Elements of Magic - Mythic Earth (post-release proofread complete!)

[RangerWickett]

I love what I see in ME (pun intended)

I realized a bit late that the acronym for this book might be a problem. Such as when I asked an ex girlfriend gamer friend, "I'm going to send you ME, okay?" *grin*

I got Spellfire, Bardic Music, and Lolth. What other sorts of traditions would you have wanted to see? It can be the second web enhancement (the first is the storyhour with its attendant stats).

 

[Alzrius]

Here's a few from classic D&D: elven bladesinging, Shadow Weave Magic, fiend-worshipping, defiling, wild magic, and realm magic (from Birthright). These were just things I came up with off the top of my head, so feel free to alter them for the web enhancement. If I can think of anymore, I'll post them here also.

Singing Blade [Tradition]
You believe that your training with a weapon has reached mystical levels.
Prerequisites: Weapon focus.
Benefit: You gain the magical skills Attack, Charm, and Defend.
When casting a signature spell, you may immediately attack with the weapon that is the subject of your Weapon Focus feat. This attack is made immediately after casting your spell, and only if you have the weapon in hand, or could draw it as a free action.
Rituals: Your rituals consist of long, graceful weapon forms that you perform. Each round, you must make a melee attack roll against AC (5 + ½ spell level) to make the proper motions.
Mishaps: You accidently damage yourself for damage equal to ½ the spell’s level (round down, at least 1 point of damage). Damage reduction doesn’t stop this damage.

Shadowed Magic [Tradition]
You believe that your magic is formed of subtle shadows, and is more subtle than normal sorcery.
Benefits: You gain the magical skills Illusion, Move, and Transform.
Spellcasters without this magical tradition feat suffer a -2 penalty when attempting to detect or dispel your spells.
Whenever your spells are cast in shadowy illumination or darkness, the DC to resist them gains a +1 bonus. In areas of bright light, the DC to resist takes a -1 penalty.
Rituals: Rituals for this tradition must be conducted in deep shadows. As the ritual progresses, light sources must be gradually extinguished, leaving you in total darkness.
Mishaps: You blind yourself for 1 round per level of the spell you were casting.

Blasphemous [Tradition]
You believe that your magic is granted to you through the favor of fiendish horrors.
Benefits: You gain the magical skills Divine and Summon.
Once per day per Wisdom bonus (minimum once) you can make an opposed caster level check against another spellcaster that has summoned a creature. Success enables you to treat the creature as though you had summoned it. All aspects of the spell (duration, etc.) are still figured by the original spellcaster’s statistics.
Rituals: Rituals tend to be dark pleas to evil powers, asking for their grace and guidance. They tend to involve perverse or otherwise gruesome acts to gain the favor of your fiendish patron.
Mishaps: Your fiendish patron curses you, resulting in you taking a -2 penalty to all die rolls for a number of rounds equal to ½ the level of the spell you were casting.

Defiling [Tradition]
You believe that your magic is powered by stealing the life force of plants.
Benefit: You gain access to all magic skills. However, casting spontaneous spells takes four rounds, since you need to gather life energy from the ground around you. During these rounds, enemies take an initiative penalty equal to ½ the level of the spell you’re casting.
Rituals: Rituals of this tradition blight the land around them. For a ten foot radius per spell level, the land is permanently razed, unable to ever support life again.
Mishaps: You are unable to draw energy from the foliage around you, and instead draw it from yourself, taking 1 point of damage per spell level.

Chaotic Mage [Tradition]
You believe your magic is formed from the stuff of raw chaos.
Benefit: You gain access to the magic skills Create, Illusion, Move, and Transform. Whenever you cast a spontaneous spell, add a total of (1d6-3) to your caster level. Negative results on the die check are a penalty to your caster level.
Rituals: This tradition has no rituals.
Mishaps: Anything can happen with a mishap in this tradition. GMs are encouraged to come up with random effects.

Sovereign Spellcaster [Tradition]
You believe your magic comes from an ancient connection you have with your land.
Benefit: You gain the access to the magic skills Charm, Defend, Divine, and Move.
You gain a special connection with an area of land, one square mile per character level, due to a mystic bond one of your ancestors forged with the land long ago. The area of land increases in size every time you gain a new level, representing your increased connection to your land. All of your spells cast while on your land gain bonus skill ranks equal to ½ your character level that may only be spent on range enhancement. All of your Move spells, however, may only have a destination on your land.
Rituals: Rituals involving this tradition typically take place outdoors on the highest portion of your land.
Mishaps: Miscasting a spell temporarily severs your connection to your land, and the loss of the mystical connection leaves you shaken for ½ the intended spell’s duration.

