Rules Savy Mathematicians/Magic Buffs Help Me Out Please ;)

[rootbeergnome]

Thank you very much for all the help guys, I really appreciate it. It has certainly put things into perspective for me. I like the idea of the gurps system that you talked about. Another thing I was thinking about would be to maybe have the skill check be for a specific school of magic (conjuration, evocation, etc) but give magic-users a number of skill points to spend per level on magic school disciplines, I was wanting to go for a low magic type setting where high magic is possible, but dangerous. I am still not sure on how I want this all to work. Thank you very much for your input, any more thoughts or ideas?
-RB Gnome

 

[Verequus]

How many alternative magic rules do you know? The more you know, the more ideas you can compare, which means contemplating rule changes, which aren't proposed here.

For starters, look at these books: Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed, Unearthed Arcana, Expanded Psionics Handbook and Elements of Magic: Revised (PDF only) change the assumptions more or less. Arcana Unearthed has three layers of spell in every spell level - simple, complex and signature. If you know a layer of spell level, you know every spell of it - like a cleric. But you select every day a certain amount of spells of them, which you want to be able to cast for that day. Then you can cast the chosen spells like a sorcerer.

Unearthed Arcana has a spell point system, which are like power points. You choose your spells (I don't have UA, so I don't know details) and cast them spontanously. You have to spent extra points on a spell to raise the caster level, so even a 10th level wizard tosses 5d6 fireballs, even he doesn't want to spent more or want to save spell points for another fireball.

XPH is the second most flexible system of all - UA being last. It allows to augment powers, like UA, but has more options for every power than merely a raising of the damage. But the king is EoMR - it is two or three steps more flexible than XPH. It uses magic points and spell lists - the latter can be combined to define spells, which can be spontaneously cast. I believe, that EoMR qualifies as the best basis for a skill magic system of all systems, I know of. Maybe in the successor of EoMR, Lyceian Arcana, a skill based system is included, but I'm not sure about that. For more infos about EoMR look here: http://www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php?sub=yes&where=currentprod&which=EoMRE

 

[Li Shenron]

But then you have a system, which has one to be a math major to understand it in all ways - and IMHO that's too much for a game like D&D.

Hey, we are doing the math only to see if the variant system makes the caster weaker, more powerful or balanced with the core one, but it's a "designer's job" only, players and DMs won't ever have to know about the math behind

 

[JimAde]

Thank you very much for all the help guys, I really appreciate it. It has certainly put things into perspective for me. I like the idea of the gurps system that you talked about. Another thing I was thinking about would be to maybe have the skill check be for a specific school of magic (conjuration, evocation, etc) but give magic-users a number of skill points to spend per level on magic school disciplines, I was wanting to go for a low magic type setting where high magic is possible, but dangerous. I am still not sure on how I want this all to work. Thank you very much for your input, any more thoughts or ideas?
-RB Gnome

Ok, so I've been knocking Unlimited Magic around in my head and I've come up with an implementation of it for d20. I think it's pretty cool, but I don't know if I should post it. Unlimited Mana is copyright Steve Jackson games. The GURPS version is available on the web for private use, but they retain copyright. The work I've done here is just porting the concept to d20. I suppose I could have filed the serial numbers off, but I want to give credit where it's due.

If you want to see what I've done, PM me. Thanks.

 

[Verequus]

Hey, we are doing the math only to see if the variant system makes the caster weaker, more powerful or balanced with the core one, but it's a "designer's job" only, players and DMs won't ever have to know about the math behind

Tinkering with rules is a favorite pasttime for DMs - and we all know, how bad it goes, if a DM doesn't understand the whys and other implications. Look into the "Help to prevent the nerf of 3.5 psionics"-thread (or how the names goes) - the DM described let even sorcerers prepare their spells... (Also I have to admit, that I don't know the reason for it.)