Best magic system?

[mallet]

I'm just starting up a fantasy hero campaign and I am wonder what the best magic system would be.

 

I haven't been able to get fantasy hero yet (still waiting for any type to hit, HC or SC, the store). So I don't have the official rules/guidelines for making a new magic system but I can probably figure something out, but I would like so imput from all of the other gm's and players out there as to what has worked best, what hasn't worked very well, etc...

 

I should add, that I do have the Grimoires for types of spells and the campaign is going to be "high fantasy", I'm imagining a DnD "level" of magic.

 

Can anyone offer up some ideas and helpful advice?

[WilyQuixote]

Re: Best magic system?

 

This may or may not help you decide on what kinda of magic to use in your campaign but my buddy KillerShrike of these boards has already done 98% of any work you could possibly conceive of for any magic system. Heres a link, enjoy!

 

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/FantasyHERO.aspx

[Susano]

Re: Best magic system?

 

I really liked the magic system described in The Valdorian Age. Haven't used, but the mechanics sounded really interestiing.

[Lamrok]

Re: Best magic system?

 

Last time I ran Fantasy Hero (probably at least a decade ago), I rolled my own. The mechanics (completely hidden from players) worked like this:

 

All "mages" had to buy a small VPP - 5-15 points, depending on how strongly magic was manifested in the character. You could put an Aid inside the vpp to "stretch" it to fit larger effects, but this took extra time, and added extra limitations (the aid required concentratiion, for example). Every power used had to be described by a "spell." Spells were INT-based skills, but there was a "wizard" skill enhancer you could use to cut the cost a bit. Spells were chosen from a list that hid all of these mechanics from the player - the only purpose of the mechanics was to determine how long it would take to cast (a function of the size of the vpp, and the amount of aid necessary to expand it), the possible powers you could use to produce effects (you couldn't cast a spell if the minimum points for the necessary effects couldn't fit in the vpp), and the penalty to apply to your spell skill in order to cast the spell.

 

So, players saw descriptions like:

Fireball - description, x damage, x range, area of effect x

requires: magery II

skill roll -x

time to cast: 2 phases

pre-reqs: must know Burning Hands at 11- (all spells were divided into spell schools with pre-req trees that added a bit of extra flavor - so mages tended to be "water mages," "fire mages," etc. and the various types of mages had various different reputations.)

 

Spells didn't look like long catalogs of weird hero-speak, they looked like spells in other games. But, unlike those other games, spells in my game could all be quickly reverse-engineered if you needed to change a parameter.

 

This was heavily based on GURPS magic, which I used to be quite fond of. But, it provided the flexibility to add any spell (I converted the entire D&D spell list plus the entire GURPS magic spell list), while providing a mechanism to balance them somewhat against each other. Casting big spells took an investment in pre-req skills, extra time, and an extra investment in skill points to offset the skill roll penalty. I thought it worked reasonably well - Mages had a lot of options in how they chose their spells.

 

Unfortunately, all my notes and background material for this were lost in a disk crash some years back.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Best magic system?

 

I'm just starting up a fantasy hero campaign and I am wonder what the best magic system would be.

 

I haven't been able to get fantasy hero yet (still waiting for any type to hit, HC or SC, the store). So I don't have the official rules/guidelines for making a new magic system but I can probably figure something out, but I would like so imput from all of the other gm's and players out there as to what has worked best, what hasn't worked very well, etc...

 

I should add, that I do have the Grimoires for types of spells and the campaign is going to be "high fantasy", I'm imagining a DnD "level" of magic.

 

Can anyone offer up some ideas and helpful advice?

 

 

There are no 'official rules' in 5th Edition -- its a "roll your own, its all good" approach. Fantasy HERO has a chapter discussing concepts you might want to consider and provides, if memory serves, twelve capsule descriptions of very diverse magic systems. The different published Fantasy settings each have their own magic system(s) tailored to the setting.

