Tales of the Blue Dolphin

I was shocked recently to learn that warlocks, unlike most spell-slinging classes, didn't get the Ritual Caster feat automatically. Most of my fellow 4E players believe the warlock's spells are underpowered, so this could hardly be a game-balance correction. Flavor-wise, too, it doesn't make sense. How does the warlock contact dark powers and make a pact with them in the first place? Probably with a ritual. Plus, when you think of a witch (warlock = male witch) you probably picture a old woman performing a sinister spell over a bubbling cauldron ... in other words, performing a ritual! In my opinion, warlocks should get Ritual Casting for free. Period.

Now I like the way 4E separated rituals from combat-ready spells. As I saw it, it was a direction 3.X D&D was already going, with epic spells and dark rituals (from the Book of Vile Darkness) being handled in a 4E-style fashion. Nevertheless, I've been unhappy with the system's flavor, in practice. When a non-divine caster, without the Heal skill, picked up Raise Dead and started using it without penalty, I felt something was wrong. When Players Handbook 2 introduced bardic rituals -- usable only by bards -- it annoyed me at first, but I gradually came around. Maybe other classes should have class-specific rituals as well?

This brings us back to the warlocks. One way to power-up warlocks would be give them ritual curses. These wouldn't be the prosaic "curses" they use in combat -- hard to distinguish from ranger quarries -- but the type of curses folks try to cast in the real world, with fetishes and voodoo dolls and sinister inscriptions on lead plates. (The last one, common in the ancient world, was used in the Rome TV series.) These are the type of curses you see in folklore -- one was critically important in The Saga of Grettir the Strong, for example -- and they'd add some real dramatic power to the game. It would also connect to the "extreme vengeance" issue I discussed earlier. These are the creepy rituals you use when someone has really fucked you over.

How would these ritual curses work? I haven't figured that out yet. Watch this space, I guess.

I'm not happy with the rules for buying and selling magic items in 4th edition D&D, and no one else in my 4e group is, either. So... you can only sell items for 1/5th their default cost? But if you want to buy them from someone else, you have to pay full price? At first glance, this seems to be simple prejudice against PCs (who must have some "player aura" that NPCs can detect). I think I understand the game-balance reasoning behind it -- players would have a huge advantage if they could exchange the items they find in dungeons for the items they want of the same level -- but I'd prefer a convincing game-world explanation.

Here are a few justifications I can think of:

1. The stuff that PCs find, in dungeons, is old and beat up. If you assume that magic items suffer wear-and-tear, then they should sell for less used than new. Granted, there aren't any durability rules in D&D, nor should there be; but one could argue that they aren't necessary, because PCs upgrade equipment all the time. NPCs generally do not; they want a magic sword that will last for decades, not weeks; and one that's been smacked into a hundred stone-golems will be worth a lot less to them.
   
2. PCs generally acquire items illegally, through grave-robbery or ... well, just robbery. This stuff can't be sold in the open; it has to be sold to a fence, who certainly won't pay market price for them.
   
3. The market for magic items is very, very small. There aren't many people in the world with 325,000 gold pieces; even fewer want to blow it all on Boots of Balance. If PCs go through all the trouble to make an item, that's probably because it's really useful to them. Few others would value it so highly.
   
4. When player characters spend money to make an item, the money isn't just for materials. It's also for renting a forge (or a workbench), hiring skilled craftsmen, and (perhaps) learning a special ritual to make it.

DMs should decide which of these factors are responsible for the price differentials. If they don't apply, then players should be able to buy the equipment for less, or sell it for more. For example, if a PC makes a magic item, and then immediately sells it, it should sell for more than 1/5th the official purchase price, because the first factor isn't an issue. If they acquire an item lawfully, condition 2 won't apply, and the sale price should be higher. If factor 4 makes sense in your world, then PCs should be able to make duplicate items for less than the full sale price, and so on.

I hate to announce this, but it's now been confirmed.

As I've said before, I think Arneson was the real "idea man" in the Gygax/Arneson partnership. He introduced the "dungeon" concept; turned the wargaming referee into the Game Master; used ability scores and experience to customize characters... Hell, just about every true innovation that made roleplaying games what they are came out of his head.

