A World with AU and 3.5 magic

[Belen]

I am currently working on my new game world. I am having more than my fair share of trouble, including massive writers' block. Anyway, I have decided to include magic from AU and 3.5. However, the magic will be exclusive. This means that casters cannot cross the divide...ever.

My idea was to explain it as High Magic (Arcane 3.5), Low Magic (AU), Divine Magic (3.5), Mind Magic (3.5 Psionics).

High Magic: Requires study or bloodlines (created by the dragons)- Is generally more powerful, but less malleable.

That's about as far as I have gotten. I was wondering if you all had any ideas.

What do you think?

Dave

 

[dragoonm]

I am currently working on my new game world. I am having more than my fair share of trouble, including massive writers' block. Anyway, I have decided to include magic from AU and 3.5. However, the magic will be exclusive. This means that casters cannot cross the divide...ever.

My idea was to explain it as High Magic (Arcane 3.5), Low Magic (AU), Divine Magic (3.5), Mind Magic (3.5 Psionics).

High Magic: Requires study or bloodlines (created by the dragons)- Is generally more powerful, but less malleable.

That's about as far as I have gotten. I was wondering if you all had any ideas.

What do you think?

Dave

You can try something like this: High Magic requires something called "The Gift". It is the ability to shape and manipulate magical energy, power, whatever you wish to call it. You are born with it. Only a certain percentage of PC races have “The Gift”. If you want to go deeper, in order to use High Magic, you must have the “Magic Triangle. The triangle is belief that magic is real, training (several years as an apprentice), and “The Gift. The only way to represent this is that if a player wants to have a character that can use High Magic, then that character must choose a High Magic using class as his/her first level.

Low Magic could be considered “Folk Magic”. Can be learned by most people. Those who use High Magic consider Low Magic beneath them.

Divine and Psionic magic should be able to handle themselves.

The High/Low magic paradigm is modified from Ars Magica. You may wish to take a look there for some ideas.

Let me know what you think.

Mike

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think that AU magic is more flexible and useful than 3.5e magic, so is a better candidate for "high" magic, 3.5e is a more robotic "fire and forget" system - the kind of thing that any noob with a bit of smarts can learn to do.

why do you want to integrate them BTW?

 

[Belen]

I think that AU magic is more flexible and useful than 3.5e magic, so is a better candidate for "high" magic, 3.5e is a more robotic "fire and forget" system - the kind of thing that any noob with a bit of smarts can learn to do.

why do you want to integrate them BTW?

I want to be able to provide both. I like AU, but I am not sure I can sell it entirely to my players. Besides, AU lacks a sense of the divine, which is a part of the world.

I chose 3.5 as high magic because it requires intense study, unlike AU magic. 3.5 magic is far more suited for static/ stable learning and it is learned by rote. I consider it a city-type magic that offers great power with little flexibility, whereas AU magic offers flexibility without as much of the sheer power as 3.5 mages.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Are you ditching some of the classes - I imagine you wouldn't need sorcerers (overtaken by magisters etc for the spontaneous casters) and possibly not greenbonds (conflict with druids?).

Most AU magic users do study as well, selecting each morning what spells they want available from their sources. They just have flexibility at casting time about how they want to use or modify their magic, no?

Plus, for really powerful magic AU spells like distinegration field and the 9th level city destroying spell take some beating

 

[Belen]

Are you ditching some of the classes - I imagine you wouldn't need sorcerers (overtaken by magisters etc for the spontaneous casters) and possibly not greenbonds (conflict with druids?).

Most AU magic users do study as well, selecting each morning what spells they want available from their sources. They just have flexibility at casting time about how they want to use or modify their magic, no?

Plus, for really powerful magic AU spells like distinegration field and the 9th level city destroying spell take some beating

I am limiting classes, although I am allowing the sorc. I am playing with the idea of using the Monte version and having them be combat mages.

Actually, for the next campaign, both wizards and magisters are restricted as I am doing a dawn of the world type deal and magical studies have not really taken off.

For the future: Wizards, or High Mages, will study in colleges in urban areas where knowledge is concentrated, while magisters will take apprentices and usually be lone mages.

Each side dislikes the other, although High Magic has access to rulers etc, thus their magic is considered "high." This has the side effect of High Magic being able to bully the "folk" magic (good idea, btw) and seek to suppress it in some less enlightened kingdoms.

 

[Belen]

bump

 

[I'm A Banana]

I do it all the time IMC.

You don't need to nix any of the classes, really -- sorcerers provide access to that 'high' magic, while magisters do the same thing for that 'low' magic. Different classes for different methods of spellcasting.

I've changed it based on culture. AU magic is very tribal/totemist/ritualistic in nature. The witch doctors and shamans have this kind of magic, and it represents that kind of rurual "curse and cure" kind of mechanic pretty well. Because AU is weaker, in general, than the default, it preserves a sense of grittiness for those who can't afford to study. It's also the kind of thing elves eat up. Elves IMC like the Magister as a favored class.

Core magic is more the refined and proper magic, honed by practice and formula. It's the educated mook's magic, because it can be narrowly focused, and is very popular among the beasts (I don't have AU's MM, so, of course, most monsters use Core magic).

Psionics is for those guys who sit atop mountain peaks and study the mysteries of the universe.....sort of like tribal magic in that it's flexible and not very mighty, but more more dependant on the internal forces of the user, and the monk-like body perfection required (even if they don't become monks).

There's also cultural variations. My Classical India setting uses a lot of psionics and a lot of divine druid kind of classes, while the folks from the Goblinscar are more likely to be evil clerics or wizards.

 

[Rel]

Howdy, BU. We missed having you and Christy at Game Day and I hope you can make the next one. But Budrajah Gurung fought well in your absense and he'll probably make an appearance next time too.

As for the topic at hand, I have a couple of thoughts that may or may not fit in with what you've already come up with:

Since you're doing a "dawn of time" thing, what if the nature of the world is cyclic and the "High Magic" is the leftover remnants of magic that have crept over into the new creation? I think that 3.5 magic is generally more "flashy" and AU magic is more "earthy" so they map reasonably well to the categories that you've set up.

Given the relatively powerful nature of High Magic, have it such that it must all be "found". In other words, get rid of the "gain spells known for free each level" mechanic and have it such that the 3.5 spells must be found either as ancient Scrolls or Spellbooks (if the dawning of the new creation occupies the same physical space as the previous incarnation) or could be related by mystical intelligent beings (outsiders of some sort). I'd even be tempted to do this to a lesser degree with Divine Magic, having those casters be contacted by servants of the gods who will supply them with more and varied spells as they rise in power and devote themselves more fully to the service of their god.

For Low Magic, I'd probably keep Simple Spells how they are but I might move some of the Complex Spells to Exotics and then put in mentors and treasure (tablets and such) that explain those spells in greater detail thus pushing them back to Complex in certain cases.

Sounds like a pretty neat setting all the way around. You'll have to let us know what you settle on.