D&D 5E D&D Magic the Gathering alternate magic system

[Aelryinth]

I've been thinking about this a bit more, mainly in how do you balance tapping into a land and I figured that we already have attunement which could be used for this by having attuning to a land take up one of your attunement slots. If you're a planeswalker, however, you can tap into additional lands above and beyond what non-planeswalkers can tap into (planeswalking might be as simple as a supernatural gift).

I was halfway tempted to adapt the birthright system and have more powerful lands provide a bonus spell slot that can be used for a spell of a specific colour but that gets a little needlessly complicated, you'd probably want to be playing Birthright the Gathering if you were going to use that system. So I think I'd have basic lands allow the caster to cast spells of a related colour as if with a higher level spell slot (though this doesn't translate perfectly since many spells don't have a higher level effect) while unique lands have focused the energy to grant some specific bonuses such as increased damage with red spells or buffed beast summons with green spells as well as some once/day innate spells like I've already mentioned in my previous post.

The problem here is mechanics vs reality.
One of the early books had 'lands' represented by tokens taken from places people had visited, representing what they could draw on. You could kill someone and take their tokens, and thus access to their Lands.
In game terms, you could simply do this, with more valuable tokens linking to lands rarer/more expensive, and you limit the number of lands by a combination of Stats and Levels.
This in turn naturally limits the amount of mana you can draw on, and the cap the maximum you can draw on at one time. Artifacts that increase mana, creatures, etc, increase this cap.
As for 'playing land', it would have to start with how many lands you can bring into play, and how fast you can do so. It means that ALL fights would start with small spells, so they can't be avoided, and move rapidly to larger ones the longer the battle goes. This is actually thematic, as the winds of magic get stronger as conflicts brew... but it means casters start weak and finish strong, which can be lethal when facing monsters.

You also have to have iron rules on when the 'lands' vanish, because you certainly can't leave access to all lands all the time... or maybe you can?

Maybe that instant of two mages conflicting severs land connections, and you have to reset your magic, and OUTSIDE of conflict, given time, you have contact with all your lands, if they take a little longer to cast.

Then start connecting lands one at a time. Now, randomizing or putting an order to that would probably require you to actually have the cards to shuffle and play... but that's a different issue.

 

[cbwjm]

The problem here is mechanics vs reality.
One of the early books had 'lands' represented by tokens taken from places people had visited, representing what they could draw on. You could kill someone and take their tokens, and thus access to their Lands.
In game terms, you could simply do this, with more valuable tokens linking to lands rarer/more expensive, and you limit the number of lands by a combination of Stats and Levels.
This in turn naturally limits the amount of mana you can draw on, and the cap the maximum you can draw on at one time. Artifacts that increase mana, creatures, etc, increase this cap.
As for 'playing land', it would have to start with how many lands you can bring into play, and how fast you can do so. It means that ALL fights would start with small spells, so they can't be avoided, and move rapidly to larger ones the longer the battle goes. This is actually thematic, as the winds of magic get stronger as conflicts brew... but it means casters start weak and finish strong, which can be lethal when facing monsters.

You also have to have iron rules on when the 'lands' vanish, because you certainly can't leave access to all lands all the time... or maybe you can?

Maybe that instant of two mages conflicting severs land connections, and you have to reset your magic, and OUTSIDE of conflict, given time, you have contact with all your lands, if they take a little longer to cast.

Then start connecting lands one at a time. Now, randomizing or putting an order to that would probably require you to actually have the cards to shuffle and play... but that's a different issue.

I do remember the book where the mages were going around collecting "lands" I wouldn't worry too much about it though, I'd keep it simple and integrate it with 5e so that you attune to a land and it boosts your spellcasting rather than ramping up your spellcasting by "playing lands". It would be a spirit of MtG rather than a direct translation of the card game mechanics into DnD. So in my basic ideas, a necromancer ties themselves to a source of black mana (a swamp), a druid is likely tying themselves to the forest they watch over. Wizards might tie themselves to islands or mountains but an abjurer might attune to a source of white mana which boosts the potency of the protective spells. It provides an in-game reason for a caster to focus on specific types of magic while also not limiting them to that specific magic. An abjurer's white magic spells might be more powerful but they can still throw out a fireball if needed. They might also glow with white magic when certain detections spells are cast on them.

