A Few Thoughts on a New Magic System

[johndaw16]

Ok so I've been tinkering with the idea of revamping the magic system for my homebrew world. Along those lines I've come up with a couple of goals and I'm looking for help, input, advice, or ideas on how to achieve this with a minimum of complexity. So here are my goals (they're not ranked in anyway, as far as I'm concerned they're of equal importance):

1. Differentiate between arcane and divine spellcasting more. Clerics should be more than wizards without a spellbook.
2. Emphasize the mystery and difficulty in mastery magic.
3. Actually make material components more of an issue for PCs.
4. Allow for greater flexibility for casters as they progress higher in lvl. to represent increased mastery of the art of magic.
5. Actually make up a system for couterspelling that would be used.

Ok so thats just the beginning I'm sure I'll come up with more as I flesh this out more. Just as a side note sorcerers are out for my homebrew world. Rangers have no spells. And the bard is a big if.

For Goal 1 I'm drawing a big blank I've looked at what RC has written up in one of his threads and I've taken a bit of a liking to that idea but I'd like to see more details on it.

Goal 2 to do this I'm probably going to take a route similar to what I've done in my D20 game. Include actual physical cost associated with the casting of each spell. This would play in with my ideas for Goal 3 as well.

For Goal 3 I'm thinking of removing most material components for spells, especially those spells that have relatively mundane components. Instead of spell components I'll add a physical cost for casting each spell. For the spells that I do keep spell components I'll make the requirements much more specific and the materials themselves will be precious or sort of rare. I wouldn't mind seeing my PC's questing to find the right minotaur horn tip to cast that uber offensive spell a bunch of times.

Not really sure what to do for Goal 4, maybe allow for more spontaneous casting. Not sure yet.

Goal 5 ???? No clue here either, maybe some sort of opposed Spellcraft checks ?? I'd like to make counterspell a sort of duel of will and wits using raw magical energies. I'd like to evoke a feel similar to the duels in the WoT series of Robert Jordan between users of the One Power.

Anyways any ideas ? In the meantime I'll try and cook up some more specific mechanics-like things to post.

 

[LazerPointer]

I'm mulling over Steven Errickson's system from the Malazan books; Mages begin with only one warren, (school) be it air, fire, shadow, or whatever. I'm trying to figure out how to allow total flexibility without allowing effects that are too far off normal effects for a spell of that level.

Definately gonna have to move into a MP system.

I can't wait to see what this thread turns up! If anyone can point me towards any finished flexible magic systems that would be radical.

 

[Spatzimaus]

There are a few ways to reduce the Cleric/Wizard overlap.

1> Remove Wizards.
No, I'm not kidding. If the only Arcane magic is the spontaneous casting of Sorcerers and Bards, it gives a very different feel. We actually did this in a campaign I was in; since we had also added Psions and Psychic Warriors, we already had enough types of caster to work with.

2> Vary caster levels.
We used a system like this in a homebrew, to make Wizard specialization more interesting. At each level, you received a number of "points" to spend (I think it was 3 points at 1-5, 4 at 6-10, 5 at 11-15, and 6 at 16-20, but I'm not sure, and it really depends on the rest of this).
You have several caster levels, one for each type of magic. (One per school in the 3.5E setup, one per element in our homebrew). Each one is raised separately. To raise a level costs a point, and your caster level can't be higher than your class level unless you've taken Spell Focus in that school (in which case it caps at +2, but you still have to spend the points).
Not only does this affect the power of some spells, you also can't memorize a spell if your caster level wouldn't be high enough. (That is, a 5th level slot unlocks at level 9, so you'd need caster level 9 in a school to use the 5th level spells of that school).
So, an "Evoker" might be someone who's kept his Evocation maxxed out and neglected Divination, but it's not the absolute thing it is in the core rules. At low levels, you can max out 3 schools or spread the points around; at high levels, you can almost max out 5 if you completely ignore the others.
In our homebrew the elements are all evenly balanced; in core D&D the schools aren't quite balanced, so you might have to find some other way of evening it out.

There's a lot more you can do with this; the Channeler class in our homebrew is practically unrecognizable, as a freeform caster who takes damage to cast spells and specializes in this way. But it still works.

