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Thread: Magic System Overhaul
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2018-11-12, 05:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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Magic System Overhaul
I've had it on my mind to do a major overhaul of D&D 5e, and one of the things I think needs a facelift is the magic system. For the following, assuming that the resulting system works "like 5e", in that it will probably have things like ability checks and attack rolls, but may or may not have things like classes or levels. One of the other things I'd like to rework is HP and damage (which will itself require a rework of all the spells to tweak their damage).
General Changes
Among my general goals are to simplify and streamline the magic system (e.g. fewer spells, but perhaps more parameters for each spell), make magic feel more special by toning down "instant" spellcasting in favor of more deliberate and costly rituals, and differentiate different types of spellcasting and how they play.
To start with, let's change the terminology from spell "levels" to spell circles, to reduce potential confusion with character/class levels ("No, 9th level rangers can't cast 9th level spells"). In-universe, this would come from geometric magic, and literally describes the number of concentric magic circles required to power up the spell. Cantrips, if they still exist, can be called "uncircled", as they are cast without using a magic circle (perhaps the spellcaster would quickly trace the circle in the air or something rather than physically drawing it on a surface). I'm also considering compressing the ranks of spells, for example 1st circle = 1st-2nd level, 2nd circle = 3rd-5th level, 3rd circle = 6th-8th level, 4th+ circle = 9th+ level, but this may not mean much considering all the other changes that will need to be made to the way spells operate.
Another, more significant change is to do away with the idea of leveled spells. A spell is a spell, and it can be cast at any circle or uncircled. We can also reduce the number of spells by allowing more ways to tweak spells, and allowing casters to enhance a spell in different ways when they upcast it to a higher circle. For example, an "Energy Blast" spell might replace Fireball, but you could cast it uncircled (which would likely look similar to Acid Splash or Firebolt), and you can change the damage type (eliminating the need for similar spells of different elements), and by upcasting it to a higher level you might choose between increasing damage, expanding the area, or increasing the range, or even changing the type of saving throw targeted. Maybe we could even get by with a single damage spell by allowing you to choose the shape as well (sphere, line, cone, single-target, etc.).
One more big change is to do away with the idea of spell slots (and more generally moving away from a "you can arbitrarily do this once per long rest"). There will be other factors that limit spellcasting, such as time, materials, space, or other resources. Most spellcasters will actually be primarily ritual casters, with "at-will" casting generally referring to casting a spell without a ritual.
Sorcery
The goal here is twofold: First, a form of spellcasting that is as rules-lite as possible, with few restrictions and little bookkeeping. Sorcery is the spellcasting system for those who find spellcasting systems too complex and unwieldy, and just want to blast things with fire and lightning (the epitome of "spontaneous" spellcasting). Second, to allow a player to augment an otherwise mundane character with a special "gimmick", such as a swordsman who can teleport, or a thief who can turn invisible or spiderclimb. Basically, sorcerers are comic book superheroes.
As such, I'd like to take the concept of the sorcerer as it exists in 5e and take it up to 11. Sorcerers generally know very few spells, as in they'll generally be in the single digits their entire career. In exchange, they are entirely at-will: no rituals, no components, just fire off the spell whenever they please. Now, there has to be some kind of resource system in place so they can't just spam their spells at the highest circle, so I'll have to think on this. This might be casting from HP, making a CON save or suffering exhaustion, or reducing ability scores until they rest. Sorcerers can also choose the parameters of their spells when they release the spell, while most other casters have to decide on the parameters when they start casting the spell (usually as a ritual).
Sorcerers can use sorcery to augment another playstyle, as described above, but they can also be full spellcasters. Their power comes from being able to instantly cast powerful spells, while most other casters would need to perform a lengthy ritual to get the same effect. A sorcerer villain would be viable, but would likely have a ritual caster minion to take care of any magic they aren't innately gifted with.
Like in 5e, sorcery would generally come from your bloodline, although supernatural creatures could also give it to you as a gift. I'm also thinking that you may be able to choose passive supernatural abilities instead of or in addition to spells, like natural healing or flight. Again, think comic book superheroes.
Geometric Magic
This is the polar opposite of the sorcerer. The goal here is a method of spellcasting that caters exclusively to those who like bookkeeping and resource tracking, and who prefer to carefully plan things out and prepare in advance instead of flying by the seat of their pants.
