Level 1 Sorcerer Reversed Spells

Wyrmbreath

As Dragonbreath, but unleash a blast of icy cold air with Speed 10 but doing 1d6 + 8 damage. If the GM is feeling generous, this can be used for some utility purposes (putting out fire, creating chill water and so on).

Ghost Image

Creates an image that is obviously false, but can be made to move around, though complex movement are impossible (no swinging of arms for a human person). Useful when you need to conjure floating daggers in front of potential usurpers.

Pain Touch

Does 2 points of HP damage to a person touched by the caster, or in other way in contact within 2m (such as through a weapon). This allows the target to make a Magic Defence roll. Armour does not protect against the damage.

Lunar Eclipse

Create a shade of darkness that plunge the surrounding area (5m in radius) into dimness. It is not completely dark (if it was dim before, then it is), but only those with darkvision could see clearly.

Portal

The original Portal spell is originally 2 spell in one (Close Portal and Open Portal)!

Strengthen

Grants the target (within 10m) +1 Attack and +1 damage in combat.

Level 2 Sorcerer Reversed Spells

Hide Aura (expired when dispelled)

Dampen the Sorcerer’s innate magical aura, making him more difficult to be detected as a Sorcerer. The aura can be extend by 2m in a sphere for every 1 extra MP used. It can also be cast on a magical item to prevent its true nature to be known. If a Sorcerer or any other magic-using profession attempt to use a spell to detect auras, treat the Hide Aura spell as a specialised Magic Wall. Magic cast within a Hide Aura, if its level is equal or lower than the MP invested in it, would not be picked up by any magic users.

Mana Lash

As Inflict Wound, but cause the opponent to lose 4 points of Mana instead of 5 points of HP.

Veil Against Unnatural Eyes (Spell Expiry Roll)

Range: 5m
Area of Effect: 2m

Creates an area that is blocked from spells such as Peer and Scry.

Lure Undead

As Hold off the Dead, but this time it lures the undead towards the target, but if they fail their magical defence. This can be tactically useful in some instance, for unless the undead is intelligent, it would just move in easiest method to the caster. Even if there is a pit in front of it.

Wither

This clears a patch of vegetation equal 2m in radius within a range of 15m of the Sorcerer. Trees, weeds, undergrowth and bushes would just wither away, as if water is being siphoned out of them directly and crumble into dust. This spell has no effect on human and other living creatures. Good for removing thick cover quickly.

Warrior’s Luck

Instead of adding -2 to an attacking creature’s hit roll, the Sorcerer gains a +2 on all hit-rolls.  The Sorcerer may cast this spell and attack immediately.

Usually, I begin with, “Would you want to play a game where you are a god-being? You represent a concept, say guns, and you can like do anything with guns.” The usual reply is “Heck, if I am so powerful, then where’s the challenge?”

There’s a couple of mistakes here; one reason may be due to I have been reading the GWB rather carelessly. First, the players are not god-beings. In fact, when pitching the games to others, I will suggest not trying to explain what’s a noble is. Remember, back when I mention HCI, people always try to frame new things with their own experiences. So to sell Nobilis, go for what they may already be familiar with.

“You play as an avatar which represents a component of creation”. Now this sounds easier to swallow.

(Though I have to say that people who read Sandman and other related novels, especially the series suggested in the GWB, will have less problems)

However, thinking through things, I think it is better to sell the world.

“Oh, Nobilis is a game in which everything and anything has a spirit and are semi-intelligence. You play as an avatar of a concept, or anything, in creation and you have to make sure it survives. You are being empowered by one of the many gods in creaton so in a sense you are superhuman. There are also others like you too around.”

I’m not sure if this sells better, but I am going to try this if I need a second group to play Nobilis.

The frigid wind from the north whispers of rumours, gossips and half-truth stories, and the ships it usually carried are the chancels of Imperators dealing with misinformation, lies, conspiracies, satirical art and politics. From the south comes a scorching wind, and it screams of primal rage, uncontrolled anger, bitter criticisms and damning accusations. Ships bore forth by the South Wind are usually chancels of quarrels, untempered violence, disharmony, primal urges and never-ending feuds.

The wind from the east is much more soothing. It talks of the wild unknown, the untasted fruits and urge the desire to go for those things. Its wind bore forth ships which are the chancel of Imperators whose domain could be summed up as exploration, curiosity, tabloids and being unrestrained.