 

Personally, I've run with this openness and detailed a number of magic systems, with Package Deals, sample characters, and in most cases sample effects / spells / etc. I've also put up various ideas on how to use HERO System mechanics in various ways to model common concepts like material components, Only vs..., casting disruption, spell resistance, and so forth. And, I've put up some generic advice pages that discuss magic systems at a high conceptual level.

 

 

In the end, there is no "best magic system" in an objective sense. Its really a question of what you want for your setting, and finding or crafting one or more magic systems that fill that need.

 

 

Here is the hub document for the various design concept: Design

 

Here is the hub page for all the magic systems on my site (save one or two that arent complete yet): Magic Systems and a page that breaks down the various major magic systems on my site by different criteria: System Advisor

 

Here is a document discussing how to use various built in Limitations to model common spell ideas: General Spell Restrictions and here is a document listing some variations from the normal rules that I use in some or all of my Fantasy campaigns: Magic House Rules

 

 

There's a lot of information to absorb, if you are interested in it, and many people have found at least one magic system they can use, or leveraged the material in some fashion to make their own. Good luck!

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Best magic system?

 

If you're going with a D&D-esque magic system, the Turakian Age system was (IIRC) designed to emulate that general feel. I'd suggest getting the TA book along with FH and making any adjustments from there.

[sbarron]

Re: Best magic system?

 

Last time I ran Fantasy Hero (probably at least a decade ago)' date=' I rolled my own. The mechanics (completely hidden from players) worked like this:[/quote']I've had a magic system in my head I've been trying to design for the past couple years that has some similar ideas to yours. But it always seems to become too complex, and that's one of the design flaws I'm trying to avoid. Nothing more to add, other than I like your magic system ideas.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Best magic system?

 

I've had a magic system in my head I've been trying to design for the past couple years that has some similar ideas to yours. But it always seems to become too complex' date=' and that's one of the design flaws I'm trying to avoid. Nothing more to add, other than I like your magic system ideas.[/quote']

 

I spend a couple of months hammering out my magic system exactly the way I wanted it, then have spent more months building spells (at this point I don't allow players to build their own spells).

 

Then after play started I came up with like 4 different magic systems that were complete in my head in a couple of weeks. *sigh*

 

Mine is loosely modelled on Rolemaster's magic system (three realms + arcane, power points (called mana), full, hybrid and non spell users, no spell lists but groupings of spells, and skill rolls (though no side effects)).

 

Then I built a bunch of D&D metamagic as talents (some of which are in Digital HERO #45 plug plug).

 

I'm currently working my way through Mysthus magic converting spells to my system.

 

 

I enjoy this kind of thing.

[Damascan]

Re: Best magic system?

 

Check out Oddhat's Imperium Romanum - A fantasy campaign thread in the Fantasy section of this site. He did a great job thinking up a coherent system that is not really so much rules based as conceptually based. He's even provided sample characters and scenarios, and it all reads like a novel...

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Best magic system?

 

Hmm. Tancred is right. I'm slacking.

 

FIRST: Buy HeroDesigner.

 

Second. Download my spell conversions (both 1st - 5th levels of d20 Magic & levels 1-3 of Cleric magic -- I'll do level 4 here shortly so I'm caught up). I took the entirety of the 'feel' of the d20 system, cribbed from Killer Shrike in terms of core design, and then rewrote the entire mess into a new magic system that works for me.

 

Not guarantees for the rest of you, but I loved it. There are two separate threads in the Fantasy HERO forum; one for Wizard magic & one for Cleric magic. If you have any questions, just let me know.

 

Did I mention? Buy HeroDesigner. Do it NOW. Not the least of which is because my spells do you almost no good without it.

[Susano]

Re: Best magic system?

 

Oh, and if you have Hero Designer, you can download and edit all of the hdc files I'm putting up on my webpage for all of my conversions.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Best magic system?

 

If you want to use the Magic System the Grimoire's are defaulted to pick up Turakian Age which has a pretty good High Magic system in it. It's both Skill and Power based.