Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[Hiram McDaniels]

Working on the magic for my Magic School game, I want to check to make sure the limitations I'm putting on magic do what I want, which is basically to make it so that wizards still need to interact with people and can't just fuck off to their tower made of succubi and cocaine-

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Magic cannot create real permanent objects. It can change objects, and the closer the end object is to the starting object the longer it will remained changed (think Polymorph Any Object but sans permanent transformation), and it can be shaped into short-lived functional mimics of objects or creatures, thus allowing summoning and creating ropes as the visual effect of a spell that binds an enemy, but you can't magically create a pig, slaughter it, and then eat it, the shaped energy has no nutritional value. Changing the size of a real pig is possible, but it doesn't do you much good as a source of food, as the property-changing magic is short lived.

Magic can give you information, whether about the past (what happened here?), present (where are my keys?) or future (what will we encounter in this dungeon?). But the less readily available the knowledge, the harder this is.

Magic can influence people, since attitudes, memories, emotions, etc are qualities of a person.

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The overall goal is to allow people to throw around combat spells, control the battlefield, and use utility magic, but not create their own demiplane, tower, hookers and blow and fuck off from worldly concerns entirely. Now... if they want to take over Hell in order to fuck off from the concerns of the mundane world, I'm cool with that, they have to actually play out a story about conquering, and then keeping Hell, but the story about "Genesis, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Permanency, Planar Binding, Major Creation, fuck you world" is not one I'm interested in running or playing. Does the above set up work, or do I need to rethink things?

The limitations seem okay for avoiding high level D&D or Ars Magicka magic hi-jinks if that's what you're going for, but it does beg the question of how Hogwarts was built, or how the Sword of Griffondor was forged if magic can't create anything permanent. Is this an artform lost to modern mages, or just something that players have no access too, like arcane post-grad level studies?

Also, how does resource management work? Are there spell slots? Recharge mechanics? Is magic at-will with efficacy determined by a roll of some sort?

[TiaC]

That causes transfigured objects to be bio-hazards. Let's say I transfigure a bucket of bleach into air. When that wears off, anyone who breathed it is going to die. I would suggest some form of stopgap patch that prevents de-transfiguration within a living body. If you still want to prevent transfigured food, you could make the presence of transfigured material within the body interfere with someone's ability to use magic in an amount proportional to how much of them is transfigured.

[Prak]

Yeah, mostly I want to curtail high level D&D hijinks. The "Chain Transfiguration" thing does allow you to turn air into stone with a duration that may as well be permanent, but it takes a long ass time, and I'm planning on there being someway to "anchor" magic so that you can build magical castles and shit, but it will be more akin to D&D magic item creation than simply casting Magnificent Mansion and Permanency.

As to specifics- Hogwarts can still be built magically, you're just using magic to move stone and carve it, which can be done permanently, rather than conjuring it from thin air, and its still quicker than building a castle mundane-ly.
The Sword of Griffindor, in the books, was made through goblin magic, which is separate from witch/wizard magic. In the game this is where anchoring magic comes in.

I need to figure out exactly how I want magic item creation to work. Spells are going to borrow heavily from Mutants and Masterminds' powers system, so they're at will for the most part, and you'll roll to see how well you cast. The basic rules are looking a lot like After Sundown, so far as characteristics and skills are concerned, with Edge being combined with the Fate system's Fate Points/Aspects. I might say that you spend permanent Edge to anchor magic, I don't know yet.

RE: transfigured biohazards- overall, I do like the way Methods of Rationality handled transfiguration, but I'm not going to go quite so hard. You can transfigure ham into cheese and eat it and you'll be fine, because its still food (I realize that the nutrients would get used in different ways, but I'm not going to worry that much). My main concern isn't "I wish I had lobster instead of gruel" but rather "fuck agriculture I can just cast Lobster Ex Nihilo!" The idea is that magic allows you to change qualities, but you still need a base material, and you can't change quantity.

There will also be potion making and alchemy which are basically "Safe, highly ritualistic permanent transfiguration."

But, yeah, I need to figure out how to handle transfigured poisons. Off the top of my head, I could see working from the poison system in After Sundown and having Transfiguration change the Delay.

[OgreBattle]

An annoying part of D&D is how the word 'level' can be used to refer to character level as well as the level of spells. What are some good alternatives to 'spell level'?

I'm thinking 'rank' is enough, as that's what skills use. "Spell rank X". Circle has a more mystic connotation to it, "2nd circle arcane spell".

[Prak]

There's also Tier.

[Wulfbanes]

Yeah, Tier is a popular term to talk about more powerful magic.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I've used Circle.

