Post by logan9a on Nov 24, 2017 16:45:13 GMT
General spell stuff
INTRODUCTION
The spells in this system are ones I was able to come up with and are ‘as good as I could do alone’. If others become interested in working on various spells and such (not while gaming - do it in off gaming hours) changes to what is written may be negotiated.
PLAYER RESPONSIBILITY
If the player has to stop and look up how their magic spell works - especially during combat - the spell just fails and costs the caster the MP. There is nothing worse than some idiot who can’t remember their own spells dragging all of the action to a stand still because they need to look it up. If you can’t remember your spells, use a sword or something instead. If they can’t remember how many MP the spell cost to cast that they can’t remember you have 1mp left instead. That keeps you conscious and unable to cast more spells and we can all move on with our lives.
The player must keep a copy of the spell at hand in case the GM wants them to read it or have a question on it. In other words, if you want to do something more complex than swing a sword, it’s your responsibility to have your ducks in a row.
During the game session is NOT the time to work on magic. Work on magic when the campaign is not going on - contact the GM privately.
SPELL CASTING
All spells have verbal and gesture components. Few have material components as well.
SPELL CHAINS
Chain - this starts off with the least powerful spell of the type and leads to stronger spells. Chains may fork. Once a spell is unlocked, the player may be given a choice of two or more spells. If the player rolls a future critical on the same spell, they then get to learn another.
Example: Getting a critical on purple leads to three possible paths - dinosaur, case or soft. The player opts for soft. Later, they are using the spell purple again and get another critical. This time they choose dinosaur to unlock that chain as well.
Certain new spells will be come up with and put into various chains. For example - Let us say with have the chain:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Uncle - Meat
A new spell, Juice is come up with. The decision (GM and players, GM gets final word) is made to place it into this chain and the new chain becomes:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Juice - Ghost - Uncle - Meat
If the player knew Night and Fox before then yes, Uncle is pushed a little further out. You’ll get over it. Since spells beyond the basic ones will be mostly player made we’re all hoping they’re useful and wanted.
Let’s say the player was up to Ghost however. They then get a choice of their personal chain looking like:
Night - Fox - Ribbon -Ghost - Juice - Uncle - Meat
Meaning they have to learn it next or they can simply ignore and not take Juice. No freebies but no punishment for creating a new spell.
Note that eventually, spells might become more standardized and even get assigned ranks and such. This may break already existing chains apart and make some of the spells unlearnable until some bright spark comes up with a new spell. Example:
Night - Fox - Ribbon -Ghost - Juice - Uncle - Meat
Let’s say the GM has decided Uncle is too powerful and wants to ramp it up two notches.
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Juice - [Filler] - [Filler] - Uncle - Meat
Those that already have Uncle and Meat are unaffected but someone at Juice or earlier now needs to invent two spells which are agreed to fit into the sequence before Uncle or Meat may be learned. Yeah, it sucks but game balance and better design trump ‘fairness’.
At the GM’s discretion, new spells may be added to existing chains, branch from existing chains or become parts of new chains.
Spells which do not fit into existing chains but are too powerful to form their own chain will be undiscoverable until weaker spells are created to make the chain.
Some spells may be taken off of one chain and moved to a different chain - or even a whole new school by the GM if they feel it would fit better within a different school. This may prevent the character from working on the next spell in that chain though they will still keep the spell they have. Or, if they are able to learn the new chain, the GM may have them unlock all lower level spells before preceding in that new chain. Example:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Juice - [Filler] - [Filler] - Uncle - Meat
At some future point in the campaign it is felt that Juice would better fit into a different chain so it is removed from the above chain and put into:
Fliver - Nox - Juice - Roman - Roam - Rum
Before being able to learn Roman, the GM may decide the PC must learn Fliver - Nox.
The player may not learn a spell further along a chain unless some weird stuff has happened - see GM - or until they have unlocked it by working their way up the chain.
UNLOCKING NEW SPELLS
In order to get the next spell up, the player must roll a critical on their spell. If they do, they unlock the next level at their ‘learn’ skill.
