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Magical Burn-out?


Brian Stanfield

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There is a rule:

 

If a weapon is made to do more than double the damage of the weapon, then the weapon breaks.

Not necessarily, the rule isn't that the weapon automatically breaks, but rather that the weapon takes the same amount of damage itself. Weapons almost always have at least +1/2 in Advantages (Zero END), and therefore on average have half-again more Def than DCs. If the Foci is Durable and/or the Weapon has a total of +1 1/4 in advantages (including Zero END), it has a pretty good chance to survive taking double it's base damage.

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Thanks for the leading questions. I am a bit vague about what I'm asking. Sorry. I don't have anything particular in mind, I was just curious if there's a way to model it. Let me try to flesh out a few of the points I'm curious about:

  • In the Harry Potter movies, the wand chooses the wizard. A borrowed wand will work, just not as well. Your own wand will work better (stronger) for you.
    • However, when you capture someone else's wand, it changes allegiances. 
    • Voldemort captured the Elder wand, but it wasn't really his (it was Draco's). When he tried to use it to attack Hogwarts he nearly split it asunder trying to push as hard as he could. 
    • So, is there some sort of way to model this? Would a borrowed wand be a Drain? Would your own be an Aid? How about the blowback from trying to push too much magic through a not-your wand?
  • ​In the Circle of Time books, everyone draws from the same One True Source for their magic, although not everyone has this ability. It is limited to some sort of genetic trait or something (like a Talent I guess). But here are some of the drawbacks:
    • If you draw too much of the Source, you'll burn yourself out: you "still" yourself, and no longer have access to magic permanently.
    • Others can get together to still you by joining their magic in order to cut you off. Basically like blowing too much amperage through your magical fuse so it gets blown.
    • You can get healed, or "reconnected," but at a significantly lower level than before. How to simulate this . . . ?

Although this all seems unrelated, I think I'm looking at it as what happens when you try to sip magic through a fire hose, when you've been using a straw most of your life. In other words, is there a way to simulate the over-use of magic with disastrous results. In Hero, we have spells with a set amount of AP, so you can't exceed it and there's no problem. The limits are built in. But is there a way to exceed those limits at the risk of losing it all. I guess it would be like Pushing a spell, with side effects, right?

 

I'm just curious what different ways there are available to do this, or perhaps some problems I haven't thought of yet. 

 

If your magic system uses spell points in some manna (pun intended and awful), then perhaps a character's magic roll determines how much manna they draw for the spell. If they don't draw enough, the spell goes off. If they do, then the spell works. And if they draw too MUCH, then the excess has to be soaked by them - perhaps something equivalent to Long Term Endurance derived from their Manna Pool attribute. The player chooses how much manna they wish to draw when they cast a spell (Xd6 where X is a value chosen up to the character's magic attribute). Now obviously if they are very conservative then they run the risk of not being able to cast their spell. If they're more reasonable, the spell will probably go off but they're at a higher risk of rolling too much and having to soak the excess magic. Now if they're casting spells that cost 8 manna then no big deal - they roll their 4d6 and are pretty confident that their spell will fire and they probably wont have to soak more than five or six extra magic "burn". But when they are attempting a mighty spell that costs 20 manna well now they have to ask themselves whether they want to be very cautious and roll say 6d6 or if they want to draw a lot of manna to make sure their spell goes off but risk an abnormally high roll. Maybe a player uses their character's entire Magic Attribute of 9 to make sure the spell goes off. But with 9d6 in play, minor variance means that the chance of rolling significantly higher is increased over smaller dice pools. Of course a character's magical soak goes up with level as well, but the more dice in play, the greater the variance can be.

