Using "Wonder & Wickedness" and "Marvels and Malisons" in D&D 5e

Last week I visited some old gaming friends. They'd just finished up a 5e campaign of Dungeon of the Mad Mage and were looking for stuff to bridge the gap until the next DM in their rotation was ready to start a new ongoing game. I'm always happy to run a game for them and I wanted to try out a few things, so I offered to run a one-shot.

At first, I'd just wanted to run The Gardens of Ynn to test how a procedural-generation dungeon/point-crawl would play out, but I'd also been looking to test out how a level-less magic system like Wonder & Wickedness and Marvels and Malisons would play, so I decided to work both ideas together.

Getting The Gardens of Ynn to work in 5e isn't terribly difficult; the hardest part is writing monster stats or finding appropriate equivalents. I'm sure I'll get back to Ynn in a future post, as I'm a HUGE fan of the format Emmy Allen used in it.

Getting W&W + M&M to work, though, would require ripping out a lot of the guts of 5e's magic system. Here's how I approached it.

Wait, what's Wonder & Wickedness?

W&W is an OSR-style magic system that removes spell levels in favor of spells arranged in thematic groups, each of which scale with caster level. Rather than effectively gaining a new class feature with every spell learned, casters using the W&W system have a smaller pool of diverse powers--virtually none of which are direct-damage attacks. Marvels and Malisons is an expansion on the ideas presented in Wonder & Wickedness. An example from the Necromancy spell group:

Occult Consultation - The sorcerer must dig a pit two feet square, into which is poured wine, fragrant herbs, and the blood of a sacrifice slain with a bronze knife. A throng of ghosts is summoned by this ritual, which may be conversed with as desired for the duration of the spell, though truth is not compelled. Specific ghosts may be called if the sorcerer has material remains, a possession that was once treasured by the deceased, or a true name. Following the consultation, if desired, the sorcerer may follow the ghosts in katabasis to the land of the dead, along with any number of willing companions, though an easy path of return is not guaranteed.

That's the full text of the spell. There's some fore-matter in the book that discuses durations, but they're no more complex than "ten minutes per caster level, plus ten more if you're a specialist." It's up to the GM to adjudicate any weird interactions. Personally, I love that. I prefer my magic weirder than 5e's mechanics offer.

Direct damage comes in the form of maleficence, an ability all spellcasters have that allows them to convert a casting into a player-described direct attack for 2d6 (double sixes explode into an additional exploding d6), with a save for half damage. There are also rules for using your castings for defense or in magic duels, but they weren't very relevant for a one-shot.

Converting W&W for use with D&D 5e classes

NB: When I write "W&W", I mean the material available in both Wonder & Wickedness and Marvels and Malisons together. I just can't be arsed to keep writing out both titles.

First: Cantrips aren't affected by these changes. Characters receive their normal number of cantrips, although access to maleficence slightly devalues damage cantrips.

Second: 5e classes with access to spell slots receive spell points instead of those slots. A character gains one spell point for each spell slot they would have received, regardless of that spell slot's level. A 3rd level Wizard with four 1st level slots and two 2nd level slots receives six (4 + 2) spell points.

Class abilities that restore spell slots (such as the Wizard's Arcane Recovery) restore a number of spell points equal to the maximum number of spell slots that ability could restore.

Third: The number of 5e spells a character would know converts directly into the number of W&W spells the character knows. Classes have a specific group of W&W spells assigned to them from which they randomly roll which spell they learn whenever a new spell is learned.

The W&W spell groups, each of which has eight spells in it:

• Diabolism - Conjure, bind, and compel devils. Pull bits of Hell into the real world.
• Elementalism - Speak with and harness the powers of earth, wind, water, and fire.
• Necromancy - Kill stuff, raise/command/question the dead, mess with souls.
• Psychomancy - Enchant, fascinate, and dominate minds. 
• Spiritualism - See and manipulate the Astral plane and magic itself.
• Translocation - Access teleportation, portals, and extradimensional spaces.
• Vivimancy - Warp bodies, for better or worse. Grow fangs, give life to stone.
• Apotropaism - Ward against other magic, spirits, demons, and misfortune.
• Arachnomorphosis - Call spiders, command spiders, be like a spider, be a spider.
• Physiurgy - Cure wounds and disease, or raise the dead at great personal risk.
• Cunning Craft - Vaguely Celtic-themed druid powers.
• Rope Tricks - A curious spread of abilities tied (ha) around the manipulation of string and rope.

