What kind of magic do you like?

[Voadam]

mmadsen,

This is the way I remember it, I have not played in years and I never played a mage.

Shadowrun works on pools of d6s with targets, each d6 is a separate chance to get a success, multiple successes shift things farther along (either increasing or decreasing) damage.

Mages have a magic pool of a bunch of d6s

Each spell must be succesfully cast using the magic pool. Once cast, each spell also has a damage code for casting, or "drain" which can be resisted, Easy spells go to stun damage, tough spells cause real damage. Sufficient success on resisting drain can eliminate or reduce the damage. Wounds cause penalties to all rolls including spell casting, and there are other circumstance modifiers that I don't remember.

The spells and magical background theory and flavor are awesome. Mechanically I never was comfortable with the d6 resolution method.

Hong,

I Go with Black. Blue is ok but black is just cool.

 

[Voadam]

Flavor wise here are the shadowrun basics

archetypes:

Hermetic mages

totem shamans

Adepts (internalized magic an example being super martial artists)

spells travel through astral space, mana affects living things but not items, there are in depth summoning rules for elementals and spirits, enchanting, and astral travel (which all mages and shamen can do).

 

[mmadsen]

I'd like to see more personlized/personality-based magic.

This reminds me of something I dislike about the Sorcerer (and spellcasters in general): a spellcaster is better off picking a variety of unrelated spells (or spells that are "related" only in that they work well together) than picking spells that match a theme.

From the description, the Sorcerer class would be great for "fey-blooded" spellcasters, but choosing all trickster spells is neither enforced nor rewarded; it's just bad decision-making on the player's part. At least wizards have a notion of specialists.

 

[Maedhros the Tall]

I have to vote that the current D&D magic system is not the best possible. This is mainly because of sacred cows IMO, but I digress. I like both the lower powered magic settings, where magic is feared or even not truly believed in as well as the high levels of magic found in Forgotten Realms for example. The problem of slots is that it makes magic too regimented. Meta-magic feats help, but not enough to overcome the basic limitations of the system.

As for myself, I am not currently in a campaign and so have no real reason to work out the bugs of the magic system. I have one system that I have been kicking around shortly after 3E came out that uses an elementally based magic favor and Lore Ratings to determine what spells you can even learn, as you may be a high level mage, but if you have no experience with Water Elemental spells, that new spell you discovered makes no sense to you. Just my thoughts.

 

[bramadan]

I do not like current DnD system for magic. Simply it leads to the kind of setting that I am not confortable with. (No castles, no armies in traditional sense, everybody who is anybody has to have magical resources etc...)
I agree that magic should have much more dangerous/mysterious edge. I am writing an entirely new magical system that is based arround the idea that once you know the spell you can cast it whenever you want as many times as you want.
Limiting factors are the time it takes to cast the spell, rare and expensive material components that are needed and always present chance of mishaps and rebounds.
Consequently my spells tend to be quite powerfull if not truly flashy but you would not expect to cast more then one or two per adventure even if you are spell-caster.
Also I have all spell casting classes as the prestige classes that one can not qualify for before levels 4-6. At 1st level I have Scholar which is a best "path" class for the spell casters and also gets 8 skill points per level (explaining why the wizards tend to be sagely despite their measly 2SP progession).
Most complete of my rules so far is Necromancer class. I am still working on spells but the class itself is largely done. It isalmost 30 pages long however so I can not post it here. If anyone knows of somewhere I culd upload it for those who are interested to look and comment I will gladly do that...

 

[nopantsyet]

i like magic with danger and fatigue. manipulating the cosmic forces should weaken and exhaust you, and possibly kill you. but i prefer it to be highly polarized. anybody can learn minor spells, but the danger and exhaustion increases very quickly so there is a big gap to cross in terms of ability and risk to cast more powerful spells.

 

[Desdichado]

I like the Wheel of Time magic system, but it's hard to divorce it from the setting without a few tweaks. Similarly, the Star Wars Force Adept class and a slightly modified Jedi Consular make decent mages of the kind I like.

I don't have it, but from what I hear, though, Sovereign Stone d20's magic system is similar in many ways to Star Wars but with the right flavor already built in.

Then again, I like a lot of other things from those games too. I like to use VP/WP, a defense bonus to AC (instead of magical armor, for instance) and most of the non-magical WoT classes as well.

 

[mmadsen]

I'd like the magic in dnd to be a bit more mystical. Now it has the mystic of a bunch of onions. Just pressing a button, seeing effect, button will be reset tomorrow.

This brings up a few key points: (a) D&D magic works like clockwork, and (b) it has no real cost; you just have to wait a day to cast again.

Given these points, there's no explanation for anything resembling a "low magic" world -- or even a "medium magic" world. Most of the restrictions on magic only really restrict adventuring spellcasters who might need lots of spells in one day of multiple combats. Imagine how powerful even a 1st-level spell is if you can cast it each and every day with no real cost.

And I would like magic to be a bit less powerful. A high lvl wizard can beat ANY other class.

I'd prefer to see magic made "less powerful" by increasing the cost of casting, not by reducing the power of individual spells. I don't mind that a 20th-level Wizard is off-the-charts powerful; I do mind that he has no reason not to use that power every day.

Further even the lowliest Wizard is casting flashy spells at will -- and without fear. It would fit more people's image of magic if novice Wizards faced at least some danger or risk of failure, and it would lead to a more "reasonable" world if weak magic worked subtly.

 

[mmadsen]

I do not like current DnD system for magic. Simply it leads to the kind of setting that I am not confortable with. (No castles, no armies in traditional sense, everybody who is anybody has to have magical resources etc...)

Excellent point. The logical consequences of the D&D magic system do not lead to anything recognizable.

 

[Psion]

The logical consequences of the D&D magic system do not lead to anything recognizable.

I really don't agree.

First off, D&D does not come with a setting. The presence of castles and armies is a setting detail. If you think there will be an impact due to magic, put that in.

Second, most of these assumption of changes rely on magic being exceedingly common, which again is a setting decision. Magic, while powerful, isn't mass produced. Further, they rely on magic taking a prevalent role in the military; often wizards decline any sort of normal relationship with the rest of society.

Finally, in real history, many times the predicted "logical consequences" of a given technology ofren never pans out due to practical factors.

I find these arguments about the effects of magic overblown at the very least.