Magic systems thread

> make RPG
> wizards get 1 spell per day per level
> first level wizard? 1 spell per day.

What do you think, Veeky Forums?

Better make sure he's got enough bolts in his crossbow.

Or you make Cantrips a thing.

Or better yet, ask yourself what Wizard actually means in your game. Are they the end-all do-all that starts out weak, are they Crowd-control and utility caster focused, or glass cannons?

As long as spells are powerful enough that one of them per day is roughly equal to the stuff non-wizards can do all day long at 1st level. Which is difficult.

Like, if you were making this a mod of 5e, and you take away the wizard's cantrips and only allow one spell per day at 1st level, that spell would probably need to be a 3rd-level spell to be fair. If you only get one per day, it'd better be pretty dramatic.

I think you should try some games that aren't D&D before you even start thinking about making your own RPG.

> implying I haven't.

I've played Savage Worlds, World of Darkness, that Warrior Rogue Mage game, loads of OSR clones like Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and I've read so many RPGs I can't keep track of them all. I've also played GURPS but didn't use the magic system at all so I won't really count that one.

Yes. Well it's meant to be low-powered fantasy, in a very gray and ruined world. I want rituals to be a much larger focus of the game, brewing potions, etc.. all the stuff that sucked in D&D, I want to bring more into the fold here. Special spell components? No one wanted them in 3.5 D&D cause they were overpriced and I rarely saw them after that. I want the kind of class synergy where an alchemist character can brew stuff for a wizard to use to augment his spells, and maybe vice-versa.

Crossbows and bolts are fairly affordable.

> Or you make Cantrips a thing.

Well actually that's my biggest point of contention. I have them right now but I feel like including them or not including them vastly changes what magic means in the game.

Then you'll have to explain why you would consciously opt for (pseudo-)Vancian casting.

I would like to direct your attention to the very first line in the OP.

>first level wizard? 1 spell per day.
One relatively instantaneous spell per day, as in you can cast it at a moments notice.

Other than that, you can cast any spell you know but everything else takes a long time (30 minutes) and supreme focus; any minor annoyance like a bug buzzing around you will require a concentration roll check.

No I am making my own game. But I have far more experience than the average homebrewer, my game is nothing like D&D except for keeping classes.

>Then you'll have to explain why you would consciously opt for (pseudo-)Vancian casting.

Because I think the biggest flaw of Vancian casting is the whole "you get 5/4/3/2/2 spells per day and know 4/2/3/3/2 spelsl per day but can only prepare 5/4/3/3/2 of those" ..... just shut the fuck up already, you've already made me drop this game. Maybe linear fighter and quadratic wizard is a meme, I don't know, but i do know I am sick of 2nd level spells, 3rd level spells, and so on.


> spell points / mana points

I don't like these. I am using them in my game, but that is for a druid character who only gets a few per month and can use them to affect weather and what-not. They are more rituals and such.

I don't like spell points because pricing the spells gets annoying, and I hate tracking them. They also require absolutely zero foresight. I considered making "preparing a spell" a big deal like it was supposed to be in D&D. But in the end I opted for "you know X spells and can cast Y spells per day". Of any level. If you want to cast Magic Missile (I put it in because it's too much a classic to let go of) six times, you can. Depends what you want. Your first spells will remain relevant later in the game.

I want wizard spells to be almost as powerful as 3.5 spells but I don't want wizards to be overly powerful. The XP system in this is built so that characters will advance slower and slower: getting from level 9 to 10 will take almost twice as long as getting from level 3 to level 4. Getting to level 10 would require 54 sessions so it is basically the end-game. At this point a wizard can do 10 spells per day.

>too much a classic to let go of
You should get rid of this mindset.

I mended it with mage only skills, played like subclasses. You take nothing from the original class but the player can choose to have a skill only usefull for low levels.

-Scribe, who can write scrolls only he can use. You regulate the price of each scroll and the level of spells he can write on them.
-Battlemage, who can actually read the spells from his spellbook, once he is our of slot, but only a set amount, because exertion will cause unconsiousness.
-Runecarver, who can put his spells into runes and carve them on half-gems.
-Magesmith who can bond with one weapon and fill it with spells.

Alchemist, Golemancer, etc.

Of course cantrip system of way easier to implement, but if you can limit the subclass on low levels and also offer advancements with each one. Variety and direction.

I don't really like levels or D&D magic. What's your goal here?

op read about earhdawn magic system.

Not making the superior system, user come on

>make rpg
>wizards get unlimited spells and power
>Chance to harm himself everytime
>Goes up with difficulty

>He as to choose between many easy saving throws or few hard ones.

High risk/high reward is the best way to do spellcasters.