And the associations with 5e classes. Remember that classes randomly roll spells known from their associated spell groups:

• Barbarian - None, but subclasses receiving 5e spells as one-off powers keep them as written.
• Bard - Access to all spell groups. Bards are very eclectic.
• Cleric - Physiurgy and three more groups thematically related to the cleric's deity.
• Druid - Elementalism, Vivimancy, Cunning Craft, and either Physiurgy or Arachnomorphosis.
• Fighter - Eldritch Knights pick any two spell groups except for Physiurgy.
• Monk - None, but subclasses receiving 5e spells as one-off powers keep them as written.
• Paladin - Apotropaism and one other group relevant to the Paladin's oath. I gave an Oath of the Ancients paladin Vivimancy.
• Ranger - Cunning Craft and Rope Tricks.
• Rogue - Arcane Tricksters get Psychomancy, Spiritualism, and Translocation.
• Sorcerer - Any spell group relevant to the Sorcerer's Sorcerous Origins, but every spell in that group is learned sequentially before accessing another relevant spell group. 
• Warlock - Diabolism, Necromancy, Spiritualism, and one other relevant to the Warlock's patron.
• Wizard - Access to all spell groups. Wizards are very eclectic. Specialist wizards may pick one group and always opt to roll from that group until all spells within it are known.

Fourth: Spell Catastrophes happen when the spellcaster:

• Does anything magical involving the concept of "infinity"
• Has their concentration on an ongoing effect disrupted (Con save DC 10 or half damage, whichever is higher)
• Dies with unspent spell points remaining
• Attempts to cast a spell without any remaining spell points. (Note that the catastrophe happens after the spell is cast.)

How did the one-shot/playtest go?

Boy howdy did I learn a lot from this one.

The group of characters in the one-shot were all 3rd level, and consisted of a tiefling paladin of devotion, a tiefling sorcerer (Wild Magic), a half-elf eagle-totem barbarian, ZIVROS THE DE-COMPOSER (human wizard necromancer), a high elf rogue (thief), and a dabbing t-rex in sunglasses and a red t-shirt.

Not represented in the playtest: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, Warlock.

Look, the last player really wanted to be a t-rex; what kind of monster says no to that in a one-shot? I printed out allosaurus stats and said "you can tell the difference between your party and others, but otherwise you're a smaller-than-average t-rex." The player came up with the shades and shirt.

I used a rule during the playtest that I've deliberately left out of the above conversion: I let the Wild Magic Sorcerer deliberately trigger spell catastrophes by spending a spell point and picking between two options that I rolled. This was a huge mistake--the player did almost nothing but trigger catastrophes all night, and the majority of the game was the other players trying to deal with the chaos the Sorcerer unleashed.

Don't get me wrong--even though the party didn't make it past the first room in The Gardens of Ynn, everyone had a blast playing, and I got to see some very creative spellcraft from the Necromancer --who accidentally (?) gassed the entire party with berserker fumes from Hell, and the Paladin, who used Apotropaism to try to seal an extraplanar giant praying mantis into their chainmail purse, King Solomon-style.

Nobody used maleficence. I suspect that either I didn't signpost the ability enough both before and during gameplay, or the other powers were much more exciting to use than merely dealing damage.

Nobody ran out of spell points, which is probably good, as they only dealt with two encounters (one exploration/terrain traversal, one combat).

All told, I'd run this test again. I only got about 3 hours of testing in for the one-shot, and I'd like to see how it feels in a convention-standard 4-hour slot, or possibly over 2-4 full sessions. If you end up trying it, I'd love to hear how it went for you in the comments!

Wait, doesn't this break all KINDS of stuff in 5e?

Oh, absolutely. It's no longer safe to assume stuff like "the party will have the ability to fly around 5th level," or "the party can readily cure diseases and curses," or "the party can drop fireballs on tightly-packed mobs of small monsters, so stop using them".

The major breakpoints for ability access through spells get scattered across space and time with this conversion; power is unlocked for caster characters earlier, later, or potentially never. However, a player who wants to be a necromancer gets to be a necromancer as soon as they start playing.

Caveat Aleator: I prefer it this way. I enjoy leaning on improvisation informed by random table outputs more than pre-written material; I try hard not to get hung up on assuming the players can fly over this or disintegrate that. Sometimes I fail; once I threw a minor fit over the entire group having Brooms of Flying--I'm not perfect, but I like to think I try my best. If you use the conversion in this post, you'll find that you get surprised a lot. Consider this a design feature.