll this result, however, subsequent rolls of this result incur the following; reduce movement to the point that you move and function as if you were one Encumbrance step higher than you would normally be.
Intimidate! To intimidate a creature, you beat your chest and growl and roar and pound the ground. They must make an opposed DC 10 Will save if intelligent, or a DC 5 Will save if of animal level intelligence. Failure means they cower or flee. Undead, golems, automatons, and the like are not affected. Add your Personality OR Strength modifier (whichever is higher) to make the DC more difficult. Roll this again and you get the bonus from Personality AND Strength modifiers. Subsequent rolls net you a +1 bonus.
Howler! make loud howls heard for miles. Rolled again and those in close vicinity must make a Fortitude save or go temporarily deaf for d4 hours. Roll this any more times and they suffer a -1 to their save attempt and the length of deafness increases by a die step in hours.
Prehensile tail! your tail can grab things. It’s not very strong though, 1/4 your Strength ability. Rolling this again increases it’s strength to 1/2, then 3/4, then full strength. With each growth step, your tail lengthens 12 inches. On the other hand, your size decreases by 6 inches each time this is rolled.
Bite! Your bite damage increases to d4 damage. Roll this again and it increases to d5, then d6, then d7 and so on. As your teeth enlarge, so does your jaw, and your overall features become more menacing; -1 to any Personality based check every time this result is rolled.
Hyper-intelligence! Choose a new skill to be trained in; roll randomly on the Background Profession table to determine this. Choose a new skill every time this is rolled. This focus is offset by a penalty of -1 to any and all untrained skill attempts. This penalty is cumulative every time this result is rolled.
Brute strength! add a D3 to any strength check or strength based action, including melee damage. Roll again and it becomes a d4, then d5, and so on. Your Crit Die also increases by one step!The massive increase in muscle mass causes a loss of dexterity, though; suffer a penalty of -1 to Reflex saves, and dexterity based actions.
Size increase! You are a foot taller, a bit meatier, and your hit die increases to d8 per level. Roll again and you grow another foot and hit die becomes a d10. Another foot and a D12, another foot and a d14, lastly another foot and a d20. After that, every increase is another foot +1 HP. Also, your Crit Table increases to Table IV, then Table V, then the Giant table. Unfortunately, your tail decreases in length by one foot, and you become incrementally less capable of thoughtful action. Every time you roll this, you suffer a permanent -1 penalty whenever you attempt a skill, and a -1 penalty to Intelligence and Personality checks, as well as Willpower saves. Whenever you take damage in combat, you must make a Willpower save or else fly into a berserk rage; attacking any foes within sight without regard for strategy, tactics, or the well being of yourself or other party members.
Prehensile feet! Your feet become more dexterous and useful. They can be used attack with a weapon and use a d10 as an Action Die. Each time this is rolled, the Action Die increases a die step. After reaching d20, you get a +1 to hit with your feet every time this is rolled. Agility and Strength bonuses do not apply to feet attacks.
Hand-eye coordination! You get a +1 to hit in combat, and your Crit Die increases by one step.
Magical Resistance! You gain a +1 to s ave against Magic every time you roll this result.
Color Change! Your skin and hair change colors. These can be whatever colors you wish, or you can roll on a random table to determine color.
Hair falls out! All your body hair falls out. Re-roll this and it grows back. Re-roll again and it falls out again.
Magic Spell! You learn a random wizard magic spell! This spell is determined randomly; roll a d3 for the spell’s level, then roll on that level’s spell list to determine the exact spell. Casting this spell is the same as if you were a wizard, and uses your Action Die to roll the spell check. All consequences for failure (corruption, misfire, etc) also are the same as per the Wizard. Any effect this spell may have on you does not cause another roll on this Magical Mutation table.

DCC Tower of the Stargazer play report

Yesterday I ran/played Dungeon Crawl Classics for the first time ever.

It was awesome.

Finding DCC was reminiscent of when I discovered Lamentations of the Flame Princess years ago; a breathe of fresh air! The fantasy game I’ve been looking for, for the last 20 years.

All the modifications I was making to LotFP are already included in DCC. So, I’m switching systems. A lot less work and stress for me to build the game I want. That’s a big load off my shoulders.

The rest of the group enjoyed their Zero Level adventure as well.

So what adventure did we play?

