Search results

Session 7: Wherein Lhovrik whines. Session 8 (double long session: twice the death in twice the time): Wherein Lhovrik kills his cat, then resurrects it from the dead, just so he can kill it again. Session 9: Wherein Lhovrik both whines, and acts cowardly. Session 10: Wherein Lhovrik takes over...

I know what more you could want: whining and cowardice! Not to spoil anything, of course. :)

I'm looking for a system, or even the base hint, of a magic system that has the feel of Ars Magica, or maybe Earthsea, for two good examples, but is fairly low-complexity/open-ended. Can anybody give any suggestions to games I might be not thinking of or homebrew stuff?

[side-note] Something even cooler about AU is that the core healing spells (lesser and greater battle healing), specifically don't heal perfectly (leaving scars and things like that). [/side-note]

I'd like to, for all my math, second this. I'm really excited about the magic system, I think it's a vast improvement, and is really cool, flexible, and has a great feel, and can't wait to try it out and see what happens. It just requires a bit more watching, I think.

Well, if we're back at the fireburst examples, then yeah, 10-foot radius isn't as good as twenty, but it's a 1st level spell, that uses 2 1st-level slots (which, in the fluid system, is 2/3rds of a 2ndlevel spell) It shouldn't be anywhere near that good, if you use the phb as a guide. In any...

To be more explicit with the post below: if we're playing 3.0, then not allowing haste is silly: all battle mages are going to be casting it. At this point, I would say, the 3.0 battle sorceror probably does slightly better: they have to cast haste to start up the lightning bolt/bolt chains, but...

I agree with part of this sentiment, but think 3.0 haste is a very large exception: any combat-oriented 5th-level wizard+ or 6th-level sorceror+ probably always casts this as the very first spell as any combat: you always get your action right back, and cast double from there on out. I think 3.0...

(edit: one feat, not two! :) I will continue to insist that modify spell is simply an every spellcaster feat (maybe with a few minor spellcasters who might shy away from it in favor of taking complex spell over and over). It is too powerful and useful to be considered part of this battle mage...

Also, I don't think I'm maxing the AU character for destruction: I only spent a single energy mage feat. At sixth level (with an 21 int human wizard (+2 headband of intellect)), if I was really maxing just for this, I could probably cast something like this following monstrosity (although I...

I haven't read Tome & Blood in a while, so if there are obvious feats I'm missing. I probably should add spell focus and greater spell focus (3.5 versions) to the ED examples: a battle mage would almost certainly have those for evocation. Sorry about that. (Edit: this is done, the ed examples...

More evidence of problems with spell reagents and empowering: The sixth-level battle sorceror pulls out a lightning bolt: 6d6 That sixth-level magister, who has all the simple and complex spells in the book, can pull out an empowered firefire eldritch sorcerous bolt (a lightning bolt where you...

I concur with you, Olgar, on the bookkeeping being a lot on some of these: the AU system is about at the top of what's worth it, for what you get back. The spycraft action dice system is cool in some respects, and I like the inspiration check mechanic as well. I strongly dislike the GM's...

Okay, so I agree, it's probably too far out of the spirit. Still, I stand the same analysis that if hero points are equally distributed, you get an extra feat every 3 levels just by default. You're going to find players scraping and conserving to get those extra feats.

Okay, we'll do the math with saves: (edit: I forgot to add spell focus and gsf to the wizard, which is kind of very silly. My apologies. Added in sorcerous bolt) Let's say you're facing a big bad. We'll give our big bad a reflex save of +5. Our magister and wizard both have int 18. The wizard...

So, by the way, the abuse potential for feats and attributes is huge. Your players agree to simply allocate all their hero points to one player until he gets to a feat/attribute score. Then they move onto the next one. In a 6-person group, the favored player should walk away with about 11-12...

I am very wary of players trying to save for only permanent things. Players will feel bad on expending them: if only that guy hadn't critted, I'd have that extra skill point or feat now! In addition, the scale seems very large to me: 12 hero points to maximize a 6d6 fireball? When is someone...

Revised impressions: expect low-level casters tuned for blasting to just be pumping out lots more damage. There's a 1st-level spell, that when diminished (making it a 0-level), does 1d4 damage. There's Modify Spell (which may seem monstrous at first glance, but is kind of balanced compared...

I feel the key point to this, before it devolves into "Hero points are good/bad", is that depends a lot on what you want from them. The two main purposes that I see are: preventing major unlucky things from frustrating a player/game (on an important skill check at a dramatic moment for the...

If Feng Shui with fireballs is your goal, and you're running at high level, where the variance is higher, then my recommendation is d3+1 per level, use the "wizard need hero points, badly" fuel gauge, have no upper limit for hero points (just limit it to one hero point per action except for in...