HYPERBOREA / Sleep

**Posted by rhialto** 12/10/2014 5:21 am

Scalydemon wrote:
rhialto wrote:
Scalydemon wrote:
An add on thought on the broader topic of magic systems.

For me, the ideal magic system is one more akin to Stormbringer and Hawkmoon (Chaosium) as opposed to D&D based Vancian - especially when playing a sword & sorcery type game.
I'll once more plug Akratic Wizardry and its variant magic rules: they work really well with AS&SH, and are similar to Stormbringer's feel.
Not familiar with Akratic Wizardry, do you have a link? Thanks

Sure: http://akraticwizardry.blogspot.com/2009/07/swords-sorcery-house-rules-index.html

**Posted by Scalydemon** 12/10/2014 8:35 pm

rhialto wrote:
Scalydemon wrote:
rhialto wrote:
I'll once more plug Akratic Wizardry and its variant magic rules: they work really well with AS&SH, and are similar to Stormbringer's feel.
Not familiar with Akratic Wizardry, do you have a link? Thanks

Sure: http://akraticwizardry.blogspot.com/2009/07/swords-sorcery-house-rules-index.html

Thanks for the link.I was thinking it was a game system and not a blog.
What a cool blog! I wish I had more free time to read some of these blogs, maybe if I had a clone or simulacrum of myself..
I will check that post and that blog out more in detail soon

Last edited by Scalydemon (12/10/2014 8:47 pm)

**Posted by rhialto** 12/11/2014 7:57 pm

Well, those compiled rules were used in Crypts & Things, so close to a "system". My players are keen on the hit point variant; the magic variant not so much, since they like to blast things.

**Posted by Handy Haversack** 1/12/2015 12:23 pm

Well, three PCs in my group now memorize sleep whenever possible! It's a real chiller in the dungeon. Until, of course, undead or robots come at them!

I am a little tempted to use the AD&D table. It tones sleep down just a touch by focusing on number instead of HD--really by incorporating HD pluses into the next higher tier rather than the base tier as the AS&SH version does. But I'm also loathe to start in with the houserules just because then everyone has to remember it rather than having a common frame of reference . . .

Ghul, any insight into why you adjusted the HD mechanics of sleep?

**Posted by Blackadder23** 1/12/2015 1:37 pm

Some suggestions:

Use undead, use more monsters, spread the monsters out so sleep won't get many of them, use one or two monsters that have enough HD to be immune instead of many weak monsters, have monsters launch their attacks from out of sleep range (missiles, boulders rolled down hills, etc.), create wimpy versions of automatons to use on low level characters (the living statues and golems from B/X can provide good inspiration for these).

Also use more traps! Sleep doesn't help with those.

Last edited by Blackadder23 (1/12/2015 1:39 pm)

**Posted by Handy Haversack** 1/12/2015 1:46 pm

Coffee elementals!

Oh, I know. This was their first foray since everyone loaded up with sleep, and they went back to a megadungeon that I didn't have time (or inclination, really) to adjust to their tactics. I'm sure that they'll get into trouble soon enough--I just felt like at 2d8 HD, there was nothing anywhere close by they weren't going to be able to tuck in--until they angried up the robots!

**Posted by Blackadder23** 1/12/2015 2:51 pm

I think sleep is one of the reasons Gary had humanoids attacking in waves in a lot of his modules (first the orc guards, then the orc reinforcements, then the ogre who lives down the hall, then the orc chief and his bodyguards). PCs have to burn a separate spell on each wave, or else dirty their hands by actually fighting.