Magic Variants, does this exist already?

I'm building a campaign where magic returns to a magic-dead world at the end of the first adventure or two (and then players stat-out their characters).

I'm looking for a magic variant where magic "feels new"... if that makes sense.

I don't want something that is a codified system of schools, specific spells etc.

I've been working on taking what I like from the Wheel of Time system (a small number of spells that are fairly open-ended in use and scale in power depending on what spell level they are cast at).

I thought about doing just "Wish: The Cantrip" (not some new whitewolf game ) through "Wish: The 9th Level Spell" but that seems like a nightmare to adjudicate, in all honesty I don't always want to need to think about some totally random (possibly abusable) effect mid-adventure.

That being said, it's taking a lot of time away from other aspects of the campaign I'd like to develop and feed to my future players asap.

does anything like this already exist? I'll be using something along the lines of the "Generic Spellcaster" class from UA and the Vitializing magic system as well, perhaps a few minor house rules to demonstrate that magic is still new and wild.

If someone knows of a pre-existing system that might help me out, please let me know, it'd let me get back to developing other areas of the campaign more quickly, otherwise I'll continue with my building of a new system.

EDIT: the thought *did* occur to me that when magic returns beings from other planes could make their way into the world and teach these people the nuances of the existing magic system from the core rules, but that seems rather contrived to me, I would prefer a system that feels more natural in the campaign.

I'm also debating continued lack of gods, so a god of magic imparting the knowledge might not work so hot either. I'm looking for something like, "the shock of the raw amount of magical energy pouring through you when it returns blows open bits of your mind and you intuitively learn how to control the energies (and can then pass that knowledge on) leveling up is a matter of honing and strengthening what you can do, new effects are a matter of cunning and creative application of basic concepts"

boards dying... double post... ack!

The Dark Legacies Player's Guide, due out later this month, may help you out. It is a low-magic ruleset and campaign setting intro that handles every aspect of what low-magic is really about. The mortal practice of magic has only recently come to humanity, born on the backs of other races destroyed by it. Entrenched institutionalized religions fear the encroachment of this personal power on their territory, waging war against it in the name of everything holy. And the actual practicioners of magic, succeptible to its Abyssal origins, walk a fine line between corruption and enlightenment.

There are no schools of magic in Dark Legacies. All magic is effectively demonic, sourced from the Abyss. A new spellcasting system introduces difficulty in the form of spellcasting rolls, spellcasting strain, difficulty sourcing components, and lots of consequences including spell failure and corrupting taint, while maintaining compatability with third party spells. It is a low-magic setting in every sense of the word: magic is new, magic is feared, magic is rare, magic is hard to master, and most importantly (and often ignored) most people wouldn't want to use magic even if they could.

In addition to the purely magical changes to the rules/setting, there is a wealth of supporting rules and intricately detailed "reasons why". There are conventional equipment upgrades and feats that are a happy substitute for excessive magic items; low-magic gaming guidelines and new skill uses; a brand new system for priests to combat and control the chaotic forces of the Abyss, of magic, and also their own people; and there are new races and classes, all of which contribute to an intense and exciting gaming experience where the wave of a magic wand is not desired as Preferred Solution #1(tm) to all woes.

Whew. Went on a bit too long there. Cheers.

just to clarify - I don't necessarily want magic to be weaker, just new. So, I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "low magic".

your product sounds interesting regardless of if I'd use it for this campaign or not

I'm thinking of just using basically the standard system but making the players research all their own spells take out the GP cost for research, etc.

Possible problem -
Me - "sooo, you got a new level, any idea what sort of magic you want to be able to do now?"
Player - "uhhh.... can I research bull's strength? >.>"
Me - "Can you at least like... give it a new name...?"

*groan*... I could see that happening... on the other side of the coin - banning all the existing spells would be silly.

If not an existing product, does anyone have thoughts / suggestions how to handle it? I have at least 4 or 5 ideas floating around that all have merits and flaws, and none really seems intrinsically better than the others.

I'd suggest taking a look at the revised Elements of Magic, available for (I think) $10 over at RPGNow. It's a bit rules-heavy on the first read through, but it's a *very* nice system for a free-flowing method of magic, with a codified set of rules underlying it. One of the better purchases I've made in a goodly while.

looked at the teaser, could have merit... purchased it, now to remember to archive it... I used to have a ton of pdf file's i'd purchased and lost them all on a hard drive crash... money down the drain, not about to buy them again, and can't use em if I don't have em

hope this has what i'm looking for, thanks

EDIT: on only page 20 so far and I think this is darn near exactly what I was looking for! /rejoice

JDowling said:

looked at the teaser, could have merit... purchased it, now to remember to archive it... I used to have a ton of pdf file's i'd purchased and lost them all on a hard drive crash... money down the drain, not about to buy them again, and can't use em if I don't have em

hope this has what i'm looking for, thanks

EDIT: on only page 20 so far and I think this is darn near exactly what I was looking for! /rejoice

Click to expand...

That's when you use Kazaa to download them. I've done this for alot of old Ravenloft and Dark Sun PDFs I bought from Wizards back when they were sold by Wizards themselves. It was a pain, but I found pretty much everything I had lost. The couple of things I couldn't find I've been willing to shell out a couple bucks for to re-complete the collection.

Look in your history at RPGNow. They keep a log of your purchases. You might be able to salvage some of them.