How do you feel spells & magic should function in a setting and game, Veeky Forums?

To elaborate, in my dream game the "magic" classes would be Psionic/Ki based in fluff. Arcane ritual stuff like curses/divine miracles are things anyone could theoretically do if they have the right instruction/resources.

My beef with Psionic and Ki based systems is that they are explicitly quantity over quality, whereas more academic magic has the opportunity to encourage the opposite.

(2/2)

>Paladins and Clerics
The safest, but also the least versatile option, paladins and clerics channel the powers of their patron deity, and can't have powers beyond that deity's purview. While they would balk at their powers being called "magic" or "spells", common folk don't quite differentiate. In exchange for the lack of versatility, they have higher ceilings in what they CAN do. Obviously, the patron deity doesn't have to be a nice one, but paladins and clerics of all stripes have on thing in common: faith. Without it, they simply would have no powers, and if they lose faith, their powers fail them.

>Alchemists and Herbalists
Often not taken up as a primary trade, but rather a supplemental one. Alchemists and herbalists infuse the mundane with the mystic, creating potions, unique metals. Alchemists often tend to be craftsmen as well. While inherently magical ingredients do exist, and yield more potent tinctures and potions, often an alchemist or an herbalist will simply infuse their concoctions with magical energy (from whatever source) as the last step, activating dormant properties in the specially prepared material. Bombs, potions, salves, etc.

>Magical creatures/Sorcerers
Beings who are inherently magical often just have magic powers, or are enhanced by it. They can become magicians, and draw on their inherent power, but this is little different than being a wizard, who essentially made himself a magical creature artificially. Still, being one with magic in any form isn't without its benefits, and sometimes normal rules don't apply to them.

Sorry if this is uninspired, I'm not exactly trying to reinvent the wheel here. I might pitch system ideas later, but if you have any, go ahead. The ones I can tell you right now are that spell slots wouldn't be a thing, and not every class under the sun would have a spell list. I realized I left out Druids and Shamans, they aren't too far off from warlocks and witches.

Tell me what you think.

>My beef with Psionic and Ki based systems is that they are explicitly quantity over quality
I'm not sure what you mean by that.

It occurs when it's used up- which can be multiple uses, depending on your level of comprehension- think of it as a form of extraction, first, it starts out crude and exhausts the resource, then you get more efficient at it, and it lasts longer. Also, spellbooks only encompass at least one spell per book- most of the time, at least in Elona. In tabletop, applying more spells to one book would mean that even attempting to read such a thing would mean you'd explode in a gory shower.

I'd say it's fine the way it is. That is, I am personally currently looking for a way to differentiate various kinds of spellcasters in an ancient kitchen sink of mine, so it's actually very helpful as a baseline.

Also, somebody pitch me ideas on how to place spells for PCs to find throughout the world so they a) actually find them b) still feel like uncovering mysteries rather than queuing up sidequests.

I don't think Elona is a good example of anything for the most part, since it was made to be grindier than fucking Disgaea and pumping spellstock is just one aspect of that.

Are you saying my walls of text were helpful? If so, thanks.

>Also, somebody pitch me ideas on how to place spells for PCs to find throughout the world
Stumbling across ancient libraries that still contain some legible scrolls and grimoires? A shopkeeper/librarian has a prized spellbook that they adamantly refuse to part with? Mage's Guild or similar, so whatever status they have as a caster can be put to work? A spellcrafting system? Disassembling magic items to learn how they work?

So just psychics and monks?

I'm rather fond of the Glenn Cook approach; it's a mysterious pseudo-science to those what understand it, and complete mystery to those as don't.

What's more, anyone can achieve any level of Power in a spell or enchantment with enough time; someone more powerful can do bigger stuff on the fly, but a hedge wizard can do the same if they have enough hours or days to prepare the effect.

Knowledge of what you're doing helps a lot. Witch-doctors are greatly benefit by actual medical know-how, for example. Memorizing the lore on certain kinds of monsters or spirits makes controlling them easy. Knowledge is Power.

Armor doesn't inherently inhibit you, but most top-tier theurges ignore it because they can enchant themselves with unbelievable levels of vitality. The Limper survived being reduced to nothing but a head on a clay body by the end of his existence.

