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Creating a magic system with Multipowers?


Brian Stanfield

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What you are describing sounds like a custom Lockout Limitation that only applies to the Slots but not the Multipower Reserve. The Reserve should not get a discount when in your example 3 slots can work completely normally.

 

HM

That's my feeling too. I think the extra time for reassigning the slots applies to the reserve, however. I looked at the VPP limitations for a hint on this, and think the -1/2 limitation for the "between adventures" limitation seems about right (as opposed to the -3 from the extra time table suggested in another post above).

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Bolding and underline added for emphasis. It's not saying the character can't use all the powers in the Multipower at one time. It's saying they can't all be used AT FULL POWER at the same time.

Point taken, but this seems like more of a problem for variable slots, not fixed slots. If the fixed slots are built with the reserve in mind, then they are going to be limited on when they can be used. I'll post a follow-up question that this leads to.

 

 

But it DOES limit them in a DIFFERENT way. Is there some reason you can't just restrict how big the Variable Power Pools Pool is, so the character can only have a few Real Points worth of spells at a time?

 

 

This is probably what I'm going to do in the end. I think my concern over turning an adventure into a pyrotechnics show with too many spells flying around can be resolved with proper END rules. Perhaps using long-term endurance, or a limited endurance reserve with a long recovery period.

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Admittedly, my own contributions, as someone with less experience in Hero magic, has been more a structural view on it, how to build a pool that generally behaves in that way without constraining it to a preapproved list of spells, so that players may still use their own ingenuity.

 

It seems to me that power limits that gradually increase are actually a campaign world level thing, as opposed to a system level one. As such, it seems simple enough for a GM to say, here are the caps on your pool and its slots at the level of a x point character, here they are at x+50, etc.

 

I agree about avoiding the pre-approved list, although the HS Grimoire is a really useful template for spell schools and spell builds. I'm also trying to avoid a "level" system. I'd rather they be able to build up their spells organically according to their own interests, without the constraint of reaching certain levels. My feeling is that if I am a beginner, but want to specialize in fire magic, and especially a fireball (which is way over the initial cap I'll be using), then that I can put all my experience into that one spell's development as I gain experience. This is shortsighted, and pretty limited, for a magic user, but as a GM I want to have as much freedom as possible to avoid the D&D tropes of ability and spell levels, etc.

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IMO VPPs are too powerful in a fantasy setting.  

 

In my game magic is a multipower.  You learn spells by buying slots in your multipower.  That way you can cast any spell you know any time you have the END to pay for it, but ONLY the spells you have taken the time (spent the XP points) to learn.  And spell users are forbidden from converting their multipower into a VPP.  

 

Also, IMO, a 3d6 HtHKA is not out of the question for a properly constructed melee type (Sword plus STR plus Advantages) so I cap magic user's multipowers at 45 points.  That gives magic users plenty of points for KA-BOOM powers, as well as enough points to play with for some nice subtle powers.

Just out of curiosity, do you have any troubles with there being too many spells available with a Multipower spells system? How big is your reserve in such a construct? I'm trying to limit how many spells are available to cast on any given day, but I don't want to limit how many spells may actually be "learned" and written in a spell book. I'm thinking a VPP with a low control cost is probably the way to achieve this, and a limit on the pool itself extending the time for reallocating the pool.

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Both multipowers and VPPs run the risk of allowing too much versatility, especially if the campaign is largely inhabited by mundanes.  I've run FH mages with multipowers before, and it's trivially easy to get the cost of a slot down to 1 or 2 points, giving the caster close to 20 slots and thereby access to half the powers in the list.  VPPs, of course, give the caster access to the entire powers list, in theory.

 

What you're going to have to do is radically limit the versatility, as you have already guessed.  Fixing the spells for 24 hours at a time is one way to do that.  At minimum I'd require a caster to have to spend at least half an hour to make a change to the pool--anything less than that and casters become unstoppable swiss army knives for noncombat situations. 

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"I'm trying to limit how many spells are available to cast on any given day"

 

Do you also limit how many times a fighter can swing his sword on any given day?  

 

Limiting the number of spells a mage can cast in a single day is fine if you're trying to recreate D&D inside Hero System.  I don't really feel the need to limit mage players OTHER THAN making them use a multipower and prohibiting VPPs.  VPPs are just TOO powerful and too flexible for a fantasy setting.

 

​Like I said, a 3d6 HtHKA is not out of reach for a properly constructed melee specialist, and the fighter can keep that up for as long as he has the END to keep swinging.  I feel the mage should have the same prerogative.

