Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kesh" data-source="post: 2048234" data-attributes="member: 1308">Quintessential Chaos Mage-----------------------------Chaos Magic is an innate form of magic, relying on dynamic effects and allowing the player to make up a 'spell' on the fly. If you're familiar with Mage: the Ascension, this is actually quite similar in a way. It's also quite similar to Elements of Magic, mentioned above, though the original Encyclopaedia Arcane: Chaos Magic came out first, IIRC.Each spell is a combination of an Effect, an Area, a Range, a Duration and an optional Saving Throw modifier. Thus, in order to emulate a fireball, you would have:Direct Damage (Raw fire) + Burst + Medium range + Instantaneous duration.Something similar to mass improved invisibility would be:Transformation (Total) + Allies Only + Close range + By MinuteOnce the components have been chosen, you determine the DC of your casting check to cast the spell (1d20 + caster level + Wisdom modifier). Each component modifies the base DC of the primary Effect up or down. Thus, our fireball is DC 20, while mass improved invisibility is DC 36!However, the system specifically notes that it does not handle Healing, Divination or Summoning effects. The book claims that these ideas don't mesh well with the concept of Chaos. Personally, I'm working on making just such effects for myself, to use in a homebrew world. <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=":)" />Once you've made the casting check, you have to deal with the results. If you succeeded, your chaos mage then takes subdual damage from the effort of channeling that much raw chaos into form. The mage suffers one HP of nonlethal damage for every 5 full points in the DC of the spell.However, if the casting check failed, the mage suffers it as lethal damage instead! Thus, let's assume our mage succeeded in casting the fireball but failed the mass improved invisibility. She would now have lost 4 HP in nonlethal damage, and 7 HP in lethal damage.In addition, should the mage botch their casting check (rolling a 1 on their d20 roll), they suffer a chaos backlash. This advances the character along a chosen Path of Chaos, which imposes a variety of physical, mental or stat penalties. The Path of Berserk Growth, for instance, causes the chaos mage to begin growing plant material from their body. At the tenth step on a Path, the mage is killed or otherwise rendered unplayable... in the Berserk Growth example, our doomed chaos mage spontaneously transforms into a grove of twisted and haunted trees, while the Path of Whispered Madness sweeps the mage into a pocket hell dimension of their own creation.Overall, the Chaos Magic rules allow for a character capable of a wide variety of effects, without the raw power of D&D's traditional Vancian magic system. A Chaos Mage cannot do anything approaching a wish, much less most other high-level spells. At lower levels, though, they can be a devastating force on the battlefield (especially if a friendly cleric can keep healing them).</blockquote>

Verification