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| thorr-kan |
 Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 2:04 pm Post subject: Alternate d20 Magic Systems? |
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I've been puzzling over some alternate d20 magic systems for awhile now, and I'm wondering if anyone has playtested them.
I've looked over True Sorcery, and it captures everthing I'd like. But it's awfully complex for new players. |
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| that1mofo |
| Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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| I haven't read True Sorcery, don't think I've even heard of it before now. But I do share your interest in finding an alternative to the old ways. 4th edition even seemed more appealing than what I'm used to. |
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| varianor |
| Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| I have tried and enjoyed the Spiritualist magic system in Iron Heroes. It's rather low-key on some of the things it lets you do, but it's very flexible. It builds up toward a fair amount of powerful effects that you can't do all that often. Good for a Conan-style game. Players who prefer the formula already "calculated", like standard 3.5, are not the target audience. Creative players who like tinkering with parameters on the fly may well enjoy this. |
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| that1mofo |
| Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2009 11:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Does anyone know of an alternate system utilizing Magic Points. It seems to work so well in like EVERY video game but for some reason I never see it transferred over into the paper based table top RPGs I enjoy so much. |
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| Lilith |
| Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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| There's the spell point system outlined in Unearthed Arcana, but Monte Cook's The World of Darkness has a very interesting way to handle magic that is pretty cool. |
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| that1mofo |
| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| Lilith wrote: |
| There's the spell point system outlined in Unearthed Arcana, but Monte Cook's The World of Darkness has a very interesting way to handle magic that is pretty cool. |
Yeah, I read up on the spell point system. It was weak. Really, really weak. Poorly thought out. I'm not touching it. |
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| thorr-kan |
| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 10:57 am Post subject: |
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| Lilith wrote: |
| There's the spell point system outlined in Unearthed Arcana, but Monte Cook's The World of Darkness has a very interesting way to handle magic that is pretty cool. |
Care to expand on TWoD magic system? |
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| Lilith |
| Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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| To sum it up, basically each spell is composed of building blocks such as Range and Area and a couple of others. (I don't have my book available, so I'm doing this from memory). As you increase the effectiveness of these building blocks, the DC rating for the spell goes higher, and becomes more difficult and costly to cast. To cast the spell, you need to make a skill check. Again, sorry I don't have all the details, but that's the majority of it. |
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| Amy Carrier |
| Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:54 pm Post subject: |
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| that1mofo wrote: |
| Does anyone know of an alternate system utilizing Magic Points. It seems to work so well in like EVERY video game but for some reason I never see it transferred over into the paper based table top RPGs I enjoy so much. |
Probably 'cause computers easily track lots of annoying little variables that would be really tedious for to keep track of in a pencil-and-paper game. For a magic point system to be usable in D&D, it has to be simple enough so that even those players who don't like math will find it painless to use - and at that point you might as well just make a table that declares how many spells per day your character can cast, just like we have already. (I mean, just like we already have in 1E, 2E, and 3.xE; I'm not familiar with 4E).
Back in the 1980's I wrote a few computer games that had (in my own opinion) some very good point-based systems for doing stuff - but I would *never* want to see any of those systems attempted outside a computer program! |
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| Neostrider |
| Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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If you wanted you could use the psionics system. I find that to be a better point based system than the Unearthed Arcana variant. However, I do find that the psionic system is also a bit overpowered.
I would start there, and if you feel it is overpowered you could try the Unearthed Arcana variant. The only problem with the psionic method is not all prestige classes would be backwards compatible, but it probably wouldn't be hard to tweak it to work. |
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| thorr-kan |
| Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 7:53 am Post subject: |
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| Neostrider wrote: |
| If you wanted you could use the psionics system. |
I thought about that, but even psionics is still to "fire and forget."
I'm sure there were a host of d20 variants available before the switch to 4ed. I just was never interested in GMing until now. |
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 8:39 am Post subject: |
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I'll do my best to check the World of Warcraft RPG book when I get home to see how they handled spellcasting. I don't recall off the top of my head how they handled it, and my flash drive crashed a week ago so I don't have access to the PDF at the moment.
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| deinol |
| Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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I really like the Talislanta magic system. It is easily adapted to d20 as they use practically the same mechanics. You have a magic skill. You decide what spell you want to cast. It has various affects that add to the spell level. IE, 20ft radius = +3 levels, 4d6 damage = +4 levels, etc. Roll d20 + skill - spell level. < 10 fail, 11-14 1/2 success, 15-19 full success. 20+ crit success.
If you succeed, but not fail or crit, all further castings have a cumulative -1 penalty.
So a skilled caster can cast easy spells all day, but when they pull out the big stuff it lowers their effectiveness for the day.
Really customizable, self limiting, and easy to resolve.
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| Zherog |
| Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| Zherog wrote: |
| I'll do my best to check the World of Warcraft RPG book when I get home to see how they handled spellcasting. I don't recall off the top of my head how they handled it, and my flash drive crashed a week ago so I don't have access to the PDF at the moment. |
Well, I totally misremembered what the system does -- it uses the standard d20 spell casting system.
However... one d20 book that has a spell point system is Monte Cook's World of Darkness. If you don't have the book, I highly recommend it -- it's very easily one of the top 5 d20 products I own (I have over 100 books, without counting all my magazines). It's an awesomely entertaining read, the production quality is outstanding, and it's chock full of cool ideas.
So, on to how mages cast spells. I'm only going to summarize, because it's not clear (at least from what I found) what is open game content and what's not. Mages have "component points" which they can spend to build their spells. They get a fixed number per level, plus a bonus amount equal to their level times their intelligence modifier. For example, a 1st level mage has 60 points, a 10th level mage has 195 points, and a 20th level mage has 345 points.
From there, you build the spell you want at the time you cast it. Different aspects of the spell have different costs; for example, making a spell a touch spell costs 2 component points, while making it have a range of one mile costs 25 points. You put together all those components, and there's your spell. As long as you have component points available, you can cast spells.
There's a ton of "rotes" in the book -- basic spells that every mage knows without having to put them together. For example, alter size allows you to grow or shrink the target by up to two size categories. The rote is already laid out with it's duration, range, etc, and costs 17 component points. Many rotes also have "variants" -- effects you can add to it to alter how it works. For example, alter size has one variant called enhancement that grants a +4 bonus to Strength to enlarged creatures or a +4 bonus to Dexterity for reduced creatures.
Casting any spell requires a Spellcraft check; you gain a +5 bonus to cast a rote. The DC is the component cost plus your "exhaustion rating." You can take 10 on your check, which makes simple spellcasting pretty easy. The exhaustion rating of a spell is component cost - 10 - mage level.
Anyway, that's just a real brief summary of the system. It's really flexible without being totally out of control, and has some built-in balancers such as the Spellcraft check and the ever-increasing exhaustion rating. Like I said, this book is awesome. It's entertaining to read, with a solid mix of fiction sprinkled throughout the text to break up the crunchy bits into digestible pieces. A quick look on eBay shows it selling in the $30-40 range new from sellers; Amazon has it new for $36.49, and it qualifies for free shipping.
edit: just a quick edit to add one final thought. Prior to this product, my total experience with White Wolf's game was one game that lasted a total of two weeks; I didn't even own the books, and relied on the storyteller to build my character and explain things as we were going. So, I can safely say you don't need to have any previous knowledge of the World of Darkness system or lore to appreciate the book. However, this book was entertaining and interesting enough that I went and bought the core World of Darkness book.
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