There ’s one thing a D&D campaign can never get enough of : magic . More spells . Weirder spells . Modern way to interact with the magical forces in our preferent illusion worlds . With Deep Magic , Kobold Press has harnessed some gravid RPG names ( including Ed Greenwood ) to give us all the magic we could possibly require .
Deep Magic is a tome of magic while and options for the Pathfinder RPG , an off - shoot of 3rd variation Dungeons & Dragons . TheKickstarter campaignhas more than double its destination just days after launching . It ’s being edit and developed by Amanda Hamon ( numerous Pathfinder design and editing credits ) and designed by Wolfgang Baur ( Kobold Press publisher , creator of the Midgard campaign setting ) and Ben McFarland ( Ars Magica , Pathfinder ) . And consort to Baur , “ the list of chip in author is like a [ Pathfinder newspaper publisher ] Paizo freelance / staff member who ’s who . ” This includes Ed Greenwood , creator of the Forgotten Realms .
The design and development team answered a kitchen range of questions on what it ’s like to formulate new witching spells for such a revered RPG system , and they even shared a soliloquy good manners of Ed Greenwood on shieldmaidens and why they need magic to survive . With so much information , I did n’t even have room for the trailer spell they sent , so you cancheck that out at Robot Viking . It ’s a first floor spell for Druid , rangers and witches called Fire under the Tongue .
First , could you tell me what you ’ve got planned for Deep Magic ? What is this book of conjuring trick going to add to someone ’s Pathfinder campaign ?
Wolfgang Baur : Deep Magic hugely expands the range of go and option for every Pathfinder RPG spellcasting class , from the inquisitor ( with 17 new spells and numeration ) to the classical thaumaturgist and wizard ( literally hundreds of new go . ) It also offer great advice and new way to run certain type of magic trick from the best Pathfinder freelancers on come to topic like golem , familiars , incantations , and archetype . And it presents all fresh school day and subschools of magic , like Ed Greenwood ’s shieldmaiden magic .
Amanda Hamon : I ’ll also add that this book throws a short ton of brand name - new magical selection into the biz . For those who are looking for illusion with a gimmick , there are incantations , glyph , runes , and ink magic ciphers — without introducing a whole lot of complicated new rule . The system are surprisingly easy to learn and make your plot feel refreshfully unexampled .
What makes for a full while ?
Amanda : First of all , spells have to be useful . A spell might have the coolheaded ocular event ever , but that does n’t count if it requires a situation so specific that it ’s almost never used . Once your spell has a upright raison d’etre , make certain that its mechanics are equilibrise with other , similar spells that already exist . Once those elements are nailed down , it ’s important for a spell to have a certain decade - factor . Maybe it ’s a breathless visual effect , or an effect that ’s invaluable in fight , or something else that makes the party member say , “ Wow , I ’m beaming you used that tour — I cogitate we were goners ! ”
Wolfgang : A skilful turn get the player delirious to practice it , to be the hero of the moment . It could involve peach to stones about local threats , or it could need animating a landslide or slide down an island . Mostly , though , good trance combine utility with a sense of wonder and empowerment . Flying is both very utile and an extremely nerveless illusion . Calling down lightning ? Oh , yeah !
You need to provide the player with a common sense of world - changing possibilities . If a magical spell does n’t make me feel like Tesla about to activate a massive electrical volute , it ’s just not quite there yet .
Can you narrate me the story of designing a particular tour , from initial stirring through development where the mechanics and balance were hammered out ?
Amanda : I ’ll typically give a spell two readings : One to empathize what the spell is supposed to do and to do a light copy edit , and again to pick through all the mechanics , to make trusted all the parameters make sentience , and to see what might need to be convert from a development perspective . honour the writer ’s design is the freehanded affair I always keep in mind .
For example , there ’s a turn going into Deep Magic that ’s phone bright errantry . Its intent is to allow a player to make three rolls with a +4 luck modifier gene for all action taken during two consecutive one shot . But the way the initial draft read , it was n’t light when those round should start , what type of incentive the magical spell bestowed , and whether you could prefer the most favorable effect as opposed to simply the high result . So , for that spell , it was just a matter of rework the diction and the continuance to make certain the go function as the writer clearly intend . Closing loopholes and nailing down specifics — that ’s the bulk of it .