And finally there is a wind from west. It is a wind of contridaction, urging reality to be unmade and then redefined (again and again), of changes and of being freed, even if freed from creation. Upon this wind sail a chancel, where its estates are that of escapism, games, abstraction, physics, war and the freedom to choose.

Freedom to choose is a contraction, for one must be free to choose, but once chosen, you are not free. Physics is a foundation of reality – it sails upon this ship so precisely it could be unmade and redefined – and each time it does so, mortal folk think they understand Physics more. Poor souls – it just have been remade by the whims of the Wild Lord. Escapism and abstraction urge the mundane to be freed from Creation, to go beyond the Weridling Wall, where the Wild Lords once came from and now are trapped. War is a choice due to conflict and it was said it is the result of the other three winds mixing together. Men go to wars for al sort of absurd reasons, but the thing is they chose to war.

Other chancels that sail upon this wind include Imperators who govern dreams (dreams are unreal, yet they are the mirror of a human’s soul), madness (for they have escaped from the mundane way of thinking), philosophy (one may say anything about reality yet none can disprove him), paradox, jail-breaks and chaos.

I have the Big White Book for years, but never had a chance to form a group to play it. I am excited, but at the same time, afraid. The rules are lite enough but the fluff is thick. There’s so many concepts to impart to a new player without the rules, and the game is not a ‘you stroll into the inn and the bartender tells you about a horde of Orc plaguing the area”.

Here are just some of the problems I am planning to tackle:

The Fluff: Sure, the writing in Nobilis is cool and all that, but sometimes I think you need a minor in philosophy to grasp all of it. Not just that, there are plenty of things to consider – the Laws of the Nobilis, the factions (Wild, Light, Angels, Infernals), Lord Entropy, what is a chancel, the great war, Ash, Proasic Earth, Realm…arggh! For a run of the mill fantasy game, sometimes you don’t even need to now who is the king of the realm. For Nobilis, the things you need to know (especially the Windflower Law) boggle.

Eh…campaign?: As the GM, I have to come up with a roster of interesting NPCs for the PCs to cross swords with. I need to come up with an interesting plot. Raiding dungeons to kill an orge overlord? Meh, that won’t cut it. I could go for a simple approach, like you know, global warming! But that’s kind of too obivious. Then there would be players who wants action. I guess I just send them off to Mythic Earth first.

And you guys meet in…eh…a tavern! Getting the players to gel together is also probelmatic. Sure, there’s a chancel, but I rather create one for them first considering they are new to the game. What keeping the group together? They don’t need treasure; they don’t need knowledge. They probably have a couple of enemies, but this means lots of backstory.

This is it. I guess I will just toss them into Mythic Earth, let them wield their powers a little bit, see how it affects Proasic Earth and then have the group adopted by an Imperator who guides them before they all get out of hands. Now I need a meta-plot. How does those new nobles come about? What’s the immediate threat? (I don’t want to sic the Destroyers on them so fast).

Any ideas for my first game of Nobilis? Please advise!

To describe Dragon Warriors with a few words: gritty, lethal, immersive, evocative, written with soul and spirit and simple.

The Good: Simple to understand roll under system, distinctive classes, rooted in historical basis, writing is evocative, settings feel authentic and fantastic at the same time, elegant method of dealing with armour, detailed world with beautiful maps, an atmospheric introductory adventure

The Bad: Is 5 books put together as 1, rules are only explained in the middle of the book, a couple of classes imbalance, introductory adventure is heavily scripted, spot rules are inconsistent

The Quirks: Art goes from “meh” to “wow”, uses comics to explain the rules, arguably a “complete book”, some of its thinking may be considered “antiquated”, sometimes you roll a D20, sometimes it’s a 2D10

Introduction

For those who need an introduction, Dragon Warriors was a fantasy role-playing game that came out during 1985 and was sold in a set of “gamebooks” style paper-backs. I was fortunate to get my hand on the first two books as second-hand copy, and there’s something about it that got me hooked. Now, all the books that make up the rules of the game (save for two campaign books) have been complied into one tome which is Dragon Warriors, the Mongoose edition.

What sets Dragon Warriors apart from other fantasy games at that time are the rules (it’s simple and straightforward), the theme and an eerie familiarity with our world. Goblins are more fairy-tales than Tolkien, Elves more faerie than uber-races that some RPGs portray them as.

Even the classes’ names tell something or two – the main fighting classes are knights and barbarians, two polar opposites. And the default setting takes place in a feudal land, and the core book goes on a great deal about setting the stage – what is it like to be in a feudal kingdom, the disregard people would have for adventurers who don’t fit into society and why people still becomes adventurers.