 

3d6 HtHKA is 45 active points, so I put a 45 point cap on magic multipowers.  Players can learn as many spells (have as many slots in their multipower) as they like.  Yes, at some point it is more cost effective to reconstruct the character and put the points into a VPP.  Too bad.  Fighters & Rogues don't have that option.  They just have their stats, skills, and advantages.  No reason to have mages, and only mages, suddenly morph into demigods once they reach a particular XP threshold.  

 

Depending on how they build their multipower then they can have one massive spell and nothing else going on, or several small spells going on all at the same time.  

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"I'd require a caster to have to spend at least half an hour to make a change to the pool--anything less than that and casters become unstoppable swiss army knives for noncombat situations."

 

The same can be said about the Rogue/Bard who invested most of his character points in 3-point non-combat skills.  And they can use any of those skills at the drop of a hat.  

 

IMO you shouldn't punish a player for having a well constructed PC.  If the PCs are too powerful for the campaign then drop the points threshold by 25 points.  

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The same can be said about the Rogue/Bard who invested most of his character points in 3-point non-combat skills.  And they can use any of those skills at the drop of a hat.  

In what campaign is a 3-point skill as good as outright invisibility, flight, telepathy, telekinesis, or clairsentience? Especially when the latter cost less than three points in a multipower slot.

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My view is that a 'magic' multipower or vpp is not a good idea to start with. 'Fire Magic', sure, 'Water Magic', sure, 'necromancy', sure, 'divination', sure. 'Magic', no.

 

A pool is supposed to have a somewhat narrow focus, a topic as it were. 'Magic' is literally 'anything I can imagine'. That is not at all defined. It is effectively no different than a 'totally unrelated things I want cheap pool'.

 

Perhaps people already do this, but if not, it seems to me that, if magic is defined into multiple pools, not one, this would mitigate some of the difficulty. The player would have to pick and choose which pools are going to get more focus, and consign themselves to 'sucking at charms'.

 

This way, a player could even have a 'potions' pool, sure, it could have a wider range of powers in it than a 'fire magic' pool, but the pool would have limitations like having delayed effects, etc.

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In what campaign is a 3-point skill as good as outright invisibility, flight, telepathy, telekinesis, or clairsentience? Especially when the latter cost less than three points in a multipower slot.

Using the above list of powers as an example, if one doesn't allow a general 'magic' pool, but does allow 'fire magic' pool, 'divination' pool, etc, then that list above, well, invisibility is likely a glamour, flight a charm, telepathy mind magic, telekinesis(not sure what that would go under), and clairsentience is divination. At the absolute best, you might get a couple or MAAAAYBE three of those in the same pool, but that pool would not get you fireball or things like that. In order to have a diverse variety of spells, the caster would need to have more pools, and thus, more expenditure in pools.

 

Further, I think the VPP issue might become a bit of a non-issue this way. Exactly how many fire magic spells is the player going to be looking for? A few types of magic might be good for a vpp, but, in most cases, the categories may not end up being that broad.

 

EDIT: Looking back at the original posts, apparently I'm behind the curve on the conversation. Never mind my digression!

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Both multipowers and VPPs run the risk of allowing too much versatility, especially if the campaign is largely inhabited by mundanes.  I've run FH mages with multipowers before, and it's trivially easy to get the cost of a slot down to 1 or 2 points, giving the caster close to 20 slots and thereby access to half the powers in the list.  VPPs, of course, give the caster access to the entire powers list, in theory.

 

What you're going to have to do is radically limit the versatility, as you have already guessed.  Fixing the spells for 24 hours at a time is one way to do that.  At minimum I'd require a caster to have to spend at least half an hour to make a change to the pool--anything less than that and casters become unstoppable swiss army knives for noncombat situations. 

 

This is exactly what I'm trying to avoid! I'm thinking, at the beginning, a very low control cost in a VPP so that the spells are less powerful, and a lower pool so that they can't have as many at once. They can keep their spells in a book, and then go refer to the book to rearrange the slots in their pool. 

 

Out of curiosity, have you used a different magic system with better success than a multipower?

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"I'm trying to limit how many spells are available to cast on any given day"

 

Do you also limit how many times a fighter can swing his sword on any given day?  

 

Limiting the number of spells a mage can cast in a single day is fine if you're trying to recreate D&D inside Hero System.  I don't really feel the need to limit mage players OTHER THAN making them use a multipower and prohibiting VPPs.  VPPs are just TOO powerful and too flexible for a fantasy setting.

