Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreatLemur" data-source="post: 3480985" data-attributes="member: 28553">Yeah, I've got to concur on that one.  I've always thought that check-based magic systems sound great until I realize that, inevitably, players are going to fail a bunch of checks and be really disappointed.I think there's a nice compromise available in threshold systems like the ones in Sovereign Stone and Thieves' World.  Every spell has a casting threshold (or mana threshold, or something) that you have to reach in order to cast it.  You roll your check (something like d20 + ability score mod + level-based bonus), and if you hit or exceed that threshold, the spell goes off fine.  Of course.  But if you don't make the threshold, you can roll another check on the next round and add in your last result to the total.  Needless to say, this kind of system pretty much assumes that some spells will take more than one round to cast, and some of those casting thresholds can be pretty high.So I think failing to cast a spell probably isn't so bad when it's not a complete waste.  Not sure how applicable something like this would be to Grim Tales, of course.  Cumulative +2 to casting checks for each failed attempt?  Not entirely sure what you'd do about spell burn, though.  Suffering burn for each round of casting might be a bit rough.</blockquote>