[Hiram McDaniels]

Yeah, mostly I want to curtail high level D&D hijinks. The "Chain Transfiguration" thing does allow you to turn air into stone with a duration that may as well be permanent, but it takes a long ass time, and I'm planning on there being someway to "anchor" magic so that you can build magical castles and shit, but it will be more akin to D&D magic item creation than simply casting Magnificent Mansion and Permanency.

As to specifics- Hogwarts can still be built magically, you're just using magic to move stone and carve it, which can be done permanently, rather than conjuring it from thin air, and its still quicker than building a castle mundane-ly.
The Sword of Griffindor, in the books, was made through goblin magic, which is separate from witch/wizard magic. In the game this is where anchoring magic comes in.

I need to figure out exactly how I want magic item creation to work. Spells are going to borrow heavily from Mutants and Masterminds' powers system, so they're at will for the most part, and you'll roll to see how well you cast. The basic rules are looking a lot like After Sundown, so far as characteristics and skills are concerned, with Edge being combined with the Fate system's Fate Points/Aspects. I might say that you spend permanent Edge to anchor magic, I don't know yet.

RE: transfigured biohazards- overall, I do like the way Methods of Rationality handled transfiguration, but I'm not going to go quite so hard. You can transfigure ham into cheese and eat it and you'll be fine, because its still food (I realize that the nutrients would get used in different ways, but I'm not going to worry that much). My main concern isn't "I wish I had lobster instead of gruel" but rather "fuck agriculture I can just cast Lobster Ex Nihilo!" The idea is that magic allows you to change qualities, but you still need a base material, and you can't change quantity.

There will also be potion making and alchemy which are basically "Safe, highly ritualistic permanent transfiguration."

But, yeah, I need to figure out how to handle transfigured poisons. Off the top of my head, I could see working from the poison system in After Sundown and having Transfiguration change the Delay.

I've had ideas similar to yours about a game establishing what magic can and cannot do, based on the concept of equivalent exchange. A fireball is an easy, short-lived effect that consumes it's energy from the environment around it, so that just takes a spell slot. The big stuff however, like Planar Binding, Fabricate, and Wish takes a significantly larger investment of energy. I had the idea that the big, permanent stuff as well as creating non-consumable magic items, cost a permanent spell slot to cast and sustain. My justification is that this is the stuff that retiring archmages do when they become more concerned with their legacy than raiding Orcus's vaults or storming the Nine Hells.

I like spell slots for resource management. They're easy and malleable. If you remove the concept of spell levels, then they can act as mana points too.

Conversely, you could also make stuff like this into rituals, which take a long time to cast and require reagents that characters need to adventure for. It works for your setting, which assumes that characters are students in a school that is teaching them just the very basics of magic in a world where becoming an archmage capable of world altering miracles takes decades of intense study. Here, it makes sense that building a magic castle out of thin air is possible, but only after you've obtained your quadruple Ph.D in Conjuration and spent vast sums acquiring the reagents to do so from shady extraplanar merchants.

I'm not really sure how M&M works as far as powers and resource management goes, but one game that you could take a look at is Legends of Anglerre, for it's magic system. It's based around Fate rules, and in it the magic is separated into different schools (Power of Illusion, Power of Dimensions, Power of Warding, Power of Beasts, etc.) each with it's own skill rating. Spells are determined by skill roll, with minor effects usable at-will, while more powerful effects cost a Fate Point to use. D&D-type magic is fine, but if I were to play a game where everyone is a spell-caster I'd like a little bit more thematic delineation than just Illusionist, Evoker, Necromancer, et al. That's just me though, ymmv.

[OgreBattle]

I've had ideas similar to yours about a game establishing what magic can and cannot do, based on the concept of equivalent exchange.

I could see that working in a kind of goofy/haphazard way with "GP value" to mark the value of exchange, so spells that use precious metals, ancient dragons, and virgin royalty are stronger

[Prak]

Ok, so I had planned on stealing M&M's power structure for Scholomance.

M&M gives all players 15 points per power level of the game to build with. These points pay for everything- Ability score, attack bonus, skills, feats and powers. Powers are at will and built based on effect. Fire Blasts, Ice Daggers and Rocket Fists are all the same power-- Damage, Ranged-- with different descriptors. Ice Daggers, Ice Constructs and covering people in ice are all different powers-- Damage (ranged), Create Object and Snare, respectively-- with the same descriptor. There are a couple of flaws that can be applied to powers which allow them to be used a limited number of times or only through using a Hero Point/fatiguing yourself, but the default assumption is powers are at will.

