The Core Mechanic of D&D

Learning to play D&D is more a study of philosophy than it is of rulebooks. Character classes, and saving throws, and combat mechanics are all just subsystems for resolving edge cases. The core mechanic of the game is conversation. Specifically, a Three Step Conversation.

1. The referee describes an environment.

2. The players describe their actions within that environment.

3. The referee describes how the environment changes.

In my experience, this back-and-forth effectively describes the vast majority of good play. For example:

1. “You are in darkness.”

2. “I light a torch.”

3. “The torch illuminates a windowless, brick-walled room with a single door.”

2. “I look around at the ceiling to see if I can find where we entered from.”

3. “The ceiling is vaulted. The hole you fell through isn’t actually up there. It’s on the rear wall, about 10′ off the ground, angled upwards into a chute.”

2. “CRUG THE DESTROYER HATE TINY ROOM! CRUG SMASH DOOR WITH AXE!”

3. “The door’s wood was not particularly strong, and is easily smashed to bits beneath Crug’s mighty blow.”

1. “You see a hallway beyond.”

(See also: “Example of Play for Running Traps Without a Search Check“)

I came up with this formulation a little over a year ago, and have been smugly satisfied with myself ever since. Then, the other day, I was talking with John Bell of The Retired Adventurer. We were discussing refereeing advice, and he suggested following a pattern of Question Answer-Question, something he’d written about back in 2012. To quote the most relevant passage from his post:

I recommend that you, whether a player or referee, end almost any and every assertion you make, especially one that answers another player’s question, with another question, one that either asks what their response is, what further information they want, what the foreseeable consequences of doing something would be, even just confirming their choice.

Question Answer-Question pairs well with the Three Step Conversation. I’m going to work it into the way I referee from now on, and I anticipate seeing some improvement to the flow and momentum of play. If nothing else, ending on a question is a clear signal to the players that I’m done talking. It ought to cut down on awkward pauses where the party waits to see if I have more to add. Moreover, I can occasionally direct my questions at specific players like a vindictive primary school teacher. It could be a useful tool for involving folks who are normally too shy to speak up.

During our talk, John further suggested presenting the players with specific options, not unlike old video game RPGs. “You’ve entered a square room with a door on each wall and a statue of a goblin in the center. Do you want to press on through one of the exits, examine the statue more closely, or look around the room for anything subtle you might have missed?”

Initially this seemed limiting to me. An act of reducing the player’s infinite number of choices down to whatever handful are most obvious to the referee in the moment. That assumes, though, that players will respond to a given list of choices by accepting them as a limitation. That’s generally not how these things go.

Presenting a person with an infinity of options, (“You’re in an open field, what do you do?”) tends to create analysis paralysis, and prompt “safe” responses. Conversely, having the referee put forth some of the more obvious choices could encourage players to look for something outside the box. Even experienced players, who might not always appreciate this sort of presentation, can occasionally benefit from a nudge. And for new players it could be a great way to get them into the adventuring frame of mind.

The method also dovetails nicely with the principals I described in Obfuscation Through Volume, one of the oldest posts on this site which I still stand behind. (The advice, that is. The writing is awful).

Bit of a shorter post today. Sorry if you feel cheated. There’s not a lot to say about this idea, but it felt valuable to share none the less.

Advice for Running Long-Term Campaigns Online

The other day, all-around likeable dude Chris Wilson sent me a message:

“I know you’ve been running a successful Google hangouts campaign for awhile now, and I was just wondering if you have any advice for me to get a similar campaign started?”

This isn’t something I’d ever really thought about. After two and a half years, On a Red World Alone definitely qualifies as a long running online campaign, but that’s not something I set out to accomplish. I have no program for keeping it going aside from simply responding to problems as they’ve arisen. None the less, Chris seems to have found the conversation useful. Perhaps the same advice can be helpful to others as well.

The most important thing is to Keep Showing Up. Everything else I have to say could be distilled down to this single point. Campaigns end when the referee gives up on them. If you surrender to your first bout of “setting fatigue,” your campaign will be lucky to last 6 months.

