Alice Liddell Is Coming Back To RPGs (And You Should Check Out Her Gaming Work!)

I wanted to open this week's Moon Pope Monday post off with a disclaimer. Alice is my partner, and she publishes most of her RPG content through Azukail Games, which is the same publisher I work with for a great deal of my supplements. However, over the past several years these Monday posts have become a place where I like to shout out fellow creators who need eyes on their work, and who are having a tough time reaching an audience who needs what they're creating.

And if I didn't think Alice's work wasn't great I wouldn't be telling all of you to go check it out. All right? All right. Let's get into it!

Seriously... this title alone is the length of a full NOVEL. You get your money's worth.

But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

So Who Is Alice (And What Does She Make)?

For folks who've never seen Alice's name before, she's an author, a Twitch streamer, and a YouTuber. She's got over 30 titles published for her fiction (I'm biased, but I'd absolutely recommend Succumb to Darkness for folks who like gothic vampires and the French Revolution), and you can check out her channels KHR Arts where she primarily hosts her cozy gaming streams, and Alice The Author where she gives folks a peek behind the curtain and explains the business side of being an author.

And as if all of that wasn't enough, she's making a comeback to RPGs in the near future!

You know, in the COPIOUS amounts of free time she had...

While she's got a laundry list of fresh supplements she's currently working on (I don't want to spoil too much before they're ready), I did want to give her previous work a shout-out, and encourage folks to go grab copies of it for their tables. Because she puts a lot of thought and craft into her supplements, and it's hard as hell to reach an audience these days.

So, check out the following if you haven't yet!

- 100 Stat Boost Potion Recipes: Her longest, most intricate title, this alchemical recipe book goes deeper than more RPGs need... but it is great for inspiration, worldbuilding, and just plain fun!

- 100 Dangerous Plants: Alice's bestselling title, which reached Electrum a while back, this is another great thing for GMs to make their worlds (and encounters) a bit more fun!

- 100 Witches: An NPC list that covers witches of all sorts and stripes, there's inspiration for allies, antagonists, and everything in between in this one!

- 100 Flowers and Trees Sure To Boost Your Stats: A perfect companion to the first entry on this list, this supplement is also a less-expensive title if the price tag of the potion recipes makes you balk a bit.

- 100 Avian Beasts: The odd duck out, pun very much intended, this one hit Copper status, but has had trouble climbing higher. I'd recommend checking it out if you're in the market for some inspiration for your bestiary.

That's all that Alice has available for RPG supplements for the time being, but since I have your attention, consider subscribing to her channels, and watching some of her videos. She's been battling the algorithm on YouTube forever, and it would be a huge boon if she could get one (or both) of her channels monetized. And, best of all, the only thing you have to do in order to make that happen is to click a button!

We're all about supporting one another in this community, so please, check out some of Alice's work and help her keep her bills paid while she works on getting some fresh content to the presses!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

What Do Your Wands, Scrolls, and Potions Actually Look Like?

There are a lot of minutiae to keep track of when you're playing an RPG. How many weapons are you carrying, which are you swinging, what armor do you have equipped, what race is your character, how long does that spell you cast last, what bonuses do you have active... it's enough to make your head spin.

The unfortunate thing is that, as players, we can sort of miss the forest for the trees when it comes to our games. We might get so caught up in the mechanical function of something that we forget to take a step back, and to appreciate what its significance is in the world our characters inhabit, and in the story we're all collectively telling. Like how you might miss the complexities of morality happening with Albrecht Ironhand, who is trying to leave behind the brigand he once was while embracing a new life with his companions, if you just label him as "the barbarian" all the time. Or how you stop marveling at the roiling clouds contained in the black steel of the Stormspear, when you reduce it to nothing more than a +2 shocking burst lance.

I've talked about classes and magic items before, in posts like What's in a Name? How Your Character Class is Limiting Your Creativity and How To Keep Your Magic Items From Getting Mundane, but this week I wanted to talk about some items that get even less love, but which we use a lot more often; wands, scrolls, and potions.

