Another New Magic System

[Aazenius]

I've been thinking about making some rule changes. I am not sure how they would affect my game, they have not been play tested.

All casters that rolled a 4 or lower would take a hit. Sorcerers only take a hit on a roll of 2 or lower. Bards would take a hit on a 3 or lower. As long as the roll is not a natural 1, and the caster makes their Caster check the spell still goes off as planned. So a Wizard could roll a 2, add his modifiers and still possibly cast the spell. But he takes a hit. The spell was mentally draining for him.

Now on a natural roll of 1, the spell automatically fails, the caster takes a hit and also they take 1d6 points of subdual damage per level of the spell. A fireball would do 3d6 points of subdual damage. They take some mental pain, as well as physical.

 

[DreamChaser]

I've been thinking about making some rule changes. I am not sure how they would affect my game, they have not been play tested.

All casters that rolled a 4 or lower would take a hit. Sorcerers only take a hit on a roll of 2 or lower. Bards would take a hit on a 3 or lower. As long as the roll is not a natural 1, and the caster makes their Caster check the spell still goes off as planned. So a Wizard could roll a 2, add his modifiers and still possibly cast the spell. But he takes a hit. The spell was mentally draining for him.

Now on a natural roll of 1, the spell automatically fails, the caster takes a hit and also they take 1d6 points of subdual damage per level of the spell. A fireball would do 3d6 points of subdual damage. They take some mental pain, as well as physical.

This seems much simpler. I like it. And it restores a reason to play the sorcerer. They are "natural" casters who find working magic easier but they have less versatility.

I think the "hit" and fatigue system is perfectly straight foward, especially considering that it is replacing spell slots, which also have no equivalent in other areas of the game, it is not too big a jump.

Adding in the nonlethal damage instead of the penalty and extra hits is much easier...less math to do and you don't need a chart I think it should be 1d4 per level of the spell. The average 1st level wizard could damn near kill himself with damage casting a 1st level spell if it were 1d6 (that is 6 nonlethal which IIRC is 4 nonlethal--his hit points--then 2 lethal). A d4 would at least mean that he just staggers himself, worst case scenario.

DC

 

[Hodgie]

Regarding the concern over wizard/sorcerer similarity...

Because this magic system blurs so many of the traditional lines and because the wiz/sorc were already so similar, I don't see why you couldn't drop the sorc entirely. At least from my perspective it has a better feel to have only _one_ true caster (the wizard) who is the most powerful.

Which then brings up the logical question: what about specialists?

 

[Aazenius]

Some lines are blured, but the Sorcerer will grow tired slower, and have a greater chance at success when casting their magic. The Sorcerer is still its own class in this system. Especially with the revisions I made.

 

[Firzair]

Hi everybody,
I've used something similar IMC but only for the sorcerer (IMC all casters already are spontanous casters with prepared spells so I had to come up with something to give to the sorcerer).
So the sorcerer can cast his spells by making a Caster level check plus charisma modifier against DC 10 + (spell level times 2). That's a base chance of 50% for success with a charisma of 11 at 1st level (he gains spell levels like a wizard so level two spells at sor level 3). A failure just means the spell won't go off.

For higher spell levels there's also a risk of damage from backfiring:
if you rolled a number equal or lower than half the (modified by metamagic) spell level (rounded down) the spell won't go off and you take 1d4 non-lethal damage per spell level. So every 9th level spell cast has a 20% chance of doing 9d4 non-lethal to the sorcerer.

I've thought about spell failure doing charisma damage equal to the spell level but that would have been overkill. So far, we only had one sorcerer at level 5 and he was quite on par with the other casters, but with a very limited number of spells...

Greetings
Firzair

 

[Goblyn]

I didn't even consider liches when creating these rules. Under these rules, a caster becomes fatigued, exhausted, and then falls unconscious. Undead are immune to fatigue. This presents a problem. However, let us make a variant rule here and now. Undead are immune to Physical fatigue, but Liches are still prone to mental fatigue, which is what this system uses. So while his body will never tire, his mind will become clouded and confused if he fails his caster checks.

Yeah, that sounds good. For simplicity, rule this mental fatigue identically to non-lethal damage, but affecting any and all spellcasting undead. If you want.

I tried using DC 15 + caster level of spell + meta magic feats, and the bard I DM for couldn't even get a spell off. He was failing a lot and getting pretty frustrated. So we lowered it to 10. It is possible to fail even with a DC 10 instead of DC 15, just not as often.

At this point I realise that various casters have different spell lists, and access spells at different levels. Why not allow bards and other semi-casters to use DC 10+caster level and full casters use 15+caster level? You know, just to avoid the 'too-easy casting' problem as well as the 'can't get a spell off' problem.

 

[Aazenius]

Totally revamped the fatigue "hit" system. This updated system makes more sense to me, and I think it's easier to keep track of.

 

[Aazenius]

Added new rules for Maximum hits, and made some minor changes to failing by 5 or more, etc.

 

[Aazenius]

Decide the system was a bit clunky and streamlined it even more. Now all the caster needs to worry about are, rolling a 8 or lower and failing by 10 or more.

 

[Brain]

For most spells the caster level will only equal the level when the spell first becomes available. For example the spell Wish has a caster level +17, because that is when it first becomes available to a Wizard. Cure Critical Wounds has a caster level +9 the level it first becomes available. That number never goes up, even if it is cast by a level 20 Cleric. So a CCW (4d8+20) is still only a +9 caster level spell. Spells that have damage dice based on caster level, (fireball, cone of cold, etc.) have a caster level equal to however many damage dice the caster the caster wants to use. So a 10th level Fireball has a +10 caster level modifier. A caster may never have more damage dice then their caster level, UNLESS they are using a meta-magic feat to do so.

Cure Critical Wounds becomes available to a cleric at 7th level, not 9th.

Interesting idea for a system. Would be neat to see it in action.