Drain-based Magic System (a la Shadowrun)

[Oni]

I do not recall how it works exactly, but it may be worth checking out. In the skills and powers books for magic in 2nd ed. there were several alternate spellcasting systems, one of them was a fatigue based system.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Ya know, you said you based it off of the force powers from SWD20, which use a VP/WP system. Why don't you use that for your DnD games, too? It fits in seamlessly (except for the spell Death Knell, which sucks anyway), and seems more aligned with the kind of magic system you'r trying to set up.

I may well do that -- I do think that the VP/WP system works well for modern games, especially, but I wanted to create a system that would work for both.

At the same time, maybe the VP/WP system is just another example of an over-complication of the game. I mean, it's all about how one conceptualizes a HP system.

###major tanjent alert###

I mean, a single sword stroke, maxing out at 8 hp of damage, can kill a normal person, but it would be just a scratch to a 5th level fighter. Does that mean that a 5th level fighter can suffer more blows to the head? No necessarily. If we read the HP system as an abstraction of a person's total health, the sword stroke to the first level fighter did 100% damage, but the stroke to the 5th level fighter probably did something like 20% damage -- is that because he's bigger and more robust? Not really, but it does mean that, through experience, he knows how to avoid the worst of a blow, etc. There's no reason the same concept can't apply to a modern game, too.

One of the minor advantages that the HP system has over the VP/WP system, as far as this spellcasting system goes, is that when a character is healed - restoring regular damage -- she ALSO heals an equal number of subdual points.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I do not recall how it works exactly, but it may be worth checking out. In the skills and powers books for magic in 2nd ed. there were several alternate spellcasting systems, one of them was a fatigue based system.

A friend of mine, the DM of a game I play in, said that there was something like this in the Player's option stuff. I never played 2nd edition -- I drifted away from D&D in the years between 1st and 3rd edition -- and have never seen the stuff. I'll have to see if I can borrow one of those books and take a look at the system.

-j

 

[ShawnLStroud]

Casting a spell requires a successful Spellcraft skill roll, with a DC of 10 + Spell Level + Caster Level. It is possible to make a spell easier to cast by casting it at a caster level lower than a character's current spellcasting level.

Perhaps I'm quibbling here, but why is it automatically harder to cast an Xth level spell because I'm at a higher level? Doesn't it make more sense to have a higher base DC, to which is added the spell level?

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Perhaps I'm quibbling here, but why is it automatically harder to cast an Xth level spell because I'm at a higher level? Doesn't it make more sense to have a higher base DC, to which is added the spell level?

Here's what I was thinking:

The base DC of 10 is to get the difficulty into the right baseline ballpark.

Adding the spell level represents the basic complexity of the spell -- higher level spells are harder to cast. Of course, as the caster's skill goes up with levels, casting lower level spells will become a no-brainer, and casting the newest, high level spells will be the ones that are challenging.

Adding the caster level represents the relative level of power that the spellcaster wants to put into the spell -- and if the spellcaster wants to, he can cast at a lower level to make the spell easier to cast and the drain easier to resist. She can also cast spells at a Higher caster level than she is, risking real damage (rather than subdual) and making the spell harder to cast.

In this way, a 6th level Mage, who has the ability to cast up to third level spells, can cast Fireball at her current caster level (6), for a DC of 19 (10 + 6 (cl) + 3(sl)).

She could cast magic missle at three different levels of effectiveness: caster levels 1, 3, and 5 (no reason to cast it at lvl 6, that wouldn't make the spell any more powerful). That would mean DCs of 12, 14, and 16 resepctively, and shooting off 1, 2, or 3 magic missiles at a time.

In a pinch, she could decide to risk boosting her caster level for her fireball -- prehaps to try to take out some very bad enemies -- and might try to cast the spell at CL 10. That would boost the spell's damage from 6 to 10 d6, would boost the DC to cast the spell and resist the drain to 23, and the drain would be real damage, not stun damage (she would be risking 13 points of real damage, a significant blow to a 6th level mage, but that probably wouldn't kill her).

But the higher base DC is an interesting idea. You've got me thinking about adding another feat - something along the lines of power attack -- that would allow a character to take penalties on the Spellcraft roll to cast the spell in exchange for a boost to the subject's saving throw. Here, I'll write it up:

Force of Will

The spellcaster exerts her will in the casting of the spell, focusing extra energies on trying to push the spell past the target's defenses.

Effect: The spellcaster can voluntarily take a penalty on a spell's Spellcraft roll for success and add an equal number of points to the target's DC to save against the spell.

This would allow a spellcaster to make her lower level spells -- the easy ones -- harder to resist in exchange for taking greater risks of spell failure.


-rg

 

[Greg at FFG]

This is similar to what we're doing in our Midnight campaign setting, so I'll offer some words of advice garnered from playtesting.

First, think very carefully about the Resist Drain skill check. Skill bonuses are ridiculously cheap in D&D, and unless you change the system, your mid- to high-level spellcasters will never suffer drain. A +20 skill bonus item is, what, 8000 gp? Better, IMO, to set fixed drain and then create feats and class abilities that allow spellcaster's to offset it.