Geometric spellcasters (I'm in the market for a better name) cast spells by drawing magic circles and using the appropriate spellcasting ingredients. As such, it's almost exclusively ritual-based. And costly. A good example of this kind of spellcasting would be alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist. These spells require enough space to accommodate the circle, time to actually draw the circle, and material components, some of which are consumed, and all of which are expensive. A 1st circle spell might require about 1 minute and a 5-foot square to draw, and consume 10 gp worth of components, a 2nd circle spell 10 minutes and a 15-foot square, and consume 100 gp, 3rd circle 1 hour, 30-foot square, and 1000 gp, and 4th circle (= 9th level, roughly) 8 hours to draw, 60-foot square, and 10k gp. These are all rough numbers, but it gives you an idea of how the escalation of power can affect the requirements for the ritual.
Different spells would have different component requirements, all of which would need to be tracked (and would of course weigh you down). It would be up to the mage to decide which components they need and make sure they bring them. I'd probably include a variant that makes the bookkeeping simpler, such as treating common ingredients as simply costing gold to cast the spell.
Geometric magic users keep spellbooks with the various diagrams necessary to draw the circles for their spells, much like a 5e wizard. You might be able to memorize a limited number of spells (up to INT mod?), allowing you to reproduce the circles for them without looking at your spellbook. If you lose your spellbook, you could copy these memorized spells into a new spellbook. Furthermore, even casting uncircled spells would require looking at your spellbook if you don't have them memorized. This means that (a) you'd need the spellbook in one hand while the other hand traces the circle, and (b) reading your spellbook would probably adversely affect you in combat, such as making attacks against you have advantage, or provoking opportunity attacks.
Does this mean you're restricted to uncircled spells in combat (again, if they still exist)? Not necessarily. Introducing spell scrolls. Spell scrolls are a way to pre-cast a spell and save it for later. However, you have to pay the full cost for the spell up front, including both material components and casting time, and may even include additional costs to preserve the magic circle on the scroll so it doesn't get damage during transport. You'd also need to decide all the parameters of the spell up front (not sure how this would interact with spell targeting). Furthermore, the space requirements are not waived, which means given the numbers above, a 1st circle spell scroll is going to be at least 5x5 feet. That's pretty big. A 2nd circle spell scroll would need to be 15x15 feet, although more likely you'd use multiple, smaller scrolls (each of which would require an action to use as part of creating the combined magic circle). Some things I'm not sure about are (a) should non-casters or at least non-geometric magic users be able to use spell scrolls? and (b) should scrolls be temporary e.g. the magic fades after 24 hours but the scroll can be reused? and permanent spell scrolls would be more expensive to make?
Theurgy
I'm expecting this one to be the most controversial. On the one hand, I see this as being a nice middle ground between the two above spellcasting styles, offering some rituals, but not as many as the geometric caster, and some at-will magic, but not as much or as often as the sorcerer. Now, that's not unreasonable. However, the other aspect I see with divine magic is that the cleric merely petitions the deity (or other entity), and it is them who casts the spell. I thought it might be interesting to recreate that feeling using the DM as a proxy for the entity the cleric serves.
What makes a divine spellcaster unique would be their interaction with the DM. They do not choose spells to cast, instead they petition their deity for aid, and they (and thus, the DM) chooses whether or not to give aid, and if so, which spell they use to aid their servant. As much as I like the idea, it sounds mad to me. It would certainly require a good DM-player relationship, and a DM who is fair and doesn't show special favor (or disfavor) toward the divine spellcaster. As an additional complication, it could be a source of friction between the DM and players: if a player picks a bad spell and the group wipes, it's the player's fault, if the DM picks a bad spell and the group wipes, it's the DM's fault.
So here's my plan to alleviate this somewhat. First, theurgists are ritual casters, just like geometric magic users, although their rituals much different. Theurgists have access to all their spells from the start, though geometric magic users will eventually have more spells than them (this echoes 5e clerics vs. wizards). Theurgists use many of the same ingredients in all their rituals, meaning there is less bookkeeping (although the spells still eat up the same amount of gold). Generally, there are no space requirements for theurgy, and drawing magic circles is replaced with incantations, hymns, prayers, and occasionally the offering of a sacrifice (which uses up the same amount of time). Finally, while a ritual will usually give you the result you expect (for rituals, you DO choose the spell), your deity (the DM) may decide to create a different effect (if they know better than you do what you need at that moment) or no effect (if you've been naughty). But most of the time you get what you expected.
