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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Aug 2013

    Default Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone has Narrativium (PEACH)

    EDIT: "Anima" sounds like anime, which is not a major theme of this world. "Thaum" isn't in heavy usage, and it's most common usage was in Discworld, for a unit of magical energy, so it's a good replacement for Anima.

    ***
    (I think I have a way to have both coherent world-building, and still allow players kitchen-sink range in their characters.) Base kingdom has created Rituals to summon heroes from across the multiverse, appearing sporadically in their main city’s temple of war. Rival kingdom is xenophobic, does NOT think it is smart to issue open invitation to random murderhobos from across the multiverse to come and fight their battles--they spend more resources building up their own military. (The xenophobic kingdom often has a point.)

    Metaphysics
    Magic is the application of the principle of mind over matter. In a magical universe, all intelligent beings have the power (thaum) to influence the world around them, in different quantities and different ways. For most people, their thaum is very limited, and is only perceptible when combined with a large group.

    Magic is not just the casting of spells. MAgic is the application of thaum to the world around you. Spellcasters channel their thaum through spells, and often through items that help them focus their energies. Warriors channel their thaum through their combat prowess and through their weapons. Great craftsmen channel their thaum through their tools.

    In a world with dragons and giants and monsters, what allows humanoid societies to continue to exist and to rise and build civilizations is social magic. “Social magic” is the combining of the thaum of the members of a society to influence their world. Thaum is focused through ceremonies which have gained power through repetition; through group singing or chanting or dancing; even through traditional blessings. Group singing or chanting or dancing creates a connection between the individual and the group, and that connection becomes a pathway for thaum to flow from the individuals to serve as a collective power source. Festivals on the anniversary of the king’s coronation help power the spells that keep medium and high CR threats away from the core areas of the kingdom. Local festivals in frontier districts keep high CR threats away, but lack the power to keep out medium CR threats. (As a note, large scale spectator sports are impossible here--the home team, powered by the thaum of thousands of fans, would never lose.)

    Spells are ritualized, formalized ways of channeling magical energy and imposing the spellcaster’s thaum upon the outside world--thousands of spellcasters over thousands of years have created consistent, predictable patterns, like water carving through rock over millions of years, or like deer and cattle wearing a path through grass and vegetation. This is why spells have highly predictable effects--the description and definition and limitations of the spell are created and sustained by all the spellcasters who have learned and cast this spell in the past.

    E6. The fabric of consensual reality can only support so much thaum in a given location. If a person accumulates dramatically more thaum than can be supported locally, the fabric collapses into a bubble universe, a microcosm where one will rules supreme but with no connection to the larger setting. The mechanical expression of this is “E6”, the fact that characters do not advance conventionally beyond 6th level, instead acquiring feats every 5 encounters.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Troll in the Playground
     
    HalflingPirate

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic

    I'd call this a high magic world. As a consequence the treasure should be adjusted to provide more magic items than normal. Double or triple the odds, I'd say. Also enchanted expendables and rapid healing should be available.

    I've never DMed such a campaign myself, but I've played them and they can be great fun.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic

    The Math of Thaum.

    This part is less well thought out. The idea is that thaum scales with HD/level. All things being equal (which they almost never are), a dozen Expert 1s pushing for "heads" and 2 6th level Barbarians pushing for "tails" balance each other out. Mental stats matter, level of commitment matters (if that coin flip is life or death for you or you're family, you're going to pump more thaum into it than if the stakes are low).

    Two things that matter a lot are 1. having a qualified "social magic caster" (ranks/proficiency in Perform, Knowledge: Religion, Spellcraft, and the soft skills required to lead a group) to efficiently tap and guide the collective thaum pool to create desired effects and 2. Having an established ritual that makes people believe that the ritual is going to work.

    NOTE: A traditional spellcaster casting an ordinary spell is using up some of his daily thaum. A social caster is tapping the energy of hundreds or thousands, for much broader effects. A traditional spellcasters' effects tend to be quick and temporary. Social magic effects tend to be broader (covering an entire town or area of countryside, or even a kingdom) and persistent (durations may be inexact, but are regularly extended by renewing the ritual.)

    Sample social magic effects on a kingdom scale
    1. Royal roads increase movement rate by 10'
    2. City Walls and Border Walls are a hard barrier to the entry (or exit) of CR 2+ nonhumanoids.
    3. Crop yields increase by 33% (as plant growth spell)
    4. City water sources are treated with a permanent/resetting purify water effect.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic

    Can Murderhobos Ever Return Home?

