New 44-Page Elements of Magic (Revised) Preview!

[Verequus]

-"Create Air: When you create air, you can choose its temperature, between extremes of -40 and 150 degrees." Celcius or Fahrenheit?
Sorry, I'm Amero-centric. I'll clarify that it's Farenheit (sp?).

It is spelled Fahrenheit. How about adding "...between extremes of -40 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit (or between -40 and 65 degrees Celcius)." It would be a convience for players aboard America, especially, if it is the only place, where degrees come into play.

-Transform Creature: Can you simply change yourself into a creature with a template? For example giving yourself the Winged template?
I didn't know there was a winged template. But yeah, for about 1 MP you could turn yourself into a flying human for a minute.

IIRC, the Winged template is in Savage Species.

-BTW, did you check the Epic rules out? It has been released as Open Content last week.
Dude, the book is done. I can release epic rules some time later. Sorry man, but I'm running out of steam, and the spell seed system hurts my head.

I can wait for that Epic web enhancement. And the spell seed system is simply broken. The seed idea is good (EoM lite ), but the system with the DCs - brrr... simply awful.

Theoritically, one could devise a spell, which eliminates all beings in the entire multiverse, including gods, with the exception of the caster. For getting the DC low, just use the backfire option. It will kill you, too, but with a resurrection contingency, you will be alive. And for the people who had the same contingency... include the dispel seed in the epic spell, so only you will be alive again - and then no one can stop you becoming the greatest god ever!

You can say that the DM should take care of that, but it means to rule out an entirely valid spell. No system should allow such effect for 21st-level-character - if at all, then the character speaking such a spell should be at least as mighty as Ao himself!

BTW, I would like to have the option for creating artifacts. The rule, that the knowlegde of artifact creating has been forgotten, shows only, that the creators of D&D couldn't come up with balanced rules. EoM should allow that because it scales so nicely and eventually the spells with the effects of artifacts would be castable, not to mention, that scrying into the deep past for the creating knowledge is possible and would be done, too - at least I would do it .

 

[Verequus]

With EoM it is possible to charm undeads, although in the core rules it is stated otherwise. But how about other immunities for other creatures types? E.g., the abominations are immune to mind-influencing effects in core, but also with EoM? If there is no general immunity, is then an immunity on a case-by-case-basis possible? Or can that only be a permanent/racial bonus for a being?

 

[donm61873]

teom "srd replacements"

It strikes me that what would be very useful (and admittedly, difficult for the authors) would be for someone(s) to detail the required supporting changes to the existing SRD spells, magic items and monsters...

Or, is some of that already in the revision?

As is, tEoM is like buying a toolkit, but it's metric tool, and the SRD is in standard sizes...


DonM.

 

[Verequus]

It strikes me that what would be very useful (and admittedly, difficult for the authors) would be for someone(s) to detail the required supporting changes to the existing SRD spells, magic items and monsters...

Or, is some of that already in the revision?

As is, tEoM is like buying a toolkit, but it's metric tool, and the SRD is in standard sizes...

1. AFAIK, there won't be a PDF, which includes all the SRD stuff, from the authors - maybe they would make a nice PDF, if the GMs do the conversion on the board. (Guessing on the SRD size, there has to be an own board alone for that ).

2. You can't really convert all the spells 1:1. There is not anymore the "no save"-option and because spells have a maximum duration of one day, spells like Geas are impossible to reproduce without make them permanent. Also one has to spend 8 MPs for the all-day-duration, which means that core spells below the 5-level will have a maximum duration of one hour in EoM - e.g. Animal Messenger, 2nd or 3rd-level spell, has a duration of day/level.

But not every effect has to be translated 1:1 - the EoM-Animal Messenger could do the trick with only diplomacy checks and not with a mind control (thanks, RW!). So be flexible: Search for alternatives, which need lesser MPs. Does someone know other good tricks?

3. For the magic items and monster abilities: There are rules for creating magic items (though in Lyceian Arcana, not in EoM) - no need for converting them except devising a spell with the wanted effect. Monster abilities could stay the same, if you can't do a 1:1-convert and change the CR accordingly (in the case of a big chance of the spell power level). But if official conversion exist, is unknown at the moment.

 

[donm61873]

Perhaps you misunderstand my intent...

I think that every GM that looks over tEoM will love it, until they realize how much work it really requires for full implementation...

And I'm suggesting that we should take care of that little problem; sure - some of the "conversions" are obvious - and some aren't (like the question about how to make light). Enough that a simple module could be run as a demo or something should be in the tEoM pdf. BUT, here, we can go all the way and go for a complete swapout of the SRD... rebuild it from the ground up with tEoM as the magic system.

That's what I'm suggesting...

 

[Kavyk]

There are rules for creating magic items. There aren't rules for monsters, but essentially the only thing that would need to be changed, as RuleMaster points out, is their spell-like abilities. So, basically, for a 'total conversion' of the SRD, all you're really talking about is an ENWorld Forum with signature spell equivalents of every spell in the SRD, which is something that RangerWickett already plans to do, I think.

There are already some signature spells in the thing, but not a lot. If all of us who think it would be awesome to have this 'Ultimate EoM Spellbook' work together, I'm sure we could post most of the equivalents here or in another thread specifically for that purpose. Of course, if we all take bits, etc it cuts down on the work load of any particular DM and hopefully will encourage use of the system.

So, in a nutshell, I think it is a great idea, and all we will have to convert is spells. Though all of them cannot be converted, we can still get pretty close.

edited to add question:

I'd actually like to start a thread entitled: Ultimate EoM Spellbook, but I think I need permission and a place to put it. I've already got an EoM equivalent of Acid Arrow and Acid Fog. No time like the present.

Last edit, really:

This also means, if we start a group thing, I volunteer to convert the A-B SRD document to EoM.

 

[RangerWickett]

I wanted to start a fan-driven database of spells, and I assumed there'd be a lot of conversions inherent in the process. I'll talk to Russ about getting perhaps a new sub-forum for posting EOM material, but it probably won't appear until the book is actually released.

The idea about a walk-through adventure is kinda nice. I'll see what I can do.

 

[Verequus]

The idea about a walk-through adventure is kinda nice.

An adventure? Don't you mean a guide?

The idea of a database isn't bad, but I don't know if I will have time for that - I already waited over 6 months for starting another project. At least self-created spells can be easily put in.

 

[donm61873]

Yeah, I don't want to delay this coming out - I want it now!

But, I want us to be ready to give GMs some help...

 

[Kavyk]

I think that something else we could do to help DMs and players would be to come up with some starting packages. That was something that I found very helpful when 3.0 first came out. These may already be in the works, or not, but it I'm sure we could still come up with some alternate packages and a few starting spells.

I'm not sure how you would really do a walk-through adventure for this product. Except for spellcasters, everything is going to be functionally identical. Even with monsters, you'll create spells which duplicate existing effects for them. But I'd still be interested to see what was developed.