Well, I ran Tower of the Stargazer with a lot of modifications.

First, I removed all the background from the module. The players were supposed to control four characters each, but three players chose to control three characters; I still have no idea why. I explained, exhaustively, how that wasn’t a particularly good idea, but they insisted on three.

Anyway, the characters were all from the same town in a run-down barony ruled over by a powerful wizard. The wizard himself hadn’t been heard from in many years, and the barony was run by an appointed magistrate who was killed in an ambush by bandits a few months before. Since then, the area around the town has been plagued by monsters, bandits, crop failures, cats mating with dogs, etc. So the town sent a small group of villagers to the wizard’s tower in order to appeal to the wizard directly for help. They never returned. The player character’s were the B team, sent to talk to the wizard and see what happened to the first group.

Outside the tower, I changed the four large lightning rods into a huge field of smaller lightning rods of heights varying between 10-20 feet. Each with a cable running from the base of the rod to the base of the tower. There was stone path leading to the front door of the tower.

Walking along the path at normal human speed would take 3 rounds to reach the front door.

There is a 1% chance x number of characters that a random character is struck by lightning for d6 damage.

Walking through the field of lightning rods reduces the chance of lightning strike to a flat 1%, but unless walking carefully at half speed, there is a 1 in 6 chance of a character stepping on a “hot” wire and being electrocuted for d6 damage. I had figured that the players would be fearful of the lightning and attempt to run to the tower to avoid getting hit.
There were three bodies of the A Team of villagers on the path, and three bodies in the lightning rod field. Searching a body takes a round, which means another roll to see if lightning strikes.

The first character death occurred when a dwarf grabbed a lightning rod and tried to pry it out of the ground. Lightning strike for 1 damage; the dwarf had 1 HP.
The second death occurred when a human attempted to search a body of a villager and was struck by lightning.

Death Count: 2

One of those dead villagers had a coin that when flipped, would always land on its side. This would become very important later on.

Reaching the front double-doors, one character decided to knock using the door knocker, while simultaneously another character went to open the other door by grabbing the door knob. Got stuck with a poison needle, failed the save, died.

Death Count: 3

I decided that the tower should not be cleaned/kept up by “magic” as stated in the module, and instead the Calcidus the Stargazer utilized animated dead bodies (zombies) as maids and butlers, While living assistants cooked food and helped with experiments.

Each of the zombies had an iron bar through their neck and would only be animated for a period of time before needing to recharge in the cells in Basement Level 1; each cell had a device with copper wires attached that the zombies would plug into and recharge. Two zombies plug in at a time, while two others work elsewhere in the tower.

So the characters enter the tower and in the foyer is a zombie maid dusting the couches and coffee tables and a fake plant in the corner. The maid has a note pinned to her dress that says, “Please wait to be summoned, Calcidus.” One character found some Copper change in a couch, another stole a painting of Calcidus as a young man from the wall. This was a mistake on my part, as I intended for the painting to be the False Chanterelle painting from Maze of the Blue Medusa, but I completely forgot.

Eventually, they tired of waiting to be summoned and opened the door to the next room.

Opening the door caused the maid to attack the character who opened it, while from the other room, a zombie butler rushed at the character moaning, “nooooot summmonnnneed,” and attacked. The zombies were eventually defeated by bashing in the skull of the butler, maiming the maid with a critical hit to the knee, and then finishing the maid off by dowsing her head in holy water. Fun tidbit; the Lick-Spitter character armed with a bucket and a tin of breath mints tossed a mint into the maid’s mouth with a great roll before she was destroyed.

Searching the Sitting Room, where the butler attacked from, I described the china cabinet and the fine, fragile dishes within. A player stated that one of his characters was going to throw the dishes into his sack. The fragile dishes all shattered.

They quickly figured out the stack of crates were fake and found the trapdoor underneath. After carefully examining the statue, they figured out it too could be slid away revealing another trapdoor.

This is where things got tricky.

The party decided to split into THREE groups. One group went up the stairs to Level Two. Another group went down the trapdoor leading to the storage room in Basement One. And a single character went down the trapdoor leading to the small room in Basement One closed off with a portculis.

