Rainbow Fantasy III – The Champion

September 25, 2018March 21, 2021 / jstater

I wind up my little Rainbow Fantasy series of tributes to children’s TV fantasy action shows with a class based on probably the two best such shows, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and She-Ra, Princess of Power.

The Champion

Champions are warriors that draw their power from an oath to defend a Lawful place, institution or divine entity. They often appear as shining knights, and preach a philosophy of mercy, honesty and generosity. Although implacable foes of Chaos, they are not killing machines; a champion would prefer to subdue evil or convert it to goodness if possible, rather than simply slay it.

Requirements & Restrictions

To be a champion, a character must have the following minimum scores: Str 9, Wis 11 and Cha 13.

Champions must be Lawful in alignment. They can use all armors, shields and weapons.

A champion who ceases to be Lawful or whom grossly violates the champion’s code of conduct (see below), loses all special abilities, including the services of their mount (see below). The fallen champion may not progress any further in levels as a champion until she atones by gaining enough experience to gain another level without the use of her special abilities and while acting in perfect accordance with his alignment and code of conduct.

Champion Skills

Champions add their level to the following task checks:

Healing—Champions are knowledgeable about applying bandages, mending broken bones and compounding medicines, unguents and tinctures. They can stop wounds from bleeding, and with a successful check grant a +1 bonus to save vs. ongoing poison and disease.

Riding—Champions are capable of fighting while mounted at no penalty, and can use this task for dangerous (and awesome) stunts.

Champion Abilities

A champion must take a sacred oath to a Lawful cause or entity. Her sword (or other weapon) becomes a symbol of this oath. If a champion comes into the possession of a better weapon, she may transfer her oath to it.

A champion is immune to disease, and can cure disease once per week per 5 levels attained. Her touch can calm emotions (as the spell) three times per day. Comrades adventuring with a champion receive a +2 bonus to save vs. mind-affecting effects.

A 2nd level champion can heal wounds (her own or those of others) by touch. This is called the “laying on of hands”. Each day she can heal a total number of hit points of damage equal to twice her champion level. She may choose to divide her healing among multiple recipients and she does not have to use it all at once.

A 3rd level champion gains the ability to amplify her heroic powers once per day by invoking her sacred oath while holding aloft the weapon on which she took her oath. This exact form of this amplification can be chosen by the champion. To simulate this, the champion receives a number of Power Points equal to her level divided by two (rounding up) per day. One power point can be spent to gain a +1 bonus to attack or save or a +2 bonus to Armor Class or damage or a +10′ increase to speed. These power-ups last for 10 minutes. Three power points can be spent on an augury, strength or haste spell effect with duration as the spell’s in question.

A 4th level champion can undertake a quest guided by a divine vision to find and gain the service of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal mount to serve her in her crusade against evil. This champion can choose from one of the following mounts: Celestial warhorse, pegasus, spotted lion, tiger or unicorn (female champions only). Treasure Keepers can add other animals to this list as they wish.

The mount and its location appear in a vision. The location is no more than a week’s ride away, and the challenge involved in claiming it should be difficult but not impossible.

For every three levels the champion gains after 4th level, her mount gains one Hit Dice.
A champion wielding a weapon sword can deflect rays, beams and magic missiles a number of times per round equal to half their level (rounding down). Instead of automatically deflecting a ray, the champion can try to aim the deflection. To do this, the champion must roll 1d20 under her dexterity score; if the save is successful, her target must pass a saving throw or be struck by the ray, beam or magic missile. This ability does not work against lightning bolts or fireballs. A 3rd level champion can also choose to convert the ranged attack into a color spray spell. A 6th level champion can convert the ranged attack into a rainbow pattern. A 9th level champion can convert the ranged attack into a prismatic spray.

Swearing Fealty

A 9th level champion can swear fealty to a Lawful outsider, becoming their agent and champion on the Material Plane. The champion is charged to defend a Lawful realm under the protection of the outsider in question. To aid her on her quest, the champion gains the services of 1d4+2 followers. Roll on the following table to discover what sort of followers the champion attracts:

Roll d%
01-08 Automatons (1d6)
09-12 Crystal men (1d3)
13-20 Dwarves (1d6)
21-28 Elves (1d6)
29-36 Gnomes (1d6)
37-44 Hawk men (1d6)
45-64 Men-at-arms (1d6)
65-70 Nixies (1d4)
71-74 Pixies (1d3)
75-76 Shambling mound (1)
77-78 Bard (level 1d6+1)
79-80 Butterfly (level 1d6+1)*
81-82 Duelist (level 1d6+1)
83-86 Fighter (level 1d4+1)
87-90 Magic-user (level 1d4+1)
91-92 Monk (1d4+1)
93-96 Scout (level 1d6+1)
97-00 Sorcerer (level 1d4+1)

* See THIS POST for the butterfly class

Strongholds

A 12th level champion may conquer an evil stronghold and sanctify it for her own use or simply construct a stronghold of her own. The stronghold must be a symbol of goodness for all the land, not just a mere construction of stone and metal. When a champion occupies a stronghold, she adds 1d4+2 more followers to her retinue, plus 60 Lawful men-at-arms of a type determined by the champion.