Example - if the spell chain is:
No smell -> No smell other -> Breath -> Breath; other -> Gust of wind -> Summon air elemental
If they have the ‘no smell’ spell and make a critical on it, they unlock ‘no smell other’ at ‘learn’. When they eventually get a critical at that, they pick up ‘breath’ at ‘learn’.
FAILING SPELLS
Fail means half the MP (round up, bitch) of that spell are gone.
Fumble means all the MP of that spell are gone and you’re done with that spell for the day.
‘Day’ definition is till the next sunup or sundown.
WHY SPELLS ARE LOW POWERED
In other systems, like D&D, the power curve is such that after the wizard starts casting third level or higher spells, the fighter is left well behind. That’s bad game design. The only solution? Keep spells low powered. Even then, you will have magic users become more powerful than those who don’t use magic. It will just be by (hopefully) a smaller degree.
AH HELL NO:
Spells you won’t see in the campaign:
Divination: One day, all of the players may spontaneously decide they want to own, operate and stock a Pottery Barn store. I will then be stuck making Pottery Barn plots. There is no way I could know what the players are going to do ahead of time. Augury works well in books where the author knows what will happen and has a lot more control of the characters. They can then come up with some clever formula. Hell, some cryptic NPC may even give a prophecy from time to time within the campaign but I’m not going to have any magic for it. Within games it is often either useless or over powered.
Illusion: Not happening. Anyone who has any subtly and brains will quickly make this over powered.
Memory alternating/annihilating: Nothing but fucking trouble and gas lighting down the road. Suck up your own actions and find different ways to get clever.
SPELL CAPABILITIES
Also, for all of the spells, I’ve tried to make them only do a single thing. Later, when PC mages begin to become experts they might start twisting spells together or something like that.
MAGIC POINTS
When are the magic points spent? When you first begin your spell. Example: If you are casting a spell that requires ten magic points and ten rounds to cast it, you have lost five magic points (same amount as ‘failing’ a spell) even if you stop casting after the first round. If you continue through the whole spell and fail it, you are still down five magic points.
MP COST
Why are they all even numbers? Because if you fail, you lose half round up. Easier to make it so rounding is not required.
SPECIAL EFFECTS
The GM may choose to add in whatever special effects to any spell they wish. These may change depending on their whim.
No spell may be cast covertly. Otherwise, we get NPC’s sitting around and ‘staring daggers’ at the PC, the PC dying and not even knowing who was attacking them. Or vice versa. Not a good fit. Magic is always obvious. Sometimes super obvious. Some magicians of sufficient power may even be able to tell when someone starts throwing around magic within their area.
WEIRD STUFF
Certain spells may be broken by certain things - a rooster’s first call (which sucks because they actually often go all night - best to slit their throats ahead of time), first ray of light, water (crossing or getting splashed by) etc.
LIMITATIONS
In some more elemental lands, the caster can’t do the opposite element of their main and may be limited to half way up the chains on the other two.
CASTING TIMES
Anything with a casting time of more than two rounds is generally an idiotic spell to cast during combat. Better to cast it before or after combat. When casting a spell, ‘casting’ is your full action each round.
DURATIONS
Till sunset or sunrise - this is whichever comes next.
Also, killing the caster of a spell is usually a great way to turn off any and all spells they have cast as those spells have no life of their own UNLESS Essence was sacrificed to give the spell life.
Combat or till a lull. Meaning when the GM announces combat is over or it is a ‘lull in combat’ that the spell ends.
Concentration: Some spells require concentration. That takes one full action each and every round. Unless you are hasted (etc) aside from simple actions and free actions, that is your entire round. Should concentration be broken or given up, the spell ends and must be cast anew in the future. Note - you do not need to be able to speak to maintain concentration - just glare balefully.
Concentration means ‘you do nothing but keep the spell going’ and it keeps going. Simple actions OK.
RANGE
Unless otherwise stated in the spell, ‘touch’ spells may be cast on oneself. By…er…touching yourself.
DUMB VS SMART DEFENSES
These are categories of magical defense. Dumb automatically trigger. Smart defenses trigger when the caster wishes them to trigger.
LEVELS
How many levels should each spell have?
10 different levels for each spell. While some people may not consider level 10 to be powerful enough this is by design.