This but with slight chance of going off snackbar style every time

Then don't play the system I'm making. I agree with you in most instances, btw.

I've had that in Savage Worlds and I just don't like it much at all. Perhaps it pisses me off more because Savage Worlds is a generic game and there is no option to get rid of the backlash, so you can't change how magic works in different settings without "cheating"

> chance to harm himself every time

It just bogs down the game and usually the fuck-ups are anticlimactic or incongruous.

Now, for the really powerful spells, yes, there are chances of fucking up. Like to do resurrection, not only do you need rare ingredients that you MUST quest for, but the caster himself must enter the realm of the dead and might die there trying to retrieve his friend's soul. So you don't just have the local cleric cast true res on your buddy, it needs to be someone you really care about if you're going to go in there to get him.

>He as to choose between many easy saving throws or few hard ones.

What do you mean here? In relation to dying in magic?

>loads of OSR clones
Those are literally D&D.

Which is why he didn't include dnd as a seperate thing he played.

It looks really good! At least from the RPGnet explanation I found. I am going for a more alchemical / occult approach to this magic, but I do still want fireballs and such.

Oh, I shuold probably say this game is a fantasy RPG but is really nothing like D&D besides using classes and levels which I have vastly altered. No rolling for stats or hit dice, or ability scores or any of that. I like spell points for some systems but not this one. I want it to feel like AD&D but having completely different mechanics.

I've re-used very few D&D spells but there are some that I like too much to get rid of. Magic missile and chain lightning are among them.

So then, GURPS, Savage Worlds, World of Darkness, and quite a few others that I've played. Hell I'll even throw in Star Wars d20 and WEG d6 star wars as examples even though they aren't really that relevant. Ask me next week and I'll add Apocalypse World to that list. I just wanted to clear the notion I am the "look at muh d20 homebrew" kind of guy. I want to make something with a mix of familiar and foreign and using a few D&D tropes isn't really a problem as far as I'm concerned. I feel like D&D has created this black pit where if you use any of its mechanics you will be tainted by it.

>play level one wizard
>get to actually be a wizard for a whopping one turn, the rest of the time I may as well be an NPC

You've basically made Staring At My Phone All Session: The Class.

Dumb. Why bother playing a wizard then, of you're going to rely on a crossbow or some such? One spell per day can't compete with other classes unless they're all exactly as boring, especially if you haven't eliminated the traditional drawbacks of wizardry (such as frailty and social retardation).

>Well it's meant to be low-powered fantasy,
Then D&D is the wrong game for you

You bring up a good point. At the moment I have spells split into "at will" and "daily" kind of like 4e D&D had. The idea is your default attack is a cantrip, and you can do some minor magical things. But your real impressive spells, the showstoppers, are daily spells. Of which you get one per level per day. So Magic Missile, instead of being the "pew pew" spell it is in D&D, unleashes three or four missiles that deal a ton of damage. there are also no "spell levels" in the traditional sense.

I'm not playing D&D though. I'm making a completely different system.

I kinda like that idea. I am working on incorporating golem crafting into the game.

Nice trips, also.

>I feel like D&D has created this black pit where if you use any of its mechanics you will be tainted by it.

Because they're shit, Vancian casting especially.

>Raise dead.
>Two skeletons per level
>Large skeletons count as two.
>Level 1.
>Homebrew Magical coma explosion spell.
>Homebrew Magical coma explosion spell imitates last spell cast.
>Last spell is raise dead.
>Plus side 365 Large skeletons Or 730 regular skeletons.
>Down side Your character is unconscious for a year.
>NO WILL SAVES.

> I don't like this system
> therefore ALL OF IT'S MECHANICS ARE SHIT

Explain what is shit about Vancian casting. I want a complete refutation of the concept, and also why my application of it is also shit, given what I've described so far.

Seriously, I'm curious.

Well I think the point is that you can't do homebrew spells. That said I like the idea. A spell that drains life from multiple enemies and those it kills rise as zombies under the caster's control.

my thoughts:

one spell per level per rest

Resting is defined as: 4 or more hours sitting or sleeping, or 8 hours of not really doing anything. You cannot rest more than once per 12 hours.

higher level spells take more "spell levels" per cast, for example a seventh level wizard could cast one seventh level spell, or seven first level spells, or a fourth level spell and a third level spell, etc

no need to prepare spells in advance - a wizard has their full spellbook at their disposal.

no limits on number of spells a wizard can have in their spellbook.

casting the same spell more than once per rest incurs stat penalties equal to spell level cost (a seventh level spell would be -7 to stats, distributed however the wizard pleases)

casting more than your caster level in spells in a rest period also incurs temporary stat penalties in the same way.

I rather like these ideas.

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