For at-will casting, you can make an emergency petition to your god for aid. Like sorcery, this waives casting time, components, and all other requirements. However, you do not get to choose the specific effect. Instead, you choose one of the following:
- Blessing. You ask your god to buff your allies.
- Curse. You ask your god to debuff your enemies.
- Judgement. You ask your god to deal damage to your enemies.
- Intervention. You ask your god to deliver an indirect effect, such as a wall of fire or fog cloud.
- Revelation. You ask your god for divination effects, or for knowledge.
- Salvation. You ask your god for healing or defensive magic.
The DM can then choose an appropriate spell of an appropriate circle, or they can roll on a table if the players prefer that. While a theurgist can cast uncircled spells at-will nearly all day as long as they've been good, a circled spell generally expects the theurgist to perform some kind of ritual or other act of worship after the fact to show proper gratitude and respect for their deity. A theurgist may also be limited to a certain number of such divine interventions per day (circles sum up to your WIS mod?), just so they don't abuse this power, or it may sap your Wisdom until the "thanks for the spell" ritual is performed. Regardless, the cost for at-will spells should be more severe than it is for sorcerers.
Too Long, Didn't Read
General. Fewer but more customizable spells. Any spell can be any level (including cantrip). No spell slots.
Sorcery. Gets very few spells, but ignores casting time and component cost. A comic book superhero.
Geometric Magic. Ritual caster, obsessively track components and plan and prepare for everything. Really big spell scrolls.
Theurgy. Ritual caster, less bookkeeping. Ask your deity for help, let them choose the spell.
What do people think? Do these sound like fun, or do they sound like a nightmare? Is there another style of spellcasting that could fit in alongside these?
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2018-11-12, 08:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic System Overhaul
To be quite honest, these could be fun...for a different game system entirely. But making these changes won't end up with anything that feels like 5e D&D at all.
Specifically, you're basically restricting the "classes" as follows:
Sorcery: Literal one-trick pony, and one that hurts themselves by doing their only trick. If their trick doesn't apply, they're useless.
Geomancy: Effectively neutered in combat. No, carrying around a multi-square-foot scroll with pre-fixed parameters won't be feasible for more than one or two such spells. And this will be a balance nightmare--if the ritual cast spells are powerful to make them worth it, getting a scroll of such will be totally unbalancing. If they're low-power enough to make scrolls useful, then they're not worth all the bother.
Theurgy: This isn't spell-casting, this is gambling. It takes away most of the interesting decisions to be made, severely reducing perceived player agency.
And in doing so, you're removing all the basic, underlying process of resource exhaustion (or making it worse, depending on implementation). In a game with as high a combat expectation as D&D, you're relegating most of the classes as they stand to second-class status unless you rewrite everything (including all the classes, most of the basic mechanical framework, all the monsters, etc).Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
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2018-11-12, 09:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic System Overhaul
Well... I suppose in this system, prestidigitation really would become the poor wizard's wish (assuming the former was the uncircled variant and the latter the 4th-circle variant).
Another, more significant change is to do away with the idea of leveled spells. A spell is a spell, and it can be cast at any circle or uncircled. We can also reduce the number of spells by allowing more ways to tweak spells, and allowing casters to enhance a spell in different ways when they upcast it to a higher circle. For example, an "Energy Blast" spell might replace Fireball, but you could cast it uncircled (which would likely look similar to Acid Splash or Firebolt), and you can change the damage type (eliminating the need for similar spells of different elements), and by upcasting it to a higher level you might choose between increasing damage, expanding the area, or increasing the range, or even changing the type of saving throw targeted. Maybe we could even get by with a single damage spell by allowing you to choose the shape as well (sphere, line, cone, single-target, etc.).
What is more, is that the decisions made to answer "what spells do I want to cast today?" are no longer being made as character build decisions (spells known) or once-a-day decisions (spells prepared), but are now having to be made on the spot. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to spend a lot of play time in the thick of combat waiting while the sorcerer dithered about how big a cone effect to apply etc. etc.
