Since people are wanting to work on something, here we go.

[logan9a]

www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview

Download the free (long lasting) trial. If you decide you can't live without it, it's only $20 but the trial should be more than long enough for this.

high magic.scap (69.82 KB)

These are my current ideas (thanks to Chris who helped me formulate them a bit more) on the upcoming 'high magic' system.

With this, I want to avoid too much 'power creep'. There will be some. Essentially, I am looking for (when the system is done) being able to cast off say 3-6 moderately powerful spells (assuming an ESS of 20 or higher) but they will have more versitility than the normal spells. Normal spells (ie petty magic) you learn by rote. These, you learn individual pieces then can use those individual pieces to try to put together. Then (not during the game session but inbetween preferably giving the GM a couple days to ponder that shit) you come up with a proposed spell which uses the pieces. Your chance of pulling off the spell is whatever piece is the lowest percentage (each piece is a skill). If you succeed, you get a check in one of the pieces which was included in the spell. If you fumble, very bad things. Fail is half the MP as normal.

I'll give people a chance to look at this and give their opinions.

[PotatoJedi]

I'm going to see if I can completely rewrite this into something which is actually easier to read. Right now my brain is just overloaded with too much crap all over the place. Otherwise, it looks interesting.

The only thing I can tell you right off the bat that I want is a Lightning flavour. Lightning makes everything better.

[logan9a]

Yep. I think the way I want to get this system developed is to first figure out everything with the powers jacked to max. They won't be as much at max as some people want (including the NPC's). (These powers are meant to be less powerful than Matrix, Amber, Logrus, Shapeshifting but more versitle than petty magic.) The reason is that if we go at it from the most powerful then figure out less powerful stuff later, I won't have to swing the nerf bat as often. I'm sure it will still happen because the players are clever but still...

[logan9a]

Ah - and once we get the basic system worked out (assuming we can figure out something that works) - if people develop pieces, they get credit for them.

As I'd mentioned to Chris:

If someone makes a piece (and it gets approved - and assuming we get the system working) then they will get that piece at 'learn'. It won't do them any good until they find someone to say "Here is how to do major magic" but assuming they do, suddenly they will have however many pieces.

If someone gets a piece approved (even though they do not have Major Magic) and wants to make that part of their 'skill training' (previously named skillwhoring) that is fine.

[PotatoJedi]

Questions:

I do not understand the "number of modifiers" thing.

Base cost for a spell is 1 MP. Understood.
Each additional modifier is also 1 MP. Understood. I am assuming each green thing is a modifier.
"All of this stuff - casting time, range, duration, resistance, modifier number and damage/healing numbers is learned (free) as soon as the PC’s learn their first spell modifiers." Don't understand this. Are you saying that as soon as I learn one of those, I learn all the others?
Number of modifiers that can be used per MP spent. Why does this start at zero? Wouldn't that mean you can't put any modifiers at all until you get it up to at least 1 (after which 1 MP = 1 modifier)?

What's the difference between "Skills" and "resistance to negatives"? Don't they both essentially do the same thing except the resistance is both + and -? I don't really get what they are used for.

[logan9a]

Each word is a modifier. Example: A spell would have to include all of the following:

casting time
range
Duration
resistance
(damage healing numbers if applicable)

and the number of modifiers that can be used per mp spent box which starts at 0. (More on this in a second).

All the above you get for 1 MP 'make spell go' power.

But, the spell actually has to do something - this is where other modifiers kick in (sorry this is so very rough - eventually we'll simplify it a bit)

Area effect (maybe move up to the other stuff above as must include in a spell since default is one target)

Let's go with something easy -

Flavor: Light
Effect: movement speed increase

Each of those (flavor, effect) cost 1 MP.

Hence, a spell to make you move slightly quicker for one round 1+1+1=3MP.

Not sure if that clarifies it.

[Fantômas]

Can a create a spell that allows me to dump a florists worth of flowers onto someone?

[PotatoJedi]

casting time
range
Duration
resistance
(damage healing numbers if applicable)
Number of modifiers

So ALL of that = 1 MP? Can we call that something else? Call it like "base spell" or something, which will refer to all of those things collectively.

New question:

For items, what's the difference between durability & armour? The first 2 things both reduce damage the same way (and then they split off into their own thing).

[logan9a]

Oct 25, 2019 13:11:14 GMT Fantômas said:

Can a create a spell that allows me to dump a florists worth of flowers onto someone?

Who knows where this will go? Need a lot of vases to cover that one.

[logan9a]

Oct 25, 2019 13:40:28 GMT PotatoJedi said:

casting time
range
Duration
resistance
(damage healing numbers if applicable)
Number of modifiers

So ALL of that = 1 MP? Can we call that something else? Call it like "base spell" or something, which will refer to all of those things collectively.

New question:

For items, what's the difference between durability & armour? The first 2 things both reduce damage the same way (and then they split off into their own thing).

Armor is how much it protects YOU.
Durability is how much protection the item has.

We could call it base spell or whatever. These are early days so the field is wide open.

I'm not even sure if this will be able to work. I wanted to invent a totally new magic system that could also work in with the artifact creation system and this is what I have come up with thus far.

Note that when creating an artifact it works a bit differently - you just have to pull off a piece once and that sticks it into your artifact. Skillw- er - training can make it better so you might one day get a crit then advance up to something better which you can then try to put into your item.

[PotatoJedi]

Because fuck that scapple mess, here is an easier to read version in a spreadsheet. The only thing it doesn't have is the "rules" etc.

Major Magic: Major Magic Spreadsheet v0.1.ods (19.11 KB)

[logan9a]

Neat. No love for scapple. But neat spreadsheet.

Everyone keep in mind that 'nothing is carved in stone' - these are just ideas that I'm wanting to hash out.

Freddy - thinking that the stuff that automatically goes with the spell should be up in it's own section then give a couple blank rows then on to the various other pieces. Thinking number of targets (since it defaults to one) should be with the duration etc automatic stuff.

[PotatoJedi]

Roger that.

Major Magic Spreadsheet v0.1.ods (19.11 KB)

[logan9a]

Cool. Do the ideas for the rules make more sense now?

[PotatoJedi]

Oct 25, 2019 1:56:13 GMT PotatoJedi said:

What's the difference between "Skills" and "resistance to negatives"? Don't they both essentially do the same thing except the resistance is both + and -? I don't really get what they are used for.

Still don't have an explanation for this.