I'm been doing so much game design lately that I haven't had much time to write about it. As you can see, Mike and I did some work recently on Book of Hallowed Might II: Portents and Visions. The Book of Eldritch/Hallowed Might series has been great to me, because it gives me an opportunity to work in whatever I've been thinking about lately or using in my game. Unlike a carefully themed book (like, say Legacy of the Dragons or Requiem for a God), there's room -- within reason -- to include any new little bit of game tinkering I want to share.

One such tinkering in Book of Hallowed Might II is the keyed spell items. And just so you don't think I'm writing about the book only to encourage you to buy it, I included the keyed spell items section as a free preview this week.

Specificity is good for game design. It encourages player customization: It makes each character seem different. The more different specific options that you have in the game -- whether it be spells, magic items, combat feats, maneuvers, and so on -- the more opportunities a player has to distinguish his character from everyone else's. (This actually gets two design gold stars, because not only is it not fun for everyone to play the same cookie-cutter character, it's not fun to play a character that doesn't fit your desired concept.) In the very oldest of olden days of D&D, one fighter (or "fighting man," as they were called) was pretty much like another. As the game matured, this quickly changed. We started see more classes, different weapons, and various magical items that were the game's way of catering to the need of specificity.

In light of that trend, I wanted to create some magic items for spellcasters that catered to specific spells. Not an item that allowed you to cast fireball from it (we already have those), but one that let you cast the spell fireball on your own more often. Or better still, one that allowed you to cast a superior fireball. So, a basic keyed spell item keyed for fireball allows a mage to switch out any 3rd-level spell for fireball. An enhanced keyed spell item keyed for fireball might increase the owner's fireball damage, range, or other feature.

This type of item enables players to create not just a wizard, but a "fireball specialist" in a way that just giving him a wand of fireballs wouldn't really accomplish -- the character's fireball is almost certainly better (more damage, higher save DC) than one cast from an item. The enhanced version also gives a character the opportunity to empower a perhaps less-than-optimal spell to make it a good choice for a signature spell. (Interestingly, these are the two primary game design reasons for prestige classes -- specialization and improvement of otherwise less-than-optimal choices.)

Keyed spell items are particularly interesting for clerics. Their spontaneous spellcasting ability focuses them toward healing. A keyed spell item (or two) for a cleric can help focus them in a different direction, if that's desired.

What these items really are, then, are templates (or prestige classes, if you'd rather) for spells. And, like templates, there's lots of room for DMs to create their own. I like the idea that keyed spell items are just a type of item, rather than an individual item, because then users can make more to suit their needs. They're a great DM's tool, as well. If your mage is casting nothing but fireball already, have her find a keyed spell item for another spell.

I think you'll find keyed spell items to be a potentially dynamic addition to your game, either as a DM or a player. They take concepts that already exist in the game (spontaneous casting, metamagic-like spell alterations, and so on) and use them in different ways. Often they won't make the party spellcaster more overtly powerful, but they might make him more versatile.

DESIGN DIARY PAST ENTRIES

* Legacy of the Dragons: A Monstrous Challenge -- February 26, 2004
"I love new monster books so much, I pretty much never pass one up, no matter what. I wanted Legacy of the Dragons to be friendly to the folks out there who are like me."

* Legacy of the Dragons: Bestiaries I Have Known -- February 19, 2004
"My first professional game design ever was a book of monsters. Creatures and Treasures II came out in 1989 from Iron Crown Enterprises for Rolemaster..."

* Legacy of the Dragons: Context -- January 22, 2004
"Legacy of the Dragons is the product I'm working on now. Just finishing it up, actually. It's a bestiary to go along with Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed...."

* Chaositech Playtesting -- December 11, 2003
"Chaositech is one of those products that came directly out of my campaign. The concept was not meant originally to have anything to do with a product...."

* Campaign Paradigms -- October 30, 2003
"An important thing for all DMs to keep in mind is that once a campaign is up and running, the basic flavor -- the underpinnings of the whole campaign structure -- usually should not change...."