One could save time by having "pre-built" spell options ("here's my single-target uncircled melee-range acid damage spell, here's my acid-cloud AoE spell, here's..."), but then we're going full circle.
As such, I'd like to take the concept of the sorcerer as it exists in 5e and take it up to 11. Sorcerers generally know very few spells, as in they'll generally be in the single digits their entire career. In exchange, they are entirely at-will: no rituals, no components, just fire off the spell whenever they please. Now, there has to be some kind of resource system in place so they can't just spam their spells at the highest circle, so I'll have to think on this. This might be casting from HP, making a CON save or suffering exhaustion, or reducing ability scores until they rest. Sorcerers can also choose the parameters of their spells when they release the spell, while most other casters have to decide on the parameters when they start casting the spell (usually as a ritual).
The last sentence doesn't strike me as being a mechanically-significant distinction. Whenever you cast a spell as an action, you just decide on any parameters, if necessary, on the spot. Whenever you cast a ritual spell, you have to decide the parameters up front. But either way, you're making that decision at the same time you decide to cast the spell.
Geometric spellcasters (I'm in the market for a better name) cast spells by drawing magic circles and using the appropriate spellcasting ingredients.
I cut out the description of how they cast ritual spells, but I suppose I should discuss it. Basically, you're replacing one resource attrition mechanic (tracking spell slots and occasional monetary costs for materials) with another (tracking supplies and massive monetary costs for materials).
There's nothing inherently wrong with the latter, although it wouldn't be my preference. One thing I do think spell slots have over mostly tracking materials is that they are less prone to either player or GM shenanigans.
Does this mean you're restricted to uncircled spells in combat (again, if they still exist)? Not necessarily. Introducing spell scrolls. Spell scrolls are a way to pre-cast a spell and save it for later. However, you have to pay the full cost for the spell up front, including both material components and casting time, and may even include additional costs to preserve the magic circle on the scroll so it doesn't get damage during transport. You'd also need to decide all the parameters of the spell up front (not sure how this would interact with spell targeting). Furthermore, the space requirements are not waived, which means given the numbers above, a 1st circle spell scroll is going to be at least 5x5 feet. That's pretty big. A 2nd circle spell scroll would need to be 15x15 feet, although more likely you'd use multiple, smaller scrolls (each of which would require an action to use as part of creating the combined magic circle). Some things I'm not sure about are (a) should non-casters or at least non-geometric magic users be able to use spell scrolls? and (b) should scrolls be temporary e.g. the magic fades after 24 hours but the scroll can be reused? and permanent spell scrolls would be more expensive to make?
I do think scrolls in this implementation also open the system up to some potential problems. Because if you make spell scrolls permanent, and especially if you make them usable by others, you open up the possibility of a lot of scroll abuse by wizards creating them during downtime and saving them for adventures. On the other hand, if scrolls are temporary (which could be an issue for 4th-circle scrolls - I mean, you're already taking 8 hours, or some similar interval, to make them!), you could run into a fair bit of resource wastage.
The DM can then choose an appropriate spell of an appropriate circle, or they can roll on a table if the players prefer that. While a theurgist can cast uncircled spells at-will nearly all day as long as they've been good, a circled spell generally expects the theurgist to perform some kind of ritual or other act of worship after the fact to show proper gratitude and respect for their deity. A theurgist may also be limited to a certain number of such divine interventions per day (circles sum up to your WIS mod?), just so they don't abuse this power, or it may sap your Wisdom until the "thanks for the spell" ritual is performed. Regardless, the cost for at-will spells should be more severe than it is for sorcerers.~ Composer99
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2018-11-12, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic System Overhaul
I'm seconding this. I've used all three of these systems in various forms elsewhere (usually with spirits instead of gods for theurgy), and they've worked just fine - elsewhere. In D&D though? They just don't fit with how the system works.
The sorcerer you can get there - a small number of powers that operate at different levels, per-round refresh of magic points where you can expect to start at your maximum but recover little enough that you will burn out if you spam your highest level spells and get to cast them at low levels for while, all available powers detailed - but the others are just off, especially the theurge.I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.
I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that. -- ChubbyRain
Current Design Project: Legacy, a game of masters and apprentices for two players and a GM.