System

Dragon Warriors have five stats – Strength, Reflexes, Intelligence, Psychic Talent and Looks, and are determined with a roll of 3d6. Your derived stats are Attack, Defence, Magical Attack, Magical Defence, Evasion, Perception and Stealth. High score in the core five characteristics give bonuses to the derived stats (sounds familiar?)

Combat is a straight forward D20 roll under your Attack minus your opponent’s Defence. One of the shinning points about Dragon Warrior’s combat system is that of armour. Each armour has an armour factor (AF) and each weapon an armour bypass roll. For example, plate mail has an armour factor of 5, while a two-handed sword has an armour bypass roll of d10. So if you strike with a two-handed sword, and you score a roll of 6 and above on the d10, your strike goes through the armour. All weapons does a fixed amount of damage.

Combat is lethal if the dice hates you. A two-handed sword does 5 points of damage, while an average rank 12 Knight has only 22 Health Points. 5 blows is enough to finish off a mighty opponent.

There are 4 variants of magic using classes but all are base on the same principle (see below). The Sorcerer has access to powerful spells but is limited in combat, and uses Spell Points to power his spells. The Mystic can cast spells till he failed to make a fatigue check. An Elementalist can pick up to three elements to learn and have a different MP pool for each of them. The Warlock is a fighter/mage who can cast two different ‘buff’ spells per combat round. Each of them is themed differently (Sorcerer – artillery, Mystics – self sustaining, Elementalist – druids and roleplaying magic, Warlock – sword wielding fireball throwing warriors)

Magic is grouped under two categories – direct and indirect. Direct spells affect your very essence and include spells such as Weakness, Petrify and Enthrall and are defended with Magical Defence. The same rules are used as per combat – roll 2d10 (not d20) under your Magical Attack subtract your opponent’s Magical Defence. If you manage to do so, your spell affects your opponent.

Direct attack spells, on the other hand, include fire balls, lightning bolts and the like. They pit the spell’s Speed score against the target’s Evasion, and use pretty much the same roll as attacks and direct spells. Simple and easy to remember, except for the wrinkle about when to use a D20 and when to use a 2D10.

Rules for ‘special cases’ are pretty much the same. The GM decides the difficulty rating for an obstacle. If the characteristic in question is higher than the difficulty rating, then no roll is needed. If it is the other way round, the character must succeed in rolling D20 under his characteristic to overcome the obstacle.

The rules of Dragon Warriors, however, do run into some pitfalls. Spot rules are problematic in a sense that each is a mini-system by itself, and are inconsistent. For example, the Mystic has an ESP and Premonition skill and their success rate are represented as a percentile roll. The Warlock also has a psionic skill,but it requires a D20 roll under Psychic Talent

Assassins, or the thief of the game, has different spot rules for almost everything, from memorising documents to picking locks. Then there are rules for fright attacks (which uses a d12) and a cumbersome but “hey, it kind of make sense” system for gaze attacks. Basically, you have 40% of making eye contacts with creature like a Medusa (if you do make eye contact, you are subjected to a Magical Attack). For each 10% chance you drop from making eye contact, you take a penalty to your fighting skills.

All those varied system can be confusing at first, and to make it worse, Dragon Warriors is written in an old school style (well, it was written in 1985!) and the new all-in-one edition is just re-arrangement of the material. Stats, characteristics and classes’ abilities are all described before the rules, unlike core books nowadays, which describe how the rules work (what is an ability, what is an ability modifier, how do you make a roll etc.) before going into the details.

The re-arrangement may also befuddle beginners. For example, in the first book of the 1985 series, the fighters class were introduced. Later down the series, new abilities and skills were given to those classes. In the new edition, those ‘expansion’ were placed in the early chapters, leaving one wondering what on earth is an Armour Bypass roll even before that term itself is mentioned.

One glaring omission is that there are no rules for social interactions. As far as I can tell, after the first chapter, the Looks characteristic is never mentioned again, except for a list of curses later on.

Classes may also be imbalanced. The Knight at higher rank is nearly invincible in melee, and a Sorcerer at 12th rank can clean the clock of a whole legion of Knights with his spells if he is well prepared.

Biggest Good: Core system is a simple roll under

Biggest Bad: Rules are rather disorganised.