 

[genshou]

Here's a few from classic D&D: elven bladesinging, Shadow Weave Magic, fiend-worshipping, defiling, wild magic, and realm magic (from Birthright). These were just things I came up with off the top of my head, so feel free to alter them for the web enhancement. If I can think of anymore, I'll post them here also.

Oooh, very cool! Thanks a lot, Alzrius! I was just lamenting the small number of magical traditions that reflect D&D spellcasting themes!

 

[genshou]

Hence my opinion that it should use a similar format to EOM-R. One feat for items, one for Permanent Spells.

Now I'm confused. Were there meant to be two separate feats in Mythic Earth, one for items and one for permanent spells? Do they have the same prerequisites and the same CP costs?

 

[RangerWickett]

Now I'm confused. Were there meant to be two separate feats in Mythic Earth, one for items and one for permanent spells? Do they have the same prerequisites and the same CP costs?

The short answer:
I think it is a mistake to allow permanent spells to be available at a moment's notice. I want there to still be one feat required - Craft Permanent Spell - but permanent spells and permanent items should take the same amount of time and CP to create. The only difference should be that with a permanent spell you sacrifice the ability to loan the benefit to an ally for the security in knowing no one's going to take your item away.


The long answer:
Well, in EOM-R there were three feats. Craft Charged Item, Craft Wondrous Item, and Craft Permanent Spell. In Mythic Earth I originally had two feats - Craft Permanent Item and Craft Permanent Spell, but then I cut it down to one feat and tried a few different ways to balance the fact that I wanted Permanent Spells to be available at a moment's notice, instead of requiring days or weeks of work. I basically wanted to make curses be available.

There's a fine tradition in fantasy and folklore of people laying curses on those who do them wrong, and creating that curse does not take the person days and days of item creation. They just say something like, "For the crimes you have committed against the gypsies, I curse you! Thinner!"

My mind changed a few times while writing as I tried to figure out how best to do this. When I sent the book off for layout, I thought, "Okay, one feat works for all permanent effects. That way you can make curses by spending CP, even if you aren't high level. All is good."

I unfortunately had a brainfart and did not realize that there suddenly was no reason to ever make yourself, say, a cloak of resistance (spending CP and many days on it) when you could just make, say, a tattoo of resistance as a permanent spell instead of an item (spending only CP and no time).

My goal is 1) to make minor items (a la potions and scrolls) easy to get, 2) to require a feat to create reusable items and items that grant enduring benefits, and 3) to allow spellcasters to create curses.

I feel the current system handles 1 and 2 well, but 3 doesn't quite fit. The rule that I intended to let people cast instant curses (bad things for your enemies) instead lets people create instant magic items (good things for your allies). The problem is that curses are really hard to define in a flexible system like this.

I could easily say, "If you're casting a permanent spell on a bad guy, spend CP, and it's a curse, and it doesn't take any extra time." But that requires lots of GM adjudication. I mean, is it a curse to make someone be mentally dominated? Making someone your slave isn't really curse-like, in my opinion, but I could see a GM saying that it would work if the person was aware that they had no free will.

What, though, if a player said, "Tom's character is pissing me off. I'm going to curse him so he's a big, brutish, ugly beast, so that his appearance matches his personality." Tom's character ends up getting a bonus to a bunch of ability scores, and great natural attacks, and sure, Tom might roleplay his character being unhappy, but who are we fooling? This is D&D. He'd find a way to reconcile the problem.

"Oh darn, I'm big and strong and ugly and I guess I'll just have to get used to this. Well, let's go fight monsters. I hope my ugliness doesn't inhibit my monster-slaying."

xx

In myths and folk tales, curses usually cause grief to the cursed person. Prince turned into something nasty (toad, a big furry beast, a waifish girl), or princess cast into an endless sleep, or a wronged gypsy returning a guilty conscience to a murderous vampire. Or turning a unicorn into a young woman. Or a tomb causing ambiguous 'doom' to befall people who steal from it. Or taking away someone's memories.

