3.x D&D - WOT version Magic System - More Balanced?

[souran]

With the release of the second to last WOT book I decided to reread the series figurring that it will take me about a year to get through them all. Going through my stuff I found my old copy of the WOT roleplaying game.

Reading through what was done with the WOT 3.x variant it is not terribly impressive.

It basically combines variations on the star wars soldier/scoundrel/scout/nobel with a pair of spell casters. Its bestiary is small (but complete from the date of publishing.)

What the game does have, however, is a magic system that still lets castes do lots without allowing much of what is really broken in D&D.


For instance:

Healing is actually a conversion to subdual damage
Teleportation is pushed into the upper spell levels
Most magic cannot be made to last indefinatly
No save or die and most save or suck are set up to give a retest each round.

The most major benefit to casters is that casting is set-up to allow casters to cast spells with reduced effectiveness when "out" of spells.

However, by forcing the rules of Randland spell casting on the game the spell casters are still interesting but much less overpowering compared to their non casting counterparts.

This actually goes to the central issue of D&D magic. D&D magic can do to much. It has no limits. You simply cannot give a character an "ability" that by its nature is unlimited and not expect it to eventually be game breaking.

I read some jack vance stories and to say that dying earth magic is D&D magic misses all the things dying earth magic cannot do. There are no "buffs" in jack vance. Its amazingly hard for them to make magic do permanent things.

Most games do have rules OF magic in addition to rules FOR magic. Shadowrun has distinct things magic can and cannot do. Even gurps suggests various kinds of "flavors" of magic that prevent it from being just an open write your own effect system.

D&D magic, on the other hand, is no longer really grounded by anything. The spell levels have little meaning when most spells past 4th level are either amazing or pathetic.

I guess the major point is: Would it be better if D&D had harder rules about what magic can and cannot do more like a novel?

[Sashi]

I guess the major point is: Would it be better if D&D had harder rules about what magic can and cannot do more like a novel?

Novels have the third loosest rules about what magic can and cannot do, just barely ahead of comic books and children pretending to be wizards.

Looking to novels for how to treat magic in an RPG is useless because the only limitation on magic in a novel is plot and verisimilitude, in that order.

[TheWorid]

I guess the major point is: Would it be better if D&D had harder rules about what magic can and cannot do more like a novel?

Yes, it would definitely better, for exactly the reasons you stated. The problem is that D&D is expected to be the premier generic fantasy ruleset, so it ends up having to cater to different tastes simultaneously, which as we all know doesn't work very well.

The most logical resolution would probably be defining the "rules of magic" in each setting book. So, any given setting will have certain banned spells, unique spells, and spell level changes. This way, the writer can enforce a certain flavor to the setting rather than being unable to write a logically coherent one because of the ramifications of high level spells.

[hogarth]

Certainly, if you nerfed wizards hard relative to other classes it would make a more balanced game. Would it make a more interesting game? It didn't work for 4E...

Novels have the third loosest rules about what magic can and cannot do, just barely ahead of comic books and children pretending to be wizards.

+1 billion

[Juton]

The best campaign I ever played used the Wheel of Time RPG rules. It's a low-powered setting that works because they rework classes and spells. Because of this you can't really mix WoT and D&D settings.

Things like turning lethal damage to non-lethal via magic, won't help in D&D because wands of CLW don't break the game. Teleportation only breaks the game when combined with things like scry, Tome fixes this in a more organic fashion. I do like people getting a retest every round for debilitating effects. You don't need long running magic effects because WoT is built in such a way to obviate the need.

If you want to balance 3.5 magic you need to do something other than switching to WoT, they are incompatible settings.

[souran]

Wow Sashi;

You appearntly do not read anything in the fantasy genre at all.

Lets start with wheel of time because thats what our basis for the thread is.

Wheel characters weave threads of magic. This is done in a conceptual headspace, however for many "weaves" gestures are required as they supposedly "open up pathways in concentration." Verbalising is almost never required for WOT magic unless the weave specfically effects voice.

