Collecting Tricks/Gimmicks for a Stage Magician

[Glistam]

I'm planning to roll up a Stage Magician character in the near future, so I'm looking to try and plan out some of the tricks and such the character will be armed with and executing. To that end, I've been looking through Palladium's books for some ideas but I've only found a few so far. I'm wondering what other ideas exist out there? I've found the stuff in the Stage Magician Power Category section in HU2, the equipment of two N.P.C.'s in Century Station and Gramercy Island, the items/gimmicks from Rifter 49 (sadly the rest of that article is not on the table), and a few additional things from the equipment section of Ninjas and Superspies. Any other ideas of places/books to look across the Palladium catalog?

[Glistam]

I guess the silence is just an example of Magician's keeping their secrets.

[Stone Gargoyle]

I have not used a Stage Magician in my campaigns, so don't know what to tell you.

[acreRake]

In addition to the equipment section of NSS, there's the Gizmoteer skill program section. If you are playing a modern-day campaign* you'll need to update the technology (microchip sizes, for example).
There's one or two pieces of equipment in Mystic China that would be useful for a Stage Magician.
Personally, I really like the power emulations from the Rifter, but I think the author failed to present them with the right tone (and probably suggested giving too many). The heavy lifting of explaining how the feats are accomplished is left to the player. Or to the imagination... Which is fine for me, but is completely contrary to the Palladium system.

Along those lines, I also allow stage magicians to pick up sorcerous proficiencies**, which doesn't sound right for you though.

IMO, One problem with coming up with ideas for Stage Magicians is the lack of examples in the source material. How did this come up as an archetype in the first place, I wonder?

*as opposed to the 1988 default setting.
**Nightbane: Through the Glass Darkly

[Regularguy]

Y'know, while the other Special Training characters have unusual options -- the Ancient Master's ability to feign death, and his extraordinary power; the Super Sleuth's total recall and sixth sense; the Secret Operative's souped-up car and energy weapons; the Hunter's weird knack for trap/snare tactics -- the Stage Magician basically just has access to the same cardsharp and concealment and palming and pick locks and pick pockets skills that pretty much anybody can take.

You could have those skills as a Hardware character. You could have those skills as a Physical Training character. You could have those skills as someone who owns an Enchanted item he doesn't even use in his act -- or as someone who does use it in his act. You could even have those skills as someone who knows magic spells, or draws on psionic powers, or uses super powers -- again, regardless of whether he uses any (or all) of them in his act. Heck, the right psionic bag of tricks would be pretty much indistinguishable from over-the-top comic-book training.

So if you don't mind me asking: why do you want to play a Stage Magician instead of a stage magician?

[Glistam]

Y'know, while the other Special Training characters have unusual options -- the Ancient Master's ability to feign death, and his extraordinary power; the Super Sleuth's total recall and sixth sense; the Secret Operative's souped-up car and energy weapons; the Hunter's weird knack for trap/snare tactics -- the Stage Magician basically just has access to the same cardsharp and concealment and palming and pick locks and pick pockets skills that pretty much anybody can take.

You could have those skills as a Hardware character. You could have those skills as a Physical Training character. You could have those skills as someone who owns an Enchanted item he doesn't even use in his act -- or as someone who does use it in his act. You could even have those skills as someone who knows magic spells, or draws on psionic powers, or uses super powers -- again, regardless of whether he uses any (or all) of them in his act. Heck, the right psionic bag of tricks would be pretty much indistinguishable from over-the-top comic-book training.

So if you don't mind me asking: why do you want to play a Stage Magician instead of a stage magician?

I really like the idea of the Stage Magician - someone who's trained as a classical magician and uses the tricks and sleight of hand he's mastered to fight crime. What you've said has a lot of truth to it, but by doing that I wouldn't be a Stage Magician, I'd be something else pretending to be a Stage Magician. It's a R.P./Background thing.

[Regularguy]

Stage Magician - someone who's trained as a classical magician and uses the tricks and sleight of hand he's mastered to fight crime. What you've said has a lot of truth to it, but by doing that I wouldn't be a Stage Magician, I'd be something else pretending to be a Stage Magician.

You'd be pulling some kind of a trick, is what you're saying.