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2018-11-14, 03:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic System Overhaul
True. And without being able to see the finished system, it's incredibly difficult to envision how this magic system would fit into it. But this also somewhat reassures me, because it means with the right system it could work. I know I initially described it as "like D&D 5e", but it would most likely end up looking like a completely original system that maybe uses the same ability scores and the (dis)advantage system.
One of the things I'd like to do is de-emphasize combat in general, and magic in combat in particular. I feel like the best use of magic in a system is as utility, and that it's hard to make magic combat-viable without making nonmagical combat obsolete. 5e does a pretty good job in balancing magic and nonmagic, but in doing so they made magic less "magical".
Sorcery: Literal one-trick pony, and one that hurts themselves by doing their only trick. If their trick doesn't apply, they're useless.
Geomancy: Effectively neutered in combat. No, carrying around a multi-square-foot scroll with pre-fixed parameters won't be feasible for more than one or two such spells. And this will be a balance nightmare--if the ritual cast spells are powerful to make them worth it, getting a scroll of such will be totally unbalancing. If they're low-power enough to make scrolls useful, then they're not worth all the bother.
I am rethinking the cost of rituals as well as the space needed. But part of the point of having large, unwieldy scrolls is to make downtime scroll-making less cheesy. Sure, you can make a bunch of scrolls, but how exactly do you think you're going to take them with you?
As far as pre-fixed parameters, of which targeting becomes tricky, it made me realize that a magic circle necessarily has to target either (a) whatever is at the center of the circle, (b) the area inside the circle, or (c) the boundary along the edge of the circle. This means the sensible way to do, say, a fireball spell is to, rather than making the circle itself shoot the fireball, to empower the person standing within the circle to shoot fireballs. This in turn got me thinking about temporary vs. permanent magic circles, and if scrolls should be reusable after all (as long as you have spell ingredients). Maybe drawing a 1st circle spell should be faster, but the circle itself can be targeted, and if it gets scuffed, no more magic. There's a whole rabbit hole to go down here, and I'll have to get to the bottom of it to figure out the best way to handle geometric magic.
Theurgy: This isn't spell-casting, this is gambling. It takes away most of the interesting decisions to be made, severely reducing perceived player agency.
unless you rewrite everything (including all the classes, most of the basic mechanical framework, all the monsters, etc).
I'm hopefully that at least some small part of what's discussed here will get used in some form or another at some point, even if its almost unrecognizable from its origin.
Pretty much.
The problem with a "build-a-spell" system is that you're not really replacing a large volume of different spells with a handful of spells, not when each individual spell has parameters that can be modified or even added (such as taking a single-target spell and making it AoE, and so on). In a sense, each possible configuration of a "build-a-spell" spell is a distinct spell of its own.
[...]
One could save time by having "pre-built" spell options ("here's my single-target uncircled melee-range acid damage spell, here's my acid-cloud AoE spell, here's..."), but then we're going full circle.
Sorcerers in 5e already have a simple mechanic for tracking resources: sorcery points
The last sentence doesn't strike me as being a mechanically-significant distinction. Whenever you cast a spell as an action, you just decide on any parameters, if necessary, on the spot. Whenever you cast a ritual spell, you have to decide the parameters up front. But either way, you're making that decision at the same time you decide to cast the spell.
I think you mean "wizards". It's as good a name as any.
I cut out the description of how they cast ritual spells, but I suppose I should discuss it. Basically, you're replacing one resource attrition mechanic (tracking spell slots and occasional monetary costs for materials) with another (tracking supplies and massive monetary costs for materials).
But perhaps the primary resource for wizards should just be time. If you need a spell, you have to budget the time for it, and there are only so many hours in the day.
One thing I do think spell slots have over mostly tracking materials is that they are less prone to either player or GM shenanigans.
I really, really, can't recommend doing that for spell scrolls. If you had to go through all the other rigamarole to cast the spell - draw the big circle, pay all the costs, spend all the time - then the scroll should be normal scroll size, cost a little extra to make, and leave it at that.
I do think scrolls in this implementation also open the system up to some potential problems.
Apart from PhoenixPhyre's comment on theurges, with which I am in full agreement, I would suggest a spendable resource ("divine power" equal to 1 + Wisdom modifier, or whatever), instead of 3.X-style ability damage, as the way to limit circled spells cast at-will.
