Not everyone is blessed with the insanity and credit score to go through Wizard College, which is admittedly probably for the best. However there are those who are willing to ACT like they were insane enough to make a few bucks and perhaps cash in on the general applause uh… respect er…fear? whatever that Wizards provoke in the general populace.
Anyways, these folk replace madness with cunning, magical spell-ferrets with colorful scarves, and fireballs with a pathological disregard for anyone but themselves.
Note: I am working this as a GLOG class nominally because that is what I know best. I will try to include some LotFP stuff in too in order to help with conversion for my Secret Santa recipient.
HP: As Wizard
Magicians gain +1 Cha every other Template.
Legerdemain Dice: Like how Wizards possess Magic Dice representing their store of magic power, Magicians have Legerdemain Dice representing their capacity for bullshit. It represents how many scarves you have up your sleeve, how many cards in your pocket, rabbits in your hat, flash powder in your gloves. When “casting a spell”, called a Trick, the Magician rolls the number of LD they wish to invest. LD are always depleted regardless of the roll. All the Magicians LD return over night as a result of careful maintenance of gear. Instead of invoking Mishaps or Dooms, each individual Magician Trick has a unique mishaps associated with failing the LD roll.
Tricks: Unlike a Wizard, Magicians need to have a certain amount of audience belief to pull off their spells. A wizard casting levitation literally breaks physics, a Magician “casting” levitation requires invisible wires and a pulley. To pull off some Magician tricks believably, you must pass a certain threshold via Legerdemain Dice. An unbelievable Trick does not function, is wasted, and may have additional consequences. The threshold for some of the more basic tricks are low, but others are quite high. Magicians cannot invest more LD in their Tricks than they have templates. Magicians can also invest additional time to make Tricks more believable by essentially “setting the stage” and checking their devices. For every 10 minutes invested in prep, a Magician can bring down the required Believability score by 1, up to their [template]. The player may figure other ways to bring down the threshold (perhaps the audience is drunk or there is a good mist etc.) that is up to GM approval. Only one Trick can be prepped in this way at a time.
A Magician knows all of the Tricks from the start, but might not have enough resources to pull them off until later levels. Of further note, while a Wizard is incapable of magic without their spellbook, a Magician is incapable of most Tricks without some article of clothing to conveniently hide their props in.
Flim: Magicians survive primarily off of deception and sleight of hand. As long as they possess 1 LD, they are able to reproduce classic prestidigitation tricks such as producing a rabbit from a hat, various card tricks, vanishing coin sized objects, producing a bouquet of flowers from thin air, and creating small bursts of harmless fire. If time and money are invested, the Magician can pull off various “Stage Show” level tricks such as sawing a person in half or levitation. These effects cannot be damaging on their own or be of specific utility, however they could be distracting, provide potential situational bonuses, or put on a good show. More LD in the Magician’s pool, the more overall impressive the tricks appear.
Flam: In a world where real magic is a thing, sometimes a Magician must cheat. If a Magician possesses a real magic wand, they can charge them with LD just as a wizard can with MD, but at double the cost. They still take 1d6 damage as normal from the process and lose the LD for the day. See “Condensed Spellcasting Rules” for additional details.
Hocus Pocus: Sometimes tricks don’t go over well with the populace and you find yourself tied to a pole waiting to be burned or locked in a cell to rot. Any good Magician is also a passable escapist. When unimpeded, a Magician can fit squeeze through any space large enough to fit their head. If handcuffed or tied up, the Magician can spend LD on a point for point basis (1 LD=1 bonus) for bonuses on appropriate Dex or Escape Artist checks. This may represent some grease, a small chiv, or a hairpin for getting out of the bind.
Alakazam: Magicians are masters of Quick Change and Disguise. By directly spending LD, a Magician can change out their wardrobe and any sort of make up faster than the eye can see, provided they have some sort of distraction. While you cannot actually transform, you can via prosthetics and appropriate clothing, appear as the opposite sex, someone within [sum] years of your age (within reason), or someone of higher or lower social standing. If using a system with a “Disguise” skill, consider using this ability similar to the Hocus Pocus ability and Dex checks.
Abrakadabra: Like a certain blue wizard famed for his adventures with a unicorn, Magicians have a small spark of true magic inside of them. As a last ditch effort, they may sacrifice all remaining LD and cast at random a spell from the d100 list of Orthodox spells or some other appropriate random list. This is cast at MD 4 or lower depending upon the remaining LD. This is extremely tiring and accumulates an amount of Fatigue equal to double the LD used. LD used in this way can invoke appropriate Mishaps and Dooms.
“My Lovely Assistant”: Whenever in a town of reasonable size, the Magician can hire up to two 1HD “Lovely Assistants”. These assistants have 1 HD, Morale 7, and stats as a Template A Magician. If the Magician is out of LD for the day, they can still “cast” any trick they know as long as their Assistants are with them and have remaining LD. Assistants can spend their LD to help “set the stage” for the Magician and increasing the Trick’s believably. Assistants tend to not be willing to go into truly dangerous situations and may demand extra pay or refuse to follow.
