Fantasy Concepts: An OGL Fantasy Saga Project

[Flynn]

Ah I must have misread.

EditorBFG: The only difficulty I can see in making spellcasting entirely slot-less, so to speak, is making sure that you're able to cast 'about the right number' of spells per day without difficulty. What DC are you setting, and how much will it increase per spell cast? Does this mean no spell preparation at all (fair enough, but I'm checking)? Will all spells be available to the caster or are you going to have some limiting method (like 2e clerical spheres)?

Personally, I hope you keep some aspect of the spellbook-hoarding wizard. Your system will also mean only a small bonus to spellcraft rather than an extra spell slot, if I'm not mistaken? One more question - will the penalty accrue per spell level, or across all spells cast? Anything you want to reveal would be nice

Remember that the average encounter lasts 2-4 rounds (maybe more at lower levels), and so that's only a few chances to actually gain a penalty per encounter.

If the chance to fail and be penalized is approximately 25%, for example, then one round out of four, you will gain a penalty. The first is -1 on all d20 checks, so that's not bad. The second is -2, so it gets a little bit harder now. The third penalty step is -4 (double the last one, or in Saga terms, a -5). That bumps the chance to fail from that point forward to 50%, essentially, and the next one (doubled again, or Saga -10) takes it to 75% chance to fail. After that, you pass out.

Most casters will leave an encounter at -1 to cast, sometimes -2. If encounters are too close together, with no time for recovery, then a caster may actually pass out from casting too much, and will likely be ineffective towards the end of their ordeal.

We're still juggling around the numbers, but we intend that what we come up with will scale well, making it a little difficult in the beginning to get a lot of spells off, reflecting the young apprentice/Wiz1 approach, while being easier at higher levels.

We'll update you guys more as we can. In the meantime, suggestions are welcome.

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Remember that the average encounter lasts 2-4 rounds (maybe more at lower levels), and so that's only a few chances to actually gain a penalty per encounter.

If the chance to fail and be penalized is approximately 25%, for example, then one round out of four, you will gain a penalty. The first is -1 on all d20 checks, so that's not bad. The second is -2, so it gets a little bit harder now. The third penalty step is -4 (double the last one, or in Saga terms, a -5). That bumps the chance to fail from that point forward to 50%, essentially, and the next one (doubled again, or Saga -10) takes it to 75% chance to fail. After that, you pass out.

Most casters will leave an encounter at -1 to cast, sometimes -2. If encounters are too close together, with no time for recovery, then a caster may actually pass out from casting too much, and will likely be ineffective towards the end of their ordeal.

We're still juggling around the numbers, but we intend that what we come up with will scale well, making it a little difficult in the beginning to get a lot of spells off, reflecting the young apprentice/Wiz1 approach, while being easier at higher levels.

We'll update you guys more as we can. In the meantime, suggestions are welcome.

With Regards,
Flynn

Ah, I hadn't considered a per-encounter approach. That makes it difficult to run out-of-encounter casting though, such as healing. Are you planning on having any abilities that operate 'X times per non-sleep period' ?

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Having fiddled with some numbers, it seems that none of the static increase per spell approach, increase the DC by spell level approach or the completely static DC approach are adequate. One solution I have is that you increase the spellcraft DC for spells cast beyond the first per encounter only if they are of the highest level you can cast. I think this works best for a base DC of 10+spell level, increasing by 5 each time.

Spreadsheet attached, play around if you like, there may be a nicer combination.

I just realised that this assumes failing the spellcraft roll knocks you down the condition track and doesn't cast the spell. If you always cast the spell things might be different - on the other hand, it might make other condition track boosting things a bit too powerful. On reflection, I'd have failure on spellcraft also fail the spell.

A further aside, but this awesomely means that 'armour check penalty' can be applied to spellcraft straight in some fashion. Something that's roughly -5 for light, -10 for medium, -15 for heavy. Skill focus (Spellcraft) doubles as an awesome way of casting in armour!

Another further aside (man, I'm stream of conciousness today..), but specialist wizards getting a +5 to spells from their school probably gives them that extra 'spell slot' they used to have. Pretty awesome.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

A further aside, but this awesomely means that 'armour check penalty' can be applied to spellcraft straight in some fashion. Something that's roughly -5 for light, -10 for medium, -15 for heavy. Skill focus (Spellcraft) doubles as an awesome way of casting in armour!

Just like Spycraft's Spellbound

I do hope Flynn and BFGEditor have taken a good look at Spellbound besides Legends of Sorcery when designing the spell casting of Fantasy Concepts. Spellbound's encounter based system rocks!

 

[Flynn]

Ah, I hadn't considered a per-encounter approach. That makes it difficult to run out-of-encounter casting though, such as healing. Are you planning on having any abilities that operate 'X times per non-sleep period' ?

Now you see the considerations we have to attempt to balance here...

