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

[RangerWickett]

It's best that you not know the truth. It is too horrible, and it would drive you mad.

. . .

In truth, earlier this year there was a big 'pro-squirrel' movement on the boards which lasted for about a month. It reminded me of a friend of mine who mentioned that at her college there was a group called the Society of the Singular Squirrel, which joked that all squirrels were the same critter. It seemed like as fine an inspiration for an elder cult as a fake squid monster.

 

[Cheiromancer]

More seriously, I have a question about Fey rituals. It says that people have to close their eyes at the end. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that they had blindsense, or were dragons, or lacked eyelids (like Mostin in Sep's story hour). Does the ritual not work?

 

[Alzrius]

It reminded me of a friend of mine who mentioned that at her college there was a group called the Society of the Singular Squirrel, which joked that all squirrels were the same critter. It seemed like as fine an inspiration for an elder cult as a fake squid monster.

Ye gods, those devils have real worshippers?! I remain convinced that the squirrells found on college campuses in Indiana (I have yet to see them anywhere else) are mutant versions, being both yellow-tinted, and twice the size of a normal grey squirrell. They scare the heck out of me.

 

[RangerWickett]

More seriously, I have a question about Fey rituals. It says that people have to close their eyes at the end. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that they had blindsense, or were dragons, or lacked eyelids (like Mostin in Sep's story hour). Does the ritual not work?

LOL

I think the question is far too serious for the actual topic it addresses. The 'close your eyes' is not for game balance. It's just flavor, so you should rule it however best fits the flavor of your game. However, as a guideline, the point is that you're supposed to try not to see what's actually granting the effect of the ritual. People without eyelids can look at their feet. Creatures with blindsense can I imagine turn it off somehow (cover their ears? think of something else?). Or maybe because they're somewhat magical themselves, they're allowed to see what happens, but not to speak of it, lest the spell fail. And if these options don't work, it makes for an interesting challenge if they want to perform this kind of ritual.

 

[Verequus]

Sorry for the delay, but I was thinking about that a bit longer, so I wouldn't miss something important.

There is no way in the system to make spells that should require a save, not require a save. An Attack spell that gives a weapon the flaming enhancement has no save; it doesn't need one. An Attack spell that deals direct damage always has a save, but if you roll a nat 20, that save is harder to resist.

So there is no way to exchange a save against a (ranged) touch attack?

In the core rules, if something costs 250 GP market value, it costs you 10 XP and 125 GP to make. In the modern system, though, money is a much harder beast to wrangle, so I could not easily say, "The item has a Purchase DC 25. To make it, you must spend 10 XP and provide materials with a Purchase DC 15." To avoid having to make that sort of weird cost calculation, I made magic items cost only XP (or rather, Craft Points).

Thus, instead of the XP cost being 1/25 of the GP market value cost, it's 1/20. Does that make sense?

So instead requiring (sp?) XP and money you only require XP, but a bit more than in than in the core rules to make it fair?

Death effects are more powerful, akin to the specialized movement abilities like fly, teleport, and turning ethereal. Only some people can access them. Generally, the tradition feats that provide access to Death damage are slightly weaker than the other tradition feats.

I didn't notice the power difference. It would have been to have a guideline included, so one can gauge the power of a tradition feat directly.

The following is in the updated version:

Dispelling Magic Items
If you successfully dispel a magic item, permanent spell, or curse, its effects are suppressed for one minute. When attempting to dispel a permanent effect, you can choose to increase the DC by 1 to increase the duration to 10 minutes, or increase it by 3 to increase the duration to one hour, or by 8 to increase the duration to one day.

Are curses also permanent effects? And if I create permanent spells with create, do the creations vanish for the duration of the dispel spell?

BTW, when do the proofreaders get the updated version? Unfortunately, RPGnow sends update links only to people, who have bought a product. And if you haven't that already since I checked, I suggest to update the description on RPGnow, so it reflects the revision and that the weak points in the reviews have been addressed.

 

[RangerWickett]

Sorry for the delay, but I was thinking about that a bit longer, so I wouldn't miss something important.

There is no way in the system to make spells that should require a save, not require a save. An Attack spell that gives a weapon the flaming enhancement has no save; it doesn't need one. An Attack spell that deals direct damage always has a save, but if you roll a nat 20, that save is harder to resist.

So there is no way to exchange a save against a (ranged) touch attack?

Nope. That was one of the greatest complaints from EOM-R. Touch attacks were just better than saves in most instances. You can still use Attack to enhance an item with bonus damage dice, but you'd have to bypass armor. So no, there aren't touch attacks. If you wanted to introduce touch attack spells, I'd have to suggest increasing the spell's level to compensate, but I couldn't say by how much.