    Yes*. To qualify for the ritual, a hero must gain renown through great deeds in thaum (gain 2-3 levels or levels + feats), secure the gratitude of a sizable body of World of Thaum natives (20-100), the cooperation of a social caster, and a suitable location--usually the former chamber of some defeated enemy. The ritual requires expensive focus items (masterwork musical instrument, noble's outfit equivalent for the returning hero, for the lead caster) and special (5 gp) outfits for the guests/celebrants/witnesses. The ceremony also consumes expensive herbs, wines,

    * Well, probably--there is no communication between World of Thaum and the realms from which murderhobos are drawn. There is a school of thought that the summoning circles aren't summoning circles at all, and in fact create the heroes, complete with backstories and memories. What is certain is that, the hero is there before the ritual, and is gone after the ritual.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic

    Social casters.

    World of Thaum knows no separation between arcane and divine casters. There are specialized casters, and schools and traditions of magic, there are gishes who are the chosen favorites of certain gods. But there aren't large numbers of Clerics or Druids who divide their time between tending to temples and strapping on armor and dungeoncrawling.

    Social casters are not well suited to adventuring. (Use Expert chassis, with Social Casting as bonus feat) Important skills are Spellcraft (understanding how shape and control the borrowed anima), Knowledge: Arcana (knowing the established formulae for tapping anima and putting it to known uses) and Perform(Music) (leading the community in songs and chants).

    Rather than zealous, devoted servants of a particular god, the priests of the World of Thaum serve, in one sense, the entire pantheon. In another, much more important sense, they serve their community. Much like the ancient Romans, who considered religion "the cultivation of the gods," the purpose of a temple to a god is not the glorification of the god but to ensure that the god's benefits flow to the city or province that maintains the temple and the dedicated staff to perform the ceremonies.
    So, in the course of a career, it is not uncommon for a priest to change gods within a pantheon. (Think of it like a college assistant coach taking a job at a rival school.)

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic

    Elves. My elves are different! Elves are more connected to the feywild than PHB elves.

    They do not use metal--the smelting of rock tortures a part of the earth. Elves are highly advanced neolithics--bows, spears, quarterstaffs are their weapons of choice. Flint and bone knives, honed and crafted and carefully preserved over decades, help create wooden, bone and stone weapons the equal of any human smith's.
    They do, however, herd the great spiders of the deep forest, and harvest their spidersilk to create ropes of enormous strength and mithril armor.

    Elven bands are also masters of magical horticulture, singing their forest homes into natural halls, with houses of living thatch.

    NOTE: Not using metal is a significant handicap, and I don't have a strong thematic benefit yet to balance that out.

    Spoiler: Secret
    Show
    Elves do not have millenia-long lifespans. Others believe this because all elves are called to spend significant time in the Feywild, which has different and unreliable timeflow, so an elf living today may have witnessed events centuries ago. But elves have a subjective lifespan of somewhere less than 200 years.

    But since "everyone knows" that elves live for 1000 years or so, there is a strong magical tendency for non-elves to continue to believe that elves live for 1000 years even if a PC learns the secret and starts trying to tell everyone.

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Evil.

    Evil is a dopamine rush you get from the pain of others, known as korogusto. It is addictive, in the way that drugs are addictive. Over time, tolerance builds up and you require greater doses to achieve the same dopamine rush. Very often, otherwise intelligent and brilliant individuals will make shortsighted decisions just to satisfy their cravings for Evil. Korogusto is their crack, their heroin, and they would ultimately stop at nothing to feel its kiss.

    (This is why they monologue. This is why they do things for Teh Evulz.)

    Note:koro gusto is what you get when you enter "heart taste" into google translate for Esperanto.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default

    My Orcs are Different!

    Themes: Evil as a corruption of the soul, Victims-as-Villains, Zombie-horror themes of "That's not your son/daughter/sister/brother anymore". And gives the PC murderhobos opponents to kill without moral qualms--Always Evil, yup yes sir.

    Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. --Silmarillion

    Spoiler: Trigger warnings. IF you have any, this is a warning. Also, if your parents don't let you watch R rated movies, not for you. I'm not running this part with my 9 year old kids any time soon, and would have a serious parental talk with my 12 year old first.
    Show


    Orcs are not born, they are created. Or, looked at another way, broken into orchood. Like Tolkein's first orcs, they were once human (or demihuman or perhaps even humanoid), but were captured by an orc-band at a young age and, through a process of neglect, torture and abuse, either killed or corrupted into Orcs. (+2 Str, +4 Con, -2 Int, -4 Cha). At first the abuse and torture is entirely at the hands of orcs (or of orclings nearing full orchood), but a crucial part of the process is forcing the victims to inflict cruelty themselves, learning the sweet, addicting korogusto of Evil.

    Once a victim has learned not to expect kindness or trust friendship, to survive physically at the expense of becoming a monster, to love korogusto, he or she is, at last, an Orc. Scarred by both casual wounds, by intentional torture and by ritual scarring and tattooing, skin discolored or wrinkled, teeth sharpened into fangs (remember, magical world where "mind over matter" is the coin of the realm--openly cruel minds will tend to express in open ugliness.)

    Note:koro gusto is what you get when you enter "heart taste" into google translate for Esperanto.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Now I want a team made only of social mages.
    "oh the prophecy says that you are going to defeat the evil dragon"
    "Ok we are going to pay people to make profitable trade roads that we will enchant"
    "but you are supposed to kill the evil dragon"
    diplomacy check:"the evil dragon is poverty!"
    Last edited by noob; 2018-01-19 at 10:34 AM.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    Now I want a team made only of social mages.
    "oh the prophecy says that you are going to defeat the evil dragon"
    "Ok we are going to pay people to make profitable trade roads that we will enchant"
    "but you are supposed to kill the evil dragon"
    diplomacy check:"the evil dragon is poverty!"
    That's a LOT of diplomacy checks to convince enough people that the the evil dragon is poverty. But yes, much traveling all over the entire Kingdom and thousands of diplomacy checks and preaching later--yes the evil dragon is poverty now.

    EDIT: Note that the dragon, which is going to have a LOT of anima, is pretty convinced that it is in fact a dragon. And there may be a transition state, in which the dragon-or-maybe-not is no longer affected by the kingdom-wide social magic preventing high-CR threats from crossing the kingdom's border. (If the dragon is poverty, well, there is already poverty inside the kingdom--so the barrier is not dragon-proof. So the barrier is not dragon proof. Uh oh.)

    EDIT: More serious note, social casters will probably end up at Marshal levels of effectiveness/sucking at adventuring, for most of the same reasons. They're force multipliers, not forces in themselves. But high-level or late-stage campaigns will probably see the PCs pick up their abilities as Feats, because they're plot movers.

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by johnbragg View Post
    That's a LOT of diplomacy checks to convince enough people that the the evil dragon is poverty. But yes, much traveling all over the entire Kingdom and thousands of diplomacy checks and preaching later--yes the evil dragon is poverty now.

    EDIT: Note that the dragon, which is going to have a LOT of anima, is pretty convinced that it is in fact a dragon. And there may be a transition state, in which the dragon-or-maybe-not is no longer affected by the kingdom-wide social magic preventing high-CR threats from crossing the kingdom's border. (If the dragon is poverty, well, there is already poverty inside the kingdom--so the barrier is not dragon-proof. So the barrier is not dragon proof. Uh oh.)
    Except that if the dragon gets too much anima it will collapse in his own pocket dimension(or I understood wrong the setting)

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    Except that if the dragon gets too much thaum it will collapse in his own pocket dimension(or I understood wrong the setting)
    True. But there is some wiggle room there--ancient beings of power figure out how to spread some of their thaum out into their immediate surroundings (lair effects, wide-ranging influence.) You may find that the actual dragon's stats are a lot closer to a 1st Edition Monster MAnual dragon, converted to 3E, than it is to it's 3X book stats. Maybe this is also why BBEGs tend to be found most often in their lairs rather than curbstomping things in the countryside--the Queen of Ice and Winter has sunk a lot of thaum into her castle and the immediate surroundings. She's not exactly comfortable anymore outside of her demesne.

    And maybe THAT's why there are so many old abandoned wizards' towers scattered around--it's not easy to get that balance right.

    And there are principles of para-gravity and maybe "thaumatic leverage" at work--the dragon is very firmly convinced of its dragon-ness. Your conviction that the dragon is in fact poverty is probably not as deeply held.