I'm interested in hearing which systems you used these magic systems in, and what made it work for them. I'll be honest, I've never liked D&D, but 5e did so many things right even I was drawn in by its charm. But in the end it's still D&D, and some of the underlying, foundational things that turned me off of past editions still persist in 5e. Someone else said it best when they said that 5e was everyone's second favorite system.
I'm kind of thinking of keeping the ability scores and skills, but opting for a classless system where players spend XP to buy "feats" in the place of class features. In this case, each style of magic would likely be its own feat (and probably a bit more expensive than most), with escalating ranks offering more and/or higher circle spells. So yeah, this would be almost an entire rewrite of the whole system, something I'm not looking forward to attempting.
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2018-11-14, 07:11 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic System Overhaul
So what you're saying is the following:
Sorcerer: If they invest most or all of their "character build resources", they might be almost as effective in one little niche as a fighter-type character. And have no other utility. No thanks.
Geomancer: If a fight breaks out, they're The Load. Sounds like someone who stays at home (ie an NPC). We've seen those before--OD&D magic users. They shot their one spell and then participated by hiding and occasionally shooting a crossbow (ineffectively).
Theurge: Has no effective restrictions. Paying for things in downtime == not paying for them in any meaningful way. Unless you require them to play out the downtime prep (instead of saying "I do the rituals"), which would be boring.
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More generally, I think you're going about this all wrong. You're focusing on the implementation of one sub-system while you don't even have the basics of the core resolution mechanics nailed down. I'd recommend looking at a bunch of non-D&D-based systems and compiling a list of ideas (not even mechanics but concepts and ways they answered the fundamental questions) and then figuring out exactly what you want PCs to do.
Maybe magic is something left for NPCs. Or maybe the only PC spell-casters are sorcerers. Or maybe you let everyone dabble in all three arts--a "magic user" character might lean on sorcery, dabble in geomancy, and not care much for the gods. Or vice versa. This gives the character much more versatility. One-trick ponies are bad design. And each of your types are really a one-trick pony. One is useless anywhere his one trick doesn't work (and does damage to himself doing it). Another can only handle planned things, and only with lots of prep time. The other can do anything the DM lets him do. Sort of. But runs out of steam real fast (depending on how many they can prep). Note that your theurgy v2 is really just vancian casting with a fig-leaf of "rituals" unless you force those to be role-played. Which takes precious table time and annoys everyone else.Dawn of Hope: a 5e setting. http://wiki.admiralbenbo.org
Rogue Equivalent Damage calculator, now prettier and more configurable!
5e Monster Data Sheet--vital statistics for all 693 MM, Volo's, and now MToF monsters: Updated!
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NIH System PDF Up to date main-branch build version.
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2018-11-14, 10:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic System Overhaul
What I mean is that you're not really making things simple. Instead of having twenty different spells where you prepare or learn a handful of them and then just cast them because you know what they do, you have one spell where each time you cast it, whether on the spot or in a ritual, you have to decide on which parameters to modify and by how much, and how much of a resource cost you're willing to pay just at the moment, which might affect your parameter modification.
As far as I can see, you are not reducing the complexity of the system. You're moving it from one place, the spell list in the rulebook, to another, the player's decision-making during play. And, at least in my opinion, the latter is worse from the perspective of players' cognitive load during play than the former.
This is particularly noticeable with sorcerers. Yes, in regular 5e you have to decide when to use a spell slot to cast a spell or just to cast a cantrip, and which spell to cast, and when to modify it with metamagic, but both your spell and metamagic selections are character build decisions, meaning they can be made in between play time (or at least considered in between sessions, so that if you level up in the middle of a game you know what you want to do).
By contrast, with your proposed system, you have to decide when to cast a spell, whether to use a "resource-less" spell or a circle spell, which spell to cast, how many resources to expend to cast it, which parameters to modify and by how much, and without any shortcut through that process by having fixed spells.
Let me elaborate a bit on the ability damage thing.
5e right now has one primary "damage" track - hit points, and, you might say, two separate lesser "damage" tracks - exhaustion, and other conditions. That's already a lot to keep track of.
