What books would you need to simulate Moorcock style magic?

[blackshirt5]

Exactly as it says. I'm wondering what books people would suggest picking up to try to simulate magic as it is in Michael Moorcock's books(since I've heard that Dragon Lords of Melnibone D20 is horrible), so I figured I'd open the question to the floor.

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Well, I haven't read either of these, so I don't know how well they do it, but Chaosium published two versions of a Moorcockian RPG, Elric! and Stormbringer.

For all I know, they're almost identical, since as I say, I haven't examined them. They do, however, exist.


I dunno how well you'd do it with d20.. magic seems fairly powerful in the Young Kingdoms.

 

[Angcuru]

Y'know, my character was given a +4 shocking burst soul-stealing longsword named stormbrand.....

just don't end up running magic fable-style. For all those who were fortunate not to have played fable(that's everyone but blackshirt5, rakeron, and myself), the DM described magic as such: "Everyone from the most powerful of the greater gods to the little dog skippy down the street can use magic." I rest my case.

 

[Piratecat]

Elric magic is generally very long ritual magic. I'm really not sure what would work best.

 

[Keith]

I think all of the necessary elements are in the Players' Handbook to do Moorcock magic justice.
I think the key factor lies not in what book you use, but in how many people you allow to cast spells. A few people can in the Elric stories, but in other Moorcock works (Corum, Erekose, Hawkmoon), almost nobody can. Magic is powerful but exceedingly rare. To mirror this with the base D&D situation is impossible. You would have to declare that as part of a campaign, almost no people would be able to cast spells. PCs who did would be remarkable (which does not seem like a problem to me).
Are you actually going to run a campaign based on Moorcock? Elric, or others? Either way, should be a lot of fun! His works are rich source material, even aside from providing the struggle between Law and Chaos to the game.

 

[Black Omega]

What books? Hm...Hero System 5th edition could do it just fine.

Ok, seriously it can be done with the PHB and some changes. Some spell effects like Bull Strength, seem to be done with alchemy and potions. Before Elric gets Stormbringer he compensates for her physical weakness with herbs and drugs that make him stronger.

Magic is generally powerful but involves ritual and time. And focuses are often important. The ring Elric wore that symbolized the ancient pacts made by his ancestors with Great Powers (tm) probably saved his skinny, albino butt nearly as often as Stormbringer. It might not be bad to eliminate much of the lower level magic and push the power level higher while making it tougher to cast spells, longer duration and using actual componants for many spells.

 

[S'mon]

Mortal magic in the Young Kingdoms seems to be all alchemy and conjuration. Only magical beings like demons have access to other spell-schools. I'd guess you'd need to get rid of all non-conjuration spells for mortal spellcasters. The regular D&D spellcaster classes therefore won't work too well. BTW is Dragon Lords that bad, mechanically? I heard it just ripped bleeding chunks from Stormbringer/Elric!, a good game but one which use the d100 Basic Roleplaying System rules of Runequest & Call of Cthulu.

Incidentally, Young Kingdoms wizards/sorcerers seem more akin to D&D clerics than to D&D wizards; so maybe use the cleric class, but redo the spell list so they only get conjurations, which should reasonably balance them vs fighters & rogues in a lowish-magic environment. The Brew Potion feat would need expansion to allow for the creation of potions of healing, cure disease et al, probably dependent on the user's caster level.

Edit: I have Stormbringer, and frankly for a high-powered game resembling the novels, I think D&D is probably a better rules set than BRP is - in BRP you never get any more hp, it's great for Call of Cthulu but hard to do epic stuff with it. In the novels Elric contends directly with Chaos Lords, even matching blades with Xiombarg at one point.

 

[Iron_Chef]

Dragonlords d20 is a horrible book that mangles every d20 mechanic it tries to tackle. None of the spells are balanced, summoning crappy 1 HD demons drains CON permanently, and there is very little useful info on how to even run a game in the setting. No cool maps, either.

It's nothing but a third-rate hatchet job that was rushed to press to cash in on the d20 fad and hopefully lure d20 players over to Chaosium's BRP (belch) system. Some nice art here and there, though that's small recompense (and it's mostly from the Japanese edition of Elric!).

 

[S'mon]

All the spellcasters in the Elric books seem to be priests of either Law or Chaos. Priests of Law need to be able to create magical constructs, while priests of Chaos do the regular demon-summoning stuff. Some of the conjuration effects are very powerful: eg before Aubec banished the Chaos Lords it apparently wasn't too hard to summon the Lords of Chaos in person. This can be modelled reasonably by the Gate spell being available to a 17th level caster with 19 in the requisite stat - probably CHA.

After he banished them 500 years ago, no one was able to summon them until Elric managed to summon Arioch, precipitating a rapid swing of the Balance towards Chaos. This could be modelled by making the summonation (casting of Gate) in this period require a 10th-level or higher casting via an Epic metamagic feat.

I'm feeling inspired to try creating an appropriate Priest-Sorcerer class for the Young Kingdoms, back later...

 

[S'mon]

OK, here's my draft version of the "Sorcerer-Priest of the Young Kingdoms" core class, with thanks to the SRD.

It's designed for a Young Kingdoms setting with less magic than the 3e norm, but f you remove the spellcraft checks for fast spellcasting I think it'd make a viable class for regular-magic games also.