The Pit Fiend Story

 The system is Pathfinder 1, and happened maybe around 2018. It's some years after the event now and my memory's crap, so I'm probably misremembering a lot of it, but I found out yesterday that one of the other players in the party doesn't remember how it went down *at all*. So since I can't rely on anyone else to remember for me, I'm going to do the best I can. I think that the reason why we had to go to the mountain is wrong, but a wrong story that makes sense is better than an incomplete right story.

I was playing as a Hunter; a bardrangerdruid that's written to invest heavily in the Animal Companion. Basically, Tick-tock the Deinonychus (named for the way that his talons would clack on the floor) was the *real* character and Raul the Hunter was there to provide teamwork feats and other various buffs or spells.

Scene 1: The Dam
The party is in a dam, which is is powered by draining the life out of a Pit Fiend that's bound to a magic circle in the dam. Mechanically, the fiend's got a ton of *negative levels* - these massively penalise it in many ways. We need to activate the dam, but doing so will immediately the Pit Fiend - those have 20 hit dice, and it currently has 19 negative levels.

Pit Fiends can perform one Wish per year. We could really, *really* use a Wish for a power bump (Wish isn't Unlimited Wish) so we negotiate the following deal.

•  Mutual nonaggression, but the fiend isn't interested in indefinite servitude because that's not an upgrade from its current situation
•  We can't take any direct or indirect harmful actions. 
• We are to let it out and it is free to go immediately, but we meet back up soonish on top of a mountain someplace to get the first Wish.
• I can't remember what we specifically used the wish on but I think it was attribute bonuses, everyone wants more attribute bonuses.
• It gets the next Wish a year later to fix its level drain
• I'm pretty sure that we're damned upon our eventual deaths, either directly or indirectly for the act of letting a fucking pit fiend loose in the prime material plane

All party members and fiend sign said contract and power the dam in the interim with an animal instead. Now, we're currently low-ish level but we actually really don't want a full power fiend running loose in a year's time. We've got a lot of time to do enough adventuring and get strong enough to kill it before then, but it's still something that we'd like to deal with as soon as possible.

Scene 2: Clever Girl

• All PCs signed the contract
•  Tick-tock isn't a PC and therefore didn't sign (not going to get a wish either)
• Tick-tock has Intelligence 3 and therefore counts as a person and is able to independently make his own decisions
• He can't speak, but he does have Cunning Pantomime which lets him communicate just as well very slowly via acting

SO, one evening while we're all in town, Tick-tock takes the initiative and fucks off to a paladin order to try to get some backup on the mountain later. I don't know how that all went down - the interaction was offscreen.

Scene 3: The Mountain
Time passes, and we arrive at the mountain at the allotted time. Disappointingly, no paladins had turned up. We receive the wish and decide that we have to commit to trying to kill it on the spot, because we might not get another chance.

Now, Level Drain ("Negative Levels" to be specific) is a serious debuff.

For each negative level a creature has, it takes a cumulative –1 penalty on all ability checks, attack rolls, combat maneuver checks, Combat Maneuver Defense, saving throws, and skill checks. In addition, the creature reduces its current and total hit points by 5 for each negative level it possesses. The creature is also treated as one level lower for the purpose of level-dependent variables (such as spellcasting) for each negative level possessed. Spellcasters do not lose any prepared spells or slots as a result of negative levels. If a creature’s negative levels equal or exceed its total Hit Dice, it dies.

However, go ahead and look at the Pit Fiend page and apply 19 negative levels to that.
AC doesn't go down. HP drops from 350 to 260. Damage Reduction 15 is still in full effect, immunities and resistances and regeneration are functioning, spellcasting is still up.

Not having access to the statblock, we didn't do the math and seriously overestimated our abilities. We couldn't even scratch it. It just kinda rolls its eyes and teleports away - apparently it had more important business to attend to. Things have gone from bad to extremely fucking bad.

Scene 4: Dread
So we released a powerful and purely evil being into the world, it's completely unbound by contract, we have no significant allies, it knows who we are and the element of surprise is gone. We don't know how long we have before it decides to mop us up or why it hasn't already done so.

I put my foot down. No more half-assed plans. We need to look at what we've got and figure out something that will actually keep us alive. We bring up the entire loot sheet, respective spell lists, abilities. We take at least an hour, maybe two, working through ideas.

It's a devil, those can be summoned with strong enough magic. Magic circles can hold it. They make deals. It's highly level-drained. It's apparently very busy. Any further level drain would kill it, but it's got ridiculous Spell Resistance, so good luck getting that to work.

We have a couple castings of Lesser Planar Ally (summon things), which ignores spell resistance at least, but it's limited to 6 hitdice, and you can't get a specific creature unless you know the name.
    No, wait. With all that level drain, it's within the required range.
    And we *signed a contract with it, so we know its name too.*
 

So we can force another fight to start but that's not a winnable fight, or even stop it from just teleporting away again. Back to the drawing board.

We do know of a circle that held it once, but we don't know if that was due to the existence of a previous contract or due to the circle itself.
    But that doesn't matter.
    Because that circle is, conveniently, hooked up to a machine that can drain levels.

