Competing magic systems

[Desdichado]

I've thought for a while about a string of alternate prime material planes, each of which has a different magic system, but I'm curious if they would be balanced against each other. The systems I'm looking for are

• Basic magic: clerics, druids, wizards, sorcerors, etc.
• Psionics
• The Force (with a few renamed powers and renamed classes)
• The Wheel of Time system, also with a few renames

Does anyone think that these classes are balanced well against each other? Does a WoT Initiate compare well to a Force Adept, a Psion and a Wizard of the same level (for instance) or is one system slightly "out of whack" with the baseline system?

 

[Warchild]

hmmm.

Well i'n not famaliar with WOT, but having Force-users and Wizards/sorcerers is not real compatible.
Force powers at their maximum ranks don't come close the power and/or levels of effect that standard D&D spells that achieve.
Force powers that do damage top out around 4 or maybe 6d6 damage at best. But then you can advance in a force power quicker than wizards do. 1st level jedis can have 4 ranks in a force power and if are lucky enough to have an 18 stat could have a +8 to their skill roll at 1st level, and if they roll well could get a higher effect than a wizard casting a spell at 1st level could hope for. But after a handful of levels, a wizard would make the force user look terribly bad, both in damage spells and in the sheer number of different spells they could cast, compared the the relatively small number of force skills.

So it would depend on whether or not you want the "magic" on the different planes to have different power levels, from a story point of view.
Force users would be more effective (maybe not much so however) at early levels, but wizards would quickly leave them behind at medium and high levels.

 

[Jezrael]

Force Powers and such

The thing though that you have to remember about the Force powers is this: alot of them do direct wound point damage under the Vitality/Wound system; whereas a wizard spell, say like Fireball, would be treated like a grenade or Thermal Detonator only doing wound point damage after all vitality had been sapped. They may not seem more powerful for wont of less dice, but they are actually very, very powerful if used "properly".

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

Also to remember with Force Users is that when they use their abilities they use up Vitality Points. So they would need to take HP in a standard D&D setting, which would make it quite dangerous for the Force Users, more dangerous than in Star Wars. Also if you use a Jedi you would need to find something to replace their lightsaber with. Probably let them choose a weapon of their choice.

 

[Jezrael]

True that is, unless you use Wound/Vitality in your D&D campaigns. I find that the system lends a bit more credence to criticals. No more "Oh, I took 8 points of critical hit damage from your dagger, oh goodness me I only have 104 hit points now."

All in all I like the Wound/Vitality system better, it gives more of a sense of danger, at least in my eyes.

 

[Florin]

Also remember that the Force User classes get better HP/VP progression than mages, a better BAB, get the lightsaber, etc. I think all that goes a long ways toward balancing them out, especially if you convert D&D to a VP/WP system. Or, you could have force powers do subdual damage to the user instead of hp damage like someone else suggested.

 

[Voneth]

Some of this may depend on how one plays the "Magic Transparency" rules in the PsiHB. And how the Force will fit into that as well. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

Actually, unless one is doing a full blown Star Wars universe, Force Adept would be the best class to use for a d20 game. One doesn't even have to worry about the light saber with that class. Don't forget that Force Users should also be allowed their Force Points. That ability alone would come in nice in a pinch and make up for the loss of some spells. One may also want to get the SW suppliments for Force Powers. The Sith book is already out and the Jedi book may or not be hold as the new SW core book gets done. Continuing with the use of Force Powers in a mixed game ...

Subdual damage is the quick and dirty way to go for a conversion. Though you will have Jedi "passing out" faster than they would under their own vp rules.

One may fine tune Force powers by just giving them a "Force Pool" of energy points to use instead of subdual damage. One could run the pool various ways. The most accurate would be to penalize the pool for every hit point of damage taken. One could justify this as the Jedi's version of a concentration check. The benifit would be an almost complete conversion of the orignial feeling of the classes use of powers. Under this system, Force Users would be closer to clerics in their hp and other level based combat abilties.

One could also take the pool and just use it as "spell points." The power of the class could then be controled by how many points a PC is allowed to earn per level. Hmmmmm.

A lot of public opinion is still out on whether Psionics is matched or not. Quite a few people think the Psion Class (not the Psy Warrior) was hamstrung so as not to offended those who favor magic, while other disagree. In the d20 products "If Thoughts Could Kill." The "one-trick" psionist was expaned through rules done by the original author of the PsiHB. Though some say it just the new rules just turned psionics into a point-based magic system. (an idea that seems to fit right into your game.) But if one wants to run a extened psi game, ITCK is a must have.

On a final note, coverting to VP/WP is easy. Just add a WP total equal to the NPC or monster's Con. At least that's what was said in the last Polyhedron. To convert back, just remove references to WP.

 

[Desdichado]

That doesn't completely do the conversion from VP/WP to HP and vice versa. Crit damage in D&D, like x2, x3, x4 needs to be accounted for somehow.

 

[Jezrael]

For Crit damage, if it's normal or x2 it's x1, if it's x3 it's x2, if it's x4, etc., etc.

At least that was our solution.

 

[Desdichado]

That's what I was thinking too; just lower it by one. However, I'm afraid that'd make crit x4 -- even lowered to x3 be way too powerful. Where even a really good character won't have more than 20 wound points, a weapon that does crit x4 is really deadly.

Then again, maybe that's what you want...