Magic is an example Power Container, meaning a structure with multiple powers. If you took the Magic power, you would create a default power, say, Fire Blasts, and then you would have alternate powers-- powers with the same point value as the main power, which cost only a single point, but which cannot be used at the same time as the main power-- to represent different spells. So your Magic power might have "Fire Darts" as its main use, for 5 points, and then you could spend a single point and have "Mage Armor" as another spell that can't be used at the same time as Fire Darts, but has the same point value.

If you spend 2 points, your alternate powers are "dynamic" meaning that you can change the points allotted to each power in the structure on the fly. In the above example, you could devote 3 points to Mage Armor and 2 points to Fire Darts and benefit from increased defense without completely blowing your offense.

There are a couple* problems with this- one is that I have to rewrite any and all effects I use from M&M since I'm not using its core system. The other, and more important one, is that horizontal power costs vertical power. You have to make the choice between being a more powerful caster and a more versatile caster. Which is not a choice I want in Scholomance, because it makes playing Hermione Granger pretty much impossible.

What I'm leaning towards is possibly giving characters a Magic stat, and then just writing up a bunch of spells, possibly taking the Effects based building concept from M&M since spell creation is canonically simple enough that children (prodigies) can do it in Harry Potter.

That's all a very lengthy preamble to my actual question, though. In the HP books, characters are often known for being particularly good with a given spell. Harry's Stun spell is super powerful, Hermione can cast very resilient memory charms, etc.

Is there a way to represent a character being particularly good with one given spell, without getting too fiddly? The best option that comes to mind is using a specialization system in skills and allowing spells to be areas of specialization. Is there a better option?



*

There's a third problem, which is really with M&M overall, but it's not relevant here.

The third problem is that the proper effect to use for a desired outcome is not always the obvious one. I tried to replicate Accio in M&M powers, and quickly realized that the proper way to do it is not the power Move Object, but actually to make it a Summon Minion power that just creates an invisible force immune to harm that acts on its own according to a "bring me this thing" program.

It's not the most newbie friendly thing.

[Pedantic]

Is there a way to represent a character being particularly good with one given spell, without getting too fiddly? The best option that comes to mind is using a specialization system in skills and allowing spells to be areas of specialization. Is there a better option?

If you want that sort of specialization to be universal, you could just give every character a specialization every so often. I kind of like the idea of treating it as an advancement reward tied to roleplaying. If you set aside a small pool of benefits (longer duration, better targeting, more accuracy, stronger numerical effect, etc) and let characters pick one spell they've used to apply to the benefit to at the end of each adventure or story arc or level or what have you.

[OgreBattle]

Are there any ways to be a robot person in D&D3.5 other than the Warforged race?

[Longes]

There is at least one template that makes you a Construct.

[Prak]

Published? Well, I think Pathfinder has an android, and you could see if the GM will allow it. You could refluff necropolitan, since the difference between undead and construct is pretty small.

There's the mechamorph race in Mechamorphosis, which you could try to get approved, but that's a long shot, and they're ECL 5, I think. So not the best bet, but a way to go.

The 3.X Gamma World books should have some form of android/cyborg/something, but, if I recall, that's Sword and Sorcery, which was White Wolf's D&D imprint, and the quality is about what you might expect.

You'd have to check, but there should be a robot race in d20 Future or one of those. Yes, it will be a d20 Modern derivative, but if you're just using the race, you might be ok.

Dragon Magazine had the Golmoid race in... I want to say #313. The Exotic Heroes issue. They're more golem-y than warforged were, but might also be more to your liking.

I would imagine there is something at least cyborg-y in Dragonmech, but I can't recall.

You could take a look at Chaositech, which has a lot of magitech sort of stuff in it, but it's a Monte Cook book, so be advised.

You can look at Dragonstar, a Science Fantasy D&D setting that was sort of a modern Spelljammer, I think. There's a robotic race called Soulmechs.

What you could also consider is looking the d20 Star Wars stuff. I think there were rules for playing droids that you might be able to use.

[OgreBattle]

Thanks.

If a Tome Totemist has the Tome version of TWF (you can make as many off hand attacks as you can main hand, be it standard or full attack), can he deliver two touch attacks in one round?

The tome monk can take a fighting stance to apply his monk effects to a 'weapon', can a touch attack/ranged touch attack totemist power count as a 'weapon'?

[Kaelik]

If a Tome Totemist has the Tome version of TWF (you can make as many off hand attacks as you can main hand, be it standard or full attack), can he deliver two touch attacks in one round?

Basically no. "Actually calling upon the Totem's power is usually a Standard Action."

You aren't making an attack action, you are making a standard action.

