Incantations ? . . .

[nonsi]

.
I've always liked the idea of Incantations (clickme) – powerful magical effects triggerable by noncasters. They may serve as a wonderful tool to promote plot.
My problem with the proposed incantations is that they're insanely difficult, so anyone that is not a legendary spellcaster will most surely fail.
Also, the suggested incantations are specific and offer no general rules for creating other incantations.

I've been looking for general rules for incantations like forever but never found any.
I've also been trying to formulate general rules to handle incantations for quite a while now, but I always come up empty.


So, is anyone willing to give it a try and see if we can make something here?

[EdokTheTwitch]

Well, I'm not sure I understand... There is an explanation on creating new invocations in the link you provided. If you were thinking about the specific effects, then as far as I can tell, it's supposed to be open, so that anyone can invent an incantation, and then calculate the effect.

[nonsi]

Well, I'm not sure I understand... There is an explanation on creating new invocations in the link you provided. If you were thinking about the specific effects, then as far as I can tell, it's supposed to be open, so that anyone can invent an incantation, and then calculate the effect.

The given incantations are not exactly spells, so it's quite vague what to model them by.
The DCs are quite high. Multiple skill checks turn this "quite high" into "insanely high", because one can never prep-optimize for an incantation that has multiple skills associated with it.
The table at the bottom just tells you how to augment the DCs if you wish to modify behaviors.
Nothing in the document says how one researches for incantations and what the requirements are for creating one (skill ranks, feats, class levels/features, spell, etc). Can Quan the apprentice monk create an incantation?

[EdokTheTwitch]

The given incantations are not exactly spells, so it's quite vague what to model them by.
The DCs are quite high. Multiple skill checks turn this "quite high" into "insanely high", because one can never prep-optimize for an incantation that has multiple skills associated with it.
The table at the bottom just tells you how to augment the DCs if you wish to modify behaviors.
Nothing in the document says how one researches for incantations and what the requirements are for creating one (skill ranks, feats, class levels/features, spell, etc). Can Quan the apprentice monk create an incantation?

Well, as they have extremely specific effects, I guess they should be created to solve a specific problem.

About the DCs, they're really not that scary, once you calculate all the reductions from the table. the high costs are only for the base, unmodified incantation, as far as I could tell. And concerning creation, I'm not sure that was intended, or that it would be in the spirit of the "non-casters do magic" idea. These were supposed to be some quest rewards, ancient scrolls, things that help push the plot forward.

But, if you do want to codify the creation, it would probably only make sense in an E6 game, or a game that will not progress far in level, as the effects are rapidly outpaced by regular spells. Perhaps some sort of a capstone feat (presuming E6), or a regular feat with a level 6 requirement, that enables people to discover incantations through skill checks and a monetary investment, similar to crafting feats?

[nonsi]

.
Bumping once to give this issue one last chance.
Anyone wishes to give it a try before I let this one die out ?..............

[Amechra]

Some people over on RPG.net posted a buncha homebrew ones over here.

On a different note, I thought of another way to pull Incantations off with Otherkind dice, with the skill checks giving you extra dice to improve your chances to get a good result. But I've not gotten much progress on that front.

If you look up the D20 Modern SRD, they have a slightly different set-up for designing Incantations, based off Seeds instead of a vague "what school is it?".

[nonsi]

Some people over on RPG.net posted a buncha homebrew ones over here.

Sadly, RPG.net regards my IPs as BANNED, so I can't even take a peek.

On a different note, I thought of another way to pull Incantations off with Otherkind dice, with the skill checks giving you extra dice to improve your chances to get a good result. But I've not gotten much progress on that front.

I didn't go very far with Otherkind dice, so I guess I'll skip this one.
Maybe because I'm so tired now. Maybe I'm just searching the wrong things.

If you look up the D20 Modern SRD, they have a slightly different set-up for designing Incantations, based off Seeds instead of a vague "what school is it?".

Now there's a mature incarnation of the UA Incantations concept.
It's longer than I'd hopes, but at least it does seem like a complete system.