Scene 5: Finale
We fucking leg it over hill and dale back to the Dam as fast as possible; on arrival we are relieved to see that the fiend didn't think of the same plan first.

We only get one shot at this.

One of us stands next to the activation lever. Our divine caster faces the circle and casts for a tense 10 minutes - which is successful. The fiend is barely materialising inside the circle and doesn't even have time to realise what's going on before the activation lever is yanked down and he implodes into dust. Silence.

Did it work? Is it over?

As we understand it, "killed" devils will reform in Hell (like most outsiders). Only one way to know. We pull out another scroll of Lesser Planar Ally and summon it again. This time, a mere 1HD Lemure arrives. No rank, no status, no power, no memory. Confirming that it did indeed have the right name, we dismissed it back to Hell on the spot and ended the session.

The End!

This is probably my favourite game tale. There's no "Nat 20!" moment, just desperation and raw system mastery to take down something that was probably about as dangerous as the campaign's final boss and get a free Wish out of it on the way.

Fighter: Student of Many Styles

It's a fighter that develops in random directions, steered by the player.
This is not polished, it is minimum viable product. Only the barest thoughts have been given to balance. This might be overtuned. On the other hand, fighters should be good at fighting.
I think that you could take Parry, good with shields, the parry-improving technique, and wear heavy armour and you'll be REALLY hard to kill. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Or if you got extra reach, cleave, and finished with Kill The Mooks you'd be able to mow down weaklings like anything.

I can see some anti-synergies between some things: if you punish misses by attacking more, and attach a maneuver to each of your attacks, so the enemy tries to hit you and misses EVEN MORE,for more attacks... then is it good or bad for you to improve your maneuver so that it doesn't provoke enemy attacks? Same thing with a crit build vs Kill The Mooks.

I also note that it's quite possible to create a fighter that only ever gets one attack per round. That sorta feels wrong. But maybe that's OK.

 In short: if something in this feels wrong for you, it probably is wrong, and should be adjusted.

Chassis

A: 2 Fundamentals, 1 Technique, Attack +1
B: 1 Technique, Attack +1, Extra skill
C: 1 Fundamental, 1 Technique, Students
D: 1 Secret Art, 1 Swappable Technique

You begin with an interesting scar, two weapons OR a weapon and shield, medium armour, and a tome of esoteric fighting techniques.
You are proficient with all normal weapons and armour.
Starting Skill: 1. Mercenary 2. Foreign Parts 3. Monsters

Fundamentals

Each time you get a Fundamental, pick an item on this list.

• Weapon Notches: Weapons get better at 3, 10, 30, and 100 kills. You can take the same thing more than once.
  
• +1 attack
• +1 damage
• Extra thing
• Keen edge
• Parry: Or you can call it Stance. You have [2, 3, 4, 5] hp of overshields each round.
• Tactic master: When you hit an enemy, you can also make a maneuver against them (does not remove the normal chance of being hit)
  
• Cleave: When you kill an enemy or crit, you can make an extra attack.
• Good with Shields: Extra +1 Armour from shields, can always sunder for maximum
• The Good Power Attack: When you power attack, the penalty is only -2 rather than -4.
  

Technique

Each time you get a new Technique, roll TWICE on the list, and pick ONE to gain. If you get an entry you already have, reroll that one. I kinda want to be able to increase this chart to a D66, so I need 3 more ideas.

1. Head of John: Your head becomes indestructible. It's a good weapon.
2. Pattram Sword Hand: Your unarmed strikes are just like swords. Work out the specifics.
3. Horse Stance: You no longer get tired from walking or running any distance as long as you are not overencumbered.
4. Chan Style: No item you use as a weapon does less than 1d8 hp and you don't take penalties just for trying to use it (though it may only be good for one use if fragile). If you have a strength penalty to attack/damage, that's also ignored.
5. Swat Missiles: You can smack incoming missiles out of the air if you make a successful attack roll.
6. Protecc but also Attacc: If an ally is attacked by an enemy, both within your reach, you may make an attack against that enemy first.
7. First strike: When an enemy moves within your reach, you may make an attack against them immediately.
8. Infinite Tumble: Move past enemies or disengage without provoking attacks
9. Discliple of Guts: You learn how to carry and effectively use ridiculously oversized weaponry.
10. Punish Incompetence: When an enemy misses you, you may make an attack against them.
11. Keen. Your critical range expands by one.
12. Spellsword: Roll a random spell and gain one MD. You're good with spells now.
13. Bloodlust: Gain HP when you kill an enemy, equal to how many HD they had. No "angry turtles in a bag" strategy, please.
14. Ignore Injury: Mere pain, shock, bruising, bleeding, cold, burns and the like no longer hampers your ability to act - only extensive damage like shattered bones or loss of limb.
15. Follow Through: When you kill a creature, damage exceeding their remaining hitpoints gets applied to other targets you could also conceivably attack with the same action.
16. Size up: Can tell most important enemy stats at a glance: hitpoints, armour, and their strategy.
17. Air Blade: Can make ranged attacks with melee weapons.
18. Implacable: You are immune to fear and get a +4 to saves against other mental effects. Allies near you get a +4 to saves against fear.
19. Extreme Parry: Double your parry.
20. Dash Master: Get a 10' Dash as the Skirmisher (that is, a 10' horizontal dash, 1/round, usable at any time including when an enemy is about to attack you)
    
21. Extra Quickdraw Slots: You get another 3, like a Thief
22. Lightfoot: Your footsteps are so light you can tread on water or snow without falling. +2 stealth.
23. Elemental Affinity: Pick an element. You can use it to perform 1d6 attacks and achieve other small-scale effects.
    