The threads woven are of a greek-elementalist nature. Channelers have different affinities and strengths and what may be possible for one may be impossible for the next due to the affinties.

In addition to affinities, channelers (at least Aes Sedai because that is explored the most) have talents these are areas where they can work magic. So for instance healing is a talent. No matter how hard they try some Channelers try they cannot heal anybody. Similarly Warding is a talent, as the creation of items with the one power.

Magic also has very specific rules. A created falme burns unless you use additional weaves to dissipate the heat. A shielding some one from magic is an extensive test of will but once in place a weaker person can shield a stronger person indefinatly, teleportation requires knowledge of "where you are" but requires little knowledge of where you want to go. clairaudiance/clairvoyance can only be extended from your current location, remote viewing is impossible.

All these rules give magic a distinct flavor. It exists in most other works as well.

Prince of Nothing: Most magic is a blasphemy against god. It is also applied as knoweldge man was not meant to know. The ability to forumlate these forbidden concept in your very human mind makes the way in which you learn and understand directly proportional to your power. I.E. Gnostic magic is better than anagogic magic. An anagogic controls fire by controling it representationally. A Gnostic knows the essensce of fire and creates it directly from said knowldge.

Terry Goodkinds Magic: Except for the main character who uses Deus Ex machina magic (ugh) magic is divided into subtractive and addative halves. Adddative magic can only create and combine. That does not mean it cannot destroy, only what is can do directly. An addative wizard could not "unmake" a single book in a library but he could make a massive inferno that burned everthing in it to ash.

Dresden files magic: There are lots of sub displines. Evocation lets you blow things around with the elements, there are magics to summon demons and fairy and wizards often make bargains with them to get knowledge. (Note that this is the first system where this is even POSSBILE). Practical magic is also described in detail. Dresden himself is a "unstoppable force" type wizard and he dumps tons of magical energy into simple tasks to get quick and dirty results. Howver, other wizards are described ans working magic with surgical prescion. Tools and impliments in this system are more important in this system than any other mentioned thus far.


The name of the wind/Patrick Rothfuss: This sieres has numerous kinds of magic/knoweldge as well. Its implied that alchmey is both natural and somewhat magical all at once. Sympathy is a basic way of linking objects magically by similarity but it has signifcant limitations. "True Name" magic on the other hand allows control of the forces of creation. Again, in this story sinifcant time is spent saying what is and isn't possible for various kinds of magic.

So then, we can see that you are COMPLETELY wrong. I could go on and do david eddings, terry brooks, "thomas coventant", Joe Abercrombie, "Psalms of Isaak", hell even harry potter magic has cans and can'ts.

Novels often utitlize highly detailed "rulesets" for magic. Again, it seems like having a generic such one for D&D might help curb the craziness of mid-high level spells.

[Murtak]

So then, we can see that you are COMPLETELY wrong. Novels often utitlize highly detailed "rulesets" for magic.

And just as often they break them for the sake of the narrative. Especially as far as protagonists and main antagonists are concerned.

[MGuy]

So then, we can see that you are COMPLETELY wrong. Novels often utitlize highly detailed "rulesets" for magic.

And just as often they break them for the sake of the narrative. Especially as far as protagonists and main antagonists are concerned.

+for artifacts/relics/mcguffins/ancient magic/special magic/special materials/edge cases/legendary whatsits/ And just because its happens to be Wednesday

[Username17]

Wow Sashi;

You appearntly do not read anything in the fantasy genre at all.

Lets start with wheel of time because thats what our basis for the thread is.

Wheel characters weave threads of magic. This is done in a conceptual headspace, however for many "weaves" gestures are required as they supposedly "open up pathways in concentration." Verbalising is almost never required for WOT magic unless the weave specfically effects voice.