Magician Tricks
The Added “B:” is believably, the amount that needs to be rolled for the spell to function.
1. Card Sharp
Failing this trick causes the Magician to cut themselves, taking 1d6 damage.
Failing this trick causes the “rope” to collapse and require [sum] rounds of readjusting before it could be used again.
Failing this trick causes you to either choke and be stunned for [dice] rounds or face some other consequence in line with what you were swallowing.
Failing this trick causes the Magician to instead blind themselves for one round and fall prone.
Failing this trick causes the Magicians to instead broadcast their actions so exaggeratedly that the target instead gets [dice] bonus to Attack and Defense against the Magician for the duration.
Failing this trick causes the pumps to malfunction, making the Magician slick with fake blood and gore, halving their movement for the duration or until they can have a proper bath.
A) The Magician may heal [dice] Sanity Damage (if this is a thing) or allow a reroll on a madness/insanity Save.
B) The Magician may implant a suggestion that is triggered under specific conditions, this suggestion must be something that under ordinary circumstances, the target would be willing to do.
C) The Magician may boost the target’s confidence and allow them to reroll one Fear save with a [dice] bonus before the end of the duration.
Failing this trick causes the Magician to hypnotize themselves into a chicken for [sum] rounds.
Notes
Furthermore, unlike Wizards, Magicians do not have “Emblem Spells.” Reason being, they are ultimately performers. As I previously mentioned, any sort of Trick that would reach such heights would either be a maximum application of an already created Trick or be a stage trick significant monetary and time investment, not suitable to a dungeon.
Folks who have followed GLOG for a long time might recognize the idea of having a load of Magic Dice that always is lost, something I’ve pulled and adapted from Arnold’s cleric idea. I hope this gives a fun way to differentiate from a straight up Wizard, but I guess time will tell!
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| A Charles Krafft original |
Porcelain weapons are normally indestructible by any means beyond some kind of significant quest and are undetectable to spells such as Detect Magic or Detect Metal. Their craftsmanship is so fine and balanced that all Porcelain Weapons baseline grant +4 to hit.
1. Porcelain Sword- More of an épée than a standard “sword,” the Porcelain Sword’s hilt and guard is a masterwork of white porcelain depicting an elven maid, her mouth open in serene song. The “blade” extends from the maid’s open mouth. Said “blade” is in fact an invisible hardened porcelain 1D monofilament. While incapable of slashing, after all it has no depth, it can pierce anything and cannot be seen to be defended against. The total bonus to hit granted by a Porcelain Sword is +8 and it ignores all armor. It, however, deals only 1 damage per strike.
2.Porcelain Ax- From the side, the Porcelain Axe appears as a white porcelain crescent shaped blade depicting a romanticized image of the moon with a short haft of living wood. Looking at the blade edge on, however, makes the blade seemingly vanish but for a very slender blue glow. The “blade” is in fact a hardened porcelain 2d plane while the blue glow is a small amount of unstable atoms held in stasis. If used as a normal ax, the Porcelain Ax merely acts an an exceptionally fine hand ax. If thrown, however, the stasis field fails, causing the ax to split the atoms and set off an explosion at the target location. Treat as a 5 MD Fireball or some similar effect per system, and irradiates the area of the effect for generations.
3.Porcelain Dagger- Without an electron microscope, a Porcelain dagger appears as a white decorative baselard dagger with intricate blue design work around the blade, depicting a beautiful rose. The blade, however, actually has an astonishingly sharp fractal edge. When an attack hits with the Porcelain dagger, minuscule slivers of the edge break off into the target and wreak havoc on their circulatory system. The target must make a Con save for 1d6 rounds or take Dagger damage each time. If a 6 is rolled and the target fails all 6 saves, the slivers find their way to the heart and kill target.
4.Porcelain Hammer- About the size of a standard hand held mallet, the Porcelain Hammer has a shaft of living wood and a white porcelain head depicting a stylize thunderhead in blue. If given a tap, the inside of the hammer is revealed to be hollow, although this does not reduce its invulnerability. A living target struck by the Porcelain Hammer must make a Con check or be stunned for a round by intense reverberations running through its body. Inanimate objects take double damage, crystalline objects take triple. The Porcelain Hammer deals damage as a Medium Weapon (1d6 or 1d8).
5.Porcelain Arrow- Only found as single arrows, a Porcelain arrow more looks like a hollow white shaft with an infinitesimally fine tip and brilliantly designed holes through its body. Every Porcelain arrow, when fired, sounds like an individual orchestrational piece of supra-genus quality. A Porcelain arrow pierces all barriers (physical, magical or otherwise) and deals 4d6 damage. Porcelain arrows are all individually unique and are destroyed on use. Any bow that fires a Porcelain Arrow is destroyed.
6.Porcelain Revolver– See Arnold’s Post about Elven Revolvers, it is so good.