* Developing a New Subsystem -- October 2, 2003
"Probably one of the biggest challenges that faces a designer when working on a book like Chaositech is the delicate way that you have to institute a whole new subsystem...."

* On the Horizon: Chaositech -- September 11, 2003
"If you'll indulge me, I'm going to divert the Design Diary's contents to what I'm working on now: a book called Chaositech...."

* Magic Items in The Diamond Throne -- August 28, 2003
"Magic items in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed and in The Diamond Throne sometimes require a little bit of thought on the DM's part. Using them isn't a problem..."

* A Look at the Land -- August 15, 2003
"This week I've prepared an excerpt from The Diamond Throne. As I've said previously, it was my design choice to spend most of the gazetteer portion of the book on the general aspects of the world..."

* Designing a World -- August 7, 2003
"I have mixed feelings about campaign settings. On one hand -- speaking as designer -- it's fun, challenging, and rewarding to create a whole world that's all your own...."

* Weapons and Armor -- July 17, 2003
"I absolutely love the introduction of exotic weapons into D&D. It's one of my favorite things about 3rd Edition. In Arcana Unearthed, I wanted to make sure that the exotic weapons were worth the feat required to use them...."

* Greenbond Notes -- June 26, 2003
"Last week's preview of the greenbond class gives a nice glimpse of a lot of Arcana Unearthed issues. First off, the greenbond is no druid...."

* Spell Templates -- June 12, 2003
"This week I thought I'd discuss an idea that I'm really very happy with. The idea is spell templates..."

* Playtesting -- June 5, 2003
"Playtesting is extremely important to me. When we developed 3rd Edition, we did more playtesting than perhaps any other RPG product, ever...."

* High Magic -- May 29, 2003
"I referred to the Diamond Throne as a high-magic setting. I should clarify..."

* The Diamond Throne -- May 23, 2003
"So it's about time I start talking about the Diamond Throne. The Diamond Throne is a campaign setting for Arcana Unearthed -- the default setting, like Greyhawk for D&D, I suppose...."

* Death's Door -- May 8 , 2003
" I like the D&D death's door rules. I like that at 0 hp, you're still up and can take a limited action, but then you exhaust yourself...."

* Hero Points -- May 1, 2003
"A roleplaying campaign can be like putting up wallpaper...."

* Truenames -- April 18, 2003
"Truenames are common in many fantasy settings. I think I first became aware of the concept in Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy..."

* Go, Go, Go! -- April 10, 2003
"Short entry this time. I hate spells with 1 minute/level durations...."

* Ceremony -- April 3, 2003
"I think I've already mentioned that one of the goals I set for myself with Arcana Unearthed was to make things a little less generic...."

* Things That Rules Take Away -- March 21, 2003
"There are aspects of fantasy roleplaying that rules, inadvertently, can actually take away...."

* Still Talking Classes -- March 13, 2003
"I've saved some of the best classes for last. Let's talk about the runethane, the mage blade, and the witch...."

* More Classes -- February 27, 2003
"This time, I want to tell you about some of the other classes: akashics, magisters, and greenbonds...."

* Build a Better Fighter -- February 23, 2003
"The title this week is facetious. It really should be 'build a different fighter'...."

* The Magic Balancing Act -- February 13, 2003
"In Arcana Unearthed I'm introducing a new method of magic item pricing. First, I streamlined the item creation feats..."

* More Magic -- January 23, 2003
"This week, I thought I'd talk more about the new magic system in Arcana Unearthed."

* Magic -- January 17, 2003
"As a designer, magic in Arcana Unearthed posed a huge challenge. I knew that I wanted to ditch the Vancian system...."

* Design Decisions, Part Two -- December 24, 2002
"Here's a bit more discussion of some of the general issues I faced as I began designing Arcana Unearthed...."

* Design Decisions, Part One -- December 19, 2002
"Before jumping into another big area of Arcana Unearthed's design, like classes or the magic system, I thought I'd discuss some of the general issues I faced as a designer starting the book...."

* Arcana Unearthed Races -- December 5, 2002
"I started with the races. While I knew that the game needed humans as a basis, I wanted all the other races to be new. I didn't want to just create dwarf and elf analogs with different names...."