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[Drawmack]

Anyone with Int 11+ and 2 ranks of Spellcraft can get spells at 1st level by taking the Basic Spell Use feat. The problem for 1st-level characters when it comes to using spells is that they won't have the Channeling feat, so their spells will cost double Will Points. But, at 2d4x2 WP burn, characters CAN cast spells, they are just going to pay a premium for them. Certainly this is not going to be for everyone, but that was the whole point with this revision -- to make it a tough call on whether to invest on the spellcasting road (for non-mages, anyway).

you're right I should have been more precise. At first level magic is extremely difficult to perform and therefor will be much less prevelant which kind of defuncs the entire cr system at first level.

Actually, I was discussing will gain with one of my players and we were thinking that Wisdom (being pretty darn important as far as collecting lots of WPs) should maybe affect your WP potential but not recovery. We were actually thinking that perhaps Constitution should assist WP recovery, but I'm still thinking about it. It's one of those things where Wisdom might make the most sense, but might not be a good decision for game balance.

I have always went to making sense first and acheiving balance second. Though in this situation I think that using con is unbalancing. The reason being high con = faster hp healing. Why should someone's will be healed faster just cause their body is? Wouldn't will be healed as their mind heals, which is wis?

I agree with "never give the character anything for free" but the characters do have to pay for all of the above, yes having to pay for something (especially once you climb to high levels) is not a big "detriment," but it's something, especially in my campaigns where treasure is more scarce than normal. Having said that, I think your ideas are cool. Possible addiction for overusing Willdraught would be another option.

I still think that they should have a rules based detriment, especially as the most powerful ones can be made by anyone with a couple of ranks in alchemy.

Whoa. I think we are on different pages. First of all, not all characters get two feats at 1st level; humans get a bonus feat, fighters get a bonus feat (but it has to be a "fighting feat") and I'm giving extra bonus feat to characters who choose barbarian or fighter as their first character class, but again none of these feats are spellcasting.

You're right, I was tired. So any human can take basic spell casting at first level and channeling at second if they save their extra feat for a level. So you'll have an over population of human casters. Additionally yes the fighter's bonus feat has to be a fighting type feat but a human fighter can give up both their first level feats on magic and still have a fighting feat at second level. It's not much of a deterent to them to loose two feats on magic. But for them to loose two feats and a bunch of precious skill points.

So, Channeling is kept away from all characters except mages til 4th level. This is by design.

but it's not see above.

I guess I could be more specific with this; this is intended to be a poor and smart man's version of the "+2 to 2 skills" feats in PHB 3.5. It's important to the sage class to have this (or all of those 3.5 feats) in their list of bonus feats. Sages who don't choose to go down the "arcane path" but instead choose the "skill path" can choose to boost their skills every 2 levels, as well as gain a new class skill every 2 levels with discoveries.

I understand its intent, but it's too easily abused as written.

I might be in agreement, but I have to think about this more and probably tweak your numbers significantly. I think your required ranks are way too high. For example, according to your chart a single-classed rogue won't be able to safely cast a 3rd level spell until 12th level, because she'd need to put 16 skill points toward Spellcraft to get 8 ranks. Ouch. That would just make everyone want to multiclass into mage, which is sort of against the foundation of the system, in which spell-casting is feat- and ability- based and not as much class-based.

My number reflected max spellcraft ranks for the given safe level if spellcraft is a class skill. You can fix the problem you mention by making spellcraft a class skill for anyone with the chanelling feat.

I appreciate your feedback, Drawmack, you've certainly given me a lot of good stuff to think about. Thanks!

Well I think it's a good idea with a lot of potential. So thank you for being level headed enough to take construcive criticism.

P.S. Thanks for pointing out my document formatting problems, I'm a mean C++ programmer but not so good with the old Word processor.

So how do you write the documentation on your code?

 

[Zerakon]

FEATS
A character does not need to spend their feats as soon as they acquire them.

This seems to be the critical rule that is throwing us off of the same page. Is this true?!? I was under the impression that feats had to be spent immediately. If you can "hold" feats, then yes, it blows my design by allowing humans to take Channeling at level 2.

However, I can't find this rule anywhere in the SRD.. I loaned my PHB to one of my players so I'm without my basic rulebook at the moment.