 

​Like I said, a 3d6 HtHKA is not out of reach for a properly constructed melee specialist, and the fighter can keep that up for as long as he has the END to keep swinging.  I feel the mage should have the same prerogative.

 

3d6 HtHKA is 45 active points, so I put a 45 point cap on magic multipowers.  Players can learn as many spells (have as many slots in their multipower) as they like.  Yes, at some point it is more cost effective to reconstruct the character and put the points into a VPP.  Too bad.  Fighters & Rogues don't have that option.  They just have their stats, skills, and advantages.  No reason to have mages, and only mages, suddenly morph into demigods once they reach a particular XP threshold.  

 

Depending on how they build their multipower then they can have one massive spell and nothing else going on, or several small spells going on all at the same time.  

 

You make a good point, but I'm thinking of a fairly advanced wizard who may face off with a fighter of the same points. Imagine a fighter entering a room with his great sword, ready to swing away as long as he has the END to spend. Imagine a wizard who can then cast a telekinesis spell of the same point value to hold the fighter in place, then cast a RKA of your choice (lightning?) at him, then casting resistant protection spell on himself so the fighter's rogue friend with a bow can't stop the wizard, and then hit them both with a speed drain, only to follow that with a fireball. This is obviously an extreme example, but a less powerful wizard with just the right spells is the bane of EVERY fantasy game, and needs to be reined in somehow.

 

I'm just looking for some ways to do that with the rules as written, with as few house rules as possible.

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You make a good point, but I'm thinking of a fairly advanced wizard who may face off with a fighter of the same points. Imagine a fighter entering a room with his great sword, ready to swing away as long as he has the END to spend. Imagine a wizard who can then cast a telekinesis spell of the same point value to hold the fighter in place, then cast a RKA of your choice (lightning?) at him, then casting resistant protection spell on himself so the fighter's rogue friend with a bow can't stop the wizard, and then hit them both with a speed drain, only to follow that with a fireball. This is obviously an extreme example, but a less powerful wizard with just the right spells is the bane of EVERY fantasy game, and needs to be reined in somehow.

 

I'm just looking for some ways to do that with the rules as written, with as few house rules as possible.

note with a mult-power the mage could not do that all at once, you can only move the points once per turn.  

That would be like saying the fighter can use his bow, then his two handed sword, and then shield bash.

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So let me re-frame my situation: I'm trying to teach Fantasy Hero to new players who are familiar with D&D and Pathfinder, but little else. I want to show them how endlessly flexible Fantasy Hero is by comparison, precisely because it doesn't have classes, levels, pre-determined spells, etc. The bulk of the rules are pretty easy to teach, but the "powers" are a bit mind-blowing to newbies who can't quite get over the super-hero theme. I'm trying to introduce them to a magic system that makes sense (and let me emphasize, the Vancian magic of D&D makes little sense).

 

Spells, once learned, shouldn't be "forgotten" once used. In fact, it seems that just the opposite should be true: the more you use it, the better you know it. New magic using characters shouldn't be able to have a long list of spells to choose from, all of which, if uncapped, would be fairly powerful. Characters can choose to specialize in schools of magic, and I plan on using Hero System Grimoire for the basic "schools" of magic. They also should only be able to use the spells as they learned them. Only with experience will they be able to modify the spells with the Invention (spell research) Skill, or create new ones. They could also begin to buy off some limitations as they get more experienced as well.

 

I'm thinking of the classic Harry Potter series: compare Harry in his first year to Dumbledore, for example, and how hard it is for the children to learn basic spells and then struggle with consistency. I'm also thinking of the battle between Dumbledore and Voldemort when they both used all kinds of spells, back and forth, building off of each other, but with a minimum of limitations like foci, gestures, incantations, etc. I don't want to recreate that system, but I'm thinking about how a beginner would look compared to a master.

 

With that in mind, it seems like a VPP for each school of magic would work, represented by their spell book for each school. There should be lots of limitations, including a major time limit for rearranging the VPPs, and limited only to spells that have already been learned before, maybe even the lockout limitation on most spells so they can't cast too many at once. This hopefully represents the need, occasionally, to refer back to the text to brush up on certain details of spells in order to have them fresh in the wizard's mind. The lesser limitations could be bought off over time, so each spell could become more proficient for the user through experience. Also, each VPP should have a low control cost for beginners (say 30 or 40 points), and a low pool as well to limit the number of spells available. Both of these could be bought up over time with experience points, accounting for more powerful spells over time, and more of them available. But this will be a slow process since it will be bought with Experience Points.  I'm also thinking the Invention (Spell Research) Skill can be purchased after "expertise" is achieved, although I haven't figured out this threshold yet.

