Boss Warlord Abilities

This list of abilities is primarily oriented to fantasy but with a little tweaking can be used in other genres. Mostly you are going to be using them with a boss monster with a bunch of mooks, a bugbear and a bunch of goblins or orcs is a perfect example. Dragons, ogres and giants all also make good warlord types. A boss using these abilities will usually stand out but this doesn't have to be the case, Care must be used in assigning these as your goal should always be a challenging encounter and not a TPK. Where these abilities originate are at the Keepers discretion: Intellect, supernatural leadership, charisma, commanding presence or my favorite go to, "It's Magic!"

SWIFT STRIKE

This boss grants additional attacks to his mooks. He gives up his action and commands another of his group to attack. This can be anywhere from one additional attack to all of the group gets an attack on the boss's action and their own

INSPIRING VOICE

After a failed morale check, this warlord tries to steel his legion, granting an additional morale check to avoid breaking and running. If the second check is made, perhaps a bonus or penalty is in order: Uriki might get a small bonus to hit for a couple of rounds, Ogres might get a small bonus to damage, while goblins might be left shaken and have penalties.

"THEY ARE ALL PUPPETS"

A warlord with this ability is normally a frontline fighter and uses his compatriots as meatshields. Any attack that would ordinarily hit him, instead the damage is passed on to the mook. This may or may not include spells and the mook might take more or less damage than would normally be assigned

"DO BETTER OR ELSE!"

When one of his mooks miss, they are granted a reroll, sometimes at a bonus or penalty..A good visual for this is to give the warlord a long whip that he either cracks or strikes the hapless mook. Warlords with this ability are often in the back of the fight ( a frequent ability for goblin or kobold warlords).

WOLF PACK TACTICS

Coordinating several mooks on a single foe, a bonus to hit, damage or both is attained. This can also render a disarming, tripping or sundering attack on the foe's weapon.This can sometimes be used to initiate a grapple, possibly without the normal penalties for starting such an attack vrs an armed foe.Another good ability for smaller sized mooks.

SHIELD WALL

The mooks are organized in such a way that their shields are over lapping and a defensive bonus is granted. Not necessarily an option for shield wielders only, sometimes groups with long spears and other two handed weapons can achieve this bonus.

OVERWHELMING PRESENCE

The mere example of the warlords standing on the battlefield inspires his mooks to greater en devour. Any combat bonus is possible. Normally associated with a front line, high charisma or terror inspiring boss.

PIN POINT STRIKE

While most of these abilities tend to be melee oriented, this ability applies to missile weapons. Several archer types are coordinated in an accurate volley fire. Special troops can be trained to disrupt spellcasters specifically.

GATHER ALLIES

This warlord is able to quickly replace combat losses with effective recruits.

"WE ARE ONE"

Many different types of monsters flock to this warlord's banner. Even monsters that are diametricly opposed to each other will follow this inspiring leader. Some are even able to command strange beasts such as giant spiders or ants and rust monsters

Flora: Sighing Grass

This average looking knee high grass makes a gentle sigh when blown by wind or stepped on. It is the remnants of a lost civilization. While somewhat disturbing it is harmless. In very large quantities, boiled down, it is a very useful component in sonic, thunder and speak w/ dead spells and potion.

My all time fav run

ok it was 1995? I was at a con and my 15 ish nephew and I went to visit an old froend of mine who was about to start a run. He was running"Cthulhu by Candlelight" and the game was for 4 players. When I got to the room , the con had overbooked him by SIXTY players! One thing lead to another and I told the frazzled con representative, that I would run, if he gave me prize support. He quickly agreed and asked how many players, in a sudden decision I said "TWENTY!"

On the way with my 20 players and my nephew agreeing to co DM we plotted a game about an aircraft over the mid atlantic with a horrible artifact in the cargo bay. We came up with 20 roes and off we went

The game was amazing , the players were grateful I was willing to tun and got so into it that as I slowly killed them off , every single player who dies laid on the ground playing dead( it turned into a larp). It was amazing RPing on the part of 21 strangers. 21 you say?. A guy had come off the street (a non gamer) and weaseled his way in. The winner was our stewardess who had an unshakable lack of fear as an ability. Also of note were the white south african and black american mercenaries who were unshakable buddies. ( The black American was played by our interloper)

At 21 players it is by far the largest group I had ever run. It was one of those times when it all just came together

New spell type: perm B

Perm B spells are memorized and then function continuously until you empty the slot and memorize a new spell. These spells get "stuck" in the slots if memorized for long periods of time( 1 month or more) requiring clerical help to extract from brain. (NOTE again these spells are for 7th L and under play and I do not allow multi classing)

L1 Pusilance you are +1 to hit in melee (there is a second L version you may memorize that also adds +1)

L1 Hog skin +1 Natural armor untyped)

L2 Rhino Skin you get 2 damage reduction that does not stack w/ any other damage resistance

L3 Mazarinan's Spell of Over All Excellence  +1 to all your physical stats, +1 to Fort saving throws and +1 movement( these bonuses are untyped and stackable w/ any other buffs) May only be memorized once a day

The Logic of the Megadungeon

As a DM, you don;t have to justify:going up levels, +1 swords, Orcs, dragons, sleep or cure light wounds, why on earth do you need to justify the megadungeon?

