Eternalknight
First Post
What books out there have alternate systems for spellcasting?
Alternate magic systems
- Thread starter Eternalknight
- Start date
Stormprince
First Post
Bah, personally, I believe the best alternate magic system out there is the Sovereign Stone magic system... but then again, I am completely and utterly biased 
Instead of the slot and cast spell system, Sovereign Stone uses a Casting Threshold. You learn certain spells as Intimate Knowledge, Quick Reference or Full Reference. Each spell has a casting threshold, the higher the threshold the more difficult the spell. Each round, the spellcaster rolls 1d20 and adds modifiers in order to equal or surpass the casting threshold, at which point the spell goes off. The magic is elemental based, but each element has specific aspects that pretty much cover the spectrum: Earth has healing and construction, Fire has conversion and divination (past), Water has communication and divination (present), and Air has mentalism and illusion, in addition to their elemental aspect. There is also the Void, which is the necromantic/shadow magic that can also mimic the destructive aspects of other elemental magics. It's easier to use, but more dangerous at the same time.
Yes, spells are a bit more difficult to cast, and there is always the chance of being fatigued (or worse) by the casting, but the spells can be quite powerful.
The initial system is contained in the Campaign Setting, but in our Codex Mysterium, our magic sourcebook, you find complete rules for creating magic items, creating new spells, and more than a hundred new spells, along with the basic rules for spellcasting. The only things not contained within the book is the information on Spellcraft, the Detect and Dispel versions of the magic, and a large selection of basic spells.
If ya have any questions, just give me a holler, I'm more than happy to help.
- Christopher
Instead of the slot and cast spell system, Sovereign Stone uses a Casting Threshold. You learn certain spells as Intimate Knowledge, Quick Reference or Full Reference. Each spell has a casting threshold, the higher the threshold the more difficult the spell. Each round, the spellcaster rolls 1d20 and adds modifiers in order to equal or surpass the casting threshold, at which point the spell goes off. The magic is elemental based, but each element has specific aspects that pretty much cover the spectrum: Earth has healing and construction, Fire has conversion and divination (past), Water has communication and divination (present), and Air has mentalism and illusion, in addition to their elemental aspect. There is also the Void, which is the necromantic/shadow magic that can also mimic the destructive aspects of other elemental magics. It's easier to use, but more dangerous at the same time.
Yes, spells are a bit more difficult to cast, and there is always the chance of being fatigued (or worse) by the casting, but the spells can be quite powerful.
The initial system is contained in the Campaign Setting, but in our Codex Mysterium, our magic sourcebook, you find complete rules for creating magic items, creating new spells, and more than a hundred new spells, along with the basic rules for spellcasting. The only things not contained within the book is the information on Spellcraft, the Detect and Dispel versions of the magic, and a large selection of basic spells.
If ya have any questions, just give me a holler, I'm more than happy to help.
- Christopher
Rifter
First Post
Uhhh... lemme look up what I have... 
As was already posted... Elements of Magic, and Soveriegn Stone. In addition to these, Star Magic and Chaos Magic from Mongoose. Aside from those books, There is Magic, from AEG, Occult Lore from Atlas, Spells & Spellcraft from Fantasy Flight and the Quintessential Witch, also from Mongoose.
I feel that Star Magic, AEG's Magic, Occult Lore and Spells and Spellcraft are more NPC oriented. Adding flavor and a "newness" to magic. But, AEG's Magic has a spellpoint system, which can be used for more than NPCs. There are a few others from Mongoose, that are part of their arcane series, that can add flavor, and are somewhat different.
For PCs, I would go with Elements of Magic, Soveriegn Stone's magic system, Quintessential Witch, or Chaos magic. Of these, my personal favorite is Soveriegn Stone's system. To me, this is what magic "should" be, though, in all honesty, I have not looked all that closely at EoM. I have actually used Soveriegn Stone's system in my game, and it fit right into my D&D game, easily.
