Reworking the magic system

[Al the Absentminded]

This first part is off-topic babbling, I'm sblocking it off.
[sblock]
I've been working, on and off, on reworking the base classes to my taste. Then today I tried to analyze what my tastes were, exactly, and here's what I came up with:

There are five fundamental heroic class-concepts. The Warrior, the Expert, the Green Servant, the Divine Servant, and the Arcane Student. It's possible to have an instictive version as well as a studied version, especially for the magic-user classes.

With that understanding, I classified the classes as follows:

The Fighter is Warrior-pure (weak pure, though - almost Warrior-main)
The Ranger is Warrior-main, Green-minor
The Paladin is Warrior-main, Divine-minor
The Barbarian is Warrior-main, Green-minor(instinctive)
The Rogue is Expert-main, Warrior-minor
The Bard is an abomination
The Monk is Warrior main, with either Green-minor(instinctive) or Arcane-minor(instinctive)
The Cleric is Divine-pure, Warrior-minor (this is too potent, arguably)
The Druid is Green-pure, Warrior-minor (this is too potent, arguably)
The Wizard is Arcane-pure
The Sorceror is Arcane-pure(instinctive)



Now, I would like to have classes for each X-pure concept and for each main/minor concept, but this involves a huge number of classes:

8 Pure classes: One class for each X-pure concept - 8 in all (three instinctive arcane classes)

We could call them:

Fighter
Expert
Cleric (or priest)
???? (instinctive divine caster)
Druid
Shaman
Wizard
Sorceror

However, you get a ton of X-main, Y-minor classes, since there are, on average, at least three aspects of any Pure concept that you might squeeze off to give to a X-main class.
[/sblock]

Okay. Better. Now, I want to rebuild the DnD magic system. I'm hoping people will help me brainstorm cool things.

Here are my parameters:

The Four Magical Forces that can be used are:

Divine Power
Green Power
Arcane Power
True Chaos [sblock]True Chaos is outside of the Multiverse - a place of Lovecraftian insanity. The place where Mostin's critter, The Horror, comes from.

Those who are aware of it but who aren't seduced by it (Mostin fills the first condition, but maybe not the second) tend to theorize that there is an opposing "True Law" power that has prevented the annhilation of the multiverse by True Chaos. Since the inhabitants of True Chaos almost always detect as overwhelmingly Evil, it is further theorized that True Law might be a force of purest Good.

Aside from the continued existance of the multiverse, there is no compelling evidence for the existence of True Law. No source recognized as trustworthy has ever recorded contact with True Law beings, and no magic-user has ever managed to locate a continuum governed by True Law principles. If they're out there, they are aloof with a capital A.

The evil-DM version of Wish is probably an example of a True Chaos power.
[/sblock]

I'd like them to be rather different from each other in how the work. Here are some ideas I have (I'm looking for more, or for further development of expressed ideas):

Green:
-Allow wildshaping to have unlimited duration, but do away with the notion of auto-healing every time you wildshape.
-No Vancian spell-valences.
-Totems to channel Green power.
Powers come from three sources:
-Commanding or altering life-energies
-Asking spirits of places (genius locii, I think they're called in Latin) or things to perform tasks
-Calling on the Planes of Life (elemental, positive, negative)
-Studied version uses Int as casting stat, Instinctive version uses Wis as casting stat.

Divine:
-No Vancian spell-valences
-Able to call on divine power freely a certain number of times per day freely, with varying costs for each additional invocation.
-Personal life-force altered or augmented
-Icons to make channelling blessings easier
-Studied version uses Wis as casting stat, Instinctive version uses Cha as casting stat.

Arcane:
-Only type of magic user with Vancian-style spell-valences.
-Very limited number of spell valences, but very powerful when used.
-Variety of lesser-but-useful effects that are essentially 'on-call'
-Talismans to enhance magical effects
-Frequent use of 'one-shot spell' items
-Ritual trappings to raise/channel/control additional power
-Power words are cool
-Studied version uses Int as casting stat, Instinctive version uses Cha as casting stat.

True Chaos:
-Will f**k you up
-Available to anyone who picks up the right Knowledge skill
-Will really, really f**k you up



So, does anyone have ideas - stuff that should be included, or mechanics for making this work - to share?

-Albert

 

[Vrecknidj]

I have rough ideas of what you mean in all but the last class of magic types. Can you elaborate on the True Chaos? I mean, why play anything else, given the rather stark description you've given? (Or, by "you" do you mean the caster, in which case, why have the class as no one will play it?)

Dave

 

[ValhallaGH]

I find it interesting, and unsettling, that you've lumped all non-mystical combatants into one group yet have three different divisions for mystical combatants.

