Fantasy Concepts: An OGL Fantasy Saga Project

[Chris_Nightwing]

Ok, that sounds more sensible. I'm still hesitant to use a skill to overcome defense when casting. Mind you, if that's the route to go down then rolling defenses and base attack into skills would balance everything out again, if make them a little more desirable.

On the other hand, there are many more ways to increase your defenses (reflex with armour, fortitude with armour, paladin-style abilities, spells and cloaks of resistance), but not many to increase a skill (if you remove the skill boosting magic items, or better, reduce them to between +1 and +5 and ramp the cost up to equal cloaks of resistance). So perhaps the +5 you seem to have in your favour as a caster isn't as fantastic as it looks. You will have to modify the way skill focus works with spellcraft (I assume again..) so that you choose a school of magic for it to apply to, or similar, else it will be a bit too powerful a feat.

 

[tsadkiel]

It may come to pass that the target DC for casting a spell becomes 15+spell level, and then casters have to subtract 5 from the skill roll before comparing it to their target's defenses.

Defense: 10 + half character level + 2 (class) + stat

Skill Check: d20 + spell level (essentially half character level for highest level spells at any particular level) + 5 (training) + stat

To Overcome Defenses: Above result -5

That seems awkward and complicated to me. It's an extra bit of math every time you want to cast a spell on someone; sure, sensible players will have recorded their regular spellcasting skill and targeted spellcasting skill, but it's still one extra complication when I think the goal is to reduce complication.

 

[maggot]

I agree. We want to modify magic items and spells as little as possible, to increase the ability to use all those cool RPG books you've already purchased with a minimum of conversion.

I think this is where you just lost me. The accounting of keeping track of magic items, and the accounting of all the various bonuses to stats brought about by spells and magic items is exactly one of the places where D&D needs to be simplified.

 

[Baduin]

And why exactly does magic have to be a skill? Why not a Magic Attack Bonus, like in Conan? For Wizards MAB equals 1/2 class level, for all others 1/4 level.

Or a simple additional rule that being trained in Magic doesn't give +5 bonus.

 

[drothgery]

And why exactly does magic have to be a skill? Why not a Magic Attack Bonus, like in Conan? For Wizards MAB equals 1/2 class level, for all others 1/4 level.

Or a simple additional rule that being trained in Magic doesn't give +5 bonus.

I'd rather the former route than the latter, on the basic principle that 'all skills work like this, except this one' rules are kind of lame.

 

[EditorBFG]

And why exactly does magic have to be a skill? Why not a Magic Attack Bonus, like in Conan? For Wizards MAB equals 1/2 class level, for all others 1/4 level.

I think this is the route we have to take-- there is a similar stat in Legends of Sorcery. Every class would have such a stat, but talents are required to use it.

However, I think we need to find something else to call it besides "Base Magic Bonus" or "Magic Attack Bonus"-- both sound kind of lame.

Also, we've decided to leave the separation in place between divine and arcane magic, so we may need two separate abilities.

Why make it a skill-based roll? Are you intending casters to fail casting spells sometimes? In conjunction with Vancian magic? That sounds a bit crippling.

Part of the reason is because we are doing away with spell slots. A mage casts spells as often as he likes. So the possibility of failure is a check on that.

(Vancian is really an inaccurate term, at this point, since the works of Jack Vance very clearly described a "fire and forget" system.)

 

[Flynn]

I think this is the route we have to take-- there is a similar stat in Legends of Sorcery. Every class would have such a stat, but talents are required to use it.

However, I think we need to find something else to call it besides "Base Magic Bonus" or "Magic Attack Bonus"-- both sound kind of lame.

I'm not keen on adding a new stat to keep track of, because it's another thing to have to track, and another thing that has to be calculated for conversion purposes (at least it seems easier to calculate one more skill using the standard skill progression than it is to mix and match MAB/BMB for multi-classed characters.) But I'll keep an open mind.

What do the rest of you think? Magic as skill? Magic as stat? Magic by spell slots and spell levels?

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Magic by encounter (as slot and as levels is ok - I can live with though you know I would prefer a more Force-like approach) with a magic skill (spellcraft) to overcome defenses.

 

[EditorBFG]

Magic by encounter (as slot and as levels is ok - I can live with though you know I would prefer a more Force-like approach) with a magic skill (spellcraft) to overcome defenses.

In an ideal world, I would want something more like this-- and our plans for a slot-free magic system were essentially encounter based, a sort of compromise between Force rules and D&D magic-- but I think as far as skill versus saves, there is just no clean or elegant way to scale it.

I'm not keen on adding a new stat to keep track of, because it's another thing to have to track, and another thing that has to be calculated for conversion purposes (at least it seems easier to calculate one more skill using the standard skill progression than it is to mix and match MAB/BMB for multi-classed characters.) But I'll keep an open mind.

I understand the desire to keep things clean, and I agree, but to my mind any compromise we have to make for a skill to do the job is going to be a lot messier than something we can just stick on the same chart as BAB.

And realistically, given D&D's hyper-detailed spells per day charts and the number of Prestige Classes that add "+1 level of existing class", in some ways I think some kind of level-based magic stat is a long overdue fix for the existing Vancian system anyway.

Nevertheless, any more opinions?

The accounting of keeping track of magic items, and the accounting of all the various bonuses to stats brought about by spells and magic items is exactly one of the places where D&D needs to be simplified.

You and me both, brother, I've been saying this for 7 years. But I think the amount of time and energy we would have to put into this is beyond the scope of this particular product. I think a follow up product could function both for this system and as a modular patch for d20 as a whole.

 

[Ilium]

I'm just going to chime in and say that I think the stat-based approach is the way to go. My reason is that skills are generally regarded as lesser abilities in most d20/OGL games. That is, while they are important, they don't define a character's power level the way that, say, BAB does. Because of this, skill boosters are more widely available and less controlled. To retain maximum compatibility with other products, I think you want to avoid the situation where somebody gets an item (or whatever) that adds +5 to a skill of their choice, and they apply it to their magic skill.

Even in WotC products, there's the Master's Touch spell that adds +4 to any skill check. With a stat, you don't need an exception every time one of these boosters comes along.