The Outer Planes, Part 1/8: Plane Shift
We asked our lovely Quest Givers on Patreon to choose a biome for the Heroes’ next adventure. Faced with options ranging from Outer Space to Dino Jungle, they opted for the broadest possible imaginary playground. Who knows where in the wide cosmology of the Outer Planes they’re going to wind up? (Better luck next time to my personal favorite biome, Fire Swamp. I hope to meet the ratfolk of unusual size one day soon.)
We’ll have plenty of time to talk shop about planar travel, the planes themselves, and the pros and cons of wheels vs. trees. vs. axes. This is an ongoing series of indeterminate length, after all. What I’d like to talk about today is a bit more general. And it’s got everything to do with the particular oddity of the plane shift spell. It’s more or less quoted in the Handbook’s banner text in today’s comic.
The fact is that you’ve got to link hands in a circle to successfully plane shift. There’s no generalized “touch range” for the targets. No “creatures of your choice that you can see within range.” You’ve got to do a little ritual. You’ve got to stand in a circle, hold hands, and try your damndest not to quote Guardians of the Galaxy at each other. This is the kind of specific weirdness that I love in my spell designs.
Whether we’re talking about the 1-hour process of growing a reincarnated body, the oddly-specific brass brazier of find familiar, or the convoluted rules for how exactly one can speak with dead. These are the details that transform a mechanical effect into actual magic. They make spells present in the world of the characters, and invite you to build a little scene around them. Just look at Fighter turning the minor ritual of plane shift into an opportunity for RP! That’s exactly the kind of theater-kid selflessness you want at a table!
And so, before we plunge into the great unknow of the planes, why don’t we pause for a moment to appreciate our favorite flavorful magics? What is a minor spell element that takes it from “useful effect” to “evocative enchantment?” Sound off with all your favorite fluffy components down in the comments!
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A lot of material components have jokes in them, and my favourite is probably the copper piece needed to cast Detect Thoughts. I was quite amused when I eventually figured out the “penny for your thoughts” pun.
Minor Illusion is a great one though, requiring “a bit of fleece”…
Because you are pulling the wool over their eyes!
I meant to say “too”, no “though”…
I always liked the amber rod for lightning bolt. Memories of high school science class….
I am not fond of Material components because it demystifies magic unless it makes more sense to have the component. Scrying for example. a mirror or a pool of Water. It is a classic trope and makes perfect sense. Fireball using bat guano and Sulfur. that isn’t magic, you are literally just using the equivalent of Gunpowder, I am surprised it doesn’t require flint either.
Identify magic item in 3.5. You’ll need a pearl of at leat 100gp value, wine and an owl feather. Crush the pearl into the wine stirring with an owl feather and then imbibe. Now the first time I used this spell I misread and thought you had to swallow the owl feather down as well! My group had to watch me RPing my mage gagging on a feather and queasily identify some trinkets. Wizards should always read the consumables!
A half-orc wizard would be great here.
“But… Grandma taught me you’re always supposed to eat the components!”
We used to have fun pointing out in 2E that Spider Climb’s component was a live spider, which was consumed by the recipient of the spell.
Supposedly everyone consumes a couple of spiders in their life… Usually while asleep.
Also, making a wand (with 50 charges) requires spending 50 times the associated material components.
Making a magic item requires 1 day per 1000gp of the base cost. The base cost of a level 1 wand is 750gp. Therefore a wand of Identify is finished in 1 day.
Therefore a wizard making a wand of Identify has to down 50 glasses of wine in single day. Fun time!
My favorite time playing out the flavor of spells was with my alchemist who looked vaguely like Pokemon’s Hex Maniac and had massive social anxiety ala Tomoko from an anime shortened to Watamote. My GM loved her and several of her NPCs reflected this, and so I got back at them by having all of her abilities be specifically disturbing in ways only the Alchemist class can pull off.
“At this level, Chalcey gets a familiar. It’s a squirrel!” ‘Awww!’
The Tumor Familiar Squirrel: A hairless misshapen lump, that was always happy to give an unsettling smile and asynchronous blink to anyone friendly with it’s unnaturally huge eye and it’s very naturally smaller one. https://imgur.com/gallery/ZcxrEbu/
“At this level, Chalcey sprouts beautiful pinkish wings that flake off little petal-like bits at the edges when she exerts herself to fly with them.” ‘Ooooh, aaah!’