24. Elemental Resistance: Pick an element. You gain resistance to that element equal to your HD.
25. Danger Sense: You cannot be surprised.
    
26. Situational Extra Attack: Come up with some particular circumstance that gives you an extra attack.
    
27. Effective medicine: Gain the Medicine skill. Rolls to prevent someone dying from their injuries succeed on a 3 in 6.
28. Equipment trick: You can make better use of a kind of equipment, especially in combat. E.g. drinking things like potions can be done for free. Or you're good at using ropes are weapons.
29. Zoom Punch: Space seems to warp around you, your reach is much longer than usual.
    
30. Petition DM: Ask for a certain item on the list, or a feature you can find from another class, or something custom, of appropriate power. Try improving a technique you already have, or some set of circumstances that gives you an extra attack?

Other ideas: Extra HP. Reduce impact of Death Dice (make them d4s). Not being able to see doesn't negatively affect your ability to fight.

Attack +1

This is a +1 to your ATTACK ROLLS, not an extra attack.

Extra Skill

Gain an appropriate skill.
[To do: suggest some skills]

Students

A travelling student finds you, wishing to learn from your example. Treat them as a level 1 Student of Many Styles. After a week of learning from you, treat them as a level 2 Student of Many Styles; the technique they gain must be one you have. After a month, they will move on (and are soon replaced by a new student) unless they are furnished with a good reason to stay.
They are willing to EITHER pay you, work for you, or fight for you in exchange for teaching.

Swappable Technique

Pick a technique on the list, gain it immediately. You find this technique difficult; it runs against your deeply ingrained habits, and requires regular practice/meditation for it to remain usable.
You may swap this technique out for another in a week of downtime.

Secret Art

You gain one secret art: some ability of significant power, known to very few.  You might be the only living practicioner. You get a secret art that is most appropriate for your character - according to your needs or historical approach to solving problems. You and your DM can work out the specifics. Some examples are given.

• Ability to cut things that should not be cuttable, such as very hard materials, or space, or truth (pick ONE)
• Perfect Tactical Foresight: declare that the combat round that just happened was only "what you saw might happen". Everything gets put back as it was a round ago and we get a do-over. Nobody will be able to remember the exact hitpoint totals that anything had - close enough is good enough.
• Hadouken. A big one.
• Za Warudo. Two full rounds of action. Once a day.
• Kill the Mooks. Attacks against nameless mooks (2HD or less that the DM hasn't named) always hit and always kill.

Mutating Your Spells

Normal spell mutation incurs one roll on the main 2d20 chart. That chart may instruct you to roll on the subsequent two charts or roll additional times. For the purposes of tallying mutations, Good-Boring mutations are counted with their accompanying Drawback as a single mutation.

Spell Mutation Main Chart (roll 2d20, add them)

