Create Light Breeze: The wind created is one of heat, and all those caught in it must make a strength roll of 2d6 + Elementalist’s Rank or suffer -2 to Attack and -1 to Defend.

Stargaze: Against fire attacks, the Elementalist has an AF of 2 + his Rank, for the benefit of reducing damage.

False Rumours: Originally, the spell just create aural illusions which sounds threatening. The fire variant of it makes the sounds feel alluring, and could lull someone off to sleep (Pit the Elementalist’s Magical Attack against all the hearer’s Magical Defence). This spell can also make one specific target more vulnerable to mind controlling spell (such as Transfix). If used as such, he suffers a penalty to his Magical Defence equal to half the caster’s Rank.

Windwall: The wall itself is of intense heat. Anyone who come within 2.5m of the caster will take 1d6 points of damage; those who steps within will take 1d10. But the caster himself is not immune from the effects. He takes 1 point of damage per round (unless he has Stargaze cast prior!)

Summon the Host of the Air: All the insects summoned would leave nasty, itchy rashes or boils, which count as a disease (roll 4d6 under Strength to shrug it off). Those who are unable to resist it will find that the itch is unbearable, imposing a -2 penalty to all rolls and reducing the affected person’s Looks by 4. For each day that passes, roll 4d6 under Strength again to see if the disease is shrugged off. If not, 1 point of damage is infected per day (not curable by natural resting)

Intangibility: No variant exists (anyone care to suggest?)

Garrotte: The caster, if he wishes, may want to scar the neck of the victim with burn marks, if the victim takes more than 6 points of damage from the spell.

Flight: For an impressive entrance, the Fire Elementalist could cast a ‘bridge of flame’ to appear under him, as if he is walking on fire in thin air! This can impose a Morale Check on mere mortals and adventurers.

Spin: As the darkness variant of the spell, Spin would cause the poor victim to be bore into the ground, and cause it to become molten in the process (+2 points of damage).

Banshee: The Banshee would be dead after one implosion, but on its death throbs it would ignite the air around it, causing an explosion of flame which is spherical in shape, and up to 20m in radius and having Speed 20, doing 4d10 + 4 points of damage to all victims. Only those who have cover to duck behind, or at the edge of the explosion, may use their Evasion to avoid the flame.

So this is it for the Fire Elementalist’s variants! Remember that variant spells should cost half the MP in the primary (so a level 10 Fire Banshee costs 5 Fire MP and 10 Air MP).

Being Staggered

The idea here is simple. Whenever you are hit by a weapon which does 4 points or more damage, even though your armour has blocked it, you may be staggered. You are staggered if the damage of the weapon is 4 or above.

Effects of Staggering

The effects of Staggering is simply that your Defence score drops by half till your next turn in combat. This should stop knights from going around in full plate as if they are something of untouchable armoured killing machine.

Cuts and Bruises

For a more lethal feel to combat, GM may want to consider that even in case of a failed bypass roll, if the weapon is large or sharp enough to be dangerous (more than 4 points of damage), he may wish the target to take 1 HP damage anyway.

Attributes and Ranged Attacks

In a previous article on adding a new Stat called Ranged Attack, there is a section missing on how would attribute influence the stats.

• Strength: Use the same rules for Armour Bypass rolls. Increased Strength has no adds to Ranged Attacks
• Reflexes: 13+ will give you +1 Ranged Attack, while 16+ will give you +2 and 19+ will give you +3. Likewise, score of 6 to 8 gives you a -1 and 3 to 5 gives you a -2
• Intelligence: For score of 16+, you get +1 to Ranged Attack. For score of 5 and less, you get -1 to Ranged Attack
• Psychic Talent: No effect

Barbarian Archery Style [The Wild Hunt]

At rank 8 when Barbarian would get Bloodrage, he can choose to forsake that for Wild Hunt. In this unique style, the Barbarian fires arrow at several targets within range, splitting his combined score of Perception and Ranged Attack  for each target.  He achieves that by holding a number of arrows in left hand along with the bow and rapidly firing them at target base on instinct alone (this is similar to the archery style used by the ancient Huns of our world). The drawback is the Barbarian may not go into Berserk before or after the Wild Hunt and his Evasion and Defence is reduced to zero till his next round.

1. Wild Hunt cannot be used if the Barbarian has used Berserk.
2. The Barbarian adds his Perception to his Ranged Attack
3. The Barbarian may fire at any number of targets by splitting his modified Ranged Attack score (up to 5 targets maximum)
4. The Barbarian is at 0 Defence and 0 Evasion till his next turn in combat
5. The Barbarian may not enter Berserk or Bloodrage for the rest of the combat.

Barbarian Horseback Archery

At rank 8, the Barbarian ignores penalties for moving quickly while firing (normally, a target that is moving quickly has a +4 vs. ranged attacks – in the same sense, if the archer is moving quickly, he would also suffer the penalty).

The idea here is to introduce another statistic to govern the use of ranged attacks, such as bows, crossbows and throwing daggers, as the discipline that goes behind them is different from hand to hand combat.