 

[Aelryinth]

I do remember the book where the mages were going around collecting "lands" I wouldn't worry too much about it though, I'd keep it simple and integrate it with 5e so that you attune to a land and it boosts your spellcasting rather than ramping up your spellcasting by "playing lands". It would be a spirit of MtG rather than a direct translation of the card game mechanics into DnD. So in my basic ideas, a necromancer ties themselves to a source of black mana (a swamp), a druid is likely tying themselves to the forest they watch over. Wizards might tie themselves to islands or mountains but an abjurer might attune to a source of white mana which boosts the potency of the protective spells. It provides an in-game reason for a caster to focus on specific types of magic while also not limiting them to that specific magic. An abjurer's white magic spells might be more powerful but they can still throw out a fireball if needed. They might also glow with white magic when certain detections spells are cast on them.

my only note there is mechanics vs reality again.
Sure, from a story standpoint, making them go to each and every land they want to bind is totally proper and thematic.
In a game, it's a colossal bore, especially if everyone has different lands.
Thus, I mentioned the tokens, which they can easily acquire for at least basic lands. Now, if they want special lands... THOSE they have to make the trip to visit... or maybe defeat someone with one of the very limited number of tokens that can be made off that land.
Effectively turning tokens of land connections into viable rewards for the PC's, and reserving the best ones for actual Quests. If you want a connection to Rainbow Vale... there are no Tokens, and you must visit it! Good luck with that!

 

[Wyldekarde]

Excellent and thoughtful article.
I will note that a different spell point system is the psionic system, which has been replicated by WoTC in several editions for points. In that one, 1st level = 1 point, every additional level is 2 points. It seems to represent the scaling idea of magic better. You might even wish to go three points, and have uncommon, rare, and very rare spells be 'higher level' within a certain level, i.e. a Spark might cost 1, but a Lightning bolt might cost 2, but both are first level spells.

I like this. This might actually be a better way to do it.

 

[Wyldekarde]

Note that power/toughness actually maps to about 3 HD per avg Toughness, and Power is just a measure of offensive capability. Thus a 5/5 Shivan Dragon is a 15 HD creature with great offensive power, while a 2/4 Icatian Legion is tough, but doesn't have a lot of offensive power compared to a dragon.

Yeah. I actually made a chart but instead of HD I used CR 3 or 3.5 depending on how powerful you want the conversion to be. The reason I use CR because a 15HD creature in 5E is only roughly only a CR1 challenge give or take based on the average HP. (ex. An average adult red dragon is 19HD plus a very high constitution. - 256HP plus the resistances and immunities bump up its value which would be equivalent to an adult red dragon.) An adult red dragon is CR17 so its closer to what it should be.

 

[Wyldekarde]

I'd also have to suggest time limits on enchantments, or players WILL abuse them. Tons of buffs is a quick road to victory, akin to starting a game with artifacts and enchantments out, and your opponent having none.

This is very true indeed. Maybe 1 minute at most to prevent pre-cast before battles. At best they will get to buff once before it becomes inefficient to take more rounds during combat to buff.

 

[Wyldekarde]

my only note there is mechanics vs reality again.
Sure, from a story standpoint, making them go to each and every land they want to bind is totally proper and thematic.
In a game, it's a colossal bore, especially if everyone has different lands.
Thus, I mentioned the tokens, which they can easily acquire for at least basic lands. Now, if they want special lands... THOSE they have to make the trip to visit... or maybe defeat someone with one of the very limited number of tokens that can be made off that land.
Effectively turning tokens of land connections into viable rewards for the PC's, and reserving the best ones for actual Quests. If you want a connection to Rainbow Vale... there are no Tokens, and you must visit it! Good luck with that!

