This is a ramble about committing to my role play choices. Inspired by some recent gaming weekends and watching Stream of Annihilation. Engage Shameless Plug:…
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Jeremiah Robert McCoy Posts
I recently offered to run the alternate, off-week, D&D game for the group I play with on Tuesdays. I would be the fill in guy for weeks when the normal DM did not want to run. My offer was generally greeted with some enthusiasm. The normal DM and another player expressed a desire for Eberron. Now, I love me some Eberron. I could wax rhapsodic about it for days. It is a setting with a wider range of setting conventions than are found in Forgotten Realm. And then there is Sharn: City of Towers.
That said there are some issues with running it in 5th edition, at the moment. Some things just haven’t been written yet. They only now released The Mystic (see also Psionics) and the Artificer. They do have some race stats for some of the races, like the Warforged, on the Wizards of the Coast site. Others have not been done. Also Dragonmarks have been accounted for, but I feel like they need some clarification. I will tackle those another time, but the race I was asked for was Kalashtar. There are some fan versions out there, but nothing definitive. I figured I would take a pass at it.
So…magic weapons are a thing in D&D. They have been since the early days of the game. Certainly the most often remembered ones are magic swords. A sword is a good weapon. It is versatile, with chopping, slashing, and stabbing elements throughout its various iterations. It was the go-to weapon for professional soldiers through a lot of history.
However…. There are other contenders. Let me tell you about spears. The spear is also a weapon with a long history. Spears are useful for a number of reasons. First, they are cheap to make. You find a straight piece of wood. Forge about a daggers worth of metal to add to the point, or don’t. You can stab people from long sword distance with a lot less cost. Spears, like swords, can be more involved affairs in the hands of a true craftsman. Materials can be rare and exotic as mithril or adamantine. It is often the weapon of a stalwart footman, or a barbarian on the fringes who can’t afford much more, or even the martial arts master. There are a number of magic spears in real world myths around the world. It is especially prevalent in Irish Legends.
Sadly, there are not many famous magical spears in D&D, though. My friend Brandes did his part to add some to the pool. It is the least I could do to continue that trend. I also borrowed some of his formatting. I hope they are useful additions to your magical arsenal.
You can get your own magic helmet.
This is my long-promised review of the Immortal Rules for D&D. It is a less explored portion of D&D. I will be curious if any…
This is a little update. I am still alive, and I finally got the book I was working on out. The link is below. Still…
I decided to do a primer on the boxed sets rules for Dungeons and Dragons. A number of people started playing with 2nd edition…
So, this is my core system for researching spells. To say this could use some feedback is an understatement. Researching spells is something I want rules for, and sometimes you just have to write them yourself. It also forced me to look at the structure of Wizard spells in 5th Edition more closely. These rules are assuming there are more restrictions on learning new spells than are currently in place in D&D, but they should work fine with the current system, as well. With all that preamble out of the way…
So, first let me welcome you to my new..ish blog address. I moved everything over to jeremiahmccoy.com because I felt like that was a good way to consolidate my online presence. I owned the rights to the domain but had not been using it as much as I should. I also have more control over the site than the one on the free WordPress hosting. I will be doing all my future blog postings here, and I have moved all my past content here, as well. I hope you like the new digs.
That bit of business out of the way, let me show you some of what I have been working on of late. I talked a lot about spell books on my blog and different ways to handle them in your game. I figured if I was going to be talking about spell books, I should also write some spells to go in those books. Here are a few spells inspired by those books from previous posts. These are works in progress, and when I eventually publish my pdf on spell books, I may revise these. I am definitely looking for feedback. I should add the proviso, these are designed with the notion that learning new spells is not quite as easy as is presented in the 5th edition players handbook. These are meant to be rare or uncommon spells and might be a substitute for other rare or uncommon spells found in the world.
I ramble about trying to write for tabletop games, and trying to do it professionally. Here is a hint…I don’t really know what I am…
So, I “beat” Mass Effect Andromeda, which is to say, after 95 hours of play (in a week and half), I faced the climactic battle against the big bad. I still have some unresolved missions, but it lets you resolve them after that. I could have had the fight much sooner, and still gone on and done the other things. It would have made sense. “You saved the cluster, but there is still work to do” is a theme after the action. That kind of sums up the game in general. Exploring and building is the job, saving the galaxy is something you had to do along the way.