Random Wizard Powers

Some time ago, Zak created a list of magical powers that your NPC magic users/evil baddies could use based upon the characters in their name.

I thought this was a grand idea, but I never implemented it.  I don't want to remember to memorize spells for my evil spellcasters.  I don't want to remember spell descriptions.  I just want to run the evil wizards/spellcasters as easily as possible.  Even though Zak made the power match the initial, I still had trouble remembering it and/or being consistent.

Today, I knocked out a spreadsheet that does the work of listing those powers for you.  It's crude, but it does the job.

Here's how it works --

Section A contains all the entries from Zak's table.  You can edit these however you wish.  The letters at the beginning have no bearing on the lookup -- I was just too lazy to remove them.  The column to the left, a to z, is the lookup column -- Don't change that one.

Section B is where you type the name of the wizard.  Right below it, you can see a crude set of fields that break the name down into its component letters.  It then does a VLOOKUP against the letter and puts the power in the column.

Section C contains the Level of the wizard (in this case 10) and a calculation for D below.  I divide the level by 3 in this case.  If you want fewer tick boxes you can divide by a higher number; if more, divide by a lower number.  Whatever number or calculation appears in the box below the level is the max number of boxes to appear in D below.

Section D contains little "tick boxes" randomly determined between 1 and the calculation in C.  In this case from 1 to 4.  When the evil wizard uses a power, mark it off.

So, just type in the wizard's name -- print out the sheet and put it in your DM binder.

Here's a link to the spreadsheet.  Download a copy if you'd like.

Let me know what you think.