Getting Ready For Gen Con,
Flynn

 

[Warbringer]

The problem with this is and some other variants is that no one in their right mind will wear armor (especially at high levels).

For DR 4, the dragon now has a 30% bigger chance of hitting you with its 4d8 + 20 attack. I think I will drop the armor and take my improved chances of no damage, thankyouverymuch.

Making armors provide more DR, and daggers and short swords etc. become useless..

Run the Math...

Under (
5th level (Chainmail) - 10+5+5-5 : 15 vs 17 :10+2+5
10th level (Chainmail mithral) - 10+10+5-4 : 24 vs 20 : 10+5+5
15th level (Full Plate +3) - 10+15+8+3-6 : 30 vs 28 : 10+7+8+3

plus DR as you move through ( I'd say DR = 1/2 base armor AC + magic)

so chainmail - DR 2
chainmail - DR 3
full plate +3 - DR 7

Yes, smaller weapons can be come harder to use against DR, but guess what, they are. Slash an a bare arm with a dagger, messy; against plate armor, a dull blade.

As an option you get into AP weapons, such as punching dagger which ignores DR..

Anyway, just wanted show the math doesn't support your statement

 

[Gundark]

] done? 10, maybe 20%. This has turned out to be much more complex than I think anyone predicted.

Hopefully not a case of "too many cooks"

 

[EditorBFG]

Hopefully not a case of "too many cooks"

Well, realistically, the "democratic" approach to game design has slowed things down a bit. Vigilance is doing a similar project with Modern in another thread, and he does not seem to be seeking input so much as updating people on decisions he's already made, and he's plugging away much faster. On the other hand, doing it this way keeps us honest.

The only difficulty I can see in making spellcasting entirely slot-less, so to speak, is making sure that you're able to cast 'about the right number' of spells per day without difficulty. What DC are you setting, and how much will it increase per spell cast? Does this mean no spell preparation at all (fair enough, but I'm checking)? Will all spells be available to the caster or are you going to have some limiting method (like 2e clerical spheres)?

Keeping around the right number of spells per day is why we need to use a class based caster level instead of using spellcraft or another skill. The math needs to be very precise, and skills are too changeable. The DCs are the missing piece right now.

My thought is the spellcaster rolls vs. a DC, success means they cast the spell normally, failure means they don't cast at all, and failure by 5 or more means they move 1 step down the condition track. That's it. (By the way, we can't call it a condition track, but more on that later.) Obviously, moving down the condition track makes future spells harder to cast.

As for preparation, our current idea is that the Wizard class will have a spell preparation talent, allowing him to study a certain number spells out of a spellbook each day and make those spells easier to cast. Retains the "spirit" of Vancian magic, but in the form of an advantage rather than a limitation.

I don't think casters will start with access to all spells, but they should be able to know as many spells as they come across, just like a wizard.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I've been grappling with the whole thing today over multiple spreadsheets. It seems as though it -should- be possible to unite the skill roll to cast a spell with spell level with armour check penalty for arcane failure with metamagic increasing the DC whilst maintaining reasonable numbers. It's proving tricky.

Whether you work on a per-encounter or per-day basis, the DC to cast a spell needs to increase every time you cast a spell, to limit your out-of-combat resources and to some extent your in-combat resources that other classes will likely have to deal with too, like rage for instance. The DC also needs to increase for casting higher level spells. It would be nice to roughly match numbers we're used to and allow for differentiation between the wizard type and the sorceror type. I have yet to find the golden ratio between the DC increase per spell level and the DC increase per spell cast.

One neat thing I did come up with though is simulating the preparedness of Wizards by allowing them to Take 10 on the checks, and the generally-casting-more-spells-ness of Sorcerors by allowing them a reroll on the checks. Again, feel free to play with the numbers..

 

[EditorBFG]

I've been grappling with the whole thing today over multiple spreadsheets. It seems as though it -should- be possible to unite the skill roll to cast a spell with spell level with armour check penalty for arcane failure with metamagic increasing the DC whilst maintaining reasonable numbers. It's proving tricky.

Again, I want to stress that spellcasting must be a set, level-based number ("caster level") rather than a skill like other Saga skills. Making it a skill forces us to assume that every spellcaster spends every possible feat improving spellcaster skill and determine DCs accordingly-- thereby forcing every spellcaster to do so as well. Essentially, this is us deciding that spellcasters receive fewer feats, as they must spend feats just to be average.

Also, making spellcasting a level based number allows us to predict it more accurately and choose our DCs more confidently. Also, if the spellcasting roll is the roll to overcome defense, it is much, much closer to simulating the save DCs of existing D&D spells.

Using your spreadsheet, I changed the per level casting number to half class level rounded up, and changed the base DC from 15 to 10, and was much happier with the math, and that was just changing two things-- we can do much more with the DCs.

(Oh, and good call with uniting the armor spellcasting failure chance with the casting roll--- for some reason I had not thought about that at all.)