The threads woven are of a greek-elementalist nature. Channelers have different affinities and strengths and what may be possible for one may be impossible for the next due to the affinties.

In addition to affinities, channelers (at least Aes Sedai because that is explored the most) have talents these are areas where they can work magic. So for instance healing is a talent. No matter how hard they try some Channelers try they cannot heal anybody. Similarly Warding is a talent, as the creation of items with the one power.

Magic also has very specific rules. A created falme burns unless you use additional weaves to dissipate the heat. A shielding some one from magic is an extensive test of will but once in place a weaker person can shield a stronger person indefinatly, teleportation requires knowledge of "where you are" but requires little knowledge of where you want to go. clairaudiance/clairvoyance can only be extended from your current location, remote viewing is impossible.

All these rules give magic a distinct flavor. It exists in most other works as well.

All of those rules are totally open ended. Seriously. Each caster has a list of magic powers they can use, and they are allowed to come up with new powers in the middle of important plot points with no foreshadowing at all. Some powers are reused a bunch of times and other powers are unique to one caster. But there's no specific or predictable rubric for whether any particular power could be used by another caster or not.

Even your very first "rule" should clue you in to how bullshit those are as rules. Powers don't have verbal components unless they do? Are you fucking kidding me?

Casters in WoT do not normally have the ability to telekinetically grab a bunch of barnyard animals and fuse them into a single firebreathing chimeric monster. But is there any actual reason that someone couldn't have such an ability? Heck, is there any reason that some character couldn't simply develop that power in the middle of a battle in a pig farm? Of course not. It's a novel, and it runs on novel logic. And that means that characters are able to do any particular magic trick or not entirely based on the needs of the plot. Hell, characters even sometimes "burn out" abilities where abilities they had and used on camera stop working without any particular rhyme or reason.

-Username17

[Sashi]

Souran you are spouting complete gibberish. Not only to novels break their own rules all the time, but as you just pointed out every novel with magic in it treats that magic completely differently from every other novel with magic in it.

So before we get into specifics, just sayin "we should make RPG magic more like novels" is totally meaningless, because there is no platonic ideal of magic that novels represent. Many magical books involve crazy-powerful wizards who don't go around solving their problems with magic simply because it would end the story too quickly (Gandalf). And many more have Star Trek rules, where anything's possible as long as the author gives a simple one-line explanation that "solves" any rules discrepancies ("it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue: 'Thank God we created the, you know, whatever device.'")

Even ignoring all of that, many many many books involve the main character completely ripping those rules to shreds as part of the exciting climax.

You can look to novels for the kind of fluff you want to represent in an RPG (not just the magic portion), but balancing a magic system in a game requires balancing the magic system in the game, not basing it off of a novel.

[souran]

Even ignoring all of that, many many many books involve the main character completely ripping those rules to shreds as part of the exciting climax.

Except we NEVER have to write said exciting climax. We only have to write page 1 where the rules of magic are what they are and have been that way for as long as anybody can remember.

We don't have to solve the vexing riddle, overcome the paralyzing weakness, or provide resolution to the essential conundum that binds the parts of our magic system togther, we just have to write them into the system in the first place

You can look to novels for the kind of fluff you want to represent in an RPG (not just the magic portion), but balancing a magic system in a game requires balancing the magic system in the game, not basing it off of a novel.

These systems are not balanced. We are not going to novels to find balance. We are going to the novels for definiation. WOT rpg magic makes for a more balanced game because its magic has limits. If you said you wanted to use WOT magic to summon orcs the answer would be no. Now, our D&D rules probably need rules for summoning, but right now the rules for summoning are pretty much that you can summon anything, from anywhere, because D&D magic is open. Its only consideration is "what spell level is this effect"

Where D&D could use benig more like a novel is with a hand toward providing more rules of what can and cannot be done at all, and to use the rules to push more spells away from being "situation solver in a can" spells.[/i]

[hogarth]

Souran you are spouting complete gibberish. Not only to novels break their own rules all the time, but as you just pointed out every novel with magic in it treats that magic completely differently from every other novel with magic in it.