2. Roll on the Drawbacks table.
3. Death Burst: When you die, you may cast this spell immediately with extra MD equal to your amount of wizard-equivalent templates x 4.
4. Inevitable: If you have in your possession something belonging to your target, you can burn it to target them from infinite range without line of sight, the magic will slip between the tectonic plates, crack the barriers between worlds to reach their target. It is impossible to hide from the spell, but it may be stopped by adequate protection.
The target knows who hunts them and where the spell was cast.
5. Gorgon: After a gorgon spell is cast, the invested MD are occupied until a creature sees the caster, at which point they are immediately made the target of the spell, range disregarded.
6. Discovery: When cast, the caster learns one non-obvious thing about the target.
7. Transportation: 1-3: The caster is teleported to the target of the spell, after its initial effects have been resolved. 4-6: Target teleported to caster.
8. Trigger: Whenever you cast this spell, define a condition that also defines a potential target should that condition occur. Lastly, select an inanimate object no larger than an elephant, the spell is bound to that object and will be cast from that object as soon as the condition holds true. The invested MD are occupied, unless you use 25 GP’s worth of magical ingredients per invested MD.
9. Spellborn Homunculus: Your spell becomes a person.  They are neutral towards you. Roll a random personality and goals. They can cast themselves 1/day. They start with 1 MD, and can gain more.
10. Cross-pollination: The next time it is cast, the spell permanently incorporates some aspect of 1. The caster 2. A random spell in/on the caster 3. The target 4. A random spell in/on the target 5. The next thing to touch the spell after the target. 6. The most powerful creature in the area.
11. Peanut Gallery: All players present collectively come up with something new and fun.
    * "The spell is lured by the smell of chocolate"
    * "The spell gives good artistic advice when memorised"
    Go with something that makes the GM or the caster laugh or scream.
12. Phase: Phase out of space and time for [dice] turns after you cast the spell, but before it resolves.
13. Curse: same as 8, but can only target a creature instead of an inanimate object.
14. New Flavor:  The spell changes elements or orientations.  Fireball becomes lightningball, protection from evil becomes protection from good, charm person becomes charm bird (or perhaps infuriate person), web becomes freedom of movement.
15. Counter: If a spell is cast within sight, you can immediately cast this spell at that target as a counter before it resolves.
16. Wild: Whenever you cast the spell, roll on this table and use that mutation for this one cast. (If this introduces too many extra rolls, replace it with Protean: change the mutation at each dawn.)
17. Breeding:  Your spell has just given birth.  This newborn spell is a weaker version of its parent, but after being cast 5 times it will have grown to adulthood.  Roll a d100 to see if it has mutated from it's parent breed (the same as encountering a new spell in the wild). This is not a permament mutation applied to the parent, but more of a singular event.
18. Ritual: If the caster spends 10 minutes casting the spell, the spell can either be cast with an extra MD or with a recovery range improved by 1, your choice.
19. Roll once each on the Good-Boring Table and Drawback Table
20. Roll again twice
21. Roll again twice
22. Roll again twice
23. Roll once each on the Good-Boring Table and Drawback Table
24. Proxy: You may choose to not cast the spell as normal, instead you invest MD as normal and target a creature to allow them to cast the spell instead of you once with all the invested MD. You can reclaim the MD at any point, but until you do, they count as occupied.
25. Cooperation: If other casters close hands with the Spellhost, they may pool their MD together for the Spellhost’s magic. In addition, each participant adds +1 to [sum], even non-casters.
26. Chain: After resolving the spell, if a miscast or doom occurs; cast the spell again with the duplicate MD’s for free on a new creature within sight.
27. Delayed: The spell can be cast and at a later date be unleashed as a free action, while doing so it occupies the invested MD. Multiple instances of the same spell cannot be delayed.
28. Recursive: You do not regain MD when casting this spell, instead any recovered MD are immediately spent on recasting the spell on the same target, repeating this effect until no MD remain.
29. Circumference: As the spell is cast, the caster is protected by a circle of visible energy drawn 5 feet around the caster, any creature that steps through the circle (including the caster) will have the spell re-cast at them, with the amount of previously invested MD added for free, after which the circle dissipates. The circle lasts for [dice] turns.
30. Blood: You can sacrifice 5 of your own HP to add up to one MD to the casting, if this MD resulted in recovery, regain HP equal to the dice’s result.
31. Full Sentience:  Your spell becomes fully sentient.  It talks to you.  Roll a random starting personality and goals.  If it is angry at you, it may refuse to be cast.  If it is especially pleased, it may enhance itself in a way that you request.  Spells enjoy being in your brain and seeing out your eyes.  They do not enjoy being in the spellbook, which is much like a jail.  They may request (or plot) their release, or the release of all your spells.
32. Familiar: Whenever the spell is cast, it manifests instead as a 1HD familiar with a shape embodying the spell’s theme, the spent MD are occupied until the familiar is destroyed, at which point the spell is cast. The familiar can be commanded to destroy itself. You can only have one active familiar per spell at a time.
33. Tribute: The spell can be cast with an extra MD as long as a sentient creature is sacrificed as part of its casting. The sacrifice has to be ritualistic and performed on a helpless target, just sacrificing an active combatant is not possible.
34. Soul: If the spell kills a creature with 1 HD or more, choose to recover or replace one MD. As long as that MD remains unused, you can communicate with their soul.
35. Name: If you can name your target, add an extra MD.
36. Necro: The spell can target corpses with an intact soul (dissipates after 13 minutes) and use it to fuel their spell. Each 2 HD or 1 level of the target creature allows you to add an extra MD, failed recovery rolls on the extra MDs causes a 3 necrotic damage backlash.
37. Cantrip: If you cast this spell investing only one MD, the MD always recovers.
38. Mimic: Before casting, this mutation can assume the effects of any mutation in one of your memorised spells.
39. Powerful: MD’s invested in this spell are rolled as D8’s, their recovery range is 1-4. This is the Philosopher’s Stone of Spellhosts, coveted by all and ruthlessly hunted.
40. Pick any entry on this chart of your choosing. If that entry has a random/indeterminate result, you can probably pick that too.

(2d6) Good-Boring Table

2. Hard:  Targets get -4 to their Save.
3. Subtle:  You can cast this spell quietly and without being noticed.
4. Improved Effect: The spell does more of whatever it does.  5d6 damage becomes 6d6, charm becomes obsession.
5. Improved Reach: Triple the range of the spell. If it was Touch, it becomes 30'.
6. Improved Area of Effect:  The spell affects a wider area, or more targets.
7. Negotiate! GM and players think of something not game-breaking but cool, including fusion. Or you can use this to get rid of a downside to the spell.
8. Improved Finesse.  You have more control over your spell.  You can create gaps in your fireball, or limit the damage, for example.
9. Improved Duration. Triple the duration.
10. Improved Applicability.  The spell affects a broader category of targets.  Charm person becomes charm biped.
11. Reliable: Roll an additional MD, and then exclude any single MD from resolving the effects. This can be used to avert mishaps/dooms.
12. Facile.  You can cast the spell as a free action.
 