No, the MINT one is the cure potion!

Single-Use Items in All Their Flavors

Take a moment to ask how many expendable magic items an average party goes through in the length of a campaign. How many healing potions do they drink? How many fireball wands do the use? How many restoration scrolls do they burn?

Now ask how you could make every one of those items a little more unique, and make it something players will remember, instead of just something they use.

So... how do I do that?

Well, the first thing you should do is ask what the item is made of. If it's a scroll, ask if it's written on regular parchment, ancient parchment, vellum, silk, animal hide, human skin, etc. If you're looking at a wand, is it made from wood? Bone? Crystal? Iron? In both of these instances, you should be asking what materials the particular crafter used to make the item, how old it is, and whether what it's made from has a bearing on the power of the magic inside of it. Because while it may be true that there is no mechanical bonus to necromancy spells inked onto the flesh of a virgin, or evocation spells kept in a wand tipped with volcanic stone, those are the details that will make these items stand out to the players using them.

What about potions, though? Well, what about them? As we all know it's possible to identify a potion by taste with a high enough Perception check (in Pathfinder, anyway), so ask yourself what different spells taste like. Are cure spells sweet, or do they taste like bitter medicine? Does the witch you bought the batch from infuse her expeditious retreat potions with coffee? Also, what do these potions look like? Are they thick and syrupy, or are they thin as water? Are they unusual colors, or filled with swirling patterns? Are they kept in glass bottles, or are they in ceramic jugs? What do they smell like?

By changing up these tiny details, even if you don't add mechanical backing to them, you make these basic magic items a lot more memorable. You can even add lore to them. If the party finds a scroll case in a troll's lair, and those scrolls are written in an older form of magic that the church no longer uses, then it may be possible to date when they were made. Different regions may have different potion blends, the same way coffee or tea will have a local flavor and style to it. And wands, just like swords, may bear maker's marks, or particular command words, making them unique pieces of craftsmanship that give insight to the person who made it in the first place.

It's the little things that often stick in players' memories, so make sure you sweat the small stuff.

That's all for this week's Fluff post. Hopefully it gives the DMs out there a few ideas, and gets you asking about the origins of these finite magical items. If you want to check out more gaming content from me, just head over to my archive on Gamers. If you want to keep up-to-date on all my latest releases, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, if you want to help support Improved Initiative, then head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page. All it takes is $1 a month to make a big difference, and to get yourself some sweet swag as a thank you.

Even MORE Rules Pathfinder Players Keep Forgetting

As has been noted by countless gamers on both sides of a DM screen Pathfinder has a lot of rules. I mean a lot of rules. Rarely does a session go by without at least one serious discussion over rules that sends a player to the library to better understand that little-known text on page 117. Even with all of these available rules though there are some that may be more important to your game than others. The series currently consists of over 25 rules, and the full list of updates includes:

- Playing By The Book: Some Pathfinder Rules That Players Keep Forgetting
- MORE Rules Pathfinder Players Keep Forgetting
- Even MORE Rules Pathfinder Players Keep Forgetting
- Still More Rules Pathfinder Players Keep Forgetting
- 5 More Rules Pathfinder Players Keep Forgetting

Some of these rules will be truly obscure. Some of them will be things you already know, because you read the book. But presented here are more rules players are likely to either not know, or have forgotten about (sometimes in a suspiciously convenient way).

#1: You Can't Put on Full Plate Alone

Full plate is the ultimate in medieval body armor. It turns any fighter into an unstoppable colossus, able to wade through the sword strokes of lesser men to arise victorious at the end of a battle. But there's a reason that knights have squires; you can't get the full armor bonus if you put the suit on by yourself.

Isn't it great having squires? Verily.

When donning either half plate or full plate according to the rules on page 153 of the Core Rulebook you need at least one other person to help you. Otherwise the armor is considered to have been donned hastily, which reduces its effectiveness by -1.

I told you some of these were obscure, didn't I?