Naw, I get it; I just can't help but think -- given how the book says "it is believed that all or most humans have some degree of psionic ability", and the fact that the sleuth can explicitly pick some up through special training -- that being able to perform parlor tricks with hypnosis, or cold read someone by scrutinizing their microexpressions, or whatever, is supposed to be what your character can pick up while studying flowery patter and handcuff escapology and playing-card sleight-of-hand under The Great Gesturo; it's just stuff a person can learn how to do, is all.

(Or, at that, imagine your stage magician has Gem Powers: you could pretty much act like you're an eccentric perfectionist who painstakingly crafts gimmicked props ahead of time, relying on nothing more than showmanship and skill when you don't have your specialized equipment in place -- because, if we're being brutally honest, you pretty much will be down to mere prestidigitation if you don't have access to your gear.)

(Oh, and as a minor perk you get the ability to change 'gemstones' into 'gemstones that look like they were re-cut and expertly polished by a professional' -- which you'd get if you just were a professional, with expertise and hand-eye coordination and attention to detail, right?)

But I don't wanna derail the thread; if you love your idea, stick with it.

[Severus Snape]

I think once you've exhausted the Palladium library for tricks, you should probably head to your local library and read a few magic books. A lot of the things that RL magicians do utilize specialized equipment or devices, which could be incorporated into any character you create.

[Stattick]

Watch the movie Leap of Faith w/ Steve Martin. And maybe watch a few episodes of The Mentalist.


So, you're going to want to talk to your GM, and see what he's willing to do to actually let this class and character swim instead of sink. If he'll let you, you'll probably want to create some sort of Cold Reading skill for the class, perhaps a Hypnotism skill, in addition to some sort of Showmanship skill. Those skills should probably be given a bonus for a high M.A. After all, you're using the force of your personality and magnetism, to help fool people. You're using what you know about people's reactions and thought processes to predict their behavior, or to get them to look over there, while you do something over here. It's all about distraction, and misdirection. Hmm... sounds like the class should have a good Initiative bonus to me, in addition to probably having some strike bonuses and such, because your whole Modus Operandi is about misdirection and tricks.

The big thing, is that you need the GM's buy-in. Realistically, you're going to be manipulating people and dealing with details that are too subtle for most people to notice, and are going to be too hard to try to describe at the table very well. So, you need a GM that's willing to just tell you things like, "He's hiding something.", "He's lying.", or "She's upset, and doing a pretty good job of hiding it." For people that are really good at that sort of deception, you'd have to roll. But for your character, most people are an open book.

So, what is stage magic, anyway? It's called illusion. It's all about misdirection. It's all about telling someone a lie, and getting them to believe it, or tricking them into believing it. (Or, for the cold reader crowd, it's about tricking someone into telling you things, getting their buy-in, and then repeating what you've tricked them into revealing back to them.) Yes, there tends to be a lot of staged stuff involved. Trick handcuffs. Fake guns. Trapdoors under the stage. Smoke, mirrors, bangs, flashes. Black magic. Wait, black magic? Yeah, that's what it's called. It's the art of using light in such a way as to hide something... behind a wall of light. See, the elephant is still up there, on the stage. But those specially set up potlights make it to where the audience, from their viewing angles, can't actually see the elephant.

So, how does the knowledge of all of that make it to where you can run a cool supers character? First off, if the character can stage the battlefield before the fight, you can't beat him. That's the Art of War 101. Make your enemy come to you. Fight on the ground you've already prepared. This isn't always feasible though... but we'll get into that later. Secondly, the character will be knowledgeable on how to set up illusions quickly and improvise stuff. What do you need? Mylar sheeting to improvise a mirror - trick people into thinking that someone has the drop on them. Trick them into attacking a wall instead of attacking a person. Miniature speakers, perhaps attached to a small recording device. Invisible laser "tripwire" or some other way to signal the recording to start. Baddie comes looking for you, and goes into the room you're in. Suddenly from behind him, a shotgun being racked! He spins to face the opponent (your tiny speaker on the wall), and now you've got the drop on him.

Black magic... utilizing light and shadow. You know how to create a dazzler. Hit the button, and bright lights and blackness swirl at the opponent. They can't see a thing. And if they don't get away, vertigo sets in. You're behind the dazzler, watching the baddie try to stumble away without loosing their balance or lunch. And since the swirling lights aren't pointed at you, you're fine. Flashbulb in the dark. The opponent is going to be blinded.

