How does your Heartbreaker... divide up magic?

[ETortoise]

The next installment of my quest to have everyone explain how their heartbreakers work in discrete chunks has arrived. Now I'd like to know if and how you have approached dividing magic up in your game and setting. I'm interested in the in-world fiction, the effects you've relegated to each kind of magic, and any resource mechanics these magics might use. Do characters get access to more than one type of magic? Did you think about archetypes you wanted to support first, or go theme-first. Did you get inspiration from classical or taoist elements, magic the gathering, or some piece of media I don't know?

I'll post my own answers to these questions in a bit. Unfortunately, my break is over.

[Foxwarrior]

Well, first, I picked some colors and assigned three conceptual nouns to each one that were only vaguely related to each other. That then led naturally to some spells and monsters that were obvious, and some that were odd combinations. Like how Purple is the magic of space, mind, and words, so there's a creature that exists only in some other creature's mind (Thanks Koumei) that can make its host say a word that traps someone who hears it. Or how White is the magic of Light, Bone, and Death, so it's the fourth color (for obvious reasons) and contains spells for animating skeletons, blasting undead with light, and seeing through walls.

The game is very inspired by the idea of multiclassing that works, the custom character side of D&D, so of course you can build a character with access to every color of magic at once. However, there's a bit of a cost associated with that so single and two or three color casters don't feel bad.

[Ancient History]

So, in Space Madness! that are six principal cosmic forces, each of which has five levels of power plus a blast. The abilities are generally open-ended, powered by charges, and designed to remain relevant at basically every level of play that a human PC can operate on. They are equally accessible to PCs and NPCs. Efforts were made to make each of the six forces aesthetically and conceptually discrete, with their own base mechanics that the powers utilize, rather than a completely random grab-bag of effects.

It's...okay. I wanted something discrete, a la the five-dot model of Vampire paths, but I wanted the powers to build off each other and involve fixed cost formulas and effects a la Shadowrun. In a better world, I probably would have double-downed on the Shadowrun aspect and just had a system where you can design your own wand effects.

But I'm not unhappy with it as it is; players get a lot of power right from the beginning of the game, by design, but it's done in such a way that they're rewarded for thinking creatively about how to best use that power.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I'm stuck at the first phase: Trying to figure out if the shit Pokemon can do is magic within the setting or not. Clearly it's magic to us, but there's all sorts of supernatural shit going on that would probably be normal to them. Some people are just born with Force powers, people get turned into Pokemon, some Pokemon are explicitly said to have "mystic powers", and so on and so forth. My problem is that, as far as I can tell, this is all natural stuff that just occurs in the setting and therefore wouldn't be "magic".

Is it magic when a Charmander uses Fire Blast? What about if a human does it? Does it even matter?

I could blab on about it, but I don't actually have any answers for this yet. Such is life when adapting material from a series that doesn't have answers for much of anything.

That being said, in my setting (which I consider distinct from this other stuff) there's totally magic on top of the Pokemon elements that more closely resemble traditional spells, as well as explanations for precisely how a Fire Blast exists within the world. But I probably wouldn't use them for a more "general" RPG.

[Dean]

I wanted something discrete, a la the five-dot model of Vampire paths, but I wanted the powers to build off each other and involve fixed cost formulas and effects a la Shadowrun. In a better world, I probably would have double-downed on the Shadowrun aspect and just had a system where you can design your own wand effects.

This is interesting to me. Is there any way I can take a look at how it turned out other than sending you sweet sweet cash.

[Ancient History]

There's a development thread, and most of the links to the working draft should still work.

[brized]

I've found that having narrower types of magic with more depth in how you can use it makes it easier to keep the setting sane. For example, instead of elemental magic, just pyromancy as a single school with various applications of moving and concentrating heat.

A good talk by Brandon Sanderson on magic systems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXAcA_y3l6M

[Ancient History]

My problem is that, as far as I can tell, this is all natural stuff that just occurs in the setting and therefore wouldn't be "magic".

Focus on the functional. The actual mechanisms might be quite complicated and involve all sorts of supernatural phenomenon, but the parts of it that affect people in the real world are what's important. While it is nice to have Shadowrun-style discussions of what hypothetically happens when a warded bullet train hits an astral barrier at speed, you're mostly concerned about whether or not the fire on Charmander's tail is real and whether it burns people.