Second, make sure this subdual damage can't be healed by magic. Otherwise, a caster will cast an offensive spell, take drain, then cast cure light wounds and therefore constantly be down 1 point of subdual damage no matter how many spells he casts.

Hope this helps,

Greg
FFG

 

[Radiating Gnome]

RE: healing subdual damage from drain

Yeah, I think you're right, have to adjust that so that they can only recover the drain through rest.

It might be interesting to make a similar rule for real damage caused by casting beyond a spellcaster's abilities -- that real damage won't heal through simple cure spells, only time or some heavy duty spells.

RE: Drain skill and resisting drain.

The problem with your suggestion is that, problematic as it may be, I see resisting the drain of casting the spell as a seminal part of the system. Without that variable drain I don't think I would like the system as much.

But there are some other solutions. I toyed around with the idea of using CLxSL rather than CL+SL for the DC -- but that gets impossible far too quickly.

Another idea would be to make it something other than a skill roll, though -- like a will save. This idea seems like it might have legs. This would be a good save for a spellcaster, items that boost these saves are much more expensive than items that boost skills, and this would complicate things for characters that decide it's a good idea to take a level or two of fighter for teh boosted HP. They may develop a better pool of HP, but they will not be gaining much by way of boost to the saving throw.

Using a will save would put resisting drain back on wisdom, de-emphasizing constitution (as others have suggested). It also takes a pressure off the spellcaster's limited skill points.

-rg

 

[Oni]

You could provide variability in the drain by making the amount of drain something your roll rather than having it as a set number. For instance in my own take on fatigue based spellcasting I had a set number + a variable number attached to each spell level for the amount of subdual damage casting it would do. I personally added more randomness the higher the level the spell to simulate the difficulty of controlling, and the wildness of magic at higher magnitudes. Of course you may not want a decent amount of subdual damage with each casting in which case you could do something like 1d6-3 (just a random example) that way it would only do damage part of the time.

There is another thing to keep in mind with this sort of spellcasting system, and that is that low level spells can essentially become a non-issue as they have less impact on HP (though adding in a variability for caster level as you have done would help combat this, and it is something I may go back and add to my own version of this idea).

 

[Greg at FFG]

Re: Will save to resist drain

This is harder to abuse than a skill check, but the open-ended nature of 3E is still going to cause problems. I guess it depends how scalable you want the system to be. Do you want high- to epic-level casters to be able to cast 9th-level spells all day with negligible cost? In your system, a spellcaster can cast a 9th-level spell at caster level 20 for 1 point of subdual damage if he makes a DC 29 Will save. That's going to be automatic for epic-level casters. If you're okay with that, or these levels aren't a concern for you, this can probably be a workable system.

One last thing: Be careful also about allowing casters to drop the caster level of their spells to reduce drain/resist drain DCs. This has subtle and unpleasant effects on the balance of the existing spells, particularly by making those that aren't caster-level dependent more powerful. In general, for offensive spells, this emphasizes save or ****ed spells over direct damage spells. A sleep spell is just as good at caster level 1 as it is at caster level 20. If you can cast it repeatedly for 1 point of damage, there's often no reason to cast that higher caster level magic missile or whatever. This issue also shows up with cure spells: just cast cure light wounds repeatedly at caster level 1 rather than ever casting a cure moderate (SL 2, CL 3), cure serious (SL 3, CL 5), etc.

Greg
FFG

 

[Radiating Gnome]

In your system, a spellcaster can cast a 9th-level spell at caster level 20 for 1 point of subdual damage if he makes a DC 29 Will save.

Actually, the forumla was 10+ Sl + CL, so the DC for a 9th level spell would be 39.

For a 20th level caster, that's not exactly a cakewalk.

In a system where we resist drain with a skill, she could have 23 ranks, an attribute bonus of, say, +5, before any magical items. That's 28, so the test would still fail on a roll of 10 or less, so still a 50-50ish. But a 20th level caster is going to have some pretty good items to buff that, so, you're right, it still isn't quite challenging enough.

As a Will save, the 20th level caster would have a save of +12 for class levels, and another 5 for Wisdom bonuses, that's +17. even on a 20 thats on'y 37, not quite enough. He would require some sort of magical or feat-based assistance to resist that drain. Assuming he could scrape together another +10 in magic items, he's still going to only resist the drain on a roll of12 or better.

But Looking at it at these high levels does highlight the real problem here -- the all or nothing stuff. The system might work a lot better using the save to resist drain as a save to take Half drain, rather than reduce it to one point.

In that case, our 20th level caster would still be faced with taking 19 points of subdual damage for casting that spell. Assuming he has an average of 4 hp per level, he might be able to cast four of those if he made all his saves before risking collapse, and that's without casting any other spells.

A first level caster, casting a first level spell at a caster level of one would still be saving to take one point of drain rather than two. At first level, that would be significant.