Best Reflavorings of Magic for OGL / 3.x

[innerdude]

So I'm working on a homebrew campaign using Pathfinder rules, but I'm really, wanting to do something new and "flavorful" with the use of magic.

1. Based on the basic premise of the setting, the presence of gods is nebulous at best. People as a rule believe in them and openly worship them--but their actual direct power and influence is rare.

Thus, I really don't want to use stock clerics (or druids, for that matter) as an available player class

2.1. I've never really liked the flavor for Vancian Wizards to begin with

2.2. The new flavor for the Sorcerer bloodlines in Pathfinder is so much more interesting from a character standpoint.

My ideas for adding some flavor so far are:

1. Dropping clerics and druids, and simply swapping them with a modified Ardent class from 3.5 Complete Psionic (Take the base ardent class, give them one extra mantle of the player's choice from Life, Death, Plant, or Animal, and swap in the channel energy class feature from Pathfinder.

2. Dropping Wizards in favor of the Runethane from Arcana Evolved, beefed up slightly to be more in line with Pathfinder.

3. Switching to the Trailblazer casting system.

4. Trying some other as-yet-unknown variant magic system (D20 framework, obviously) that someone else knows.

5. Any combination of items 1-4.

Anybody got some fun / interesting /flavorful ideas?

 

[Croesus]

As far as magic systems go, my favorite was a spell point system my group came up with. The key element was that spell points were very limited, could be recovered fairly quickly (so casters could cast low-level spells often, but a high-level spell could deplete their reserves). It also had a feature where spell points used for ongoing spells, such as buffs, could not be recovered until the ongoing spell expired. Really made spellcasters consider how much of their power to invest in buffs vs. other spells.

As for flavor, here a few things I've done in the past:

-Blood as material component. Stole this from the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covernant, Unbeliever. Basically, casting any spell required a sacrifice of blood. Spellcasters often carried around a special wand which was hollow and held a small amount of blood usable for spellcasting. The blood did not have to be the casters...

-XP used for item creation could be stolen from unwilling creatures, at half strength (in other words, such XP only count 1/2 normal toward the item XP cost). There was a guild that supplied most of the minor magic items sold in the world, literally draining innocents of their life essence to power the items. I kept waiting for the players to stumble onto the fact that many of the items they were buying were actually created using evil means, but the campaign didn't get that far.

-Second level spell Death Knell. I had an evil cleric use this spell on one of his minions that was dying. The body exploded similar to the ability in Diablo II, while the cleric very obviously gained power and presence. Really freaked out the party, as they couldn't figure out what spell he was using.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I like distinct magic systems, and just distinct classes in general, so [some of] what I did to 3e is as follows:

* Wizard (renamed Mage), based partly on two Arcana Evolved classes - Magister and Runethane - and partly on the Truenamer, using a custom spellcasting system
* Sorcerer, a modified Spellweaver* (from the Advanced Player's Manual), but using Spell Points (from Unearthed Arcana)
* Mystic, a modified Psychic (from the Psychic's Handbook) with, optionally, a tiny bit of "Monk" flavour (... no "Monks" exist)
* Priest, pretty much the Cloistered Cleric (from Unearthed Arcana), but using rules from Miracles & Wonders, tailored, in place of pseudo-Vancian casting
* Shaman, a heavily modified Druid/Greenbond... thing, also using rules from Miracles & Wonders, tailored

(and/or, at times, a few others, depending on campaign setting and style; Legends of Sorcery has featured for some classes)

I also introduced a "gateway feat" for each kind of magic, without which it cannot be practised, or even learned. In addition, prerequisites for every class, so that multiclassing is not just "a snap of the fingers". Among other changes, but anyway...


*Eldritch Weaver, in fact.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Two products that I _really_ like but so far haven't had an opportunity to run a game featuring them:

Unusual Core Classes: The Spellweaver
Unusual Core Classes: The Spellweaver - Misfit Studios | RPGNow.com

It shifts magic to being a skill-based system. "Weaves" have a DC. Failure has a consequence which usually involves some sort of backlash for the caster (taking damage) and it increases the difficulty of subsequent weaving rolls. It includes the rules for taking a spell from any source and using the weaving rules for it, as well as providing a simple list of the weaving DCs for spells from the SRD. It's _really_ nice that they went the extra bit to do that, as it reduces the overall workload on the GM.

You could either use this system as a replacement for the magic system, or you could use it as an "extra" for characters/NPCs. Maybe magic above a certain spell level (say 6th level spells and above) use the Spellweaving rules instead. A few different ways to play with this.

My second pick?

Secrets of Pact Magic.