The wings were inspired by a One Piece character, and were entirely made up of tumorous, hand-like growths all clinging to each other, and the ‘petals’ were the ones on the edges losing their grip and slipping off to fall to the ground and dissolve. https://imgur.com/gallery/gPH1BYd
Their disappointment was palpable, and their day was ruined. I had a great time!
And here I was hoping that the petals were fingernails.
https://i.imgur.com/26k9Td7.gif?1
Oh man, that’s a NEW way to mess with her! runs off to share this post
I used to think that a lot of the more pun-based components for spells were a bit silly (detect toughts a copper coin, “a penny for your thoughts” or fireball requiring ingredients that you can make gunpowder from for instance), but after becoming more familiar with the real world occult principle of sympathetic magic (real world as in certain people that believed in magic believed in this, rather than as in “magic is totally real”). Those have started to make a lot more sense to me.
I think my favorite minor magical dnd detail comes from the binding/vestige system from 3.5.
All those specific symbols each lovingly pictured you had to draw (requiring some chalk or similar drawing implement if there wasn’t soft ground available to carve it into with a knife/stick or whatever) where pretty damn cool.
Outside of dnd I really like how good exalted’s sorcery system normally is about this with details like how Rain of Doom require you to personally traverse the area cursed in a single period going sunset to sunset (complete with this meaning that you can affect a larger area if you are faster), or Death of Obsidian Butterflies actually leaving the shattered obsidian behind where it can cut people that doesn’t wear shoes.
Binders/Vestiges might be the single best magic system created over 3.5’s entire life cycle. It baked flavorful elements into the core of the magic system, with more around the periphery, all echoing real-world beliefs about magic…and the mechanics were sound, too.
How that ended up in the same book as the infamously busted Truenaming system and the forgetably mediocre…shadow-something?…is a mystery to me. There’s probably a straightforward project-management-y explanation, but I don’t know what it is.
Shadowcasting does have a few cool things (Black Labyrinth is a personal favorite out of all casting subsystems), but yeah, Binding was definitely the favored child of that trio.
My guess would be that the 3 systems in that book where written by different people, and since they were completely different systems they didn’t have any/as much collaboration/editing-oversight-familarity with respect to the system details.
Then it’d just be a matter of luck with respect to whomever designed the binding system just happening to be better at designing fun and balanced mechanics than either of the other writers/writing teams.
I do think the Truenaming fluff was pretty good too after all, and shadowcasting’s fluff was perfectly serviceable.
Any chance of a link to the vestige system? I’m unfamiliar, but intrigued.
A quick google search yielded this page that describes the binder (the class that used vestiges) and this one for the vestiges themselves.
Don’t have a link handy, but it was in Tome of Magic. Also of note is that if you fail your binding check, you still get the powers, but take on an aspect of the vestige you were trying to bind (usually an aspect of their personality, but sometimes a physical effect, IIRC), which can make for great RP.
Sorry, like PP mentions it was from the 3.5 Tome of Magic which wasn’t covered by the SRD so I’m not sure there actually are any legal copies online that could be linked to. It is in my opinion well worth getting that book despite the poor quality of the other two thirds of that particular source-book, should you ever come across a cheap physical copy or a pdf or something.
This is a shame too, the whole system was a masterclass in today’s topic.
The basis of the system/class was that you as part of your morning preparation summoned these spirits/remnants called Vestiges from the non-existence outside of reality where they had somehow gotten stuck for one reason or another. You then made a deal with them where you got your funky powers for the day and they got to vaguely experience reality by proxy through the connection you forged.
Each spirit came complete with 1) a legend explaining their backstory (or what is known or speculated by in-universe scholars about them, some of the spirits are old enough that no one knows much).
2) a description of how exactly they manifest when you summon them (both their physical appearance and the process of them appearing).
