Charging for Magic: New thoughts & input needed

[Thia Halmades]

Howdy y'all. Here's the basic scenario.

 

You've sat down in my campaign and decided that you're going to play a magic user, a straight up Wizard. I say "Hey, no problem. Here's the spell book (in HDv3 prefab format) of 1st level magic that I just finished. In order to play a caster, you'll need to bear the following in mind."

 

1. You must purchase each talent by tier (I have notes elsewhere I won't repeat, but we'll say you're going with Evocation (5 pts) and Abjuration (3 pts) to start). No problem. You've spent 8 of 150 points to know how to use those two Schools of magic.

 

2. You must purchase the Skills associated with it (Technically, you only NEED the Power Skill, but to research spells you'll need the KS & SS as appropriate for each School as well). Most "first level" magic hovers around 30 active, although Protection From [Alignment] clocked in at a whopping 62 AP.

 

Already, in HERO terms, things are going well. Like anyone else, you're paying for the skills & talents to use magic. No sweat. Basic stuff; all spells are RSR in their School, standard 1:10. This also means many people are going to specialize rather than have their points flying around all willy-nilly.

 

I know I want to use a Mem/Mem loss design very much like d20. Using Killer Shrike's website, I've gone ahead and given each spell Charges, or Continuing Charges as the case may be. You mem it, you cast it, the charge provides the fuel (instead of END) and foom, spell. This also lets me set durations & such, which is also much easier to get my head around.

 

Building the spells (which I started this morning) barring a couple (curse you, Grease) has been fairly easy. Here's where I'm stuck. How would you actually have them purchased? In the d20 wealth management paradigm, magic is "free" to casters because they're screwed on so many other levels, but HERO doesn't work that way -- a spell is a Power and should be paid for.

 

I'm not a fan of Real/3. I'm hesitant on a VPP because it's prohibitively expensive, despite that once it's purchased, you're "done." I can add all the spells I want to a properly defined VPP without charging the player anything else; if they want to learn more powerful magic, they improve the VPP directly. In a lot of ways, this makes the MOST sense.

 

But what if a player wants to go Cleric, and learn a single Sphere, or tight group of Spheres? Should they purchase their Clerical spells? Purchase a very very limited VPP (which is still going to cost them at least 30 points for the base to cast the spells at all, despite that the RC for the individual spells, with charges, is nearly zip?) What are your collected thoughts? What are interesting or different ways you charged players for the spells in their books?

[Markdoc]

Re: Charging for Magic: New thoughts & input needed

 

I'm not a fan of Real/3. I'm hesitant on a VPP because it's prohibitively expensive, despite that once it's purchased, you're "done." I can add all the spells I want to a properly defined VPP without charging the player anything else; if they want to learn more powerful magic, they improve the VPP directly. In a lot of ways, this makes the MOST sense.

 

Two approaches - VPP you've basically covered: expensive setup but no limitation on spells apart from what you get, which means it becomes increasingly effective with time (not necessarily a bad thing). The biggest problem - as you have alreday found out - is accomodating the occasional high pointage spell.

 

The other option is Multipower. For D&D magic, this is easy to do - with gestures, incantations and concentration (for that "attack of opportunity" feel), you're already at -1 in limits. If the multi reserve has a limited number of charges, then you reduce the cost even further - at least until you get powerful enough to cast more than 15 spells a day

 

It still works the same way: you have your pre-genn'ed spells and all the player has to do is work out whether his reserve is big enough to hold the biggest spell he knows - the number of charges is the number of spells/day. Alternatively, if you want lots of little spells or fewer big ones, run the whole thing off an END reserve.

 

One downside - a multipower with plenty of limits can actually give a *lot* of oomph for the points invested. Be especially wary of melee clerics who can "power-up" with spells like Bull's strength immediately prior to combat (though that's good advice in D20, too, so it's not out of genre - speaking as someone who - ahem - mostly plays melee-cleric themed chrcaters )

 

As for double dipping into sorcery/clerical magic, I'd make the player buy two seperate frameworks. That's not unreasonable, given that in the original source material apart from Cheese Golems like Favoured Soul/Sorceror/Mystic Theurge, you usually pay for that extra flexibility with a substantial loss of power.

 

cheers, Mark

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Charging for Magic: New thoughts & input needed

 

I'm wondering if the best way to do it isn't going with a VPP for Wizardry, and a very carefully crafted MP for Clerical Magic, since a properly built MP is the cheapest & most effective way to cost spells, and then the Cleric can just shake his foot and the spell goes off.

 

Probably would make the most sense to offer multiple Multi-Powers in that case, one for the Spheres your Deity covers, and one for those Spheres outside. Hrm. I'll chew on this more. As you noted in Choldath's thread, I am going with Wizards having to purchase the skill and all spells as RSR -- that's just the way it's gonna be in this case. I also feel, though, that a smart player can get away with a lot by purchasing Overall Magic Levels just like anything else; especially when they have multiple schools to choose from.

 

And, on reading your thoughts, and going back through KS's material, I'm settling on the VPP idea for Wizards. However, Killer Shrike may want to chime in here, at lower levels -- let's say I cap them at 45 to begin play, which is up to approximately 2nd level magic (I've got some 1st level spells that break the bank -- Protection from Evil is a big one) and as you said, if I use his model, of Real * 3, they'll be casting until the cows come home.

 

On the flip side of that, of course, is that his magic system assumes magic always works (Vancian, in his lexicon) whereas I'm assuming a) you need to hit him, and you need to 'go through the motions.' This is actually consistent with d20, because if you read the Concentration rules closely, there's a whole BUNCH of things that force a Concentration roll, which is all RSR represents. When I originally did this, I was going with the idea that I would use RSR "under duress." But that didn't enforce it enough for my tastes, and I simply used a "Concentration" skill -- this version is actually much closer to what I wanted in the first place. It forces specialization, it rewards people who sink the points.

 

All of my spells thus far have the following limitations:

 

- Spell [school] (-1/2)

- RSR [school] (-1/2)

- Gestures/Incantations/Foci as appropriate

- One Charge, or one Continuing Charge

 

Charges are the really WEIRD part, because they utterly dump the cost of spells. Some of them are already really cheap -- Endure Elements (Life Support, 1 Continuing Charge lasting 24 hours) is a Real Cost of 2. Shield, Mage Armor & Obscuring Mist all come in at 7.

 

I think I also like the idea of forcing a "most spells per day per group," but that isn't very HERO-ish. Still pondering, but closer. So far VPP seems like the most reasonable way to do it.

[1EyedJack]

Re: Charging for Magic: New thoughts & input needed

 

I once kicked around cost divisors for spells that essentially duplicated equitment for exsample a shield spell that gave a +2 dcv or a Mistic bolt that did 2d6 RKA, but making spell that had exotic or more powerful effects have full cost, my thought being why should a wizard pay a lot of points for something a warrior can use with a 2pt fam.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Charging for Magic: New thoughts & input needed

 

Yes, there's an element to that, and certainly a lot of the spells reflect that. However, the important thing here is that a fighter usually has his tools and his special abilities. However, a Wizard has an almost infinitely large tool box via their spell book.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Charging for Magic: New thoughts & input needed

 

If using a VPP, you can either require wizards to take a "Only Known Spells From This List" Limitation, or enforce such a Limitation without cost as a campaign ground rule.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Charging for Magic: New thoughts & input needed

 

I was planning on saying "Only from the provided list." If you haven't seen the provided list, Level One Magic has been posted in another thread, none too far from here. Please feel free to check it out.