Because I’d rather spend my time working on plots than spells - and most PC’s are unwilling to work on anything unless it directly affects their character (and even then it might be iffy) the first release may have several ‘broken chains’. It will be up to the PC’s to forge new links in these chains if they want to continue on with the spells. If they don’t, then getting those spells may not be possible for PC’s. NPC’s will run around shooting flames out of their rears and so on.
What if spells from one chain are substantially stronger than spells from another? Summon the waambulance or build something more balanced that the GM likes.
How competent is someone judged within the spells?
Just like with all other skills (but divided by ten)!
Rank 3 - it’s a hobby.
Rank 6 - ‘do it as a living’
Rank 10 - expert
However, the spell caster may have several different branches they travel down within each of the schools.
SCHOOLS OF MAGIC
Schools of magic aka chains (note - these may be changed later as might everything else):
Air
Body
Control
Creation of Items
Disorientation
Earth
Empathy
Fire
Gate and Time
Healing
Knowledge
Darkness and Light
Making and Breaking
Magical Defense
Meta
Movement
Necromancy
Plant
Sound
Tech
Water
MERGING SCHOOLS
When someone has two different schools at ‘do it as a living’ they might start making hybred styles of magic. It is important though to make sure one spell has one and only one effect.
THINGS TO WORK ON
Our summon elemental spells are inconsistent. Thinking we can have all of the summonings within the normal spell trees be temporary (no ESS cost) then have within the META spell category a way to make the summoned creatures permanent.
Find the old psychic stuff and see what is useful from there?
MAKING MAGIC ITEMS
Figure out what is needed to make an item that while holding it and using a particular type of spell (or a specific element spell or any damage spell) and it moves up the damage one place on the damage track. We can have it where the ‘wood carving’ (for a staff as an example) needs to be done with a certain type of wood and a ‘crit’ wood carving roll needs to be made to pull it off. Certain things might require an object with a lot of skills put in to it - maybe all of them needing a critical roll, or perhaps just normal successes, depending. Anyone who wants to make magic items (in the event those spells ever get done) will need to get great at lots of crafting skills. Lots and lots. Making magic items (for obvious reasons) will be a huge pain in the ass of such a magnitude that only the most stubborn players even bother with it. If the rules ever get done for it.
INTRODUCTION
The spells in this system are ones I was able to come up with and are ‘as good as I could do alone’. If others become interested in working on various spells and such (not while gaming - do it in off gaming hours) changes to what is written may be negotiated.
PLAYER RESPONSIBILITY
If the player has to stop and look up how their magic spell works - especially during combat - the spell just fails and costs the caster the MP. There is nothing worse than some idiot who can’t remember their own spells dragging all of the action to a stand still because they need to look it up. If you can’t remember your spells, use a sword or something instead. If they can’t remember how many MP the spell cost to cast that they can’t remember you have 1mp left instead. That keeps you conscious and unable to cast more spells and we can all move on with our lives.
The player must keep a copy of the spell at hand in case the GM wants them to read it or have a question on it. In other words, if you want to do something more complex than swing a sword, it’s your responsibility to have your ducks in a row.
During the game session is NOT the time to work on magic. Work on magic when the campaign is not going on - contact the GM privately.
SPELL CASTING
All spells have verbal and gesture components. Few have material components as well.
SPELL CHAINS
Chain - this starts off with the least powerful spell of the type and leads to stronger spells. Chains may fork. Once a spell is unlocked, the player may be given a choice of two or more spells. If the player rolls a future critical on the same spell, they then get to learn another.
Example: Getting a critical on purple leads to three possible paths - dinosaur, case or soft. The player opts for soft. Later, they are using the spell purple again and get another critical. This time they choose dinosaur to unlock that chain as well.
Certain new spells will be come up with and put into various chains. For example - Let us say with have the chain:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Uncle - Meat
A new spell, Juice is come up with. The decision (GM and players, GM gets final word) is made to place it into this chain and the new chain becomes:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Juice - Ghost - Uncle - Meat
If the player knew Night and Fox before then yes, Uncle is pushed a little further out. You’ll get over it. Since spells beyond the basic ones will be mostly player made we’re all hoping they’re useful and wanted.
