Sir Poley's Blog, page 65
October 24, 2014
Looking at the D20 SRD Summon Monster 1 list, I see "Celestial Owl" and "Celestial Dog" (both LG). Two questions: could Milo summon a Celestial Owl and have it deliver letters for him, akin to a HP owl? (I doubt he *would*, since that'd be a dreadful waste
1) He couldn’t have it deliver a letter, because the duration that a summoned creature exists is only 6 seconds times his level—just under a minute, in this case, which is hardly sufficient to fly anywhere at all. Also, his summoned owls wouldn’t have the curious ability that HP owls have to locate the recipients of their letters. (Seriously, how does Hedwig keep finding Sirius in hiding?). There’s a spell, Animal Messenger, that does almost exactly what the HP owls do, but it’s not available to wizards without hijinks.
2) He *could* do so, I think. Most things are possible in 3.5, but off the top of my head, I’m not sure how he would. Actually, literally as I typed this I figured a way: he could make a constant-effect magic item of Summon Monster I for 1(1st level spell) * 1(caster level)*4(duration measured in rounds) *2000 (constant effect)=8000gp.
However, if that was his goal, he wouldn’t really need to do that. He’s the only one in the universe who understands how his magic really works, so he could just say that having a giant black dog following you around is normal for Wizards like him, much in the same way that having a super-intelligent rat is.
Considering that 1) Milo's own Amulet of Protection from Evil was cursed so that Tom Riddle could keep possessing him, and 2) every Amulet of Protection that Milo made for the Ministry was made in that period where he was possessed by Tom Riddle, does Milo
He has no guarantee that they aren’t cursed. Probably the best way to check if they were is to cast Analyze Dweomer or a similar spell, though he’s actually too low level to do that currently.
Without knowing the command that triggers the curse effect (if, indeed, that is the issue with the amulets) it would be very difficult to find out which are cursed and which are not.
Considering that 1) Milo's own Amulet of Protection from Evil was cursed so that Tom Riddle could keep possessing him, and 2) every Amulet of Protection that Milo made for the Ministry was made in that period where he was possessed by Tom Riddle, does Milo
He has no guarantee that they aren’t cursed. Probably the best way to check if they were is to cast Analyze Dweomer or a similar spell, though he’s actually too low level to do that currently.
Without knowing the command that triggers the curse effect (if, indeed, that is the issue with the amulets) it would be very difficult to find out which are cursed and which are not.
October 23, 2014
How did Milo do that thing with the quarterstaffs? I thought Craft could only be rolled by the day or week?
It doesn’t actually say how long in a day you have to work to craft something. It’s a fair assumption that what you’re making probably takes a solid working day in most cases, but when the thing you’re crafting *literally* takes zero time (because the gp value of a quarterstaff isn’t just very low, it’s actually 0) my opinion is that time isn’t really an issue.
I’d never let that fly in an actual game, though, of course, and you shouldn’t try it.
October 10, 2014
I thought antimagic was in the eye of the beholder. Time = Beauty = Antimagic confirmed!
Time + Beauty + Antimagic = 3 abstract concepts.
Half-Life 3 confirmed!
Your latest chapter is fantastic. Well done indeed. Glitterdust...
Thanks!
Glitterdust is one of my favourite spells, for, I think, three reasons. The first is that it’s just ridiculously effective. It’s easy to hit only the enemy with it (compared to Pyrotechnics, which I used in a D&D game on Sunday to accidentally blind myself and all of my partymembers, and only half of the angry mob coming after us), it’s pretty powerful (Blindness==screwed), and it’s got an incredibly useful secondary effect (revealing invisible stuff) that’s almost strictly better than See Invisibility, because it reveals the invisible thing to your allies, too. (the downside is that you need to know, roughly, where the invisible creature is in order to make sure they’re in the spell area)
Second of all, it’s flashy. A lot of spells have pretty vague visible effects, or maybe none at all, like Slow, Confusion, Deep Slumber, and other low-to-mid level group debuff/crowd control spells. Where’s the fun in casting a spell like that?
Third of all is that it’s kind of silly, you know? It’s one of the most powerful spells in the game, but it literally just shoots sparkles at people. It sounds like a birthday party trick. This means it’s just that much more embarrassing for the people you’re defeating.
In this case, the idea of blasting people who take themselves as seriously as Lucius Malfoy or Voldemort do superpowered glitter glue is just too much fun to pass up, especially considering that it’s also arguably Milo’s most effective opening spell, especially when just about every Potterverse spell requires aim.
October 9, 2014
You roll most of the dice in HPN20; what about the d% for Teleport at the end of CC9? Did you decide that plotwise you needed to force a specific outcome (not asking which)? If not, did you roll it as Milo cast, or before writing the next chapter?
The place he’s going to is familiar (not saying where), so he has a 97% chance to land on target. When the odds are that stacked, I don’t generally roll, though there are exceptions (he bungled a pretty simple Concentration roll last chapter, for example, which I think actually made the story more interesting as a result). I also don’t often roll when looking up the exact numbers would take an inordinate amount of time, because it would break the flow of my writing process. Sometimes in such a case I just roll a d20 and go with my gut (18? looks pretty good!), which is a pretty common DMing trick. But if I were to roll for Teleport, I would do so when storyboarding the next chapter, which I generally do the Monday after release.
Writing Milo out of ridiculous situations is as much fun, if not more fun, than writing him into ridiculous situations (me and my brothers were up all night trying to figure out how Milo would get out of that potion test way back in Natural 20, for example, and it was a total blast). It took a while way back when for me to get used to switching between thinking like the DM and the PC in this particular adventure, but now it comes naturally to me. DM Milo into some deathtrap, PC Milo right back out of it again. Or not, in that one case.
Dang it, Milo! Use your surprise attack on the Dark Lord to deliver a killing strike, not a standard attack!
If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure it was an Attack of Opportunity, so he could only use a physical attack and not a spell. Surely something Riddle was doing, between the grappling and the tentacles and the sword and the not expecting Milo and performing the ritual would provoke an AoO. On the other hand, definitely stating so would require me to actually understand 3.5’s grapple rules, and in the time it would take me to do that I could do something useful, like make cookies or get a second degree or solve poverty.
Kaloo! Kalay! Oh, Frabjous Delay!
Greetings readers! This week I’ve mostly been spending time working on other projects (which, if everything goes as planned, you will one day get to enjoy). Also, I’m visiting home for Thanksgiving, and planning on making the most of it.
As a result, there won’t be a chapter this Friday (Oct 9).
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