Calling all grognards, flavorful spell side effects.

[Marx420]

Hello there, I am currently deeply into the prep of an E6 generic class (UA style) timejamming 3.5 game and want to seek the assistance of those of you salty veterans who remember well the days of yore or simply have the requisite books on hand (I unfortunately don't).

I've run a few modified 1st/2nd ed modules and even played a few low level crawls in the system, and one of my favorite aspects of the amalgamation of 1st and 2nd I played was the wonder and capricious nature of the magic.

I know that haste had the effect of aging you a year, and that certain spells were very detrimental to the would-be wielders of their power. I cannot for the life of me remember specifics however, an while by no means am I asking for a comprehensive list I would appreciate greatly the help of those who remember or invented crazy magical drawbacks.

The campaign I am running will see the players traversing the entire scope of history from the Chalcolithic (where tin pieces will be hard fought for) to the the far-flung mind flayer infested future (with froghemoths and ray guns). I am styling it after the pseudo-earths of Robert E. Howard, Jules Verne, and H.P. Lovecraft where all possible scientific advancements prophesied and hypothesized can and do come to pass as the PCs trek to serpentine Lemuria, wondrous Atlantis, mysterious Mu, and the Inner World itself.

This being so, I want magical forces to be arrayed against the PCs whilst simultaneously being out their purview and do not want the players feeling unduly restricted by their mundane natures. I want to illustrate the dangers of eldritch forces in both mental (sanity) and physical fashion and empower the players to bring the world back into order.

Help me out here and I'll post the microsystem I've kitbashed together from ogl sources (Trailblazer, Pathfinder, Iron Heroes, and 3.5) on this board, as well as my campaign notes in a semi-playable format.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Per the 1eAD&D PHB
Cleric
Lvl 5: Raise Dead - Character must roll to actual raise (system shock)
Lvl 6: Aerial Servant - If cleric is not in a Circle of Protection or in possession of a Holy Symbol the Aerial Servant will turn on and attempt to kill the cleric.

Magic-User
Lvl 3: Fireball - The Fireball fills 33,000 cubic feet of space upon explosion - radiating out until that volume is filled. (casting in a 20' x 20' room is NOT advised.)
Lvl 3: The exact length of the spell is unknown to the caster - so yeah, this spell could end in disaster.
Lvl 3: Haste - This spell ages the recipient due to the increased metabolic rate (though not expressed in exact numbers in the PHB)
Lvl 3: Lightning Bolt - This spell will reflect off of a wall and can possibly strike the caster or members of his/her party.
Lvl 5: Leomund's Secret Chest - There is a percentage chance that the items in the chest will be stolen or lost in the pocket dimension the chest is created in.
Lvl 5: Magic Jar - The caster can be trapped outside of his body if the possessed creature regains control of its own mind.
LvL 5: Teleport - An error during teleportation may end in the death of the caster.
Lvl 7: Cacodemon - The caster may be killed (or worse) if the demon and the caster are not properly warded.
Lvl 7: Delayed Blast Fireball - the size of the blast is the same as Fireball q.v.
Lvl 8: Permanency - When cast the caster losses 1 point of Constitution.
Lvl 8: Wish - -3 to Str for 2 - 8 days possible

Druid
Lvl 4: Phantasmal Killer - If the subject of the spell disbelieves and is wearing a Helm of Telepathy, the attack is turned upon the Illusionist.

 

[Marx420]

Thanks for the help Thunderfoot, I'll definitely incorporate a large chance of uncontrolled/too powerful summonings as well as aimed fireballs and bouncing lightning bolts (loved those in Baldur's Gate) since those will be the top end evocations available to mortal casters.

It also makes sense that mages would only resort to extra dimensional spaces in the most dire of circumstances, as they could perhaps be drawn bodily into a particularly nasty reach of my cosmology (all of mine is at least a little nasty). I'll have to graft on a wild magic table so on a roll of a 1 while casting ala the wild mage specialization back in the day (or was that a kit?) things will go bat$#@% crazy.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Glad to have helped!

 

[Nagol]

Additionally for Clerics, casting Destruction locked out all other spell casting for a week so they had to be REALLY ticked at you.