You know, it suddenly occurred to me that I'm looking at incantations the wrong way.
There's a reason why no one researches incantations - because it's the most primitive-hard-risky way of doing magic.
I believe that the right way to regard incantations is to consider them the very first baby-steps that lead to the discovery of magic.
Like everything else in the world, magic also evolved slowly, with each incantation constituting a shaman's or sage's life's work.



Thanks for all the info.

[Amechra]

OTHERKIND DICE.

Also, shame about RPG.net.

[nonsi]

OTHERKIND DICE.

Oh, that one I saw. I just didn't see it leading anywhere else and thought there was more than that page somewhere else that I was missing.

I see 2 major problems with taking that set of rules:
1. It's vague and relies on gut feeling.
2. Incantations work off of skills. Allowing extra dice for skills would definitely open a whole can of worms which I don't have the desire or energy to cope with.

I've decided to leave Incantations as plot tool, I'll just added it to "Optional Rules From External Sources" spoiler in post #26.
The only thing that still bothers me are the extremely high DCs. I'm not yet sure what to do with them ATM.

[Amechra]

Well, my idea was that each Incantation would have definite tables, with a bunch of them shared by the Incantations in general (so there's a Success table, which goes something like 1: You fail the Incantation utterly. 2+: You succeed on the Incantation, and take the consequences of failure. 4+: You succeed on the Incantation.)

The overall theme being to add nuance to the whole affair; the skill checks you roll would give you the d6s to determine the rituals actual effect.

So your base dice pool for the Fires of Dis Incantation might be -4 dice, so you have to bring in more people and make skill checks to get that to a positive number before you can actually cast the spell.

[brian 333]

I regard them as something done by NPC's for my PC's for the express purpose of driving the plot. In this case they will automatically succeed given time, but the PC's can act to speed the process, (or slow it down.)

Incantations and other forms of ritual magic are relatively useless for combat purposes due to the time required to make them happen, but in limited ways can be quite powerful. For example, a PC using the spell Contact Other Plane could come up with some answers to a few questions in its ten minute casting time, but suppose the party's caster has not achieved level 9?

In comes the NPC Witch Of The Wood, or whatever, who can perform the spell in exchange for something the players can get for her. She isn't a level 9 caster either, but her version of the spell takes longer to cast, (it will take all night and some expensive herbs plus that magic wand she likes,) to gain a similar effect. Meanwhile, the PC's can side-quest for components, or for other issues important to individual characters but not necessarily requiring the whole group.

In this way I don't have to come up with details that the players can reproduce on their own time and time again. Instead I can drive the plot forward and if the PC wants to learn how to do this he can begin to research the Contact Other Plane spell.

This can apply to any spell, to alchemy, or to item enchantment/recharge, etc. It costs more and takes the NPC longer to do, but essentially they can duplicate any spell needed if it is used to drive the plot forward. If the players try to use it as a crutch, "Hey, let's go ask the witch!" she can say, "I'm still drained from the last time, I cannot perform that ritual again for a while." (Or the gods will be angry if I bug them again so soon," or whatever.)

[nonsi]

Well, my idea was that each Incantation would have definite tables, with a bunch of them shared by the Incantations in general (so there's a Success table, which goes something like 1: You fail the Incantation utterly. 2+: You succeed on the Incantation, and take the consequences of failure. 4+: You succeed on the Incantation.)

Yes, that's the spirit I'm looking for, but with +3 resulting in alleviated consequences.
It could be ideal if there were a formula that could be applied to all proposed incantations in one go.

The overall theme being to add nuance to the whole affair; the skill checks you roll would give you the d6s to determine the rituals actual effect.

I must admit that I can't really envision the mechanics you're aiming at here.

So your base dice pool for the Fires of Dis Incantation might be -4 dice, so you have to bring in more people and make skill checks to get that to a positive number before you can actually cast the spell.

If the above can be resolved with a short description, then I might have the tools to assess this one.
But I definitely like the idea that more participants = increased chances for success.