Arneson didn't seem to have the energy (or the talent for self-promotion) that Gary Gygax had. I bought a number of his post-D&D products over the years, from Adventures in Fantasy to his Blackmoor books. Most of them were made with collaborators, and those that weren't had a helter-skelter, unfinished quality to them. (One exception: His solitaire scenario for Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, which was pretty good, actually.) My impression is that he was more of a hobbyist than an entrepreneur.

I got to meet and talk to him at GenCon years ago. He was a sweet, funny and self-deprecating old guy. He signed my old D&D boxed set, and for years I considered sending a copy of Two Fisted Tales to thank him. Sadly, now, I'll never get the chance. Rest in peace, Dave.

Lately I've been reading Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia by Jean Bottéro. An interesting book, even if the subject matter rarely comes up in casual conversation. Bottéro describes the liturgy in detail;. Apparently hymns were sung to the gods, or their statues anyway (in ancient Mesopotamia they were effectively the same thing), accompanied by lyres, cymbals and kettle drums, the latter called a lilissu. Here's how the leather drum-skin was prepared:

The [cow], duly chosen and "without defect," was led in great pomp into a defined location in the temple. There, during purifications and offerings to the gods through exorcisms and prayers -- some of which were whispered into the animal's ear... -- it was sacrificed and skinned, following all rules. The skin was then tanned, no less ceremoniously, and stretched over the lilissu. (p.150)

Note that the priest had to be involved with every step of the process; he couldn't just buy a drum off the shelf and cast spells over it! And what I've read suggests this has been true for all magic items, in all times and cultures. If a priest, a shaman, or a wizard wanted to imbue an item with sacred or profane power, he had to get his hands dirty and make the damn thing himself.

In D&D terms, I'm thinking of eliminating the item creation feats, but requiring spell casters to know appropriate Craft skills for any item they build. They'd have to know Alchemy for potions, Carpentry for wands and staves, Calligraphy for scrolls, Leatherworking for belts, Cobbling for boots and so on. I would eliminate a Wizard's bonus feats, but increase his skills from (2 + Int bonus) per level to (4 + Int bonus). Thoughts?

It's too damn cold to go outside (28° F? holy crap!), so I'll share a few thoughts I have for a new D&D class, the Prophet.

This class is designed largely for my own world. In my world clerics cast arcane spells; the gods taught them church fathers in pre-history, but today, clerics don't need divine intervention to learn or cast them. The prophet, however, receives his powers directly from the deity.

In Complete Arcane they say that warlocks got their powers through "grim pacts with dangerous extra-planar powers." This led me to think that prophets could have spell-like abilities, much like warlocks. The prophet would have similar abilities to the warlock, but with these changes:

• Replace Bluff, Disguise and Use Magic Device with Diplomacy and Perform (Oratory) as class skills.
• Replace eldrich blast with healing touch, equivalent to a cure spell (touch only, of course), and use d10s instead of d6s, up to a maximum of 9d10 at 20th level.
• The prophet can turn undead at will, just like a cleric of the same level, but an unlimited number of times per day.
• The prophet would get invocation-like powers, much like warlocks. Some would change the prophet's healing touch or add additional healing powers, others would be keyed to the deity's domain spells.
• Replace detect magic with detect evil at 2nd level.
• Replace damage reduction and fiendish resilience with paladin abilities such as divine grace, divine health and aura of courage.
• Replace deceive item and imbue item with appropriate abilities.
• The prophet's powers could never be used in a way that his god would disapprove, and the prophet is aware of his god's displeasure as if he was wearing a phylactery of faithfulness.

Thoughts?

Additional thoughts: With their unlimited healing powers, prophets would be of enormous value to any party. One possible way to balance this: Characters who are healed by a prophet will be cursed if they then commit a serious sin against the prophet's deity.

I'd replace imbue item, at 12th level, with spell resistance (10 + prophet level) and fiendish resilience 5, at 18th level, with the ability to cast Miracle once per day.