Not as much spell power for dabblers

**slaughterj** · Mar 17th, '03, 12:21 PM

Given that powers cost the same for everyone, how do you control, limit, increase the cost of, etc. powers that are in the province of one magical type from those of another?

E.g., if Healing is available to practitioners of Divine Magic and Wizardry, but the Divine practitioner's Healing is twice as effective (or half the cost of) the Wizard's, how do you handle this, when Healing has a set cost?

If you say "Wizards can't have more than 5D6 Healing", then what other than explicit GM disapproval keeps the balance in play for starting Wizards vs. Priests, if a starter Priest only has 3D6 Healing?

**feywulf** · Mar 17th, '03, 01:06 PM

With priests, the easy way is to define the healing power as not being bought by the priest, but purchased by their diety or an angel, which the priest "summons". Another way would be to have certain powers only be available to those who specialize the correct type of magic.(ie healing isn't available to wizards, but a wizard/priest would have access).

You could give specialty limitations to powers if the mage is of the correct type, or require mages not of the correct type to have additional advantages.

If wizards have to buy reduced penetration on their healing, they have to buy twice as many dice to be able to heal as much as a cleric.. or if a wizard has to buy multiple levels of difficult to dispel, then he can only squeeze so many d6's of healing into the actve point limit of his multipower.

**Champsguy** · Mar 17th, '03, 02:51 PM

Originally posted by slaughterj
Given that powers cost the same for everyone, how do you control, limit, increase the cost of, etc. powers that are in the province of one magical type from those of another?

E.g., if Healing is available to practitioners of Divine Magic and Wizardry, but the Divine practitioner's Healing is twice as effective (or half the cost of) the Wizard's, how do you handle this, when Healing has a set cost?

If you say "Wizards can't have more than 5D6 Healing", then what other than explicit GM disapproval keeps the balance in play for starting Wizards vs. Priests, if a starter Priest only has 3D6 Healing?

It's all GM fiat.

I know some GMs who don't distinguish between wizards and priests. They point out that in classic fantasy (in other words, stuff that came out before D&D hit the shelves), there's no demarcation between the two. Magic was magic, and that was that.

There are no system requirements that will make priests heal better than wizards, just like there are no system requirements to stop a wizard from buying a 75 point "Spell of Killin' Stuff" (a 5D6 RKA with no limitations) that he throws at every damn thing that sticks its head around a corner. It's how you set up the game system that determines that. It won't be something that's determined with points. It's something that'll be determined by how you define your game world.

**Old Man** · Mar 17th, '03, 03:19 PM

Yup, you could also just ask the player for a justification as to why is wizard can heal or why his priest can cast lightning bolts.

Kind of boils down to whether you want stuff like that to happen in the first place. As the GM, you can always just say no or say "You can, but only up XX amount."

Ah, there you go. If you have some sort of point limit on your spell casters then say something like wizards have an INT x 2 Active Limit on wizard type spells but only an EGO x 1 Active Limit on priest type spells.

**mudpyr8** · Mar 17th, '03, 04:39 PM

It all comes down to what you will allow the wizards to buy. In my magic system, until a cleric passes beyond initiate status in the church (a 4 pt membership perq), they can only buy basic healing with a limitation "Not to heal a single wound greater than 1/2 BODY" (-1/2). That way any impairing or disabling wounds cannot be healed even by low level priests.

Wizards can't buy healing at all, and druid types are limited to the minor healing as described above... and can't ever get any better.

You just have to establish those guidlines for your magic system.

**Old Man** · Mar 17th, '03, 05:45 PM

Is it really necessary to implement class-based restrictions on powers in the first place? It's your campaign, of course, but I personally see no reason why the wizard's healing should be more expensive than the priest's. It all has the same in-game effect.

To go off on a tangent, it is my opinion that healing is too cheap in the first place.

**slaughterj** · Mar 18th, '03, 08:46 AM

Originally posted by Old Man
Is it really necessary to implement class-based restrictions on powers in the first place? It's your campaign, of course, but I personally see no reason why the wizard's healing should be more expensive than the priest's. It all has the same in-game effect.

To go off on a tangent, it is my opinion that healing is too cheap in the first place.

I don't see it as necessarily class-based, so much so as background-based, in this case. If there are two sources of magic in a world, that obtained through divine grant and that which is not, and the former happens to tap into magic in an easier way to provide healing, there's no evident mechanic for handling this, so I was looking for suggestions (other than GM fiat).

