FH magic system

[DarkGreen]

Whee, first post on new FH boards!

I just wanted to continue the discussion on how to make good FH magic systems.

To recount what has been worked out (and playtested!) so far:

Maximum active points is 2xINT for hermetic casters, 2xPRE for religious casters

Spell guidelines
Each mage buys a multipower, each spell will be an ultra slot. A spell cannot be altered once purchased (to add d6, for example) but a new spell can be bought with the desired effect.

Basic END for magic is 1 per 5 AP, spells must be full endance or zero endurance – no reduced endurance.

Required disadvantages are: Gestures, incantations, concentrate to 1/2DCV (to cast), Requires magic roll – total –1.5

DCV/Dex modifiers due to armor apply to magic skill rolls due to gestures.

Optional disadvantages are: Full phase, OAF (staff) – but these must be taken on the whole multipower (thus affecting all spells)

Per-spell optional disadvantages are: expendable focus, extra end, extra time (concentration is throughout casting),

Outlawed Advantages: Charges/continuing charges, Trigger
Outlawed Powers: Pre/Retrocognition, Transforms with improved target group, FTL, Find weakness

A mage may optionally purchase an END battery, in which case all his spells will draw from that. The END battery may not refill on it’s own in under 5 hours. It is acceptable to have ways to refill the END battery based on a magical ceremony. Examples might be sacrifices, giant fires for fire mages, religious ceremonies with followers, etc…

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Thoughts and feedback appreciated. There were many good posts before on this topic (including by the people who developed much of the above, but whose names I can't remember!!)

I wanted to get this posted to help out those starting FH campaigns.

-DG

[Yamo]

With Trigger outlawed, how do you handle the standard magic potions? Or does your campaign not use them?

[DarkGreen]

We don't have a good solution for potions yet. They have to be VERY carefully regulated, though, or it's very easy to abuse trigger effects.

Any ideas?

-DG

[Yamo]

We don't have a good solution for potions yet. They have to be VERY carefully regulated, though, or it's very easy to abuse trigger effects.

Any ideas?

-DG

The best balancing effect, as far as I'm concerned, isn't a mechanical one, but a story-based one. Specifically, the various components of magical potions should be strange and rare. They would either cost significant amounts of money (important in Heroic campaigns) or require dangerous quests to acquire. Possibly both! And when the PC does get his hands on the eye of newt or what-have-you, he'll have a finite quantity of it; enough for only a handful of draughts (and perhaps only one).

[jackcrow]

I was wondering if anyone had created a magic system that used lay lines to control the amount of magic a person could cast at any one time. For those of you not familiar with lay lines, they are lines of magical force that magic users draw on to power their magical spells. The basic idea is that if the lay lines are strong and close a mage can cast more powerful spells than normal. If the lines are weak or far away the mage can only cast weaker spells.

The best thought I've come up with is require magical users to take all spells in a multi-power pool and power the spells from an END Reserve. Both the multi-power pool and the END Reserve must have a +0 power advantage "Active cost affected by lay lines." This would allow me to tell players at any given time whether their spells would be normal, extra strong or weaker than normal.

As a side effect, Magic users would get an extra sense similar to Mental Awareness that would allow them to sense Lay Lines and other mage's spells. e.g. spells with invisible power effects, etc. Mostly a role-playing aide.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else had tried a similar system and how they managed the cost accounting of it.

Thanks

[Yamo]

Make the ley lines an Always On area effect Aid that increases all powers with the magic special effect simultaneously.

[DarkGreen]

We actually recently implemented a ley line system that both lowers active points and boosts END reserve recovery on ley lines, and does even more at nexus points.

It's VERY fun because it gives a reason for all those weird mages and craftsmen to have remote subterrainean/mountaintop/etc bases. The dwarves turn out to be such good metalsmiths because they have learned to put their best forges at nexus points, shrines have to be in specific places, and suddenly it becomes a lot more important to defend the sacred tree (and so on).

I don't have the document handy for the effects but it was a dual effect - active points for skill purposes and recovery.

-DG

[dbsousa]

What do you think about bying potions outside of the MP?

