System design notes

[logan9a]

Oct 24, 2019 17:54:42 GMT logan9a said:

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...

Note that the actual power of the system is not going to be 'greater effect'. That is called power creep and I'm not going there.

The increase in power from this new system will be three fold:

1. You can cast slightly more of these.
2. It is more versatile.
3. If there is a straight up match between the two (if the casters were in all ways equal) the caster of the major magics will have a slight edge (for resistance, etc) over the petty magics.

In other words:

It is possible that someone with petty magics might be doing the same damage as someone with greater magics.
Some spells will be better to cast with petty magics than greater magics. An example is if you are able to cast d6 of healing all day long till sundown. Major magics can't do that.

However:

There is never a willpower roll with major magics (it either works or it does not, depending on where you are).
Major magics you can do a couple more things between sleep time with the same amount of MP.


Just so we're clear on the design notes and I don't hear a lot of bitching about how the Major Magics should be much more powerful than petty magics - they are not. They are more portable and more versatile if the player is clever.