Which is to say - we know that a lot of the stuff we see and interact with is actually due to the supremely complex interaction of many different forces. Our bodies are mostly empty space, the molecules held together by a web of electromagnetic and strong force bonds - but we don't actually think in those terms for practical stuff. We think in terms of Newtonian physics, when we think of it at all, because while that might not be 100% accurate, it's a good approximation of how things work at the scale of things we care about.

So, readers might be interested that the "fire" is actually superheated air generated by a mana-reaction inside Charmander's body, but what they care about is that it burns them like they put their hand in a camp fire.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Well... most of that's already done, unless I'm missing something. Like, of course Ice Beam is hitting you with a blast of cold that hurts like shit.
Then again, what the fuck are the Fairy or Steel types really supposed to be? I can shoot somebody with a laser that does Steel damage, but what the fuck does that actually mean? Does it, like... leave steel behind, or just hit people with concussive force, or what the fuck? When you put Fairy energy around your fist and hit Hitmonlee and it does more damage... what's that supposed to be?

Oh god, I think I get it now.
Thanks!

[DrPraetor]

Rule #0 - RPGs are not fantasy novels. So in LOTR, when Gandalf does magic that you don't understand, it might provoke wonder in the right context, but in a cooperative storytelling game, especially where the players are driving the story, this is a non-starter.

In stories, it is often better to have magic that is limited enough not to be divided. So if all magic is luck magic,or telepathy, or necromancy, it's a fantastic element but you don't need to subdivide into fear specialists or anger specialists or whatever.

But, unfortunately, while that conceit is characteristic of some of my favorite fantasy fiction, it's a disaster for a heartbreaker, because you'll want more than one magician in a party of five and they need to be different.

At that point, in my personal heartbreaker, I divide magic by theme or sensibility. I like a seven-fold division but with the thematic pie more or less like https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Winds_of_Magic .

So, personally, I like to devide the magic pie around what it feels like to use red magic vs. blue magic, for example. Maybe I'm wrong to favor this, but my best defense for this is that magic can have whatever game mechanics, and you're going to figure that out later anyway - but using magic needs to be a roleplaying prompt so you should, counterintuitively, start by defining your magic in terms of how it subjectively feels to the practitioners. Once you've got that, illusionists can summon minions or control the battlefield and necromancers can do the same or the opposite but the point is that using illusion magic makes you feel tricksy and using necromancy brings you into contact with the force of cosmic despair. All speculative fiction is cyberpunk and you start with the fashion. It's the Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan)'s fault that I view magic this way.

[MGuy]

There are a few categories I keep in mind when I'm thinking about the magic in the game I'm dreaming you. I like how certain effects are divided up in Shadowrun so that's where a lot of my inspiration comes from. The other half is I think that it is better for people to have fewer abilities that are more versatile. So superhero style games also influence my thinking. In the setting I'm dreaming up everything is magic. Everyone has magic. People have auras, souls, etc etc.

Setting wise all magic is pretty much the same. You're warping reality emphatically by using your personal energies to fight against the laws of the universe. In the actual game though I divide things up by theme and ability sets.

Right now it's a two step system. First you select the kind of ability set you're going to go for. Adepts can play around with the properties of their body or of items they are very familiar with. Arcanists can alter the properties of their aura or that of others. Empaths get minions and/or can play with the minds of others. Invokers influence things in the environment.

Since these sets describe wide ranges of abilities you can get a lot of different powers in each category. So you can have your adepts that are weapon fetishists, can hulk out, or turn into birds and the like. You get your arcanists who can act as debuffers, generate electricity like a pikachu, or create energy objects. Empaths get minions of all sorts (beast masters, summoners, regular mooks), can be telepathic, or illusionists. Invokers would then bee your elemental benders, teleporters, telekinetic types. Once you choose a style you're locked in for the rest of the game with some room to branch out every 4 levels you get something from another source that helps you thematically. So a beast master later on learns to turn into a beast. All of these scale in some way and there are fewer levels I'm planning on making in my game.

