Smallest rule, biggest change: Magic Edition

[FireLance]

Each spell known by an arcane spellcaster is a spirit bound into a physical form: an amulet, a statuette, a card, etc. When a spellcaster casts a spell, the spirit is temporarily released from its physical form and creates the magical effect. For example, a magic missile spell may manifest as a pixie-sized archer, and a color spray may manifest as a brightly-colored bird. A DM may handwave the acquisition of certain spells (e.g. those gained by a sorcerer or wizard on levelling up), but may require the spellcaster to hunt down and capture the spirits of particularly rare or powerful spells.

 

[Nifft]

Casting costs Sanity.

Cheers, -- N

 

[maggot]

One simple change is to multiple all the casting times of spells by 10. So a standard action spell now takes 10 rounds to cast. This will make casters rely on magic items and long term buff spells.

 

[Slife]

Change the sorcerer's spellcasting ability to Con, and add in a clause that whenever they cast a spell they take nonlethal damage equal to half the spell level (rounded down).

Constitution is a more useful casting stat than Charisma, but the nonlethal damage should be enough to keep the sorc out of melee short term. It isn't too dangerous long term, as you restore your level/hour naturally, and magic healing cures both nonlethal and lethal damage simultaneously. With decent hp bonus from con, you shouldn't be keeling over from casting your high-level spells (and buffs, of course, are great)

Doubling the rate of nonlethal regen at second level will keep you from needing healing between every encounter.

This makes sorcerers a bit more powerful, and changes the flavor from a really attractive spellcaster to a person whose body is so suffused with magic that they can force it to their will.

Replace wizards with blue mages.

 

[Nyeshet]

Each spell known by an arcane spellcaster is a spirit bound into a physical form: an amulet, a statuette, a card, etc. When a spellcaster casts a spell, the spirit is temporarily released from its physical form and creates the magical effect. For example, a magic missile spell may manifest as a pixie-sized archer, and a color spray may manifest as a brightly-colored bird. A DM may handwave the acquisition of certain spells (e.g. those gained by a sorcerer or wizard on levelling up), but may require the spellcaster to hunt down and capture the spirits of particularly rare or powerful spells.

For some reason this immediately reminded me of Card Capturer Sakura - an anime I have not seen in nearly five years. Pull out a card, call out "Fly!", and suddenly the PC has a nice winged broom thing and is soaring through the air.

I suppose Pokemon and perhaps Yugioh (never seen that one) follow a similar idea - especially for summoning spells. "Shocker Lizard, I choose you!"

 

[Set]

All spellcasting requires a Spellcraft check, based on the level of the spell. Metamagic feats are gone, instead, the caster can voluntarily take penalties to the spellcraft check to attempt to modify (still, silence, quicken, empower, extend, enlarge) a spell on the fly.

 

[FireLance]

For some reason this immediately reminded me of Card Capturer Sakura - an anime I have not seen in nearly five years. Pull out a card, call out "Fly!", and suddenly the PC has a nice winged broom thing and is soaring through the air.

I suppose Pokemon and perhaps Yugioh (never seen that one) follow a similar idea - especially for summoning spells. "Shocker Lizard, I choose you!"

Yes, it was an idea partly inspired by Cardcaptor Sakura, and perhaps a bit of Pokemon, too.

 

[khyron1144]

Idea 1: Loosely adaped from 2e era Ravenloft:
Certain spells work normally, but a check of some sort is required when casting. If the check succeeds, nothing special beyond the spell being cast happens. If the check fails, something bad happens.

That's rather vague, but customization is king in 3.x. Here's my suggestion:
Certain spells that feel evil (not necessarily with the Evil descriptor though) require the check (say a Spellcraft check vs. a DC of 10 + [2*spell level]) or else the caster gradually becomes a creature of evil.



Idea 2:
One that some will dig and others will hate: Sorcerers must take a bloodline feat (Dragon Compendium), a bloodline (Unearthed Arcana), abyssal heritor feat (Fiendish Codex I) or similar way to reflect unearthliness.

