Making Magic Mysterious

[Speaks With Stone]

I'm trying to find either an existing sytem or good set of house rules for redefining magic in my upcoming d20 game. For background, I'm trying to run a Dark Ages Mage game, but I'm leary of trying to use White Wolf's system again. We tried before and the combat system was a bit dodgy and the magic over the top.

What I want is for magic to be more mysterious and less like a science formula. What I mean is that I want the players to be able to access magic that have somewhat predictable results, but a certain amount of murkiness about the results as well. The best example of what I am looking for was in Unearthed Arcana with Incantations. They had one in there where you can summon an extraplanar entity that can answer questions about doors. This could be used for learning a password, who last used the door, or where the key is kept or whatever. It could be very useful, or it could be a dead end. What I like about this is it turns a simple "Knock" spell or divination into an event.

Another example would be instead of a teleport spell, have an incantation or such to open a secret path where you can travel quickly, but have dangerous encounters along the way. The players may have an entire night's adventure, but arrive at their destination a minute or two from the time they left.

Is there a good system for handling this? Has anyone worked up a bunch of incantations based on Unearthed Arcana or Urban Arcana (it had some more examples)? Has anyone attempted to convert White Wolf's Mage magic system to D20?

 

[avr]

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=370422 may be of use.

 

[cr0m]

Check out True Sorcery, by Green Ronin. It's a skill-based, free-form magic system built for use with d20 (it's also got appendices on using it with True20 and a couple other systems/settings).

In a nutshell, they replace all spellcasters with a spellcaster class. Spellcraft is the skill for casting spells. You learn basic "magic" powers like Create Fire, and then add effects to it to create the kind of spell you want. A fireball would be Create Fire, plus range, plus some area, plus damage dice == some DC. You roll your skill and voila--spell! High DC spells cause drain, there are rules for unpredictable effects and failures, and tainted casting.

I really like it.

 

[Speaks With Stone]

Thanks for the help. I've copied all of those Incantations from that thread into a document that I'm trying to clean up and see if I can make it a bit more balanced, but a great resource. Thanks.

True Sorcery sounds like the Black Company magic system. I just borrowed that book from a friend and it has a similar dynamic.

At this point I'm considering something like BC or True Sorcery OR just adding in lots of incantations and modifying the availability of normal spells.

I've toyed with my own version of something like True Sorcery with my own categories. I came up with things like:

Awakenings: This would be used at low levels to speak with things that normally couldn't talk (animals, rocks, chairs) and move up to animated items and golems.

Oracles: Various divination spells that ranged from y/n questions of the cosmos to the ability to change the future.

Gates: Opening doors to other worlds - useful for speeding up travel in the current plane or gathering rare resources.

Bindings: Make magical oaths, geas, bind ghosts or other spirits and demon types.

I like the way these set up more open ended results, but I'm probably too lazy to work this out into a cohesive system. Ten years ago, I would have finished this. Today with 3 kids, hmm, maybe. Any thoughts on how to expand on this?

 

[Archade]

Check out True Sorcery, by Green Ronin. It's a skill-based, free-form magic system built for use with d20 (it's also got appendices on using it with True20 and a couple other systems/settings).

In a nutshell, they replace all spellcasters with a spellcaster class. Spellcraft is the skill for casting spells. You learn basic "magic" powers like Create Fire, and then add effects to it to create the kind of spell you want. A fireball would be Create Fire, plus range, plus some area, plus damage dice == some DC. You roll your skill and voila--spell! High DC spells cause drain, there are rules for unpredictable effects and failures, and tainted casting.

Is that like the magic system published in the Black Company Campaign Setting?

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

According to all the ads, yes True Sorcery is based off the Black Company system. Google is your friend.

Revised and expanded from the ENnie Award-winning The Black Company Campaign Setting, this system provides new spells, a slew of sample spell effects, feats, and an all-new magic item creation system. The book also includes conversion guides so you can use True Sorcery with Malhavoc Press’s Iron Heroes, d20 Modern, Thieves’ World, and the hit True20 Adventure Roleplaying game.

http://true20.com/products/product.php?id=32_0_3_0_M
http://www.rpgshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=38532