Title: Crash on Volturnus
Code: SF-0
Author: Mark Acres, Tom Moldvay with Doug Niles
Rule Set: Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn
Year: 1982
Pages: 30
Number of characters: 4-8
Levels: 1
Rating: ★★★★★

Crash on Volturnus is one of my favorite modules. The player start of as passengers on the Sierra Dawn, where they first encounter trouble en route to Volturnus. After an epic battle and escape, players move on to phase two, an incredible hex crawl on the planet of Volturnus culminating in a final(?) battle with the pirate forces on the planet. Aided by the local inhabitants of the planet, surely the players will win the day.

This module was released with the Alpha Dawn rules set and to my knowledge, was not released independently of that set. I received my set of Alpha Dawn rules peice meal and ended up with two copies of the module. The whole boxed set includes giant maps and wonderful counters, which makes SF-0 a snap to play.

Crash on Volturnus is the first module in the series and was followed up by SF-1 and SF-2. The other SF series modules are unrelated, but are valuable as they are set up for characters to continue their adventures in new settings. The series was also brought back to life by the Endless Quest book Villains of Volturnus in 1983. It was published in relatively short time frame making the series rock solid in game play and feel.

Having played SF-0 several times, there are few game breakers built in to the scenario. First, when the escape pod crashes, the characters only have time to get the survival packs. Several of my players started out with standard equipment packs and used the coveralls as a makeshift backpack tied across their chests before seating themselves. Since the equipment was attached to them, I couldn't justify taking it. The players also started with 4 medical kits, which made them neigh unstoppable in combat. They kept pulling back to heal. Of course, these were the same players who tied their equipment to their chests. I kept running them against random encounters to try to eat up resources, but that was unfulfilling. Eventually, I figured I'd let them run in god-mode and kill everything and everyone. Many of the challenges they faced were thinking scenarios and not fighting scenarios, so it really didn't change the outcome. 

All and all, I found this one module to be the best of the best for Star Frontiers. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

The whole shebang is available over on DriveThruRPG.

Alpha Dawn with SF-0
SF-1 Volturnus, Planet of Mystery
and SF-2 Starspawn of Volturnus

Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners Update

Updated an image or two.

I have uploaded a new version of Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners which includes more than 50 character professions. The update addresses some issues with the text, many typos and some minor changes to mechanics.

Now included with the download is a very old school character sheet. The sheet is two sided has 8 blocks for character information. The first four blocks are the familiar entries and the back page contains 4 blank lined blocks for notes.


The attribute block has a handy way of recording unavergaed die rolls in each corners of each stat.

Additionally, the sheet is plain black and white to allow for sketches and coloring right on the page. My suggestion is to attack these white spaces with a highlighter so you can quickly determine which character is which.

If you have already download this item, simply check your email for the update or log into RPG Now or DriveThru RPG and click the library tab to get the update.

Thank you again for downloading my book.

52 Weeks of Magic - 12 of 52 - The Obice Cardeam

This week's magic item comes in pairs. The Obice Cardeam are a pair of knuckledusters or as the Romans called them, cestus. The name Obice Cardeam means "Cardea's Barrier".

They come in three forms, one for warrior types, one for magic users, and one for clerics. All three types count as a +1 weapon, however, only the warrior's cestus has a +1 bonus to hit or damage. Each one does 1d4 points of damage plus any other bonus.

The clerical version has a divination power, once per day they can identify a cardinal direction (any) or point the direction to the nearest holy site of Cardea. If used inside a shrine to Cardea, they will point to either the closest larger or closest smaller site and the wearer will be aware of which it is. In the picture, the device is shown to have points. These are not blades or sharp edges, so clerics can use them. 

The magic-user type can cast Knock or Wizard Lock a door once per day. Note, wizardly types using these weapons will not be able to cast magic spells as they are iron and they restrict finger movement.

Fighting types can utilize all three kinds, but will not be able to access their magical abilities. They will find the lack of damage odd. If a cleric wears the magic user type or the other way around, the wear will know of the additional abilities, but will not be able to activate them.

All three types have a special power when defending a threshold - they grant the user regeneration at a rate of 1 hp per round. To trigger this effect, the user must be defending some sort of entryway with a clearly delineated threshold and must be within 50 feet of it. The threshold must be an item that has been constructed or refined to qualify. For example, the mouth of a cave would not count but if that opening was decorated or carved to show the difference between inside and outside, it would count. All doorways count, even if the door has been removed or destroyed, as do gates, portcullises, etc. Mere holes in walls do not count. Magical gateways, such as those generated by spells do not count due to the temporary status.

Monks may wear these items, however, they do not increase the damage done over their normal hand-to-hand damage. They merely convey the ability to strike creatures that require a magical weapon to hit. In the hands of a monk, they are equal to a +3 weapon as monks have special knowledge of hand-to-hand weapons.

