Anyone picked up True Sorcery?

[Garnfellow]

I have it. Bought it to use in my Iron Heroes games, since I didn't like the default Arcanist at all.

My first impression was "WOW! It's perfect!" On further reading, I'm a bit...confused.

Wow. That sounds extremely disappointing. I had planned on buying this PDF tonight, but now I'll hold off a bit.

One of my biggest beefs with Iron Heroes is the half-baked nature of the final product . . . lots and lots of great and promising ideas, but with seriously spotty implementation. This first report on True Sorcery sounds all too familiar.

Perhaps there is some epic level curse on the whole arcanist class?

 

[jaerdaph]

IJust to be perfectly clear, the next time I refer to True20, I'll call it GURPS, ok?

Now that makes sense.

 

[JohnSnow]

Wow. That sounds extremely disappointing. I had planned on buying this PDF tonight, but now I'll hold off a bit.

One of my biggest beefs with Iron Heroes is the half-baked nature of the final product . . . lots and lots of great and promising ideas, but with seriously spotty implementation. This first report on True Sorcery sounds all too familiar.

Perhaps there is some epic level curse on the whole arcanist class?

Now that WOULD explain a few things...

I should caveat with a couple statements. Fire-and-Forget Vancian magic is the elephant in the living room in my enjoyment of D&D. I've NEVER liked it. Yes, it's a sacred cow...but I've said before, D&D magic lets you play one type of fantasy well - D&D fantasy. Since I got into D&D to do Sword & Sorcery, High Fantasy, etc., that's never sat well with me. Secondly, the 3e reliance on magic items to achieve game balance...well...I hated it. The problem is that I always thought the fighter types were the cool ones in the fantasy stories. Almost EVERY D&D game designer (from Gygax to Cook) is not shy that the "best" character to play is the wizard (or if you must, the Cleric - a Wizard with armor). If you don't want to play a primary spellcaster, they're not designing the game for you.

With Iron Heroes, Mike Mearls actually TRIED to design a game to let non-spellcasters have the fun. And, for the most part, he succeeded. IH works great. Tokens work great. But the system doesn't work with D&D magic. It NEEDS a magic system, because it's fantasy, but it needs a magic system that supplements the combat/skill classes, rather than overshadowing them. That's a TALL order. One that needs a designer with the skill to make the powerful wizard types...and the desire to restrain themselves so that the class doesn't overwhelm it's neighbors.

Not counting the magic system, I think Iron Heores is VERY well done. Not everyone's cup of tea...but VERY well done. Magic should just have been removed from the final product and done RIGHT. I mean...I suppose NO magic system is another Elephant in the Living Room for a "fantasy" roleplaying game...but considering what Mearls goals were, he nailed 90% of them.

Just my opinion. But as far as magic goes, I agree. This is another system that's Iron Heroes-compatible, and yet still flawed. I dunno. Maybe what we want just can't be done. Our group efforts on the IH boards haven't produced a good, properly balanced system EITHER.

The BCCS system is SO close. So was Elements of Magic - Mythic Earth. So is True Sorcery. They're spitting around the perfect magic system for Iron Heroes. But they still haven't hit it.

 

[rjs]

Curses!

Well, we've caught the big errors now, and we should have a revised PDF posted soon. I apologize for the fumbles.

Iron Heroes fans, I've also addressed the issue about Mana Tokens, which will be reflected in the updated PDF. The Spellcraft bonus granted by Magnitude is fixed and applies to all Spellcraft rolls and figures into casting time. Mana tokens grant a fixed +10 per token spent.

Thanks for the keen eyes!

 

[JohnSnow]

Not only is this example somewhat confusing, it doesn't mesh with what is listed in Table 2-3. The numbers seem totally skewed. It doesn't help when trying to decipher completely new game mechanics.

This actually was the math error I was referring to. Conceptually, I understand what they're saying. Let me reprint the quote, with my comments where the errors crop up:

For example, Stacee plays Fetch, a Second Magnitude spellcaster with a Concentration +18 and Spellcraft +28. She begins casting a powerful Create Fire effect with a Spellcraft DC of 56 (she’ll be spending some spell energy to make this happen). Looking at Table 2–3: Casting Times, she sees it’ll take 6 standard actions to cast the spell effect (56 – 28 = 28 which requires 6 actions).

Actually, no. In the BCCS, this took 6 actions. True Sorcery changed the table so that rather than reading like this:

Table 2–3: Casting Times
Spellcraft DC minus
Spellcraft modifier Casting Time
0 or less 1 swift action*
1–5 1 standard action
6–10 2 standard actions
11–15 3 standard actions
16–20 4 standard actions
21–30 6 standard actions
31–40 8 actions
41–50 1 minute
51–60 2 minutes
61–70 3 minutes
71–80 5 minutes
81–90 10 minutes
91–100 1 hour
+10 +1 hour

it instead reads like the one you printed. So, using the Table 2-3 as printed, that should be a 10 action spell, not a 6 action one. Probably, the errata should be to just go back to the BCCS table. Moving on...

As she’s Second Magnitude, she can skip a total of 2 actions during the casting of the effect. She spends all of round 1 casting as a full-round action leaving 4 actions to go. The guards spill into the room, so she moves (1 action), and resumes casting (leaving 3 to go). A guard charges her, swings and misses. Fetch lashes out with her kukri and hits, but can’t spend the round casting, so she opts to take a 5-foot step instead and has now skipped a total of 3 actions casting.

You can't attack and cast in the same round, since casting is a standard action. You can't spend JUST a move action casting, so you have to skip 2 actions, rather than just one. 1 action in the previous round, +2 here = 3 actions skipped. Which is one more than a 2nd-Magnitude caster is "allowed" to skip without making a check.

To keep casting the spell effect, Stacee needs to succeed on a DC 15 Concentration check; with Concentration +18 she can’t fail this first check, but if she skips more actions this will start to get tricky.

And if she's got to get to 10 actions rather than 6, it gets trickier still.

 

[JohnSnow]

Hey Rob...want a list? I've got all the ones noted that I saw...

Happy to help if you're working to make a better product.

Thanks!

 

[rjs]

Exactly so. If you take a standard action in a round, you can only take a move action, and therefore, Stacee (my lovely wife) can't cast this round.

Essentially, if you take 1 full-round action spent casting counts as two standard actions.
You could spend one standard action and move.
Or you could do something else (as standard action), but not cast.

 

[Garnfellow]

Curses!

Well, we've caught the big errors now, and we should have a revised PDF posted soon. I apologize for the fumbles.

Iron Heroes fans, I've also addressed the issue about Mana Tokens, which will be reflected in the updated PDF. The Spellcraft bonus granted by Magnitude is fixed and applies to all Spellcraft rolls and figures into casting time. Mana tokens grant a fixed +10 per token spent.

Thanks for the keen eyes!

This is why Green Ronin is one of my favorite game companies. I feel bad to have doubted ye.

 

[rjs]

Hey Rob...want a list? I've got all the ones noted that I saw...

Happy to help if you're working to make a better product.

Thanks!

Sure!

Email me at evilronin "at" greenronin "dot" com

 

[rjs]

This is why Green Ronin is one of my favorite game companies. I feel bad to have doubted ye.

Aw shucks...

Now I feel bad about burning myself with a cigarette as punishment (Kidding of course, it was a cigar )