Sounds... well, we got into the speakers before. There's also firecrackers, and even louder, tiny explosions. You can trick your opponent into thinking there's someone behind them, or in the other room, or whatnot. Or you can just deafen them with an otherwise (mostly) harmless detonation. Or maybe you just want to scare them and creep them out. Those speakers can produce ultra low frequencies - it's out of the hearing range of humans, but if we could hear it, it would be loud. And it creeps people out, making them afraid for reasons they don't know or understand.

Oh, speaking of tricks, this is the class that should get a feint combat maneuver. It looks like a normal attack. If you roll well enough to "land" the attack, your opponent will parry or block it... and won't see your next move until it's probably too late. So, roll to hit on this attack. If successful, the opponent parries, blocks, or if you're lucky, they loose an attack to dodge. The margin by which you succeeded gets added to your next attack roll. So, you feint, and with bonuses, roll a 21 to hit. The opponent only rolls an adjusted 17 to parry. They seem to parry just fine... but on your real attack, you're at +4 to strike and damage. Oh, how this increases the odds for you to hit your called shots.

Other tricks or gizmos:
Flash paper - it looks like a fireball to your opponent's face (or a sudden fire to their side for a distraction)

Impact explosives - toss it, and when it lands/hits, there's a small explosion, maybe a burst of flame or smoke. Maybe it only does 1d6 dmg, but that's on top of the normal damage, plus it's scary. Maybe they have to make a save or loose their next attack or something? And maybe you can make a ricochet explosive. Looks like one of those super bouncy balls. The first impact sets the primer. It detonates on the second impact. Maybe put a little more powder in these, so they do 2 or 3d6 or something?

Eye irritant powder - gesture at that guy in your face in the right way, and blast his face with pepper or something. It hurts like hell and now they can't see because their eyes are watering so badly. Oh, and their snot is going everywhere.

Marbles or caltrops - baddie falls down or can't run

Superglue spray - it adheres instantly to flesh. Baddie is following you? Good. Go through the door, and spray the nob with superglue on your way through. Or you can just be mean, and spray 'em in the face. Watch them try to blink it out of their eyes, and their eyelids get stuck, then they try to wipe their faces clean and their hands get stuck.

LEDs - superbright, battery operated, cliplights. Set 'em up to blind, to conceal something in the darkness behind them, or to strobe on command (or via tripwire/laser)

Wire and/or lasers - to trigger all those traps. Dental floss works alright, but fishing wire's the best and almost invisible.

Paracord - sometimes you need something stronger than fishing wire, because sometimes you need to set up a man trap.

Cold blast - puncture an aerosol can, and the gas rushing out freezes things so fast it'll burn. Set it up to do it in a controlled fashion, and it's almost as good as liquid nitrogen. Do it to steel and then hit it hard before it can warm to shatter it.

Capacitor - slap it on, stand back, and hit the remote so it'll electrocute something. A capacitor's like a battery, except that it doesn't let the electricity out slowly, it releases it all at once. Had a friend touch one in a TV that had been unplugged for months. It shocked the crap out of him.

Handcuffs. Knife.

Small, single handed operable multitool - you'll probably need the wire-cutters and scissors for those gizmos.

Cane - there's all kinds of gizmos you can incorporate into one. And you probably have a dozen of them at home that look nearly identical. My favorite is the metal one with the sword inside. It's a little unconventional, but not an unheard of fighting style: paired weapons, sword and club. Take both WPs, along with paired weapons. And fencing. You'd best take Knife and Throwing too.

Tracer - probably the glue-on kind, but maybe the kind that has burrs to stick and tangle in someone's clothes... or maybe the magnetic kind. At any rate, you're a normal, and need to be ready to back away from a fight you can't handle (yet) - but you probably want to put a tracker on your opponent before you disappear, if possible.

.45 - Seriously, you're going up against super powered freaks, and you don't have the plot immunity of The Batman. You'd better pack heavy.

So, that sounds like a whole lot of stuff. You might not have enough room to carry it all. But the thing is, you'll always have some of it on hand. And no one will know what you do or don't have. And hey, you're not a super powered freak. So chances are, you're probably driving to where the action is. You have more tricks in the car - you know, for reloads. Or for Round 2 if it turns out you fought someone that's immune to some of the tricks you were carrying. And you want a spare cane or two.