Help space lizard learn magikz

[arakodaiko]

Hey, I´m Arako, one of the players in the play test campaign Dirty Deeds in space, specificly I'm the player behind the team's mage Sa'la Yela'mirõ Ghy'eliza Fenêri.
I am abit confused about certain parts of the magic system I have been trying to use as well as wanting to air some of my opinions on the magic system so lets get to it.

First off, I am not 100% sure I am making the spell-paths correctly as the original document speaks of each spell list consisting of only 1 specific action and a specific effect which makes no sense as all the example spell lists has atleast 2 different shown actions on them, I have so far used any actions and effects I've felt like as long as it fits into the thematic of the spell-path and its secret.

None of the documents I have looked over have explained how the concentration duration works, it merely says I have to maintain the concentration but I don't know if its a free action, a single or double action, I understand that the duration keeps going only as long as I keep the concentration up but there is no explanation of action requirement or if you can concentrate on more then one spell(I of course doubt the last bit there but hey its a detail not explained).

Now I have thrown my questions, I´ll just throw out some of complaints/opinion about the magic system as it is right now just to throw my two cents into the mix.
First off with the latest document while I agree having a base duration of 1 minute gave alittle too much time for most actions you could set up but I do find it feel kinda wasteful to spend 1 mp to upgrade the duration from instant to 1 round, just feels like it should be afew more, like 2-3 rounds perhaps though thats just my opinion in the end.
As a second opinion to share I feel like where magic shines the best from my experiences in the campaign is healing, until I was told a dying ally cannot be healed until they are stabilized, and yet healing magic has nothing to do so even on its own, so in short healing magic can only help you if you are hurt or dead, not while dying which to me makes no sense.

As a last note of opinion, I feel the diabolist as a tradition is really bad, while stat wise its great, especially for being one of the few(or is it the only?) tradition to give you more MP I feel the very first exploit is horrible as having to pay both MP AND health for spells essentially means you have 2 pools you need to have enough to pay from to cast a spell, not only that, the following one gives you an option to pay off END, thusly lowering your max health making it less likely for you to be able to cast spells.
The third grade is nice but is more or less, along with the 6th grade the only good things about the tradition as at no point do you get a way to get rid of the health cost, the closest you get is at fourth you can reduce it the cost....by spending health(though I am unsure, do you get -1mp per dice of damage or do you take the damage value as the reduction value?) which I still feel doesn't work with the idea of seemingly getting more power, the extra magic points don't let you cast more spells while you work on this tradition as it does not increase your endurance at any point and your health pool is now pulling double duty being the actual limiter of your spell casting, meaning all the exchanging for more power essentially means a good chunk of your extra MP that is your newly bought power, has to go towards healing your blood drained body back up to working conditions.
I am abit meh on grade 5 of the diabolist, one on hand I dislike it for being a random roll for such varied effects that might end up being good or useless, on the other hand its a good way to represent the repercussion of corrupting your very physical being with demonic magic.

so yea there is all the things I wanted to say so please come and tell me the answers I seek and/or how my opinions are wrong(especially incase they come from me misunderstanding things).

 

[Morrus]

Opinions are never wrong, you like what you like!

That said, the documents you're using are a bit of a mishmash using the old spell holding rules and the newer spell list concept. I have an updated magic document on my hard drive which marries them better. It'll be available soon - I just have to ensure every tradition has enough choice of spell lists, so I need to write another dozen or so lists!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Welcome to the boards!
While Morrus is digging through his dusty computer drive, let me toss my hat in on some of this:

1) Concentration spells: The intent of the concentration duration in the original magic system rules, was based in the DnD 3x framework. Meaning taking an action other than walking requires a concentration skill check, failure of which ended the spell. Highly skilled mages could move, run, climb, and get hit {damage also required a concentration skill check}.

Moving to the OLD framework there isn't the same conceit of maintaining the spell but the language was left. My read is that the caster can maintain the spell as long as they only take half-speed move actions {walk}.

2) Healing: Perhaps not written well, a Heal spell that heals at least one dice will stabilize a character that is dying. Note: any extra dice of healing is lost so you want to keep a simple heal spell around for stabilizing. Once stabilized a second Heal spell can restore health. Since spells tend to be two-action deals, this means hanging out with the dying gal for a bit.

3) duration: I am missing something here.. I think the durations work fine. Damaging/healing are 'instant' effects but can be held as a charged spell through the entire minute. Kinda handy that. 'Wall' spells hanging around for a minute are also handy.

4) Spell lists. Yes, confusion between the original spell creation rules and spell path rules..
Basically when creating a spell path, select a primary Action/Element that is the core of the path. Then develop thematically appropriate spells to go along with. Try not to stray too far, but as the paths in the link below shows.. I don't always follow my own advice!

Post your work as we can never have too many spell paths! {I think I still owe my group a handful more}

My spell paths

 

[Morrus]

The action element thing has changed. The choice is much more freeform now - you can add on anything. Actions/elements operate as skill bonuses.

 

[Morrus]

Here's where that document is at right now, by the way. This is not finished, which is why it's not in the downloads area yet. But I figured you might enjoy a quick look.

