The mechanics of non-stop action

[Xzuatl]

Another thing to keep in mind are rules concerning saving throws. Take D&D for example. If you add some sort of skill check for spell casters (to off set the ability unlimited casting) inorder to mimic say a fighters chance to miss versus his unlimited attacks; the target of the spell caster more often than not, gets a saving throw, whereas the fighter's target does not ( but could have damage reduction).

I kinda like having magic limitations because it makes magic 'special' and also different from normal combat.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[The_Gneech]

Yeah, a measure of fatigue may help both to follow the same mechanics.

If every action cost HP...

Actually, in the Star Wars d20 game, VP are used to fuel Force powers, which is much the same thing...

-TG

 

[Tinner]

Another option that gets used is the "dangerous magic" system.
This is seen in both Deadlands, and the new WFRP2.0.
Spellcasters can cast whatever they know as often as they like, but each time thy do, they risk attracting the wrong kind of attention.
It's only a matter of time before a demon/manitou comes along and devours your wizard's soul.
This makes magic effectively infiinite, but forces players to weigh the risks of using magic to solve all their problems. "Should I heal that minor wound, or is that the spell that will push me over the edge?"

It helps that in both these systems spellcasters aren't helpless in combat without spells. Any character can be as good a fighter as any other, which makes the harsh penalty for magic use less of a burden.

 

[Janx]

This touches on the age old design questions of why is magic more powerful than fighting.

Consider that normally, folks complain that wizards outshine fighters at high levels, therefore wizards must be relatively unlimited in their resources at high levels ALREADY.

It'd be nice if every class had a damage out put that increased with level.
Rogues do (sneak attack)
Clerics do (higher level spells)
Wizards do (higher level spells)
Fighters do (more attacks, better than other classes attacks)
Monks do (bigger damage die)

The question is then, are these damage increases COMPARABLE, such that balance is maintained. At first level, I could care less if a wizard had an infinite supply of Magic Missiles, because 1d4+1 auto-hit isn't much better than 1d8 arrows being shot by a skilled archer. At higher levels, straight attacks can't keep up with 10d6 fireballs however.

Conceptually, you'd want progression method that kept all classes sort of scaled to each other in damage output for each level (the exception being for classes that specifically trade off damage for increases in other aspects). If you could do this fairly, then you could easily justify wizards having infinite output with spells.


Another aspect to consider (and someone touched on it) is the nature of healing. Continual healing output would probably skew the game, look at console RPGs, where you can keep drinking potions while fighting, therefore never dying against the BBEG. One thing I'd suggest is to model healing closer to real life. A smart author once wrote, "The act of destruction is far swifter than the act of creation". So why is it that D&D treats healing and hurting as mirrors of each other. Logically, healing should be harder and slower. If you modeled this realistically (at least symbolically), your most common reason for regrouping and recouping would be to rest and recover HP, nobody would run out of damage dealing ability, they'd simply run out of HP. This would in turn justify wizards higher damage factor (because they are easier to hurt and have fewer HP, so they have to recover sooner (thereby reducing the total damage they can deliver).




Janx

 

[SteveC]

You might want to take a look at this here. It is my token based system for Wizards. It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but I've gotten some good comments. In a nutshell: wizards can only cast a limited number of spells per combat, but they can do that in as many combats as the GM wants to run. Let me know what you think!

--Steve

 

[Desdichado]

Another option that gets used is the "dangerous magic" system.
This is seen in both Deadlands, and the new WFRP2.0.
Spellcasters can cast whatever they know as often as they like, but each time thy do, they risk attracting the wrong kind of attention.
It's only a matter of time before a demon/manitou comes along and devours your wizard's soul.
This makes magic effectively infiinite, but forces players to weigh the risks of using magic to solve all their problems. "Should I heal that minor wound, or is that the spell that will push me over the edge?"

I love dangerous magic systems. My last homebrew excised all the spellcasting classes from the game, and had d20 Cthulhu style magic. Anyone could learn it, and if you knew a spell, you could cast it as often as you wanted. Until your ability drain, Sanity or hit points ran out, anyway.

Something a bit more like what der_kluge seems to be asking for could be accomplished if it wasn't for the problem of infinite healing spells too, though. If you take out all the healing spells, replace hit points with WP/VP so they recover on their own fairly quickly, you could more or less have infinite spellcasting, though.

I still wouldn't do it; your spellcasters would probably dominate the game too much, but at least you'd have a framework to get to work tweaking the balance.

 

[sniffles]

Another option that gets used is the "dangerous magic" system.
This is seen in both Deadlands, and the new WFRP2.0.
Spellcasters can cast whatever they know as often as they like, but each time thy do, they risk attracting the wrong kind of attention.
It's only a matter of time before a demon/manitou comes along and devours your wizard's soul.
This makes magic effectively infiinite, but forces players to weigh the risks of using magic to solve all their problems. "Should I heal that minor wound, or is that the spell that will push me over the edge?"

It helps that in both these systems spellcasters aren't helpless in combat without spells. Any character can be as good a fighter as any other, which makes the harsh penalty for magic use less of a burden.

I like this idea. Or alternatively, you could have a system in which magic comes from a universal "mana" pool that everyone taps, but everyone also knows it isn't infinite. Just like our oil supply, to use a present day example. So some spellcasters wouldn't care and would just keep on slinging spells willy-nilly, while others would be more cognizant of future repercussions and would resist using spells unless they were absolutely necessary. That would be more difficult to adjudicate mechanically, though.

 

[tetsujin28]

Such a game could look a lot like Heroquest. There's no fundamental difference between 'cast fireballs all day' 17 and 'second story thief' 17.

 

[JimAde]

I use a "dangerous magic" system based on S. John Ross's "Unlimited Mana" from GURPS. I've massaged it for d20 and sorcerers in my game can use the regular rules or the unlimited variety. With unlimited mana you can cast really big spells, even exceeding your normal level limits, but you have a chance of really messing yourself up if you push it.

But I don't think any version of "dangerous magic" is what der_kluge is looking for (emphasis added):

But what would a system look like if a wizard or cleric could just continue to cast spells indefinitely without repurcussion just as a rogue could pick locks, or a fighter swing an axe?

To do that, you'd need a full re-write, like Elements of Magic.