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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!
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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Flexible Magic System Idea
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<blockquote data-quote="Scurvy_Platypus" data-source="post: 4146962" data-attributes="member: 43283"><p>You can recreate the standard d20 spells, but not all of 'em. So it's a bit limited, but it's not too bad actually. </p><p></p><p>That on its own isn't too bad, but the process of recreating the spells reveals that you've got more than one way of creating said effect. Which of course means that people are going to want to try and create the cheapest version they can. Which leads (probably) to some folks being disgruntled at the fact that there's more than one solution, as well as leading to questions about "balance" since you can make the same spell 2 (or more) different ways and have different costs each time.</p><p></p><p>The actual process for creating/recreating the spells is a bit involved too. There wasn't an "official" conversion done, and to my knowledge no fan actually converted the SRD spells over either.</p><p></p><p>These days, I'm much more a fan of the Unusual Core Classes: Spellweaver from Misfit Studios. You can find it here:</p><p><a href="http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?from_home=1&it=1&motds_id=414&products_id=12636" target="_blank">http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?from_home=1&it=1&motds_id=414&products_id=12636</a></p><p></p><p>It's a skill/feat based system, and they give the DCs for the SRD spells. They also have all the information you need to be able to generate the Spellweaver version of any other d20 spells.</p><p></p><p>So if I were going to go with Spell Points instead of skills and feats (or Spell points and feats) I'd start with simply deciding on a "conversion rate" for the DC into Spellpoints.</p><p></p><p>As a general note:</p><p>People really seem to be in love with the idea of a completely "flexible" spell system, where a player can tweak any aspect of the spell and pay a different cost depending on what they do. And to a certain extent, it is a nifty idea. It's just that this is usually a prelude to an "on the fly" system, and that's nifty too.</p><p></p><p>It's also one that I've rarely seen actually _work_ in the past 20 years. At least, "work" in the sense of "fun for everyone, not just the guy making the spell"</p><p></p><p>Instead, you wind up usually having a player wait until it's actually their turn before they start to even _make_ the spell. Then they need to ask the GM 2 or 3 questions about the situation to try and fine tune their spell construction. Some more time passes, and then the player will announce what it is that they're actually doing. Then the GM will often want to check the player's math to make sure the spell is really going to be that cheap to do that effect.</p><p></p><p>If you thought it was annoying to have combat grind to a halt while a player thumbed through the PHB and tried to decide between Spell A and Spell B, wait until you give that player the ability to make their own spells.</p><p></p><p>The main thing something like this is good for is when a player says, "Damn, I wish I could throw that spell further" or "Is there any way I can increase the damage on that?" or even "My guy wants to research a totally new spell that will do [blah blah blah]"</p><p></p><p>At that point the GM can say, "Sure you can throw the spell further. It's going to cost you [X] amount more" or "Well, if you make a Spellcraft check you can enhance your spell to do more damage for [X] amount" or "Well Bob, you're a little cheese monkey but I'll let your character do it. It's going to take [x] amount of time, [y] amount of resources to research, and when you're done the spell is going to look like [this] and cost [Z] points to cast. And I'm going to hate you for being a munchkin."</p><p></p><p>In other words, any kind of customizable system or on-the-fly system really works best when it's used as a behind the scenes kind of thing. Stick with the default spells, or import spells from whatever d20 source you feel like. Run it through the system to come up with the cost of the spell, but just give the total cost to cast the spell to the player. Save all the variables and bits for _if_ the player wants to tweak something.</p><p></p><p>And if you're thinking, "Well, it's nice to have the system and all but I actually want the players to _use_ it" there's a simple solution. Just have 'em go up against a bad guy or two that actually _does_ use tweaked spells. That Ray of Pants Dropping that's got twice the distance the players/characters thought it did, or that fireball that blows up with a lot more force than people thought... that's what'll get 'em interested. And if it doesn't interest 'em... *shrug* then it doesn't. The GM now has a tool in their arsenal to judge spells (and by implication magic items) relative to each other.</p><p></p><p>'Cause that's the other thing... it's always fun to play around with some sort of thing like this, but if the players aren't actually interested in it, it's going to be a lot of work that goes to waste.