Is there any game that lets you design your own spells?

...

...

...

I actually remember that 3.5 had varient rules which allowed players to create their own spells as long as the dm allowed it. Not sure if it still applies to 5e.

...

So it was sorta just homebrew spells?

GURPS

Never played GURPS. How'd it work?

Ummm I cant really say. I never did it myself. I think there was abit more to the rules but I cant say for certain.

GURPS or Ars Magica?

Never heard of Ars Magica, but it sounds neat.
What's it about?

UESRPG has the best spell creation system I've seen in tabletops

Hows it work?
I should have been more clear at the start, I'm looking to homebrew this into some of my games.

...

I had an idea for a magic system that works entirely off material components, and you can combine them for different effects. So like, a fire component by itself can be used like a match, but if you combine it with some other components you could make fireballs or summon a fire elemental or make a magic trap that explodes. Every component would have specific rules. I decided it would be too complicated, and wizards would take forever deciding on their combos.

>I had an idea for a magic system that works entirely off material components, and you can combine them for different effects.
Sounds familiar.

Arx Fatalis had a pretty well-thought system where you had to draw runes with your mouse, combining them to create spells.

For example, raise dead is Create+Death+Life (Amm Morte Vitae), Mass raise dead would be the same with the Mega rune, and so on.
You had to find the runes and spell formulaes, or experiment until you found the right combinations.

wiki.arx-libertatis.org/Spellcasting

T'was a pretty goood system, shame it wasn't used in other games.

I made my own, using point system, players earn points after defeating enemies or completing quests. creating a new spell costs 3 points (it will be the most basic), and each 3 additional points gives it an upgrade. eg: Fireball (3) +CanCharge (6) + Inferno(deals splash-like dmg (9) etc.

It's all balanced by myself and the player (we argue until both party is ok with it, but I still have the last word)

That's pretty fucking awesome.

I like this. Reminds me of that cute little wizard game.

Magicka. You get 8 or so elements, and you make spells my hitting different elements in rapid succession. Spells get kooky as shit and if you're not careful, you can blow up your friends.

Not that guy, but Ritual Path Magic is the best-polished system GURPS offers to do that.

You pick a noun (e.g. body, mind, matter, magic) and a verb (e.g. create, destroy, sense, transform) from the set the rules provide, and that defines the effect of the spell. For example, a spell that locates someone is "sense body", and a dispel magic spell is "destroy magic". The rules give a pretty good idea of how much various effects should cost.

GURPS also has other systems like Syntactic Magic, but I don't know about those.

Ars Magica - Reclusive wizards hiding out in their towers in the middle-ages. The gift of magic makes people uneasy so they generally interact with the populace through mundane proxies while spending most of their time engaged in research and wizard politics. Magic is built off a verb-noun system with five verbs and ten nouns represented as mechanical skills.

Mage: The Ascension - A oWoD game involving hidden willworkers who have learned to bend 'consensual reality' to their whim at the risk of paradox backlash if they go to far or do magic in front of the muggles. Opposed by the technocracy who seek to enforce their vision on reality by spreading it to the masses. Magic is built off a system of 9(?) spheres which grant limited dominion over it.

Mage: The Awakening - A nWoD game involving modern day hermetic wizardry, lots of back-biting and reality is an illusion pasted over a hidden world of supernal truth (kind of the opposite to ascension). Opposition in this case is the people who got to wizard-heaven before you and pulled up the ladder. Magic is built off a similar system as ascension but there are different metaphysics.

There's a list of effects, costs, "intensity levels", components and time, and you can random roll it, which as the frontpage says, uses a cumulative system as far as effects are concerned so it sometimes ends up a little bit silly.

Ars Magica, Unoffocial Elder Scrolls RPG, Mage the Awakening.

Combine effect and targetting factors to get a casting difficulty and Mana Cost.

Mage: The Awakening has custom spells and with a cool ST you can do some fun stuff.

You can also combine several spells together into one and make new spells that way or chain some spells up to do fun things.

That was one of those vidya I really wanted to like but just couldn't. The rune-magic system is definitely worth stealing though.

Best answer

GURPS Ritual Path Magic and Syntactic magic, Mage the X, and Ars Magica all allow spontaneous casting *in-universe*. That is, the character can be creative and invent a spell more or less on the fly. Usually there is a slight bonus if you cast a spell that you've calculated in advance.

GURPS Sorcery is the new magic system that builds on the advantage creation system. Basically it lets you design and cost out a spell as a GM or player. So in-universe, you have a spell list, but a GM can create any spell to pop into that list, or a player can cook one up and with GM approval insert it into the campaign. Several other systems have guidelines for player-created spells, but none are as balanced or fully baked as GURPS.

The closest something comes to GURPS Sorcery is D&D3's Epic Level Handbook, which lets player build their own epic spells for their characters to learn.

Natuk was an old-ass PC shareware game with a similar system.

Rahk-im-xa Throw small rock.
Wu-ya-fry Create great fire.

And the fact that I remember those after a decade or two is a testament to the game.

I feel like a homebrew system should be easy. Spells have standardized components, like range, type, area of effect, duration etc, and you just mix and match. Each component has a rank cost, total up the cost to find what level spell it is. Class tells you what level spells you can cast. Where it gets tricky is the nondamage spells that are still meant for combat, like colorspray. Shouldnt be that hard overall though.

I remember an "inspired by" NES/SNES era Final Fantasy homebrew system I got roped into playing years and years ago that all the spells and special attack techniques were covered under a customisable system, even included a character only having so many "points" they can spend on skills to attempt to balance it. I'll be damned if I can remember what the system was called though, but I do remember the combat itself was mega-simple - very much like those SNES era FFs were actually.

Mage the Ascension is the best wizard RPG ever made.

Str:16
wizard.
Cha:15

I see there's a second epic spell wars game out. If I were to get one which should I get?

In addition to all the stuff posted already, pretty much all editions of D&D let you research spells.

Why the fuck would you unironically suggest D&D here? Are you that autistic, that you have to force your shitty system in at every fucking opportunity, no matter how absurd?

Because it fits the OP criteria (being 'a game that lets you design your own spells'), and it makes autists flail in an amusing way.

That image makes me really sad.

Why is that?

>ab jurer.jpg

They let you research pre-existing spells. There's no edition that I'm aware of that has any sort of guidelines even slightly for make your own.

Kill yourself, Virt.