There have been times when ORWA bores me. Days when I just don’t feel like running very much. I push through those times because I enjoy hanging out with my players, and because I know my boredom is temporary.  I know that in a month I’m going to come up with a cool new idea. When I do, I’ll be happy I still have my weekly ORWA session to inject it into.

On a Red World Alone will end someday, but it won’t end because I’m bored with it. It will end because I’m satisfied with it.

It’s also essential to understand that Your Players Won’t Keep Showing Up. That’s not a judgement on them, it’s just a fact of life. No group of adults will be able to consistently keep the same night of the week available for years at a time. People drop out. Presently, ORWA only has one and a half of its original players. I lost most of my starting group within the first 6 months, and since then there have been multiple “generations” of the party. Some of the later players have become more essential to my idea of what the game is than the people who were there with me at the beginning.

If I have more than a couple sessions of low, or no attendance, I go recruiting. I get out there on g+ and let folks know there’s room for them at my table. Sometimes it takes a couple weeks to find someone, but it’s worth the effort. I’ve had 16 different players in ORWA over the years: some dropped out after a few weeks; some are still new recruits themselves; some played for many years but have moved on to other things; some have returned to the game after long absences. Only one player has been part of the game consistently since its beginning.

To mitigate players dropping off, I do my best to Make The Game Part of Everyone’s Routine. In my experience the most common time to lose players is when the schedule is unpredictable. On a Red World Alone happens every Wednesday from 6pm to 9pm PST. That time has never changed, nor have I ever taken a hiatus away from it.

That isn’t to say we’ve never missed a session. In the 132 weeks since we started playing, we’ve only played 101 times. Sometimes Wednesday is a holiday, and we cancel the game so people can be with their families. Sometimes I can’t avoid needing to work during our normal game time, or I’m too sick to play. Sometimes I show up, but none of my players do.

These things happen, but it’s always handled on a week-to-week basis. The session is always assumed to be on until something disrupts it.

In terms of Organization, my games work pretty much the same way that everyone’s games do. I set lofty goals for myself and constantly fall short of them. Somehow the game hasn’t completely imploded yet, and is still a lot of fun, so I can’t be doing everything wrong.

The first step I take in any new campaign is to create a new community for it on Google+. A place where the players and I can talk about the game without any distractions. It is insanely useful, and is easily my #1 organization tip. Beyond that, I can divide my campaign documentation into three groups: the player’s guide, the public records, and my private notes.

The Player’s Guide is a document I throw together which contains all the house rules we will be using. I don’t have any of the ORWA guides available for easy sharing, but the guide I wrote for Fuck the King of Space is a good representative example. Don’t be intimidated by the 23 pages of writing I did for that game. I use a TON of house rules. The original ORWA player’s guide was much less impressive.

Public Records start with the play reports, where I note down everything important that happened during a session. I acknowledge that my style in this is wildly excessive, and creates a lot of useless documentation that nobody will ever use. Do not emulate the way I write play reports. A good play report can be much simpler than the ones I write.

Out of these play reports I copy some information into various threads. Some are more useful than others. For example: any time a new spell is created, I write it up in the play report, but I also copy it into the Spellbook thread. I do the same thing for any guns that are discovered. I have thread for recording the player’s activities during their Haven Turns, and threads for recording which sessions various NPCs have appeared in.

Finally there are The Referee Notes. Nothing too surprising here: it’s a document with all the tables I use, as well as a few notes about what certain NPCs are plotting, etc. Most of the details about the world just live in my head, same as any other referee. Occasionally I’ll need to stat up a monster or doodle a map. I have a pocket notebook where I write all that stuff.

Some issues are unique to running games online. I use Google Hangouts for a few reasons. Habit is the biggest one, but it’s also easily accessible to people I know through Google+, it’s good at supporting multi-user video chats, and is more-or-less reliable. That being said, Google has definitely been treating the service like an ugly stepchild, gradually making it less and less and less useful over time. I’m hopeful that Discord will be able to replace hangouts, but last time I tried it they still had way too many issues with multi-user video chats.

