Non-Combat Spells & Creative Solutions

Discussion of all things magical for DCC RPG -- "Let the Phlogiston take you where it will..."

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munin81
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Non-Combat Spells & Creative Solutions

Post by munin81 »

I admit, I'm fairly new to DCC and the way that spells are rolled for. It seems like you could get enormously lucky with some useful combat magic, but what if you roll a character without any combat magic?

I figured I'd ask the community to help come up with some creative ways of using some of these spells in and out of combat. How do you survive as a wizard if you roll the following spells: Comprehend Languages, Feather Fall, Ventriloquism, Cantrip
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Raven_Crowking
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Re: Non-Combat Spells & Creative Solutions

Post by Raven_Crowking »

munin81 wrote:I admit, I'm fairly new to DCC and the way that spells are rolled for. It seems like you could get enormously lucky with some useful combat magic, but what if you roll a character without any combat magic?

I figured I'd ask the community to help come up with some creative ways of using some of these spells in and out of combat. How do you survive as a wizard if you roll the following spells: Comprehend Languages, Feather Fall, Ventriloquism, Cantrip
The judge might include access to other spells in the funnel, in which case the wizard may be fine. Otherwise, you might want to consider not using all of your slots with these spells, and Quest For others.

The judge can also just let you have a combat spell or two.
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Re: Non-Combat Spells & Creative Solutions

Post by Bilgewriggler »

Cantrip: Patch of darkness across the eyes to blind an opponent. Kinetic effect on an enemy archer's bowstring just as he fires to give a to-hit penalty. Fake dog bark to make adjacent enemies look behind them so you can disengage without them getting a free swing at you.

Feather Fall: Ask judge to allow a check of 18+ to target an incoming missile weapon and reduce its effectiveness or allow it to be dodged. Coordinate with Warrior to enhance a mighty deed of arms that involves a leap of some kind.

Comprehend Languages + Ventriloquism lets you effectively use the "Retreat" strategy (from the spell description) with almost any organized foes.

There are also numerous mercurial magic effects that can have use in combat; you could quest to change your spell's MM effect to one of those or you could just quest to change the spell slot to a different spell.

And of course, you could always rush the wizard into every melee combat and then just roll up a new character when he dies.
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Re: Non-Combat Spells & Creative Solutions

Post by GnomeBoy »

If you're going with completely randomized spells, the Judge should consider inserting a spellbook into the next adventure as a possible treasure item.

Some folks don't do completely random spells. They might do some or mostly random and let the player pick one or two after the random results are known...

But you've got the clever suggestions above to go on, as well. I've seen the "rain of frogs" Mercurial Magic effect used by someone whose Wizard had no directly offensive spells to completely wipe out the opposition and/or soften them up to make them easy work for the rest of the party. Sometimes you cast a spell for the sake of the Mercurial effect, rather than the main spell effect!

Personally, as a player, I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to leverage an unlikely spell into a useful effect. But sure, it'd be nice to eventually have a simple magic missile or flaming hands spell to use, too.
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