3) a physical sign of your pact that happens to you while the pact is active (for instance bargain with Savnok, The Instigator and a broken arrow piece appears under your skin as through it had gotten stuck and you healed over it)
4) one of those lovingly detailed and depicted sigils I mentioned
5) a flavorful mental influence the vestige could get on you if you did a bad binding and had to agree to let it experience a bit more reality for it to give you it’s funky powers,
6) possibly a special summoning requirement, for instance summoning Chupoclops, Harbringer of Forever, require you to draw the symbol with a handful of soul from a grave or tomb, or alternatively place the dead body of a sapient creature over it (no matter how long dead).
and finally
7) those aforementioned funky powers, which themselves where usually also very flavorful and connected to the particular story and appearance of the specific vestige. (they were also pretty interesting mechanically, but still easy enough to for people to grok, each spirit generally had a handful, with a mix of passive bonuses and some active powers that had a 5 round cool-down)
As a bit of fridge logic about the particular spell in todays comic, does this mean that you can’t take your party druids animal companion or your wizards familiar with you if they aren’t some form of monkey (or otherwise one of the few options with hands).
You could try to get around this by casting it separately in “one creature touched” mode, but given how imprecise the spell is that isn’t the best solution.
Weirdly, I often make animal companions “count” as creatures, but give familiars a pass. I suppose it’s got something to do with the idea of being equipment as opposed to one’s own creature, but it’s not exactly the most thought-through aspect of my GMing.
For familiars, the rules (3.5, anyway) already state that the owner can share a spell they cast with their familiar – IOW, that they count as one creature.
For mounts, now that’s a tricky question. I would accept that “put one hand on the animal’s shoulder” is close enough to the spirit of the ritual, but if one want to run a more “silly” campaign…
Um, you can teach your animal companion the trick of giving its paw, but players may be a bit upset at using one whole trick slot for that. Maybe including “roll and play dead”?
Ah, that wouldn’t work with snakes, fishes and other cetaceans. The “paw” part, I mean.
Now, with snakes, spiders and other repulsive/poisonous critters extending an appendage toward the PCs… Maybe some PCs would need to roll a save vs phobia.
Eh, there is roleplay potential, here. It’s fascinating.
With horses you could just grab their “hands” (they walk on their finger after all). With snakes, though, you’re out of luck.
Thanks to “Share Spells”, this is raw.
Not related to the posted question, but why did Cleric shrink to halfling size?
In his most recent full-body appearance https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-full-party he is almost at shoulder height to Thief and Wizard. Now he is at their hip height.
Reduce person boosts ones AC,and Cleric wants to avoid being hit as a spellcaster when he’s not in ‘melee brawl’ mode.
Laurel: “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if Cleric was practically off the ground because of the holding hands thing?”
Me: “Yes, dear.”
„yes, it wouldn’t be funny“
Look, you can’t just @ my wife like that. She has feels.
After I showed her this thread: “I JUST WANTED TO MAKE THE JOKE WORK!”
I liked the joke.
the joke was funny, all right.
I wasn’t „@ your wife“ or you specifically.
it’s just that with this username I feel obligated, in memory of Sir Pterry, to poke fun at husband/wife dynamics of the „yes, dear“ kind.
And the natural response to „wouldn’t it be funny/nice/great/etc.“ is „yes, it wouldn’t“.
the requirement for the Scry spell of having a “reflective item” worth at least 1000 gold.
It specifies things like a polished silver mirror, a crystal ball, or a bowl filled with holy water, but the obvious idea is that whatever it is, it should be somehow personal to the character, not easily portable, and it should have some kind of reflective and/or refractive surface to stare into.
With that in mind, it is fun to try and make each component unique to the person that is casting (tho rules as written, you could just get one item and share it among those in your group that could scry… but that’s boring)
The group I am in has three “scryers” and each one has not only a different tool for the scry, but also they each acquired their focus from a different RP… some shorter or longer than others.
Our cleric was “given” a silvered mirror with gold edging and engraved to have a look of a sun (cleric of Lathander) by the priests of her order in Waterdeep… she was only asked to donate what she felt was appropriate to the coffers and all of this was tied in the moment to some main story RP relating to an item we were trying to get rid of (EVIL item… we still have it O.O) so it all felt natural. I think she ended up “donating” about 1500 or so, which was more than fair and she left with a couple healing potions as well.
Speaking of natural, our druid took a long time to get her scrying focus as she waited until we could go someplace both natural and relevant to her character and in Shadowtop Cathedral, she was GROWN a bowl of oak that would only work as a focus if she fills it with “pure” water (which she can do with any number of magic spells as a druid). No cost at all, but a promise to always remain true to her “beliefs” as a creature of natures protection.