As was already posted... Elements of Magic, and Soveriegn Stone. In addition to these, Star Magic and Chaos Magic from Mongoose. Aside from those books, There is Magic, from AEG, Occult Lore from Atlas, Spells & Spellcraft from Fantasy Flight and the Quintessential Witch, also from Mongoose.
I feel that Star Magic, AEG's Magic, Occult Lore and Spells and Spellcraft are more NPC oriented. Adding flavor and a "newness" to magic. But, AEG's Magic has a spellpoint system, which can be used for more than NPCs. There are a few others from Mongoose, that are part of their arcane series, that can add flavor, and are somewhat different.
For PCs, I would go with Elements of Magic, Soveriegn Stone's magic system, Quintessential Witch, or Chaos magic. Of these, my personal favorite is Soveriegn Stone's system. To me, this is what magic "should" be, though, in all honesty, I have not looked all that closely at EoM. I have actually used Soveriegn Stone's system in my game, and it fit right into my D&D game, easily.
Eosin the Red
First Post
Wheel of Time has a darn spiffy spell system that is without a doubt new and original.
Some of the others are also good.
Some of the others are also good.
Eternalknight
First Post
Well, it looks like I'll have to have to have a gander at Elements of Magic and Soverign Stone. Soverign stone's sounds especially interesting.... could anyone tell me how Elements of Magic works?
Rifter
First Post
As is, I don't think so... but with some minor tweaking.
Spells have basically 3 levels of casting. Memorized, quick refrence, and spell book. (I don't remember the actual names). But, it doesn't take any additional time to cast a memorized spell. To cast a quick reference spell, you need to look at a scroll or something with notes on the spell, so it takes an additional round to cast. To cast one out of a spellbook, you need to read over it for 3 rounds, before you begin casting. Then, from that point, you roll a D20 and add your level (usually). If you want to cast a spell, say, a fire spell that does 3d6 damage, the spell has a Casting Threshold of 17. You roll a d20 plus your level, and try to reach 17. If you fail to the first round, you continue casting into the second round, and continue until it is cast.
For a low magic world, you could probably say, add a round, where you "gather the magic to you", and then begin casting. Maybe even 2 rounds. It is a very flexible system.
Spells have basically 3 levels of casting. Memorized, quick refrence, and spell book. (I don't remember the actual names). But, it doesn't take any additional time to cast a memorized spell. To cast a quick reference spell, you need to look at a scroll or something with notes on the spell, so it takes an additional round to cast. To cast one out of a spellbook, you need to read over it for 3 rounds, before you begin casting. Then, from that point, you roll a D20 and add your level (usually). If you want to cast a spell, say, a fire spell that does 3d6 damage, the spell has a Casting Threshold of 17. You roll a d20 plus your level, and try to reach 17. If you fail to the first round, you continue casting into the second round, and continue until it is cast.
For a low magic world, you could probably say, add a round, where you "gather the magic to you", and then begin casting. Maybe even 2 rounds. It is a very flexible system.
Back in the early days of 3e, I had a psionics system idea that I scrapped because it resembled magic too much.
Essentiall, all effects where driven by a serries of "Trained Only" skills. One skill per effect category: body manipulation, elemental forces, material manipulation, ect.
Each skill had a set of tables that listed what effects it could produce. The most basic of effects had a "rank cost" of zero, with better effects having increasing rank costs. Range, casting time, and duration had rank costs as well. You had to have at least one rank left after designing the effect you want to use in order to "cast" it.
At the end of the casting time, you make a skill check to "cast" the spell. If you make DC 10 then the spell is cast, but the effort gives you "power shock" a splitting headache that lasts for days (1d6 temp Int, Wis, and Cha damage). If you make DC 15 then the spell is cast, and it only exhausts you (2d6 subdual damage). If you make DC 20 then the spell is cast flawlessly, no side effects.
Thats about as far as I got, edited for magical terminology of course. Maybe you could go with something similar?
Essentiall, all effects where driven by a serries of "Trained Only" skills. One skill per effect category: body manipulation, elemental forces, material manipulation, ect.
