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

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Rangerwickett has finished putting together a new, 44 page preview of the sequel to The Elements of Magic.

You'll find it by heading over to the (newly improved) EN Publishing website. Let us know what you think!

(Oh, and while you're there, feel free to buy something else from EN Publishing's fabulous collection of super-duper products!)
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Oh, Russ, could you include a link to this thread so people can discuss the teaser? Since it is an abridged version, I'm sure there'll be questions.
 

Dalamar

Adventurer
Looks great!

And now that we've gotten over that :p, to the points that jumped out at me. In bold is the section which the question stems from when progressing from the start of the teaser, even if some of the questions refer to material in multiple sections.

Magical boons: Do the energy resistance boons stack with each other?
Signature Spells: When can a character choose to change their signature spells, every day, level... ? The teaser for Lyceian arcana implies that they can be changed by saying that a member of that tradition must keep one constant.
Elemental subtypes: Why don't creatures of the plant type have [Nature] type instead of [Life]? Also, summoned elementals are not treated as outsiders for purposes of banishing, they are [Extraplanar].
Friendly Elements: Is the energy resistance granted a total of 5 points in a round against the element and friendly elements, or 5 points each. Also, why do you go on your way to make energy resistance work the way it worked in 3.0 if this is supposed to update EoM to 3.5? Lastly, the second paragraph on this subject ends prematurely.
Opposed Elements: This is, essentially, the Vulnerability to Energy special quality of the core rules, why is it not referenced as such?
General enhancements, duration (concentration): Is there no limit to how long a mage can keep concentrating? This could result in very high-duration effects in a pinch (need to ride that dire wolf for a day and don't have enough MP to increase duration? Charm Animal with a concentration duration and couple of Concentration skill checks and you're dandy).
Can the Weather enhancement of Create Air be used if you have a duration of concentration? The letter of the rules say no, but the spirit would seem to be a working concenpt.
Abjure Nature AC bonus: +11 Deflection bonus for 1 minute for the BBEG fight? Sign me in. Make that a +15 bonus if you know the BBEG's alignment! Why does the bonus get so high when in the core rules you can't get a Deflection bonus higher than +5 before getting into epic equipment?
Create Element, Elemental Object: What kind of proficiency is it to use a weapon made from elemental force, the standard for a weapon it 'looks' like? The same with damage. Also, Elemental Object enhancement mentions that it does damage, but the Elemental Weapon says "...or you can choose it in addition to the elemental object enhancement, above, to create a weapon of pure damaging energy". Shouldn't that be "...to create a more damaging weapon of energy"?
Create Element, Enduring Object (Life): So I need this to magically create a peg leg?
Create Nature: Can this be used to create corpses (they were once living)?
Evoke Death, Infect enhancement: So I can infect mummy rot with this?
Evoke Death, Negative Level enhancement: Why can the target only lose a single level even if it has gained 5 negative levels from a single spell while in core rules (if my memory serves) you make a save for each level separately?
Evoke Fire, Elemental side effects: Should the damage done to an item by its own burning ignore hardness and the normal halving rule that is in effect with objects?
Evoke Nature, elemental side effects: "The damage is considered magical for the purposes of overcoming DR." Wouldn't this sound better as "The damage penetrates DR as if it was a magic weapon"?
The text doesn't say that you can choose which damage type (piercing, slashing or bludgeoning) the damage does, but implies that by saying that Evoke Earth only does bludgeoning damage. As the caster meant to be able to choose which type of damage to deal?
Heal, Cure Affliction enhancement: Maybe change the end to "...heal afflictions with the same cost that Evoke Death causes them"? It took me a while to realise that's what it meant.
Illusion, enhancements: While there are no skill checks to smell something, could the bonus not be applied to the Wisdom check that creature with Scent make?
Infuse with Element, Enhance Ability Score: Why does the Enhancement bonus to an ability score go up to +14? The greatsword wielding, Power Attacking barbarian is going to like this. Just Power Attack the gained to-hit bonus away for a total bonus of +24 (1,5*7+2*7) to damage per swing.
Infuse with Force, Enhance Attack: +10 Enhancement bonus to all heads of that 12-headed hydra or that Colossal dragon? Ouch.
Move Force: What is the effective size for performing special maneouvers with this spell?
Transform Creature, Stronger Creature enhancement: Why does this not simply use the Swarm rules from the revised MM instead of allowing possible abuse of turning into a group of selves to cast a lot of spells in a round?

