Evaluate my House Rules--Now with Law/Chaos Removal Juicy Goodness!

[Wystan]

The only problem I still see with the journeying is that there is no determining factor for the spells. Heck, you might as well say that there are mage schools in certain areas of teh campaign world that offer to teach for certain lengths of time at certain times of year. Makes more sense. The mountainous school of magic might offer travel spells and such.

As it is it is just a 'Screw you, your character is taking 1-900 days to learn MAGIC MISSILE'...

 

[HellHound]

It still seems very limiting to be a spellcaster at higher level, whereas others get new abilities nearly instantly I have to travel halfway around the world to learn dicenegrate.

It's okay... after all, well under 20% of the time will the character be able to get to the occurance.

The occurance happens 1d100 x spell level days travel away.
The occurance happens 1d20 x spell level days from now.
The magus cannot use magical means of transportation.

Effectively, if the distance roll on the d100 is greater than 20, then it is impossible to get there in time. Realistically, if the d100 roll is greater than 10, then it is unlikely to be possible to get there in time.

You know the day you roll a 2 on the d% is the same day you roll a 1 on the d20... so the distance to get the Wish spell is only 18 days away, but it is occuring in 9 days.

Magi will be checking once per week to determine if there is an event they can make it to. I see this as an exercise in frustration.

Someone with skills in dice probabilities, tell me what the odds are that an event is reachable, please.

---

As for the Haste thing, since the haste has been seriously toned down from 3.0 haste (move action instead of standard action), I have no problem with it. In fact, I have such a spell in my house setting : http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=115646

 

[HellHound]

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=2283643

According to people better versed at math than I, this results in a 10.5% chance that the occurence will be reachable to the magus. having re-read the rules above, the real kicker is that the magus can't roll again until the event takes place, or one week if he couldn't find an event. Sooo... on average a magus lookign for level 9 spells will get to roll once every 3 months with a 10.5% chance that he'll be able to get the spell.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Okay, you've convinced me of the unwiseness of changing the critical rule. I relent.


As for the Magus, any idea on how to keep the flavor of the "celestial magic" thing and have it be balanced?

 

[Wish]

Sure.

A) Change the d100*level days to something more reasonable. You can walk across Asia in 2 and a half years. Maybe 1d100*level miles or something.
B) Allow magical travel aids.
C) Eliminate the DC to learn. The only way to fail that DC is if you have 3.0 greater spell focus. And why should it get more difficult to learn spells if you have greater spell focus in exactly those spells? It probably shouldn't, right?
D) Require astronomical gear to track the stars costing level*level*100gp and weigh level*level pounds (reusable). That's similar to a Boccob's blessed book cost, at the high end, and hauling around 81 lbs worth of gear will take some consideration. Or use "star charts" that cost level*50gp to learn spells (good for only a single event). That's half of what it would cost to put it in a spellbook, but there's no assurance you can reach the event, which seems fair. Requiring both would probably be overkill.
E) If you want to put the effort into it, you can assign different probabilities and distances to individual spells, changing their rarity. This can also let you theme magic in your world. You could decide that Evocations are revealed only by rare events witnessed from remote and hostile locations. Or that "named" spells (Rary's XYZ, Bigby's XYZ, etc.) are extremely rare.
F) If you want to, you can include as treasure another magus' notes on when a rare event will occur. For example, you might decide that all magi are familiar with the events that reveal PHB spells, but that spells from other sources are more difficult to find. A PC magus could perhaps spend some time and money (and make a skill check?) to figure out that event, or they might find the notes of an enemy magus who's already done that work.

 

[warderbrad]

Alt idea for Pilgrimage

What if they could record the postion of the stars in a "star chart" format and be able to study them when underground or otherwise not able to see the stars. This could lead to characters finding star chart books that could reveal new spells while not giving up the base idea and flavor of the class.

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

On the Crit issue:

I have a house rule when I run. The players vote at the start of every new campaign (that's campaign, not adventure, and there has only been 1 campaign so far). They get two choices for the vote. Majority chooses the rule everyone uses, DM as tiebreaker.

A.) 3.5 Crit rules from the book.
B.) 2nd edition crit rules (auto crits, but only on a natural 20 - in effect, doing away with threat ranges completely)

Perhaps try that instead?

 

[gamecat]

On the Crit issue:

I have a house rule when I run. The players vote at the start of every new campaign (that's campaign, not adventure, and there has only been 1 campaign so far). They get two choices for the vote. Majority chooses the rule everyone uses, DM as tiebreaker.

A.) 3.5 Crit rules from the book.
B.) 2nd edition crit rules (auto crits, but only on a natural 20 - in effect, doing away with threat ranges completely)

Perhaps try that instead?

Those crit rules seem a bit iffy to me. Crit ranges balance weapons out. If you make a falchion (2d4 18-20/x2) and a greatsword (2d6 19-20/x2) both only crit on a 20, you've rendered the falchion entirely useless. That being said, any weapon with a long crit range is made useless by a weapon in the same damage class with a high multiplier - IE Battleaxe > Longsword, Dwarven Waraxe > Bastard Sword, Punch Dagger > Dagger.

The crit system is there for a reason.

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

That's why it's left up to player vote.

 

[helium3]

Three years is a bit too long for a DM to raise his hand and say time passes. I think the events of my campaign would be over in that amount of time.

Ahhhh. Well, we run different types of games, then.