 

[arakodaiko]

Oh thanks all of the gods that are holy(especially the mighty Morrus )
the two sheets in here, you posted them as a preview before and well my game master likes to be up to date as long as it does not require us to majorly remake characters, my problems likely arose from well incompatibilities in how some things ended up clashing, even if this is not done, having a more comprehensive reading material rather then 2 tables without the complementary chapters of details on what all of it means makes for a hard job, and some of the new stuff looks good, I can barely wait for the finished one to come XD

Screwhead:
thanks for explaining concentration to me as my GM mentioned to me just a day ago that he would assume it meant I was continuously casting, as in, re-spending my two actions over and over, knowing I can atleast get myself in cover proper on my next turn after doing these kinds of spells it helps ALOT.
for my problem with durations it mostly lies specifically with the 1 mana for a single round duration which as mentioned above in this post was from unfinished material, my problem laid more or less in that if I wanted to use a spell that made a weapon or gave me some bonus dice for myself, I would HAVE to spend mana for a minute since if I only took a round the item or bonus die would be gone before I could use it, the duration of 1 round as far as I understand it from most other systems means the effect starts on my turn and stops just before my next one begins, while its ok for giving an ally a short boost, the caster themselves cannot draw use of it much without spending mana for a minute which ofcourse is overall better but perhaps not exactly be in alignment with the magic user's "budget".

but with this info here in mind I´ll just throw out two more quick but (hopefully) small questions
1:You say all heal dice are lost on stabilizing, I assume that only applies to those given to the target while dying, so if you were to lets say throw an enduring heal on them the first d6 would be burnt on stabilizing but it would then heal on the next turn, yes? just to be sure it eats ALL of the dice(must be one dice hungry condition then)
2: if I am reading this line correctly "Inflicting a condition which can be shaken off counts as an instantaneous spell." if I make a spell with a status effect and hit a target successfully, they will suffer the effect until they 'shake it off'(which I assume means makes a successful save to get rid of it), so duration for a condition effect essentially works as an ensured period of effect where the target does not get any saving throws outside of the initial to avoid it?(or gets hit with a cure condition ofcourse)

 

[Morrus]

Yes, a heal spell is not designed to stabilize. It's a bit more gritty than D&D's bouncy "instant on your feet" healing -- you need to stabilize them first. You can do that with non-magical healing, or use a minor heal spell.

Concentration takes one action per round. One spell at a time, but a magical exploit will let you do two (for an action each).

As written, a condition has zero duration; it happens instantaneously, and the victim can shake it off. I haven't considered allowing inserting a non-shakeable duration, but if you want to playtest that way, please do and let me know if it works out!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

My quick skim over says this looks very good! I will have to spend some more time with it later this weekend {after I print it off so I can better proof-read!}

for my problem with durations it mostly lies specifically with the 1 mana for a single round duration which as mentioned above in this post was from unfinished material, my problem laid more or less in that if I wanted to use a spell that made a weapon or gave me some bonus dice for myself, I would HAVE to spend mana for a minute since if I only took a round the item or bonus die would be gone before I could use it, the duration of 1 round as far as I understand it from most other systems means the effect starts on my turn and stops just before my next one begins, while its ok for giving an ally a short boost, the caster themselves cannot draw use of it much without spending mana for a minute which of course is overall better but perhaps not exactly be in alignment with the magic user's "budget".

1: <snip> if you were to lets say throw an enduring heal on them the first d6 would be burnt on stabilizing but it would then heal on the next turn, yes? just to be sure it eats ALL of the dice(must be one dice hungry condition then)

2: if I am reading this line correctly "Inflicting a condition which can be shaken off counts as an instantaneous spell." if I make a spell with a status effect and hit a target successfully, they will suffer the effect until they 'shake it off'(which I assume means makes a successful save to get rid of it), so duration for a condition effect essentially works as an ensured period of effect where the target does not get any saving throws outside of the initial to avoid it?(or gets hit with a cure condition of course)

One thing Morrus gets me on all the time is that I have been playing with variations of this spell system for a very long time and often mis-remember things... my bad!

With that caveat out of the way:

#0: I think the 'one round' duration starts at the end of the casting and lasts until the end of your next turn, so the caster would benefit from one round of the spell being active.

#1: Yes, the first round of an enduring heal would stabilize and the second round would heal. Yes, very dice hungry.. but the Cleric's healing touch makes for a good stabilizing action!

#2: One key to pay attention to is whether the spell inflicts a condition on the character directly, or applies the condition to characters within the spell's area of effect. Which gets slightly more convoluted when the spell is 'discerning' and attaches the spell's area of effect to a character....

Spell A targets a creature and afflicts the 'blinded' condition. This would be an instantaneous effect and lasts until the creature 'shakes it off'. This is much like a damaging spell that deals the damage as an instantaneous effect. In this case duration only applies to how long the caster can hold the spell 'charged' before delivering it.

Spell B targets an area creating a magical darkness that blocks all vision, effectively blinding those inside the area. The creatures are blinded until they leave the spell's area of effect. If they return to the darkened area they are again effectively blinded.

Spell C targets creatures within an area and attaches minor globes of magical darkness to their noses. The creatures are effectively blinded until the spell expires or is dispelled.


If I were to do a non-shakeable condition I would follow the 'enduring damage' concept where the spell re-applies the condition each round until the duration is over. So an 'enduring Blindness' that lasts for at least 1 minute would cost 4MP.