Biggest Quirk: The spot rules for each and every different thing

Mood and Setting

Dragon Warriors is set in a quasi-historical version of medieval Earth. The world is called Legend, and it has our versions of Britain, King Author, the Roman Empire and the like. This is a good thing, for it give a sense of grounding to the campaign. At the same time, it is not a direct analog. Lots of fantastical elements were added, such as the mage-legions of the New Selentine Empire, the various wight-kings of Ellseland and even the infamous blasting of the Spyte. Myths in our world are probably truth in the world of Dragon Warriors.

This helps a GM, in my opinion, to get ideas for adventures and to plan encounters. No one knows what is the relationship between a blacksmith and the government in Minas Tirth, but Dragon Warriors set this out explicitly: the blacksmith is likely to be the vassal of a liege-lord. His obligation is to him first so do not expect just to swagger into a castle and buy a suit of full plate mail just because you have the coin.

The backgrounds section describe a feudal way of life in an accessible manner, and in a writing style that is casual and informative. One of my beefs with the new A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying is that certain background materials are lazily given away in bullet points form. Not in Dragon Warriors. Well-written paragraphs describe the people’s way of life, while subscripts lead you to footnotes where interesting details are explained. You have the feeling that you are reading a treatise written by a real life scholar (who is having fun while at it), instead of a game-book.

Though the history aspect of the setting lend weight and gravity, it also lead to what some may consider as “antiquated” advice, such as that the assassin is not suitable for a PC class (it makes sense, but I doubt my players would be happy with that) and of course, the importance of marching order and having a light source! Dragon Warriors has no qualms describing adventurers as being primarily motivated by looting old tombs and fighting off monsters for a sum of silver.

Lending more authenticity to the ‘historical feel’ of the game is that of languages. The authors have even include a family tree of languages! In those chapters you catch a glimpse of far-off exotic places, such as Zinj and Khitai, which are probably Legend’s analogue of India and China. That languages are an important part of the game make it feels decidedly old-school. There are also spot rules for learning languages, whether it is to hire a tutor or to live among the community for a while.

One of Dragon Warriors’ best point is the setting. It writes of the world from the eyes of a wonder-filled traveler. Without using the real world per se, it opens up possibilities. By basing introducing elements that reminds me of a historical Earth, it helps me to set expectations and fill in the gaps where the authors do not mention. It’s not as restrictive as Mythic Europe in this sense.

Biggest Good in Settings: Evocative and hauntingly familiar but different

Biggest Bad in Settings: Some may dislike it because it is just not fantastical enough and impose some restrictions (a female PC, for example, has been pointed out as a liability)

Biggest Quirks: There is no rhyme or reason as to the order of how each region is presented, and the amount of details differ. Ellseland, a feudal England-like island, is given lots of attention, while some places are just “no one ever dwells at this god-forsaken place. Period. Next stop!”

Other Stuff

There is a minimal bestiary at the end of the book, with stat-blocks but with most of the fluff removed. Sorcerers can craft magical items, Mystics can forge magical weapons while Warlocks can create some incredible armour and swords. There are rules for poisons, diseases and insanities, but nothing mind-blowing, yet are usable in their simplicity ( a strong poison is a 3d6 roll under your Strength to resist, for example).

It is not those stuff are ‘meh’ or badly written. They are just pieces of a bigger part (to me); a bad setting can’t be saved by charts after charts of poison. A clumsy rule-sets cannot be amended by having lots of crunch.

There is an atmospheric introductory adventure, which besides introducing the rules, also teaches about the cultural influences of the setting, such as feudalism. At the beginning, the party comes across an old man who was unfairly placed in stocks. But he refused to be freed, for he was placed there under proper authority (even though it was an unfair punishment) and he should remain there lest he gets into even bigger trouble.

Unfortunately, the adventure has one loop-hole. It requires the PCs to get hold on a certain MacGuffin or else they barely have a slim chances of getting the best outcome. There are also too little clues, too little the players can do besides visiting the all-important NPC, to ensure a good outcome.

Look and Feel

I am of mixed feeling here. Some of the black and white art are painted in different hues of grey, and are a wonder to behold. Then there are some drawn in just black ink and looks like outcast from a clip art library. Finally, there are a series of comics used to present the rules in the game. Honestly, it is cool idea but was better implemented in the 1985 books. The new comics look jagged and unpleasing to the eyes, but perhaps I am not used to this style

And the maps are pretty. Enough said

Final Scores

Simple rules, evocative writing styles, detailed world, complete game = 5/5 (substance)

Disogranised rules, mixed quality of art, chapters are organised in a rather hazardous manner = 3/5(style)