Brainstorming a M:tG themed campaign...

[Lwaxy]

Getting spells/powers back that way is a worship to the gods of change for us, and it actually has to happen on a graveyard The latter way because when we made this up, we are all somewhat unsober and it fit right into the Church of the Turning Wheel we invented. Also, the ritual for the exchange of powers and spells happens in the temple (Winds of Change card) so it made sense, kinda. But as I said, we had a few too many cocktails.

We decided to keep it later because 1) not everywhere is a graveyard or temple so the PCs won't go recycling too much and 2) it was a nice flavor especially if you have a wizard who is deadly afraid of graveyards.

 

[Loonook]

Honestly I think you taking the idea of actual planeswalkers (which is in essence what you're going for) will make for an extremely 'epic' campaign. A planeswalker throughout the novels are epic creatures, controlling whole nations, raising up and ruining academies of archmagi, and enslaving planes. Planeswalkers were more One-entity organizations than anything else. Some were worshipped as gods, some created entire species... Simple mages shouldn't be wielding Wildfire, or summoning city-destroying leviathan.

Your game is going to be hard to really provide challenges besides running something akin to invading even more ancient Planeswalkers demenses. While there have been those who have fallen (

Spoiler

Guff, Urza

) most are extremely powerful deific figures who tear apart the fabrics of space and time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

They won't be able to start off as planeswalkers- Fantasy HERO's point-building system will prevent that. To have high-powered powers, you either need to spend a lot of build points or you have to severely limit the efficacy of the power. So if I start the campaign at HERO 6ths equivalent of 4Ed D&D's Heroic Tier- say...100 points*- the PC's simply won't have hugely powerful spells to toss around.

IOW, they may nominally command some of the same spells, but the mere fact of translating from card game to RPG mechanics will perforce nerf certain effects.

Take the aforementioned Disenchant: in M:tG, it's a cheap, powerful spell, as capable of destroying the Colossus of Sardia as it is a Fear enchantment.

However, in HERO, the Dispel power (that "Disenchant" will most likely be modeled on) doesn't work like that. A cheap, low-power Dispel may take out Fear, but you'd need a truly expensive one to take down something like the Colossus. And one that powerful would require a great deal of Endurance to cast, meaning the PC would likely be "out of gas" for a while. It would be akin to "going nova."

The same goes for summoning the Colossus itself- it's likely a starting PC who could cast a Summons that powerful could only do it once, and he'd be so frail that he'd die from a single arrow shot in the first combat, simply because nearly all of his build points would have gone into that single power.







* which is about where it was in prior editions, but 6th has changed the math, and I haven't actually looked at the new point cutoffs yet. And for reference, low level superheroes typically start out with three times as many points.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In addition, the way End Reserves work will limit the number and power of spells a PC can cast. End Reserves will do the work of Mana.

As I discussed before, each creature in the game that can use magic will have to power it via End Reserves of the proper color. Something like Disenchant costs 1W, while Shatter costs 1RR. In addition, as stated before, players will be able to design their own spells.

The part I've been puzzling over is how much mana of a given color a spell will cost. I toyed with some kind of level system or preset ratios, but sometimes, simpler is better.

So here it is: the simple majority of a spell's mana (endurance) cost must come from an appropriately colored source. If a spell is "multicolored", the majority cost must be as evenly split between the colors as possible, and the player has the discretion as to the actual ratio.

 

[Loonook]

In addition, the way End Reserves work will limit the number and power of spells a PC can cast. End Reserves will do the work of Mana.

As I discussed before, each creature in the game that can use magic will have to power it via End Reserves of the proper color. Something like Disenchant costs 1W, while Shatter costs 1RR. In addition, as stated before, players will be able to design their own spells.

The part I've been puzzling over is how much mana of a given color a spell will cost. I toyed with some kind of level system or preset ratios, but sometimes, simpler is better.

So here it is: the simple majority of a spell's mana (endurance) cost must come from an appropriately, colored source. If a spell is "multicolored", the majority cost must be as evenly split between the colors as possible, and the player has the discretion as to the actual ratio.

Your focus should be on using the Converted Mana Cost to determine spell Endurance requirements, then take the amount of sources to determine color of the spell and requirements. You can also take into account dual-mana spells, Phyrexian mana, and other sources too.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Your focus should be on using the Converted Mana Cost to determine spell Endurance requirements...

That really wouldn't work too well. First, most powers in HERO cost a PC 1 END per 10 active points, with a minimum cost of 1/phase (if it's active). Second, some powers normally do not cost END at all. Third, some powers have unique rules that may alter their END costs. Fourth, there are ways to reduce or increase the END costs of powers. Fifth, END costs follow the game's normal rounding rules.

Combined with trying to make sure the HERO powers model the M:tG card that inspired it, trying to make the HERO End cost accurately conform to M:tG mana costs is probably damn near impossible. Remember, something like Disenchant simply can't work the same way in HERO as it does in M:tG.

Disenchanting a small artifact or enchantment might only require 6d6 Dispel; 18 active points, costing 2 END to power. Sounds about right, yeah?

However, Disenchanting a Colossus of Sardia (assuming a 300 pt Summoned creature) couldn't be done without at least a 10d6 Dispel- assuming it maxed out!- and that's 3 END to power. To have a good chance of Disenchanting something like the CoS, you'd need a 20d6 Dispel, costing 6 END.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Besides the summoning is specific creature types, each color of magic has particular "shticks" that are more common in that color than in others. In HERO, powers can have "special effect" types that are much the same. So, in order to keep players from designing PCs with White versions of Fireball and Summon Hypnotic Specter, I need to catalog those shticks by color.

Here's what I have so far*:

Entropic/Thanotic (Black): Death, Sacrifice (of others), Unholy, Fear, Insanity, Corruption

Aetheric/Benthic/Pelagic (Blue): Illusion, Water, Cold, Mental, Time, Wierd Weather

Chthonic/Tectonic (Green): Sand, Life Force, Growth, Berserking, Natural Storms

Pyrotic/Pyrophoric (Red): Fire, Heat, Lightning, Stone, Volcanism

Atmospheric/Pneumatic (White): Order, Holy, Radiance, Protection, Healing, Flight










* note the color names. I'm still looking for cool ones for the various cultures.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Great ideas. Especially about the familiars.

Elements in Arabic

Fire - Na'ar
Water - Maya
Wind - Reeh
Earth - Ard

Depends on what you want for black tho

Revisiting this, I think this would work for the Viashino...or whatever humans it was with all those flanking riders. We still need one for Black mana- what about the equivalent for "Death" or "Corruption/Corrupted"? Also, I'd like the translation for the proper parts of speech- "fiery" instead of "fire"; "windy" instead of "wind" if you could.

Oh yeah- do you have a pronunciation guide?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Gotta figure out how to do Mana Burn. Normally, just like tapping land or objects for Mana, using END in HERO is entirely voluntary. Unlike M:tG, there is no extant mechanic for being forced to fill your casting pool with more END than you need...nor would you take damage from using too much END.

The mana burn damage I can model with a Side Effect Limitation either on the END Reserves or Multipowers that use them. The first is probably mechanically more sound.

But how to force PCs to actually draw on more END than they need? Puzzler.

 

[Asmo]

The removed manaburn some years ago.

Asmo