#2: You Can't Win Arguments With PCs Via Diplomacy

The diplomacy skill, detailed on page 93 of the Core Rulebook is the bread and butter of certain builds. Sly rogues use this skill to open doors, and charismatic bards use it to make friends in every tavern and court they play. It's useful for the urban ranger gathering information, the paladin adjudicating a case, and dozens of other characters besides. It's even a key part of my Tyrion Lannister character build. But there's something you can't do with diplomacy, and that's convince the rest of the party to like you.

No matter how many NPCs adore you.

For everyone who's still angry that the DM let a diplomacy check affect your character's opinion toward the party bard, well you're rightly pissed. Diplomacy is specifically allowed only on NPCs. If you can't actually roleplay your way into your party-mates hearts then there's nothing you can do about it no matter how high your charisma is or how amazingly charming your dice say you are. It is a PC's prerogative to hate you if he or she feels like it.

#3: Almost Everything Takes Precision Damage

In Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 one of the biggest frustrations that came with playing a rogue was that so many enemies simply didn't take precision damage. No sneak attack, no critical hits, no nothing. Pathfinder changed that up significantly, but a lot of the old rules get mixed up with the new rules in players' heads when it comes to just how useful a rogue is in combat.

Everybody chill out; I got this.

Under the old rules everything from constructs and undead to plants and outsiders got to give rogues the finger. In Pathfinder though everything takes precision damage unless it says otherwise. That means undead, constructs, plants, devils, demons, barkeeps, and everything else you can sneak up behind.

There are still some things that are immune to precision damage. Oozes are one of the best examples, but anything that's incorporeal is also immune to your kidney-stabbing. There are other creatures immune to precision damage, but before you decide to preemptively not roll those extra 5d6 of sneak attack you've got you should ask the DM whether or not this thing is immune to your sneak attack.

#4: Perception Can Be Used To Identify Potions

Perception is one of those skills that you should always invest in. It's great for detecting ambushes, finding secret doors, locating traps, hearing invisible assassins, not getting your pocket picked, and the list goes on and on. Characters with extremely high perceptions can be a pain (which is why DMs should remember there's a -1 penalty for every 10 feet away from the source a character is, and that there are all sorts of negative modifiers that can be applied to this skill check), but they also have a nearly magic power.

They can identify a potion's powers by its taste.

Pick your poison! No, I'm serious, they're all poison. Don't drink them.

According to the chart on page 102 of the Core Rulebook a player can make a perception check of 15 + the potion's caster level to identify what its powers are by taste. It doesn't say the whole thing has to be drunk to make the check, but there might be some negatives for even tasting a given potion. On the one hand this encourages players other than spellcasters to get in on the action, and it can make for some interesting roleplay. It's also a good chance to throw a curve ball at players who test the safety of everything with their mouths.

#5: Being Flat-Footed Is A Thing

Also on the list of rogue problems is being caught flat-footed. Detailed on page 178 of the Core Rulebook the flat-footed condition is what you're suffering from in that first round of combat when you haven't gotten to act yet. You can't take attacks of opportunity, and you can't apply your dexterity modifier to your armor class. You also lose dodge bonuses, and a slew of class abilities and feats are adversely affected by this condition.

Most people know what being caught flat-footed is. At the same time it's the most commonly overlooked or conveniently forgotten rule in Pathfinder combat.

Ah hell... was that initiative?

Being flat-footed is something that's a minor inconvenience to a lot of PCs. To some though, such as the dancing rogue or the whirling dervish, it can mean being utterly vulnerable for a round. When it's the players going first though knowing that your enemy hasn't had time to fully react to combat can make a big difference in your strategy.

#6: Yes You Can Critical With Spells

If you confirm a critical hit with a spell that has an attack roll and does damage then it will do two times as much damage. If a spell does ability drain or damage then the drain or damage is doubled according to page 184 in the Core Rulebook. Lots of players forget this rule, but it's one reason that a critical hit with a spell like chill touch can leave enemies with more than a few d6 of extra pain.

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