Commentary on a magic system

[Bobby Walker]

I'm working on a magic system for my fantasy campaign, and I've got a good idea of how it should work. The problem is, I've never really run a Hero game before. So, I was curious if those more knowledgeable than I might take a look at, and offer up some pointers on where the flaws may be that I can't see.

Thanks, in advance!

This is the ability to create magic by following predefined formulas, or spells. Each wizard begins the game knowing a few select spells, up to five, as those that are allowed to instruct magic may only imbue their students with enough knowledge to become wizards. Beyond that, each wizard is encouraged to seek out others and trade, research, and share their knowledge with other wizards.

In reality, this practice has been encouraged, because it prevents elder spell casters from having to divulge more of their favorite incantations. What was meant to challenge the young has managed to serve the older generation quite well. Formulaic Magic consists of these skills:

Magic (Formulaic), Memorization, and Battle Focus.

Magic (Formulaic) is the skill needed to cast a spell. Each formulaic spell will generally require 1 Minute to cast, however this becomes impractical at best. Most wizards have enough knowledge to speed the process up, and for each step up the time chart the wizard may take a -5 penalty on their roll. This may seem excessive, but when combined with the other skills, the prepared Wizard can be a force to be reckoned with.

Memorization is the skill needed to give a caster the spells needed, when they are needed. Casters that spend time memorizing spells, can recall those specific formulas with better accuracy. The spell caster rolls a memorization skill roll, for each spell beyond the first, the caster must take a -1 modifier. The player should list out the spells they intend to memorize and in what order, noting that they only need to memorize a spell once. For each point the caster succeeds the roll by, they are able to memorize one spell from their list. If the caster fails this roll, then none of the spells are memorized, and the memorization bonus is lost for the following day. Casting a memorized spell reduces the casting penalty by 2.

Even still, once a Wizard enters battle, those that maintain their focus can control the flow of the battle. Nothing is as fearsome as two wizards, both focused on the other. When entering combat, a Wizard may elect to spend their first combat phase in Battle Focus. This skill, is the Wizard's ability to assess their surroundings, and to understand where interruptions to their casting may come from. A Wizard that is aware of their surroundings, and has set themselves into a battle position, may find that casting spells become quite the simple task. A Wizard that successfully makes a Battle Focus roll may reduce their casting penalty by 2. Each time, however, that the Wizard takes damage they must spend a phase in Battle Focus.

Casting spells generally involves only one roll, the Magic (Formulaic) roll, followed by any dice rolls that are required by the spell itself. Spells in Arythia are very effective, and this system tries to reflect that. If a critical success is rolled when casting a spell, then the caster has demonstrated the perfect pattern of incantations and gestures. The magical formulas are such that one spell can flow into another, and the next spell the caster uses (must be a different spell from the one cast), can be cast with no penalties.

If the skill roll is a failure, then the spell is cast as normal, however, the spell becomes unavailable to the caster. Generally this is simply the stress of magical forces coursing through the body has shifted. Realigning the patterns and formula to the casters style takes time (generally half an hour per point the roll is missed by). Critical failure means that the character, and possibly those nearby, may suffer a random magical effect (not specifically a beneficial effect either).

Spells are generally built with the following advantages and limitations:

Time Limit (For non-instant powers)
Expendable Focus (Components)
Gestures
Incantations
Requires a Roll

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Looking at your magic system, I don’t want to really comment about the fluff, and I do want to focus on the campaign and the mechanics.

The playablility of mages in combat depends highly on what sort of skill checks you are looking at, and how good magic is. A character with a 23- on Magic (Formulaic) can reliably fire off 1 phase spells (which is very playable). A character with 18- on Magic (Formulaic), but spells are very powerful and will tip a fight in the mage’s favor is also playable (you are unreliable, but when you get one off, you contribute a great deal).

Battle Focus is used to “charge up” before casting, so a speed 4 wizard can either take a -5 penalty and cast in a turn, or a -4 penalty and cast in 1 phase if they make 3 battle focus checks. I’m not a big fan of “1 turn” casting durations, because they leave you very prone to interruption, especially with gestures. As soon as you start, you are the target of every enemy character, who wants to grapple you.