 

So, with all that being said, here's the rub I've been wrestling with: a balance between how many spells can be cast by a beginner, and maintained simultaneously (consider a shield of some sort that can be maintained while other attack spells are cast). The VPP runs a risk of allowing too many spells going on, as pointed out by Old Man and phydaux above. I was considering a Multipower instead, but it has a different problem because the reserve would need to be large enough to allow for some simultaneous spell usage. Also, a Multipower doesn't limit how many slots are available in the power, so a character could potentially have a list of 20 spells in each school, all of them available at will. I could limit how the slots are reallotted with time restraints, and the reserve will control how many slots can be activated, but then that severely locks down how many spells are available to the point where perhaps only one slot for each Multipower is available. I could adjust this so that they start out fixed, but then can be bought up to variable, but I'm not sure this solves much.

 

I started this thread as a way to try to create a Multipower with some natural restraints like a VPP. It seems like maybe it's not possible to do that. I'm leaning back towards the VPP, but I'm also beginning to reconsider the virtue of a Skill-based magic system and just dropping all of the power framework nuance. Again, I'm trying to teach magic to beginners, and I want to keep this as simple as possible.

 

Sorry for the long post. Any suggestions and insights would be useful!

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note with a mult-power the mage could not do that all at once, you can only move the points once per turn.  

That would be like saying the fighter can use his bow, then his two handed sword, and then shield bash.

 

Point taken, but if the wizard can catch the fighter in the first phase, while there's still space to cover for a hand-to-hand attack, it becomes potentially very unbalancing. If the fighter is held or drained right away, he becomes virtually useless each phase thereafter while the wizard can still pump away with spells. This is admittedly an extreme example, but one we've probably all encountered before.

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To give a slightly different perspective from those posted before me:

 

When I was young, and new to the HERO system, I loved designing complicated "Magic Systems". They required specific frameworks, and/or specific modifiers, and I would jump through dozens of hoops trying to make sure the "player" could do lots of interesting things. As I've gotten older (and have more than a decade of experience building characters under my belt), I've come to distain the kind of magic systems I favored in my youth. The idea that every spell has to be bought through a multipower or VPP irks me now; where before it was a central element of many of my magic systems.

 

Nowadays I build my "spellcasters" much like I would build a superhero...

 

The standard array for such a character usually includes a Multipower with 3-5 Attack spells (or sometimes Utility spells), one Defensive spell, and one Movement Spell. The key principle here is a spellcaster should only be able to cast one "Attack spell" at a time (or other spells that should require constant mental upkeep). Anything the spellcaster needs to be able to maintain at the same time they are casting their "Attack spells" should be bought outside of the multipower.

 

For example, I recently built a skeleton-centric apprentice necromancer. This "Skeleton Necromancer" had:

A 30-point Multipower reserve containing the following slots;

Summon Animated Skeletons (a Summon power that required corpses as an expendable foci)

Command Animated Skeletons (a Summon that targeted skeletons in the immediate vicinity, allowing the necromancer to regain control of skeletons that had fallen out of their control, usually because they had expended all of its tasks).

Unmake Skeleton (A Dispel Summon that only worked against animated skeletons).

Snap Bones​ (An AVAD RKA that only worked against enemies with a skeleton, the defense was innate PD or rPD... so toughness protected you, but not full plate).

Knit Bones (A Healing power that only healed "skeletal damage". IE broken bones, damaged animated skeletons, and the affects of other attack spells used by the necromancer).

Outside of this multipower, the necromancer had a spell called ​Necromantic Command Seal ​(A Mind Link with up to 250 animated skeletons at a time; so that the necromancer could give commands to their skeletons, and receive reports from them over any distance). Because they needed to be able to maintain that spell at all times, they paid full price for it.

The necromancer also paid for a ​Vorpal Bone Sickle ​(A Penetrating HKA with a lowered STR Min ​plus PRE only to cause fear) as a "Wonderous Device" which in fluff they had learned to enchant themselves. (This enemy was written to be FHC compatible, so I didn't use the Alternate Item Creation System from FH 6th)

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You could look at using an Attack Multipower, A defence Multipower and a Movement Multipower to represent the different elements of spell casting.