Navigation

Week	Item	Week	Item	Week	Item	Week	Item
1	Magic Lamps	2	The Rat Bag	3	Emulous Cursed Sword	4	The Cloak of Peaceful Repose
5	The Cowl of Death	6	Scimitar of Smiting	7	The Symbol of Sol Invictus	8	The Equi Phalera
9	Libertatem	10	Sorrow	11	Aemilla Carna	12	The Obice Cardeam
13	The Gnollish Rattlebone	14	Bands of Roland	15	Shape of Memory	16	Defender's Boss
17	Missile Mirror	18	Stone Horse	19	Staff of Eyes	20	Helm of Aware Airs
21	Potion of the Lionhearted	22	The Unnamed Potion	23	Whispering Wings	24	Monk's Bane
25	Token of Infi	26	Coming Soon	27	Coming Soon	28	Coming Soon

Now, the commercial. I have a little book called Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners, over at DrivethruRPG. I am obviously thinking of writing another and Gnolls might be the subject. Please let me know what you think in the comments. 

House Rules - Combat Tempo - Swinging Two Weapons

Many PLAYERS attempt to gain an advantage by swing two weapons at once. The various sets of rules accommodate this in one of two ways:

1) the character is simply swinging two weapons very fast, like a skill-less boxer.
2) the character is high level and receives extra attacks.

The first has a significant penalty, while the second does not.

My house rules handle these events slightly differently. Unarmed characters, who are not monks, can punch or kick twice per round. They receive no penalty unless they are making a last attack after losing a morale check. Failing a morale check removes any strength bonuses as the character is panicked. They are kicking and punching to get away, not to do damage.

By the way, punches do 1d2 points of damage per hand and kicks do 1d3.

Having established that it is natural to attack with both feet or hands and that panicking is bad, we move to the next scenario: Weapons. If a player has a weapon and a free hand, they can attack with the weapon and punch or kick at the same time. There is no penalty, as being unshielded is a penalty enough.

Characters may use a shield as a weapon, but they operate paradoxically. Bucklers do 1d3 points of damage plus strength bonus, while larger shields are relatively ineffective as weapons and do not do damage. A large shield, although it does no damage, it can disrupt a spell casters ability to cast and can foil a missile attack against another character. To hit someone in this fashion with a shield, one must normally be able to use a shield. Fighters, clerics, assassins, etc.

Now let's add in that second weapon. A character with a long sword and a dagger, 1d8 damage and 1d4 respectively, can use the tempo of combat to strike or threaten with both weapons each round. Only one attack roll is made. The effect is that the damage is shifted to a point between the two weapons: 1d6. Maybe they hit lightly with both weapons or perhaps they used one to force an opponent into dropping their guard for a single attack with the opposite weapon. Which one happened is not important, we are merely empowering players to act out realistic scenarios as they see their characters behaving. If a character is using two equal weapons, say two short swords or a mace and short sword which do 1d6 each, there is no change to the damage. It is simply a 1d6 roll.

In the AD&D rule set, there are significant penalties to swing both weapons at once. These rules should remain in effect when a character is unskilled, panicked or otherwise unwilling to be subtle in their attacks. Given the choice of using combat tempo or taking a big penalty, when would a character desire the penalty? Attacking massive creatures that can't strike back, attacking from behind, attacking creatures where a little damage is worse than no damage.

The last scenario, when a fighter gains multiple attacks can be handled either by the combat tempo rule which reduces damage, OR they pick one weapon to swing OR they can do the crazy "two at once" swing with a penalty. The player should choose based on the needs of the situation.

Did you know I have a little book called Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners, over at DrivethruRPG? It contains all kinds of rules you can use in your campaign. Give it a try, it's pay what you want.

House Rules: Oh, no you don't!

I've always liked the idea of countermagic. On several occasions, I have thought of implementing it into my campaigns.

For a dirty hack applicable to most game systems, I would use the following system:

1) Magic-user knows the spell being cast at their party.
2) Is not prepping a spell themselves,
3) Makes a save vs. magic,
4) Enemy spell is disrupted and fails to function.
5) The enemy spell caster does not lose the spell.

1) Magic-user knows the spell being cast at their party. 
2) The Magic-user has the exact spell memorized,
3) Is not prepping a spell themselves,
4) Makes a save vs. magic,
5) Enemy spell is reflected on to the caster.
6) Both spell casters lose that spell.

1) Magic-user knows the spell being cast at their party,
2) The Magic-user has the exact spell memorized,
3) Magic user chooses to prep that spell themselves.
4) Target Magic-user makes a saving throw vs. magic, Spell is reflected back at the caster,
5) Enemy makes a saving throw vs. magic. If passed, the spell is reflected back at the original target.
6) The cycle repeats until the spell strikes someone.
7) Every cycle adds 1 to damage, this is always applicable meaning a caster could be physically damaged by a light spell or a silence spell in addition to the main spell effect. 
8) Whoever is hit by the spell loses the spell, the other caster does not lose the spell.
9) Magic users hit by a spell will experience subduing damage, meaning that they can't be killed outright in this fashion. 

A couple of other thoughts. The subduing damage is there to encourage players to use this ability. Being a Magic user effectively allows you to shield the rest of the party. The Magic users, friendly and enemy casters attract spells meant for other targets while countering magic. A magic user struck by a spell with an area of effect is a barrier to that magic. The effect of the spell will not pass a plane defined as a wall 90 degrees to the angle of the spell's path. People standing between dueling magic users can be hit by an area of effect spell, but those standing behind either caster are unaffected as the Magic-user absorbs or throws that power back at an opponent.

Let me know what you think in the comments.