    Now, if you convince a kingdom that the great dragon in the wild mountains is a Green Dragon instead of a Red, or that you've found ancient lore that dragonfire can be blocked by armor soaked in large vats of snake venom, those sorts of shenanigans are more achievable.

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Lair Effects

    So why exactly do so many old-school dungeons have floor plans like wicked-cool demon skulls? Does the Ice Queen really not have the in-character system mastery to switch up the theme a bit so that a wand of cold resistance isn't foolproof protection against half the stuff in her castle? IS there something in the Evil Necromancer guild rules against tossing a fireball or two?

    Thematic dungeons and enemies are cool, and are a major part of the genre fiction that D&D draws on. This setting gives us a halfway-plausible explanation for why these things exist in a world where, by the pure logic of 3X, they shouldn't.

    We've noted the para-physics that makes this an E6 setting. Too much thaum in one location causes a collapse into a pocket dimension, a solipsistic demiplane ruled by one dominant psyche. Canny BBEGs dissipate their thaum into their surroundings. (Most of them find there's no point being a BBEG without minions to boss and commoners to terrorize.) This reshapes their local area in their image--environmental conditions, thematic minions, dungeon-shaping. Some of this is a gradual process, bonding the BBEG to their lair, some is accomplished through more mundane means--Gangs of workers, stone shape spells, construction rituals to patch the parts that ordinary physics might frown at. Over time, the BBEG may lose the ability to leave its desmesne. Which sounds like good news, except that the bad news is that means the BBEG is even more motivated to spread its power over a greater area, giving more freedom of movement. BBEGs tend to me more formidable on their home turf, even if they can leave their home ground. (The Queen of Ice CAN leave her frozen palace, but it's hot out there and she takes a -1 to everything if the temperature is over 35F.)

    And, often enough, the old master goes too far. The person at the root of the dungeon/castle/maze/etc pinches off into its own demiplane. The sanctum sanctorum is devastated, but often much magical loot remains. Moreso if Dark Lord and Master's fame and legend endure, which ensures a continuing trickle of thaum from everyone who shudders at the memory of the Dark Lord and Master.

    Big Tough Good Guys can also dissipate their thaum--they become leaders in their societies, either settling down from the grind of adventuring into the daily routine of politics and rulership and training up new heroes or arcane study or temple-management etc. Or their ambitions grow beyond improving their personal or physical power, and they start using social magic to leave a lasting improvement in their society.

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Anima E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Oooh Shower Thought.

    The local BBEGs within a reasonable travel distance of the Kingdom of Goodnplenty have an arrangement with the Kingdom. The Kingdom supplies an agreed-upon regular tribute, and in return a state of peace exists between Dark Lord Specificus and the Kingdom of Goodnplenty. (NOTE: Most of this tribute gets eaten up by the costs of being a BBEG--talismans of teleporting-back-to-base get expensive when you make a lot of them, rebuilding your dungeon with specially-made bricks with spiders carved in them isn't cheap but it's worth it for the lair effects you can get, your minions want to get paid, your minibosses want a semi-regular supply of potions of not-getting killed-by-PCs. It adds up.)

    I'll edit this later, but the idea is that neither side will launch an official, full scale assault; but adventurers using the kingdom as a base to raid the Dark Lord's demesne--and minions taking off their livery and raiding the frontier provinces of the kingdom--are tolerated by both sides.

    So a campaign plot point could be an aspiring BBEG (level 6, no feats? Level 4 with Charisma, face skills and an orc band under his or her control?) is trying to set up an officially recognized domain and secure a tributary agreement.

    This also provides a plausible reason for high-level NPCs--they've taken government jobs, so they can't mount up and storm Castle Badenoff without risking a full-scale war between the Kingdom and an alliance of BBEGs.

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Notes toward Spellcasters native to the world of Thaum.

    This world doesn't observe the traditional D&D distinction between between arcane and divine casters. There are what we can call generalist spellcasters and there are specialist spellcasters, either focusing on a school or subschool of magic, or an element, or an animal spirit. And there are book-wizards and hedge-wizards. Book wizards can, in principle, cast any spell in the game, but at a cost. Hedge wizards are limited in the spells they can know, either to a thematic list or to a small group of the most common spells. (So there are hedge generalists, called warcasters, usually with savage tribes of one sort or another who aren't especially thematic, so they don't have a Fire Witch or a Thunderlord or a Grand Transmuter or a Bear Shaman.)