So yeah, I guess I'm still having a hard time figuring out how to handle curses. But I do think that permanent spells should have the same time and CP cost as normal magic items, but that there should only be one feat required to make them.

 

[RangerWickett]

By the way, I've emailed Marius Delphus to see if he'd be able to make a few revisions to the text to fix this error, include the missing strong Courage emotion, and correct a few other problems pointed out in reviews. In this case, it appears a good thing that the POD option has not been activated yet.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Defiling [Tradition]
You believe that your magic is powered by stealing the life force of plants.
Benefit: You gain access to all magic skills. However, casting spontaneous spells takes four rounds, since you need to gather life energy from the ground around you. During these rounds, enemies take an initiative penalty equal to ½ the level of the spell you’re casting.
Rituals: Rituals of this tradition blight the land around them. For a ten foot radius per spell level, the land is permanently razed, unable to ever support life again.
Mishaps: You are unable to draw energy from the foliage around you, and instead draw it from yourself, taking 1 point of damage per spell level.

These are cool, but the penalty-to-Init thing would be hard as heck for a DM to handle.

 

[RangerWickett]

Here's a few from classic D&D: elven bladesinging, Shadow Weave Magic, fiend-worshipping, defiling, wild magic, and realm magic (from Birthright). These were just things I came up with off the top of my head, so feel free to alter them for the web enhancement. If I can think of anymore, I'll post them here also.

Alzrius, may I have permission to use those?

 

[Alzrius]

These are cool, but the penalty-to-Init thing would be hard as heck for a DM to handle.

You think so? I didn't think it'd be that bad, since there aren't usually many initiative modifiers beyond those for each individual. I also used it because it was the penalty that Dark Sun assigned to other characters in the radius of the defiling when it happened.

Alzrius, may I have permission to use those?

Absolutely. Please edit, modify, or change them however you feel will make them better (and in looking back over these, I can see they really could use some cleaning up).

 

[Alzrius]

Here are a couple more tradition feats I thought of (and one associated mage feat). Both of the tradition feats are inspired by Dragonlance. Specifically, they're High Sorcery, and how High Sorcery was powered by draining magic items in the Fifth Age. Please feel free to use these as well.

Astronomancy [Tradition]
You believe your magic comes from the power of celestial bodies.
Prerequisites: Knowledge (nature) 4 ranks.
Benefit: You gain access to the magic skills Attack, Defend, and Divine.
Every month the heavens align favorably for you, granting you a +2 bonus to your caster levels. However, opposite this time they align against you, and you take a -2 penalty.
Rituals: Rituals for this tradition involve drawing a chart of the heavens to map the paths of power you’re invoking. Doing so requires a Knowledge (nature) check with the DC equal to (5 + ½ the spell’s level).
Mishaps: Mishaps in this ritual misalign your stellar connection, and the celestial power temporarily overloads through your body, leaving you staggered for a number of rounds equal to 1/4 the attempted spell’s level.

Leeching [Tradition]
You believe your magic comes from draining the power of magic items.
Benefits: You gain access to all magical skills. However, you may only cast spells if you have at least one active magic item on your person. Casting a spontaneous spell leaves all of your magic items inoperative for one round while they recharge themselves. A signature spell only leaves a single magic item inoperative for 1 round instead of all of your magic items. When casting a spontaneous spell, you may, as a swift action, perform a touch attack against an adjacent creature. If the touch attack succeeds, one of their magic items (determined randomly) is rendered inoperative for 1 round, and none of your items are drained. If the touched target has no magic items, yours are drained as normal. You may not use this touch attack in conjunction with another spell or special ability.
Rituals: Rituals for this tradition must use a magic item to drain. A magic item drained by way of this ritual remains inoperative for one minute per spell level.
Mishaps: Mishaps in this ritual place too great a drain on your items. All of the magic items on your person are inoperative for a number of rounds equal to 1/3 the attempted spell’s level.

Targeted Leeching [Mage]
You can drain specific items from your enemies to power your spells.
Prerequisite: Leeching tradition feat.
Benefit: When making a touch attack against a creature to cast a spontaneous spell, you may deliberately target a single magic item. The touch attack is made against the target’s normal AC plus a size bonus for the size of the magic item. Visible items under a cover (e.g. a sword in a sheath, a ring under a glove, etc.) are viable targets.
Normal: When making a touch attack to drain a magic item on another creature, the drained item is determined randomly.