There's no D&D style separation, but you can study to get really good at specific things. A wizard is a sorcerer is a mage is a theurge is a...you get the idea; but pic related was a top-tier changeling, whereas his "sister," and rival wasn't called Stormbringer for no reason.

Thats a scary beard.

All of the Ten Who Were Taken were pretty gnarly in their own rights, but yeah; Shapeshifter was pretty physically impressive. Of the Ten we have descriptions of, only Bone-Gnasher was larger. Moon-Biter *might* have been, because we never see him, but there are hints that he's a sorcerer king and lycanthrope both.

Spell points above all.

I like having it vary. If I had it my way, D&D would have:
>wizards would require components and time to do rituals for anything stronger than a cantrip, but had the most access to all magics
>clerics would invoke it from their god and have no powers of their own, so their power is entirely contingent on how well they serve their god and can be lost or reduced in a moment if they choose to act against their god's wishes
>druid power comes from their service of the land or dreams etc. and they have no power if they have no access to that form of nature, so they ensure that they spread and protect it wherever they go
>warlocks channel the power of their patrons through themselves like clerics, but nothing is expected of them standard-wise as they have already sold their souls to gain it, which means that they can't be resurrected as their soul is then claimed
>bard magic comes from their music and they're essentially wizards who can cast quicker, but have less access to spells
>sorcerers have their own power but it's wild and untamed and is essentially all wild magic that can be controlled with practice

I like to have a bunch of options, so here's a couple versions I've worked with that I really like. The first is for a more weird-west setting where magic is rare and wonky, and the other is for more fantasy fare.

>Magics of Death
Magic is the primal channeling of the Five Elements of Death, the intrinsic components that make up the world, as the world is formed from the corpse of the ur-god who killed itself to create reality. These elements are Blood (the element of change, of healing and hunting and primal life) Bone (the element of stability, of structure and law and civilization) Blight (the element of corruption, of sickness and propagation and desire) Blaze (the element of purification, of the soul and hope and sacrifice) and Brume (the element of finality, of separation and retribution and the passing of moments). To channel these elements requires first knowing of their existence, but then also understanding how they make up all things in the world. The Magics of Death as much a science as they are an art, a combination of experimentation, wild theorization, fits of mad brilliance, and careful practice. Every Mage works differently, as they channel their magic in different ways based on their own understanding.

>Bondcraft
All magic is a promise. To cast any spell, something of equal value must be spent. To blind a foe you must sacrifice an eye, to heal a wound you must break an heirloom, to ensure a good harvest you must sacrifice the first of your herd. Any hedge-shaman can throw this kind of spell together. However, what denotes skill and talent in Bondcraft is the ability to not only shunt these payments off onto another involved party, but also to postpone the calling due of of your bond. Made most famous by tales of treacherous witches high level Bondcraft allows the creation of separate interlocking clauses into the power of magic, defining multiple options for payment and even postponing payments near-indefinitely via separate contracts.

>Made of constituent parts; such as an action and an element, such as in MAGE or Ars Magica. Combining elements let you make spell effects on the fly.

Sorta this. I like the ability to make my own spells, I just don't like the way MAGE and Ars Magica does it.

Magic should cause more problems than it solves.

You don't have many other options. There are fuck all games out there really that allow spell creation and shit.

No one would use it.

False.

I actually like the magic system in Eragon, as ill-inspired the rest of the books were, where your will is wrought upon the world commensurate to the amount of energy you are willing to put into the spell. To mechanically represent this, I'll use D&D for simplicity's sake.

To cast a spell the caster mist sacrifice hit dice of health equal to the spell slot they are using to cast. Additionally, they must roll an additional die much like a miscast die. If the miscast occurs the spell still goes off, but the damage taken is doubled. Having certain artifacts can shift the damage to other targets, ie artifacts or others, but the damage is otherwise immutable.

Unless the problems were on a significant delay, no one would use it. If they were then it doesn't matter for gameplay.

In almost all fantasy fiction; Wizards are either not human creatures (Gandalf) or half demon/fairy (Merlin) to have powers.

Sorcerers are people who learn or divine magic from other methods, such as by commanding demons (Solomon).

I hate how D&D has the literal opposite meaning to what these names should mean.

My dude, Magic-Users use magic. That's enough categorizing for me.

