Dungeons and Tentacles, Magic

Inspired by another thread about combining a little bit of Cthulu feel with D&D (thread here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=156862 ) I thought one suggestion was an interesting one... because magic has been tainted by a god of abberations, it becomes dangerous to use, and as you level up, it becomes MORE dangerous, not less. The suggestion was arcane magic risks you losing your soul, and divine magic isn't reliable.

So I was thinking of ways of adjucating this. Obviously, whenever any magic is used, a roll needs to take place... but what sort of roll, and for arcane, what sort of penalty?

I thought it might be interesting to combine this idea with another idea someone had about replacing keeping track of wand charges with rolling dice to see if the charge you are one is the last charge. Roll a d20. If you get a 2-19, no penalty. If you roll a 1, go down to the next smaller die size from then on. When you roll a 1 on a d4, you're screwed. VOID card from the Deck of Many Things.

To make things really dangerous though, make it so that if you roll the level of your spell or lower, you drop a die. And dropping a die might impose some temporary penalties as well, like a -1 to your primary casting stat (damage, not drain).

Obviously, this means that on average (arithmatic mean), you'll only be able to cast 20+12+10+8+6+4=60 spell levels over the course of your entire magic career, so that's no good. But if rolling a nat 12/10/8/6/4 caused you to be able to go UP a die, that might extend things a little and make it more exciting. Heck, a nat 20 might give you a bonus d20 to have for rolling. Resting a day might also allow you to go up a die.


For divine magic, it would be similar, but less risky. Start with a D20, and if you roll the spell level or lower, your god is too busy to answer, or the taint gets in the way or whatever, so nothing happens. If you succeed the roll, the spell goes off, BUT you also drop a die. For divine casting, extend the sequence of dice: d20/d12/d10/d8/d6/d4/d3/d2/d1/(d0)


With these changes in place, I'd alter some other mechanics as well. No more per day casting limitations... casting is hard enough as it is. It might also be fair to allow higher spell casting earlier... gaining access to 2nd level spells at second level, for instance, since casting those 2nd level spells is so much more dangerous/difficult anyway. Since CL is still pretty low, I don't think this would be TOO outrageous.


What do you guys think?

First, I recommend taking a look at the recent dragon magazine that dealt with the far realm.

2nd, remove every safty feature on spells. fly lets you fall when dispelled, Polymorph causes you to rip out of your gear rather than meld with you, teleporting mishap are lethal...etc

Consider Unearthed Arcana's variant "Taint" rules?

Fieari,

I wonder if it would help to have a second roll after rolling a 1- if the reroll is greater than the spell level nothing happens. That means that an average wizard would be able to cast 400 + 144 + 100 + 64 + 36 + 16 = 790 spell levels over the course of his career. Over half of them using a d20.

But that's not very many. The number of spell levels a wizard can cast goes up dramatically as he rises in level. Assuming he casts about 1/4 of his capacity per encounter, and needs 13 encounters to level up, he'll get to about 10th level before he burns out.

How long a career do you want your wizards to have? How fast do you want them to burn out once the warp starts to affect them? I'm thinking that warp might give bonuses to spellcasting even as it warps their bodies and minds, making the downward spiral more attractive.

(Oh- this should probably be in House Rules, shouldn't it?)
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Another thing about Lovecraftian magic is that I almost want to say that divine magic doesn't exist. Standard practiced religion doesn't seem to have any place in the Lovecraft worldview. The people with power are combing through old texts (aka wizards), or making personal deals with powerful entities (aka sorcerers, per 3.0 DMG Variant: Learning New Spells).

Except that as I say that I can find evidence of priests, temples, etc., in Lovecraft's Dreamworld. You've got "the bearded priests of Nasht and Kaman-Thah, (in their) cavern-temple with its pillar of flame..." (Kadath, p. 2-3). Randolph Carter tries praying in the first page of Kadath, but is unanswered. There's a temple and high priest in Celephais, and "all the Great Ones are mentioned in diurnal prayers" (Kadath p. 66).

So perhaps in a quasi-Dreamworld campaign, there are priests and temples of the gods. However, they're don't ever seem to be common worshippers around... perhaps worship is turned-around more like the ancient style: temples are not evangelistic, looking for new followers, but rather insular, keeping secrets and performing rituals, allowing only select chosen worshippers to be part of the inner workings.

Edit: Although now that I think of it, none of the characters identified as "priests" evidence any special powers (other than simple knowledge). I wonder if there are any examples of that?

As I noted in the previous thread, I really think that a skill and feats based magic system with consequences is the best way to go with Lovecraft. However, I also think that the Incantations presented in Urban Arcana and Unearthed Arcana would have great application. This might be the type of magic that a priest would use, who might have high ranks in Knowledge(religion) but know very few actual incantations. Those they did know would be spells of communion and blessing, and possible some nasty summoning spells used only in dire situations.