 

There are several nice things with this:

  • It works not only with large spells but also with too many spells. As it accumulates (like Long Term Endurance) then consistently going over your limits by a small amount has repercussions just the same as going over your limits by a large amount once - either way you risk burn out.
  • It puts the risk-reward scenario directly under the players control thus adding tension. Do they want to play safe? Do they need to take a risk?
  • It can be pegged easily to existing characteristics. If you have a manna pool in your game, just make a Long Term Manna attribute similar to Long Term Endurance in that it's the same value but used differently.
  • It captures what you describe from the novels you talk about.
  • It can easily be tweaked to add story effects like Voldemort wrestling with the Elder Wand. Want a magical implement to resist being used? Take the Normal Body dice from the spell roll as an additional amount of Manna Burn. (E.g. Voldemort rolls 1,2,2,5,6,6,4 and that's an extra 8 mana to soak). Want enemy mages to try and "burn out" a PC? They start making manna rolls to add to the PC's manna pool. Bonus side-effect: the PC is now desperately trying to cast spells to burn off the additional manna before it harms them permanently. That would be an interesting scenario - to burn out your enemy you have to supercharge them making them more powerful than they can handle, but all the time they're trying to turn that power back on you. Sort of a "You want my power? You can't handle my power!" game effect.

 

In fact, I like that last one so much I'm inclined to yoink it for my own magic system. Thoughts? Like it?

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If your magic system uses spell points in some manna (pun intended and awful), then perhaps a character's magic roll determines how much manna they draw for the spell. If they don't draw enough, the spell goes off. If they do, then the spell works. And if they draw too MUCH, then the excess has to be soaked by them - perhaps something equivalent to Long Term Endurance derived from their Manna Pool attribute. The player chooses how much manna they wish to draw when they cast a spell (Xd6 where X is a value chosen up to the character's magic attribute). Now obviously if they are very conservative then they run the risk of not being able to cast their spell. If they're more reasonable, the spell will probably go off but they're at a higher risk of rolling too much and having to soak the excess magic. Now if they're casting spells that cost 8 manna then no big deal - they roll their 4d6 and are pretty confident that their spell will fire and they probably wont have to soak more than five or six extra magic "burn". But when they are attempting a mighty spell that costs 20 manna well now they have to ask themselves whether they want to be very cautious and roll say 6d6 or if they want to draw a lot of manna to make sure their spell goes off but risk an abnormally high roll. Maybe a player uses their character's entire Magic Attribute of 9 to make sure the spell goes off. But with 9d6 in play, minor variance means that the chance of rolling significantly higher is increased over smaller dice pools. Of course a character's magical soak goes up with level as well, but the more dice in play, the greater the variance can be.

 

There are several nice things with this:

  • It works not only with large spells but also with too many spells. As it accumulates (like Long Term Endurance) then consistently going over your limits by a small amount has repercussions just the same as going over your limits by a large amount once - either way you risk burn out.
  • It puts the risk-reward scenario directly under the players control thus adding tension. Do they want to play safe? Do they need to take a risk?
  • It can be pegged easily to existing characteristics. If you have a manna pool in your game, just make a Long Term Manna attribute similar to Long Term Endurance in that it's the same value but used differently.
  • It captures what you describe from the novels you talk about.
  • It can easily be tweaked to add story effects like Voldemort wrestling with the Elder Wand. Want a magical implement to resist being used? Take the Normal Body dice from the spell roll as an additional amount of Manna Burn. (E.g. Voldemort rolls 1,2,2,5,6,6,4 and that's an extra 8 mana to soak). Want enemy mages to try and "burn out" a PC? They start making manna rolls to add to the PC's manna pool. Bonus side-effect: the PC is now desperately trying to cast spells to burn off the additional manna before it harms them permanently. That would be an interesting scenario - to burn out your enemy you have to supercharge them making them more powerful than they can handle, but all the time they're trying to turn that power back on you. Sort of a "You want my power? You can't handle my power!" game effect.

 

In fact, I like that last one so much I'm inclined to yoink it for my own magic system. Thoughts? Like it?

 

do like it. I'm a little confused by that last point: it's quite complex, but I haven't thoroughly worked out everything you said before so it's a limitation on my part. I'll look more and think on it.

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