Dear Dalenthas,

[Piratecat]

Interesting. I had a long debate with Bruce Cordell about active and passive rolls back when he was designing ther psionic combat system (which I lost; and everyone else dislikes it, too! So I must have been right. ). I think the difference has something to do with the sheer amount of damage being delivered by most spells. But you notice? Spells with no save, but which are a touch attack or ranged touch attacks, are exactly what you're describing....

 

[RangerWickett]

I was just thinking that an active magic system could be more open, more easily modified. It would be easier to present a different feel for magic if you just had to paste on a template of some sort that would modify specific magic rolls.

Then there's the old "roll to see if your spell works at all" system, from a myriad of games (though the one I'm thinking about most is Talislanta).

I dunno. The magic system works as is, but there are so many other ways they could've done it if they were willing to slay the sacred cows. I wonder if they actually fiddled with new systems, to see if they'd be more interesting or balanced.

 

[Pielorinho]

It's funny -- just this week, I was thinking about switching magic over to exactly this system. For two reasons, I decided not to:

1) If I cast a mass command on a group full of PCs, and they all roll saves against it, I'm likely to affect some of them and not affect others. The battle becomes significantly harder for them.

If, on the other hand, I cast mass command on a group full of PCs and then roll to see how well the spell comes off, I stand a decent chance of either affecting the whole lot of them (if I roll well) or affecting none of them (if I roll poorly). If I roll well, the spell can become an instakill for an entire party. Not so much fun.

2) For everyone, it's fun to roll your saving throw to see if you resist a spell. For spellcasters, it's fun to roll your spell's effectiveness to see if it goes off well. Switching from an active to a passive saving throw system gives spellcasters all the fun, and makes nonspellcasters just sit there picking their noses when spells go off.

Daniel

 

[Dalenthas]

To get a Dalenthas you roll 4d100.

And how, exactly, did you come to that conclusion?

(Bump for a thread with my SN in the subject!)