(Please: no one proselytize to me about Roll20. I do not care.)

In an online chat it’s important to realize that everyone’s voices are being pushed through the same set of speakers. Because of this, everyone gets flattened out to the same volume. It’s not possible for two people to lean over and have a side conversation, or for multiple people to talk at once and remain intelligible. The group needs to be good at giving one another space to speak. They also need to acknowledge that this puts increased pressure on people who are shy. If someone looks like they’re trying to say something, do what you can to give them the space to speak.

Don’t make a big deal about not being able to see people’s dice. Some folks get completely bent outta shape over this, as though it’s impossible to play unless there’s some shared dice roller application. It is pathetic. We’re playing D&D, not craps. There’s no money on the line. Who cares if someone fudges a roll? All they’re doing is damaging their own experience.

If someone showed up at my table saying they rolled an 18 in every stat and a 20 on every attack…so what? It’s not going to save them from making stupid decisions, and the only one who is gonna have any less fun because of it is them.

Audio issues happen. People are going to cause some echo or some static. It can be pretty dang frustrating, but you gotta be understanding. Take some time at the start of the session to let people know they’re causing an issue, and give them a chance to fix it. Often having them put on headphones is all that is required.

If it can’t be fixed and it’s a minor issue, try to live with it. Sometimes people live near the train tracks. It annoys them more than it annoys you, so try to be cool. If someone has a major technical issue which is disrupting play, it’s okay to ask them to leave until they can get their gear working.

People are absolutely going to get distracted. They’ll have you open in one tab while they’re looking at their g+ feed in another tab. It happens, just roll with it.

Finally there’s Mapping. At some point you’re going to need a way to communicate the environment to your players visually.

I’m fortunate to have a 25 square foot white board on my wall which I can easily direct my camera towards. It makes mapping a breeze. By far the simplest method I’ve ever seen in many years of online play. If you can set something like this up, I highly encourage you to do so.

If you can’t, some folks screen share their maps using an image editing program like GIMP. If you add a black layer on top of the map, you can slowly erase it as the players go along, revealing what they see. I’ve always found this method painstakingly difficult, because you can’t see the map any better than your players can. There’s always the risk of revealing something you don’t want.

There’s also Digital Whiteboards, such as RealTimeBoard. It’s a powerful tool. Not only can you draw on it, but you can also upload images & PDFs, place post-it-notes, etc. I’ve played in games that were run entirely through the RTB. John Bell has spent a lot more time with the service than I have, and has a few good posts describing the best ways to leverage it for your game.

The downsides to RTB is that everybody needs to create an account, and will need to be invited via email before they can access the board. Also, the company has been scaling back their free service gradually over the years in favor of a paid subscription. It’s not terribly expensive, but it may not be something you want to do just to play D&D online.

That’s all I can think of. I hope it is helpful.

Final Fantasy 7

When the idea that I might want to make tabletop games first wormed its way into my brain, I set myself two goals. I wanted to make an RPG based on Metal Gear Solid; and I wanted to make an RPG based on Final Fantasy 7. Neither of these projects ever went anywhere, as is typical with the wild aspirations of youth.

Recently, a thread Dan D posted on G+ set me to thinking about this for the first time in years. I’m surprised how many ideas I have. I want to let them pour into  my keyboard. Let loose with an unmoderated stream of consciousness and see where things go. I make no promises about the quality of this post, or how many follow up posts there’s going to be. This might become The FF7 Fangame Blog, or I might never mention the thing again once I’m done here. Depends on where my heart goes.

The first question that needs to be answered is: what do I want out of an FF7 game? The PS1 original was a jumble of bland gameplay strung together to justify a poorly written melodrama. It’s not the sort of game I’d like to make, or run, or even play in. If I’m rejecting the core essence of the original game, what is left to play with?