Let’s say the player was up to Ghost however. They then get a choice of their personal chain looking like:
Night - Fox - Ribbon -Ghost - Juice - Uncle - Meat
Meaning they have to learn it next or they can simply ignore and not take Juice. No freebies but no punishment for creating a new spell.
Note that eventually, spells might become more standardized and even get assigned ranks and such. This may break already existing chains apart and make some of the spells unlearnable until some bright spark comes up with a new spell. Example:
Night - Fox - Ribbon -Ghost - Juice - Uncle - Meat
Let’s say the GM has decided Uncle is too powerful and wants to ramp it up two notches.
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Juice - [Filler] - [Filler] - Uncle - Meat
Those that already have Uncle and Meat are unaffected but someone at Juice or earlier now needs to invent two spells which are agreed to fit into the sequence before Uncle or Meat may be learned. Yeah, it sucks but game balance and better design trump ‘fairness’.
At the GM’s discretion, new spells may be added to existing chains, branch from existing chains or become parts of new chains.
Spells which do not fit into existing chains but are too powerful to form their own chain will be undiscoverable until weaker spells are created to make the chain.
Some spells may be taken off of one chain and moved to a different chain - or even a whole new school by the GM if they feel it would fit better within a different school. This may prevent the character from working on the next spell in that chain though they will still keep the spell they have. Or, if they are able to learn the new chain, the GM may have them unlock all lower level spells before preceding in that new chain. Example:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Juice - [Filler] - [Filler] - Uncle - Meat
At some future point in the campaign it is felt that Juice would better fit into a different chain so it is removed from the above chain and put into:
Fliver - Nox - Juice - Roman - Roam - Rum
Before being able to learn Roman, the GM may decide the PC must learn Fliver - Nox.
The player may not learn a spell further along a chain unless some weird stuff has happened - see GM - or until they have unlocked it by working their way up the chain.
UNLOCKING NEW SPELLS
In order to get the next spell up, the player must roll a critical on their spell. If they do, they unlock the next level at their ‘learn’ skill.
Example - if the spell chain is:
No smell -> No smell other -> Breath -> Breath; other -> Gust of wind -> Summon air elemental
If they have the ‘no smell’ spell and make a critical on it, they unlock ‘no smell other’ at ‘learn’. When they eventually get a critical at that, they pick up ‘breath’ at ‘learn’.
FAILING SPELLS
Fail means half the MP (round up, bitch) of that spell are gone.
Fumble means all the MP of that spell are gone and you’re done with that spell for the day.
‘Day’ definition is till the next sunup or sundown.
WHY SPELLS ARE LOW POWERED
In other systems, like D&D, the power curve is such that after the wizard starts casting third level or higher spells, the fighter is left well behind. That’s bad game design. The only solution? Keep spells low powered. Even then, you will have magic users become more powerful than those who don’t use magic. It will just be by (hopefully) a smaller degree.
AH HELL NO:
Spells you won’t see in the campaign:
Divination: One day, all of the players may spontaneously decide they want to own, operate and stock a Pottery Barn store. I will then be stuck making Pottery Barn plots. There is no way I could know what the players are going to do ahead of time. Augury works well in books where the author knows what will happen and has a lot more control of the characters. They can then come up with some clever formula. Hell, some cryptic NPC may even give a prophecy from time to time within the campaign but I’m not going to have any magic for it. Within games it is often either useless or over powered.
Illusion: Not happening. Anyone who has any subtly and brains will quickly make this over powered.
Memory alternating/annihilating: Nothing but fucking trouble and gas lighting down the road. Suck up your own actions and find different ways to get clever.
SPELL CAPABILITIES
Also, for all of the spells, I’ve tried to make them only do a single thing. Later, when PC mages begin to become experts they might start twisting spells together or something like that.
MAGIC POINTS
When are the magic points spent? When you first begin your spell. Example: If you are casting a spell that requires ten magic points and ten rounds to cast it, you have lost five magic points (same amount as ‘failing’ a spell) even if you stop casting after the first round. If you continue through the whole spell and fail it, you are still down five magic points.
MP COST
Why are they all even numbers? Because if you fail, you lose half round up. Easier to make it so rounding is not required.
SPECIAL EFFECTS
The GM may choose to add in whatever special effects to any spell they wish. These may change depending on their whim.
