Why NOT use a multipower for magic?

[Old Man]

I would have a pretty big problem with that, actually, in a heroic campaign. But I’m sure opinions vary. 

[Doc Democracy]

7 hours ago, massey said:

 

I’ve been thinking about this, and I disagree.

 

it’s difficult to justify putting a superhero style Force Wall special effect in a rogue’s multipower, sure.  But I’ve seen Captain America’s shield built as a Force Wall before.  Surely we have to leave open the possibility that a player might use the Force Wall power construct to describe something rogue-y.

 

What if Fast Eddie the thief can swat arrows and crossbow bolts out of the air with his sword?  He’s so good he can defend himself and those near him.  But he doesn’t build it with Missile Deflection (he doesn’t want the chance of blowing an OCV roll).  So he buys it as a 12 PD Force Wall.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.

 

6 hours ago, Old Man said:

I would have a pretty big problem with that, actually, in a heroic campaign. But I’m sure opinions vary. 

 

I am presuming we are talking about heroic campaigns as we are talking about fantasy, not fantasy superheroes.  I am therefore quite keen to hear what the big problems with a rogue's player spending points in this way?  It would be pretty big expenditure that would limit other abilities but it would be real defining schtick for that rogue character, one that makes him stand out in a world full of adventurers.

 

I am asking because I am 100% interested in my players coming to me to ask for just these kinds of things for their characters.  We spend a long time talking through how it is going to work in play and what its limitations are.  However, I have absolutely no problems in principle with this.  It is ALSO the kind o fhting I might see being developed into a multipower for non-mage types.

 

 

Doc

[massey]

10 hours ago, Old Man said:

I would have a pretty big problem with that, actually, in a heroic campaign. But I’m sure opinions vary. 

 

I understand that it might offend your sensibilities, but your original statement ("It's really hard to justify putting Force Wall in a rogue's inherent multipower, or Flight in a knight's") assumes that non-magical characters would be allowed a multipower of abilities.  If a campaign is using "non-powered Powers" then I think this one is fine.  I'd probably slap "no range" and maybe "only vs projectiles" on it and you're good to go.  Remember that Force Wall does not equal Wall of Force.

 

I think people are relying on a bunch of unspoken assumptions about how the game will work, and what will be allowed in it.  Do characters have to pay points for equipment?  Can characters purchase powers without a magic spell justification?  Will any characters be allowed to use frameworks at all?  Are you trying to copy a particular game system or setting?  How you answer these questions will seriously affect how you view magic spell multipowers.  Just keep in mind that if you treat characters differently, you're gonna have problems balancing them.

[pawsplay]

I can actually think of a lots of spellcasting protagonists, even part timers. Lythande, from Thieves World, swordsman-mage; Grey Mouser, thief-fighter-magic-user; Harry Potter, ace pilot and wizard; Luke Skywalker, ace pilot and wizard; Willow, farmer/rogue/wizard.

A lot of this goes back to the Combat Luck controversy. Sometimes, it is inappropriate. But in high action games, when your dodgy characters get hit, they don't usually go down in one hit, and that's what Combat Luck does for you. Different options make sense for different campaigns.

Some campaigns might ban Variable Power Pool. Others might require ALL spells to be Variable Power Pool.

Some campaigns might ban Multipower. Others might require it for the standard set of magic spells.

 

[massey]

If I could make a suggestion, it would be this.  The fewer differences in game mechanics between character types, the easier it is to balance.  If you have an entirely separate "magic system" that non-spellcasters never use, there's a good chance it's not going to be balanced properly.  Yeah it'll feel different in play, but it'll be really wonky too.  Mages will either be really awesome or they'll really suck.

 

Instead, try things like this:

 

1)  If you're going to allow basic equipment for free (i.e., costs money, not points), then also create some low level magic that only costs money.  It can be more expensive than a normal tool, but a wizard shouldn't be paying points on something the fighter gets for free.  Having the special effect of "magic" shouldn't suck all your points away.

 

Bob the wizard's apprentice sets out on an adventure.  He has a spellbook of entry-level magic.  The Fire Bolt spell summons a flaming arrow, just like an archer could shoot.  The Handy Rope spell conjures a rope with a grappling hook on the end.  The Slip and Slide spell covers a 10'x10' area and requires Dex checks to walk across it, just like if you'd dumped a bucket of olive oil on the ground.  Bob has a dozen spells or so in his spellbook, none of them that much different than a regular mundane effect.  He trades the encumberance of carrying around all that crap for the requirement of making a magic skill roll.  Should he really have to pay points on top of that?  Probably not.

 

Bob also has a wand of charm person.  It makes targets friendly to you.  The wand costs 100 gold to buy new, and comes with 10 charges.  It requires a magic roll to use.  The GM secretly decides that the wand makes a target friendlier by the exact same amount as if you had given them a gift worth 10 gold and made a persuasion roll.  So it's really just a mundane ability with a magic special effect and a swapped skill roll.

