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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 3057664" data-attributes="member: 32164">I actually own both systems, and I find them reasonably comparable.I've also had the advantage of discussing each system directly (although not at great length) with the people who designed/wrote them.Both True Sorcery and Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth are skill-based magic systems that make use of feats for balance purposes. EoM:ME uses 10 spellcasting skills, and assumes you won't have enough skill points to hit DCs that are too high. As a result, it is possible to get some relatively potent effects if you focus. Ryan Nock (Enworld's own RangerWickett) designed Elements of Magic to be a modular system. He erred on the side of high-powered magic with Mythic Earth because he didn't want wussy casters. And since the focus is d20 Modern, it's got a different "balance point." He's since stated that he's noticed a problem (revealed after publication) with people taking a tradition feat and one skill - such as the fighter who skips taking ranks in Climb to take the magic skill Move instead. He's got a revision of Elements of Magic in the works to account for this. I'm not sure what his planned changes are.By contrast, Green Ronin's True Sorcery (or the system in the BCCS) is more "low-fantasy" than high-fantasy, until you get to the Epic levels. It's also designed to be infinitely scalable, as igavskoga says. Between the escalating DCs and the Drain, it's a much more down-to-earth magic system. There's also various appendices in True Sorcery for adapting the system for use with Thieves' World, Iron Heroes, and True 20. Overall, I'd say the True Sorcery system is slightly more 'high magic' than BCCS (due to some of the D&Dish spells it adds), but not terribly. It's still tied to the magnitude system, something which fits very well with the flavor of the Black Company setting, but doesn't seem quite as natural in other settings. You can do an awful lot of magic in True Sorcery, but you have to be smart about it. AND your ability to affect wide areas at once is limited. An area effect spell with a 1 mile radius is possible in True Sorcery, but not likely. In Elements of Magic - Mythic Earth, it's definitely doable.There's some glitchy things. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to cast a widespread "fog effect" much more cheaply than one can in True Sorcery. But that's a mild complaint on an otherwise superb system.For the record, some of the Iron Heroes fans (on the IH ezBoard) are looking to modify True Sorcery slightly. While we like (and in some cases, love) the system, some of us feel that it's awfully close to a perfect system, but doesn't quite get there. We're attempting to see if we can modify it into that ideal system - at least for our purposes.</blockquote>

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