 

[Greenfield]

A few additional notes:

Haste: According to the rules on "Unnatural Aging", a System Shock roll is required any time a character experiences unnatural aging. Failure means death. Haste gets a lot more dangerous.
Fireball: In 1st Ed, scale changed when outdoors. A "square" on the map represented 10 feet indoors, or 10 yards outdoors. Fireball is one of those rare spells that specified that it's scale also changed. The original spell description was "33,000 cubic feet (or yards)".
Raise Dead: Elves couldn't be raised.
Cure Light/Moderate/Serious/Critical and Heal: Creatures that couldn't be hit without magic, silver or cold iron weapons could be neither healed nor harmed using these spells. It was listed in "Cure Light", and all the others referenced that spell.
Lightning Bolt: Yes, it bounced. Many people tried to play pinball with it, bouncing it around the room. That isn't what it said though. It bounced directly back at the caster, no matter what angle it hit the wall or ground at.
Lightning Bolt: The bolt was always the same length, no matter what level the caster was. The range increased because the bolt didn't start at your finger. Instead it started at some distance from the caster and went in a straight line away from them. This means the caster could be in the back of the party and still fire it forward safely, since it wouldn't begin the actual lightning for some distance. Some tried to use this to shoot around corners, having it start, say, 20 feet from them and then trace a straight line, but have that straight line run left or right. Not legal. Also, you could decide if you wanted the single 100 foot long bolt, or the "Forking bolt" that was double wide and only 50 feet in length.
Reduction, or Shrink (I don't recall) and Growth: You could change the target's size by 10% per caster level. Taken literally, a 10th level caster could shrink a target by 100%, meaning that they'd be of 0 height. We never figured out what happens at 11th level, when you get reduced by 110%.
Rock to Mud: The volume was written as 2" Cube/Level. That could be taken as one 20 foot cube per level, or a cube that's 20 feet per level on a side. The Sage once clarified this to mean 2 10 foot cubes per level, which is the one measure that couldn't possibly be gotten from the description. In the huge form, it's "Slay Castle". That reading is a stretch, of course.

Time: Rounds were 1 minute long. Some tried to claim that a "Combat round" was 10 seconds, or 6 seconds, but that was a house rule.
Initiative: Under the rules for "spellcasting in combat", when a melee fighter type was facing a spell caster, the fighter used his own initiative, or the spell caster's, whichever was "appropriate". Their version of spell casting provoking an Attack of Opportunity, I suppose.

Spellcasting in combat: If the caster took any damage in the round when a spell was cast, the spell was lost. Period. No save, no resistance, even if the damage technically took place after the spell caster's Initiative.

Languages: "Alignment Tongue" was in the rules, meaning that any two creatures of the same alignment could communicate. There was also a 10% chance that anything you encountered could speak common. Taking that literally, it meant any horse or pig, rock, tree or door might be able to talk.

Distance: This is of specific interest when trying to translate or convert modules between 1st/2nd and 3.0 or later: Earlier editions were mapped at 10 feet per square, not 5 feet.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Conjure Elemental (5th level wizard spell) - if the caster lost concentration, th 16HD elemental would turn on you and try to kill you.

Contact Higher Plane (5th level wizard spell) - there was a chance you would be lied to, and an increasing chance you will go insane.

 

[Marx420]

Thanks for the assistance Nagol, Greenfield, and Plane Sailing!

Managed to borrow an AD&D PHB just for the delightful system shock rolls table. Gonna be applying them to any raising/shapeshifting my villains get up to, and also probably when my Tsochar (body snatchers from Lords of Madness, my dystopian future gone wrong will be like Judge Dredd's power towers meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with the underground mastermind class abberations ruling their living larder confined to the upper levels ala Beneath a Steel Sky) attempt to worm their way into a mage.

Will strike concentration rolls for any type of damage, spell is ruined (flagbearer with a rock did something!). Keep them for casting in while mounted and such.

Interesting note about the Heal/Harm spells, will make fiendish template much scarier on deadites (Though only paladin prestige class will have access to positive energy).

I like the idea of clerics losing access to their god when utilizing save or dies like destruction, though really only deific aspects will be packing that much power for a hail mary pass.

Rock to mud and shrink person sound hilarious for when my PCs inevitably piss off a high level oracle or somesuch.

Got a sanity system in place (bit of PF and UA), so would be pretty easy to apply to would be diviners of the future, and I like the idea of making divination fallible (there is already the danger of paradox in the campaign as written).

Whipping up the character sheets today and should be playing this weekend after mariners game, if all turns out to be relatively unbroken I'll post my compiled system and encounters as an attachment in the E6 thread.