(2d8) Drawbacks Table

2. Cancer: Reduces the amount of MD cast with this spell by one. Cancer cannot be removed or re-rolled through Spell Breeding, but it can be swapped to another spell, in which there is a 50% chance the cancer will duplicate and exist in both swapped spells.
3. Enemy of Farmers: Every time this spell is cast the nearest unborn animal rolls on the Physical Mutation chart.
4. Gadabout: Spell has a 50% chance of being present when wanted. Otherwise it's faffing about someplace.
5. Jealous: If the spell is the first spell you cast today, get the benefits of Reliable ONCE for the day. If not, the GM may force a reroll of any single MD invested in each cast for the day.
6. Clingy: The spell will not willingly relocate out of your head. Burn a MD to try to force it out, and Save to succeed.
7. Worsen: Pick a random numerical attribute of the spell and halve it.
8. Calling Card: The spell leaves very obvious and long-lasting evidence that it was cast, usually thematically particular to the associated caster when this mutation was gained.
9. Specificity: Spell's Target becomes more specific. "Charm Monster" becomes "Charm Smelly Monster" for example.
10. Center of Attention: The spell now gains a great deal of pyrotechnics and noise. While not necessarily damaging to be nearby, it is almost impossible to not notice.
11. Touch: The spell can only be cast while touching the target, but if you do, add one additional MD for free.
12. Finale: When this spell is cast, include 2 free MD. However, any available MD that the caster did NOT invest in this spell are rolled and the sum taken as damage by the caster.
13. Aphasia: While memorised, caster cannot verbalise anything except the spell's name or subsets thereof.
14. Parasitic: The spell is less choosy about where it lives, and progressively alters a host more to its liking. This is not healthy for the caster in the long-term, but they may be able to glean some benefit.

Spell: Mutate Spell

R: Touch (including in head); T: A spell;
Material components: 1gp of bribes and anaesthetic per MD invested
Effect: Target spell is mutated according to the result of a roll on the Mutate Spell chart. You must invest a minimum number of MD equal to the number of mutations the spell already has.

If you spend 100gp per MD invested (minimum 100gp), you may roll twice on the chart and pick the result you want.

Hybrid levelling system: XP for Treasures

What you award XP for has a massive effect. It's one of the best controls you have to change what goes on in your game; players will naturally seek out whatever action awards it, and you can switch out that thing (or selection of things) without having to think too hard about what else will be impacted by that change.

If you award XP mainly for killing monsters, players will begin to prefer plans that include doing that. If you award XP just for getting the gold out of the dungeon, then you're free to design in a space where all methods of getting past any obstacles between the PCs and the gold are equally valid. I've seen discussions about awarding XP for investing gold into settlements; the overall progress of a campaign is then inextricably reflected in the growth of their home base. You can award increasing XP for exploring a sequence of dungeon rooms without rest. And so on and so forth.

Of course, milestone levelling, i.e. just levelling up players when it feels right, is an option. However, that doesn't work so well for games where PCs may have different levels (as mine does), and I want to take advantage of having an obvious universal carrot for my players to chase after.

XP-for-gold is good, but I'm increasingly finding that I want to be free of the burden of math in my games (related: migrate to usage dice or any other method to avoid tracking exact counts of things), as my players are rarely as happy to whip out an excel spreadsheet and keep strict notes as I am - and I certainly have too much to do to want to do that for them. I also have an interesting conflict where I want mundane purchasing decisions to remain a part of the game beyond level 2-3, and for the first big chest of gold to NOT rocket a single PC to level 10.

I think I now have a way out of this problem. I was already familiar with the large treasures of Ultraviolet Grasslands, and this week I read Arnold's post on Popcorn Levelling, which are both very interesting to me. It is these two things that I have blended together into a new system, which works as follows.

• You need Treasures (that's a keyword) to level up
• Treasures are big, fancy, named things
• They usually have history and artistic value; being magical and having a function is more optional
  
• Treasures are immediately recognisable as such! These are an obvious carrot, remember!
  
• A Treasure takes up one* inventory slot, is worth 1XP, and is worth 500 silver* for every WORD in the name
• When you carry a Treasure out of the dungeon (or can be said to have "gotten away with it") you can have the XP
• Keeping a record of all the names of the things you've thus stolen as your XP tracker is highly recommended
• Levelling is a Fibonacci progression: 2XP for level 2, an additional 3XP for 3, an additional 5XP for four, 8XP for five, and so on
• Selling the Treasure, or keeping it, or throwing it into a lake, is up to you. You get the XP either way.
  

Currently, the XP for a single treasure cannot be subdivided, and there is no guidance for how treasures should be assigned to PCs when obtaining them is usually a team effort. At the moment I'm letting my players sort it out amongst themselves, and if that starts giving bad results I'll implement an extra rule or two. I mainly just want to discourage putting all the treasures onto one PC.

It might not be reasonable to know the "true" name of a Treasure when it's first encountered; in that case a purely descriptive name (of the same number of words) might be temporarily assigned, but identifying it properly will improve things somehow. It might be able to be sold for more (or it cannot be sold for the normal amount while unidentified), gain new/improved functions, become a plot hook, be usable as a plot token elsewhere, etc.