 

Finally Bob has a handful of one-use magic scrolls.  These effects are more powerful, but are still rough equivalents to things you can do in a non-magical way.  The Magic Ship scroll conjures a sailing vessel that lasts for one week (or month, whatever).  The scroll just happens to cost the same amount as buying tickets for your group on a normal sailing ship.  Yeah it's more portable (you could use it on a deserted island), but it's also like a gift certificate -- you might buy it and never use it.  Scroll of Disarmed Dungeon sets off the first 5 traps in a dungeon.  It costs the same as hiring a gang of local dimwits to run ahead of the party and try opening doors and chests ("Hey Dave, go see what's around that corner, okay?").

 

Depending on how creative you wanna get, you could simulate a lot of things a wizard does with equipment like that.  All these things are either GM created or GM approved.  The mage takes Power Skill: Magic, Weapon Familiarity: spellbooks, wands, scrolls, etc, and maybe a complementary KS for whatever type of magic he's using.  Then he can buy combat skill levels with his preferred abilities.  That's not much different than what a fighter would do.  You've just let him change the special effect.

 

2)  If you're gonna let one player do it, you should probably let other players do it too.  If one guy takes a multipower, then it should be okay for other players as well.  If Ricky the knight wants to have a set of "knightly abilities", such as an ED Force Wall only vs dragon breath (requires him to heroically hold up his shield in front of him), a blow where he shatters his enemy's weapon (dispel vs HKA), and a powerful rallying cry (+30 Pre, only to inspire the troops), well there's nothing really wrong with that.  The wizard player didn't do anything worthy of reward by choosing to play a magical character.

 

I think if you allow things like that, where non-magical characters don't feel like they're penalized, then players are more likely to pick them.  This prevents the "everybody plays a mage" problem where everybody wants the cool powers and has to be a wizard to justify it.

 

 

[pawsplay]

The other way to discourage everyone from playing a mage is having powers medium-costly both in terms of points and requirements. Which takes us back to the OP: Multipowers aren't generally used in FH because they are too "easy" and tend to be thematically weak, not because they are inherently more powerful.

[Chris Goodwin]

If I as GM have designed a magic system that assumes the use of Multipowers, but I've gated it off via additional point expenditures (via required Skills, Talents, Perks, etc.), I'm probably not going to have other characters with suites of special abilities also bought via Multipowers.  

 

(Should we try to make a distinction between Fantasy Hero and Fantasy Champions?  I would say that Fantasy Champions implies higher power levels and more open, player driven power builds, while Fantasy Hero implies lower power levels and world/magic system design by the GM.)  

[dmjalund]

I had this mental image of Magic as an EGO based martial art

[Ninja-Bear]

On 5/25/2020 at 9:38 PM, massey said:

 

The limitations of other games do not apply here.  If you want to include them you can, but do not pretend that it's the default setting.

Never implied it was the default setting. My point is though many a time people want to use an element, in this case classes, and the hate of D&D shows.

[Ninja-Bear]

Ok -let ME apologize to everyone. I took the original post and ran with classes thing.  I’ve should’ve asked Panpiper for more details. Even so depending on what he envisions, a multipowers could be good or not.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Whether or not you use Multipowers in your magic system depends on how you want the magic system to work.  If the spell-casters have a relatively static set of spells and it requires a lot of effort to learn a new spell, then having them pay for each one individually makes sense and it allows a fairly easy way to balance magic-users with straight-up warriors.

 

If you want wizards to be able to pick up new spells fairly easily and have a wide repertoire, then a Multipower or even VPP makes sense.  BUT you need to impose some limitation on it to keep spell-casters from getting too powerful relative to characters who don't use magic.  It might be a low cap on active points in spells.  You might insist all magic has to be bought at x3 END,  or at 0 DCV, or all spells require rare and expensive consumable spell components, or the minimum casting time is 1 minute, or whatever flavor of magic you want.  This is more challenging than the first scenario because getting the balance right is more ambiguous than when you just base it on how many points they spend on each ability. 

 

The key is to figure out how you want magic to work in your world and what limitations prevent wizards from ruling the world and use that to inform the structure of your magic system.

[Ninja-Bear]

Ockham’s Spoon that is well worded advise. A MP may or may not fit depending on game vision. It seems that to many said no to MP because the rules don’t recommend it rather than look at sfx (game style).

[Scott Ruggels]

I think th inherent limitations of Magic in FH are the expense and any sort of background.  Without resorting to emulation of “that other game”, which Inthink is kind of pointless, there are things that in a background would become necessary before matic

could be purchased, such as an ancient language, with literacy, some sort of craft skills to be able to make magic items, or a form of dance or martial art to be able to perform the complex gestures needed for powerful , but non-combat rituals. All of these would be point sinks that would keep Joe Fighter from becoming Geralt without some background justification, and a decision to not be as good a fighter as someone else who declined to spend the points on magic. 
 