This is so true. Weird, high-concept magical metaphysics are great for background lore, but don't work well when you try to directly translate it to game mechanics. A fixed spell list is great for game mechanics, but feels dumb in-universe.

I try to make it clear that the player-facing mechanics do not necessarily reflect the reality of the world.

The player might have a spell list with stuff like "fireball" and "magic missile". But this is just a convenient shorthand for the player's magical abilities. The in-universe reality is more fluid, and we can bend and twist the game mechanics to fit the fiction if needed. If you want to call it "fire whip" instead of "fireball", we can do that. It's a fire whip now! Maybe later you can use your fire whip spell to hit an enemy around a corner. Or maybe an enemy wizard will dodge your fire whip, grab the whip, and pull you off your feet! We don't necessarily need stats and mechanics for that ahead of time, we have a shared understanding of what a "fire whip" looks like, and the "fireball" stats are good enough for game mechanics.

Also, the existence of a standard "fireball spell" in the rulebook doesn't mean that every NPC wizard in the world learns the exact same "fireball" with the exact same effects, etc. Maybe you'll meet some enemy who shoots a torrent of green flaming daggers, or a demon that belches burning black bile. The stats might say "fireball", but the representation and magical causes of that "fireball" effect could be radically different.

I don't run a homebrewed system, but an idea I was entertaining a really long time ago was the risk of "Overexerting" with your magic. Let's say we're playing a game that uses Mana Points for illustrating what I mean.

If you only have 5 MP and want to cast a spell that costs 10 MP, you can still do it, you'll just go down to -5 MP. You'll also take the difference between cost and available MP (which is 5), multiply it by two, and subtract it from your max health *permanently* - an effect that can kill.

I think spells should be accessible to everyone in its primary form (like if scrolls were the normal way that anyone would cast a spell) and magic should only do things that you wouldn't normally be able to do and it should synergize with non-magical attributes (like if the potency of telekinesis was dependent on your strength score).

Spells that give you +X to strength or deal Y fire damage in a burst are lazy design in my eyes and those kind of spells tend to imbalance games in favor of casters.

I could not care less and I think both of those examples are pretty lame. Gandalf especially. So you could say I actually appreciate how DnD deviates from those definitions.

In my ideal spell system, a spell list would be something that exists in-universe, because those are codified formulas that have been developed by various magicians who have shared their work. Modifying spell formulas yourself or outright crafting your own spells would be a sign that your training wheels have come off, so to speak.

I've toyed around with the idea of magic power being a function of A) the innate power of the focus has to cast it, and B) the amount of faith, trust, and devotion other living beings have in the caster. Could be out of fear, whatever. As long as there is emotional attachment.

It's a nice thought, but difficult to quantify for a ttrpg, or even a video game. A book, maybe. But I don't have the time or skill for that.

OP here; my problem is I want to have my cake and eat it too.

I want magic to be interesting, with options, casters being useful in combat and outside of it. I love the more mystical magic of works like Tolkien, but I also want it to work in a game AND allow Fighters (who may or may not be magical, just an archetype of magic) to be equally as good in different ways. I don't really like resource-limited systems except for ritual components- which just makes it harder to balance.

I honestly have little way to do this, which is why I'm seeking so much feedback and plundering so many different magic systems to find what I like.

That is a valid method, but it may make magic a bit too formulaic, and comes with its own problems of "whatever is on the spell list is actually well known/available to other wizards".

All mages on earth share the same mana pool that refreshes every day so everyone always goes to bed early to avoid the dumbass Midnight Wizards

You could keep the unpredictability of magic by implementing a system where, if the wizard rushes it or otherwise screws up, the spells could go haywire. A la Mage. Or, as the other user said, simply have variations of the spells on the list that wizards use. You might see a spell you haven't even heard of, but in reality it might just be a variation of Web. You could also make your own variations of the spells, to make them unique to you.

That's harsh enough that players would never do it unless they absolutely HAD to. A magic system should be tempting, imo, and make you think that the cost is worth it in the moment, but probably won't be later. This is where I would take cues from Awakening. It's pretty easy to avoid Paradox as long as you aren't bumfuck retarded, but things like resistant damage that can only heal naturally and conditions (something like status effects) that affect your casting are good ideas.

>In almost all fantasy fiction; Wizards are either not human creatures or half demon/fairy

Not really, theres about as much full human wizards as there are special snowflake wizards