Looking back on the game 20+ years after its release, there are a few elements that still speak to me:

  • The juxtaposition of high and low technologies.
  • The phenomenally underrated art of the backgrounds.
  • The music, obvs.
  • Exploring the destructive impact of capitalism not just on the environment, but on the very idea of what it means to be human.
  • The grand sense of scale. Starting out feeling insignificantly enveloped by the megacity of Midgar; then seeing Midgar disappear over the horizon as you set out into the wider world.
  • The feeling that these characters had real agency (even if I, the player, was on rails). They subverted my expectations. They changed their circumstances. They strove, and overcame.

That sense of being an agent of change in the world needs to be the core of the game. It doesn’t matter whether the players are a force for good, or for evil, or just for some obscure personal cause. What matters is that they strive to make their will manifest in the world.

Which leads nicely into the next question that needs to be asked: what rules need to be different from the way I normally play D&D? I have no intention of reinventing any wheels that can be avoided. Attacking by rolling a d20 against your foe’s armor rating works just fine. I see no reason to change it.

However, gaining experience points for treasure or for killing monsters makes no sense to me in this game. Seven isn’t a megadungeon, nor is it a hex crawl. It’s something different from what I’ve done in D&D before. The best term I can come up with for what I’m thinking is Political Sandbox. As in: it’s a world full of people and communities and systems, and the job of the player is to enact their will to power. I’m not 100% happy with the term, but it’ll do for now.

What I’m driving at is that players should get experience points as a reward for the change they create in the world. They might affect their change in any number of ways: they could employ persuasion, or trickery, or bribery, or brute force. So long as the world is altered to suit their will, the players get rewarded.

It’s not something I’m going to be able to figure out in this post, but I’d like to systematize this somehow. I don’t want the referee to be completely responsible for arbitrating what works and what doesn’t. Perhaps any change has a very low baseline chance to go the way the players want? The players then need to accomplish tasks and put assurances in place that will raise the chance that the player’s desires will be carried out?

That feels like it could be made at least as easy to manage for a referee as treasure is.

Regardless of the specifics, I think I ought to actually be able to use the Simple XP system I wrote way back in 2011. I wrote that thing in literally the first month that I took blogging seriously. It’s among the most popular posts I’ve ever written, and it’s kinda cool for it to be relevant again.

Okay, I wrote a lot about how experience gain will work. What else needs to change from how I normally run D&D?

There’s some irrelevant stuff we can get rid of to free up space for increased complexity elsewhere. This isn’t a game about managing diminishing resources, so most of the bookkeeping I normally insist on can be relaxed. Encumbrance can be a vague “whatever feels reasonable.” Nobody will need to worry about rations. Ammunition is inexhaustible.

It’s tempting to wildly inflate health and damage numbers to better emulate the feel of a Final Fantasy game. It’d only be fun for about 10 minutes, though. Eventually all the 4-digit calculations would get tiresome. I’ll stick with d6s for most stuff, I think.

Materia are a vital part of the setting. Bits of congealed souls which grant the character wielding them special abilities. Not only will this need to be the magic system, but in the original game it’s also how characters gained mundane abilities like “Steal.”

I’m thinking that materia should not only replace the magic system, but should replace character classes as well. The PCs are all 1hd shmucks without their materia. When the players earn experience points it doesn’t make them any inherently better. Instead, the players spend their experience points to decide which materia they want to advance.

I don’t know what will determine how many materia a character can equip simultaneously. I don’t like the idea of just slotting them into weapons and armor. Maybe characters have to swallow their materia? It’s inside your body, part of you. If you swallow too many of them you get sick and can’t function. If you want to swap one materia out for another, it takes a couple days to get everything sorted.

Materia would be used to cover even very basic advancements. Early in the game players would be able to acquire a Vitality materia, which they could level up to improve their health beyond its starting value. Other materia might grants common class abilities, like bonuses to attack, or sneak attack damage.