Champion Codes

Champions live their lives by a code of virtue, and must also abide the following strictures:

• Must always seek to knock foes unconscious rather than killing them – killing is a last resort.

• May not own more than 10 magic items.

• May not retain more wealth than needed to support herself, her henchmen and to maintain her castle.

• May only employ Lawful henchmen. Champions may adventure with non-Lawful characters, but must make at least a small attempt to reform them, and must, at the end of each adventure, explain how that adventure taught a sound moral lesson.

Besides these rules, champions must abide by a code of conduct that demands honesty, mercy and generosity above all things.

Rainbow Fantasy II

August 13, 2018 / jstater / 1 Comment

While rainbow fantasy has warriors and weapons and swordplay, it also avoids killing (except for robots – you can bash them up and not get in trouble) and doesn’t seem to care much about treasure. In other words – it is far removed from the “kill things and take their stuff” genre of fantasy gaming.

In rainbow fantasy, the point is about promoting, for lack of a better term, “goodness”. Evil must be stopped, but should not be killed, for to kill is evil. Moreover, some monsters that appear to be evil turn out to be misguided. In rainbow fantasy, the goal is to stop the evil without taking life, and thus experience points are handed out for exactly that. Killing a monster in rainbow fantasy does not get you XP – and in fact, it should get you something like a cumulative 10% deduction for XP earned on an adventure for each creature purposely killed.

To help this sort of fantasy along, it is important for the GM to do three things.

The first is to make sure that adventurers can choose to stun a creature when it reaches zero hit points rather than kill it. A stunned monster remains unconscious for 1d4 rounds and then awakens with half of its lost hit points restored. The monster must immediately make a morale check to remain in the fight. And speaking of morale checks …

The second is to institute strict morale checks for monsters, perhaps using a modified scale that makes each successive check more difficult. In rainbow fantasy, the bad guys lack courage because they lack goodness, and thus they will run away before it is necessary to kill them.

Finally, they must understand why the bad guys are fighting – what motivates them. They may be agents of “Evil” who are driven to be evil for the sake of it. They may be laboring under a misunderstanding – twisted into aggression by the bad guys through deception, or simply acting out of an innocent misunderstanding. They might also turn out to be far from evil, but in fact potential allies on a quest once everyone has had a chance to get to know one another. This means that talking and dialogue are very important in a rainbow fantasy game, as are reaction checks. Adventurers can earn experience points by understanding their enemies, apologizing for accidental slights and forgiving misunderstandings, and finding a way to live in harmony.

This might not be popular with lots of gamers – there is after all some therapeutic value in pretending to be Conan the Barbarian – but there might be more value in roleplaying solutions to problems that do not involve violence. In the real world in which we live, you cannot solve every conflict you have with swordplay – in fact, you can solve very few problems legally with violence. Practicing the resolution of conflict without resorting to violence and argument can come in pretty handy, as can making sure that the conflict you think you have really is a conflict and not just a misunderstanding.

What it comes down to at the end of every episode of He-Man and the Master of the Universe and She-Ra, Princess of Power is a moral. The challenges faced should be built around a morale, and the key to winning the adventure is identifying the moral and putting it to use to overcome the challenge.

Image found at He-Man.org

Rainbow Fantasy I – The Butterfly

September 18, 2017 / jstater

There are so many kinds of fantasy to choose from. Old D&D was a mish-mash of everything from King Arthur to Hammer films to Elric (which is why I love it), Warhammer does dark and gothic, there are the oiled up barbarians from 80’s movies, fairy and folk tales, weird fantasy and horror … and also what I would have called in my youth “girly fantasy”.

OK – don’t get up in arms over the nickname, but when I was growing up this was the stuff more girls liked than guys. I think most folks know what I’m talking about – rainbows, unicorns, pegasi, fairies, etc. Let’s call it “Rainbow Fantasy”.

While Rainbow Fantasy may have ended up in 80’s TV cartoons and on junior high school folders, it started long before that. Old fairy tales made some use of it, Baum’s OZ, where people cannot die is within this category, and the “hippies” during the psychedelic 60’s who were besotted with flowers and nature and pleasure in all its forms certainly used it. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is like a hex crawl through this sort of fantasy.

