Best Magic System

[JimAde]

I voted "roll vs. target number" but I would add "while possibly using up a resource." For example, Hero system magic is usually built as requiring a skill roll and using up endurance. With GM permission, you can buy spells that don't use endurance (or don't require a skill roll, or both), but they are more expensive to acquire (take more character points).

GURPS does something similar, but there you avoid fatigue by having a high enough value in the spell.

I like the idea of a mage who can cast minor magics all day long, but can seriously tax (or even injure) himself with more advance magics.

 

[Turanil]

To be honest, all of these polls I am taking are partly to help me design a new system.

I strongly suggest to buy a couple of PDFs to help you design a new system:
Magic: The Science and Art of Causing Change
E.N. Spellcraft - Elements of Magic (Revised)
Legends of the Samurai: The Mystic Arts
etc.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Or if you don't like mind flayers, armor class, hit points, drow, classes, alignment, elves, halflings, kender, tinker gnomes, beholders or thieves guilds?

D&D is a lot more than just some of its elements and has plenty of room for variants -- heck, especially in its earliest days, free-wheeling experimentation was the order of the day.

We're not talking "some" of it's elements, we're talking a key, important element. You can easily have a world without the races you mentioned, or without hit points or a different AC system, and certainly without alignment, but magic is key to the game, IMO. Sure, you can have different systems alongside, but without Vancian magic, it just isn't D&D to me.

 

[interwyrm]

I strongly suggest to buy a couple of PDFs to help you design a new system:

Thanks, I just might!

 

[Merlion]

but magic is key to the game, IMO. Sure, you can have different systems alongside, but without Vancian magic, it just isn't D&D to me.

And thats fine...but purely your opinion and taste. To say "if you dont like Vancian magic, you shouldnt be playing D&D", isnt quite right. D&D is whatever people want it to be.


For me, for example, the only thing that would really make it "not be D&D" (other of course than to completely remove basic fantasy elements like magic (in any form) fantasy races etc) would be to make it anything other than a class and level based system. Aside from that, you can change whatever you want and its still basically D&D


That said, the options on this poll are not very good. Not specific enough, and not enough of them.

I've only actually played D&D's system, but from owning it and not having gotten to play it yet, I'd vote for Arcana Unearthed's magic system. I guess technically that would be "spells per day" on this poll, but it doesnt work like D&D's "spells per day"

And in that I include the system itself, and the magic related feats like Modify Spell etc

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I'm rather enamoured of the Grim Tales system, myself, although only for lower-magic games. I also like the stock Vancian system. Elements of Magic is cool, too.

 

[Desdichado]

We're not talking "some" of it's elements, we're talking a key, important element. You can easily have a world without the races you mentioned, or without hit points or a different AC system, and certainly without alignment, but magic is key to the game, IMO. Sure, you can have different systems alongside, but without Vancian magic, it just isn't D&D to me.

And to others, those items that you don't mind dismissing are more D&D than the magic system. I hardly ever play magic users of any kind, so changing the magic system doesn't impact the "D&D-ness" of the game much to me.

I've noticed that you changed your sig file, but you obviously still have the somewhat annoying habit of thread-crapping in anyone's request for change to D&D by telling them to play something else.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I preferred Rolemaster's point system and exhaustion rules. Which is - by the way - a combination of both points and rolling a target number to successfully cast.

Nearly 23 years old, the original Spell Law still has a lot going for it.

The part which annoys me most about D&D is even within virtually all of the novels pubished by TSR and WotC, the mage becomes exhausted as he casts spells.

But in D&D such "exhaustion" has no effect in game on spellcasting.

At the same time, keeping track of all of these numbers can start to bog down the GM or the player. It's a balancing act.

BTW - the opinion that Vancian magic IS D&D has some merit to it. While I think that the 6 stats, class and levls and the D20 is the hallmark of the system - there is a strong argument to be made that Vancian magic is very much the game and that to abandon that would be a radical departure from D&D.

The desigers of 3E looked at Vancian magic strongly but opted to retain it so that the game was still similar.

While the class system will still be retained in 4e, I don't think Vancian magic will survive and we'll go to a slot or spell point system or something like that.

Preparing spells is something we can all do without.

 

[IcyCool]

I'll add my voice to the Shadowrun folks. Unlimited times per day, roll against a target number to cast, armor doesn't effect it, and you take either non-lethal or lethal drain depending on how potent the spell is.

IMO, it's the best magic system I've seen.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I know I'm shamelessly tooting my own horn here now, but I'm really very pleased with the spellpoint-based runic spellcasting system from Vikings D20! It seems ideal for low-magic d20 games, but simply increasing the amount of spellpoints/mana per day should make it useable for more high-magic flavored games too.