This is very true, but unless you have two or more defenses (which you don't want active at once), or two or more unusual modes of movement; it mostly just ends up being a waste of page space.

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A pool is supposed to have a somewhat narrow focus, a topic as it were. 'Magic' is literally 'anything I can imagine'. That is not at all defined. It is effectively no different than a 'totally unrelated things I want cheap pool'.

 

 

A VPP is supposed to have a unified theme, but a Multipower doesn't have that restriction.  It is literally just a list of things you want cheap.  It can be "these are things I have in my backpack" or "these are powers where I don't have enough juice to run them all at once".

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A VPP is supposed to have a unified theme, but a Multipower doesn't have that restriction.  It is literally just a list of things you want cheap.  It can be "these are things I have in my backpack" or "these are powers where I don't have enough juice to run them all at once".

 

The limited sfx is a suggestion only, not a hard coded requirement.

 

from the first 2 paragraphs in 6e1 page 409

A character with a Variable Power Pool (“VPP”) establishes a pool of Character Points that he can use to create any power, or any power within a defined group of powers (typically, a set of powers limited to a particular special effect). Think of a VPP as a Multipower that has all of the powers of a certain type or special effect. The character distributes the points in the Pool among whatever powers he wants to have at a given time.

 

Typically, the powers created with a Variable Power Pool are linked by common special effects, such as “gadgets,” “magic,” “fire/heat,” or “mentalism.” This allows a character to create a wide variety of powers and effects without having to try to think of every possible application of his powers in advance and buy them separately.

 

By default, a VPP can literally be used for any power which is why it's the perfect construct for characters like Silver Surfer or Green Lantern. Anything less is where Limitations come into play.

 

HM

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I get what you guys are saying, but one of the things I try to avoid is having to write a whole sourcebook for a single campaign.

 

ALTHOUGH I have had many discussions with players who bought VPP control pools with the limitation "Magic Powers Only" about why no, they may NOT have Lightning Bolt or Fireball spells in their Magic ONLY VPP, but they COULD have MANA Bolt or MANAball spells.  

 

 

"compare Harry in his first year to Dumbledore, for example, and how hard it is for the children to learn basic spells and then struggle with consistency"

 

I hear you.  So Year One students get a 5 pip multipower and have no slots.  As they "learn" they get XP, and can either buy slots or up their pool.  The cap on the pool goes up 5 points a year, so by Prisoner of Azhaban they have 15 point multipowers (if they spend the points to up the pool total) and by Deathly Hallows they could have 35 point pools.  Avada Kadavra (2d6 EGO RKA) would take a powerful wizard with a 60 point multipower.   Harry would also have to up the points in each slot, otherwise the Stupify spell Harry learned in Goblet of Fire (Mental Attack?  Fourth Year, so 20 active point max) would STILL have a 20 active point cap in Deathly Hallows even though Harry's multipower has 35 points in it.

 

But we're getting close now to having to write a sourcebook for a Hogwarts campaign.

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Nowadays I build my "spellcasters" much like I would build a superhero...

 

The standard array for such a character usually includes a Multipower with 3-5 Attack spells (or sometimes Utility spells), one Defensive spell, and one Movement Spell. The key principle here is a spellcaster should only be able to cast one "Attack spell" at a time (or other spells that should require constant mental upkeep). Anything the spellcaster needs to be able to maintain at the same time they are casting their "Attack spells" should be bought outside of the multipower.

 

How do you keep the costs down for your spellcasters? Doesn't it get out of hand pretty quickly for a beginner?

 

Have you considered one of the Skill-based systems suggested in Fantasy Hero 6e?

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Also, when I have my players build their mages, I assume they are going to power their spells off their regular END, just like fighters swinging their swords.  But there is another option....

 

Have the mage PCs buy an END battery with, say, a 50 point cap.  All their magic spells must run off that end battery.  Then have that battery recharge at a rate of 10 END per DAY.  

 

This allows mages to run lots of small spells that only burn a little END, or small spells that take up their WHOLE pool because they're built to cost zero END, or they could throw powerful KA-BOOM magic around for a few phases, and then be tapped out (except for their zero END spells, which can still be significant).  Even after the tapped out wizard rests he still can't throw around all that much Ka-Boom magic, at least not until after he rests for several days.

 

 

"A Balrog," muttered Gandalf. "Now I understand. What an evil fortune! And I am already weary."

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