Megacrawl3000-Someone Come Play With Me

Please oh please, will someone come play with me here:
http://matt-landofnod.blogspot.com/2010/11/megacrawl-3000-episode-2.html

It's a really cool idea and I'd love to see more people get involved. Here's the idea as pitched at The Land of Nod: http://matt-landofnod.blogspot.com/2010/11/megacrawl-3000.html

here are the characters: http://matt-landofnod.blogspot.com/2010/11/megacrawl-3000-cast-of-characters.html

Please oh please get on over there a couple of times a month and let's see what happens.

Blogger Stats

I've been digging into Blogger a little more and checking out my stats on Blogger and I noticed my all time most popular posts have been:

The color Carcosa map I did.

The old map my father drew before D&D and before I was born.

A review of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess RPG

Grim and Gritty Mutant Future Radiation

A review of Pars Fortuna Basic

http://aeonsnaugauries.blogspot.com/2010/11/pars-fortunabasic-my-first-look.html

my biggest traffic sources of all time have been:
http://lotfp.blogspot.com/
http://jrients.blogspot.com/
http://underdarkgazette.blogspot.com/

Someone from Finland and someone from South Korea are looking at the site as I type this.

A Dungeon Geomorph Collection

I've compiled all of the dungeon geomorphs I've posted over the past week and a few extra in this document available on google docs: A Dungeon Geomorph Collection

The geomorphs in the collection have a simple grey fill instead of the fancy one used in the postings on this blog to make it easier for users to edit maps of their own.

UPDATE:  The link to the file is currently misbehaving for me, I alos tried to edit the old one to re-post and it's password locked... surprisingly enough I can't recall a password from over 5 years ago.   I'll be recreating this collection from original files and making the newer edited version available soon.

Splintering Shields by Material

"Shields Shall Be Splintered" by trollsmyth is an excellent house rule that adds more to the shield in RPG combat then one typically gets out of a simple +1 bonus to AC. It's great and should work fine in many a game. Being the rules tinker and fiddler I am I couldn't help but whip up a variant to this excellent house rule.

Splintering Shields by Material
(based on a rule by trollsmyth at http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/)

Any time you are hit in combat you may choose to sacrifice your shield to avoid damage.
No one can choose to sacrifice a shield after they know the damage they would suffer.
Shields may not be used to sacrifice against surprise blows or those from the rear.

A shield will hold firm if the damage inflicted is equal to or less then the
ShP of a shield. Otherwise the fighter is sparred the damage but the shield is ruined.

Shields crafted from alfenwoode can be sacrificed versus a damaging spell.
Magic shields can be sacrificed vs damaging spells.

Silver faced shields can be used to defend against attacks from spectral creatures such as shadows and wraiths. Roll a d6 each time on a roll of 4 or less the shield is ruined by the experience.

Dragonscale shields may be used vs breath weapons and spells similar to the breath weapon of the dragon they are crafted from. A d6 must be rolled each time and this number is added to the saving throw and on a successful save damage is divided again by the score rolled (a 1 =gives a +1 to save but no reduction in damage). If the save fails the shield provides no benefit and is likely lost.
A dragon provides enough scales for a shield for every 4 HD it has.

Magical dragonscale shields are treated as a normal magical shield for determining it's ShP score. Use the shield plus or the d6 roll for a save onus, not both.

example: Claude the Chevalier has himself a +2 red DragonScale Shield and is the victim of a rather fearsome red dragon. he rolls a d6 and gets a 3, so he adds 3 to his save. He makes his saving throw against the 80pt breath and suffers but 1/2 from the breath as normal due to his save ...reducing it to 40 points...and that damage is again divided by 3 (as per the d6 roll) so it's reduced to but 13 points of damage the shield sacrifice saves Claude from suffering any damage but his shield is destroyed as it had but 10 ShP

A magical shield can be used against as many blows a round as they have pluses in a given round. Yes, a +2 or +3 shield is darned handy.
Magical Shields may block against spectral attacks as silver shields can and the shield bonus is added to the roll vs ruining the shield.

extra option- DM's really into tracking fiddly details can incorporate wear an tear. Each time a blow is blocked without destroying the shield reduce the ShP value of the shield by 1.

A DM need not require players to keep track of ShP unless the extra option is used as the score can easily be kept track of on a chart.


Shield Material......................ShP
Leather or
Cured Mushroom Caps............0
Bark, Wicker, heavy Hides.......1
Wood........................................2
Reinforced wood,soft meta......3
Hard metal..............................4
Hepatizon shield.................... 5
Galvrin................................... 6
Aethril.....................................7
+1 magic shield.....................5
+2 magic shield....................10
+3 magic shield....................15
DragonScale..........................4

Suggested Shield Prices
Leather........2 gp
Wicker..........5 gp
Wood..........10 gp
Brass..........20 gp
Steel.......... 35 gp
Silver.........150 gp
Hepatizon....250 gp
Galvrin.........500 gp
Aethril..........1000 gp
Alfenwoode.....350 gp
Dragonscale....500 gp

Hepatizon, Galvrin and Aethril are special metals I use in my current campaigns.
Hepatizon is a high quality bronze alloy better then steel.
Galvrin is special ferrous alloy, it's secrets are generally known only to dwarven smiths.
Aethril is a rare and magically forged metal.
+1 magical shields crafted from Hepatizon, Galvrin or Aethril have 1 ShP greater then normal for the metal.
Magical Shields of +2 or better crafted from these metals are no different from other magical shields and are often the metals used in such shields because of their inherent value.

Using the geomorphs

Here's a quickie example of using the geomorphs I've posted with this blog and those available at Stonewerks, Risus Monkey and A Character for Every Game.

This isn't going to be a complex step by step just an overview.

I selected geomorphs from all 4 sources that I felt could flow together well enough and slapped them down together in a paint program. I rescaled them to fit together and rotated the tiles till I got an arrangement I liked.


From there I joined some sections with connecting corridors that I drew in with the paint program.



And then I finished it up. I added in another 5x5 section to the right hand side of the map because that connecting corridor was looking rather boring. I erased or added in a few staircases and entrance markers along with cleaning up a few other spots here and there. A background was added to make things flow a bit more visually (I wouldn't always bother with that last bit).Then I added in numbers to key this dungeon level set up with geomorphs drawn up by four different folks giving a lot more organic looking dungeon then I may have come up with as quickly on my own.

5x15 Dungeon Geomorphs III

Set Three of my 5 x 15 dungeon geomorphs



Last batch for a bit unless I get the urge to crank out a few dozen more.

5x15 Dungeon Geomorphs II

Set two of my 5x15 dungeon geomorphs.