Or the magic system has (supposedly) clear rules, but the author has clearly never considered the ramification of those rules. E.g. a magic system where it is easy to move small amounts of matter around telekinetically, and yet the idea of sucking someone's brains out of his nose has apparently never occured to anyone.

[Sashi]

So we aren't going to novels for balance, we're going to novels for some other reason you have decided not to tell us and happen to pick up balance on the way?

The only reason to look to a novel for a magic system is if you're writing an RPG based on that novel. If I write a Dresden Files magic system, then someone playing a wizard in that system had better be able to do things Harry Dresden could do, maybe not all of them, and maybe not as well, but they all need to be accessible and work in vaguely the way they do for characters in the Dresden Files novels.

A Harry Potter RPG would involve level 1 characters being able to fly (cheap magic brooms), and also able to teleport THREE WAYS (portkeys, flue network, disapparating). Nevermind that "disapparating" was literally invented just so Rowling could make Harry go through the "driving test angst", it's in the novel, you have to represent it.

The main reason D&D casters are so powerful is because they've had nearly forty years of people saying "My BBEG has made pacts with demons and so here is the Planar Binding spell" and other people saying "Oh, hey, that lets me turn the monster manual into my own personal toolchest." Which is actually what happens (as hogarth points out) if you treat a magic system more like a novel and forget about the part where characters conveniently forget they can do things or don't use their powers in obviously logical and powerful ways.

[Sashi]

If you said you wanted to use WOT magic to summon orcs the answer would be no. Now, our D&D rules probably need rules for summoning, but right now the rules for summoning are pretty much that you can summon anything, from anywhere, because D&D magic is open. Its only consideration is "what spell level is this effect"

Orcs are one of the few things you can't summon in D&D, ever. Summon Monster and Planar Binding/Ally summon exclusively extraplanar beings (outsiders and elementals). Sure, this means that summon monster 1 gets you a "Celestial Dog" instead of a "Dog" and you could possibly summon a "Celestial Orc", but it's still an outsider, or some kind of paragon of orciness, not just a screamy army of orcs. D&D totally has limitations, it's just that those limitations have been broken in so many crazy ways that they have little meaning exactly like in a novel (there's a whole series of Star Wars novels where the force gets "reinvented" by one of Han and Leia's punk kids ... just because, I guess?)

Summon Nature's Ally gets you exclusively naturey stuff. Monkeys, wolves, that kind of thing. Sometimes things get weird and you can summon a Salamander or a Xorn, but absolutely no summoning in D&D will get you an orc, much less orcs.

"Most novels don't include summoning celestial dogs" is not a valid reason to remove summoning from the game. The things that make summoning powerful are threefold:

1) It breaks the action economy. A druid with an animal companion and a summon is now taking THREE TURNS for every one of yours.
2) It allows dumpster-diving for crazy abilities, like summoning a unicorn for an always on magic circle against evil, three uses of CLW, one CMW and Neutralize Poison, and then a Greater Teleport if the DM allows you to declare the unicorn you just created to have "here" be it's home. That's nuts.
3) It creates a meat shield who's death is completely irrelevant.

Those are the things you need to address when balancing D&D summoning, and the answer to all of those is some kind of mechanical change, that might have a "harry potter flavor", but the answer is not "make it more like Harry Potter" and then figure out what the mechanics of the Harry Potter novels are, that's just stupid.

[PoliteNewb]

Orcs are one of the few things you can't summon in D&D, ever.

He was probably thinking of earlier editions...in AD&D, Monster Summoning would totally let you summon orcs. Or ogres, werewolves, whatever, as long as it was a monster of the appropriate "level".

but the answer is not "make it more like Harry Potter" and then figure out what the mechanics of the Harry Potter novels are, that's just stupid.