[nonsi]

I regard them as something done by NPC's for my PC's for the express purpose of driving the plot.

I agree with everything you wrote, and the above basically sums things up.
When homebrewing, it's easy to forget sometimes that it's ok if the PCs are not able to do everything anyone else can.

[EdokTheTwitch]

Well, I assume I'm a bit annoying by now, but I have to try and explain: The DCs for the incantations are really not that high. I'll try and present it through an example

Let's say that there is an incantation to turn a great hero of humanity (plot PC) into a grand dragon (let's say Adult Red) for several hours, to aid him in a battle

I would put that as an approximately 7th level Transmutation effect

First of, that is a Transmutation effect, so that gives us a DC of 32, medium range, duration in rounds, and saves we don't care about, as it is beneficial

So, we go from the top of the table in the link:
Skill checks: As it is a 7th level incantation, it needs seven skillchecks. Let's say that 4 of them are Knowledge (divine), and 3 of them Knowledge (arcane), as it needs both the power of the gods and the magic of mortal men to succeed. That gives us a reduction od 1 on our dc, as it has 2 different skill checks
DC=31

Casting time: Let's not restrict the casting, but we can extend it, so the ritual is both long and exhausting to the casters. DC drops by 1 point.
DC=30

Range: As it is a willing target, we can reduce the range to short, and that reduces the DC by 2 points.
DC=28

Area: Does not factor in in this case.

Target: The target could be limited, for example a hero acknowledged by the people of the city. DC gets a 4 point hit
DC=24

Duration: Here, mere rounds are not nearly enough. We need hours, so we go through 2 increases. This increases the DC by 6 points
DC=30

Focus and material components: The ritual is certainly expensive, requiring 5k gold in material components, and a 5k gold worth focus (Hide of a dead red dragon). This will bring the DC back down by 3 points total.
DC=27

XP component: I personally don't like taking xp from people, so I'll skip it.

Additional Casters: The great dragonsummonation ritual demands a number of people to pull of, so we certainly have to add at least 5 additional casters. DC gets a 2 point reduction.
DC=25

And fibacklash: The ritual is a great sacrifice, and a risk for the caster, and a great number of them lose their life in the process. The main caster is reduced to +1 hp, and then takes 2d6 points of fire damage. Those two combined take the DC down by 5 points
DC=20

So, in conclusion, this is the final incantation:
Dragonsummonation Ritual
Effective Level: 7
Skill Check: Knowledge (Divine), DC 20, 4 successes; Knowledge (Arcane), DC 20, 3 successes
Failure: No dragon
Components: V, S, M, SC, B
Casting Time: 70 minutes
Range: Medium
Target or Targets: Single creature
Duration: 14 hours
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless) (DC 17 + caster’s WIS modifier)
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

The target becomes an Adult Red Dragon for 14 hours, yay!
Backlash: The caster is probably dead (unles he brought fire protection)

So, you see, the DCs disappear extremely fast, once you factor in everything from the table. I even had to stop reducing, to avoid trivializing it. Hope this helps, in any way

[nonsi]

.
Not annoying at all.
This puts things in perspective and tells me that the rules are fine as they are.

Thanks

[Amechra]

They are actually pretty bad if you want to affect a big radius; the DCs tend to skyrocket.

The best way to do it is to just eyeball a better DC if you get a DC that doesn't make sense. Like a DC 74 to make a fog bank roll in.

Alternatively, find a spell that does sorta what you want, and use its "stats" instead of the normal ones for its School. So a Control Weather effect would be based around the range and area of that spell instead of Transmutation's "Single Target".

[nonsi]

They are actually pretty bad if you want to affect a big radius; the DCs tend to skyrocket.

The best way to do it is to just eyeball a better DC if you get a DC that doesn't make sense. Like a DC 74 to make a fog bank roll in.

Alternatively, find a spell that does sorta what you want, and use its "stats" instead of the normal ones for its School. So a Control Weather effect would be based around the range and area of that spell instead of Transmutation's "Single Target".

Definitely!
This suggestion has just got linked to