Whew, I think that's all for the time being.
 
Last edited:

gpetruc

First Post
The teaser is very nice, and I hope the full version comes out quickly.

There are two possible typos that I wanted to point out:

in the beginning, talking about energy esistances:
Note that friendly elements don’t always match both ways. You are protected against your friendly elements, but they are not necessarily protected against you. For instance, acid has the friendly element metal,
the sentence does not end ...

In the transform
Stronger Creature (varies). If you an object or creature into a creature with a Challenge Rating of more than 1, and if the CR is higher than the original CR, you must choose this enhancement.

You've probably left out the word transform: "If you [transform+ and object or creature ..."

Anyway, really a great work.
 

gpetruc said:
The teaser is very nice, and I hope the full version comes out quickly.

There are two possible typos that I wanted to point out:

Anyway, really a great work.

Answering this one is shorter and easier, so I'll do it first.

The energy resistance one is a typo. One of the last problems we noticed was that, well, earth, crystal, metal, and nature don't do energy damage, they do physical damage, so I went in and swapped out a few resistances here and there, and I missed that one. Thanks for pointing it out.

Ditto for the Transform line. I noticed that yesterday myself.

I'm thrilled that you guys like it, and I hope you won't hesitate to point out any last minute mistakes. Though we've been working and playtesting these rules for about six months, nothing beats having a few hundred new people tearing through your work. :)
 

This is a bit longer of a reply, but I'm glad you pointed a few of these out to me. A lot of them are just the result that we trimmed a lot out for the teaser, so the answers are in the full text, but I'll answer you here for fullness's sake.

Magical boons: Do the energy resistance boons stack with each other?
Very little stacks in this system, with the main exceptions being Evoke and Heal damage and curing. I'll add in a short line to each of the energy resistance boons (and the greater animagus one) to say that if you pick a higher-powered boon for the same element, you can swap out your old boon for something else.

Signature Spells: When can a character choose to change their signature spells, every day, level... ? The teaser for Lyceian arcana implies that they can be changed by saying that a member of that tradition must keep one constant.
Changing your signature spells is doable no more than once per game session, and takes your character 8 hours. The specifics of the ritual, study, procedure, etc. are left up to you and the GM to determine, but since signature spells are designed to speed up the game, we suggest a limit of only changing them between game sessions. Of course, if you have a weird session, where the first half is one day, and the second half is two months later, your GM should let you change your spells, but players are encouraged to have the new spells pre-written.

Elemental subtypes: Why don't creatures of the plant type have [Nature] type instead of [Life]? Also, summoned elementals are not treated as outsiders for purposes of banishing, they are [Extraplanar].
Nature only applies to inanimate biomatter objects. Nothing does 'nature damage,' since nature is not actually an energy type. As for the extraplanar thing, that must've been one of the 3.5 changes I glossed over. I'll take a look at that; is it a big deal?

Friendly Elements: Is the energy resistance granted a total of 5 points in a round against the element and friendly elements, or 5 points each. Also, why do you go on your way to make energy resistance work the way it worked in 3.0 if this is supposed to update EoM to 3.5? Lastly, the second paragraph on this subject ends prematurely.
Huh. That's another 3.5 change I missed. In 3.0 it was a per-round resistance. Well then, I'll fix that. ;) As for the second paragraph ending prematurely, that's addressed above. It was an error in snipping.

Opposed Elements: This is, essentially, the Vulnerability to Energy special quality of the core rules, why is it not referenced as such?
Just a different choice of terminology. I didn't think to use that term, but I'll include it in the final version.

General enhancements, duration (concentration): Is there no limit to how long a mage can keep concentrating? This could result in very high-duration effects in a pinch (need to ride that dire wolf for a day and don't have enough MP to increase duration? Charm Animal with a concentration duration and couple of Concentration skill checks and you're dandy).
Can the Weather enhancement of Create Air be used if you have a duration of concentration? The letter of the rules say no, but the spirit would seem to be a working concenpt.

Of course, the problem is that, if you get distracted while concentrating, you've got a Dire Wolf trying to eat you. If you want to devote all your attention to a single spell so that it has a long duration, you're welcome to it. It could be broken if you hire a bunch of weenie wizards to cast Infuse spells on you to boost your abilities, then just concentrate for an entire day while you go off hacking at monsters, but generally I don't see it as a problem. As for the Weather enhancement, I'll change it so it says the weather takes 10 minutes to manifest, so if the spell ends early, you're out of luck. Concentrating will be viable.

