Massive Spellburn
Consequences make the campaign
This short article was intended for the second issue of the Sanctum Secorum Quarterly issue 2, but it’s been a couple years and that hasn’t seemed to manifest so I’ll share it here. In the first issue, myself and judge Matt Robertson used pseudonyms for a “dear Abby” style article. So check out the first issue if you want to see check that out!
As a side note, pre-orders are up for The Conquest of Chaos! PDFs will come out sometime around the end of April/ beginning of May. And the book itself has an ETA of July 2025. Plus, you can grab a ton of existing zines and adventures that I’ve published. But without further ado, here’s what “judge Nafets” has to say about dealing with massive spellburn in your campaigns!
How do you handle a player whose PC does massive spellburn in the context of a campaign?
Ah yes, the wizard (or elf) has burned themself down to a little scrap of a man. They’ve pulled off the spell that saves the day, but now have 3 or less in each physical stat. It’ll be weeks before they’re back to their usual self! First, you must decide if something should be done at all. Using DCC Legacy rules, the magic user is allowed to fully regain their spellburn before the next adventure is underway. This is a perfectly fine answer. However, in an ongoing campaign, a judge is very much within their right to create complications so that the wizard or elf cannot resolve every quest with a maximum result magic shield, magic missile, or more potent magics. Just like with any story (or adventure), if it always ends the same way then it grows tiresome to its audience.
Whenever the PC is weakened by massive spellburn, decide whether or not it makes sense in terms of your campaign to further threaten the wizard. Here are three way to determine this:
The judge simply decides what fits the narrative and selects the complication that makes the most sense.
In secret, the judge rolls a Luck check against the wizard’s current Luck score. On a failure, there is a complication.
In secret, the judge rolls a percentile check against the total number of spellburn that the wizard suffers at the end of the adventure. If the d100 results in a number equal to or lower than the total spellburn there is a complication.
To determine exactly when this occurs, I suggest rolling your choice of d7, d14, or d30! This give you a range of days for the wizard to recover equal to one week, two weeks, or one month. I have often rolled 2 or 3d7 in the past. With 3d7, the wizard has recovered an average of 10 or 11 days before a complication occurs. This complication may simply be the next adventure that you’ve prepared! Or one of the below suggestions may serve to instead complicate a prepared adventure or become inspiration for one in its own right:
The wizard’s spellbook is replaced with a poorly crafted duplicate. A thief (as assassin, DCC RPG p.432) has stolen it on the behalf of another. The PCs can easily locate the stronghold where the wizard’s grimoire may be found, but the wizard may not recover lost spells until the original grimoire is recovered.
A Type III or IV demon (judge’s discretion, DCC RPG p.402) approaches the PC, revealing themself to be the source of power behind one of the wizard’s spells. They demand a valuable offering or that the PC complete a strange task, lest they remove the spell from the PC’s abilities. The deadline is by the time that the rest of the spellburn is recovered.
An alternate alignment doppelganger of the wizard (PCs own stat block but with random spells) presents themself and demands a spell duel to the death!
A patron places the wizard in a precarious position where the PC is pressured to pledge themself in perpetuity.
A group of mage killers (knights and friars, DCC RPG p.433, # at judge’s discretion) come seeking to slay the wizard for perceived past crimes and sins. Alternatively, these may be “monsters” or other creatures that served the “big bad” of the previous adventure.
- Judge Nafets
How do you handle massive spellburn in your campaign? Or any more burning questions for how “Judge Nafets”?
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Dawn of the Dog Wizard
A demonic encounter for DCC. A Demon Dog Spawn strives to take over a harbor town and rule as a Demon Prince. Can you stop him!?!