Each skill had a set of tables that listed what effects it could produce. The most basic of effects had a "rank cost" of zero, with better effects having increasing rank costs. Range, casting time, and duration had rank costs as well. You had to have at least one rank left after designing the effect you want to use in order to "cast" it.
At the end of the casting time, you make a skill check to "cast" the spell. If you make DC 10 then the spell is cast, but the effort gives you "power shock" a splitting headache that lasts for days (1d6 temp Int, Wis, and Cha damage). If you make DC 15 then the spell is cast, and it only exhausts you (2d6 subdual damage). If you make DC 20 then the spell is cast flawlessly, no side effects.
Thats about as far as I got, edited for magical terminology of course. Maybe you could go with something similar?
RangerWickett
Legend
Elements of Magic starts by chucking out the divine/arcane division. There is one set of rules for all different magic. If you want there to be some magic that only works for worshippers of gods, and other magic that only works for people with the blood of dragons, you can choose to do that, but the rules default to be completely setting neutral. A large portion of the book is devoted to encouraging players and game masters to take the skeleton of the rules, and add flesh of their own to give the rules setting-specific flavor.
There is one spellcasting class, the Mage (though there are several variations on this class--the White Mage, Black Mage, etc.). Mages get magic points (mp) that they use to cast spells. The more powerful a spell is, the more mp it uses. Functionally it's very similar to power points for Psions, using a point pool instead of the spell slots of core-rule casters.
Most divination spells have been turned into skills, so instead of casting Scry, you spend a few MP and make a Scry check. Or if you want to find the nearest source of fresh water, you spend some MP and make an Intuit Direction check.
Spells are still divided into 10 power levels, from 0 to 9, which makes it fairly easy to gauge how powerful a spell is.
Each level, a mage learns 4 'spell lists.' A spell list is basically a set of spells from level 0 to level 9. You choose spell lists by combining a type of action, like Summon, with a type of subject, like Undead. Thus, the Summon Undead spell list lets you summon undead creatures. If you know the Summon Undead spell list, you can cast Summon Undead 0, Summon Undead 1, Summon Undead 2, and so on.
Other sample spell lists include Evoke Lightning, Abjure Fire, Banish Chaotic Evil Outsider, Infuse Creature with Shadow, and Bind Metal Elemental.
All the spell lists are very flexible and generic, so you're encouraged to add your own flavor. All in all, the book is basically a magical toolkit, giving you the building blocks of a flexible magic system and letting you put it together in the way you see fit. When we do an expansion book, we intend to provide rules to make the system handle really exotic types of magic.
There is one spellcasting class, the Mage (though there are several variations on this class--the White Mage, Black Mage, etc.). Mages get magic points (mp) that they use to cast spells. The more powerful a spell is, the more mp it uses. Functionally it's very similar to power points for Psions, using a point pool instead of the spell slots of core-rule casters.
Most divination spells have been turned into skills, so instead of casting Scry, you spend a few MP and make a Scry check. Or if you want to find the nearest source of fresh water, you spend some MP and make an Intuit Direction check.
Spells are still divided into 10 power levels, from 0 to 9, which makes it fairly easy to gauge how powerful a spell is.
Each level, a mage learns 4 'spell lists.' A spell list is basically a set of spells from level 0 to level 9. You choose spell lists by combining a type of action, like Summon, with a type of subject, like Undead. Thus, the Summon Undead spell list lets you summon undead creatures. If you know the Summon Undead spell list, you can cast Summon Undead 0, Summon Undead 1, Summon Undead 2, and so on.
Other sample spell lists include Evoke Lightning, Abjure Fire, Banish Chaotic Evil Outsider, Infuse Creature with Shadow, and Bind Metal Elemental.
All the spell lists are very flexible and generic, so you're encouraged to add your own flavor. All in all, the book is basically a magical toolkit, giving you the building blocks of a flexible magic system and letting you put it together in the way you see fit. When we do an expansion book, we intend to provide rules to make the system handle really exotic types of magic.
Similar Threads