For example, you might obtain the AERIAL PHOTOPLATE ATLAS, TURBO ENCABULATOR, and ARTICULATED MODEL DRAGON; carrying all of them at once will take up eight inventory slots, they are worth a respectable 4000 silver, a single level-1 PC that managed to make off with the lot would jump to level 3, and only need to steal two additional WORDS of Treasure to hit level 4.

This whole thing conceptually echoes the GLoG principle that you should gain abilities that reflect your adventures; now your XP tracker will reflect what you've stolen and be a nice little summary history of your successes and a reminder of where you've been. The character sheet is a living document, steeped in adventuring history.

I've now deployed this in my game and I'll get my first set of results next session. Tell me if you try it for yourself, or just say what your preferred XP system is (and why)!

* To help you set expectations with the above numbers: a warhorse, suit of plate armour, or Fireball spell would all be worth about 1000 silver, and a skilled mason can comfortably save 4 silver each week (actual income and cost-of-living are more than that). Conceptualise a silver as being worth $10 in modern money and you won't be far wrong. PCs have their strength score in inventory slots. I'm also working with the Goblin Laws of Gaming, where you stop getting class features at level 4, which is about your life expectancy anyway.

Thieves' Guild: Greaser

This is a Thief Guild following the format invented by Velexiraptor, as follows:

Level 1: Gain 2 abilities at rank 1
Level 2: Rank up an ability you have, then gain a new ability at rank 1
Level 3: Rank up 2 abilities you have
Level 4: Rank up 2 abilities you have, then gain all abilities you don't have yet at rank 1

Hit Die: d6 (if you use those)

If you use weapon proficiencies, you are proficient with greaser weapons - that is, practical urbanite stuff.

 Starting Equipment: Comb, Jumbo tub of thick grease, hand mirror, spring-loaded knife, stylish outfit, a narrative-and-setting-appropriate mode of transportation (horse, motorbike, T-Bird) that only performs properly for you.

Skills (2, d6): 1. Dance, 2. Smooth-talk, 3. Vehicle/driving/riding skill appropriate to your original mode of transportation, 4. Streetwise, 5. Gambler, 6. Bravado

1. Dance-Fighting

    ✧: You may dance-fight. You must not be encumbered or have anything else hampering your movement, and be able to hear some kind of appropriate and familiar music to quicken your soul. A group of people clicking fingers in unison works in a pinch, as does hallucinatory music. You get +2 to your AC and Attack against foes that cannot match your smooth moves.

    ✧✧: You may add your dex bonus to damage rolls (instead of strength) while dance-fighting. If you are hampered or the music stops while you are dance-fighting, you retain the benefits for two more rounds.

    ✧✧✧: You can lead a small group of people to dance-fight, though they are subject to the same restrictions and must be able to see and hear you. You can always hear your theme song if you concentrate.

2. Home Turf

    ✧: Declare a Home Turf no larger than a small town. You always know the fastest route through your Home Turf and can always find a place to lay low there.

    ✧✧: Once per week you can declare you Know A Guy from your Home Turf who could conceivably assist with the current situation. The GM rolls that person's Reaction when they are next encountered - they may require appeasement or refuse entirely.

    ✧✧✧: Gain a Reputation in your Home Turf as befits what is known of your actions. Everyone has heard of you (though you are not always recognised on sight). Discuss with your GM what this reputation is and what effects it will have. This reputation can be changed over time through great effort.

3. Percussive Maintenance

    ✧: Precisely strike an object that is entirely mechanical and entirely comprehensible to you, with a body part, after studying it for at least one round; this makes it immediately perform as you would like, within the realms of physical possibility. You can ignore one of these underlined clauses but if you do, you only succeed on 2-in-6. You may not retry unless you meet all clauses.

    ✧✧: You can now ignore two underlined clauses, but if you do your success rate is only 1-in-6. If you fail, you may retry once without having to meet all clauses.

    ✧✧✧: Ignoring one clause succeeds on 5-in-6. Ignoring two succeeds on 3-in-6.

4. Fast Hands

    ✧: You can draw and make use of the item in your very first inventory slot even if surprised.

    ✧✧: Gain an extra two quick draw slots. Get the ✧ benefit for your second inventory slot also.

    ✧✧✧: You can declare that an item in a quickdraw slot is already in your hand, once per hand per round, as long as you could have reached it.

5. Pompadour

    ✧: With 10 minutes of work and the correct tools, you may style your hair beyond the ken of mortal man. Hats/helmets/etc will ruin it. You may sunder your hairstyle to reduce damage from an incoming attack by 1d6, similar to a shield; you gain advantage on attack rolls against whatever ruined your hair until you hit them.

    ✧✧: When you sunder your hairstyle it reduces incoming damage by 1d6+2 points. You gain advantage on the attacker until you have hit them twice.

    ✧✧✧: When you sunder your hairstyle it reduces incoming damage by 1d6+4 points.You roll damage twice and take the higher result the next two times you hit the attacker.

6.  Magnetic Personality

    ✧: When Reactions are rolled you can adjust the result to be one point more favourable if you are prominently visible and groomed properly. (Not all creatures have variable Reactions.)

    ✧✧: While you are in a location where you are regarded well, you can draw a room of people to come to your aid if you succeed on a Charisma check. They are not much more willing to endanger themselves than usual. Misusing this ability may cause people to dislike you.