And then our wizard just went to a local “magic shop” (no magic items per say, but a lot of spell components one can’t get just scrounging while on travel) and was shown a selection of crystal balls (each one described in detail by our DM) and told that the base was the truly expensive part, the ball itself the only real part that was needed, but without the base… well, good luck keeping it steady. So she picked one she liked and bought it for exact price as listed! Easy and done.
It made the spell (which we have used quite a lot since) feel special and not just “I cast it because the rules say I can” and that feels good every time. Especially when the DM has a slightly different way of describing each casters scry, based on their individual tools and unique magical attunements to the castings.
Give a player a little bit of room for interpretation and they’ll work miracles of creativity. These are all great. Kind of reminds me of my go-to example: “What exactly do you magic missiles look like?” Always fun when the spell reflects the caster.
All magic missiles look like anime rocket swarms! 😀
(at least in my head!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxnC6jkJyEM
Material components wise, I like how Arcane Cannon and Mage Sword both require a miniature platinum replica of both that you presumably grow into a full weapon.
Plane Shift also uses a tuning fork that’s been attuned to your desired plane of travel.
In Pathfinder rules, I think the ‘stand in a circle’ is replaced by the simple rule of ‘you can touch up to six creatures at once for the purpose of communal spells’ rules, so it’s more of a ‘all for one, one for all’ gesture where everyone surrounds the caster.
Pf1e text:
I think you’re thinking of Teleport
On the subject of plane shift, I really like the versatility of the spell. It negates nasty endgame spell effects that would otherwise kick you out of the game (e.g. teleport traps, violet effect of a prismatic spell, maze…), it enables planar adventures… If you have a wizard with the right feat, you can start such adventures as early as level 9. Otherwise you need to rely on NPCs, convenient permanent dimensional portals, or summons from casters of other planes, like some squatter demon or fey.
https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Improved%20Plane%20Shift
I don’t know that I’d trust myself to do a planes-hopping game. The ability to go literally anywhere can create a game that feels slightly schizophrenic.
“Fire plane! Fighting plane! City of Dis! Nirvana!”
“Why are we going to all these places?”
“Mephit punching bingo card! I’m going for the blackout!”
Wait a second. If everyone has joined hands, how is the caster supposed to perform the somatic component? Is the somatic component a line dance like in “The Wee Free Men”?
(and even if it is, how are they supposed to strike the tuning fork?)
The somatic component is a Russian squat dance. The tuning fork can be handled by Thief’s prehensile tail.
You see? Thinking through the logistics of magic is fun!
Elven ear waggling. An elegant magic from a more civilized age.
Plot twist: Fighter is correct with his snarky comment – this isn’t a planar adventure, it’s an elaborate intervention for Fighters many murderhobo antics. He’s about to be sent to a Celestial rehab facility with only social encounters.
Meanwhile, my bet on dimensional plane destination is the dimensional plane of kittens, cats, catgirls and catboys – where they’re rescuing a stranded Magus from.
Oh yeah… That was a plot point over in HoEF, wasn’t it?
Wait, no it wasn’t. They lost that pageant!
Plot points:
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/929/232/094
This is one perk of 3.5’s material components. They were listed at the end of the spell, instead of being stuffed into the header, so they could be as common and oddly specific as the designers wanted without being obnoxious. Everyone remembers fireball‘s sulfur and bat guano, but there are plenty of other memorable material components, too, especially when the spell explains how they’re used. For instance, Tasha’s hideous laughter not only says you need tiny tarts and a feather, but that you throw the tarts at the target and that you wave the feather. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s a spell that makes people laugh so hard they can’t move in the middle of a fight—you can’t take that spell seriously.
Slappy is an expert caster:
https://preview.redd.it/ksg1p768kjt11.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=907d981adca9d0cb8eba95fbb30408234e449331
Video version of today’s comic, with Ryan playing the role of Fighter.
https://youtu.be/PsmLz0-mgxE
I’m afraid Fighter doesn’t have that many ranks in Perform. 😛
Ryan dumped everything into perform (comedy) and was forced to do a perform (sing) check.
And the joining hands thing reminds me personally more of the Aqua Teen episode “Video Ouija” more than it reminds me of Guardians of the Galaxy
We all bring our own strips of behavior to this hobby.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/frame-analysis
Next comic prediction: Someone forgot to turn on ‘Planar Adaptation’ and is forced to deal with one of the oodles of hazards of said plane.