-- Zerakon the Game Mage

 

[Drawmack]

This seems to be the critical rule that is throwing us off of the same page. Is this true?!? I was under the impression that feats had to be spent immediately. If you can "hold" feats, then yes, it blows my design by allowing humans to take Channeling at level 2.

However, I can't find this rule anywhere in the SRD.. I loaned my PHB to one of my players so I'm without my basic rulebook at the moment.

-- Zerakon the Game Mage

This rule is not in the SRD because it deals with leveling characters which is something they have not released as open content. However I will look it up tonight when I get home. I am pretty sure that the rules simply say you get the feat not you must immediatly take the feat which I interpret to mean you now have a feat to spend, but you can spend it whenever you like. Same with skill points.

 

[willpax]

This is an interesting system. As someone who has been tinkering with a homebrew magic system, I know how complicated all this can be.

I especially like the way you give noncasters a benefit from the will points--I can see many "flavor" explanations for that particular mechanic that are appealing.

One suggestion for your "mage" class that I used with my own version: if you want to keep the high skill/high feat combination, you might reduce the BAB to zero; if you want to become the best you can with magic, you have absolutely no time to improve your hand-to-hand combat skills.

Another point: if all arcane secrets are used to get bonus feats, you have a class with 20 bonus feats! I think it would be better for the class if it would be impossible for a mage to do everything--force characters to specialize in order to create some variation in the class. Using the fighter feat progression, and allowing those to be arcane secrets or feats, would probably be sufficient. My own system requires many more feats to be a good caster, but the number and progression a fighter gets seem sufficient.

Overall, the system seems geared to a campaign where almost everyone can use at least low-power magics. While I prefer magic to be a bit more rare, I think this is a good start.

 

[Drawmack]

This is an interesting system. As someone who has been tinkering with a homebrew magic system, I know how complicated all this can be.

How about posting your system?

 

[Zerakon]

I especially like the way you give noncasters a benefit from the will points--I can see many "flavor" explanations for that particular mechanic that are appealing.

Thanks, this is the key core principle that make the system desirable, at least for my design sensibilities. I want multiclassed spellcaster concepts like fighter/mages to be building up their "spell battery" a little bit even when progressing in their fighter levels, but at the same time, I didn't want to leave non-spellcasters completely out in the cold, or accumulating these points that mean absolutely nothing to them. The basic Heroic Effort rule, feats like Empathic/Meditative/Supernatural Healing, Focused Strikes, etc. are especially neat for the high-wisdom, low-intelligence characters so that they are able to utilize this mystical energy within them. Sure, if they were just smarter they'd be able to throw around some "real" magic, but these pseudo-magical (I prefer to call them mystical) abilities can be pretty powerful in and of themselves. I'm especially going for this with my priest class; I'd like for priests to have a bunch of cool ways to use their will points without needing to be spellcasters. Of course, the option is up to the player, if they want to graft spell use feats onto their priest character to be more like the standard D&D cleric, they can go for it.

One suggestion for your "mage" class that I used with my own version: if you want to keep the high skill/high feat combination, you might reduce the BAB to zero; if you want to become the best you can with magic, you have absolutely no time to improve your hand-to-hand combat skills.

Hmmm, people are looking at my mage class and thinking it is overpowered, but I think perhaps a comparison to a standard D&D wizard/sorcerer should show that they are roughly equivalent (and even less powerful at higher levels). See below.

Another point: if all arcane secrets are used to get bonus feats, you have a class with 20 bonus feats!

Oops, you're misinterpreting arcane secrets, probably because I didn't write it very well; I'll have to go back and rewrite for clarity.

Arcane secrets cannot be used to take a bonus feat. You have two options (currently in v0.2):
(1) Add a class skill. For example: "my sage now knows Wilderness Lore as a class skill."
(2) Discover an arcane secret, gaining bonus will points (3+), lose a hit point ("ouch these arcane secrets are taking a toll on my health!"), and gain a [mostly-roleplaying] side effect ("hey, my hair turned blue!").

Bonus feats are taken on the levels where you DON'T gain an arcane secret/bonus class skill.

OK, so here's a comparison of a standard D&D Sorcerer with a Will Power mage who focuses on spellcasting:

First off, a standard sorcerer has some ability-related advantages in that he can concentrate on pretty much just one stat (Charisma) to be a spellcasting powerhouse. In Will Power, characters have more difficult decisions to make as far as abilities go -- Wisdom increases your "battery", Intelligence is vital just to learn spells, and Charisma helps your spells work better. Let's ignore the Dexterity problem of acquiring lots of schools, because we'll plan for our mage to take Wizardry relatively early in his career.