There’s no need for MP. Materia which allows their user to cast magic spells can be used a number of times per day according to their level. So, when you first get the Fire materia, you can cast Fire once. If you put experience points into it and get it up to level 2, you can cast Fire twice. There’s no need for more advanced fire spells (Fire 2, Fire 3), because we’re keeping everything limited in scope.

I realize there’s a lot of potential for exploitation in letting people mix-and-match class abilities, but it sounds fun, so I say try it.

I don’t think the game would need any kind of skill system, just a simple resolution mechanic for handling skill-based tasks. A baseline 2-in-6 or something. If the character wants to be really good at a skill, they’ll want to seek out an appropriate materia.

I am out of ideas for now. Thank you for indulging me.

A Second Look at Hacking, Clerics, & Socializing

Often, I write a post as a means of working through an idea for the first time. Forcing myself to explain the idea gets my thoughts in order. Later, the idea develops further through play, and within a few sessions the rules I’m using are markedly different from what I’ve got posted up on the blog.

This isn’t the worst thing. Blogs posts aren’t meant to be sourcebooks; they’re meant to be part of a community-wide conversation. None the less, it’s not ideal. I often want to post updates to older posts, which I don’t mind doing if there are a ton of changes to what I originally wrote, but seems like kind of a waste when the changes are less dramatic. As a middle ground, I figure I’ll address multiple old posts at a time.

Simple Socializing: The Give & Take System

(Originally posted April 5, 2017)

I’ve been tinkering with this approach to social encounters for half a decade now. As such, my changes here are quite small. The numbers have been tweaked by playtesting, and a few special cases are called out explicitly.

Attempting Parley

When a potentially hostile encounter occurs, the referee should first determine surprise. If one party surprises the other, attempting parley would require them to sacrifice that advantage.

Parley begins with the players making a social roll, which is 2d6 + any relevant modifiers (such as Charisma). This first roll determines 3 things:

1. The number of exchanges the NPCs will tolerate before they want to leave. The referee should write it down and tick off 1 for each back-and-forth that occurs. (“How are you?” “I’m doing well.” counts as a 1 exchange).

2. The disposition of the NPCs towards the party, determined by comparing the result to the first column of the table to the right.

3. The success or failure of whatever the party’s opening social action was.

Social actions fall into four basic categories: Banal, Give, Take, and Convince. Any time the players say something, consider which of these four it most closely fits in with. If it’s anything other than banal, it will require another social roll.

Banal actions are simple conversation: trivial questions, small talk, and other minutia. They have no chance to fail, and thus require no roll. That’s not to say they’re useless, it’s just not interesting for them to have a failure chance.

Giving actions are those where the party attempts to ingratiate themselves to the NPC. To make themselves more liked. It may take the form of telling a joke, offering compliments, giving gifts, or just listening attentively.

<8: The NPC is unimpressed.
8-10: The NPC enjoyed that. +1 to your next social action.
11+: The NPC likes you. +1 to their disposition.

Taking actions are attempts to get something out of the interaction. Specifically something the NPC may be hesitant to give. This roll covers things like negotiating an agreement, requesting aid, asking a sensitive question, intimidation, bribery, etc.

<4: You’ve upset the NPC. Disposition drops 1 category.
4-6: The NPC refuses you outright.
7-9: The NPC will meet you halfway.
10-11: The NPC agrees to what you want.
12+: The NPC agrees, and offers to do a little better than what was asked for.

Convincing actions are attempts to bring the NPC around to a viewpoint different than the one they currently hold. Used for making arguments or telling suspicious lies. These are difficult to succeed at, and risky to attempt. People don’t like it when you try to change them.

<5: Disposition drops by 1 category.
5-7: Disposition drops by 1.
8-9: The NPC is unconvinced, but not insulted.
10-13: The NPC is swayed, but needs some proof.
14+: The NPC accepts what you said wholeheartedly.

Social encounters are a many-faceted beast which defies being resolved by any simple chucking of dice. This system is not meant to dictate what a social encounter can be. Rather, it’s a baseline which can be adhered to or deviated from in whatever way serves the game best.

