D&D General It's Magic, You Know

[TwoSix]

Be careful admitting you took an idea from a video game.

Any TTRPG nowadays that ignores video games would be guilty of ignoring the current cultural milieu. Anyone under 50 (and many older) playing a TTRPG is almost certainly steeped in video game concepts.

 

[TwoSix]

At least shots still hurt other players, right?

"Green Wizard shot the food. Green Wizard is about to die."

 

[Vaalingrade]

Any TTRPG nowadays that ignores video games would be guilty of ignoring the current cultural milieu.

Yes, and yet, there's a sizable contingent that desperately want that.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, and yet, there's a sizable contingent that desperately want that.

Lots of people want lots of things. Fortunately, I'm not trying to market them anything.

 

[SteveC]

I am a huge fan of Fabula Ultima's system, now that I've had the chance to play it. The game has two kinds of magic: combat, that has specific and defined effects, and rituals, that you create on the fly. The power level of the spells can be high, so you'd need to work on that, but the system is a lot of fun.

 

[Distracted DM]

Any TTRPG nowadays that ignores video games would be guilty of ignoring the current cultural milieu. Anyone under 50 (and many older) playing a TTRPG is almost certainly steeped in video game concepts.

Video games learned from early TTRPGs, it'd be silly to insist that TTRPGs shouldn't return the favor!

 

[GrimCo]

We use roll to cast. No slots. Int/Wis/Cha mod +prof vs DC 11+spell level. Every recast of same spell, DC goes up by 1. Failed check- spell is locked for the day. Fail check but really need that spell to go off or you don't want to roll and risk it? No problem. You take level of exhaustion and spell goes of normally.

Cantrips don't scale with character level. Instead, there is Overcharge ability for casters. Prof+Con mod times per LR you can cast scaled up version of cantrip.

 

[R_J_K75]

Call it Ted Templeman's Flare, it's just magic right? Material component, the Shark Bite Ibanez...

 

[Corinnguard]

Personally I would go the opposite direction, and strengthen the concept of "spells as recipes", with fixed results besides changing a few basic parameters. I would be interested in playing with a magic system where instead of spell slots the main limited resources were the actual spells components.

This particular magic system would work well for the exploration and social interaction pillars of the RPG. When the party is out adventuring far from any city or town, the spellcasters in the party would need to make some skill checks such as Nature and Survival in order to find and collect the material components they need for any spell they want to prepare. When they are in a town, they'll be using their Charisma-based skills to haggle with the owner of an apothecary or a magic shop for what they need.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I like a combination of the FATE Dresden Files RPG and spell points. A finite amount of spell points but a risk of fallout if you can’t control the points you channel. Some kind of skill check to channel a spell with the more spell points you channel, the more difficult it become. Obviously, higher level spells would cost more points and be more difficult to channel.

If you fail, you have two options:
1. Let the energy go as fallout where you can have things happen to the environment- maybe based on a table similar to wild magic? Not sure how to do that part in D&D. This would also weaken the spell effect.

2. Sacrifice hit points: spell has full effect but Wizard takes damage to maintain the spell’s control.