Ramble - design inspiration that comes too late

[astriemer]

The option that your spellcasting check sets the DC is probably the best solution so far (like 3e psionic combat). Roll d20 and add your skill ranks for the DC.

Another option though would be that you don't have to make a success check if the spell level is less than your character level. Thus, you'd only be making the success checks for spells that are pushing your limit. This has the problem though in that it would probably make infinite lower level spells possible. Perhaps you could put a time limit on it as well. If the same spell type is cast within 1 minute of each other, then you need to make checks as if it were a higher level spell (kind of borrowing from the recharge magic idea from unearthed arcana). You could even modifiy the time between spell castings so that attack and charm spells would be able to have a quicker wait time (d4 rounds), and some of the utility spells would have longer wait times (1 hour).

The other thing that could keep it "skill based" is that the spell could succeed automatically, but after casting you make a skill check to determine if you become fatigued (or exhausted).

I like the wealth version, but the problem is that the way the wealth system is structured there seems to be a design mechanic to help to keep it balanced. Just about all of the potentially unbalancing items (all magic items for example) have purchase DCs of 15 or more (meaning that regardless of your wealth score you automatically reduce your score). If you structured it so that your magic rating would automatically be affected more quickly, it might work. Maybe just make it such that anything with a higher MR than 5 would cause a deduction or something like that.
You're skill check could compliment what causes you to recover your MR rather than just resting. Like you get skill check points back each 8 hours that you rest.

 

[Slander]

I'd like to throw one other alternative out there. What if we remove the spell failure portion originally suggested and replace a different penalty:


There are 10 magical skills, and by spending skill ranks in those skills, basically characters of any class can gain the ability to cast spells of the appropriate type. Spell levels go from 1 to 20, basically equivalent to character level, so at 1st level you ought to be casting 1st level spells, and at 10th level you should be casting 10th level spells.

Whenever you cast a spell, you make a magical skill check with a DC based on spell level. You can cast a spell little higher or a little lower if you want, altering the DC accordingly. If you fail, you suffer a cumulative -1 penalty to your spellcasting checks until you get some rest. When the cumulative spellcasting penalty equals the number of ranks in a given magical skill, you can no longer cast spells from that skill. This gives you a lot of flexibility in how you dole out your power.


While there are still two rolls involved, this ensures 100% spell-casting success at the risk of burning out your future-potential. Larger penalties could be applied for overcasting. Skill checks could be done away with if the difference between the spell levela and current skill rank (penalties included) is greater than ???.

This has a side effect of rewarding skill specialization (since those are the spells to which you'll have access longest). If the penalties seem to harsh, the DCs could be scaled back. If its not enough, maybe a sliding penalty based on degree of failure could be implemented.

 

[Abulia]

That looks very much like spell lists from RoleMaster, something that once was converted into the CP2020 system for a game one of my buddies called 'Fantasy Punk'.

Yep, functionally it is the same. I thought the same thing upon reading. Honestly, if I wanted such a system, I'd probably be playing RM anyway.

(Sorry, not thread-crapping; just professing my love of RM. We RM players are a rare breed.)