What inspired the D&D magic rules and do you like it?

[Narfellus]

EOMR is a very interesting system, although i haven't used it in-game yet. I rolled up a character, and there is also the new expansion pdf that lets you recreate every spellcasting class from the core rules. There is a definite learning curve with Elements, it's not quite as easy as i hoped it would be, but with a dedicated DM and players it could turn out to be very rewarding. It sort of gives a mysterious feeling to magic like Ars Magica has, but it's balanced for typical 3.x games. There's a ton of threads and sites regarding EOMR.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

You are more or less describing "Elements of Magic Revised".

Yes, I know. I bought EOMR yesterday. I haven't read the whole book yet, though.

Still, it's not exactly what I had in mind with my system. No spell lists, only the seeds. You wouldn't need "invoke fire" and "invoke air" for fireballs and lightning bolts, respectively. You'd need invoke, fire and air. You'd need invoke on level 3 though (you get x seeds every level, and with these you either buy new ones or upgrade old ones - a little like skills), and probably fire on level 2 as well (or something)



When we're talking about EOM: how's the other EOM Book - Lyceian Arcana?

 

[Ravellion]

I like spontaneous casting as a nice alternative to the vancian system. I have used spell points, but at high levels it just mans that you have wizards cast very few spells but all of them are the most powerful they are able to crank out. This makes them one trick ponies and lessens them having to play smart: "I cast my highest spells till I have x spell points, because then I can still teleport the party out after the encounter". At low levels they work quite well though.

Rav

 

[Verequus]

Yes, I know. I bought EOMR yesterday. I haven't read the whole book yet, though.

Still, it's not exactly what I had in mind with my system. No spell lists, only the seeds. You wouldn't need "invoke fire" and "invoke air" for fireballs and lightning bolts, respectively. You'd need invoke, fire and air. You'd need invoke on level 3 though (you get x seeds every level, and with these you either buy new ones or upgrade old ones - a little like skills), and probably fire on level 2 as well (or something)

Hmm, I see, what you are getting at, but I am not convinced, that this is as balanced as EoMR. Yet I would have to the entire system to form an opinion.

When we're talking about EOM: how's the other EOM Book - Lyceian Arcana?

Great! Simply great! There is no other way to describe it - LA takes EoMR to another level. I was perplexed reading of those ideas. If someone likes EoMR, then LA is simply a must-have.

BTW, there is a skill-based EoMR in planning, but unfortunately I couldn't sneak peak yet, so I'll refrain from uttering an opinion about it.

 

[Staffan]

Personally, I wouldn't mind letting someone cast one spell from their book every 15 minutes without limitation, especially in 3.5; it's not like they'd get a lot of use out of it, and using it in-combat is out of the question.

That's unbalanced with regard to non-combat spells or spells with long durations. It means that there's basically no cost to the wizard for walking around with mage armor up as well as keeping the party monk and/or rogue suited up as well. At higher levels, you run into things like scry and other effects where an additional 15 minutes casting time won't matter.

 

[RFisher]

This is what I meant by 'no magic' in my startpost of this thread -> no PC's should use magic. The storyteller might add some supernatural things here and there, be it 'magic', be it 'divine intervention' or something similar. This is the way I implement it in my homebrew.

Yeah. & you can still have Merlin's & Gandalf's: NPCs who weild magic by GM fiat rather by a set of rules.

You could even keep in the spirit of this & have PCs weild magic by GM fiat rather than rules. e.g. Like what Mouse pulls off just before he becomes the Gray Mouser.

I like the idea of players who don't feal cheated because other, powerful persons can do stuff they never will be able to. I don't like Gandalf NPC's (though he's a bad example cause he doesn't show much magic, but still, it's more than the rest of the Fellowship combined has).

Understandable.

But...just because the PCs don't weild magic doesn't mean that the NPC magicians are clearly "more powerful" than the PCs. Conan & Lieber's Twain could defeat magicians without magic.

Gandalf, of course, was a Maia. Do you prefer to exclude all supernatural entities that can do things the PCs never can from your games?

Even Merlin (at least by some accounts) wasn't completely human.

I certainly don't always want to do things this way, but it's generally consistent with the kind of fantasy literature I enjoy. Magicians tend to be helpers & antogonists rather than adventurers.

(Generally. A good counter-example being Vance's Rhialto the Marvellous.)

And you shouldn't overgeneralize your view. Magic doesn't have this role in "literature". Only in some literature. The best example is surely Harry Potter, but lots of other novels include protagonists with magic at their disposal.

Overgeneralize? That's the nature of generalizations: They don't hold when you look at specifics. I think its a perfectly fine generalization. (Although, admittedly I automatically tend to try to "factor out" the effects that D&D has had on literature.)

The point isn't really about the protagonist not weilding magic. It's that magic is a servant to the plot no matter who is weilding it. It generally doesn't follow a known set of rules. (Some of the rules may be known, but seldom are they all known.) That even holds for Rhialto & Harry Potter.

The easiest way to allow magic to serve the same role in a game is to make it GM fiat rather than a set of rules.