However I believe the biggest strength of FH is that lack of any sort of a class system within it. 

[Brian Stanfield]

One of the things I devised in a long, complex magic system (which I won't rehash here, but resembles what Chris Goodwin wrote earlier) is a Multipower associated with the wizard's spell book. They could "prepare" their slots via study and skill rolls, and if they ever wanted to change what they had available they'd have to study again and do their skill rolls. This was devised mostly as a buffer against the "just the right spell available for every possible situation" type of problems. Just another bit of gristle to chew on. 

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

However I believe the biggest strength of FH is that lack of any sort of a class system within it. 

That’s great but i asked before what other media have this been done in for examples? The Witcher and Jedis/Sith are two I can think off. Is there others? Or any game which did buck the trend? I’m not trying to bring up the class system argument just looking for examples of a classless game.

[Scott Ruggels]

Classless seems to be more of a "book" than media thing.  I did run a fairly "classless" game in that anyone that wanted to take one of the schools of magic was free to, but it locked you into that school, so you could take as many or as few spells as you wanted.

[Ninja-Bear]

I also thought of  Gandalf  From LOTR movies and Allanon from Shanara series breaks the mould.

[Brian Stanfield]

5 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I also thought of  Gandalf  From LOTR movies and Allanon from Shanara series breaks the mould.

 

Someone brought up Gandalf a few pages ago as an example of an overly powerful wizard, and I forgot to point it out then: we almost never see him actually use magic! It's been too long since I've read the books, but the movies show him use magic maybe 4 times that I can think of off the top of my head. We also see him in a lot of combat with his staff and a sword. So he is a perfect example of a character with no class. (Heh. Makes me think of my favorite Fat Albert joke: you're just like school in the summertime . . . no class). 

 

I say this to point out that I think we're trained to see "classes" when they quite probably aren't actually there in the literature and media. Gandalf is just a really old, wise guy who's good at lore and has picked a lot of life skills. Just like anyone else, really. We've all been Dungeons & Dragons-ified to some degree. The more good examples we can remember, the better we can break that convention!

[Chris Goodwin]

How about Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser?  Thieves, warriors, and occasionally sorcerers.

 

Harold Shea.  Fencer, wizard, and psychologist!

 

[Spence]

On 5/25/2020 at 3:25 PM, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

If I could find a thumbs-up, I'd stick it here.

 

 

 

Here you go

 

👍

 

[Spence]

On 5/25/2020 at 3:45 PM, Lucius said:

👍

 

Drat!

 

Must remember to read the entire thread before replying....

[Ninja-Bear]

39 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

How about Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser?  Thieves, warriors, and occasionally sorcerers.

 

Harold Shea.  Fencer, wizard, and psychologist!

 

I've heard about Fafhrd and Grey Mouser but trying to find a decently priced paper book seems like trying to find a Hobbit - in the woods - at night.

[Shoug]

4 hours ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

Someone brought up Gandalf a few pages ago as an example of an overly powerful wizard, and I forgot to point it out then: we almost never see him actually use magic! It's been too long since I've read the books, but the movies show him use magic maybe 4 times that I can think of off the top of my head. We also see him in a lot of combat with his staff and a sword. So he is a perfect example of a character with no class. (Heh. Makes me think of my favorite Fat Albert joke: you're just like school in the summertime . . . no class). 

 

I say this to point out that I think we're trained to see "classes" when they quite probably aren't actually there in the literature and media. Gandalf is just a really old, wise guy who's good at lore and has picked a lot of life skills. Just like anyone else, really. We've all been Dungeons & Dragons-ified to some degree. The more good examples we can remember, the better we can break that convention!

Eh, Gandalf is explicitly described as being a wizard, of which only 3 remain. Cosmologically speaking, wizards are incredibly unique, demi-angelic superbeings.

[Spence]

42 minutes ago, Shoug said:

Eh, Gandalf is explicitly described as being a wizard, of which only 3 remain. Cosmologically speaking, wizards are incredibly unique, demi-angelic superbeings.

 

Absolutely.  But you actually reinforce Brian S's point.  Gandalf was most definitely a Wizard.......that routinely demonstrated the combat prowess of a elite warrior with both sword and stave.  Something that cannot be done easy or well in the class/level games.  Not that class/level games are bad.  They are written to serve a purpose and IMO do it well.  A game like Hero just allows people to play outside that box. 

[Spence]

3 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

How about Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser?  Thieves, warriors, and occasionally sorcerers.

 

Harold Shea.  Fencer, wizard, and psychologist!

 

 

2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I've heard about Fafhrd and Grey Mouser but trying to find a decently priced paper book seems like trying to find a Hobbit - in the woods - at night.

 

If you like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories, add Simon R. Green's Hawk and Fisher books.