 

[boredgremlin]

I did a few things here. My new magic system started with a few simple ideas.
1) to combine all the spells from my varius D20 books. Its way too much pain to flip around.
2) To switch to MP instead of the spell memorization, because I allways thought it was a stupid idea that was poorly explained.
3) To make magic feel riskier and darker.

i had a ton of ideas, but only a few that really worked without being to complicated.
First off i moved to the 8 spell schools from white wolfs mage book. Correspondance (travel, teleportation etc,), negative energy, forces (all elemental and telekinesis), Life (healing magic, growth spells, most buff spells, not ressurections though), matter (wall spells, dig, manipulation of solid nonliving matter, gravity), Mind (enchantments, illusions, some psionics), Spirit (necromancy,summoning and binding), Time (haste, time stop, etc. limited but powerful). Spread sheet programs were nice for quickly porting spells over to thier new schools along with a few minor details. Like in the spell lists in the books.
Then i totally ditched the cleric/wizard distinction. All spell casters are basically the same now. No wizards either. All casters are spontaneous, use a d6 HP, and get MP.
Then i decided in addition to using MP (maybe instead of, we voted on this one) spells also do subdual damage to the caster according to the spells level. Casters could use spells from books or scrolls to high for them to normally cast but they require a will save or the caster loses WIS temporarily because he touched powers beyond his control and had a minor brain fry. Those spells also did double subdual damage.
For spell components you could also go with gemstones or something thats easy to put a GP price on. Giving the actual components cost brings them into play more.
You could allways use clerics as a type of prestige class. Once you master the basics of magic a religious character could move into the prestige class for his religion and get a few extra class abilities in exchange for less MP.
Counterspelling tht doesnt suck? Good luck on that one lol. Opposed spellcraft is one idea. Opposed will saves is a neat one too. To simulate the mental strain of fighting over the magical energy.

 

[Storyteller01]

1. Differentiate between arcane and divine spellcasting more. Clerics should be more than wizards without a spellbook.
2. Emphasize the mystery and difficulty in mastery magic.
3. Actually make material components more of an issue for PCs.
4. Allow for greater flexibility for casters as they progress higher in lvl. to represent increased mastery of the art of magic.
5. Actually make up a system for couterspelling that would be used.

My two cents...

1) IMC, clerics don't have to memorize spells, but they do have to call upon your gods to cast (make a will save). Our rule was a save with a DC of 10 + (twice the requested spell level). They could still cast heal/inflict and domain spells without a Will save.

We kept the spells per day (your god will only be so helpful), but you could create a save based on a clerics level and number of times they cast for that day, rather than a fixed number of spells per day. I'm not sure what flavor you want for your divine casters.

2) Maybe enforce finding an instructor to learn magic? MPG has some nice systems where learning a particular magic methodology requires time to learn as well as an exp cost.

3) This I couldn't help you with. Some systems use hp and ability damage per spell, but that could get extreme.

4) MGP has an elemental system where you sacrifice spell levels to create specific effects. Basically an MP system using the PHB spells per day as spell points.

5) Maybe allow spells of the same evel to counterspell? Allows for some fluidity (do I save this spell, or counter his).


Something else that may be worth a look, depending on how you plan to run your world. FFG has some interesting variations for bards. It's 3.0, but it's easy enough to convert.

Essentially, bards gain other abilities based on the type of perform skills and feats they have (singing has its enchantment abilities, juggling has movement and combat bonuses, etc). They have to take the feat before they can take ranks in the new 'mystic performance' skill.

They also gain rituals to help buff other spellcasters. By saccing some of their own spells per day they can enhance certain aspects of a spell cast by another caster (length, power, duration, etc), depending on the performance they use. They become walking metamagic feats!!

 

[johndaw16]

Ok so I went back tried to brainstorm some mechanics for this system. I decided to start with my first goal of differentiating between wizards and clerics more.

So the way I see it in my world clerics are recieving their powers from outside forces, their god of choice. However entities like gods aren't allowed unlimited influence on the world of mortals and nor do they necessarily gift out their powers without good cause. So following up on this idea I imagined most of divine magic occuring in one of two ways: either as a result of a ritualized, accepted, and often repeated form of reverance to the god OR in the form of an extraordinary gift of power from the god as a sort of intercession or miracle given to a favored worshiper.

Building upon those ideas I think I could split divine magic into two categories of spells. Neither of these categories would involve any sort of prior prepartion. The first category I'll call PRAYERS. Prayers represent the accepted and repeated forms of homage paid to a certain diety, while these prayers are specific to each diety their results can be the same. Prayers would in general duplicate lower level divine spells, I'm thinking probably no higher than level 4 or 5 spells. In general these spells would have longer casting times, typically a full-round action I'm thinking, and they would generally have slightly longer durations. The effects would however always be guarenteed (I'm not positive about this)

The second category of spells I think I'll call INTERCESSIONS for now. Intercessions would represent extraordinary gifts of divine powers. These would probably range in power from 3 level and up only with a bias towards the higher level spells. These spells would require a check of some sort to sucessfully cast. I'm thinking it'd be a d20+Wis. mod. vs. a DC of (I'm not sure yet LOL, I need a math geek friend of mine to run some statistics for me). There would be no retry for this roll and if a cleric failed the roll they couldn't ask for the same Intercession from their diety again that day. These spells would in contrast have a short casting time and a relatively short or instantaneous duration.