In the core rules, if something costs 250 GP market value, it costs you 10 XP and 125 GP to make. In the modern system, though, money is a much harder beast to wrangle, so I could not easily say, "The item has a Purchase DC 25. To make it, you must spend 10 XP and provide materials with a Purchase DC 15." To avoid having to make that sort of weird cost calculation, I made magic items cost only XP (or rather, Craft Points).

Thus, instead of the XP cost being 1/25 of the GP market value cost, it's 1/20. Does that make sense?

So instead requiring (sp?) XP and money you only require XP, but a bit more than in than in the core rules to make it fair?

Yes.

Death effects are more powerful, akin to the specialized movement abilities like fly, teleport, and turning ethereal. Only some people can access them. Generally, the tradition feats that provide access to Death damage are slightly weaker than the other tradition feats.

I didn't notice the power difference. It would have been to have a guideline included, so one can gauge the power of a tradition feat directly.

It's really a balancing act to make sure a given tradition isn't too powerful. I think I may have made a mistake when the PC Mage in my campaign just leveled and took both Telepath and Postmodern Magus at the same level, which basically gives him a +4 bonus to his Charm spellcasting, among other things. He's becoming quite the versatile spellcaster, with Wicca, Spanish Inquisitor, and now Telepath.

But anyway, the traditions that can get death damage generally don't get as many of the utility spells. They have to focus on attacking.

The following is in the updated version:

Dispelling Magic Items
If you successfully dispel a magic item, permanent spell, or curse, its effects are suppressed for one minute. When attempting to dispel a permanent effect, you can choose to increase the DC by 1 to increase the duration to 10 minutes, or increase it by 3 to increase the duration to one hour, or by 8 to increase the duration to one day.

Are curses also permanent effects? And if I create permanent spells with create, do the creations vanish for the duration of the dispel spell?

Curses are permanent (like a magic item) not permanent like a spell with a permanent duration (to use a core example, if you dispel continual flame, the spell ends for good). I'd say yes to the create question. If you make a permanent bridge, it could be dispelled temporarily.

BTW, when do the proofreaders get the updated version? Unfortunately, RPGnow sends update links only to people, who have bought a product. And if you haven't that already since I checked, I suggest to update the description on RPGnow, so it reflects the revision and that the weak points in the reviews have been addressed.

Email me. I'm sorry I forgot about that, but I've been very busy with the new store. Heck, I still have 3 proposals in my inbox that I haven't addressed yet. I'm trying to finish all my current projects before starting anything new.

But yeah, email me, and I'll send you an updated copy.

 

[Verequus]

Is there a particular reason, why you limit the amount of permanent spell effects on magic items? I can understand that in d20Modern, but in core there are many magic items, which can't be reproduced, like the Staff of Fire.

 

[RangerWickett]

For d20 Modern I did it because figuring out a Purchase DC for an item with multiple magical effects is hard. To buy a +3 longsword that shoots fireballs, do you have to make two Wealth checks? Do you reverse engineer the costs and add them together, then figure out a new Purchase DC? As it is, I think the second option is better, but it doesn't address certain problems.

A key element of the Wealth system is that anything over DC 15 costs you at least 1 Wealth point automatically. If you turn two DC 25 items into one DC 29 item, it becomes much cheaper to acquire the two effects. If you had a Wealth of 14 and you wanted to buy two DC 25 items, the first one would knock your Wealth down by 2d6+1 (leaving you with, on average, Wealth 6), and the second item would reduce your Wealth another 2d6+1, probably leaving you a pauper. If on the other hand you just had to buy one DC 29 item, it only costs you 2d6+1 again.

For D&D, though, yeah, feel free to add on as many magical effects as you want onto one item, but like in EOM-R I'd recommend you not allow a single item to have more than one 'attack enhancement' on it. So if you want a +2 flaming sword, you need to have a single spell for +2 flaming. You can't put two cheaper spells -- one for +2, one for flaming.

 

[Verequus]

I think, you've forgotten to address the following issue: What is the caster level for a supernatural effect and for a magic item, if subjected to an Anti-Magic Field? HD and spell level, respectively?

 

[RangerWickett]

I think, you've forgotten to address the following issue: What is the caster level for a supernatural effect and for a magic item, if subjected to an Anti-Magic Field? HD and spell level, respectively?

For a magic item, yes, it'd be spell level. For a supernatural ability, hit dice is the only easy solution, but it means that some creatures will simply not lose their supernatural abilities, because they have too many hit dice. It's not so much a problem in D20 Modern because not many high-HD critters show up, but if you use Mythic Earth for D&D, you should probably think of the antimagic option as more of an anti-spell defense. Stopping creatures' supernatural abilities is much harder.