To match your tangent, I think Force Field is too cheap (for FH).

**mattingly** · Mar 18th, '03, 09:27 AM

To match your tangent, I think Force Field is too cheap (for FH).

It's not quite so bad if the campaign house rule is that Force Fields don't stack with other forms of PD/ED. That way, a character with 4 normal PD/ED, 3 DEF Leather Armor, and a 8 PD/ED Force Field would have... 8 PD/ED.

Another rule that helps out a bit is a -1/4 Limitation (or a campaign rule) that all attacks against Force Fields are treated as if they were Penetrating. That is, for every BODY rolled, at least one STUN gets through the Force Field (or one BODY for Killing Attacks).

**feywulf** · Mar 18th, '03, 10:24 AM

Originally posted by slaughterj
To match your tangent, I think Force Field is too cheap (for FH).

If you are using restrictions on END for spells, such as an END reserve with limited recovery, then spending END every phase makes it a bit more expensive. If you allow them to buy the reduced END advantage, that solves that, but then the active points has gone up, and makes it harder to squeeze the spell into an MP and still be able to cast other spells.

Another effect of a low cost on force field, is that it is easy to dispel. If an apprentice mage can shutdown your defense spell, thats a bitshameful. I'd buy forcefield with at least 1 level of difficult to dispel.

I agree with mattingly on not letting forcefield stack with armor, and the limitation for making all attacks against it be penetrating isn't a bad idea to try.

**mudpyr8** · Mar 18th, '03, 04:36 PM

I require all "cheap" powers (e.g. defenses, movement, etc.) to have Diff. to Dispel x4 (+1/2). This helps increase the active points a little, plus makes the spell much more diff to dispel (as the advantage would imply in case you missed it

)

**Lisa Nadazdy** · Mar 18th, '03, 05:17 PM

It would depend on how the GM defines his campaign. If you were modeling after, say, Final Fantasy, the GM would set clear restrictions on what kinds of magic a particular character can do.

**slaughterj** · Mar 19th, '03, 06:58 AM

Originally posted by mattingly
It's not quite so bad if the campaign house rule is that Force Fields don't stack with other forms of PD/ED. That way, a character with 4 normal PD/ED, 3 DEF Leather Armor, and a 8 PD/ED Force Field would have... 8 PD/ED.

Another rule that helps out a bit is a -1/4 Limitation (or a campaign rule) that all attacks against Force Fields are treated as if they were Penetrating. That is, for every BODY rolled, at least one STUN gets through the Force Field (or one BODY for Killing Attacks).

I didn't ever allow it to stack, and it never became an issue anyway (never did have anyone try a Plate-mailed Dwarven warrior-mage with the earth/stone FF spell

).

I like the idea of Difficult to Dispel, since it does make the AP more in line with other effects for purposes of Dispelling. Something else I've seen done is that some games will have the FF with an attached MD (Mental Defense) as well, which also adds a few more points into the mix (e.g., FF 5PD/5ED, MD 5pts - now you're up to 15pts over 10pts).

**mudpyr8** · Mar 19th, '03, 08:17 AM

I think adding Power Defense makes more sense than MD, but it depends on the campaign. I don't require Pow DEF but *highly* recommend it.

**slaughterj** · Mar 19th, '03, 09:34 AM

Originally posted by mudpyr8
I think adding Power Defense makes more sense than MD, but it depends on the campaign. I don't require Pow DEF but *highly* recommend it.

Good idea!

**Lucius** · Mar 28th, '03, 04:55 AM

Just a couple ideas.

1. Specialists pay for a perk, then get a break on spells they specialize in. "Mage type Z" pays X amount for a perk, then all spells of type Z automatically take a limitation worth Y.

2. (probably better) Mages have to take Disadvantages defining what they are bad at, and then have to take an Advantage on spells they are supposed to be bad at.

3. Combine the above two ideas. Maybe you have to take an advantage on a spell if you haven't paid for the perk for that specialty.

I agree that it's worth figuring out mechanics to cover this sort of issue, not that I'm ever likely to use them if I'm running the game. I'm more likely to say "that spell makes sense for the character" or "it doesn't" not "you can do it BUT not as efficiently."

And for my tangent - Killing Attack should be an Advantage on Energy Blast or STR, not an absolutely free way to get a kind of "Attack VS. Limited Defense."

Lucius Alexander

Off on a tangent on a palindromedary