The last aspect of this divine spell casting system would be how to limit the number of spells a cleric recieved per day. I'm not entirely sure how to limit Prayers, I'm initially leaning towards some sort of generous progression per cleric level. I'm not entirely sure how to limit Intercession maybe base it off of Wisdom ?

A few other aspects of this system that I need to think more about would be the inclusion of things like focuses or material components. The final thing I need to think more about is this idea I had to create a skill similar to Spellcraft that would modify the check roll for casting Intercessions. I'm wary of that route because of the possibility of abuses coming out of that and the creation of maybe more complication than is absolutely necessary. Anyways theres a start, this system fits my world well, and I think its not overly complicated and hopefully its not completely unbalanced. Any thoughts or suggestions guys ?

Thanks again.

John

 

[Myth]

Building upon those ideas I think I could split divine magic into two categories of spells. Neither of these categories would involve any sort of prior prepartion. The first category I'll call PRAYERS. Prayers represent the accepted and repeated forms of homage paid to a certain diety, while these prayers are specific to each diety their results can be the same. Prayers would in general duplicate lower level divine spells, I'm thinking probably no higher than level 4 or 5 spells. In general these spells would have longer casting times, typically a full-round action I'm thinking, and they would generally have slightly longer durations. The effects would however always be guarenteed (I'm not positive about this)

The second category of spells I think I'll call INTERCESSIONS for now. Intercessions would represent extraordinary gifts of divine powers. These would probably range in power from 3 level and up only with a bias towards the higher level spells. These spells would require a check of some sort to sucessfully cast. I'm thinking it'd be a d20+Wis. mod. vs. a DC of (I'm not sure yet LOL, I need a math geek friend of mine to run some statistics for me). There would be no retry for this roll and if a cleric failed the roll they couldn't ask for the same Intercession from their diety again that day. These spells would in contrast have a short casting time and a relatively short or instantaneous duration.

I like this.

I'm slowly designing a homebrew world, and this fits right in with my thinking on Clerics.

Does the Cleric request a specific Intercession? More importantly, does the cleric always get what he asks for, or does the god supply whatever suits his/her purposes?

Does the means of answering the prayer for intercession depend on the god? I can see a Weather god and a Fire god choosing very different ways to end a forect fire, for instance, or even the Fire god choosing something other thna ending the fire to allow the small village in its path to survive, this is what the cleric really wanted.

 

[johndaw16]

Does the Cleric request a specific Intercession? More importantly, does the cleric always get what he asks for, or does the god supply whatever suits his/her purposes?

Does the means of answering the prayer for intercession depend on the god? I can see a Weather god and a Fire god choosing very different ways to end a forect fire, for instance, or even the Fire god choosing something other thna ending the fire to allow the small village in its path to survive, this is what the cleric really wanted.

Good to hear you like some of my ideas Myth. Requesting an Intercession would be specific and already defined, I'm envisioning most Intercessions being written up similar to a higher level cleric spell. In general Intercessions wouldn't vary in their results, too much randomness would happer the system and complicate it too much I think. Nevertheless, I think that it'd be within reason to expect a high enough level cleric that is favored by his diety to be able to request unique and very specific one-time Intercessions.

Well I'd say that this would depend on the campaign you were running, if there are a large number of dieties in your world it maybe too taxing and too cumbersome to detail diety specific results. However, if there are a limited enough number of gods that are well defined enough I think it'd be great to have the means in which a god answers an Intercession vary. It could add a lot of flavor, character, and depth to divine spellcasting. Personally I don't have a clear enough idea of how many dieties are in my world to make this sort of decision yet. Right now though I'd guess that the means in which different dieties respond to an Intercession wouldn't vary, again mainly for the purpose of keeping things as simple as I can.

 

[LazerPointer]

Here's what I've (semi) developed for my homebrew.

