A Whole New Magic System?

[Particle_Man]

I really, really like the pre-built nature of D&D for a fantasy game. The idea that there are formulaic, well known, and defined spells is great. I absolutely hate the casting/preparation framework, though. Interestingly enough, I find fireball, magic missle, power word kill, and the like to be sacred cows, while the Vancian system of memorization/preparation is completely disposable.

I'm open (eager, actually) to any alternative magic system. The caveat, though, is that it has to function with most of the current spells, or something passingly close to them.

To you in particular, I strongly suggest you look at Unearthed Arcana. It has many magical options, including a spell point system and a "recharge" system where you can cast a spell multiple times per day, but have to give it some time to recharge so you can't cast the same spell every round (and some spells have a longish recharge time). Both specifically are compatible with phb spells (the recharge mage has a big list of them, with recharge times listed per spell).

 

[Pbartender]

To you in particular, I strongly suggest you look at Unearthed Arcana. It has many magical options, including a spell point system and a "recharge" system where you can cast a spell multiple times per day, but have to give it some time to recharge so you can't cast the same spell every round (and some spells have a longish recharge time). Both specifically are compatible with phb spells (the recharge mage has a big list of them, with recharge times listed per spell).

The icing on the cake is that most of Unearthed Arcana is available online for free through the SRD... For example: Varient Magic

 

[Aus_Snow]

The spell point 'system' from UA is terrible, to the point that I would love to hear even one positive account of it in use, so I can be even a little bit wrong on this one. My hat of it know no limit, as things stand.

But yeah, have a look at True Sorcery and Elements of Magic (whichever one of the EoM books.) That'd be my recommendation, unless you want to move away from d20, or unless you want to make your own magic system for d20. If it's the latter, I'd be interested in seeing that.

 

[Fishbone]

Dammit, got beat on the Talislanta thing. Atlantis is a fun world.

 

[Pbartender]

The spell point 'system' from UA is terrible, to the point that I would love to hear even one positive account of it in use, so I can be even a little bit wrong on this one. My hat of it know no limit, as things stand.

That depends on which 'system' from UA you're talking about... there are several varients.

We've used Spontaneous Metamagic, Spell Points, Vitalizing Spell Points and Incantations. They're nothing particularly special, but they work fine, assuming they suit your style.

I myself am particularly fond of Incantations.

Recharge Magic I haven't used yet, but I don't see any obvious problems with it.

 

[Estlor]

Elements of Magic Revised is good. It actually makes mages a tad bit weaker in exchange for more flexibility. Plus it stays close enough to Vancian thinking in that you have a number of pre-determined spells set up that you can cast as a standard action ("signature" spells) but can always put one together on the fly in exchange for it taking a lot longer to cast. If you want to keep more of the core flavor, though, you'll need Lycean Arcane so you'll still have a cleric, druid, etc.

 

[Mercule]

To you in particular, I strongly suggest you look at Unearthed Arcana.

Using it. Actually, I delayed the start of my current campaign by two months specifically to have UA in hand. I don't particularly like the recharge system, but we are using the spell points.

Spell points are functional, but not an ideal solution. The healer (a druid) is insanely good with heal spells and never seems to run out of points. The wizard, though, is regularly depleted.

 

[Aus_Snow]

That depends on which 'system' from UA you're talking about... there are several varients.

We've used Spontaneous Metamagic, Spell Points, Vitalizing Spell Points and Incantations. They're nothing particularly special, but they work fine, assuming they suit your style.

That one. Just the spell points one. The others, I can't see anything immediately (as) wrong with.

But yeah, the spell points system from UA, purely as written. . . yuk.

I also particularly like the incantations, as far as UA goes, FWIW.

 

[Dykstrav]

I'm of the opinion that a build-it-yourself magic system is really something that should be behind the scenes for the game designers when they do 4E, but released as a sourcebook.

Asa DM, I'd hate to have to read through someone's stack of customized spells before that character joined the campaign. I rather like the idea that I can ballpark the damage of a spellcaster's fireball at a given level, for instance. Can you imagine trying to run characters with customized spells at a convention? What if someone handed you a premade spellcaster for a game like that? Would you really want to sit there and read a stack of spells before playing a character you're going to run for maybe three or four hours? There are alot of reasons why magic is a fixed sort of thing in D&D.

It's theoretically possible for characters to make their own weapons using the Craft skill, right? But the Craft skill doesn't let you design new weapons or armor, just make new copies of existing ones. I think the same logic follows through on D&D's magic system, which is very cut and dried. It really has to be for the game to move fast. Players and DM's can still design new spells for characters if they want to, nothing in the rules prevents them from doing this. But I really feel like a do-it-yourself menu of spell traits that you have to calculate would slow the game down to a crawl.

Ever played Mage: the Ascension? The magic system is awesome, I honestly feel like Mage is one of the best conceived, best executed RPGs in history. But once the characters star racking up XP, the game slows down as players and storytellers argue the minutiae of what it says on page 39 versus what it implies on page 126, why my Akashic mage can't express his magical paradigm through technology, why can't someone's Dreamspeaker use a sound file of a rattle shaking for a focus instead of a rattle, ad nauseam... You really have to have some serious gamers that can accept ad hoc calls on the fly to run Mage.

But like I said, it's the kind of thing that's just the right thing for a sourcebook for the groups that do want it in their games. A whole chapter on spell design philosphy alone (both in-game and metagame) would be something worth checking out. After all, there's a system for designing new magic items, so why not a more concrete system for designing new spells?

 

[Fishbone]

I thought Sovereign Stone did a pretty good job of it with Codex Mysterium.
I like the core casting stuff except I think some way to keep Clerics and Druids from automatically learning a metric ton of new and exotic spells every year needs to be put in place.