Aid 5d6 (max. Aided Points: 30) (50 Active Points); 1 Charges which Never Recover (-4), Independent (-2), OAF Fragile (-1 1/4)&#160
Powers Cost: 6

That is an expensive Healing Potion to create, but wouldn't cost anything as equipment...

[mudpyr8]

I invite you to review the magic system we use in our Fantasy Game. It's been absolutely fabulous and very fun to play.

It does deviate a little from "stock" Hero, but it is still Hero in all the right places.

http://www.tekhed.com/hero/magic.php

[Markdoc]

>>>>Powers Cost: 6

That is an expensive Healing Potion to create, but wouldn't cost anything as equipment...<<<<

I can't think of many players who would be willing to throw away 6 XP for a one shot healing potion - certianly none of my NPCs would be so daft!

I think Trigger is the only way to go for potions, with some anti-abuse safeguards built in (such as activation time, expensive components and the fact that you can't use multiples at the same time without risk).

cheers, Mark

[joeteller]

You want to put a bunch of new limits and structures on the mages but do not give them any advantages in return for these limitations. This goes against the general theory of the system mechanics, and seems to be an attempt to change balance to fit some personal anti-mage bias on your part.

Why should there be more restrictions on a Mage spell system then on someone buying innate powers or powers on an object (magic item) that does the same thing?

[DarkGreen]

Joe-

I'm assuming you're referring to my post...

The mage doesn't have extra limitations on him, quite to the contrary he can use any rules anyone else can AND if he wants magic, there are the rules to access it above. Since no one else can buy powers it is NOT an anti-mage stance. Any campaigns need rules like that if you intend for the characters to not be supers. Now if you're going to let everyone buy powers, then your right and there's no benefit for the mage to use those rules at the top. We have played that way before (wound up with a party at 150pts that included a vampire, an earth elemental, and a demon) but it really wasn't a typical "fantasy" campaign and nobody cared about magic swords or anything like that.

If you're trying to have a balanced fantasy campaign, you need to have rules for the mage, just like in a supers campaign the GM will read through and make sure that the supers don't have bizarre stuff that he doesn't want in the campaign (like extradim movement usable as an attack, etc...).

-DG

[joeteller]

I see, so basically everyone is delegated to playing 'normal' humans in the game you've set up, without races with odd abilities, magic weapons, or the ability to get things beyond normal hth weapons and normal ranged weapons (bows, slings, etc.) with no fancy arrows etc.

Thats a bit different than I pictured.... I can only remember one game in recent years I've been in that limited such access that way, it was more a historical setting than a magic one (and in the end the GM broke his own rules and let his best friend and his wife get non-humans after retiring their original characters).

Thanks for the clarification.

Joe

[Keneton]

Triggered is only abusive if combined with Difficult to dispel. Leave it alone. It is an integral part of magic use in any Fantasy Hero campiagn. Why create a solution worse than the problem!?


Otherwise the suggestions seem ok but a little too limiting. I alos would not want to have to take the 1/2 DCV concentrate every time. Boy that would stink if I had to abort!

[DarkGreen]

Originally posted by joeteller
I see, so basically everyone is delegated to playing 'normal' humans in the game you've set up, without races with odd abilities, magic weapons, or the ability to get things beyond normal hth weapons and normal ranged weapons (bows, slings, etc.) with no fancy arrows etc.

Thats a bit different than I pictured.... I can only remember one game in recent years I've been in that limited such access that way, it was more a historical setting than a magic one (and in the end the GM broke his own rules and let his best friend and his wife get non-humans after retiring their original characters).

Thanks for the clarification.

Joe

Hmmm... was that a flame?

Sigh. Of COURSE that's not how my FH game goes, otherwise would there be a magic system at all? As I'm sure you're aware, though, races are typically built ahead of time and the GM typically designs the magic weapons so they are under control. But no race in my campaign has abilities like, for example, desolidification or invisibility. And yet those things are available through magic. The rules above present a framework under which such abilities are accesible while keeping the fantasy flavor instead of turning FH into a superhero game.

Cheers,

-DG