What's your favorite spellcasting system?

[garrowolf]

I like the OWOD magic system especially for Mage The Ascension, which is actually my favorite. I also like Palladium's' PPE system.

The PPE system was better then vancian magic but I didn't like it either. In any system with magic points you end up either hording your points and never letting loose or making decisions based more on what you have points for then any kind of logical strategy in the game. If you have too many points then you stop paying much attention and then what is the point to them in the first place. If you have too few then you are playing a crippled character type.

I eventually just removed any kind of magic points from my games. They don't add anything to game play but they pull you out of the game flow to keep up with a number.

So how does it actually help anything?

 

[Diamond Cross]

This thread is not about criticizing RPG systems you don't like.

And I'm really burnt out on this whole Vancian magic hate fest, so please, I'd appreciate it if you would please give me a break and keep it in the other thread.

 

[Slander]

Ars Magica and Talislanta 4E are probably my favorites for non-d20 games; Elements of Magic and/or True Sorcery (depending on the magic level for the setting) are my favorites in the d20 arena as they have a similar feel.

I'm very much a fan of the "roll your own" spell systems.

 

[Diamond Cross]

I'm very much a fan of the "roll your own" spell systems.

Roll your own spell systems?

???

 

[jefgorbach]

I'd have to agree with the True Sorcery comments and add Mont Cook's d20 World of Darkness as yet another vastly improved alternative; the sole(?) drawback to either being their inherent flexibility does require more out-of-game effort by the player/mage to determine how effective they will be since ALL of a spell's variables (area, duration, effects. range, etc) are exactly that: variable.

 

[SSquirrel]

I think that the oWod Mage did come the closest but it was too vague.

I don't know that vague is the word I would use to describe it. It did give rough power levels (and exacting levels of damage capabilities) for every dot of power in a sphere, but the system had very little in the way of rotes. This was always one of the flaws of Mage, they didn't give you enough examples of the system in action.

Once you spent time with it and understood that Prime 2 Time 1 Matter 3 would be required for the effect you wanted, it was easy, but it was very much a system where the player and DM had to kind of talk about what effect the player wanted to produce and then see if that was something they were capable of. This is not what people who want reams of spells to choose from want. Rolemaster spell lists or any edition of D&D prior to 4E, b/c really any given level only has a few options in the end, as well as what they did to Mage in the New WoD provide you with the huge lists. In Mage rotes were easier, but on the fly magic was the norm, rather than how it is now where rotes are the norm and on the fly magic is harder.

The old system had more give and take to it, but produced much more creative options. You just had to have a DM who knew the magic system cold or a DM who didn't know it well and a player who did that could steamroll their ideas past him

 

[jedavis]

Roll your own spell systems?

I imagine from the context of the post that he meant systems where you get to make up your own spells on the fly. And I tend to agree; EoM was a little baroque for my tastes (sooo many elements...), but the core looked good.

 

[Treebore]

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

Found it, here is the direct link for anyone interested in a downloadable document:

http://wiki.garrowolf.net/nexus/NexusPlayersGuide.pdf

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't have an issue with Vancian magic.

That said my favorite magic system was in Shadowrun pre 4th edition. It made sense to me that you could cast magic for as long as you could resist drain. I also liked that there were not a ton of spells and that spells could be cast at different levels.

Sure casting a force 1 fireball would not do as much damage as a force 4 but the drain was less.

 

[garrowolf]

well I tried to have some of the versatility of the oWoD Mage system while also having more specific feats. The skill is broken down into trained, focused, and mastery. Each section gives you greater and greater control over the topic of the power. There is a lot of feats in each one that allow you to do these things more quickly (rotes) but you can actually do any of the effects on that levels, but as a complex action. You can also modify the details of an effect by increasing the DC.