SirWilliam

I'm posting this mainly because I'm curious. I've seen a lot of postings where a GM will be wondering how to get such and such an effect and how much it will cost. Or people will post critters (aka cannon fodder) fully developed complete with disads. Do most people do this? For myself, most of my baddies (aka the grunts, cannon fodder, and brutes) are just a note with OCV, DCV, Stun, and Body. A lot of times I don't even bother with figuring END. Disads and such are left to main personalities. When I build a spell or weapon for an NPC I just give it the effects I want and don't worry too much about Limitations. I figure that it's not like I have a point limit I have to work with. Treasure the players get on the other hand is fully pointed out, although they rarely (if ever) get the full story on an item. Like I said, I'm just curious.

I was out searching for a printable hex map and I found this: http://autorealm.sourceforge.net/index.html It's a free mapping program. I'm very impressed with it and I've only been using it for about 5 minutes. I may later discover it's failings, but I thought I'd pass it on.

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

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