Where it gets a little weird, is that the totemist abilities never specify if the touch attack can be held. The rule for spells is:

"Touch Spells and Holding the Charge
In most cases, if you don’t discharge a touch spell on the round you cast it, you can hold the charge (postpone the discharge of the spell) indefinitely. You can make touch attacks round after round. If you cast another spell, the touch spell dissipates."

But since that is explicitly about spells, and not about touch attacks, it seems pretty unlikely that you can hold the charge on Totemist stuff at all. Not to mention, that what you are probably asking for is to use the same totemist ability more than once from one usage, which is pretty explicitly not what the totemist is allowed to do. The entire point of the totemist resource management is that you use something, and then you can't use it again for a few rounds.

Any argument for why you could get multiple paralyzing touches from Carrion Crawler inevitably divides down to "It doesn't say that the touch can only be used once." Which is basically identical to saying "it doesn't say that it can only be used that round." Which inevitably leads to "First I prepare Carrion Crawler, then use it as a standard action, and then I can make touch attacks that paralyze forever after, and I prepare different soulmelds, but keep my eternal Carrion Crawler touches."

So TL;DR: No you can't get multiple touches by the rules, no you shouldn't be able to. No you can't hold the charge as a backassed way to get multiple touches either.

The tome monk can take a fighting stance to apply his monk effects to a 'weapon', can a touch attack/ranged touch attack totemist power count as a 'weapon'?

There does not appear to be a clear ruling one way or the other. The only thing about touch attacks magic effects is that they are considered armed, not that they are considered weapons. Ultimately, if you believe the answer is yes, then you should believe that Monks who touch people with their hands without Totemist powers can also deliver the effects of their stance.

I'm inclined to say no, you have to actually hit their real AC with your attacks.

[Grek]

Nothing particularly bad happens if you let monks make a touch attack to apply a single Monk Fighting Stance rider. After all, they can already do that by using splash weapons. Its letting you stack (for example) "Fort vs Stunned" and "Attack 1 enemy within Medium Range per level" that makes it become problematic. So you definitely shouldn't allow that.

[Kaelik]

Nothing particularly bad happens if you let monks make a touch attack to apply a single Monk Fighting Stance rider. After all, they can already do that by using splash weapons.

I don't think it is broken, I just think it is stupid. Also, point of fact, anything using weapon attacks can apply up to three riders, as the quintessential stunlock monk is using Powerful Serpent Technique to force a Fort against Death, a reflex save against being helpless, and a fort against being stunned on every attack with weapons, and then use either flasks or a bow depending on range.

Its letting you stack (for example) "Fort vs Stunned" and "Attack 1 enemy within Medium Range per level" that makes it become problematic. So you definitely shouldn't allow that.

Where on earth are you getting that from? Are you seriously trying to argue that Monks can use their monk abilities on Ranged Touch Attack effects too? That is absurdly dumb, and even Ogrebattle isn't asking about that.

[Grek]

Its Totemist Basic Soulmeld: Blood Hawks mixed with the Monk Basic Fighting Stance that lets you stun with a weapon attack. Its not an argument that that combo is rules legal, because it isn't. Totemist Soulmelds aren't weapons. It's an example of why you shouldn't change the rules to make Totemist Soulmelds count as weapons. Because it leads of obviously broken combos, like mass stunlocks.

[Kaelik]

Its Totemist Basic Soulmeld: Blood Hawks mixed with the Monk Basic Fighting Stance that lets you stun with a weapon attack. Its not an argument that that combo is rules legal, because it isn't. Totemist Soulmelds aren't weapons. It's an example of why you shouldn't change the rules to make Totemist Soulmelds count as weapons. Because it leads of obviously broken combos, like mass stunlocks.

I see. I think his point was that touch attacks your hand might considered a weapon, like how you can cast Harm, hold the charge, and then punch someone in the face. I don't think anyone anywhere was saying that Totemist soulmelds should count as weapons.

[RadiantPhoenix]

There is at least one template that makes you a Construct.

That template removes the INT score. Not a playable option.

[Fwib]

Are there any ways to be a robot person in D&D3.5 other than the Warforged race?

Awaken Construct spell, cast on something suitably robot-like?

Also, Green Star Adept makes you a construct - if the (re)fluff is robot-like enough, and you're starting high enough, that might work?

[edit]ed to remove Renegade Mastermaker suggestion, since that's turning yourself into a Warforged.

[Prak]

And you could also always just ask the GM to let you play a human with the construct type or something.

[ishy]

I seem to remember Savage Species had some kind of stupid minus 2 LA golem template?

[TiaC]

I seem to remember Savage Species had some kind of stupid minus 2 LA golem template?

No, it's a template that can be applied to golems, but it makes them into a real boy and takes away all their cool stuff in the process.