Ranged Attack

In addition to the stats Attack, Defense and Evasion, Ranged Attack determines your chance to hit with a ranged weapon. When using a bow in combat, you use Ranged Attack instead of Attack and otherwise using all the other rules as stated in Dragon Warriors.

Here is the progression of Ranged Attack for each character:

Knights: Starting score of 11, +1 Ranged Attack every 2 levels
Barbarian: Starting score of 12, +1 Ranged Attack every 3 levels
Sorcerer: Starting score of 9, +1  Ranged Attack every 4 levels
Mystics: Starting score of 12, +1.5 Ranged Attack every 2 levels (always round down)
Elementalist: Starting score of 7, +1 Ranged Attack every 3 levels
Warlock: Starting score of 9, +1 Ranged Attack every 4 levels
Assassin: Starting score of 11, +1 Ranged Attack every 1 level

Close Combat Ranged Attack

If anyone attempt to fire into a close combat, he incur a -2 penalty. Also, if the first attack miss, the ally involved in the combat must roll his Evasion to prevent being hit too. Rolling Evasion to counter ranged attacks is only possible if the target is aware that he is being fired at. Usually a verbal warning from a party member counts.

Under the new system, Elementalists will get to roll d6, d10, d12 and d20 for their blast powers. The basics work like this:

• The basic damage dice the Elementalist roll is 1d4. To increase the base dice, you spend additional MP as below
  • Increase to D6: +2 MP
  • Increase to D8: +4 MP
  • Increase to D10: +6 MP
  • Increase to D12: +8 MP
  • Increase to D20: +16MP (see the trend here?)
• You also do a base damage equal to the amount of MP spent. Hence if you spend 1 MP for a blast, it is actually a 1d4+1 point of damage
• You cannot spend more MP than your rank.
• Range is 5m * MP spent
• Speed is 10 + (MP spent)

Hence, using this revised formula, let see how the various blasts look like:

1 MP Blast = Damage: 1d4+1 (2 – 5) , Speed: 11, Range: 5m

3 MP Blast = Damage: 1d6+3 (4 – 9), Speed: 13, Range: 15m

5 MP Blast = Damage: 1d8+5 (6 – 13), Speed: 15, Range: 25m

7 MP Blast = Damage: 1d10+7 (8 – 17), Speed: 17, Range: 35m

9 MP Blast = Damage: 1d12+9 (10 – 21), Speed: 19, Range: 45m

12 MP Blast (12th rank elementalist) = Damage: 1d12+12 (13 – 24), Speed: 22, Range: 60m

17 MP Blast (17th rank elementalist!?) = Damage: 1d20+17 (18 – 37), Speed: 27, Range: 85m

As you can see, whereas in the original rules a 3rd rank elementalist can throw a 6d6 blast, in the revised rules, he at most can spend 4MP for 1d6+4 points of blast, which is weaker than the Sorcerer’s spells but just as effective. A 12-MP blast from a 12th rank Elementalist is pretty much death unless the target is warded against magic.

Comparing with Sorcerers

As a comparision, the 9th level spell Firestorm inflicts 4d10 + 4 damage, which is a range of 8 to 44 points of damage. A 9-MP blast from the Elementalist does 1d12+9, which is just 13 to 24 points of damage, which is half the damage potential but has a higher base damage.  Firestorm has a speed of 18; the 9-MP blast has 19 speed, a slight advantage. However, Firestorm is an area-of-effect spell.

We can also consider the level 4 Shadowbolt spell (Speed 14, 2d6+10 damage) against a 4-MP blast, which has too has a Speed of 14 and does 1d6+4 points of damage. Shadowbolt has a potential of 12 to 22 points of damage while  the 4-MP blast has a potential of 5 to 10 points of damage. Clearly at lower levels the revised elemental blast cannot hold a candle to the Sorcerer’s spells, but this is the point in the first place, if Sorcerers are supposed to be the artillery (or ‘nuker’) mage.

Deathlight, a level 7 spell, does 3d6+10 damage (13 to 28 points of damage) while a 7-MP blast is 1d10 + 7, which yields 8 to 17 points of damage with an advantage in 1 point in speed. Clearly the Sorcerer is still the best damage dealer here.

What if we just double the power cost?

One other solution is that for the base damage for a 1-MP blast is 1d6. For every 2 MP, you increase that by a further 1d6. Hence a 3rd rank elementalist, who can spend 3 MP for a blast, does 3d6 points of damage. That is comparable to Sorcerers, but this time round it is the Sorcerer who has a much stable damage output while the Elementalist has a chance for a higher damage output but if poor roll prevails, he just going to do 3 points of damage. This puts Elementalist’s maximum potential damage output on par with the Sorcerer’s, with an element of risk thrown in, which gives it a different style.

1. Roll D20 and attempt to roll under your Attack
2. If you do so, check if it is above the target’s Defence. If it is, you have hit.

If your Attack score is over 20, find how many points it is above 20 (let’s call it the Attack Overflow)

1. Attack Overflow = Attack – 20
2. Reduce your opponent’s Defence by the Attack Overflow
3. Roll D20 and attempt to score above the opponent’s modified Defence
4. If you manage to do so, you have hit your opponent.