Classes of Magic Systems

One can generally sort magic systems by three adjectives and which of them apply:

>Safe
Casting has no negative effects on the bearer.
>Easy
Casting does not require huge effort
>Consistent
Casting the same spell over and over will give the same (or very similar) results

>0 Adjectives: Martial supremacy
Magic is difficult, dangerous and most importantly unpredictable.

>1 Adjective
Magic is either
>safe (but takes a lot of time/effort and isn't very predictable) or
>easy (but costs you something and still isn't predictable) or
>consistent (but it takes a long time, costs resources and may damage you)
Magic is usually not the preferred method, but may have applications that martials don't have (e.g. spying)

>2 Adjectives
Magic is either
>safe and consistent but not easy (it may take you a long time to cast but when you manage you do what you intend to and even if not you won't lose much anyway)
>safe and easy but not consistent (you can throw out fireball after fireball spell and you better do if you want any hope of actually creating a ball of fire)
>easy and consistent but not safe (you can throw fireball after fireball and they'll all work, but you will tire out, lose materials or be otherwise harmed)

>all three Adjectives: Caster supremacy
Magic is safe, easy AND consistent. You can sling spells all day long, with all of them doing what you want and never being worse off.

The purpose of this thread is three-fold:
1.) Is this a good system to characterize magic systems?
2.) What are examples for each type? I know that SR falls under (easy, not safe, consistent), DnD (3.5 onwards) magic under (easy, safe, consistent), DnD (pre 3.5) under (not easy, safe, consistent), Psykers under (easy, not safe, not consistent). But for the rest I have no Idea what fits them. I'd especially would like to know which one falls under (not easy, not safe, not consistent)
3.) Which one do you consider a personal favorite, and why?

Man, I knew I should have gone with an anime picture
at least that way there would be some posting here

>safe and easy but not consistent

What magic system is like this?

That's the question here. If anyone knows examples for the ones I didn't give one, please post here and tell us

>Is it a good way to categorize magic systems?
I'm not sure, I feel like trying to sort magic systems into anything but the broadest categories would be a bother. Nice image, though.

Going by this 4e D&D is "caster supremacy". That's how you know it's stupid.

I'm not familiar with these, but from what I've heard, the DCC RPG has some of this, and so does the LotFP RPG (the summon spell).

>I feel like trying to sort magic systems into anything but the broadest categories would be a bother
is this not broad enough?

what would you categorize it as?

That's a good way of categorizing magic systems, OP, or even any kind of power system. That said if want an example of a not easy, not safe and not consistent magic system, I suppose GURPS standard magic system fits this. Casting spells in GURPS takes a lot of energy and time and needs you to roll against your spell skill.

I like it OP. I've had similar thoughts but you put it all very well though I agree with that just because magic is easy, safe and consistent doesn't make casters supreme. After all, the magic could still be weak.

I feel like class balance is a separate conversation entirely and shouldn't figure into your otherwise pretty cool categorization system.

Also I like Easy magic only. I think it creates lots of cool storylines where apprentices get themselves in over their head or demon teaching farmer's daughters how to cast love spells and curse their enemies.

Hackmaster 5E uses a pretty cool magic system, IMHO.

Clerics using divine magic pray for spells (with each of the clerics of each of the 43 religions having their own unique spell list and powers) at a specific time of day, choosing an exact list of spells (Vancian), then cast them by holding their divine icon and chanting. If the cleric's spell is interrupted, they simply have to start from the beginning. Thus divine is safe, easy, and consistent (though healing spells have very variable results).

Arcane magic on the other hand uses spellpoints, material components, and requires one to research or discover the spell first.

You can cast any spell you learned, but you can only memorize one spell per level. If you cast a memorized spell it's the normal cost, if you want to cast a nonmemorized spell you know it's double the base cost.

You can power up and adjust spells with additional effects with extra spellpoints.

If you are interrupted in the middle of arcane spellcasting, you lose the spell, and can suffer a spell mishap.

Spell mishaps become easier the more armor/shields you wear, the lower your INT and arcane lore, the more damage you take, and most importantly the level of the spell and how much additional power did you throw into it.

Arcane spells cause spell fatigue equal to the casting time in seconds + 5, which prevents additional casting, and has a few other effects.

Arcane spells have a variety of components, from verbal, somatic, material, and catalytic. Somatic requires you to have a hand free, and material or catalytic can be expensive and requires that item to be in your hand, but rarer components can add extra powers.

Thus arcane casting would be usually safe (unless you overstep your abilities or attempt things you shouldn't). It's not easy, since there are significant efforts/costs involved. It's usually consistent except you can consciously alter a lot of the effects, and of course things can be resisted or saved against.

>usually safe (unless you overstep your abilities or attempt things you shouldn't)
OP here.
Honestly, I'd put this under not safe. In my understanding safe doesn't just mean "not in danger" but "not worse off afterwards"
A vancian wizard with component rules could be considered not safe, as he'll be worse off than before (by having lost components). A shadowrun magician is not safe, due to drain piling up (even if it's Stun). A Psyker is not safe, because it might leave him off dead afterwards.

A good question I think would be "Without considering the effects of the spell, could casting lots of instances leave him worse off than before?", which can be through fatigue, loss of stuff, or damage.
A vancian wizard without component rules would be safe, because no matter how much he casts, there is never a point where he's worse off.
Sure there are Spell slots, but those replenish with a long rest and are more a thing used to pad out the length, which means that the only thing he lost are a few hours. If he had a long rest he'd be at the same point as before.
A vancian wizard with component rules would eventually run out of them (like ruby dust) so that he'd be unable to cast spells without leaving for civilization/other source. A SR magician would eventually collapse from too much stun damage or die from physical damage and be penalized by both while awake. A psyker could always roll a peril of the warp and be annihilated.

Is complexity a part of difficulty in that system?

I would prefer a system that incorporates all of them in a kind of tradeout system, like for example there are casters that prefer not taking effort in their magic but they sacrifice consistency and safety because of it, or their magic is simply easy but weak as fuck.

There should be a fourth metric that measures the power of the spells don't you think?

Likewise

>Magic is difficult, dangerous and most importantly unpredictable.

wouldn't necessarily mean martial supremacy since it could still be viable because its inmensely powerful despite its drawbacks.

what exactly do you mean by complexity?

>There should be a fourth metric that measures the power of the spells don't you think?
Eh, while you could add a power metric to that, I don't think that would be useful. It's like modifying the amplitude on a waveform, you care far more about the shape of it rather than the size.

>wouldn't necessarily mean martial supremacy
yeah, that naming is not very good in retrospect

>Honestly, I'd put this under not safe.

So, roughly half of arcane spells have no material or catalytic component so you never run out. For the rest, it's basically the same as if an archer with arrows, they must conserve ammunition and if they run out, then they're not much of an archer until they get more.

I would definitely say that the aspects of spell mishaps in Hackmaster make it quite volatile and unsafe. It doesn't have to be, but it definitely can be.

Which I think makes for a more interesting system overall.

Does fatigue affect anything besides spellcasting?

Fatigue means you can only walk at the slowest of movement rates, it means you can't attack during that time, and lastly, you have a defense penalty, which ensures that you're an easy target for opponents.

Thus a mage can't simply beat up everyone regardless.

Second edition of Mage the Awakening is somewhat this. All spells are simple(only last one turn, can only target what you can touch, and you need time to cast it) and you need to spend points to improve your spell, like instant casting time and increase number of targets.

There's no limit of points that you can use in a spell, however, you have a amount of "free" points that you can use to improve your spell without problem, more than that and you risk paradox, wich can harm you or mess with the spell.