The single character didn’t even try to lift the portculis, but that was partially my fault; I described it as iron bars, leading them to conclude it was a jail-type cell. My bad. Not that they would have been able to lift it by themselves anyway. Still, I made another mistake. They did notice a red glow coming from beyond the portculis but they couldn’t see the source. More on that later.

The second group that went down to the Storage Room found the secret door, and the character with a background as a miner made a skill check to figure out what would trigger the door to open, and discovered a suspiciously loose flagstone on the floor and stepped on it, opening the door. Oddly, no one wanted to open the regular, normal door. They also did a cursory search of the crates, but found none of the strange contents to be interesting enough to take.

Going through the secret door, they found the zombie recharging stations. The last three cells I kept as actual cells, including the 15 armed skeleton. That tripped some of the players out. I also kept the brain leech, and one of the characters swallowed it. That should be a nice surprise at the beginning of the next adventure!

The laboratory I kept pretty much as written, including the mirror room and the body on the table, and the microscope with the blood vials. One character immediately wanted to look at the blood through the microscope and missed a saving throw and licked the smear off the slide. ewwww. I haven’t decided how the blood will affect the character; perhaps some sort of slow, agonizing death as the virus contained destroys their cells. Or maybe a couple rolls on the Corruption table! That’s an even better idea.

The mirror room has an issue within it that I didn’t realize until the players discovered it. One of the mirrors produces a doppleganger which either fights you or melds into you doubling providing another hit die. If you fight it, it has all the same equipment that you have, so potentially, you could just keep looking in the mirror and doubling your equipment and money, or get more hit points, for as long as you want.

Anyway, another character died here when they failed a save and a laser beam cut a hole through their chest. Two characters saw their ability scores increase, and one saw theirs decrease. Two of the mirrors were smashed. One character looked into a mirror and gained a profound knowledge of something… an answer to a question of their choosing at a later time. More on that later.

Death Count: 4

This group of characters discovered the elevator and took it up to Tower Level 5.

On Level Two of the tower, the other group of characters found the living servants quarters, which has been long abandoned. They were very interested in the oven and several characters thoroughly searched it, finding nothing. They went up the stairs to Tower Level 3.

The door to Level 3 is locked and trapped, as written, in a really strange way that isn’t consistent with the theme of the tower. So I changed it.

Instead of a trickle of blood, followed by a wall of blood pouring out of the door, I changed it to a simple lock trap that electrocutes the lockpicker if they fail their skill check. Unfortunately, the character that attempted to pick the lock failed their skill check and was electrocuted. A few of the other characters used a coffee table as a battering ram to force the door open.

Death Count: 5

Entering Level 3, the characters found the Wizard’s chamber. When I ran Tower of the Stargazer last, I felt that the wizard was… lame. So I killed him. The wizard was dead, laying face down in the circle of salt. Died of old age/starvation/whatever before the characters got there. One character decided to try and enter the circle to check on him. I allowed this, with the idea that anything can enter the circle, but nothing can leave. Before this little fact was discovered though, a different character swept some of the salt away, breaking the circle.

One of the characters took the Star Crystal, and they discovered the elevator on this level. Messing with the dial, they saw the characters who used the elevator to travel to level 5 go down past them, all the way to Dungeon Level 2.

Dungeon Level has a puzzle, and it took a while for the players to finish it. Earlier, one character looked into one of the magic and gained knowledge of something they could choose to ask about at a later time. They used it to figure out the puzzle.

All the characters regrouped at Level 4.
I didn’t like the thing in the freezer, so I changed it to a Face-hugging alien who implanted its seed in the belly of an unfortunate character. That will be a gruesome death later on. I figured that an alien monster would make more sense for a wizard’s tower dedicated to finding life on other planets than a vial of living, but evil, blood. Plus, there was already evil blood in the basement.

The characters searched the first library extensively and found what was hidden in there. They reached the “game room,” with the ghost and a player had a great idea for beating it. The last time I ran Tower of the Stargazer, a character died playing against the ghost in a game of Blackjack. This time, it was a different player not involved the first time around who played against the ghost. This player’s character was the one who picked up the trick coin earlier in the adventure. The game he chose was to flip the coin, and allow the ghost to call heads or tails. If the coin landed on what the ghost chose, the ghost wins. If it lands any other way, the ghost loses and the characters can pass through the door.
The ghost lost, and the players found the magical library. They searched this library even more extensively than the first, and found a few low level magical scrolls. I’m not as worried about overpowering low level characters with magical scrolls as I would be in other game systems, since they have to roll a d10 vs the DC of the scroll in order to use it successfully. It’s pretty much a trap, unless they somehow get really, really, lucky.