Abjure Nature AC bonus: +11 Deflection bonus for 1 minute for the BBEG fight? Sign me in. Make that a +15 bonus if you know the BBEG's alignment! Why does the bonus get so high when in the core rules you can't get a Deflection bonus higher than +5 before getting into epic equipment?
This is an effect of how the system is different from the core rules. Now, Abjure Nature is supposed to provide an enhancement bonus to AC, whereas Force and everything else provides a deflection bonus, with force being even less than Nature. I see that's one of the things missing. (p.s., collaborative book-writing can get confusing sometimes)

In this system, there are still only a few sources of AC-boosting. Abjure is the primary one, Infuse Air for Dexterity increases also works, and finally you could use Transform to turn yourself into some nasty creature with high AC.

It's all a sort of rock-paper-scissors proposition. If you cast a spell that provides super high AC, then you haven't provided any protection from spells. If you know you're about to fight the Tarrasque, feel free to toss on +11 AC to defend against it, but usually you'd have something that grants some AC, some save bonuses, and some energy resistance. And mind you, these are 20-MP spells we're talking about. 20th level characters regularly do things that seem ridiculously powerful, but since both sides are doing it, it balances out.

In the field of magic items, it's possible to have +10 Full Plate with +10 deflection (total AC is +28), for the reasonable price of 801,650gp. That sort of stuff works fine for epic level games, but the more fighter common equipment we ended up defaulting to in our playtests is +6 Full Plate for 50,650gp, +5 deflection item for 49,000gp, a +5 saves item for 25,000gp, an energy resistance 10 (everything) item for 25,000gp, a +5 keen ghost touch weapon of some sort that does +2d6 force damage for ~100,000gp, two items for +6 Dex and Con for 72,000gp, one +10 Str item for 144,000gp, and then incidental other items. When you have that, sure, the mage can shell out 20 MP to give you a +5 AC bonus for one minute (since the bonus doesn't stack, it just replaces what the armor grants).

Create Element, Elemental Object: What kind of proficiency is it to use a weapon made from elemental force, the standard for a weapon it 'looks' like? The same with damage. Also, Elemental Object enhancement mentions that it does damage, but the Elemental Weapon says "...or you can choose it in addition to the elemental object enhancement, above, to create a weapon of pure damaging energy". Shouldn't that be "...to create a more damaging weapon of energy"?
An elemental object is just like a normal object of that type, except niftier looking, and if you hit someone with a fire longsword, it does 1d8 points of fire damage instead of 1d8 points of normal damage.

The wording is a little off there. For an example, if you create an elemental flame longsword that has the 2 MP elemental damage enhancement (a 4 MP spell), it'd do 1d8+2d6+Str points of fire damage per hit.

Create Element, Enduring Object (Life): So I need this to magically create a peg leg?
Well, I was thinking more along the lines of food. A pegleg isn't actually part of the creature. It's just an item.

Create Nature: Can this be used to create corpses (they were once living)?
It can, yes, but more commony it'll create wooden objects, things made of shell, etc.

Evoke Death, Infect enhancement: So I can infect mummy rot with this?
I don't know of any spell that causes mummy rot. It's not a disease; it's a curse. So no.

Evoke Death, Negative Level enhancement: Why can the target only lose a single level even if it has gained 5 negative levels from a single spell while in core rules (if my memory serves) you make a save for each level separately?
Oh, that's a typo. You still save for each negative level.

Evoke Fire, Elemental side effects: Should the damage done to an item by its own burning ignore hardness and the normal halving rule that is in effect with objects?
I'm not quite sure what you're asking here.

Evoke Nature, elemental side effects: "The damage is considered magical for the purposes of overcoming DR." Wouldn't this sound better as "The damage penetrates DR as if it was a magic weapon"?
The text doesn't say that you can choose which damage type (piercing, slashing or bludgeoning) the damage does, but implies that by saying that Evoke Earth only does bludgeoning damage. As the caster meant to be able to choose which type of damage to deal?

I'll use the 'magic weapon' statement.

Evoke Nature does just damage, nonelemental and nonspecific of slashing/piercing/bludgeoning.

Heal, Cure Affliction enhancement: Maybe change the end to "...heal afflictions with the same cost that Evoke Death causes them"? It took me a while to realise that's what it meant.
It's spelled out in the full text. I trimmed for space in the teaser.

