Black Magic Mechanics for Lankhmar

Because Fritz said:

It seemed to Ivrian that she heard the mellow voice of Glavas Rho repeating a statement he had once made to Mouse and to her. ‘None can use black magic without straining the soul to the uttermost—and staining it into the bargain. None can inflict suffering without enduring the same. None can send death by spells and sorcery without walking on the brink of death’s own abyss, aye, and dripping his own blood into it. The forces black magic evokes are like two-edged poisoned swords with grips studded with scorpion stings. Only a strong man, leather-handed, in whom hate and evil are very powerful, can wield them, and he only for a space.’

I say spellburn, ala DCCRPG, should be a requisite component of each casting. You may heal that ability score damage, but 5% of the time you will roll a 1 while rolling to cast and take permanent ability score loss.

Tangentally to this bit, the mouser makes a good case for allowing multi-classing; abandon the path of pain and embrace subtle skullduggery.

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Old School Fast 5e

I may try to advertise a 5e game the next time our Discord runs shallow. Behind the screen, I'd probably give monsters hits equal to their HD, less the PCs' average level (1 on damage=I don't let a killing blow happen with this strike).

Species allowed: Human, Elf, Half-elf, Kenku, Cyclops (Goliath), Dwarf.

Classes allowed: wizard, thief, barbarian, fighter, cleric.

Generation method: 4d6d1 down the line on Roll20, with all players witnessing your rolls. You see your stats and choose a species/background/class that will compliment them.

No feats. Take ability score increases. You wanna cleave or something, go for a gambit (roll with disadvantage or take consequence on failure). 

Can spend HP on rolls, including damage rolls.

1XP if you attend a session. [LVL to be gained]XP to level up (resets to 0). You have to spend a month in civilization to gain any level benefits before you jump back into adventuring.

d6 vs d6 group initiative. Match= simultaneous. Someone can spend HP to raise your side's roll.

Roll area/monster difficulty or better to intone your spell well enough to cast it this round. Awesome stuff if you roll a 20. 1 is a fumble.

No money survives carousing between adventures, so spend your treasure as soon as you get back into town. On the other hand, we shall hand-wave all room and board fees.

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d12 Enveloped in your Prismatic Embrace

When the living prismatic misfired spell or swarm of rainbow bats or spectrum ghost gives you a rainbow hug, roll an explosive d12 (GM decides any particulars about damage amount and save difficulties):

1: Fiery red damage.
2: Acidic orange damage.
3: Electro-yellow damage.
4: Poisonous green assault; save vs death-poison.
5: Stony blue assault; save vs turning to stone.
6: Indigo Insanity assault; save vs mania.
7: Violet Dimension assault; save vs dimensional displacement.
8: Ultraviolet Violence assault; everyone has to save each round for d6 rounds to resist the temptation to mindlessly attack you.
9: Sonic Chartreuse damage.
10: Radioactive Infrared damage (permanent damage, only heal-able after a Cure Disease is cast on you).
11: Unleveling Ulfire assault; save vs losing levels.
12: Roll again twice (these both are explosive rolls too).  

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d12 LVL 1 Wizard spells

I bet I could make like 9 more posts in this series. Can you guess which one I almost wrote "finger up the bum" for but chickened out?

Wizards have mana equal to their level, and may spend d6 HP as emergency mana. The player may entreat the DM to use a mana to boost or alter a spell in some manner, such as an extra die of effect, an extra time unit of duration, or a different kind of target or effect.

1st level spells

1. Flame control: you may start a fire, keep a campfire or torch going for LVL turns, or scald a foe with your touch.
2. Charm person: Target becomes friendly towards you, not wanting to consider harming you and now is willing to help you out as long as they don’t risk their own safety too much.
3. Detect magic: You can smell whether a close item or being is magic, enchanted, or bewitched.
4. Hodor: You instruct a door, window, aperture, &c to hold firm. The barrier will effectively resist LVL successful attempts to be knocked down.
5. Yew Pew: You need a sprig, cane, or stick. From this wand issues out a blast that does LVLd4 damage, spread out as you like amongst one or more targets (each target has one or more of the d4s rolled against them).
6. Read: You can use this spell to decipher one spell text, speed-read a mundane book, or translate one page of text from any language to a hologram projection that everyone can ooh and ah over.
7. Shield: You can pull this up immediately with a DEX check. For the duration of one battle, you have a pool of LVL d8s. Any time you take damage, roll one of the d8s and reduce the damage by that amount.
8. Sleep Dust: All within LVL yards except you have to roll a Willpower type check or fall into slumber for a turn. Sound won’t wake one from this, but a wet-willy will.
9. Seeing things: Make a sound, voice, shadow, or fleeting illusion. This spell can be cast mentally if you spend a mana.
10. Jeeves: Summon a creature to existence. It will carry something heavy for you for a session. It could carry you. Or you could tell it to do anything an octogenarian could do. If you spend a mana, it could answer a question or put forth a theory. Will that be all, sir? May I not exist now sir?
11. Summon Devil: Foolishly, you draw a pentagram and summon a being from beyond. Oh, you want to make a bargain? Too bad you didn’t etch the pentagram into something permanent, and this demon is breaking it now.
12. Ink Cloud: You fill a LVL meter sphere with darkness. Anyone wanting to hit a melee target in the sphere will need to make a WIS check first.  Arrows into the darkness will hit nothing 80% of the time and a random target in or behind it otherwise.

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