Based on the current present-day lore, I don't think they need to collect tokens anymore. All they need is to attune to the mana available in the location or plane. Only a few Planeswalkers have direct ties to the land they draw mana from and this is specific only to a certain plane. (ex. Nissa can draw so much more power from Zendikar than she can do anywhere else. In Zendikar, she is almost one with the Green Mana (aka the Roil) source hence she had enough juice to hold an Eldrazi Titan and power up Chandra to burn one.

 

[Wyldekarde]

I do remember the book where the mages were going around collecting "lands" I wouldn't worry too much about it though, I'd keep it simple and integrate it with 5e so that you attune to a land and it boosts your spellcasting rather than ramping up your spellcasting by "playing lands". It would be a spirit of MtG rather than a direct translation of the card game mechanics into DnD. So in my basic ideas, a necromancer ties themselves to a source of black mana (a swamp), a druid is likely tying themselves to the forest they watch over. Wizards might tie themselves to islands or mountains but an abjurer might attune to a source of white mana which boosts the potency of the protective spells. It provides an in-game reason for a caster to focus on specific types of magic while also not limiting them to that specific magic. An abjurer's white magic spells might be more powerful but they can still throw out a fireball if needed. They might also glow with white magic when certain detections spells are cast on them.

Yeah, i think this was Pre-Mending when the Planeswalkers were equivalent to gods at the time. This was the motivator for them to try and take more lands effectively if I remember correctly.

 

[Wyldekarde]

I've been playing a lot of magic spellslingers recently (If you've played Hearthstone, it's like that but with a MtG cover) and one of the things that I'd like to see is land being tapped into. I don't mean that you have 3 forests and 2 plains and you need to wait to draw them, but things like in this game could be cool. For instance, a red land is active volcano which later in the game has a chance to spit fire; the green deep-forest arena has a chance of granting +2/+2 and ward (can't be targeted by spells and effects until the start of next turn).

Translating this into a DnD game might be as simple as granting additional cantrips/spells known or perhaps something like the various feats in DnD that let you use a spell once/long rest. The active volcano might grant you the fire bolt cantrip and the spell scorching ray while the deep forest arena might allow you to cast the summon beast spell 1/day as if with a spell slot equal to half your level +1. I probably wouldn't want to go more complicated than this, but it could be a cool addition.

This is a good idea actually. The specific area could give a specific benefit to the Planeswalkers in the area who draw from the same mana source. In the sub-game called Planechase in MtG, your location on a plane affects your abilities and spellcasting where you get benefits and penalties. (+1 to red spells, -2 to black spells, reduce casting cost by 1 for blue, etc). In the game, you get to randomly roll what plane you are fighting on and the fight brings you from plane to plane as you are fighting

 

[cbwjm]

my only note there is mechanics vs reality again.
Sure, from a story standpoint, making them go to each and every land they want to bind is totally proper and thematic.
In a game, it's a colossal bore, especially if everyone has different lands.
Thus, I mentioned the tokens, which they can easily acquire for at least basic lands. Now, if they want special lands... THOSE they have to make the trip to visit... or maybe defeat someone with one of the very limited number of tokens that can be made off that land.
Effectively turning tokens of land connections into viable rewards for the PC's, and reserving the best ones for actual Quests. If you want a connection to Rainbow Vale... there are no Tokens, and you must visit it! Good luck with that!

You could easily start off being attuned to a land, especially if the character is already a planeswalker. Not only that, but it should be fairly easy to find a land you want to attune to. Elves are probably in a forest, humans might be plainsfolk, dwarves mountains, etc. Also if you think of various starting locations in adventures, you're probably already close to two or three different types of basic lands so it should be trivially easy to attune to one. Using my own setting as an example. The party started off in a valley nestled inside some mountains, a large fey-touched forest is situated within the valley so right away there are 2 different terrain types. They travelled to another location surrounded by large open plains after a few adventures which brings in a third. Had they wanted to, there was also a swamp nearby this second location that they could have travelled to and attuned to it. Hardly difficult and if anything, it helps create adventure as they travel to these new locations. I could have also just handwaved the travel and say that they took 5 days to get to and from the swamp location.

I think for me, tokens would be a fluff piece, not something that you actually need to carry around to keep your attunement, it's also not really something I want to be able to be traded or looted.