What's your favorite spellcasting system?
- Thread starter Iota
- Start date
Actually, it was a lot of fun. One of the things that drew me back to D&D was 4E's spellcasting. It's a nice mixture of old school (dailies and encounters) and utility (at-wills). 
Depends on the style of game.
For a game where wizards truly are all powerful, then everyone is a wizard, and Mage (be it oMage or nMage) is best.
For D&D, I've always liked the variability and specialized nature of 3.5 psionics, which are generally better balanced then the wizards to boot.
For a more bronze age, gritty, sword and sandals style game, RuneQuest does it really well.
Really, the answer changes depending on what I'm trying to play.
For a game where wizards truly are all powerful, then everyone is a wizard, and Mage (be it oMage or nMage) is best.
For D&D, I've always liked the variability and specialized nature of 3.5 psionics, which are generally better balanced then the wizards to boot.
For a more bronze age, gritty, sword and sandals style game, RuneQuest does it really well.
Really, the answer changes depending on what I'm trying to play.
Michael Silverbane
Adventurer
I prefer D&D's pseudo-vancian magic...
That said, I have also enjoyed the magic system in the oWoD Mage line, the Force-Use mechanics in Star Wars Saga Edition, and the Ward mechanic in the 1st edition Palladium Role Playing game.
That said, I have also enjoyed the magic system in the oWoD Mage line, the Force-Use mechanics in Star Wars Saga Edition, and the Ward mechanic in the 1st edition Palladium Role Playing game.
For something that is still pretty close to D&D magic but much more flexible, I have to go with the magic system from Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved. The strong emphasis on caster implements was carried into 4E and while it is still Vancian magic, you can weave spellslots to obtain more lower or higher level spells and you can easily add new modifiers to the spells once you know them. So every spell could be fire based if you wanted. Really helps with theming.
The ENWorld Elements of Magic, Lyceian Arcana and Mythic Earth supplements were a evry interesting series of twists to d20 magic that I sadly never got to actually play. They looked like they would be pretty neat tho.
I have to go with Umbran and a couple others tho for my top non-D&D style magic and go with Mage. Specifically Old World of Darkness pre-Revised (so 1st or 2nd Ed Mage) as in Revised they basically destroyed the game. They made it ridiculously hard to cross the Gauntlet anymore, made Paradox even nastier. Basically said "Hey the Technocracy is winning, you're screwed, why are you even playing?". There were 9 spheres of magic and with a careful blending of spheres, you could accomplish nearly anything. Heck in the original edition it made it sound like Forces 5 would let you create black holes. In 2nd ed they specifically said you could NOT do that. Probably b/c people like me were doing things like that in games heh.
The ENWorld Elements of Magic, Lyceian Arcana and Mythic Earth supplements were a evry interesting series of twists to d20 magic that I sadly never got to actually play. They looked like they would be pretty neat tho.
I have to go with Umbran and a couple others tho for my top non-D&D style magic and go with Mage. Specifically Old World of Darkness pre-Revised (so 1st or 2nd Ed Mage) as in Revised they basically destroyed the game. They made it ridiculously hard to cross the Gauntlet anymore, made Paradox even nastier. Basically said "Hey the Technocracy is winning, you're screwed, why are you even playing?". There were 9 spheres of magic and with a careful blending of spheres, you could accomplish nearly anything. Heck in the original edition it made it sound like Forces 5 would let you create black holes. In 2nd ed they specifically said you could NOT do that. Probably b/c people like me were doing things like that in games heh.
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I created my own magic system because I hated to at least disliked most of the magic systems out there. One of my problems with most of these systems is that they don't match hardly any magic system in any books or movies. Most systems in stories are centered around a certain power or theme and are variations on that. I think that the oWod Mage did come the closest but it was too vague.
I created a series of powers that have a few different levels to them but lots of options. Each spell effect is a feat but for each level there is plenty that you can do.
Check it out!
Nexus Magic Powers - Nexus D20 Wiki
I created a series of powers that have a few different levels to them but lots of options. Each spell effect is a feat but for each level there is plenty that you can do.
Check it out!
Nexus Magic Powers - Nexus D20 Wiki
Treebore
First Post
That looks pretty neat, is there a compiled document to DL somewhere in there?
I like the OWOD magic system especially for Mage The Ascension, which is actually my favorite. I also like Palladium's' PPE system.
it's in the top right of the main page called Player's Guide
I'm working on a better copy currently but those rules work well
While I like Vancian magic a lot, my fave is HERO, because I can model whatever kind of magic is most appropriate to the PC.
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