Non-Vancian magic system?

[Malin Genie]

Although spontaneous casting is a (small) move away from the "place spells in slots in the morning, expend each spell once" model, it still has X slots of a given level, each slot being a 'use once per day' deal.

What do you guys think, in general terms (as I'm not yet presenting a specific system) of the following possibilities -

(1) Power Point based?
(2) Magic as a skill? (can use magic as often as you like, but each time you must make a (or several) skill rolls, and failure might have consequences, like temporary ability damage, fatigue, backfire, etc)
(3) Unknown spell capacity (each time you cast, roll a die with a modifier based on the power of the spell and the number and type of spells you have cast so far. If you fail, you 'burn out' for the day, but if you keep making your rolls, you can continue to cast.)
(4) All-item-magic (all magic is stored in items like wands, staves, rings, but only members of the 'Wizard' class can create and use these items. Like the 'scientist' class from Pulp d20 in Polyhedron)
(5) Body Fuel (spells, instead of using slots, deal subdual, or ST (or DX, or CN, or even mental attribute) damage, which must be recovered through rest)
(6) There are no spells, only (Su) abilites usable at will by 'sorcerors'. These would be weak at low levels, but could be more powerful or versatile at higher levels.
(7) A combination, or 'other': please add your suggestion to the list, for me and others to comment on !!!

 

[Blacksad]

Some comments and links for the proposed magic systems

(1) Power Point based?

Psionic
http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/srd.html
Jagged Edge Games (First time I get the name right!) Mana system
http://www.d20reviews.com/jagged/umbragia/v03-sorcery.html

(2) Magic as a skill? (can use magic as often as you like, but each time you must make a (or several) skill rolls, and failure might have consequences, like temporary ability damage, fatigue, backfire, etc)

May the Force be with you
http://www.enworld.org/d20reviews.asp?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=SWAR
Sleeping Imperium complete psychic
http://www.sleepingimperium.rpghost.com/d20downloads.htm

(3) Unknown spell capacity (each time you cast, roll a die with a modifier based on the power of the spell and the number and type of spells you have cast so far. If you fail, you 'burn out' for the day, but if you keep making your rolls, you can continue to cast.)

It seems really hard to balance such a system IMHO

(4) All-item-magic (all magic is stored in items like wands, staves, rings, but only members of the 'Wizard' class can create and use these items. Like the 'scientist' class from Pulp d20 in Polyhedron)

Master Smith PrC from Magic of Rokugan might provides a good baseline to produce such a system
http://www.enworld.org/d20reviews.asp?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=MAOR

(5) Body Fuel (spells, instead of using slots, deal subdual, or ST (or DX, or CN, or even mental attribute) damage, which must be recovered through rest)

Chaos Magic
http://www.enworld.org/d20reviews.asp?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=ENCM

(6) There are no spells, only (Su) abilites usable at will by 'sorcerors'. These would be weak at low levels, but could be more powerful or versatile at higher levels.

I would be interested in such a system (it'll produce nice NPC without hard to keep spell list).

(7) A combination, or 'other': please add your suggestion to the list, for me and others to comment on !!!

Ok!

(8) Golem creation magic
http://www.enworld.org/messageboards/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5050

(9) Magic as science
Anyone can produce any effect given the good components (works great with minor magic and plants, with fireball spell it gets ugly)

(10)Video Games Magic like:
Amulet wich produces different effect for different classes, for example a fighter might get the flaming ability on his weapon with a fire amulet at level 5, and flaming burst at level 7, while the wizard get Fireball at level 5 usable two times per day and four times per day at level 7 with a new fire spell.

 

[Raduin_Nimblegrund]

Soverign Stone is a good example of this. When somone would cast a spell, you would roll a d20 plus your spellcasting modifier (forget what it was called, the number depends on your intellignece, race, and element of the spell iirc) and the spell would be cast when the difficulty of that spell was met. the spellcasting was a continuous effort, so if it was not met in the 1st round, you would roll again in the next and add the two totals together until you met the difficulty.

but to be honest, I didn't really care for the spellcasting system. Not that it was unbalanced, but the spells weren't always useful and you didn't have many of them... in fact, the number of spells you got depended on a die roll as well. I played an ork water mage, while another player played a multiclassed elven air mage/rogue, and he ended up with a better selection of spells than i did. =[

 

[WaterRabbit]

In the Sovereign Stone you don't roll to determine how many spells you know. The number of spells you know is based upon your intelligence and you get to pick the spells from your element. Anything beyond that is what your DM put onto the system.

 

[Raduin_Nimblegrund]

grrr. I am sure I rolled for how many spells I knew. yeesh. =P

 

[Crothian]

Personally, I really like the way in Chaotic Magic. IT's basically free form and depending what you do determines the DC. Then you roll the die. And bad things can happen if you fumble that roll.

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

Just thought I'd mention that there's a new magic sourcebook out for d20 Sovereign Stone...Codex Mysterium. It might be worth checking out.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

You could use a Patricia Wrede Enchanted Forest Chronicles type magic system...

There would be too ways of casting spells.

1. Straight out of a spellbook. It'd work like a re-usable scroll, but takes a long time... Ritual-like, perhaps 1 full minute (10 rounds) per level of spell.

2. You have a "focus" (an amulet, staff, hat, ring, whatever...) that you can store spells in. Whatever spells are stored in your focus can be cast spontaneously as a sorcerer does.

So the number of spells you "know" is unlimited and determined by the thickness of your spellbook. "Readied" spells would be the number of spells stored in your focus, and can be changed from day to day, so long as you have your spellbook handy (use the sorcerer "spells known" chart)... Remeber spellbooks can get very expensive, large, heavy and thick. I can't see most wizards carrying them around with them every day. "Spells per day" would be the number of spells the wizard can actually cast every day, before wearing himself out (use the sorcerer "spells per day" chart).

 

[Jarval]

There's a conversion of Ars Magica to d20 rules here . It's probably not quite what you're looking for, but there are some useful ideas there.