    ✧✧✧: All else being equal, anyone will take your side of the story.

Mental Inventory and Mindsets

I said that the spell mutator was next, I was wrong, I want to rewrite it first and I need to figure out the code to make a non-flat random table work right.

Without further ado: Mental Inventory. Jellied Rat uses Mental Inventory.

Just as you have a physical slotted inventory, you can have a mental slotted inventory. You have a number of slots: 7 + Wis Mod.

Mental slots can hold:
    - Your persistent sense of self
    - Homes for memorised spells
    - Permanently fused "passive" spells
    - Mindsets
    - Mental stowaways: mnemonomorphs, parasites/parasitoids, spies, etc.
    - Mental Baggage (Trauma)
    -     Trauma may be gained by experiencing or seeing a friend sustain terrible injury.
    -     Trauma may not manifest immediately. Maybe a day later?
    - Negative status effects: Fear, Hunger, Stress are big ones.
        Drunkenness doesn't go in there. That's separate.
        Hangovers do.
        Bards might give you Earworms.

Skills do not go inside separate mental slots.
The act of gaining a skill is hard work but they don't really take up space - the existence of a skill is encoded within the intersection of the Animal Soul (instinct, which is retrainable) and the Purple Soul (memory).

In addition to your normal Mental Inventory slots, you have 5 Suppressed slots. If you would exceed your mental inventory, Souls, Mindsets, and Fused Spells (the things are are most deeply linked to who you truly ARE) can be relocated to Suppressed slots - they're not really gone but they're also not usable. Spells and negative effects cannot be willingly moved to suppressed slots in this manner; spell homes are simply lost and the spell falls out. If you lose a spell home, you can usually recreate it more easily than you did the first time, but the spell might be pissed at you.

Things suppressed in this manner can be restored to their rightful place once space exists for them again and a proper rest is taken (a meal and a rest in a safe place).


== Souls ==
Starting with Arnold's stuff, he envisions that a person is a *gestalt* of multiple distinct souls. Three lower souls and four upper souls. All can be modified. All can be removed and moved around.
Upper souls depart the body quickly after death and are USUALLY eventually drawn to the River of Souls and then sorted into some kind of afterlife.
Lower souls - earthly souls - stick around for varying amounts of time (Mineral much longer than the others) and then evetually are reincarnated.
If the upper souls are prevented from going where they should, they will reincarnate too.
Be aware that they are still wilful and may deliberately evade capture.
An "escaped" soul will eventually grow - all things strive - so it no longer lacks the other parts.
= Lower =
Mineral: Raw material interactions. Can remember a few basic facts.
Vegetable: Knits together fleshy form. Makes zombies go.
    Lack: cellular functions cease. Immunity to poison. Death in 1d6 hours.
Animal: The desires of the flesh.
    Lack: Dwarves don't have this.
= Upper =
Purple: Memory
Red: Personality
    Lack: No style or individuality. Dwarves don't have this.
White: Goals
Blue: Spirit
    Lack: No casting, no religion. +4 to Save vs Magic.

If you're paying attention, you'll realise that you could have 3 wisdom and have to store 4 souls. In practice this means that you will either have no Personality or no Goals.

However, barring extereme circumstances, those first four slots are going to be filled up with your YOU.

== Mindsets ==
Players can adopt or discard a mindset if they can supply a good enough reason to do so, such as some critical and life-changing event that they recently went through. Anything traumatic or stressful, or a pyrrhic victory, or an interaction with a cherished acquaintance. Replacing a mindset in the middle of a desperate battle is fine. Replacing a mindset multiple times in one turn is less fine.

You can put a mindset into more than one slot for a greater effect. Combine Desperate and Seeker of Destruction! I'm sure nothing bad will happen.