</p><p></p><p>So that's why I personally would simply go with an already exisiting system and convert it a bit to do what I want. Which is why I'd go with the Spellweaver, say that every [X] DC costs [Y] amount of spellpoints, and call it good.</p><p></p><p>Good luck no matter which way you go though! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scurvy_Platypus, post: 4146962, member: 43283"] You can recreate the standard d20 spells, but not all of 'em. So it's a bit limited, but it's not too bad actually. That on its own isn't too bad, but the process of recreating the spells reveals that you've got more than one way of creating said effect. Which of course means that people are going to want to try and create the cheapest version they can. Which leads (probably) to some folks being disgruntled at the fact that there's more than one solution, as well as leading to questions about "balance" since you can make the same spell 2 (or more) different ways and have different costs each time. The actual process for creating/recreating the spells is a bit involved too. There wasn't an "official" conversion done, and to my knowledge no fan actually converted the SRD spells over either. These days, I'm much more a fan of the Unusual Core Classes: Spellweaver from Misfit Studios. You can find it here: [url]http://enworld.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?from_home=1&it=1&motds_id=414&products_id=12636[/url] It's a skill/feat based system, and they give the DCs for the SRD spells. They also have all the information you need to be able to generate the Spellweaver version of any other d20 spells. So if I were going to go with Spell Points instead of skills and feats (or Spell points and feats) I'd start with simply deciding on a "conversion rate" for the DC into Spellpoints. As a general note: People really seem to be in love with the idea of a completely "flexible" spell system, where a player can tweak any aspect of the spell and pay a different cost depending on what they do. And to a certain extent, it is a nifty idea. It's just that this is usually a prelude to an "on the fly" system, and that's nifty too. It's also one that I've rarely seen actually _work_ in the past 20 years. At least, "work" in the sense of "fun for everyone, not just the guy making the spell" Instead, you wind up usually having a player wait until it's actually their turn before they start to even _make_ the spell. Then they need to ask the GM 2 or 3 questions about the situation to try and fine tune their spell construction. Some more time passes, and then the player will announce what it is that they're actually doing. Then the GM will often want to check the player's math to make sure the spell is really going to be that cheap to do that effect. If you thought it was annoying to have combat grind to a halt while a player thumbed through the PHB and tried to decide between Spell A and Spell B, wait until you give that player the ability to make their own spells. The main thing something like this is good for is when a player says, "Damn, I wish I could throw that spell further" or "Is there any way I can increase the damage on that?" or even "My guy wants to research a totally new spell that will do [blah blah blah]" At that point the GM can say, "Sure you can throw the spell further. It's going to cost you [X] amount more" or "Well, if you make a Spellcraft check you can enhance your spell to do more damage for [X] amount" or "Well Bob, you're a little cheese monkey but I'll let your character do it. It's going to take [x] amount of time, [y] amount of resources to research, and when you're done the spell is going to look like [this] and cost [Z] points to cast. And I'm going to hate you for being a munchkin." In other words, any kind of customizable system or on-the-fly system really works best when it's used as a behind the scenes kind of thing. Stick with the default spells, or import spells from whatever d20 source you feel like. Run it through the system to come up with the cost of the spell, but just give the total cost to cast the spell to the player. Save all the variables and bits for _if_ the player wants to tweak something. And if you're thinking, "Well, it's nice to have the system and all but I actually want the players to _use_ it" there's a simple solution. Just have 'em go up against a bad guy or two that actually _does_ use tweaked spells. That Ray of Pants Dropping that's got twice the distance the players/characters thought it did, or that fireball that blows up with a lot more force than people thought... that's what'll get 'em interested. And if it doesn't interest 'em... *shrug* then it doesn't. The GM now has a tool in their arsenal to judge spells (and by implication magic items) relative to each other. 'Cause that's the other thing... it's always fun to play around with some sort of thing like this, but if the players aren't actually interested in it, it's going to be a lot of work that goes to waste. So that's why I personally would simply go with an already exisiting system and convert it a bit to do what I want. Which is why I'd go with the Spellweaver, say that every [X] DC costs [Y] amount of spellpoints, and call it good. Good luck no matter which way you go though! :) [/QUOTE]
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