He wasn't saying "make it more like Harry Potter", or more like any one novel in particular. He was saying, set rules the way novels set rules...and then do better than novels and don't break them.

Also, keep in mind that by "rules" he's thinking general rules of thumb, not specific mechanics. There is no general rule of thumb "you can't summon orcs" in D&D...there just don't happen to be any spells in 3.5 that let you do that, but if you wanted to invent one, you probably could, or it could come out in next month's splatbook.

But Souran is suggesting there SHOULD be hard and fast general rules for D&D magic.

D&D magic is open-ended in the sense of "if you write a spell that lets you do it, you can do it". There is literally nothing that is off limits to D&D magic, assuming you can cast 9th lvl spells.

[Sashi]

Answer the fucking question: how does bringing up novels help that at all? The only unique thing about magic in novels is that they have random arbitrary "rules" about how magic works that exist entirely to cause drama (like The Sword of Truth "I can't fuck you because of magic") or to be snapped in half by a character to show how goddamn special they are ("I am the Kwisatz Haderach!").

Other than bringing up novels, there is nothing unique here. I'd say about 90% of all D&D hacks attempt to address this very specific issue either by limiting caster spells or giving spells to noncasters.

So it's basically like this:
"Gee, wouldn't D&D casters be less able to take the game out to the woodshed and have their way with it if magic was more limited..."
"Yes."
"...like in novels?"
"What?"

[Maxus]

I have to disagree in one case.

The Dresden Files magic system is more or less functional and adheres to the rules laid down.

I can't speak for the Dresden Files RPG, but the books have a consistent magic system going. It'd be hard to right up as rules because it really comes down to will and intent and paying homage to physics.

[Sashi]

I only watched the TV show, but I've been meaning to read the books. It seemed to me like Dresden Files magic doesn't actually have rules. It's more a plot-enforced "Be careful what you wish for" type thing with demon pacts and stuff, and also "Don't get out of line or the Magic Cops will whack you."

The closest I've seen is how Harry can't be around high tech stuff without fritzing it out, with really isn't that big a deal except for lack of access to cellphone/internet.

[Maxus]

I only watched the TV show, but I've been meaning to read the books. It seemed to me like Dresden Files magic doesn't actually have rules. It's more a plot-enforced "Be careful what you wish for" type thing with demon pacts and stuff, and also "Don't get out of line or the Magic Cops will whack you."

That damn TV show is not Dresden. It features a "wizard" named Harry, whose last name is Dresden. But it does not have the charm or the thought needed to be Harry Dresden

But the books -do- lay down some consistent stuff.

When Harry brings up fire, he has to take energy to do it. Then once it's made, it still has to do business with thermodynamics. One book he said he probably spends even more energy controlling it than he does making it to keep from setting shit all over on fire. It holds itself to that pretty well.

The series does a lot of awesome bits of "If this is true, then this must be too"

So when you raise something from the dead, you can control it by supplying a beat and doing a little bit to make the creature think that's its heartbeat. Which means one Necromancer drives a cadillac with a killer stereo and a CD case full of rap albums.

Forget what you saw on the show and go find the series. Past the third book or so, Butcher's style settles down and it gets pretty interesting.

I'll admit it has some flaws. Early on, it's all anti-science. Then he loses that prententiousness and it becomes "Science is missing a few facts, is all". You also have to deal with every woman Harry meets being sexy.

[Sashi]

That damn TV show is not Dresden. It features a "wizard" named Harry, whose last name is Dresden. But it does not have the charm or the thought needed to be Harry Dresden

Yeah, I figured. But it was intriguing enough that I wanted to seek out the books.

But the books -do- lay down some consistent stuff.

When Harry brings up fire, he has to take energy to do it. Then once it's made, it still has to do business with thermodynamics. One book he said he probably spends even more energy controlling it than he does making it to keep from setting shit all over on fire. It holds itself to that pretty well.