Just as they would with combat, the players should look for ways to gain advantage. The referee should imbue the NPCs with their own goals and desires. Penalties and bonuses should assessed where appropriate.

Basic Game Structure, & Hacking as an Involved Deviation

(Originally posted August 27, 2017)

I still like all the stuff I said about the Three Step Conversation and the difference between a Quick and an Involved Deviation. It’s just the hacking system itself that needs to be updated.

There are some minor tweaks to the numbers, and I’ve dropped a few elements that didn’t turn out to be useful at the table. The biggest change is to how failure is handled. The original alarms were too lenient, and assumed the party would always be afraid of their hacks being discovered, which often isn’t the case. If your’e hacking the computer in a long forgotten techno-dungeon, the idea that the hack will be discovered by the police a week from now is not anything to worry about.

Basic Computer Design

Computers have a security rating between 2 and 6 (inclusive) which indicates how difficult it is for a user to do something they’re not supposed to do. Optionally, the referee may want to prepare a list of what information or devices the computer has access to. Just as easily, this can be done using common sense fiat at the table.

When To Roll a Hacking Attempt

Unless players are using a personal computer or a public terminal, they’ll need to make a check just to log on. From here, they can access basic information about the computer’s systems, what it’s connected to, and what type of data is stored on it. Most of the really interesting stuff will require further hacking checks.

For example: reading someone’s personal files, downloading those files, altering the computer’s settings, activating a device connected to the computer, uploading a new program, erasing security footage. Each of these would require a new hacking check.

Making a Hacking Check

Untrained characters have a hacking skill of 2d6. Training adds additional dice to the pool up to a maximum of 5d6. When attempting a hack players roll their entire pool. Each die showing a face equal to or greater than the computer’s current security rating is a success.

Rolling no successes means the hack has failed, and the security rating is raised by 1.

Rolling a single success means the hack has succeed, but it was done sloppily, so the security rating is still raised by 1.

Rolling two or more successes means the hack has succeeded, and the security rating does not change.

If the security rating is raised to 7, the computer completely locks down and it becomes impossible to attempt any further hacking.

If the security rating was raised at all, it will eventually be noticed by whoever owns the computer. Depending on circumstances, they may be able to identify who the hacker was and seek retribution against them.

Special

Assistance: One player may assist the primary hacker by making their own hacking check against the computer’s security rating. If they get 2 or more successes, the primary hacker may add 1 success to their own pool.

Network Hacking: Attempting to access a computer over a local network increases its security rating by 1. Attempting to access it across the Internet increases its security rating by 2.

Lowering the Alarm Level: If the security level has been raised, the hacker may attempt to lower it by making a check against the current security rating + 1. Security cannot be reduced below its starting level.

Root Access: Hackers can attempt to gain root access on any system. Doing so requires four successes. Hackers with root access can perform any local action without making further checks.

New Class: The Cleric, as Anti-Magician

(Originally posted January 21, 2018)

Both my socialization system and my hacking system have undergone rigorous playtesting since I wrote them. I have a lot of hard data about how to make them better. Not so much with the Cleric variant I proposed early this year.  As I write this I’ve only had a single player use the class during a single session, and it didn’t go well.

Even before that, I knew there were some issues. Nobody wants to play the thing because it was originally written to be almost completely reactive. I was worried about making the class overpowered, and in doing so I made something nobody wants to play. The classic issue with the Cleric.

I still believe in the core ideas I proposed here, I just think they need some tweaking.

There is a divine music to the universe. Before the fall of man, when we lived each day in the light of our creator, we heard this music always. After we were cast out from the sacred garden we lost the ability to hear. The music still rings out from every sphere in the heavens, but it is beyond us now.

Through diligent study of God’s word, and meditation on the divine, Clerics have trained themselves to hear the faintest echos of that music. Hearing it changes a person. They experience reality the way God always intended for his beloved children. Their only desire is to hear more, and to hear better. Sin disrupts the music, and becomes hateful to the cleric. There is no sin greater than magic.

