Thornir Alekeg
Albatross!
My verbal component consists of telling the DM what spell I am casting. I tried the made up verbal component once. It didn't last very long, just ended up sounding too corny to me.
"By the power of magic..." what is your verbal components like?
- Thread starter Remathilis
- Start date
Scarbonac
Not An Evil Twin
My favorite verbal components (from an old D&D game):
"Seven rings has Raggador/Indigo to deepest black/But Oshtur grant me something more/The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!" (good one for wall of force, forcecage, otiluke's resilient sphere. etc)
"Ahnahl nathrakh, uhr vahss bethud, dochthiel tienveigh" is another, used for wish and the like.
Nowadays, though, our verbal components are more likely to be
"Magic Missile!"
Wall of Force!"
"Fireball!"
"Tasha's Hideous Uncontrollable Laughter!"
"Phanstern's Uncontrollable Bowel Movement!"
"Seven rings has Raggador/Indigo to deepest black/But Oshtur grant me something more/The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!" (good one for wall of force, forcecage, otiluke's resilient sphere. etc)
"Ahnahl nathrakh, uhr vahss bethud, dochthiel tienveigh" is another, used for wish and the like.
Nowadays, though, our verbal components are more likely to be
"Magic Missile!"
Wall of Force!"
"Fireball!"
"Tasha's Hideous Uncontrollable Laughter!"
"Phanstern's Uncontrollable Bowel Movement!"
Pasus Nauran
First Post
Voadam said:
One of the player in my campaign likes to use this one! Otherwise, it tends to be "Hummana, hummana, hummana.", with some sort of hand gestures. It's not a requirement in our campaign, but it's adds to the sense of roleplay. Saying some sort of verbal component also substitutes for saying "I cast X", and we follow up with the name of the spell and point at the target, or describe them in some demeaining way. For example:
GM: "Vir, what do you do?"
Vir: "Hummana, hummana, hummana... Magic Missile... at the ugly mofo who ate my sandwich!"
Celebrim
Legend
Every group that I've ever heard about that has gone big time into using verbal components for spells has gone off the deep end and just gotten wierd. Granted, its a sample size of only two, but its a sample batting 100%.
I think that using verbal phrases to invoke spells - even the silly Harry Potterish psuedo-Latin ones that are kinda cool - blurs that necessary and important dividing line between the game and reality. If someone shows up to one of my sessions in costume and chanting spells, I'm going to think that they are either off thier meds or need to get on them.
In addition, getting serious about verbal components invariably leads to religious issues. In both cases, the groups I knew about did the obvious thing and went and looked in real world 'magic' and witchcraft books for inspiring source material.* Invariably this either leads to a) someone deciding that Wiccan/Satanism/etc. is cool, 'converting', and that person starts bringing thier religious perferences to the gaming table, or b) someone else in the group deciding that person A has converted a Wiccan/Satanist/etc., that persons A's soul is in mortal danger, and they start bringing thier religious perferances to the gaming table. Regardless of your personal religious stand on this, as a referee I'm sure you will agree that that is real world conflict that you just don't need getting in the way of your attempt to tell a purely fictional story.
So, as an occasional bit of color and humor, (a player casting 'mend' and then exclaiming 'Oculus Repairus'), I'm likely to smile and guffaw at such stuff, but I'd take steps to squash it if I ever thought it was moving beyond an occassionally witty geekism, to being an actual prerequisite for the act of having a character cast a spell.
To say nothing of the fact that if NPC's did it, you'd have the problem of Player 'spellcraft skill points' interfering with the metagame in the same way that player's knowledge of modern technology invariably leaks into character knowledge.
*BTW, real world 'magic' and Wiccan stuff is incredibly corny, pretentious, and ridiculous sounding to me so why you would ever do this I have no idea. On the other hand, if you read Gygax's appendix to the first edition DMG, he basically advices DM's to do exactly that, so maybe that's where it comes from.
I think that using verbal phrases to invoke spells - even the silly Harry Potterish psuedo-Latin ones that are kinda cool - blurs that necessary and important dividing line between the game and reality. If someone shows up to one of my sessions in costume and chanting spells, I'm going to think that they are either off thier meds or need to get on them.
In addition, getting serious about verbal components invariably leads to religious issues. In both cases, the groups I knew about did the obvious thing and went and looked in real world 'magic' and witchcraft books for inspiring source material.* Invariably this either leads to a) someone deciding that Wiccan/Satanism/etc. is cool, 'converting', and that person starts bringing thier religious perferences to the gaming table, or b) someone else in the group deciding that person A has converted a Wiccan/Satanist/etc., that persons A's soul is in mortal danger, and they start bringing thier religious perferances to the gaming table. Regardless of your personal religious stand on this, as a referee I'm sure you will agree that that is real world conflict that you just don't need getting in the way of your attempt to tell a purely fictional story.
So, as an occasional bit of color and humor, (a player casting 'mend' and then exclaiming 'Oculus Repairus'), I'm likely to smile and guffaw at such stuff, but I'd take steps to squash it if I ever thought it was moving beyond an occassionally witty geekism, to being an actual prerequisite for the act of having a character cast a spell.
To say nothing of the fact that if NPC's did it, you'd have the problem of Player 'spellcraft skill points' interfering with the metagame in the same way that player's knowledge of modern technology invariably leaks into character knowledge.
*BTW, real world 'magic' and Wiccan stuff is incredibly corny, pretentious, and ridiculous sounding to me so why you would ever do this I have no idea. On the other hand, if you read Gygax's appendix to the first edition DMG, he basically advices DM's to do exactly that, so maybe that's where it comes from.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
Scarbonac said:
Can't go wrong with Dr. Strange. Good source of verbal components
Normally I don't bother with exactly what the vocalizations are since no-one but the caster can usually understand them anyway. Unless someone has Tounges or some other insta-translation spell or effect going. Then I might use the translation as a clue to what's going on. I ran a game where the party was travelling with somone who, unbenownst to them, was an evil priest disguised as a wandering healer.
The priest also had become aware from the party's fireside talk that these were the very vermin his masters had been searching for. The next night he offered to fix dinner and bless it as well. Everyone was pleased by this. The warriors sword was magiced to always let him hear the translation of anything. So when the priest starts off his 'blessing', the rest of the party hears something like 'Vasha, rias dien ve thes', etc. The warrior hears 'Great dark master, cause this brew to become as a viper's sting....' as he poisoned the meal....
Kae'Yoss
First Post
Remathilis said:
That's the feature I hate most about the DSA game, bar none. The spells had names like that, they sounded like the stupid stuff children make up.
No, in our game, all spells have verbal components the players must say. They're along the lines of "I cast magic missile at him" Though they can be much more colourful.
We don't give the too much thought. In-game, they're probably ancient formulas in arcane tongues, like draconic (wizards), simple evokations made up by the caster (sorcerers), invokations tied to the deity (clerics, paladins), and pledges for assistance from nature (druids, rangers), and, of course songs, short verses, or even jokes (bards).
der_kluge
Adventurer
I once tried to correlate the old Ultima system of runic words to all the D&D spells. "Kel Lor!" and I forget the rest.
I always thought that was a cool system. Lots of thought put into that.
But no, no one uses arcane words in our games. There was one player in my last group who would occasionally spout out gibberish for certain spells, but it was only occasionally.
I always thought that was a cool system. Lots of thought put into that.
But no, no one uses arcane words in our games. There was one player in my last group who would occasionally spout out gibberish for certain spells, but it was only occasionally.
Remathilis
Legend
Henry said:
Ok, its been quite a while since I read the books, and I was working off memory of the movie...
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