All of that exists in the novel itself, though. Because it's all being written by an author it will by definition never actually come into play except when the author wants it to. Harry's resources are limited, and he might get limited in some way that inconveniences him, but it will never inconvenience the author because his powers are limited by verisimilitude and plot restrictions, not by a running total of how many power points Harry has left to spend before he has to stop adventuring and sleep for 6 hours.

[Maxus]

But my point is, the Dresden Files at least don't go "But he's doing an impossible feat because he's just that speshul!"

And once laid down, it'd held to the rules so far.

Which puts it above most of the fantasy magic systems out there.

[Username17]

I have not read all of the Dresden Files books, but I have read some and I do like them. Even though I find the main character's constant whining about how science is an ignorant religion to be really annoying. But anyway, saying that the magic system in Dresden Files is in any way consistent is laughable.

Yes, the alchemy system they have is really cool, but it doesn't make any sense. It is not consistently applied. There are things that potions do that are plainly much much more powerful than other things potions do. There are things that potions do in one book that would completely unravel the plot of another. And there are potion effects that would totally change the ways people do everything, and yet potions only ever get pulled out as a plot device.

Or how magic screws with "tech" and how this never strands the main character without an elevator when he is on the 67th floor, but sometimes does when he is on the 3rd floor. Or how he never seems to get bacillus cereus poisoning from having refrigeration fail around him. Or how cars always give up the ghost when he is at a destination and never when he is 50 kilometers into bumfuckistan.

Magic in Dresden Files has "themes" that are pretty consistent, but the fact is that there isn't actually any consistent theory of magic going on. There are some broad rules, and everything the plot needs is crammed in sideways around those with the glibbest patina of justification.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

Or how magic screws with "tech" and how this never strands the main character without an elevator when he is on the 67th floor, but sometimes does when he is on the 3rd floor. Or how he never seems to get bacillus cereus poisoning from having refrigeration fail around him. Or how cars always give up the ghost when he is at a destination and never when he is 50 kilometers into bumfuckistan.

Frank, that's because it's in the nature of magic-induced failure to minorly inconvenience a wizard rather than to actively harm her. This is because it's not an issue of magic and technology being at odds; rather, it's just magic fucking with you for fun.

[Murtak]

I have to disagree in one case.

The Dresden Files magic system is more or less functional and adheres to the rules laid down.

I can't speak for the Dresden Files RPG, but the books have a consistent magic system going. It'd be hard to right up as rules because it really comes down to will and intent and paying homage to physics.

Bullshit. I like the books a lot, but consistent they are not. Sure, the system presented is better than most, but that does not mean it is good, or consistent. What magic, faeries, vampires, potions and pretty much anything supernatural is capable of constantly changes. The author is quite adept at weaseling out of blatant contradictions and it helps that Dresden is the chosen one in a setting with an impending apocalypse, but he still has to backpedal occasionally to explain for example, that these here now are really special demons and they are much scarier than the other demons we already know.

And this is pretty much a best case. Jim Butcher obviously did his homework and worked out a few basic rules before he started with the special effects. And he is quite careful to not rip his system into shreds. Kudos to him. This is one of the reasons I like the books. But he will insert special cases again and again if the plot requires them. And this is about the best we can hope for as far as novels are concerned I think. Everything else I can think of is worse, often massively so.

[Maxus]

Fair enough, come to think about it. I mean, I just accept that Dresdenverse magic is kinda fluid and there's a lot of ways to achieve any given effect. But yeah, he does leave the specific rules vague on any given subject until it shows up in print.

I have not read all of the Dresden Files books, but I have read some and I do like them. Even though I find the main character's constant whining about how science is an ignorant religion to be really annoying.
-Username17

For what it's worth, he drops that after a while and switches to "Science is missing a few facts that it's actually not that equipped to measure" and tells someone being a wizard is like being a mechanic or an engineer--knowing how some basic forces interact and putting together what you want to happen off those. It's a lot more suitable, really.