Freeform Magical Systems

[Psyckosama]

Looking for Free Form magical systems for d20. Anyone have any good links or books?

Thanks.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Just what do you mean by "Free Form" magic?

There are Spell Points.
ENWorld's Elements of Magic is pretty good. Just stay away from the (unplaytested and unbalanced) Mythic Earth version.
Green Ronin's True Sorcery has a lot of love, though I'm not a big fan.

There are others but I'm tired and forgetting.

 

[jedavis]

I second True Sorcery. The main thing you have to do to keep it from getting broken is to severely limit Spellcraft-boosting magic items; since there aren't any that I recall finding when playing TruSorcs (with the possible exception of an item in Magic Item Compendium that boosted Psicraft), it basically comes down to limiting player-crafted spellcraft boosters. Other than that, it's reasonably balanced and quite flexible. The main issue I've seen people have with it is that it's rather math-intensive. Casting goes something like this:

• Choose a Talent you want to use. Talents include things like Create Energy (Fire), Obscure, and Afflict, and provide the basis for spells. You're restricted both in the number of talents you know and which ones you can learn (you gain access to new 'tiers' of talents at 5th, 10th, and 15th).
• Apply modifiers to the chosen talent's base effect. For example, Create Fire's base effect is a 5-foot radius burst within 10 feet dealing 1d4 fire damage, reflex save for half for spellcraft DC 15. Adding a die of damage is +5 DC, increasing the range by 10 feet is +1, dropping from an area to a ray is -2 (I think... it's been a while). So if you want to do 2d4 with a ray against a target 30 feet away, it's DC 20. This is easier to make than you might think; there are a number of sources for bonuses in the system, including using a Focus (+10 basically for free), adding extra components (+5 each, though a non-issue for Create Fire since it requires both V and S), Magnitude (a bonus from level, basically), and Foresee (a low-level talent that grants True Strike-like bonuses (though usually smaller) to most anything. Handy for boosting your next casting).
• Make the spellcraft check. The casting time varies based on the difference between the DC and your spellcraft bonus. Spells with DCs less than your bonus are swift actions, and you don't need to roll to succeed, which is handy (but they're usually weak). It goes up from there.
• Apply the spell's effects.
• Take drain. Every time you cast, you take 1d8+1/5 of the spell's DC points of subdual damage (there's also a casting buffer option, which is basically a mana pool that recharges slowly and makes you fatigued when you're running low rather than knocking you unconscious). You subtract your spell energy total from the drain before it's applied - you get spell energy from your Con bonus plus some at each Magnitude. So in the above example of the DC 20 fire ray, you'd take 1d8+4-SE subdual damage. Fire Lore's a first magnitude talent, so you'd have at least 2 points of spell energy and possibly as many as 6 (if you have +4 Con), assuming you're actually First Magnitude and not something higher. It's pretty easy for low-level TruSorcs to know themselves out casting, especially when you're first learning the system and trying to put full power behind each spell. It's much better to cast lots of weak spells so you get the maximal benefit out of your Spell Energy. It's also possible to burn points of Spell Energy for +10 to spellcraft checks to cast, but this also adds 1d8 to the drain per point burnt (which recharge at 1/day). We've never actually had a TruSorc try that... maybe next time.

Conclusions: TruSorc is horrible for those who don't prep much (I had formulae for most of my Talents - ie "Ray of Fire: Range 10*(X+1), Y+1 Targets, (K+1)d4 damage. DC 13+X+4*Y+5*K"), don't handle math on the fly well, or who can't get out of the Vancian spell paradigm of huge fire-and-forget effects (There is simply no way a 5th-level TruSorc will be able to drop a 20-foot radius fireball for 5d6 damage at long range). It's great for people who like a little prep work ("How can I get the most damage out of 30 points of spellcraft DC devoted to damage?"), enjoy a little math, and prefer lots of small spells over a few big ones. The learning curve is steep, but the payoff's pretty good.

On other systems: Never played with spell points, but it seems a reasonable system if you want to stay close to Core (ie, still use the same spells rather than making up your own). Bought a pdf of EoM and never finished reading it... the huge number of variations on the same effects (they had like... 10 elements, and then many of their spells operated differently on different elements, for a huge number of different talents. TruSorc only has 52 total talents, most of which aren't available at low levels) really put me off.

 

[WHW4]

Thirding True Sorcery.

Our group ran it in conjunction with the Iron Heroes classes and the mage had a blast coming up with custom spell effects. It is math heavy though, as has been mentioned, so prepping a few goto spells would probably be a good idea.

I will say that it was the one time as a player that I felt a "mystery to the magic" so to speak when spells went off. Of course this was a lower magic campaign, so it might not be your cup of tea.

As has also been said, limiting items/abilities that dramatically increase the Spellcraft check needed to pull of the spell-effects is a definite must. The stacking can get a little ridiculous with focci, components, taking extra time casting, etc.

All in all a solid system I feel.

 

[Psyckosama]

I'm going for a mid-low magic game myself so that is good.

Honestly D&D magic is too freckin' powerful

 

[jefgorbach]

Monte Cook's D20 World of Darkness adaption has a free-form spell construction system as well, which likewise allows interesting possibilities in exchange for a little math/prep work.