No spell may be cast covertly. Otherwise, we get NPC’s sitting around and ‘staring daggers’ at the PC, the PC dying and not even knowing who was attacking them. Or vice versa. Not a good fit. Magic is always obvious. Sometimes super obvious. Some magicians of sufficient power may even be able to tell when someone starts throwing around magic within their area.
WEIRD STUFF
Certain spells may be broken by certain things - a rooster’s first call (which sucks because they actually often go all night - best to slit their throats ahead of time), first ray of light, water (crossing or getting splashed by) etc.
LIMITATIONS
In some more elemental lands, the caster can’t do the opposite element of their main and may be limited to half way up the chains on the other two.
CASTING TIMES
Anything with a casting time of more than two rounds is generally an idiotic spell to cast during combat. Better to cast it before or after combat. When casting a spell, ‘casting’ is your full action each round.
DURATIONS
Till sunset or sunrise - this is whichever comes next.
Also, killing the caster of a spell is usually a great way to turn off any and all spells they have cast as those spells have no life of their own UNLESS Essence was sacrificed to give the spell life.
Combat or till a lull. Meaning when the GM announces combat is over or it is a ‘lull in combat’ that the spell ends.
Concentration: Some spells require concentration. That takes one full action each and every round. Unless you are hasted (etc) aside from simple actions and free actions, that is your entire round. Should concentration be broken or given up, the spell ends and must be cast anew in the future. Note - you do not need to be able to speak to maintain concentration - just glare balefully.
Concentration means ‘you do nothing but keep the spell going’ and it keeps going. Simple actions OK.
RANGE
Unless otherwise stated in the spell, ‘touch’ spells may be cast on oneself. By…er…touching yourself.
DUMB VS SMART DEFENSES
These are categories of magical defense. Dumb automatically trigger. Smart defenses trigger when the caster wishes them to trigger.
LEVELS
How many levels should each spell have?
10 different levels for each spell. While some people may not consider level 10 to be powerful enough this is by design.
Because I’d rather spend my time working on plots than spells - and most PC’s are unwilling to work on anything unless it directly affects their character (and even then it might be iffy) the first release may have several ‘broken chains’. It will be up to the PC’s to forge new links in these chains if they want to continue on with the spells. If they don’t, then getting those spells may not be possible for PC’s. NPC’s will run around shooting flames out of their rears and so on.
What if spells from one chain are substantially stronger than spells from another? Summon the waambulance or build something more balanced that the GM likes.
How competent is someone judged within the spells?
Just like with all other skills (but divided by ten)!
Rank 3 - it’s a hobby.
Rank 6 - ‘do it as a living’
Rank 10 - expert
However, the spell caster may have several different branches they travel down within each of the schools.
SCHOOLS OF MAGIC
Schools of magic aka chains (note - these may be changed later as might everything else):
Air
Body
Control
Creation of Items
Disorientation
Earth
Empathy
Fire
Gate and Time
Healing
Knowledge
Darkness and Light
Making and Breaking
Magical Defense
Meta
Movement
Necromancy
Plant
Sound
Tech
Water
MERGING SCHOOLS
When someone has two different schools at ‘do it as a living’ they might start making hybred styles of magic. It is important though to make sure one spell has one and only one effect.
THINGS TO WORK ON
Our summon elemental spells are inconsistent. Thinking we can have all of the summonings within the normal spell trees be temporary (no ESS cost) then have within the META spell category a way to make the summoned creatures permanent.
Find the old psychic stuff and see what is useful from there?
MAKING MAGIC ITEMS
Figure out what is needed to make an item that while holding it and using a particular type of spell (or a specific element spell or any damage spell) and it moves up the damage one place on the damage track. We can have it where the ‘wood carving’ (for a staff as an example) needs to be done with a certain type of wood and a ‘crit’ wood carving roll needs to be made to pull it off. Certain things might require an object with a lot of skills put in to it - maybe all of them needing a critical roll, or perhaps just normal successes, depending. Anyone who wants to make magic items (in the event those spells ever get done) will need to get great at lots of crafting skills. Lots and lots. Making magic items (for obvious reasons) will be a huge pain in the ass of such a magnitude that only the most stubborn players even bother with it. If the rules ever get done for it.
