Magic Systems

[SirWilliam]

I'm potentially going to be starting up a FH campaign after a multi-year hiatus. I fortunately have several months to prepare, which is good because one of the things that I was never happy with previously was my magic systems, so I'm scrapping them wholesale.

 

I have 3 ideas. Magic is either Wizardry, Earthpower, or Divine. For those of you well read, I'm drawing inspiration from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant for Earthpower, and the Fionvar Tapestry and others for Wizardry. Divine power I'm drawing from the Deed of Paksennarrion mainly. Plus some ideas I picked up here in the few days I've been lurking.

 

First is Wizardry. A Wizard buys two things. The Wizardry skill (Int based) and an Endurance reserve with a low recovery on it (similar to a Mana pool). Spells are found in books, scrolls, and other places. Most spells will have a recoverable charges limitation on them. Spells cost endurance out of the Endurance Reserve. As a further non-stock mechanic the Wizard could push his END Reserve. This would cost him 1d6 of Endurance per point of Endurance the spell costs. If the Wizard is runs out of regular Endurance this would carry over to Stun and even Body. Wands, Staffs, and such could be used as further external Endurance reserves. Casting a spell would require a skill roll with a negative modifier equivalent to the Active cost/10.

 

Next is Earthpower. This is similar to Wizardry, in that the spells are not part of the character. The character buys a "Draw Power" skill and a "Cast" skill. The environment provides the Endurance which would be variable dependent upon location . This would allow me to have Earthpower Nexii as plot hooks. Casting a spell requires a successful "Draw" roll and a successful "Cast" roll. The lower the Earthpower level, the harder it is to draw the power necessary. The higher power the spell the more difficult the casting roll. Some spells would not even be attemptable in some locations. Also I could have the possibilty of overload in a particularly powerful Nexus with attendant backlashes and damage.

 

Finally is Divine power. Basically I see this as prayer, and it's either answered or it's not. The PC's would put points into their "Divine Power Pool" . These points would have no appreciable effect from the PC standpoint, but would revert to the GM. Anytime a character invokes their diety I would refer to their DPP and determine if this could be done with the power available, and IF the diety in question would grant the request. Sort of like a loose VPP with the No Conscious control limitation.

 

I'd like to hear some feedback on my half-baked ideas.

 

Thanks!

Bill

[Kintara]

Hmm, so the spells for Wizardry will be governed by charges and Endurance? Why is it necessary? It seems like quite a subtle practical game effect, depending on how it is implemented. Mostly, I'm asking for clarification because I can see how it might work.

 

Earthpower looks like it would fit well with ley-lines, or something similar. You might want to construct a school of magic based around them. You could also make spellcasters tied to specific areas, with their magic limited to only one source or type of source. Also, I would imagine that there would be massive competition on the part of mages for the best nexuses.

 

There is interesting material for both ley-lines and this sort of location based power source in things I've read for GURPS. Pyramid has an article that took a tech spell from a GURPS supplement about drawing mana from another electrical or mechanical power source, and described how this might affect the way magic is used. The spell was mostly described for drawing mana from a power-plant, or other electrical source. But it also talked about drawing mana from natural sources, as if you were drawing the kinetic energy from it directly. Examples were anything that we might make power from now, waterfalls, volcanoes and geothermal phenomena being some examples. A waterfall being tapped, for example, might slow to a crawl, as if in slow motion, while the mage expends the mana from the source. This sort of magic use was described as very powerful because the mages had nearly limitless sources of mana to draw from. So finding good locations, and protecting them would probably become paramount for a self-respecting mage, or group of mages.

 

The ley-lines, I believe, were discussed in GURPS Places of Mystery. You might want to look at that as well. It's actually an interesting reference. Of course, there are plenty of other sources for the discussion of ley-lines.

 

Edit: Anyway, I'll tell you the ideas I've been having for my magic system. A lot of it is described in the post I made about Unlimited Mana, which is still around on this board, I believe (Edit: here.) . Basically, mages can technically cast as many spells as they want, but after a certain threshold it becomes dangerous. Basically, after the threshold is reached, the mage must roll on a calamity table filled with unpleasant side effects.

 

Another aspect of the system that I want to implement is modeling the way the spells can be cast. The idea is that mages using the system could expend huge amounts of mana at one time to create one large effect, but it would create problems because they would be tapped to, or past, the threshold. Anyway, that means I need spells that can be cast big. So either I create multiple versions of the spells, or I think of a new way to "push" them. I was thinking about the rules in the FH about mitigating limitations by increasing the endurance cost, and extrapolating that out for increasing the power of spells beyond just that mitigation. Some spells might increase in area, others damage/effect, or perhaps something else, but whatever it is, they'd have to buy it up according to an increased endurance chart (I'm not sure if I'll use the default one).

 

Anyway, I was also thinking that magic would be tied to visual acuity, instead of intelligence. So only people with extremely good vision would be mages. Conversely, the blind would be magic resistent. I was also thinking that magic would have a luck based consequence, but I haven't decided what. Either the blind would be "Lucky", and the mages "Unlucky", or vice-versa. Regardless, there would be an organization of blind mage hunters that are highly trained martial artists (but not supernaturally good, they won't be Daredevil).

[SirWilliam]

Originally posted by Kintara

Hmm, so the spells for Wizardry will be governed by charges and Endurance? Why is it necessary? It seems like quite a subtle practical game effect, depending on how it is implemented. Mostly, I'm asking for clarification because I can see how it might work.

 

This is mainly for a flavor. As I conceive of magic in my campaign the casting of a spell is pretty draining. I can't just use END or LTE for this because one recovers far too fast to be any sort of limit on out-of-combat castings, and the other recovers too slowly. So this is my compromise. Also this alleviates the problem of mages having to pay points for their basic spells. It also allows me as the GM the ability to steal spells from them. "Oh that spell book of yours, for some reason you can't seem to find it. You do however find a broken window at the back of the Inn". As the mage gains experience he can boost his Reserve, or its recovery.

 

Earthpower looks like it would fit well with ley-lines, or something similar.

 

Quite close actually. I'm anticipating using the "Standing Stone" concept for marking nexii.

 

Basically, mages can technically cast as many spells as they want, but after a certain threshold it becomes dangerous. Basically, after the threshold is reached, the mage must roll on a calamity table filled with unpleasant side effects.

 

I'm going to have to steal the concept of over-casting for Earthpower. It needs the potential to drain the caster, just like Wizardry.

 

Another aspect of the system that I want to implement is modeling the way the spells can be cast. The idea is that mages using the system could expend huge amounts of mana at one time to create one large effect, but it would create problems because they would be tapped to, or past, the threshold. Anyway, that means I need spells that can be cast big. So either I create multiple versions of the spells, or I think of a new way to "push" them.

 

I think I like the idea of a mage being able to take a spell that he has in a book and modify it on the fly so to speak. I'll have to toy with that.

 

Thanks for the reply!