    Spellcasters have spell slots (or maybe, maybe spell points) and Spells Known according to their level. Specialist casters can never learn spells outside their specialty. (This may be amended with a list of "universal" spells--especially Dispel MAgic or a substitute). If a spell is not on your Spells Known list, you can still attempt to cast it from a spellbook (book-wizards) or free form (hedge-wizards)

    Spellbooks aren't something you can just port around--they're massive tomes, each containing 12-15-20 spells united by a school or theme. They count as magic items (cost as a scroll of all those spells), and are often "masterwork items" on top of that (+2 to Spellcraft checks for each doubling of the cost. Money is magic too).

    Off list casting. When casting a spell from a spellbook, make the Spellcraft (DC 15 + SL) check once for each spell level. Take d6 backlash damage for each spell level when the process is complete and the spell is either cast or fails.

    So a generic 1st level Apprentice (+1 rank, +3 class, +1 INT = +5) casting a 1st level spell (DC 16) has a 50% chance of success unaided (and a 100% chance of 1d6 damage). A 2nd level Journeyman (+2 ranks, +3 class, +1 INT, +2 synergy = +8 ) has a 65% chance, a 3rd level Master has a 70% chance.

    The 3rd level Master has a .60*.60 = 36% chance of successfully casting a 2nd level spell from a spellbook.

    A 5th level caster (+5 ranks +3 class +2 Int +2 synergy +2 materials = +14) attempting a 3rd level spell (DC 18) has a (.85^3 = 60% chance)

    Specialists get a +2, which comes in really handy. Warcasters just get the shaft.

  16. - Top - End - #16
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    What I want.

    I want thematic casters--pyromancers and snake priests and bear shamans and enchantress and necromancer's and diviners and healers.

    I also want book wizards, so that bringing a spellbook back to town is a huge deal.

    And I want the versatility if cast-anytthing in the book to come at a cost, but a manageable cost

  17. - Top - End - #17
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    How do freeform casting works?
    Can I convince people I am an hedge wizard that is so cool he can attempt to cast any spells as freeform casting by sacrificing some of his life force?
    Last edited by noob; 2018-01-27 at 12:20 PM.

  18. - Top - End - #18
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    How do freeform casting works?
    Can I convince people I am an hedge wizard that is so cool he can attempt to cast any spells as freeform casting by sacrificing some of his life force?
    Free form casting means that you don't know a spell (Spells Known), but it's on your list. Let's say you're a low-level hedge-wizard summoner and you have Summon Monster I (Celestial Dog), Summon Monster I (Fiendish Raven) and Unseen Servant as your Spells Known. (Not worrying about numbers right now--let's say Spells Known: 3 1st and roll with it.) You can try free-form casting to summon a Fiendish Octopus, or a Dire Rat (SNA I list), or whatever skeleton you get for Summon Undead I. You're a summoner, you summon things. You're taking a risk and going outside your comfort zone (chance of failure, backlash damage), but it's not completely out of your area of competence. You can't just free-form cast magic missile or shield or charm person, and you just don't have the power to summon something from a higher level list.

    IF you're a book-wizard, and you want to cast a spell, you need to have access to that spell in a spellbook. A spellbook isn't just one wizard's personal idiosyncratic collection of spells--it's a stable batch of spells united by a theme and known by a name (Necronomicon, LEsser Book of Changes, Greater Book of Changes, Compendium of Conjuration, Testament of HErmes Tristigatus, etc). Or you have to use the individual-research rules. You're a book wizard, so no book no spell. (You can cast your Spells Known without a book, because you've internalized those spells by studying them in--books.)

    I'm still working on what advantages specialist casters get. On the one hand, they lose a lot of versatility compared to book-wizards. On the other hand, PC specialist will create Tier 4 ubercharger problems, where there is no "sweet spot" of difficulty where challenges are difficult but still manageable.

  19. - Top - End - #19
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    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    How do freeform casting works?
    Can I convince people I am an hedge wizard that is so cool he can attempt to cast any spells as freeform casting by sacrificing some of his life force?
    I figure that there has to be some sort of mechanic for that. Say the DC for casting off-list is, I dunno +10. So a warcaster (most generalist hedgewizards) trying to cast, say, undetectable alignment has to hit a DC 26.
    Say a level 2: +2 ranks, +3 class, +4 stat needs a 17 on d20. That's too easy actually.