 

[Nyeshet]

Idea 1: Loosely adaped from 2e era Ravenloft:
Certain spells work normally, but a check of some sort is required when casting. If the check succeeds, nothing special beyond the spell being cast happens. If the check fails, something bad happens.

That's rather vague, but customization is king in 3.x. Here's my suggestion:
Certain spells that feel evil (not necessarily with the Evil descriptor though) require the check (say a Spellcraft check vs. a DC of 10 + [2*spell level]) or else the caster gradually becomes a creature of evil.



Idea 2:
One that some will dig and others will hate: Sorcerers must take a bloodline feat (Dragon Compendium), a bloodline (Unearthed Arcana), abyssal heritor feat (Fiendish Codex I) or similar way to reflect unearthliness.

Regarding the first idea, it works best if you use either the paths of corruption from Ravenloft or something akin to the drifts from 3e's geomancer. Or even the odd paths in the third party book Chaos Magic (can't recall the company that released it; has been years since I looked through it).

The first time they fail they get something minor that has no real mechanical benefit - or perhaps only a very very minor benefit, like +1 to a certain skill check or once per day being allowed to re-roll a save, forced to take the second roll even if it is worse than the first. And they have a minor alteration to their features that shows they are falling astray.

Every week thereafter they can make a single save - at the original DC - to remove the effect. If at any time they either choose to not make the roll (It is voluntary, to reflect their character's dislike of the change / corruption, etc.) or if they gain an additional corruption before succeeding in the roll, then the effect becomes semi-permanent. Higher levels spells can reduce the corruption by one degree.

Once it is (semi) permanent there are few options for removal. High level spells are often involved, perhaps with atonement and a quest. If they 'fail' not due to forsaking the chance to remove it but instead due to acquiring more corruption, once they succeed (if they succeed) in removing the newest, higher, layer of corruption they can once again make saves to remove the former layer - but with the DC raised by +2.

Each increase in corruption brings both greater benefit and greater change - but the benefits often carry a high price. Perhaps they require fresh blood from some creature other than self to activate. Perhaps they have a chance of failure that brings even worse misfortune than the effect it was meant to protect against. Perhaps it is balanced by an opposite - such as gaining Fire Resistance 5 but taking half again as much damage from cold energy. The changes in body might themselves bring minor but potentially useful benefits - thick scaly skin that grants natural armor, horns that grant a natural gore attack, short fur that helps one blend into a natural environment, granting +5 to Hide checks when in such an environment, for example. All sorts of ideas come to mind, although they cannot really be said to be a 'minor' alteration to the magic system, I admit.


Regarding your second idea, that was my point when I suggested that sorcerers have feats like wizards, but must choose either heritage feats or metamagic feats. The idea of a minor or intermediate bloodline also works well, actually - especially an intermediate one. It's not like most bloodlines will (at the intermediate level) overpower the sorcerer. They tend to focus on melee, an area sorcerers tend to do poorly in.

 

[fuindordm]

For each culture, replace the V,S,M components with other casting requirements, such as:

C: concentration
P: potion (use alchemy skill to create doses for Personal spells)
AF: Arcane Focus (similar to Psionic Focus, uses Concentration skill)
Cl: Big Iron Cauldron or similar pain-in-the-butt focus
L: 50% Limitation (can cast only at night, only when "stars are right" (Use Astrology skill), etc.)
S: Side effect: failed Spellcraft roll results in miscast and damage to caster

...
the possibilities are endless. Like V,S,M, there should be :
1. one limitation shared by 99% of spells that is almost impossible to get around even with research,
2. one limitation which most but not all spells have (which you might be able to remove from a spell with research), and
3. one limitation which is more a matter of flavor than a requirement which can be gotten around with a feat.

Other than that, no changes to the rules--but very different flavor for magic in each culture.