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[Ryujin]

Somewhat, and I'm rebuilding the classes already, but its even more fundamental to me as of this morning.

Roll to Cast, Spell Points, Spell Slots, it doesnt really matter, if its DC 11 - 1d4 damage at X Range, or Level 1 Slot - 1d4 damage at X Range, that basis now that I really stare at it, just seems extremely dull, and no amount of scaling or bloat in either the dice rolled or the DC/Slot system is really going to change that fundamental nature of the "D&D Spell System".

If that makes sense.

For all of the unnecessary complexity of the TORG magic creation system, I rather like the way that they handle "canned" spells. The only real limits are that marginal spell casting success can tire or knock you out, while extremely poor casting can quite literally injure you. It makes magic useful, but you're not going to just pop off a spell for the hell of it. You're also going to stick as much as possible to simple/lower power spells, because there's less "backlash" potential to them.

 

[trappedslider]

Well, half of the people in a certain thread at least. Not sure about the hundreds of thousands of other registered members.

I think it would depend on what day of the week it is and the most recent actions by the company. I know there's some in this thread that wouldn't mind.

 

[Cadence]

--

Some eye opening discussion around here these last few days, but one of my main lessons? As I work on my own system?

The "D&D Tradition" of Spell Casting/Magic? Especially what its become but even at its root? Its not interesting. It doesnt feel like Magic SHOULD (and how does that even...) feel.

Its dull, painfully so in main line D&D.

Time to work on that.

I know! Way too many spell slots per study session in D&D compared to Vance (before Dying Earth went summoning crazy with Rhialto).

But seriously, there's a big of range in what magic could feel like going from Dying Earth or Lord Darcy or Garrett Files to Dr. Strange and Mage the Ascension. And there's a lot of magical feeling worlds that don't come close to spells (Chu's War Arts and Bennett's Ana and Din).

 

[overgeeked]

Somewhat, and I'm rebuilding the classes already, but its even more fundamental to me as of this morning.

Roll to Cast, Spell Points, Spell Slots, it doesnt really matter, if its DC 11 - 1d4 damage at X Range, or Level 1 Slot - 1d4 damage at X Range, that basis now that I really stare at it, just seems extremely dull, and no amount of scaling or bloat in either the dice rolled or the DC/Slot system is really going to change that fundamental nature of the "D&D Spell System".

If that makes sense.

Yeah. This is one of the things I dislike the most about D&D-likes. Magic doesn't feel magical. Like at all. For me, the closest any official D&D got was 4E with the combat and non-combat split. Rituals were all the big magic and anyone could do them.

But things like the WoD Mage: The Ascension and Changeling: The Dreaming magic systems were great. But then, those were based on Ars Magica... which is now almost completely released under a CC-SA license. I think the new Warhammer: The Old World RPG has a spontaneous casting vs rote casting system. I haven't quite dug into it enough.

Best of luck cracking that nut.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah. This is one of the things I dislike the most about D&D-likes. Magic doesn't feel magical. Like at all. For me, the closest any official D&D got was 4E with the combat and non-combat split. Rituals were all the big magic and anyone could do them.

But things like the WoD Mage: The Ascension and Changeling: The Dreaming magic systems were great. But then, those were based on Ars Magica... which is now almost completely released under a CC-SA license. I think the new Warhammer: The Old World RPG has a spontaneous casting vs rote casting system. I haven't quite dug into it enough.

Best of luck cracking that nut.

I think I've got a simple framework, conceptually, I'll hopefully have it in an alpha level tonight.

Rituals I was thinking about last night as well, but I never played 4e, I'll have to see if I can find something there.

 

[trappedslider]

 

[Mannahnin]

--

Some eye opening discussion around here these last few days, but one of my main lessons? As I work on my own system?

The "D&D Tradition" of Spell Casting/Magic? Especially what its become but even at its root? Its not interesting. It doesnt feel like Magic SHOULD (and how does that even...) feel.

Its dull, painfully so in main line D&D.

Time to work on that.

One of the things I noticed and was struck by the first time I examined it closely is how few XdX spells casters had in 1974 OD&D.

Clerics had only two healing spells (and that continued through 2E, until later expansions)- Cure Light at 1st and Cure Serious at 4th. That forced you to do other stuff with your 2nd, 3rd, and eventually 5th level spell slots.

M-Us had really only TWO spells which did dice of direct damage on their entire list - Fireball and Lightning Bolt. (I suppose you could count Wall of Fire but thematically it's quite different). There were obviously other powerful offensive spells, like sleep, charm person, hold person, polymorph, and eventually death spell, but fundamentally magic users were not about blasting enemies for HP of damage in direct competition with and thereby outshining Fighters- their offense did categorically different things, except for FB and LB which were mostly for crowd control, sometimes for blasting a particularly large target assuming friendlies weren't in the way.

The Original Edition Delta house rules allow some spells from Greyhawk (including Magic Missile), but impose the Vancian restriction of no duplicate memorization. This keeps casters from stacking and deploying the same trick over and over (unless they have wands or scrolls, which at least are finite resources). Definitely helps magic feel a bit more special.

Over time the editions of D&D kept adding more and more spells, and more and more spell levels got options for direct damage spells, and for Clerics, for healing spells to take up and be used in more slots. And I think overall that was a serious of compounding mistakes. It works ok and obviously tons of folks enjoyed and enjoy 3.5 and 5E where it became possible for every slot to always be filled with damage or healing, but I think games are better off with magic doing weirder, more varied stuff.

 

[Willie the Duck]

View attachment 448148

You joke, but this is one of the few times us X-ers really benefited from being under the cultural weight and long tail of the Boomers.

The first 'Oldies' station I was aware of came to life in 1988. It split itself between 'Golden Oldies' (~1954-1959) and 'Oldies' (1960-69, plus a few 70s hits from artists who started in the 50s&60s). Were that same timeframe rules applied today, Oldies would comprise anything from Britney Spears "...Baby One More Time" to Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" (to Pharrell Williams "Happy," using the 'later work by artist of previous decade' logic). The Golden Oldies would go back to Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back," and anything older would qualify as Moldy Oldies.

 

[Ryujin]

Yeah. This is one of the things I dislike the most about D&D-likes. Magic doesn't feel magical. Like at all. For me, the closest any official D&D got was 4E with the combat and non-combat split. Rituals were all the big magic and anyone could do them.

But things like the WoD Mage: The Ascension and Changeling: The Dreaming magic systems were great. But then, those were based on Ars Magica... which is now almost completely released under a CC-SA license. I think the new Warhammer: The Old World RPG has a spontaneous casting vs rote casting system. I haven't quite dug into it enough.

Best of luck cracking that nut.

I loved Rituals. Add in the expansion to non spell casters being able to use rituals, and at least that part was perfect.

I think I've got a simple framework, conceptually, I'll hopefully have it in an alpha level tonight.

Rituals I was thinking about last night as well, but I never played 4e, I'll have to see if I can find something there.

The 4e Ritual system was typically what, in previous versions, would have been spells with casting times measured in Turns, or at least a number of rounds. The ones with variable results leveraged character skills in order to generate the final result. Knowing the magic, alone, often wasn't enough.

 

[Ryujin]

View attachment 448148

Now I really feel old.