Here's what it's about:
Secrets of Pact Magic

You can find the ordering information from their site:
Secrets of Pact Magic

There's a bunch of downloadable stuff, including a conversion guide to use it with Pathfinder:
Secrets of Pact Magic

And here's a review (there's other reviews out there):
Review: Secrets of Pact Magic | Creatively Anomalous

So, what are we talking here? Spirit binding for fun and profit. Summoning and binding a spirit grants the person a variety of powers. So for example, you can bind Cave Mother (page 72) which has a Bind DC of 15 and be granted the following abilites: Burning Hands (as per the spell, wait 5 rounds between each use), Detect Magic, Disrupt Undead (1d6 positive energy damage), Know Direction (always know where True North is, lasts for 24 hours), Obscuring Smoke (works as Obscuring Mist spell).

Additionally, Binding various spirits tends to have a manifestation (physical, personality), and sometimes other bonuses as well.

Basically the author came across the WotC Binder and thought it was darn cool; he then went out and did his own take on the whole thing.

The book covers binding versions of these classes: Monk, Cleric, Fighter, Ranger, Wizard. It's got a couple of classes as well that don't have a core analogue: the Unbound Witch, who winds up letting the spirits have free reign and gets permanent monstrous characteristics, and the Warbinder who's sort of a Paladin but instead of being a holy warrior type is a leader/fighter/strategist type. The Warbinder has mostly elements of bards in that they're able to share things and buff allies, but wrapped in a paladin style.

The book includes a huge amount of stuff, including prestige classes and some variant class features (Bard, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, and Any With Spirit Binding).

What to do with Secrets of Pact Magic? Man, what do you _want_ to do?
If you've got a real hatred for the standard d20 magic system, combine both of these. Now you're cooking with gasoline. Basically, anything that requires spellcasting (like say the Soul Weaver), simply swap out the spellcasting aspect using the Spellweaver; otherwise, go with the Pact Magic for what you want.

This gives you a setting where casters are weaving the threads of life and magic to create various effects (spells), as well as using them to bind spirits which provide a different sort of power. With the base classes covered by SoPM, you can really jazz things up. If you essentially replace the base classes with the ones from SoPM, you've got magic deeply rooted into your setting; if you don't have people Weaving, you've got them Binding spirits.

You can take it a different direction, by running with the normal core classes and then having the SoPM classes be supplemental ones, with the casters either being SoPM casters, Spellweavers, or both.

Or you can go a slightly different direction... Spellweaving is the way magic is done, and SoPM stuff is specific to either a race or a nation. Perhaps elves have access to the Soul Weaver class, dwarves have access to the Pact Warrior class, and half-orcs have access to the Unbound Witch class. Treating the SoPM classes as exclusive racial abilities again will give your world a very distinct feeling, while giving you and your players some groovy things to play with.

Villains of Pact Magic introduces more stuff, including the Exorcist class, which is all about expelling spirits. It's a solid supplement I think, but you don't _have_ to have it.

 

[Smoss]

I ran into a similar "problem" for my world. For a while I used basic 3.x magic, limited in various ways. But the more I used it, the more I found that style of magic did not fit in my world. So I designed my own magic system from scratch.

It is a point based system (A mage may cast lower point cost spells at will, bigger ones as dailies, etc). Feel free to look at what I have on the web about it. I doubt you would use it directly (It is tied to my world and system pretty strongly) - But it may give inspiration:

Magic - Doulairen

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Smoss
Doulairen

 

[RangerWickett]

If you and your players are willing to put a little work into designing your own stuff, the Elements of Magic system (Elements of Magic (Revised) - EN Publishing | RPGNow.com) gives you build-your-own spellcasting classes.

The add-on book Lyceian Arcana (Elements of Magic II - Lyceian Arcana - EN Publishing | RPGNow.com) provides lots of tools to establish magical traditions for your setting, to give, for instance, animist shamans and horror-conjuring alienists distinctive styles of spellcasting while still using the same basic rules.

With the benefit of 5 years of hindsight, a few things in the system are a little overpowered compared to core 3e, but I think it would actually be pretty balanced with Pathfinder. Check out the reviews at those links if you're interested.

 

[innerdude]

Wow, outstanding suggestions from everyone!

I knew I could count on the collective wisdom of the EnWorld-ers.

 

[IronWolf]

You might want to snag the Words of Power playtest from Paizo from their upcoming Ultimate Magic sourcebook and get a peek at what they have coming as well.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

In my campaign, all arcane magic tastes like tuna.

 

[Smoss]

To answer your question in the XP on spell point calculations - It depends.

A "freeform" style sorcerer would do it themselves (Gets easy with a little practice) - That is for "advanced" players (Or players good with numbers too I guess)

But most players would play wizards - Spellbooks that have pre-figured spells.

No work (at gaming session) then - Just cast the spell in your book with area/range, duration, and effect already figured out with point costs.

Hope that helps your thoughts.
Smoss