Moving to the 5th floor, the characters find the telescope. I had planned for the telescope to be a trap as well; if the controls were manipulated in the wrong way, the whole thing would blow up, destroying the tower and everything in it.
I didn’t count on the players though, a classic GM mistake.
The players quickly figured out the pool of water with the fish was acid. They quickly figured out to put the coal and the powder in the coal chamber. And, most surprisingly, they figured out the controls for the telescope on the first try.
However, after putting the powder into the coal chamber and powering the laser, a character looked through the view finder and was transported to another world. Where they were promptly killed and eaten by aliens. This grisly deqth was viewed only by another character who quickly jumped to the telescope when the first character disappeared.

Death Count: 6

The remaining characters found the other part of Dungeon Level 1. I changed the stone spider into a lava giant, who acted as protector if the “treasures,” within. The characters dispatched the giant after a time with no casualties. Searching the treasure they quickly figured out the trick. Going into the easternmost room, one character made it in before the portcullis fell and trapped them. Another character got hit by the trap but managed to survive. The trapped character drank ALL of the potions. So, in a way, that character changed enough to almost be considered dead.

The remaining characters left the tower and made it through the electrical field outside without a hitch. They were talking about using the tower as a base of operations in the future.

Final death tally: 6, with 3 more dying (brain leech, alien virus blood, alien egg) in the near future.

For a group that started with 21 zero level characters, I feel like this wasn’t dangerous enough. Which means I failed.

Next adventure I plan to either run Deep Carbon Observatory, or Maze of the Blue Medusa.

Skills and Skill points

Skills and Skill Points

Every character has the ability to perform skills. In most cases, character’s aren’t particularly good at any skills, but have at least some chance of success. Skill rolls are only necessary if the Referee determines that there is a chance of failure if attempted. Otherwise, the Player should be able to role play the situation without needing to roll dice.

Skill level is ranked from 1 to 6. All characters start play with a 1 in 6 chance (around 16%) to successfully attempt a skill and is resolved by rolling a d6 and rolling equal to or less than the skill level. Certain skills are affected by a particular Attribute Modifier, and in that case the modifier is subtracted from the die roll, not added to the skill level. If a skill should advance to a 6 in 6 chance of success, then two d6 are rolled, with failure only occurring when double sixes are rolled.

The names of the various skills are:

Bushcraft: Bushcraft shows the chances of your character being able to survive in the wilderness through foraging or hunting, and identifying tracks, plants, and animals.
- A successful Bushcraft check can mean that foraging or hunting for food takes less time and produces higher yields.
- A character’s Wisdom attribute modifier applies to Bushcraft.
Climb: This skill is rolled when a character is climbing under adverse conditions or attempting to scale a vertical surface that would be more difficult than the average person could reasonably attempt.
- Climbing a tree or cliff with numerous hand and footholds would not require a roll against this skill. Climbing a ladder of any height would also not require a roll.
- Attempting to scale a cliff face or castle wall with few hand or foot holds would require a roll against the Climb skill.
- Situational modifiers can be applied, such as having (or not having) proper equipment, being encumbered, the weather, duress, etc.
- A character’s Strength Modifier applies to Climb.
First Aid: This skill is used for minor healing when a safe place to rest is not available. First Aid can only be used on a character once per encounter, or once per injury. Based on the skill created by James Young at http://tenfootpolemic.blogspot.co.uk
- On a success, the character can heal a number of Flesh equal to the die roll.
  - For example; if your skill is 3 in 6, and you roll a 2, then 2 points are healed.
- On a failure, the character takes an additional 1 Flesh damage for every point they failed the roll.
  - For example; if your skill is 3 in 6, and you roll a 5, then 2 points of damage are inflicted.
- A character’s Intelligence modifier applies to this skill.
Language: Language skill indicates the chances of the character to be able to understand a particular language.
- Every time a new language is encountered, the character rolls against this skill. Success means they know the language.
- Failure means the character does not know the language and may not roll again for that particular language until the character reaches the next level of experience.
- A penalty of +3 to the character’s roll is applied for obscure/dead/cryptic languages, and a +2 penalty modifier for exotic languages from other realms.
  - For example; a character has a Language skill of 3 in 6 and rolls to see if they somehow know the language of the Cult of Duvan’ku, which hasn’t been spoken in centuries and was little known when even back then. They roll a 2, but with a +3 penalty, their total roll is 5, which is a failure.
- A character’s Intelligence attribute modifier applies to Language.
Navigation: Navigation is the character’s ability to not get lost while traveling. Following roads and paths does not require a skill check, but travel through the wilderness or on the high seas does.
- A character’s Intelligence attribute modifier applies to Navigation.
Search: Searching is the ability to discover hidden items and clues.
- Searching a 10ft area takes a single 10 minute Turn.
- If you fail your roll, you may not search the same area again until your next level of experience.
Sleight of Hand: Sleight of Hand includes hiding objects on one’s person, picking pockets, readying a weapon without an observer noticing, and other such actions.
- A character’s Dexterity attribute modifier applies to Sleight of Hand.
Sneak Attack: Unlike other skills, the skill level of a Sneak Attack does not indicate the chances of success or failure, rather, it indicates the amount of damage done in the attack.
- A single rank in Sneak Attack means 1x normal damage. Two ranks means 2x damage. Three ranks means 3x damage, and so on up to 6x damage.
- Sneak Attack bypasses Grit and inflicts damage directly to Flesh.
- A Sneak Attack can only be attempted on an opponent who does not know the attack is coming.
- Any character, creature, or opponent who is eligible to be the target of a Sneak Attack is also considered to be Surprised for the purposes of the Sneak Attack.
- There is not an attribute that applies to Sneak Attack.
Stealth: Stealth is the ability of the character to move or hide themselves or an object, and remain undetected.
- Stealth is always considered an Opposed Skill Check (see below). If the situation would not require an Opposed Skill Check, then success (or failure depending on the situation) is considered automatic.
- A successful Stealth check to sneak up on someone means that they are considered Surprised for your next attack. This also means that a successful Stealth check can lead to a Sneak Attack.
- A character’s Dexterity attribute modifier applies to Stealth rolls in situations where the character is attempting to physically hide themselves or sneak up on an opponent.
- A character’s Intelligence attribute modifier applies to Stealth rolls in situations where the character is attempting to hide an object from visual inspection.
Streetwise: This skill is similar to Bushcraft but for urban environments. It allows the character to find food, shelter, and people within a city or town.
- A character’s Intelligence OR Charisma modifier applies to Streetwise.
Swim: This skill is used when a character is attempting a difficult feat when immersed in liquid.
- Attempting to cross a raging river or swim across a pond while while encumbered would require a roll against this skill to avoid sinking and possibly drowning.
- Attempting to swim a long distance would require a roll against this skill in order to avoid tiring and drowning.
Tinker: Tinker is a loose term used to describe the ability to manipulate mechanical objects. This can be used to pick locks, disarm traps, use unfamiliar machinery, build a wrist watch, and similar.
- A character’s Dexterity modifier applies to Tinker.

New Class: Shaman

Shaman are the spiritual leaders of the Picts of Strathos. They are a combination of warrior and magic user, in other realms called a Cleric.

In fact, there isn’t any fundamental difference between a Strathos shaman and a cleric from elsewhere other than faith.

Speaking of faith, all Shaman have a totem animal, which is the same totem animal as their tribe. By praying while holding or wearing the skin of that animal, the shaman can polymorph into that animal for a short period of time.

New spells:

1st Rank (I use the term Rank, rather than level, as I find it is less confusing)
Skin Change
For one 1 minute Turn per level of experience, the shaman can polymorph themself into their totem animal. The skin of the totem animal must be held or worn at the time of casting. The shaman retains their reasoning capability and may end the spell before the duration at will. Otherwise, the shaman loses all other powers while the spell is in effect, but gains the natural abilities of the totem animal.

3rd Rank
Group Skin Change
Same as Skin Change but affects a number of participants equal to the shaman’s experience level. The duration is a single ten minute Turn. Same effects and rules as the 1st Rank spell.

6th Rank
Superior Skin Change
Same as the first level spell, but duration is 1 hour per level of experience and the shaman can speak and cast other spells as normal while polymorphed.