With each new universe you create, the presence of a megadungeon, often with some sort of "Mad Wizard Logic", is a true part of the legacy of D&D. For each new universe the existence of a SINGLE megadungeon is part of the NATURAL evolution of a magical setting.

(A note on the term megadungeon: I dislike it since the first one or two dungeons of history were mega, I wish a term  for smaller dungeons such as "lair" was used more commonly)

NEW: Black Panther movie review(NO SPOILERS)

Ok in full discloser, I am a HUGE BP fanboy, I have around 100+ BP comics

the movie actually appealed to my fanboy side WAY more than the movie fan in me. The movie was just a tad slow and a little long, but was filled with awesome BP . It was filled with AFRICAN politics NOT American, I found it quite refreshing. Little tid bits were scattered  for fanboys like me.
he hardcore BP fan in me gives it an A+ , the movie goer in me gives it a B+

NEW Monster-Devilthorn Fox

HD 2-4
AC Chain
other basic stats =wolf

The DF is only found in deep woods and makes an outstanding pet for a druid or ranger
They will always attack devils, deamons and undead ferociouslygaining a second attack, which is treated as a +3 magic weopan vrs these foes.

Face Hugger Goblin

Ok the basic I dea is a very smal (24") goblin that launches itself at your head and bites and grabbles. a very strong creature that inhibits you from using your weopons on them, often you hurt yourself in the process. starting at like 2 HD and 16 st and going up to about 5 HD
(another monster based on an MTG card)New Monster Facehugger(goblin)

One of my players perspective

Bob and I have reconnected on Facebook after years of not seeing each other. He was a Very prominent player from the beginnings of the Mysantia game from it's beginning in Oct of 81. We talk on the phone a couple of times a month and a couple of times a year we get together to play. He called me yesterday and brought up a couple of things from the old days. I put forth my lack of understanding of why peeps were so compelled to play in Mysantia.

"Kids these days are always talking about their magic items, I remember being HAPPY with a ball of rice"

"We struggled and struggled and when we accomplished somethings, a good magic item or going up a level, I really felt like I accomplished something!

Gives me some perspective .

Making Mundane Weops. Unique

I've never been happy that almost every player picks long sword and greatsword, so I made a special chart to make them more unique. I use this in OSR and Pathfinder. I use 20 only as crit threat,double damage.

dagger +2 to hit, D4 damage
short sword +1 to hit, d6 damage
long sword, threatens crit on 19-20, D8 damage
battle axe, ignores one Damage resistance(scale at higher L?) D8 damage
Mace, 0ne damage on a miss(Scalable?) D8 damage (Ok , should prob only be vrs Metal armor but not looking for that kind of complexity)
spear D6 damage, d12 damage vrs large creatures
great sword 2d6 damage
military pick d6 damage, x3 damage on crit
great axe D10 damage, +3 to confirm crit
quarterstaff(2 handed) D6 damage 1 bonus to AC
Etc.

Cheating DM: Puzzles, some examples

I got a request for so,e examples so here is the first one

Wall of Wonder
it is based on a Magic card that looks like a huge pile of all kinds of diff crap floating around. I thought this would make a great puzzle.The way I did this was blunt weapons did full damage and everything else did 1 point(I had determined that it was supposed to have a lot of hp)They never figured out to use blunt weapons as nobody tried that.

A Dif way to Dungeon Crawl

Here at Dragonsfoot http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=65381 The post discuses the use of the classic arcade game " Dragon's Lair" as a playable dungeon but it approaches it like a normal D&D game. You cannot represent DL with " Ok Bob, it's your turn what are you doing?" So I've got a germ of an idea.

The castle itself is a dream construct of the way-too-powerful-to fight Dragon. From a distance the castle is changing, growing towers, walls falling , getting bigger and smaller in rapid succession. The castle "eats" interesting things that the players will need to extract. It is also Multidimensional and planer and moves around.

The way I am planning on running it is that individual rounds are broken into 3 parts and only one player gets an action to interact with the "trap". a second player will be able to aid the "phasing" player in what ever action he takes. casting spells will be broken up over the 3 partial rounds(depending on L of spell).The phasing player will in essence be the party leader for the 3 partial rounds. The phasing player "job " will be rotated in some fashion(havent got this worked out yet). This is all run w/ the idea that you are trying to recreate the frantic pace of DL The growing and shrinking nature of the castle forces constant movement on the players A brief description of the situation will be provided with the idea of "looking around" will be an action that takes up a whole "partial" round. A few normal combats to be sprinkled in.

Since a lot of work will go into an encounter that should only take IRL 2 maybe 3 min., the rooms and traps are reusable (justified by the "dream logic")

This will obviously not work for a large group of players. Prob want to keep it to 3 or 4.
This will require MASSIVE prep time for what will prob amount to a 1 hour crawl at best (depending on how many standard fights you work in) That's why REUSABILITY is key. To make the prep worth it , you can rerun it w/ the "dream logic"

Not sure if I'm going to pull the trigger on this. But I really like the idea.Not promising a part two if I don't.

Cheating DM: Puzzles

I often create puzzles that I don't know the answer to. I drag it out until just a HINT of frustration sets in amd then BANG,next good idea from players is the answer! In 37 tears they never caught on to this.

Ok, the store is OPEN Again!

Ok for my first few posts I am going to repost some of my fav material in early posts as my creative juices are gone for now.