Ben McFarland : There really is an art to import plan , almost like a effectual contention or debating . common law helps you make your case , but you need to sleep with what ’s out there to draw from it . For my entry in the Lost Magic contest , thaumaturge ’s retort , I get down with a concept of the chain of explode clay , a scene out of an old television game I loved , called Myth : The Fallen Lords . My spell demolish a chain of corporeal undead , make them to explode in a spray of acidulous , virulent pus .
With that concept in mind , I seem for tour that worked the same way for targeting . The first and closest one was death to undeath , which is middling eminent level , but what I had in idea is a serious effect . Then I considered the sort of damage , the actual effect I want to go through , and what go are alike to the net consequence , which contribute me to chain lightning . With both of those as a service line , I decide that seventh degree was a good place to get , because I was combining two similar machinist . Then I looked at the extra stir wrong , the subaltern core , and I realized that was worth an extra level . This led me to the final decisiveness to make it 8th level . It was a long pass to get there , but sometimes , with a complex spell effect , that ’s how it goes .
What are some areas of D&D / Pathfinder spell out “ design space ” that you think are relatively unexplored ?
Ben : There ’s a lot of elbow room to look at ways of altering spells without using metamagic effort : thing like alchemic portion or consumable ritual fetishes . effort can be considered a tax . resource could be used to bear that revenue enhancement . I also opine the approximation of magical education is really exit untouched . Whether you address that in an archetype , or a feat , or another method is up to you , but far too often the D&D / Pathfinder adept ca n’t secern you about who taught them their conjuring trick .
What ’s your favorite floor of someone using a magic spell in a creative or unexpected way in an adventure ?
Ben : I always love the clever consumption of phantasy to outwit opposition , but sometimes it ’s the small , unexpected uses of otherwise public-service corporation spells that take the cake . Once , the party was facing off against a crowing bad vampire sorcerer surrounded by crime syndicate of zombi . They were down to those horrible last rounds of combat , where the battle could tip toward victory or a Total Party Kill free-base on whether or not eccentric protrude folding . The vampire hit the rogue with a flaming sphere , limit him on flack and put his hit points into the negative reach .
The political party cleric needed to heal him , but he also require to airt his spiritual weapon system to terminate the undead magician and make up for the recede attacks from the rogue . So the churchman used his move action to redirect the apparitional weapon , and he cast make urine on the rogue , eliminate the fire and giving another political party member time to progress to him with a cure serious wound potion , putting him back in the competitiveness .
Who recognise create water had a range , or that it ever would see utilization out of doors of a logistical scope ? I bed it .
Wolfgang : In a nautical escapade last year , the adventurer were in a ship being chase under full sheet by demonic pirates , racing through pipe up winds . It was high adventure with fire arrows and magic missiles flying — right until the minute the virtuoso cast wall of force across the route of the bad guys ’ ship .
In the competition of wooden ship versus immovable object — well , it was a staring disaster for the bad guy . The ship hull splinter , mast and sails tear from the sudden jolt , demons and sea robber drown . The poor boy pick through the wreckage , and the DM craunch his teeth a trivial but trifle fair . I think he had to honour the double-dyed manipulation of a justificatory piece to demolish the opponent .
The veracious piece at the right fourth dimension . That ’s what we ’re providing in Deep Magic with its hundreds of fresh piece and options . desire your readers get as much of a kick out of spellbooks as we do !
Shieldmaiden Magic : A Spell Collection from Deep Magic
By Ed Greenwood
So call to mind the Briennes and Big Berthas of lore — the burly farm - lassie or fiery - chasten spitfires who are n’t content , or are ineffectual thanks to the cruelties of fate , to cling to hearth and abode , and turn rather to battle .
Call them “ shieldmaidens , ” to give them a name that reminds us that some take up warfare to fight family , home , or other thing they hold dearly .
Some make war because they love it , some because they must , but in either case to taste defeat is often to die — so shieldmaidens , ferociously or grimly , require to win .
And in lands where genius take the air and on many a day magic can harness a battlefield , a warrior desire victory — or just to live on — may take tour of her own . So it be that shieldmaidens have developed their own deception , and some of them may trail other women warrior , and pass these spells down . Magics that transform buckler or give a brief edge in combat , spells that make their casters real menace ; as more than one old-timer fighter has observed angrily , “ enchantment that are just gods - curse inordinate ! ”
Sometimes , it ’s about being firm and swift and saucy , guy or gal , so you exult and hold up to smite the enemy another sidereal day .
Like any great adventurer .
All images © 2013 Kobold Press .
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