Thursday, May 11, 2017

Vision and Light in DragonQuest, Part 2

This post is a follow up to the September 2016 post about Vision and Light in DragonQuest.  I've gathered together all of my various thoughts and notes of how I run vision and lighting in DragonQuest into a few documents that are part of my house rules.  This post includes a link to the document describing the changes and additions I've made to the various magic talents and spells that create light or provide some type of vision.
First change I made was to Witchsight which is found as a Talent in three colleges (Ensorcelments & Enchantments, Illusions and Black Magics) and as a Spell in Celestial Magics.  In the original rules all but Ensorcelments & Enchantments included elven night-vision as a benefit of the Talent/Spell.  I always felt that allowing the Adept the ability to not only see magically hidden objects or entities but also granted night vision was too much for a Talent and also too much for a General Knowledge spell.  For my campaigns I've removed the elven night-vision from all of the Talents and the Celestial Magics Witchsight spell.  The experience point multiple for all of the Talents were set to the same value as for the Ensorcelments & Enchantments version.
For Celestial Magics, the description of Night Vision (T-2) was modified and the range of vision is specified.  I added a new General Knowledge spell, Night Vision (G-10), which allows the Adept to confer Night Vision on a target of their choosing.
Night Vision (T-2): The Adept has the ability to see in the dark.  However, everything will appear mono-chromatic and less distinct for distant objects. Difficulty Checks involving sight will have the chanced reduced by (20 – Rank)% including ranged combat attacks.  The higher the Rank, the less distorted the vision will be.  The range of vision is 100 feet outdoors and 50 feet indoors or underground.
Black Magics already had a vision spell, Nightvision (S-2), which was changed to Darkvision and the effects were changed so that it matched better the flavor of a College aligned with the Powers of Darkness.
Darkvision (S-2): The Adept causes the target to develop vision like that common to Creatures of Night and Shadow for purposes of seeing in the dark. The vision will be monochromatic and somewhat distorted (geometrical). The greater the Rank of the spell, the less distortion.  The range of vision will be limited to 100 feet in the dark.
The eyes of the target will turn yellow and have vertical pupils.  This will be apparent to anyone the target is facing within 5' with a roll less than 4 x PC.  Beyond that the chance is reduced by 15% for every 5 feet.
The Infravision (T-1) talent of Fire Magics was changed as follows:
Infravision (T-1): This talent gives the Adept infravision like that of the goblin races allowing the Adept to move and attack normally at night or within lightless areas.  The range of vision with Infravision is 150 feet. Identifying specific individuals or species depends on familiarity with the individual or species.  The base chance is equal to Perception (+4 per Rank) plus the applicable modifiers shown in [6.30].
The reference to [6.30] is to my DQ House Rules and is where Infravision for the player/monster races is defined.  I'll be posting that later.

The two light spells of Celestial and Fire magics were redefined and given some slight college-specific flavor.  Fire Magics:
Spell of Light (G-4): Creates a spherical light source which emanates from any location within the range of the spell and which is visible to the caster.  The maximum diameter of the sphere is 55 feet but may be reduced at the Adept's discretion to as little as 5 feet.  For Ranks less than 8 the light source will remain stationary at the point which it was cast.  At Rank 8 and above the Adept may attach the light source to an item and the light will then move with the item.  If the item is in another's possession they may passively resist the spell.
Light spells cast by Adepts of the College of Fire Magics will always have a faint red-orange tint.
For Celestial the spell effects are the same but with this change:
Light spells cast by Adepts of the College of Celestial Magics will always have a faint light violet tint.
The Rune Magic light spell was changed to this:
Runelight (G-3): Creates a spherical light source which emanates from the Adept's Runestaff.  The maximum diameter of the sphere is 55 feet but may be reduced to as little as 5 feet at the Adept's discretion.  The adept may adjust the size of the light at any time as long as he is touching the item from which it emanates.  At Rank 8 and above the Adept may attach the light source to any item inscribed or marked with the rune of light and the light will then move with that object.
Light spells cast by Adepts of the College of Rune Magics will always have a faint dark purple tint.
Get all the changes in a PDF either here or on the Downloads page.


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