Wizards and limitations

[Mr. R]

I am thinking of converting the Al-Qadim material I have from ADnD to Hero. Warrior/rogue types are easy, just make a template/package deal and voila.

 

Clerics I plan to make their magic like a contact. You don't get the magic when you ask it sometimes, and when you do it won't be obvious in some cases.

 

Wizards, here I have a problem. Not in the conversion (I will go for flavour more than exactly duplicating the spells). No it is more of a balance problem. See wizards are assumed to know their spells all the time. Place them naked in the jungle and they still have their spells. A naked warrior is in trouble till he make/ scrounges/ jury rigs some weapons and armour. The cleric can appeal to the god, but will he respond right away?

 

So with a wizard I was thinking of taking a page from Lawence Watt-Evans Ethshar series. Wizards need to have a focus to channel the spells. It must be obvious and something that can be taken from the wizard.

 

Has anyone tried this in their games, or something similar? How did it work? Successful:why? Unsuccessful:why not?

 

Thank you

 

Jerome

[Nightshade]

I've done that, and it worked fine. Many different magic systems use wands, staves, dusts, etc. The nice thing is that it also makes spells relatively less expensive.

 

If you go with something more D&D style, expendible foci can be a real problem. Then, they not only have to find the focus, they have to find a lot of foci.

 

Nightshade

[Ghost who Walks]

Originally posted by Mr. R

So with a wizard I was thinking of taking a page from Lawence Watt-Evans Ethshar series. Wizards need to have a focus to channel the spells. It must be obvious and something that can be taken from the wizard.

 

Has anyone tried this in their games, or something similar? How did it work? Successful:why? Unsuccessful:why not?

 

Thank you

 

Jerome

 

Lots of Foci can get hard to keep track of.

I prefer an easier way.

I just say that in order to cast spells, some form of focus is needed. Magic is everywhere, but it needs something to gather it.

 

This can be a pentagram, a wizards tower, a 300ft pyramid.

 

It can also be a "magic crystal"

 

Game mechanics wise, use the focus as an endurance battery. Allow players to cast spells without their battery, at about *5 to *10 end cost.

[badger3k]

In the older (4ed) Fantasy Hero, each school of magic used a focus - crystal for mental, staff for something else, I think a tuning fork for sonic, etc.

 

Depending on how you build the system, it can be unique foci for each spell (the old D&D sulfur for fireballs) or can be general.

 

In 3e, if a spell has no money cost listed in the description, the spell components are assumed to be part of the wizards spell pouch. If he loses the pouch, he loses his foci.

 

A lot of fantasy uses similar rules/guidelines. I recall some story where a wizard needed a staff to cast magic easily, but take the staff away he could still cast, it just cost more energy (strain, etc). Something in the old FH may have reflected this too.

 

Its similar to other genres, especially super-hero, with lots of heroes relying on foci for their powers. I've never had a problem with it, nor have my players (who like the reduced cost from the foci).

[Legendsmiths]

In Legendsmiths Narosia: Sea of Tears campaign, mages are required to have a personal focus (like a wand or staff, but it can be anything). If a mage does not have his focus, spellcasting gets more difficult AND more dangerous. Each spell also has an expendable component associated with it that serves 2 purposes:

 

1. If combined with your personal focus you get a bonus to casting.

2. It can be used to compensate for the lack of personal focus.

 

So, if you capture a mage and take away his personal focus and any consumable foci he is significantly hindered.

 

It works very well, and also makes combat interesting as everyone wants to get to the mage to swipe his focus.

 

The rules aren't up yet but they should be soon at http://www.narosia.com.

[RavensPath]

One question, how are you planning on doing the Sha'ir class? A contact with the gen who will then bring the spell to the Sha'ir? Or have the gen by the SFX of a VPP with various limitations. (that way could get really messy!)

 

Matthew

[Mr. R]

Shi'ar Magic

 

For the shi'ar I have one idea:

 

The gen (spell summoning familiar) is bought as a follower. It has a vpp that can only be accessed by the shi'ar. The shi'ar asks for the spell and the gen goes to fetch it. A time delay is invoked at this period (extra time limitation based on a skill role) and gives it to the shi'ar who then can cast it or hold on to it (stacking the rack) but can only hold on to one spell at a time.

 

The only spells a shi'ar does get is to summon the gen, and later jann (low powered genies) and finally true genies.

 

How does that sound?

 

Jerome

[RavensPath]

That sounds pretty fair. And at the later levels you can add in the skills for building genie prisons and stuff.

 

I would be very interested in seeing what else you come up for this transfer. Al-qadim is my favorite setting. I've acquired everything printed except for the monstorous pages. Have photocopies of them, but would love the original.

 

Good luck and if you want to chat about the Land of Fate more just let me know!

 

Matthew

[cutsleeve]

well for alot of the classic d&d spells the focus isnt the bit of twig or the slip of spider web or the shiney shiney dust and such little things like that most spells would instead have an Inobvious inaccesable focus which is "(material component) from material component pouch" this solves the problem of keeping track of the individual items as long as you have the pouch. and because its a pouch full of miscellanious bits and pieces a gm could say that you may or may not be able to find a particular component if the pouch is taken away.

 

In D&D only the bigger more expensive stuff had to be accounted for by themselves all a wizard needed for small time stuff was a component pouch.

 

[Legendsmiths]

For the material components pouch you could do something like this:

 

Activation 14-, Ablative (sort of). Basically there is a 14- to get the right spell component. If the activation roll fails, that item isn't available any more and the activation roll goes down by 1. This means that spell cannot be cast until the pouch is repleneshed at least +1 at the cost of, say, 25gb/+1.

 

This begs the question of whether he could have an extra pouch on hand. I would say, sure, at the cost of 14*25gp = 350gp for essential a backup of "+1" replacements.

 

You could of course make a +1 cost whatever you want, but more than 50gp would probably be a bit much.

[Liberator]

Once you get your templates figured, I'd love to see them. I really enjoyed the ol' Al-Quadim world.

[Vondy]

I haven't run into this exact scenario, but I have handled similar situations as such:

 

Costs Long Term End (-1): Typically the mage will be able to cast one big spell, or a smattering of smaller spells, before they push themselves to exhaustion.

 

By itself its quite limiting, but in my games their are various sources of external endurance... er... "mana" mages can tap into.

 

A few examples:

 

the ever-so-mystical green lotus plant, which is effectively an aid to endurance that is expendable, rare, and be warned, highly addictive if used in great quantity or frequency (and has nasty withdrawl effects)

 

the picturesque ancient magic fountain or garden, which is a stationary endurance reserve with a tailored recovery time

 

the intricately carved (permanent) or drawn (temporary) magic circle, pentangle, hexagram, or whatnot, which serves as a naked "0 (or 1/2) End Advantage," but is stationary, takes time to create properly, and may only work for specific spells.

 

the various spell components that are expendable, but serve as expendable endurance reserves

 

The most potent magic item (from a wizards view) in my games is a mage's staff, which is either:

 

1) a rechargable endurance reserve (various meditations, whatnot).

2) a spell storage device, where the player can pre-cast spells (stored in small orbs set into its length

 

the most powerful such staves can do both.