For purposes of an accurate comparison, let's assume each character is human (and will take Toughness as their human bonus feat for survivability reasons *shrug*) and uses a 25 point buy, and let's assign the following stats to the two characters:

Sorcerer:
S:10 D:10 C:12 I:12 W:8 Ch: 17

Mage:
S:10 D:10 C:11 I:15 W:14 Ch:12

At 1st level:

Sorcerer
Takes Toughness and some other feat (let's say Spell Focus: Evocation).
HP: 8 (4 (max HD) + 1 (Con) + 3 (Toughness))
SP: 12
Spells per day: L1: 4, L0: 6
spell DC modifier: +3 (+4 for Evocation)
Spell selection: L1: 2, L0: 4 (any schools)
Minor Bonus: Familiar

Mage
The Mage takes Toughness and Basic Spell Use feats, chooses arcane secret as discovery.
HP: 8 (6 (max HD) - 1 (secret) + 3 (Toughness))
WP: 13 (8 (max WD) + 2 (Wis) + 3 (secret))
SP: 24
Spells per day: L1: 1, L0: 2
Spell DC modifier: +1
Spell selection: L2: 3, L1: 4, L0:5 (2 schools)

While the Mage has twice as many Skill Points and more spells known, the Sorcerer clearly has the power edge because of ALL those extra spells, not to mention his familiar. Obviously, the major thorn for the 1st-level Mage is not having Channeling, so at 2nd level, things should get a lot better for the Mage...
Power Edge: Sorcerer

At 2nd level:

Sorcerer
The Sorcerer has no choices to make, just a HD to roll.
HP: 10.5 (will take average for rolls and track fractions)
SP: 15
Spells per day: L1: 5, L0: 7
Spell DC modifier: +3 (+4 for Evocation)
Spell selection: L1: 2 L0: 5 (any schools)
Minor Bonus: Familiar.

Mage
The Mage gets a bonus feat at 2nd level and grabs Channeling, cutting his spell costs in half (woohoo!).
HP: 11.5
WP: 19.5
SP: 30
Spells per day: L1: 3, L0: 3
Spell DC modifier: +1
Spell selection: L2: 3, L1: 4, L0:5 (2 schools)
Minor Bonus: Can risk an overcast to use a 2nd level. (At 1st level, this was way too risky, at this level, the Mage probably won't die.)

The mage is catching up now, but I'll still give:
Power Edge: Sorcerer.

At 3rd level:

Sorcerer
All characters get a feat at 3rd level. The Sorcerer chooses another Spell Focus for a 2nd school?
HP: 14
SP: 18
Spells per day: L1: 6, L0: 7
Spell DC modifier: +3 (+4 for 2 schools)
Spell selection: L1: 3 L0: 5 (any schools)
Minor Bonus: Familiar.

Mage
The Mage takes another arcane secret at 3rd level, gaining +4 WP for -1 HP. For his feat, he chooses Wizardry (to expand his schools).
HP: 15
WP: 30
SP: 36
Spells per day: L1: 6 -or- L1: 5, L0: 5 -or- L2: 4, L0: 2
Spell DC modifier: +1
Spell selection: L2: 3, L1: 4, L0:5 (any schools)

Reaching 3rd level gives very little to the Sorcerer, while the Mage now has good versatility, being able to cast 2nd-level spells without the risk of brain-fry.
Power Edge: Even

At 4th level:

Sorcerer
HP: 17.5
SP: 21
Spells per day: L2: 4, L1: 7, L0: 7
Spell DC modifier: +3 (+4 for 2 schools)
Spell selection: L2: 1, L1: 3, L0: 6 (any schools)
Minor Bonus: Familiar.

Mage
The Mage gets a bonus feat at level 4. He'll take Expert Spell Use for 3rd and 4th level spells.
HP: 19.5
WP: 36.5
SP: 42
Spells per day: L3: 1, L2: 1 -or- L2: 5, L0: 1 -or- L2: 4, L1: 1, L0: 3
Spell DC modifier: +1
Spell selection: L4: 3, L3: 4, L2: 5, L1: 6, L0:5 (any schools)
Minor Bonus: Can overcast to use a 3rd level in a pinch.

