Checks vs. Experience and a few toys.

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From: michael p mittmann (mittmann@pawl.rpi.edu)
Date: Thu 22 Feb 1990 - 09:56:33 EET

        There has been a debate going back and forth in your 'zine about experience points, and check grubbing PCs. I personally prefer the check system, but I did want some way to reward (or punish) exceptionally good or poor playing (both intelligent actions and good roleplaying). So I came up with the system of giving "character checks". These are checks which are awarded by the GM at his(her) whim, then when the character would normally roll his(her) checks each one of these gives her(him) a 2% better chance of making each check. I allow my PCs to save these up, so that over the course of many adventures they may accumulate 10 or 15, to give them a better chance at their more difficult skills. Naturally the GM may remove (or give negative) checks, as is often done when a character switches weapons in the middle of a battle.

There were a few requests for other people's magic items, I play RQ2, so these might not mesh exactly, but if you like them I'm sure you can convert them. I would also recommend the book Plunder (Chaosium) as an excellent list of Quest-worthy magic items.

  1. Caocodemon sacrifice dagger: This is an item created by Caocodemon, and was given to one of his first priests to encourage him to sacrifice people. The dagger is a simple curved dagger, made out of a bluish stone. It does d4+2, and slashes
    (not impales) on special rolls. The dagger is unbreakable by anyone less
    than a dwarf with truestone or adamantium tools. This item is coveted
    (by all chaotic and wrong thinking people) because for every person killed
    with this dagger it does an additional d4, and an additional 10% to hit. If the killed person is not an initiate (or better) of another cult his soul goes to Cacodemon, who after torturing the spirit for a while, finally destroys his intelligence, and eats his pow, consequently the person can't be resurrected. After 20 people are killed (and the dagger does 21d4+2, +200%) the magic is so powerful that cacodemon can't enchant the dagger any more, in which case each additional 10 points of pow sacrificed gives the user a point of rune magic.

Additional effects are:

        After sacrificing 5 people the dagger turns dull red, and is treated as iron when considering damage done to other weapons.

        After 10 people the dagger continually drips blood, and will not leave the wielder's hand (ignore all weapon dropped or shattered fumbles). Additionally the pow of all further sacrificed people is added to the pow of the dagger for the purpose of resisting spells cast on the dagger or the wielder.

        After 15 people ignore all fumbles except for the "injure allies" fumbles.

        After 20 the user starts gaining rune magic as described above.

Note that this magic wears away. In my campaign only the people killed within the last 7 days count, you may want to change this to the last season, or since the wielder last slept, whichever you feel is appropriate.

2) Yarnus's spear.
Yarnus was a hero of Yelmalio, who discovered a path for making this magic spear. Since then many have followed this path and made other spears like it. I estimate that there are about 40 of these spears in existence. The spear is a large runic gold bound spear, doing normal damage as a spear, or 2d10 as a javelin. The major power of this spear is that it can be stored in the sun, when it's owner decides that (s)he doesn't want to carry the spear (s)he throws it towards the sun, and the spear, incredibly enough, continues in a straight line until it reaches the sun. When the user wants the spear back he reaches out, grabs a sunbeam, which turns to the spear in his hand. 

	Nice side effects:


(1)	since time does not pass for the spear while it is being stored,
the magic on it may be used for several battles. For instance, assume that the wielder gets into a battle, and casts bladesharp 4 extension 1 on the spear. 10 minutes later the battle is over, and the wielder stores the spear in the sun. Two days later he calls the spear back, and it still has the remaining 50 minutes of bladesharp on it.
(2) Since the spear goes to Yelm, sacrifices and gifts to Yelm may be
attached to it, and they will get to him. It is up to the G.M. to determine if this does the P.C. any good.

        Irritating side effect:
If the day is cloudy, or it is night you can't get your spear back.

Tin fan.

        This is a .5 meter folding tin fan, which is also created by heroquesting. During young Orlanth's wanderings he ran into ???????, and contested with him, Orlanth was winning handily, when ??????? drew out a fan, fanned it towards Orlanth, and told him to blow away, Orlanth
(fumbling a will roll) found to his chagrin that he was unable to resist
the call to blow across the landscape, and fled from the battle.

The item is used by reciting "blow away, lose control, flee from me now" while waving the fan at a sylph. If a pow vs. pow is successful the elemental is dismissed.

        If this roll is failed the sylph will lose control and attack the wielder of the fan (enraged by being reminded of this ignominious defeat). If it is not obvious I haven't found a good god to replace ???????, so if anyone has any sugestions I'd like to hear them.

mike )( Y

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