A character that runs around the battle field, hitting enemies has he passes, is very different from (yet just as effective as) the character in an iron suit with a big steel bar that stays in place or the character with a bow, hiding in the treeline and skewering dozens of foes.

Just some food for thought.

 

[Al the Absentminded]

I find it interesting, and unsettling, that you've lumped all non-mystical combatants into one group yet have three different divisions for mystical combatants.

A character that runs around the battle field, hitting enemies has he passes, is very different from (yet just as effective as) the character in an iron suit with a big steel bar that stays in place or the character with a bow, hiding in the treeline and skewering dozens of foes.

Just some food for thought.

True - but that kind of specialization can be modeled with Feats. Lots of them. (I'll throw in an option for Warrior-pure concepts who are hyperspecialized in a particular weapon-group, such as duelists or archers.) My reworked Fighter is going to be beefed up with, among other things:

-One bonus feat per level
-New feats that require Warrior-main (or -pure) levels to get
-d12 hp
-extra skill points
-Better secondary saves
-Weapon/Armor flexibility
-Sneak Attacks

-Albert

 

[Al the Absentminded]

I have rough ideas of what you mean in all but the last class of magic types. Can you elaborate on the True Chaos? I mean, why play anything else, given the rather stark description you've given? (Or, by "you" do you mean the caster, in which case, why have the class as no one will play it?)

Dave

True Chaos isn't going to have its own class. Anyone can try to use it if they want to risk it. It's there to tempt people to pay too much for their goals. And because Lovecraftian horrors are potentially cool.

-Albert

 

[GreatLemur]

I think you seriously need to check out True20. It reduces the whole mess to three classes--warrior, expert, and generic spellcaster--and eliminates "class features" completely, instead letting the player choose a feat (one appropriate to the class, of course) every level. You might disagree with the unification of all forms of magic under one agnostic system, but OGL games are nothing if not infinitely customizeable. I really like the idea of using the generic "Adept" class for all magic-slingers, and just creating different feat trees to represent different variations on the theme of "magic" (including divine magic, psionics, and maybe even monk-style chi powers and odd magical systems like true names and such).

 

[Tinker]

Re the types of magic:

Can you explain why you've chosen the casting stats you have? I see the logic of Intelligence being the most studious and Charisma the least, and the difference of Wis for Divine and Int for Arcane has a venerable pedigree, but I'm not sure why Divine and Green magic should differ in the way they do.

Can you explain a bit more about life energies? In the traditional DnD world view positive and negative energy are more of a Divine thing.

Sorry if I'm being crashingly ignorant due to posting before reading more than a few threads off this site, but what do you mean by Vancian spell valences? I've read some Vance so I might understand a very short explanation, but I'm not sure exactly what in the rules this refers to.


Re classes spoiler

I think Cleric is the ideal name for a studied Divine caster, because of its semantic associations with book-work. How about Mystic for the instinctive version?

Personally, I think that you only need core classes for the pure types. You can emulate the mixed classes by multi-classing, especially if you expand the flexible parts of the rules, like feats, to give the pure classes potential access to a wider range of abilities. Sneak Attack being a perfect example.

A bit harsh on Bards?! You can just say they're warrior-minor, expert-minor and arcane-main (instinctive), or something along those lines.

Do you not use psionics? They would be another type of caster if you want to include them in the campaign.

Originally Posted by ValhallaGH
I find it interesting, and unsettling, that you've lumped all non-mystical combatants into one group yet have three different divisions for mystical combatants.

A character that runs around the battle field, hitting enemies has he passes, is very different from (yet just as effective as) the character in an iron suit with a big steel bar that stays in place or the character with a bow, hiding in the treeline and skewering dozens of foes.

True - but that kind of specialization can be modeled with Feats. Lots of them.

I agree entirely - the flip side of this answer is that you'd need to change the rules for spellcasting a lot to have the same kind of flexibility. If you retain approximately the core rules for spellcasting then either you need separate classes to allow multi-classing between them, or the different kinds of caster are exclusive and if you follow one path you can't do another.


Speaking of changing the rules for spellcasting classes, I will have to check out this True20 thing suggested by GreatLemur. I'm gestating a reworking of the core classes myself. I've thought on somewhat similar lines to those outlined by Al in the off-topic bit. Al - do you mind this thread being taken over by discussion on that, or do you want to start another thread or an off-board discussion?

 

[magic_gathering2001]

IMO the non Vancian spellcasting would be best modelled by a caster level check or skill check that gets harder each time you use it. Look at this: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=171190