This is an interesting comparison; the classic case of raw power (Sorcerer with his 4/7/7 spells per day, which translated to Will Points costs is 28+35+7=70 WP!) vs versatility. Even though I think it's cool that the Mage can cast a 3rd level spell in a pinch, 70 WP worth of spells for the Sorcerer is TWICE the Mage's Will supply.
Power Edge: Sorcerer

That's enough comparisons for now; I will actually put this comparison into a document and expand it to compare more levels when I have more time. I think this clearly shows that the Mage is certainly not overpowered at the low levels. He's in fact a bit weak, but not overly so IMO. He'll struggle at 1st level for sure, but he does get a load of Skill Points to use.

Thanks for the feedback.

-- Zerakon the Game Mage

edit: one of my players pointed out that everyone gets feats every 3 levels, not 4. whoops!

 

[Drawmack]

The mage gets a bard's skill points a fighters feats and the ability to add class skills or get better with magic on the levels when they do not get feats. The only class that comes anywhere close to thise is the monk and they can't use armor plus their feats are preselected. This class is over-powered. You've given them too much. I would say make the feats on levels 2,6,10,14, 18 and the arcane sectrets levels 4,8,12,16 & 20 that should balance them nicely.

 

[Zerakon]

The mage gets a bard's skill points a fighters feats and the ability to add class skills or get better with magic on the levels when they do not get feats. The only class that comes anywhere close to thise is the monk and they can't use armor plus their feats are preselected. This class is over-powered. You've given them too much.

I'm not convinced (at least not yet). I think there are some flaws with the way you are doing the comparison:

(1) "a bard's skill points"
Yes the Mage gets a Bard's skill points, but whereas the Bard's skill list is absolutely enormous and includes lots of the "power" skills, the Mage's class skills are: Alchemy, Appraise, Concentration, Craft, Decipher Script, Heal, Knowledge, Profession, Speak Language, and Spellcraft. There's no question in my mind that a bard's skill versatility makes him much more useful as an adventurer. The mage's skill points allow him to be "really knowledgable" which certainly is a reasonable thing for a sage to be. Mages are certainly better than Wizards and Sorcerers in the skill department, but that's by design, and as a tradeoff for lesser spellcasting power.

(2) "a fighters feats"

Yes, they get almost (one less) as many bonus feats as a fighter, but keep in mind that this is within a system where the Mage must spend essentially 5 to 6 feats - Basic/Expert/Lofty/Master Spell Use, Channeling, Wizardry - just to be on the same playing field as the standard D&D arcane spellcaster. So you can't really look at it and say "wow, a feat every other level - that's crazy!" If they weren't under the Will Power restrictions, you'd clearly be right, but these magic systems are apples and oranges -- or at least apples and pears.

(3) "the ability to add class skills or get better with magic on the levels when they do not get feats"

Eh. Adding a class skill is cool but not a major power problem as their initial skill list is limited to begin with. The arcane secrets may seem powerful, but they are really a way of causing the mage's Will Points to curve / accelerate as they go up in levels. Gaining 1d8 Will Points per level is extremely inferior to the standard D&D spellcasters when you look at how many Will Points worth of spells the standard spellcasters are gaining each level -- especially at the higher levels.

When I do more of my Sorcerer vs Mage comparison, perhaps I can convince you that the Mage isn't overpowered. Or, perhaps I'll see that you are right.

-- Zerakon the Game Mage

 

[Zerakon]

Well, one of my players pointed out something fairly important that I've been doing wrong. I was working under the assumption that everyone gets feats every 4 levels, but the correct rule is every 3. Oops, I switched the stat gain and feat gain levels in my head.

So... that actually works somewhat better for WP characters anyway, as non-mages will be able to pick up Channeling at level 3.

Also, I can cut down on mage bonus feats now that I know that all characters get feats at 3rd, 6th, etc. I'll now have mages get their bonus feats at 2,5,8,11,14,17,20. Arcane secrets at 1,4,7,10,13,16,19. And I suppose Bonus Class Skills at 3,6,9,12,15,18, getting rid of the discovery choice since it seemed to be confusing people anyway.

-- Zerakon the Game Mage

 

[willpax]

Drawmack wrote:

How about posting your system?

First, I'll have to rework the formatting.

Actually, one of my players sugested that some charts would be helpful. After I finish making them for the skills I've already, detailed, I post the (not quite finished) system here.

Time to put a child to bed.