Adjsting magic power levels

[Michael Hopcroft]

Some types of FH magic give a x5 modifier for points spent on spells. other slist only a x3. And others have no modifiers at all -- a point is a point mo matter what you spend it on.

 

This leads me to the conclsuion thtat a tool is being provided to balance the relative power of magic ic a campaign. So you could in theory have:

 

No adjutsment: magic is weak, difficult and not alwasys worth the trouble. You have to spend a lot fo REAL points to get much in the way of power. A fireball may be beyond most 75+75 point characters.

 

x2: magic is somewhat more potent, but not powerful enough to be a major factor in most camapigns. Few will bother to learn spells of any power.

 

x3: magic is moderately powerful. Spellcasters can be more flexible and have access to greater and more powerful spells than before.

 

x5: magic is a force to be reckoned with. magic users are potent and versatile, more so that other charactres of the same point level.

 

x10: magic-users are such a force in this world that they have a huge advanatge over all other adventurers. An experience wizard can put enough oomph into his spells to level mountains. At this level non-magic-using characters can barely particpate in the campaign.

 

x20: Wizards and gods are practically the same thing. major contrstaints will have to be imposed by the GM if he wants any PCs in his canmpaign who are not magic-users. Enter here at your own peril!

[Eosin]

I like the observation.

[Blue Jogger]

Does this take into count limitations? A wizard might be able to have some powerful spells with powerful limitations and let loose with a powerful spell even in a x3 campaign.

 

Destroy the Mountain

20D6 Blast with Area Effect (200 Active Points)

Limitations

-5 x10 END (paid off with an END Reserve) 225 END

 

33 real points, 11 real points in a x3 game.

[farik]

In our Fanatasy campaign we don't use a multiplier and don't allow power frameworks either; the effect is an abundance of low powered spells we call household magic. 1 character point may not build you a D&D fireball spell but it can make life alot easier for the simple peasant folk. We emphasize advantages like "variable special effect and variable advantage" on things like EB and Entangle to make a versatile variety of spells out of a small number of "powers".

[Michael Hopcroft]

Originally posted by Blue Jogger

Destroy the Mountain

20D6 Blast with Area Effect (200 Active Points)

Limitations

-5 x10 END (paid off with an END Reserve) 225 END

 

33 real points, 11 real points in a x3 game.

 

Does this spell actually destroy the mountain, though? Would it really do enough BODy to blst the top off the mountain?

 

I would think mountains had more BODY than that, Maybe if you made the attack megascale -- but then you really would have the magical tacnuke that animewizards are so fond of.

[Earen]

I'm making all magic-wielding characters in my campaign use a Multipower for their spells and power them from an END reserve. This gives them the ability to buy decent-powered spells for 1 to 3 points each ... but limits them from getting spells that are too powerful because they have to spend the points on the Multipower reserve and the END reserve first. I haven't done a lot of playtesting yet ... but I'm interested to see how it'll turn out.

[Outsider]

Loose dirt has 16 body per hex, according to 4th Ed.

 

A 20 D6 AoE will peel the first 1.25 hexes off the mountain, unless your GM makes a ruling that every hex within the area, regardless of the fact that they might be solidly shielded from the target hex by other hexes full of dirt/rock, gets hit.

 

I'd be iffy about that ruling, myself, as the same logic would mean that a 5" Radius AOE targetted at a bad guy standing in the middle of the street will also hitting all the poor people in the subway 10 meters below the street surface.

 

Even if your GM does rule that, your radius is still only 10" on a 20d6 AoE with no other advantages. You'd be taking 40 meters (tops) off the mountain, not destroying it all together. Taking an additional +1 (or more) in "increased radius) would start getting you closer to mountain destroying volume of effect.

 

20 60 (300) 20d6 EB AoE/Rad x8 (+2) (160" Radius) and 10xEnd (-4)

or

 

27 80 (400) 20d6 EB AoE/Rad x128 (+3) (2560" Radius) and 10xEnd (-4)

[Markdoc]

>>>I'm making all magic-wielding characters in my campaign use a Multipower for their spells and power them from an END reserve. This gives them the ability to buy decent-powered spells for 1 to 3 points each ... but limits them from getting spells that are too powerful because they have to spend the points on the Multipower reserve and the END reserve first. I haven't done a lot of playtesting yet ... but I'm interested to see how it'll turn out.<<<

 

I've done this for years: it works well for me since I hate the idea of mountain-destroying PC wizards, but like the idea of wizards with a lot of flexibility/power. However, if the spells are all heavily limited, the reserve can often take the same limitations (gestures, incantations, focus etc), which means that spell-users can still be quite powerful, at a low to medium points level.

 

I have handled this in my my game by requiring all spells to take certain limitations, so that spell-casting is very, very difficult in combat. You may want to consider something along these lines unless you want all characters to use some degree of magic.

 

As for the idea that points spent on magic get this freebie cheapening it was (I think) an attempt to simulate the the multipower effect without the limitations (and therefore balance) of a multipower. It's a really, really terrible idea and I've already redlined it out in my copy of FH.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Snarf]

I wondered about that when I looked at Fantasy Hero a little while. Does anyone know what the logic was behind creating new rules instead of just using power frameworks for magic? Were people complaining that frameworks were too restrictive or something?

[sbarron]

Originally posted by Snarf

I wondered about that when I looked at Fantasy Hero a little while. Does anyone know what the logic was behind creating new rules instead of just using power frameworks for magic? Were people complaining that frameworks were too restrictive or something?

 

Yes, they were. There are lots of potential problems with doing spells with a framework. My biggist one is with players wanting only one or two pretty powerful spells. This becomes very expensive to do in a framework, if not impossible. And if a player does do it, what's to prevent him (outside of GM fiat) from having all of his spells being powerful? He has the framework to support big spells now.

 

Sure, a Gm could limit a framework in some way to suite his game if that's the way he wants to go. And in fact, he still can. I'm not trying to argue one method over another. Gms just have another option now. I like the new discount method for creating certain magic systems. I like power frameworks for other magic systems. That's the beauty of Hero. Options.