Part 1: Gods and Lesser Powers need worshiipers on a given plane/planet to have influence there. The more worshippers, the more power they can project there. The minor gods, such as tribal or cultic, can only grant very limited, specific spells to its followers, while vaster dieties draw on considerable strength, and grant up to full PHB Levels of spells. Some dieties' clerics cast spontaneously, (with a very small spell list) and some must memorize spells at a specific time of day, or perform a 4 hour ritual, etc. The important divine/arcane divide is that arcane magic has a very freeform MP system, while divine magic retains the rigidity of the standard D&D cleric spell system.

Part 2: New & Improved Counterspell: Antimagic.
A caster can protect himself and/or others from magical attack by burning spells into Antimagic. A character can only burn an amount equal to his highest spell level.

Reflexively: choose spells to burn in defense of a magical attack. Your [Levels burned + caster level + Int bonus] is opposed by [attacking spell level + caster level+ enemy Int modifier.]
Foresighted: On his turn a mage can burn spells into twice their warding energy. This ward lasts full strength 1 round/caster level. After that it decreases by 1 per minute. Foresighted energy adds in addition to the max. reflexive ward.

Gods, most often influencing the plane while not physically present, sometimes touch down- taking a form and walking the planet. They are dangerous. even very minor powers have a permanent projected antimagic effect; an army, other power, or party must throw many levels of spells into this void before they can begin to affect the god.

And now to magic. The least developed part...

I want a magic system that will make the characters describe the effects they want to create. A character who begins only knowing how to tap the power of air, for instance, could create a wind wall, or concentrate each round to keep all air out of their lungs. And anything else they can think of, providing they burn enough MP to do it. When casting a wind wall, for instance, the character declares the size, width, and height they are trying to make, The DC's for the saves would scale with the amount of MP burned in relation to the difficluty of the task.

As they gain levels and discover how to draw on other schools of magic, they can also weave the two (or more...) together in very complex spells. This is an area I'll have to develop more either before or during the campaign.

 

[boredgremlin]

The god stuff your on your own with. If you only have a few gods it shouldnt be too bad. If you use the 1,001 gods of the forgotten realms or something similar though you will be old and grey before you finish them all.
For arcane magic, seriously buy white wolfs mage the ascension. It has exactly what you looking for. The spell schools are different. And instead of difficulty to cast you would have to make it MP to cast for your system. But they show exactly how to take the idea of mixing different schools of magic on the fly for random effects with difficulties based on what effects you want the spell to have.
Out of the book, and assuming you figure Mp by saying a 1st level spell costs 1 and a 2nd level 2 Mp etc. here goes. The description is the action, the modifier the MP cost for that spell with said action.

Researches lore on subject before using magic (knowledge ranks ?)/ MP reduced by1-3
Near a node of magic power/ Mp reduced by 1-3
Uses specail focus/ Mp reduced by 1
Use a focus when its not required/ Mp reduced by 1
extra time spent on casting/ -1 MP
Distant or hidden target/ +1 MP
Fast casting (quickened)/ +2 MP
Mage distracted/ Mp plus 1-3
Outlandish or greater magic/ Mp plus 1-3
Ignoring necessary component/ MP plus 3

This system also uses a skill check to cast. Like a spell craft in D20 i suppose. With a whole table of modifiers to that roll for how impressive the magic is. Its a system that emphasizes roleplaying over numbers. So one GM might say raising the dead is considered a outlandish feat and adds 10-20 penalty to the DC or for instance to the Mp required if you want to make it do able but certain types of magic really hard. If you want to make raising the dead, ( or cursing, summoning, whatever) effect godlike in your magic it costs between 20 and 100 Mp more. Or uses that number as a penalty to your spellcraft DC to cast it. However you want to work it.
This system allows great flexibility for the GM. And if you buy the book you get all the tables of modifiers that you can easily switch over to D20. However, your players have to understand that magic works different now and some things are a lot harder then thier level suggests.
If you wanted to give magic a dark edge, you figure the spell level is the base MP cost. And the base DC. But thats just to know enough to try. Then if they want to do a spell you think doesnt fit and has a higher DC, you warn them. Tell then the DC they need to hit. Then if they fail you let the magic work, but it takes HP or even CON points for each point the caster failed by. You say the spirits worked your will but took thier price. Even if that price kills the caster. As long as you warn them they have no room to complain. And the players who like a darker story driven or low magic world will even really enjoy it.
Make magic stonger though. You have to up the damage and effects of spells for a really good roll.
Make magic like roulette. You attract the attention of the powers that be, and they do what they will. If they help its impressive. If not you pay, hard. Gives magic a gritty, scary feel that it should have. I would give mages a D6 HP for this though. Since they will be more hesitant to use spells.