[Username17]

So, personally, I like to devide the magic pie around what it feels like to use red magic vs. blue magic, for example. Maybe I'm wrong to favor this, but my best defense for this is that magic can have whatever game mechanics, and you're going to figure that out later anyway - but using magic needs to be a roleplaying prompt so you should, counterintuitively, start by defining your magic in terms of how it subjectively feels to the practitioners. Once you've got that, illusionists can summon minions or control the battlefield and necromancers can do the same or the opposite but the point is that using illusion magic makes you feel tricksy and using necromancy brings you into contact with the force of cosmic despair. All speculative fiction is cyberpunk and you start with the fashion. It's the Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan)'s fault that I view magic this way.

I don't think you're wrong to favor that at all. What divisions your magic has is 100% about what you intend to get out of the division. In a kitchen sink fantasy all you're trying to get is for the Paladin, Necromancer, Druid, and Illusionist to feel like different characters. Whether you divide their magic into Light, Death, Nature, and Illusion or White, Black, Green, and Blue or just have the different class lists called by the names of the classes is a presentation issue.

The question of whether you want there to be "Nature Magic" that the Druid Spell-List is tied to rather than just a Druid Spell List is answered by how closely you want to make the Ranger (and eventually Warden and Seeker) feel tied thematically to the Druid. There's no problem simply writing a list of Druid magic and a list of Ranger magic and moving on with your life. But if you wanted them to be thematically linked in some way, you could do that.

Essentially what we're dealing with is the issue of 4th edition Power Sources. There is no inherent game mechanical reason to label classes Primal or Arcane. The choice to do it or not has everything to do with presentation and flavor. I believe it was a mistake to make the Ranger a "Martial" rather than "Primal" class, but from a dice and numbers standpoint it doesn't make any difference.

Contrast this to a game like After Sundown, in which the characters are specifically expected to do Buffy/Supernatural research segments in which they figure out that the monster of the week is using Infernal Sorcery and then that tells them things they can do to weaken the evil magic. But in Kitchen Sink Fantasy you're just trying to make the Necromancer feel Necromancerish, and whether there's a label connection to the Assassin or not is simply a presentation choice.

-Username17

[Ice9]

They're still extremely broad and you'd probably want to sub-divide them, but I've always thought that:
* Affect Self
* Affect Others
* Affect Environment

Would be an interesting split. Obviously you'd have to calibrate things correctly - for example, an "Affect Others" killing curse should be more deadly than an "Affect Environment" floor-into-lava, and self-buffs should be more potent than other-buffs (or maybe AO is only negative), but I think they each have their strengths.

[OgreBattle]

The next installment of my quest to have everyone explain how their heartbreakers work in discrete chunks has arrived. Now I'd like to know if and how you have approached dividing magic up in your game and setting. I'm interested in the in-world fiction, the effects you've relegated to each kind of magic, and any resource mechanics these magics might use.

Do characters get access to more than one type of magic? Did you think about archetypes you wanted to support first, or go theme-first. Did you get inspiration from classical or taoist elements, magic the gathering, or some piece of media I don't know?

Yeah Taoist, Vedas, ancient bestiaries with digivolving snakes to dragons that Pokemon came from, are where I draw from. In general D&D has a "Christian conception" of nature as a created thing of specific godly being(s), and magic as a thing outside of it so the tower mage and swamp druid are doing 'different exclusive' magics. The "Eastern conception" tends to have primal chi, primal Asura energy, etc. that existed before recorded existence, so a druid in the jungle and a mage in college are manipulating the same forces.

A short online conversation I had with Masahiro Ito (Silent Hill) today on his Acid Buffer Zone setting, he's using the 4 forces (Nuclear Strong, Nuclear Weak, Gravity, Electromagnetism) as the basis of his giant robot Nausicaa disaster type setting. So I'll try to do something similar. Like... how Godai 5 Elements and Yin Yang are used as metaphors in various fantasy works and philosophical texts.

Aesthetic

The look: 80's hobby magazine kitbashing. Maschinen Krieger, Nirasawa monsters, John Blanche warhams & 2000AD. Like this is Naoyuki Katoh's scifi magazine cover from1980, really fuckin' cool:

https://twitter.com/HokutoAndy/status/1 ... 9106313216

I'll get into the setting and lore more when I have more doodles done but game mechanically 'magic' is...

Magic/Science/Nature are one, following the Asian Pokemon. Game mechanically and somewhat lore wise this is divided into....