Clerics have a d8 hit die. They advance and make saving throws as the default cleric class does. Clerics cannot cast any spells. If alignment is used in your game, clerics must be Lawful.

Clerics have the following abilities:

Miracle: Once per week, per level, clerics may call upon God to aid them. The almighty will momentarily intervene in material affairs to do one of the following things:

  • Reveal a hidden truth.
  • Alter the cleric’s environment.
  • Heal a living person’s un-healable ailment.
  • Create an impressive spectacle

Think of it as a wish with limited focus and potency. Remember, also, that God is an NPC. God does not appreciate being treated as a class ability. Clerics are warned not to be trivial in calling upon The Almighty. God is never obligated to answer. The referee is the final arbiter.

Turn: The cleric confronts their foes with a brief glimpse of God’s might. The player should indicate a single target and roll 2d6, comparing the result to the matrix below

(Note: this ability affects all foes, regardless of type)

If the cleric’s roll is equal to or greater than the result indicated for their target’s hit dice, that foe is awed by the terrible might of God. They will flee from the cleric if there is an easy escape, or cower meekly if there is not. This effect persists as long as the target is not attacked, and the cleric takes no action aside from looking imposing, or turning other foes.

The cleric may turn as many times as they wish, so long as they are successful. If a turn attempt fails, the cleric’s mystique is undone. They may not turn this group of foes again today.

On the table, a result of “-” means turning is impossible. A result of “T” means turning is automatic. A result of “T*” means that any of the target’s allies with the same or fewer hit dice are also turned. A result of “D” means the target is destroyed by the unbearable glory of God, and that the target’s allies with similar hit dice are automatically turned. A Result of “D*” means that the target, and their allies with similar HD, are destroyed.

Dispel Magic: Clerics may force chaos to bend itself back to order by an act of will. Simply roll a d6. On a result of 1, the attempt fails; otherwise it succeeds. The magic is undone; it fails to activate or its effect ends. If a permanent magic is targeted (such as the enchantments on a magic weapon), then it is only suppressed rather than destroyed. It will return when next the item is touched by moonlight.

Anytime a spell is cast in the cleric’s presence, they may attempt to interrupt its casting by dispelling it. Doing so consumes their next turn.

Keep track of how many times each day this ability fails. If it equals the cleric’s level, the music of God’s perfect creation has become warped in their ears. They won’t be able to dispel magic again until they’ve had 8 hours to rest, and to pray.

For every hit die a Magic User has above a cleric, the failure chance of this ability increases by 1. So a first level cleric suffers no penalty against a first level magic user; but when dispelling the casting of a second level magic user their failure chance would be 2-in-6. Against a third level magic user it would be 3-in-6, and so on.

Referees may also wish to assess penalties for other types of magic. Those which are fundamental to a creature’s being, such as fairy magic. Those which are deeply rooted, or ancient, or unusually potent. It is left to the judgement of the referee, but this is meant to be a powerful ability. It should not be undermined to excess.

Identify: Thoroughly shutting down magic the way Clerics do requires a profound understanding of it. Clerics can determine whether or not a thing is magical, what the effects of that magic are, and even some obscure details like how long ago the magic was cast, and whether the caster was right or left handed.

This is not something a Cleric can do passively. They can’t walk into a room, and immediately point out all the magic items within. However, if they handle an object, look at it closely, smell it, taste it, and listen to it, they will gain an understanding of any magics attached to it. Discovering the magical properties of a thing requires 10 minutes.

Spell Resistance: Clerics have a chance-in-twenty to resist magic, equal to their level. 1-in-20 at first level, 2-in-20 at second level, etc. Any time the Cleric would be the target of magic, before any saving throws or spell effects are rolled, roll a d20. If the result is equal to, or lower than the Cleric’s level, the spell passes harmlessly over them.

This ability reaches its maximum at an 18-in-20 chance.