The Dragon’s Breath #15

21 May 2003

Pay Attention!

By Claudio Pozas

Last week, I wrote about tips on making the most of the little time real life affords us to game. This week, I’ll once again dig into my own campaign for tips on making games more interesting - namely, rewarding the players that pay attention.

My players can almost always deduce the effects of a potion or wand or wondrous item because I try and stay consistent when describing them. I figured, "Heck, things probably look the way they do because the look is part of the formulae of making them in the first place." So, here are some tips on describing magic items.

Potions: The flasks are usually made of glass or (rarely) clay. Intelligent creatures will probably label flasks to avoid confusion, maybe resorting to obscure languages to do so (Draconic, Celestial, Druidic, Infernal, and so forth). Use these examples as guidelines when describing magic potions:

• Cold Spells: Potion is a shade of blue. If the spell causes damage (chill touch, for instance), the flask is cold to the touch.
• Darkvision: The liquid is almost black, but has golden flecks in it.
• Fire Spells: Potion has a shade of orange. If the spell causes damage (burning hands, for instance), the flask is warm to the touch.
• Haste: The liquid within moves much faster than the outside flask would.
• Healing: Potion is green, with a minty smell. The darker the shade of green, the more potent the potion (cure light wounds is pale green, cure moderate wounds is medium green, and so on).
• Invisibility: Flask appears to be empty, but when shaken, the liquid within still makes sound.
• Levitate: Liquid inside the flask floats upside down.
• Spider Climb: Potion is oily, seeming to stick to the flask.
• Water Breathing: Potion looks like sparkling water, full of air bubbles.

Wands: The shape of the wand can probably indicate the spell stored within and the (relative) spell level. Use these examples as guidelines:

• Magic Missile (1st level): Wand is shaped like a slender arm ending in a hand pointing with index finger.
• Magic Missile (5th level): As above, but hand is holding three fingers up (because it releases 3 missiles).
• Light: Wand is shaped like a slender candle.
• Daylight: As light, except the candle has less wax and more flame.
• Entangle: Wand looks like a twig covered with vines. (It probably IS a twig).
• Detect Spells: The wand has eyes etched across it. The pupils shows different symbols for different spells: circle (law), pentagram (magic), skulls (evil), suns (good), or vortex (chaos).

Wondrous Items: The process of creating the item probably leaves clues upon it (etched, stitched, branded, and so on). Use these examples as guidelines:

• Bracers of Armor: Bracers are made of metal, with a tiny metal shield bolted to each bracer. The more potent the bracer, the more intricate are its details. A spellcaster could take a plain pair of +1 bracers (with only the shield) and increase them to, say, +5 and part of the process would be to etch delicate patterns onto the bracers.
• Brooch of Shielding: The brooch has a shield-shaped gem in the middle of it, and for every magic missile it absorbs, a small crack opens up. The 101st crack shatters the gem.
• Quiver of [insert OGC woodland goddess name here]: The quiver is wide and the goddess’ holy symbol is beautifully etched onto the back.
• Racial Items: Boots and cloak of elvenkind, belt of dwarvenkind, and similar items feature embroidery that spells significant phrases in that race’s language.

Armor: Magic armor resizes to fit its wearer. Well, my PCs once found the corpse of a gnome rogue dressed in studded leather armor that showed no signs of aging. When they took the armor, it reverted to its original (elf-sized) form. That was a sure way of telling them it was magical.

Weapons: Never underestimate the power of engraving. In the prologue of the Fellowship of the Ring movie, the elf-king Gil-Galad is shown fighting with his spear Aiglos. Surely enough, the Elvish engraving identified it as being Aiglos and its owner as Gil-Galad. If one of your PCs takes Craft Magic Arms & Armor, allow the character to add such personal details to the items she makes. A player may resist changing weapons even if confronted with a more powerful (yet, generic) one. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen... :)

So there you go. If you start being consistent with your descriptions, the players will start recognizing items and will feel rewarded for it. And your work will not be in vain.

Next Week: In The Dragon’s Breath #16, Mike goes off on a mild (?) rant, musing upon the critics and criticisms of D&D and the d20 System. Is d20 a somehow less evolved, geriatric creature because it "still" uses classes, levels, and hit points? Mike offers his thoughts on this question and others in "What’s the Matter?"

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