There are a vanishingly rare number of phenomena in 5e that cause what we would traditionally call "ability damage", such as the shadow's Strength Drain attack. (Indeed, they're so rare that I'm surprised the 5e design team decided to include them). So I'm comfortable excluding "ability damage/drain" from the list of "damage" tracks of 5e. But taking ability damage to use one of your core class features would add that "damage" track back in. Now you have either one primary "damage" track and three lesser "damage" tracks or, if you're the right (wrong?) kind of spellcaster, two primary "damage" tracks and two lesser ones.
The thing is, each time you take ability damage/drain, you have to go back through any mechanical statistic and modify it. And then you have to do it all again when the ability damage/drain goes away! Unless you have a computer to do all that for you, it's both an additional cognitive load and cost of play-time. So adding ability damage/drain back in as a commonplace "damage" track is adding complexity to the game, mostly at the level of gameplay itself (needlessly so, at least in my opinion). Having the ability damage replace spell slots would reduce the added complexity, but not eliminate it.
By contrast, if you replaced spell slots with Favour, you're replacing one "resource pool you expend to cast most spells" with another, so there's no additional mechanical complexity there.~ Composer99
D&D 5e Campaign:
Adventures in Eaphandra
D&D 5e Homebrew:
This can be found in my extended homebrew signature!
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2018-11-16, 11:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2013
Re: Magic System Overhaul
I kind of like it, but I think the concepts are being lost in the trees.
The Sorcery track is effectively the 5e Sorlock model - Emphasizing doing a limited number of things, but doing them a lot. You get a handful of things to do, but you can do them well and at-will. They're "one-trick ponies" but only as much as Sorlocks already are.
Theurgy is the most confusing and would be the most frustrating to execute, as the players will have tiny amounts of agency, while DMs would also have to create not only encounters, but also which Curses, Judgements, Interventions, and Salvations would be available to Theurges for that encounter. This is a cinematic attempt of doing things, and could be interesting in a one-shot, or as an ability for a recurring, non-party character or DMPC.
However, the Geometric magic is the one that needs the most work in this thought experiment. I understand the idea of scaling up the circles for more powerful spells, but I think that the exponential growth that you're applying to the style should also go backwards as well. Once you're able to produce the large ritual circle spells, I think you should also be able to create smaller effects by creating what are effectively magic items. For example, a Geometric magic user should be able to create a, for example, Shield Bracelet - a bracelet that casts Shield, that is.
This is the style of the Pathfinder Occultist - They know a handful of at-will "knacks" (cantrips), and the rest of their spells were actually "Use Magic Device" Checks for the myriad of magical implements that they carried around. I think that the wizard/geometricist concept would have legs if they could, as a super-ritual, per se, lock in some reasonable utility and/or damage that can be tapped into ahead of time. This could be using the mechanics of wands (charged consumables with no regeneration) and staffs (Regenerating consumables), or some similar styles.
This could be a nod to the sorcery style, such as Roy Mustang's iconic glove from FullMetal Alchemist (the original, not Brotherhood, if I remember correctly). In that world, his glove had a circle that transmutes the air's oxygen density to include a hydrogen streak towards a target, then the actual material of the glove created a spark with a snap, igniting the hydrogen to create a fireball effect.
I also think there should be more expansion of the "Spell Scroll" concept. What you've written thus far will turn quickly into more of "Spell Rugs", which would basically become useless beyond 2nd level. What I would like to see is, instead of Massive Spell Rugs that presumably cost an action or two to unroll and a 15' x 15' space open, some sort of spell programming that allows intricate magic effects.
For example, you've stated your generic Energy Blast spell is effectively a cantrip a la Fire Bolt that is then upgraded and refluffed, via spell circles, to things like Flame Sphere. What I would rather see is something akin to combos that are made ahead of time. This could include, using Fire bolt as an example:
- Creating a turret that is shooting firebolts by itself
- Launching multiple firebolts at multiple targets
- Launching three firebolts into an orbit surrounding yourself creating a damage aura inside that area
- Creating an enchantment that ignites all ally weapons, turning arrows & bolts into fire bolts, and giving melee weapons fire damage.
That could allow enterprising players to create "scrolls" of unique, stacked effects. Become Iron Man, for example, by creating a spell scroll that gives Mage Armor, Fly, Lightning Blast and Magic Missiles, for the duration.Always looking for critique of my 5E homebrew!