`Prideful` If you fail a check relating to your pride, once-per-session you get a do-over with advantage.
`Angry` Reroll failed initiative check if you immediately charge
`Goblinism` Compulsory for goblins. This is what makes a goblin a goblin.
`Confidence` +2 to do the first thing you suggest, instead of dallying/planning
`Cowardly` +2 Defense while avoiding danger
`Cruel` When you use unnecessary force on a vulnerable enemy, you can force a Morale check. Results may vary.
`Inquisitive` 1/session, you find something hidden
`Desperate` +1 to everything while at 0 HP
`Oathbound` +1 to everything opposing your oath
`Magnetic Personality` +3 retainers (normally 2 or 6 + Cha mod)
`Greedy` Can accurately compare the relative worth of things
`Stoic` You can ignore minor mental penalties (up to -2) and never complain about them
`Stalwart` You can ignore minor physical penalties (up to -2) and never complain about them
`Happy` NPCs don't automatically treat you as an "adventurer"
`Inspiring` Followers are on their best behaviour (if there is any chance you'll hear of what they do)
`Helpful` 1/session, after a friend has rolled a d20, allow them to reroll it and take the higher result
`Iron Stomach` +4 to save against anything you ate
`Innocent` Anything will hesitate to kill you, at least for a moment
`Joker` An in-character quip that the DM deems sufficiently witty heals 1HP, up to 3/session
`Knowledgeable` 1/session learn a new rumour if in town. If not, DM's choice of something potentially useful.
`Mysterious` Conceal your backstory. When you reveal it, exchange this Mindset for a different one.
`Observant` INT check to ask detailed questions after you've left a scene (flashback style)
`Paranoid` GM will suggest lots of ways that things could go wrong.
`Grandiose` Enemies that fail a morale check and would flee/rout (not retreat) instead grovel
`Immaculate` +1 damage at full HP
`Zealous` Your voice counts as a holy symbol
`Seeker of Destruction` Do +1 damage always, have +1 Death Die always
`Brave` +2 vs fear
`Hasty` +1 to Move
`Steadfast` +2 to save when holding breath or for feats of endurance
`Lithe` +2 to AC when unarmored
`Alcohol Dependence` Alcoholic drinks heals you for 1 hp.  You still get drunk, though.
`Pew pew` +1 to hit with ranged attacks, but -1 to hit with melee attacks.
`Beatstick` +1 to hit with melee attacks, but -1 to hit with ranged attacks.
`Hatred of X` +1 to hit against a certain type of creature (if you start with this, determine randomly)
`Sir Robin` Can disengage from combat without penalty, attacks of opportunity, or whatever
`Superstitious` +2 to save against curses
`Leadership` Associates must use your save against emotional effects
`Suave` If you make an effort to present yourself well, you get a +2 to positive social interactions
`Expressive` You have a gift for art - visual, music, dance, whatever. This is more about bold artistic vision and baring your soul rather than actual technical skill.
`Low Standards` Things that would be soul-crushing for most people are just a Regular Tuesday for you.
Pious: ?
Inconspicuous: ?
Showboat: ?
Ugly: ?
Competitive: ?
Servile: ?
Thinky: ?
Faithful: ?
`Contemplative` Increases the power of cleric miracles. Somehow. Others who share your faith and who are also being contemplative may assist.

= Quasi-Mindsets =
`Crammed X` You are treated as knowing a particular skill (at a small penalty) but you must Save every night or lose this. Requires a teacher and quite possibly some special ability to obtain (that either you or they have)

Spell Generator for GLOG

 

 I want spells to be interesting. I want encountering them to be truly memorable. I want them to have personality. I want them to be alien. I want a practical and interesting social combat structure, or minigame, to represent the sheer amount of work it takes to catch one. I came up with a procedure for this, but I found that it was so unwieldy that I immediately realised that I needed a computer to do it for me. 

Prep procedure:

1. Get a copy of this grid in whatever format is most convenient for you. You want to be able to scribble on it. That (unmarked) grid is player-facing information for anyone that knows anything about spells.

2. Click this button. [This sentence will become a link to my next post which will be a spell mutation generator]

3. Eyeball the results. Modify as you like. Maybe reroll it if you don't like it. If it tells you to look at a particular wizard school, open up this page, find that wizard, and - assuming that a school has got 12 spells with the rarest ones at the highest numbers - take the LOWER of the two numbers in parentheses and look at THAT spell.

 4. Decide on the intelligence level of the spell. If you decide that this spell is as smart as a normal person (which I think should be rare), you can break away from this process immediately and play out any negotiations with them as you would any NPC. Do you want to see the fighter get into an argument with a talking rope while the wizard tries to break it up? I do.

 5. Mark the the Needs you rolled on the table, and the point value of each one. See how these Wants are grouped into three base categories? Decide now on the personality and the appearance - these should flow naturally out of what spell it is and those Needs. Making a guess at what a spell might do from its appearance and behaviour is a part of this game.

A spell might look like anything; it might look like an animal, vegetable, mineral, person, astral body, hairball, something a cat coughed up, an ordinary tool, something that a neural net created, a creature from Spore...

OK, your prep is done.

When encountered, it works like this.

To be able to interact with a spell properly you almost always have to be able to usefully perceive its actual form. Some are plainly visible, some are not. ALL wizards have got some ability to sense them sufficiently. This ability can be developed with proper training or by doing irresponsible things to your eyes. Non-wizard spell-hunters carry a range of Doodads; each Doodad has a 1-in-6 chance of rendering a given spell visible (salt, a cat, and a layer of alchemical crystals stuck to a sheet of paper are the most common and cheapest types). Almost all spells become visible for a short period each day, but that exact time varies.

One attempt = 1 Turn (10 minutes). The wizard (that's how I'm just going to refer to the person trying to tame the spell) incurs a Stress just to try, as they begin the intense mental work of trying to utterly comprehend the being before them while simultaneously constructing a new space for them to live in and actually navigating the negotiations.

One Attempt == the wizard gets their Wis score in actions. An action may be used to try to meet a single Want on the chart (the Wizard is provided with an unmarked chart) or to ask a general question about what courses of action are more likely to be productive.

The wizard knows whether an action was successful or not. If they were successful but this did NOT yield any points, they are informed of that too.

The threshold that must be met or exceeded to win is usually the total number of available points -6.

If you FAIL, you can immediately retry by incurring an additional Stress. You can also lock any Wants that you previously achieved by taking yet another Stress (note that some Wants will stay locked for free).

If you SUCCEED the spell moves in immediately, taking the first slot that you put the Stress into. The rest of the Stress, you need to get rid of the hard way.