    And just for the record all the big skill booster spells (wieldskill, guidance of the avatar, etc) get noped.
    Last edited by johnbragg; 2018-01-27 at 03:20 PM.

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    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    How do freeform casting works?
    Can I convince people I am an hedge wizard that is so cool he can attempt to cast any spells as freeform casting by sacrificing some of his life force?
    Let's say that hedge wizard warcasters get the Adept spell list.

    6th level warcaster, 20 Int, has built herself a shrine. Wants to cast 1st level spells that aren't on her list.

    +6 ranks, +3 class, +5 Int, +2 shrine bonus. That's a +16. (No synergy bonus from Arcana--if she were in a position to pick up Knowledge: ARcana, he or she'd be a book-wizard. OTOH, she's been adventuring or whatever for 6 levels. So she's picked up 6 ranks in Arcana, without the class bonus.)

    MAke that +6 ranks, +3 class, +5 Int, +2 sanctum bonus, +2 synergy. That's a +18. Add +2 for the Magical Aptitude feat, +3 for Skill Focus (Spellcraft) and you're at +23.

    I'd say that character build should be able to spend d6 HP to cast off-list more often than not. DC 26 means, in this case, a 10% failure chance. That seems fair.

    The 2nd level elite warcaster with the 20% chance of success? You could argue that just having the +4 stat bonus makes him a prodigy. So, if he's willing to burn d6 hit points with a 4-in-5 chance of complete failure, maybe that's okay.

  21. - Top - End - #21
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    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Bards are different, and possibly not a good option for PCs. (Definitely could overlap with social magic casters. They may or may not be the only social magic casters.

    Bards' or chanters' abilities work slowly (by D&D combat standards) and cumulatively. There are a handful of songs, compared to the wealth of options open to spellcasters. Their abilities can turn a mob of mooks into a terrifying bloodbath.

    Thematically, I want to limit bard abilities to ones where we have some real-world experience of music stirring that effect within us. (Healing is an exception--or is it? There's a reason that the massage chain plays eastern and Celtic instrumental stuff.)

    Song of Community. Forms a thaumic pool, invites the hearer to participate and contribute thaum. Examples: College fight songs, soccer fan singalongs, chants

    Song of Doom. (Escalating fear effects vs all enemies who hear it). Example genres: Heavy metal, Latin chanting, slowed down nursery rhymes. Various horror movie/game sound tracks.

    Song of Rage. Escalating effects--bless, prayer, rage--on all allies who hear it) Examples: Start with some fight song chanting, escalate to a classic Who track, climax with Metallica or maybe that Skrillex stuff from a few years ago.

    Song of Love. Fail enough saves and it's a charm person effect with a nasty duration). Examples: Too numerous to mention. Once upon a time, you were 16, and you had a breakup. Whatever you played nonstop that week.

    Song of Sleep. (lullaby, fatigue, daze, touch of idiocy, sleep)

    Song of Healing. 2x natural healing rate. Stacks with DC 15 "Long Term Care" Heal check. Eastern, celtic instrumental type stuff.

    Am I missing any classics?

    EDIT: Less impressive, but socially necessary--the Song of Rest, sung to the recently deceased at the funeral so that they have a better chance of staying that way.

    (And, somewhere out there, there is probably a Song of Return, requiring a crazy Perform check, that sings the dead back to life--mostly.)

  22. - Top - End - #22
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Mundanes of Thaum

    Do you want to play a Tough, Strong, Smashy hero? Start with Warrior. Or are you thinking of a Clever, Quick, Sneaky hero? Start with Rogue. Or do you want to be a Spellcaster?

    This section is not about the spellcasters. It's about most everybody else (except for social casters--bards and pantheon priests, if those two categories end up different)

    I'd like to have a setup where other fighting styles are competitive with Barbarian Rage with TWo HAnded Power Attack.