Like being on fire (fire plane), drowning (water plane), being encased in rock/suffocating (earth plane), falling to your death (air plane), exposure to vacuum (space), withering away (negative energy plane), or exploding from excessive life energy (positive energy plane). Or simply being horribly mangled by the locals (all other planes that aren’t celestial).
Alternatively, they realize too late that planar travel is not only imprecise (off by miles from desired location), but also has a chance to send you to an unexpected plane (which I imagine is the outcome of the Patreon version).
It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end. And there’s not a lot to stop you on the Plane of Air.
(Plus, depending on the edition, you choose what direction you fall in.)
Plane of Buzz.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/555c7d99e4b040f3239728e2/1471898861751-2FH16Y55MH2UOJYH6D09/image-asset.jpeg
You still just fall endlessly until you either strike something solid at terminal velocity (floating islands, an elemental or other native…) or die of starvation/thirst from falling endlessly and uncontrollably (or worse, you don’t die and have to hope someone with flying discovers you for a rescue). It’s also possible you get murderized by some particularly savage/sentient weather (tornado, lightning storm…).
Depending on the definition of what ‘air’ is in the plane, you might also asphyxiate if you’re in the part of the plane where oxygen is replaced with say helium or any other non-breathable gas.
Dwarves are 4′-5′, how tall are the gals in the party?!
They’re both six foot twelve.
What about their miniatures?
*BIGIATURES
Don’t worry Fighter: An „awkward silence“ to represent the lack of your feelings will suffice.
*sullen glare*
My favorite is the Scion power Riastrad. It’s based on Cuchulain’s mythological warp spasm, a battle frenzy he’d enter that would be fairly standard RPG fare (berserk strength, can’t tell friend from foe, etc.) except for the ways his friends had to calm him down (which are both hilarious and awesome) and the aesthetics, which include tons of weird and cool details like insane body temperature and some body horror elements (e.g., one eye retracts into his skull, the other dangles out of its socket).
What’s cool is that the game encourages you to create your own aesthetics based on your Demigod’s specific powers. My character was the son of a war god, like Cuchulain, but he also had a lot of fire powers and grew stronger rather than weaker as his injuries piled up. So when enraged enough to activate the Riastrad, he’d start inhaling as if to scream… and just wouldn’t stop, pumping air into his body to pump himself up like a bellows, until his skin couldn’t keep up with the stretching and began to tear, revealing the blazing inferno within him. Those flames spilled out and empowered his blades and bullets.
Glad to finally know what was going on with Mr. Cresosote:
https://gfycat.com/altruisticincompletebongo
In our table sometimes we skew components. While evocative focus, as we call them, are more of a crutch than a real necessity. A mage may need to hold hands but a good mage may only need to have people near while a really good mage may plane shift even a city or more with hand gestures and some words 🙂
Yet, components can be evocative so sometimes use them too. Usually of the weird variety, either as a side mission or as something funny the party needs to get. Like a handkerchief with the snorts of a king to cure a plague 😀
King snorts are famous for their restorative properties.
Best Cosmology? That’s easy: Trees block Wheels, Axes cut Trees, and Wheels grind Axes.
But what about dynamite or Spock?
I’ve said it before and by all the gods I’ll say it again: if you’re not willing to eat a live spider, you don’t deserve to be able to walk on walls.
The teeny tiny spiders aren’t much of a problem. You barely even feel them when you bite down. The problem is that you’ve got to actually pull them out of your component pouch, and few mages have time to fumble about with tweezers if you need to spider climb in a tense situation. This component is therefore a push and pull of size vs convenience vs weak stomaches.
In one of Eberron author Keith Baker’s book (the Thorn of Breland series), the spider is not swallowed, but actually snorted, Still alive.
I’ll let you decide if it’s better.
Banishment’s material component, “an item distasteful to the target” is one of the ones you can have a lot of fun with. And it’s one you’re likely to be able to find even if someone’s taken away your focus.
In the one case where I’d lost my focus (we’d started to surrender and then our captors started beating on us), I was able to get by with my own blood (or one of my attacker’s blood, I can’t remember which).
Wheels vs. trees. vs. axes.: I think axes beat each of them because axes are sharp.