For battle focus, do you need to spend a phase each time you are hurt? Or only when previously used battle focus? Can you battle focus multiple times on a single spell? Do the mandatory phases still give a +2 to your Magic (Formulaic) roll?

Could you give a better idea of spells relative to the campaign setting? If most spells are utility spells and are cast out of combat, then the wizard doesn’t need to worry as much. If most spells are combat spells, it is very important to make sure wizards are not the concept of “I am very vulnerable for an entire fight, with the possibility of payout” and “when I fail a roll, I am no longer useful”. The fact that failed spells still go off helps that problem though.

I have more thoughts, but that’s a start.

[Ice9]

With memorization, I'm guessing that you only get one attempt per day? Or that the attempts take a significant time period? Otherwise, memorizing one spell at a time would be the way to go.

Can Battle Focus be stacked? If not, I don't think there's much benefit to it - just spend one more point (for +2 to Magic (Formulaic)) and you get the benefits all the time, without spending actions. If so, then I guess it could be worthwhile for less skilled mages to "charge up" as Roy suggests, although that means that really you'd never need to spend more than six phases casting a spell (Battle Focus x5, then cast as a 1-phase action with no penalty).

[Bobby Walker]

Alright, let me give an example.

This should only apply to spells cast in combat. Out of combat, there generally should be sufficient time that there are no quick casting penalties. So, I am just considering how to handle timed events, such as battles. This is my thought process.

First of all, for memorization, this is the equivalent of studying a spell so that its fresh in memory (gaining a bonus to casting the spell of 2).

The next day the wizard finds herself in the midst of battle, where the first thing she does is to spend her first action entering a casting stance (Battle Focus), and by doing so she gets a bonus to casting the spell of 2. At this stage she has a net of +4 to cast the spell.

This results in a total casting penalty of -5 + 4 = -1 per step up the time chart. So, to cast a spell to finish on the next segment (3 steps up the time chart), the character would take a -3 on their casting roll. So, that could be a -9 or a -15 if the memorization and/or concentration were not used.

If the wizard successfully casts the spell, then the spell remains available to cast again. If the wizard fails the check, the spell is cast and the wizard cannot cast the spell again until they spend time studying again.

The initial limit on skills would most likely be 13-15, so the character would at best have a 10-12 as the casting roll. A decent chance of success. The thing is that more powerful spells would take longer to cast, and thus incur larger penalties. So that even an advanced wizard would most likely still need a 10-12 to successfully cast their spells.

The other thing is that Skill Levels would not be applicable to the magic system.

[Ockham's Spoon]

I like the concept of Memorization and Battle Focus; I am not quite clear on how the characters are spending points there though, but let me offer a couple suggestions.

All wizards have a standard (Formulaic) Magic roll for starters. You could then buy extra levels with this skill roll with the limitations "Only for memorized spells" or "Requires Battle Focus roll".

You could also just let wizards buy PS: Memorization and PS: Battle Focus and let them work like complimentary skills to the Forumulaic Magic skill. Memorization would clearly be an INT skill, but Battle Focus might be based on EGO.

Or, you could buy all spells with Variable Limitation. Typically that limitation would be Extra Time: 1 Turn. But it could also be "Requires Memorization roll with Side Effects" or "Requires Battle Focus roll".

One last thing I would throw out. If I were a player in this campaign, my first question would be "Can I buy Eidetic Memory so my wizard can flawlessly memorize spells?" Just something to consider.

[Ternaugh]

So, If I'm in combat against a wizard under this system, the best thing to to would be to attack the caster. That way, he'd always be trying to do Battle Focus to recover from damage, and should never be able to get off a spell. I'm thinking that a fighter with a bow would be most useful, as he could shoot the spellcaster from a distance, and reload each phase for another go.

From the point of view of the spellcaster, it all becomes a matter of having the time to successfully make the Battle Focus roll and his first successful casting. Interrupt either of those, and the balance swings to the fighters. As it is, the payoff of the first spell will need to be big enough to ensure that the spellcaster doesn't take any damage after that (or he needs lots of minions, to redirect attacks).

JoeG