    Warriors get 2 Fighting Styles, Rogues get 1 Fighting Style plus Sneak Attack.
    --Barbarian Rage
    --Two-handed weapon style. (Unlocks 2HPA, trades defense for damage)
    --Two-weapon style (includes using one weapon for Combat Maneuvers)
    --Shield Mastery (Add BAB to touch AC, reflex saves). (Includes Heavy Armor Proficiency)
    --Swashbuckler. Free Spring Attack, Weapon Finesse, ˝ BAB to AC (light or no armor)
    --Archer. Free Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
    --Weapon Specialist +˝ BAB to hit, +BAB to damage with chosen weapon
    --Defender. You prevent attacks on your allies, by taking those attacks instead. (Includes Heavy Armor Proficiency) Includes Combat Reflexes. USing an attack of opportunity, you can cause an attack on an ally within 5' to be rolled against you instead.

  23. - Top - End - #23
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    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    There are one-trick pony specialists. There are book-wizards who can cast anything in the SRD or more if they have access to a good library, pass the Spellcraft checks and soak the damage. And somewhere in between are druids and hedge-wizards, who have a harder time casting spells (+10 to Spellcraft DCs without a book) but have access to 20-30 spells per spell level (again, at a cost in time and HP).

    Who are these people? Where do they come from?

    Specialist casters have some obsession, some psychologically unhealthy (in our world) fascination with death-and-undeath, or fire, or manipulating people (narrow enchanters), or some animal spirit, or trees, or frost-and-cold-and-winter, combined with some level of magical talent.

    So I think the D&D divide between arcane and divine casters is replaced here with generalist and specialist casters. Maybe I should switch those terms to broad and narrow spellcasters. Broad spellcasters use established formulae for predictable effects, codified in books. Their thaum gets tied up in book-magic. NArrow spellcasters tap into the power of their strange psychologies. Their thaum gets tied into their theme.

    You grow up in a society, and you're expected to pull your weight and justify the food you eat (especially if you're not providing the food). If you're in a society well-organized enough to have book-wizards and social casters, you're going to be pushed away from being one of those narrow spellcasters--you're a lot more good to the family and the town and the kingdom and everyone in general as a book-wizard or as a pantheon priest (social caster, bard) with a flavor-feat (bonus to spells with X descriptor, Improved Familiar etc) than you are spending all day staring at a sacred (to you and no one else) fire or a bunch of (pilfered) skulls or running around the woods communing with the spirit of the wolf. (Although that guy is at least hunting, and probably bringing some food home to share.)

    So narrow spellcasters are found either at the apex of wealthy societies, where you have aristocrats who don't have to justify how they fritter away their time--or savage societies where having a narrow spellcaster (who can at least do some cantrip healing, or Channel Energy for healing) is better than nothing.

    In between, you have societies well organized enough to support hedge-wizards and druids, but not rich enough to afford a full wizards' guild (expensive set of spellbooks, at least one wizard for each school, a dedicated building or section of a complex). This is where you tend to find your druids and hedge-wizards. These folks are an asset to a community, so people will make sure they have food and firewood and houses and things so that they have time to druid and hedge-wizard. When Timmy falls down the well, someone who can pop a Cure Light Wounds and brew up a big batch of herbal ointment and mildly magical broth (DC 15 Heal check) is a pretty good person to have around. (Or, to use a sleep spell as an epidural, if you figure out a way around the duration...)

  24. - Top - End - #24
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Is the fact that those fancy mages(the tome and social ones) make people believe that they are the most helpful for the society the phenomenon making them the most useful for the society?
    I mean with such a world it is hard to guess.
    Last edited by noob; 2018-01-30 at 03:52 PM.

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    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    Is the fact that those fancy mages(the tome and social ones) make people believe that they are the most helpful for the society the phenomenon making them the most useful for the society?
    I mean with such a world it is hard to guess.
    IT is very hard to guess.

    But comparisons are possible. The book-wizards straight-up have more flexibility than the hedge-wizards. NEver mind the one-trick-pony specialist casters. (Yes, every once in a while the Necromancer King a days travel beyond the frontier villages gets stomped on by an upstart band of ogres or something--sometimes due to the machinations of the PCs, sometimes due to rival BBEGs siccing the ogres on the Necromancer King. SOMEBODY gave them that wand of bless water... ) So the society that subsidizes a wizard population in their major cities has a lot more options when hill giants or young dragons or minor demons or devils show up outside the city walls, or mind flayers take over the sewers beneath the cities etc.

    Having a critical mass of social casters, of course, is better in that you catalyze the process of everyone convincing each other that such terrible things couldn't happen HERE in the well-run League of Seven Cities.

