Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="johndaw16" data-source="post: 2221757" data-attributes="member: 12033">Ok so instead of writing a take home final essay I'm goofing off dreaming up magic systems for DnD.  Academics what ??  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Anyways on to things other than my academic apathy.  I have read and reread all of the suggestions on arcane magic.  I've also gone through a bunch of my books looking at different treatments of magic and alternative/optional rules.  What I've come up with after all of this has been a rough framework for how I think I want my new magic system to work.  I decided that I really wanted to bring out the different schools of magic already built into the system.  I have already done this in my D20 game so it wasn't too hard to come up with something.  First off I went about relating each school to an appropriate mental attribute, instead of just making magic entirely an excercise of ones Intelligence.  Here's the break down: Conjuration, Illusion and Enchantment => CharismaAbjuration and Divination => WisdomAll other schools => Intelligence One minor problem I have with this is the inclusion of Conjuration with Cha. The school almost entirely fits well with the theme except for the Healing/Teleportation subschools, neither of these make sense as Cha. based.  So does it makes sense to move the Healing and Teleportation into another school of magic ? If so which school ? Or should I just move Conjuration from the Charisma bracket ? I like this idea but I'm not sure how it will actually effect spellcasting.  Like I said this is just a rough framework.  One way I'm going to emphasize the difficulty of magic is to make the mastery of all magical schools more difficult and to encourage specialization.  In my world magic is mysterious and difficult and endlessly varied, knowing a little bit of everything is hard to do and may not even be a wise decision.  Knowing this detail I've decided that beginning wizards will not know the full range magical schools instead they will choose between 3 or 4 beginning schools.  As a wizards progresses in levels they will gain access to the remaining schools of magic, probably a new school at every even level.  I'm going to keep spells basically split into two types, one type will be a lot like current spells in DnD, I'll call them Prepared Spells.  The concept behind Prepared Spells is that magic to some degree in my world is much like a science, it has rules and laws that have been studied and learned by the world.  By manipulating and working with magic within the prescribed rules a wizard can produce fantastic effects.  The hallmarks of Prepared Spells will be a longer casting time, inclusion of material components, longer duration, and less variability in effects. Simple Prepared Spells of 1st-3rd level will probably look almost identical to current spells of the same level with the exception of changes in material components.  In contrast to spells of this careful studied nature are spells molded by the sheer will of the wizard.  Magic is present in everything and available to a wizard to use as they like.  However, harnessing magic without regard for the rules under which it operates is a costly and risky task.  Spells created in this manner will make up the second type, I'll call them Woven Spells.  Woven Spells represent magical effects created by a wizard who simply gathers the latent magical energy of the environment to him/her and weaves it into a tangible effect.  Hallmarks of Woven Spells will be spontaneity, faster casting times, shorter durations, variable effects, and personal costs (i.e. damage, drain, etc. etc.).  I think I will use some sort of rules similar to the ones Occhronustinrist described from EOM.  I really like the idea of spells being built from different components of actions and effects.  A wizards ability to weave spells will increase as their level increases representing a greater understanding and familiarity with magic.  Prepared Spells and Woven Spells appeal to me for a couple of reasons.  First off they each in their own way stress the fact that magic is not as simple as memorizing a scroll and popping off a spell.  Either you learn the painstaking rules that govern magic or you pay the painful costs of throwing magic around.  Woven spells at high levels by allowing creative combinations of actions and effects will hopefully create a system with a high degree of flexibility for a high level caster.  Prepared Spells will utilize material components to a high degree and the higher level Prepared Spells will require rare components worth the effort to get.  Hopefully I can refine all of this a great deal more and give it a try.  I want to see what works and what doesn't and see if I can find any points that will create unnecessary complication.  Simplicity is a virtue in this case I think.  A custom magic system is nice but I won't have anyone using it if it's too hard to learn.  There's still a lot I have to do for this system but I think I have an ok start.  More suggestions would be helpful, especially any ideas on the implementation of all of this stuff.  John</blockquote>

Verification