Illusion, enhancements: While there are no skill checks to smell something, could the bonus not be applied to the Wisdom check that creature with Scent make?
I'll look into it.

Infuse with Element, Enhance Ability Score: Why does the Enhancement bonus to an ability score go up to +14? The greatsword wielding, Power Attacking barbarian is going to like this. Just Power Attack the gained to-hit bonus away for a total bonus of +24 (1,5*7+2*7) to damage per swing.
There are more efficient ways to kill things with magic than to buff a warrior buddy. The power attacking barbarian should like this, if that's the way you want to use your spells.

Infuse with Force, Enhance Attack: +10 Enhancement bonus to all heads of that 12-headed hydra or that Colossal dragon? Ouch.
Indeed. Have you read the 'I killed the lich queen of the Githyanki in one round' thread? If you manage to have a giant reptilian ally or try to summon and charm one, then buff it, enjoy it. That's the kind of crazy stuff high level characters do.

Move Force: What is the effective size for performing special maneouvers with this spell?
Oh, I did forget to include that. It's Medium.

Transform Creature, Stronger Creature enhancement: Why does this not simply use the Swarm rules from the revised MM instead of allowing possible abuse of turning into a group of selves to cast a lot of spells in a round?
If you turn into several creatures, one keeps your mind; the others are just creatures. So you could have one 10th level wizard human and a bunch of commoner humans. There is a high-level option that lets you duplicate a low-level version of yourself, but that's complicated, so I won't get into it here.
 

Dalamar

Adventurer
RangerWickett said:
As for the extraplanar thing, that must've been one of the 3.5 changes I glossed over. I'll take a look at that; is it a big deal?
I'll make rules quotes on this to make it clearer, both to myself and anybody that happens to read it. First, the start of the description for extraplanar subtype (found at p. 309 of MM): "A subtype applied to any creature when it is on a plane other than its native plane. A creature that travels the planes can gain or lose this subtype as it goes from plane to plane. This book assumes that encounters with creatures take place on the Material Plane, and every creature whose native plane is not the Material Plane has the extraplanar subtype (but would not have when on its home plane)."
Then the beginning of the Dismissal spell (the little brother of Banishment): This spell forces an extraplanar creature back to its proper plane if it fails a special Will save..."
So being banished has nothing to do with being an outsider, it has to do with the target being on a different plane than its home plane. So you can be dismissed back to the Material if you are in the Abyss (since you would then have the extraplanar subtype).
Huh. That's another 3.5 change I missed. In 3.0 it was a per-round resistance. Well then, I'll fix that. ;)
You might want to check the energy resistance values with this new information in mind. In 3.0, with Fire Resistance 30, you were immune to one Fireball per round (with average damage). Now, you're immune to all Fireballs that deal average damage or less.
In the field of magic items, it's possible to...
But would you shell out all that money on those items if you knew that, in a pinch, the mage could give such a big boost to AC? Instead of spending that cash on a Ring of Protection, you buy a (slightly more expensive) Ring of Lucky Defense for a Luck bonus to AC.
I don't know of any spell that causes mummy rot. It's not a disease; it's a curse. So no.
If Mummy Rot is a curse, then why is it listed on Table 8-2: Diseases on page 292 of the DMG?
Evoke Fire, Elemental side effects: Should the damage done to an item by its own burning ignore hardness and the normal halving rule that is in effect with objects?
I'm not quite sure what you're asking here.
Look at the Harndness of a normal Steel weapon, that's 10. And inanimate objects take half damage from energy attacks. So while you might make a sword burn, it wouldn't actually take any damage because the d6 (halved) has no chance of getting over that Hardness.

And thanks for the answers and explanations, it's always nice to hear the logic behind choices that have been made in regards to mechanics.
 

RangerWickett said:
In the field of magic items, it's possible to have +10 Full Plate with +10 deflection (total AC is +28), for the reasonable price of 801,650gp. That sort of stuff works fine for epic level games, but the more fighter common equipment we ended up defaulting to in our playtests is +6 Full Plate for 50,650gp, +5 deflection item for 49,000gp, a +5 saves item for 25,000gp, an energy resistance 10 (everything) item for 25,000gp, a +5 keen ghost touch weapon of some sort that does +2d6 force damage for ~100,000gp, two items for +6 Dex and Con for 72,000gp, one +10 Str item for 144,000gp, and then incidental other items. When you have that, sure, the mage can shell out 20 MP to give you a +5 AC bonus for one minute (since the bonus doesn't stack, it just replaces what the armor grants).