    Thank you, noob. "Catalyst" is the word I've been looking for to describe the crunch role of social casters in creating social magic. The ritual/ incantation/ epic spell project is created by a team effort of wizards, pantheon priests and other sages--the thaum is supplied by the population at large--the social casters are in charge of being the power conduit that takes the energy of 100,000 tipsy drunks singing the national anthem and turns it into a magical barrier preventing high-CR threats from entering the core territory of the kingdom.

    (One thing the PCs could aim for in a campaign that runs to E6 + Many is to carve out some Wilderness into Frontier area, and upgrade part of the Frontier area into a province of the Core Kingdom.)

  26. - Top - End - #26
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    Is the fact that those fancy mages(the tome and social ones) make people believe that they are the most helpful for the society the phenomenon making them the most useful for the society?
    I mean with such a world it is hard to guess.
    IT is very hard to guess.

    But comparisons are possible. The book-wizards straight-up have more flexibility than the hedge-wizards. So the society that subsidizes a wizard population in their major cities has a lot more options when hill giants or young dragons or minor demons or devils show up outside the city walls, or mind flayers take over the sewers beneath the cities etc.

    Having a critical mass of social casters, of course, is better in that you catalyze the process of everyone convincing each other that such terrible things couldn't happen HERE in the well-run League of Seven Cities.

    Thank you, noob. "Catalyst" is the word I've been looking for to describe the crunch role of social casters in creating social magic. The ritual/ incantation/ epic spell project is created by a team effort of wizards, pantheon priests and other sages--the thaum is supplied by the population at large--the social casters are in charge of being the power conduit that takes the energy of 100,000 tipsy drunks singing the national anthem and turns it into a magical barrier preventing high-CR threats from entering the core territory of the kingdom.

    (One thing the PCs could aim for in a campaign that runs to E6 + Many is to carve out some Wilderness into Frontier area, and upgrade part of the Frontier area into a province of the Core Kingdom.)

    EDIT: Note also that to natives of the world, this is no more baffling and confusing that quantum physics is to us. For one thing, people don't think about it too much. For another thing, everything seems to work, and it's always been this way, so it's an esoteric argument among sages speaking in a barely comprehensible gibberish, somewhat like debates over the nature or existence of dark matter.

  27. - Top - End - #27
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    Is the fact that those fancy mages(the tome and social ones) make people believe that they are the most helpful for the society the phenomenon making them the most useful for the society?
    I mean with such a world it is hard to guess.
    Philosophical ramblings are one thing. But there are ways to bring the metaphysics into the gameplay of the world.

    This is a GREAT setting to run the plotline where the king is suspected of being involved in the obvious murder of his predecessor (Hamlet without Hamlet); and there are a competing plausible-but-flawed candidates to be next in line (first phase of the Hundred Years' War, see also England under James II, who was challenged not only by William III and Mary II but also by the Duke of Monmouth, bastard son of his elder brother Charles II).

    Questions of royal lineage and the legality of the succession acquire great importance when the king is the legal and magical embodiment of the kingdom, and the kingdom's main function is to maintain the magical barriers that keeps city-wrecking threats at bay.

  28. - Top - End - #28
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    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone is magic (PEACH, brainstorm)

    Quick note: A better term for "thaum" is narrativium. I think it's a little easier for people to understand that characters of equal level (or monsters of equal hit dice) should have equal amounts of narrativium, of power to shape the world around them. And from there it's not a big stretch to get to the idea that hordes of nameless faceless NPCs--when tied together in a society--can generate tremendous quantities of narrativium that can be logically employed for crunch effects. For real-world examples google "March of Dimes" and cathedrals built by "pennies of the poor."

  29. - Top - End - #29
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Thaum (was Anima) E6. In a magical world, everyone has Narrativium (PEACH)

    So we can make an analogy between the quasi-physics of narrativium to the Force, uniting all beings in the 'verse and open to manipulation by those with the proper skills. We can consider the fan theory that Han Solo is an instinctual Force user, and by implication anyone with enough narrative heft uses the Force in subtle ways.

    This also finally gives us an explanation of what the heck Wisdom is--it's your level of sensitivity and understanding of the narrativium fields around you, which is what tells you that that clump of leaves of THIS shade of green with just-the-right sized serrations on the edges is "hearts-clove", while the almost identical looking clump next to it is just regular clove.

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