Where Rainbow Fantasy has gotten short shrift, I think, is fantasy role playing games. I remember when a few guys in the neighborhood and me starting playing some D&D back in the 80’s. We invited a neighborhood girl (a close friend of mine, practically a sister) to play. She created a Rainbow Fantasy-style elf character, and we all looked at her like she was insane. He had a cutesy name. D&D just wasn’t for cutesy names.

Well, of course D&D is for cutesy names or whatever else you want to cram into it. It’s a system, not a genre. Jeff Rients said it best when he said, “You play Conan, I play Gandalf. We team up to fight Dracula.” As an adult, I’ve learned to appreciate all sorts of things I didn’t as a kid, especially something as strange and creative as Rainbow Fantasy.

With that in mind, I’m going to write a few articles to bring a little rainbow into the deep, dark dungeon. Up first is a character class called the Butterfly, inspired by an old piece of fantasy art from a magazine that had very little to do with fantasy. I’ll then discuss the ways we can treat alignment and quests in this sort of fantasy to make it work, and I’ll follow up with a discussion of how existing classes and races might work in a rainbow fantasy campaign as well as introduce one more class.

You play She-Ra, I’ll play the Last Unicorn. Dracula will never know what hit him.

The Butterfly Class

Butterflies are a mystic calling of some people. Those with a lust for wandering in wide meadows of cool grass and chatting with hummingbirds, those who wish to escape the bonds of the earth and the boundaries of the mind. They can see the beauty of life and nature despite the ugliness and sorrow, and seek to spread that beauty far and wide. The butterfly is like a light in the darkness.

|Requirements & Restrictions|

Ability Scores: Dex 11, Cha 13

Alignment: Non-chaotic

Armor Permitted: None

Weapons Permitted: Club, dagger, sling, staff

|Butterfly Skills|

Butterflies add their level to the following task checks:

Communication: Butterflies can communicate with creatures that speak languages they do not understand. Much of this is through empathy and hand gestures (but not THAT hand gesture – it’s just so crude).

Fly: Butterflies can perform all manner of aerobatic stunts while flying with their natural wings or while mounted on flying mounts.

Handle Animals: Butterflies can calm frightened and hostile animals, and tame wild animals. They can teach tame animals simple tricks.

Move Silently: Butterflies can walk slowly and lightly without making a sound.

|Butterfly Abilities|

Butterflies can see auras. This includes magic auras generated by spells, magic items and the like, and alignments (Law, Chaos and Neutrality).

A butterfly can speak with all animals and is always considered a friend by non-predatory beasts. These animals will help a butterfly whenever she requests it, as long as it does not put them in direct danger and as long as she treats them with respect and kindness. A butterfly gets a +2 bonus to reaction checks with predators, and might be able to convince them to help her given the right inducements.

A 2nd level butterfly can shrink to tiny size, about 6 inches tall, and grow butterfly wings. She can do this once per day per two levels. At this size, the butterfly can fly at a speed of 60 feet per round. In this form, she can weave magic (see below). The butterfly can remain at this size for as long as she likes, and can return to normal at will.

A 3rd level butterfly can grow butterfly wings while at full size and use them to fly at a speed of 40 feet per round. She can do this once per day per three levels.

At 4th level, a butterfly can take the form of a cloud of butterflies. She can do this once per day per four levels. Treat this as the same as a magic-user taking gaseous form.

Whenever a butterfly is flying, she leaves behind a trail of glitterdust (per the spell) which falls on any creature beneath her flight path.

Butterfly Spell List

1st level – Audible glamer, calm emotions, charm person, color spray, dancing lights, detect secret doors, faerie fire, goodberry, hypnotism, light, reduce person, sleep

2nd level – Continual light, cure light wounds, darkvision, glitterdust, hold animal, invisibility, pyrotechnics, reduce animal, summon swarm (insects only), web

3rd level – Blink, cure moderate wounds, daylight, hold person, invisibility sphere, shrink item, sleep II, speak with plants

4th level – Charm monster, cure serious wounds, false forest, giant vermin, invisibility II, rainbow pattern

Butterfly Class Table

LVL	XP	HD	ATK	SV	1	2	3	4
1	0	1d4	+0	15	1	–	–	–
2	1,500	2d4	+0	14	2	–	–	–
3	3,000	3d4	+1	14	3	1	–	–
4	6,000	4d4	+1	13	3	2	–	–
5	12,000	5d4	+1	13	3	3	1	–
6	24,000	6d4	+2	12	3	3	2	–
7	48,000	7d4	+2	12	3	3	3	1
8	100,000	8d4	+3	12	4	3	3	2
9	200,000	9d4	+3	11	4	3	3	3
10	300,000	10d4	+3	11	4	4	3	3
11	400,000	+1 hp	+4	10	4	4	3	3
12	500,000	+1 hp	+4	10	4	4	4	3
13+	+100,000	+1 hp	–	–	5	4	4	3