Whaaat?? :confused:
These prices for magic items have very little if anything to do with standard core rules pricing. The plate would be around 3 million gp and the keen ghost touch weapon is 200.000 in the core rules.
Does EoM change the costs around for magic items? If so, that may hold me from buying and using the product. The reason for this is that the assumed wealth by lvl for PCs etc and the treasure awarded in published adventures won't represent what a given wealth can afford?

Comments?

:)
 

A few things get changed around because of the differences in systems. In EOM, there is no such thing as a luck bonus, divine bonus, or natural armor bonus. Now, mind you, I don't have the Epic Level Handbook, and couldn't really use its rules for epic magic items anyway because that part is not open content, but the magic item costs do end up being very close to things in the DMG, as long as you stick to the normal +5 limit.

As a basic guideline, for enduring magic items (like stat-boosters, flight items, etc.), take the MP cost of the appropriate spell, add 1 to that, square it, and multiply by 1000gp. This took an excruciatingly long time to tweak and develop, to make sure that we could directly tie magic items in with the EOM magic system, keep costs at the right level, and keep the spells at the right level.

Now, the issue we get into is that the core rulebooks cap certain effects, but we wanted to avoid that. I mean, if you want a high-level spell to boost Str or AC, it should be an option. In the core rulebooks, very few high-level spells provide statistical bonuses. You can't get a stat mod above +4 in the core spells, can't get an AC bonus much above . . . I think also +4, maybe a bit higher for some of the high-end Cleric spells. Now, that works fine when you learn individual spells, but a major part of EOM is that a single spell list can go from 0 to 20 MP (0th to 9th level spells), and core rulebook effects of this sort level off after 6 or 7 MP.

So we kept the ability to keep advancing, but at a slower rate. 5 MP gets you +6 Str, but 10 MP only gets you +8; 5 MP gets you a +5 enhancement bonus to a weapon, but 10 MP only gets you +7. It is possible to make very powerful items, but they're prohibitively expensive. Now, the cost for that +10 enhancement +10 deflection full plate was actually the cost for +10 enhancement full plate and some other +10 deflection item. Any given item can only have one spell on it, so you'd have to be a 40th level caster to make a single item with both effects (and it'd cost 1.6 million gp).

The costs for items are really close when you're at modest levels. +5 full plate is still 25,000gp, +6 stat boost items are still 36,000gp. The only noticeable change is in weapons, and that's because all attempts to make the weapon costs fit into the same system as everything else and also match the core prices just didn't work. If you notice, in the core rules, a +2 Sword costs 8000gp, but a +2 Armor costs 4000. It seemed silly to just say 'double the prices of all weapons,' so we finagled with the pricing of spells and such, and worked it out like this:

+1 sword - 4000gp (conveniently, this is the same cost as for a +2 Str item; both items give you +1 to attack and damage)
+2 sword - 9000gp
+3 sword - 16,000gp
+4 sword - 25,000gp
+5 sword - 36,000gp
+6 sword - 64,000gp
+7 sword - 100,000gp
+8 sword - 169,000gp
+9 sword - 289,000gp

In the core rules, the prices are:
+1 - 2000
+2 - 8000
+3 - 18,000
+4 - 32,000
+5 - 50,000

The cost of the +5 keen ghost touch +2d6 force (fire, etc.) weapon is made from an Infuse Force 5/Infuse Space 2/Create Force 2 spell (total MP cost 9). Add 1 more for the magic item creation, square and x1000gp, and we get 100,000gp, half of the core price. If I'd just made it +5 keen, the cost would be 49,000, as opposed to 72,000 core.

Magic items were a sticking point, yes, and after reviewing your points, I'm considering upping the costs for a few spell effects. Ask me about any other item, though, and it should be pretty close to core.
 

RangerWickett said:
<snip>

Magic items were a sticking point, yes, and after reviewing your points, I'm considering upping the costs for a few spell effects. Ask me about any other item, though, and it should be pretty close to core.

If everything but a few spell effects fits nicely, wouldn't it just be possible to tweak the cost of fx weapons arbitrary? For me it is a big problem if material I'm supposed to use isn't immediately compatible with core rules.

Good reasoning btw and I agree (more or less ;) ).


:)
 

Remove ads

Top