Self "Man"- Qigong magic channeling your own personal energy. People have auras, a spiritual body just as they have a physical one. Throwing in some biomagnetic sphere stuff to sound more spooky science.
"Earth"- Corporeal things like water and earth, a battery. Earth-Water-Wood Alchemy, building robots
"Heaven"- invisible waves, vibration, cosmic stuff. Summoning, Warping, Fire-Lightning-Ice, Stand magic.

Something like character classes or archtypes would be...

Wuxia- Qigong internal power stuff, Ki blasts go here

Mastermind- Yu Gi Oh Just As Planned, not just 'a good plan' but also includes supernatural senses, star signs

Internal Alchemy- 'Medicine', like turning into a werewolf or dragon

External Alchemy- 'Mechanics', building a drone

Shaman- Manipulating invisible forces to act on the visible, summoning stand, creating phantasmal beasts, psychometry

Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell gets into supernatural powers, though the Oshii movie and TV shows don't.



Shirow's Orion has very cool supernatural-science stuff

[Stubbazubba]

I like to devide the magic pie around what it feels like to use red magic vs. blue magic, for example. Maybe I'm wrong to favor this, but my best defense for this is that magic can have whatever game mechanics, and you're going to figure that out later anyway - but using magic needs to be a roleplaying prompt so you should, counterintuitively, start by defining your magic in terms of how it subjectively feels to the practitioners.

Agreed, I want each magic tradition to embody a different philosophical approach to magic, which informs how it works narratively and mechanically, and then individual effects can be plugged in as needed.

Some magic requires connection to outside forces that you then can control or fight alongside to different degrees:
[*]Clerics perform Rituals to channel their deity's power directly into them (roll d6/8/10/12, based on level, + casting ability mod for MP), and then uses that power to create any effect they know until the power is depleted. Then they must perform another Ritual to channel more energy. Deities only respond to so many Rituals per day, based on level, so in practice there is a variable total amount of MP available in a day that comes divided into batches, so higher level Clerics get more MP at a time and get to refill more often. Clerics are an extension of their deity, they are servants to a greater power, and they must return to them for more power.
[*]Druids learn to walk in communion with the spirits of nature around them, but cannot control them: Druid magic is skill-based, you are asking/convincing nature spirits to help you. Different nature spirits can affect things in particular ways, you have to train different spirits individually, and the size of the desired effect determines difficulty. Each spirit also gives you passive/at-will abilities. Druids see themselves as peers, allies, with the natural world, and interact with it as such.

Some magic is internal, giving you more control, but usually with greater risk:
[*]Elementalists draw out the power of the elements in their own essence and shape it into discrete effects. Casting is skill based, where failure still casts the spell but increases your Volatility die (none->d4->d6->d8->d10->d12). When you crit fail a casting check, you lose control of your magic and roll your Volatility die to get your Spell Mishap. Volatility disappears with something like a Short Rest. Elementalists must balance great power with great risk.
[*]Necromancers fuse pieces of their soul with the residue of dead souls to animate the dead. Necromancers have a bank of MP they allocate to minions or expend on effects. Once expended, MP is typically restored only by resting, but can also be extracted from living souls, and powerful Necromancers can harvest living souls to control even more minions. Necromancy may be unsettling to most, but it is not inherently evil; nevertheless, the paths that lead to the greatest power require the greatest evil.
[*]Mesmers bend light, twist sound, and otherwise bewitch the senses with illusions or tap into the minds of others to create internally experienced phenomena. Casting is skill based, failure prompts a WIS save, failed WIS save increases Insanity scale. Insanity can be decreased by restoration magic and extended rests only. Mesmers know that reality and illusion are two sides of the same coin, and that sanity and madness are indistinguishable in a world of dreams and illusions.

[Username17]

They're still extremely broad and you'd probably want to sub-divide them, but I've always thought that:
* Affect Self
* Affect Others
* Affect Environment

Would be an interesting split. Obviously you'd have to calibrate things correctly - for example, an "Affect Others" killing curse should be more deadly than an "Affect Environment" floor-into-lava, and self-buffs should be more potent than other-buffs (or maybe AO is only negative), but I think they each have their strengths.

So... Changeling: the Dreaming?

-Username17

[FatR]

There are several classifications of magic in my heartbreaker.

First, all the physics- and biology-defying powers the characters have are fueled by an explicit source, which is explained differently in-setting depending on to whom you're listening (there are arguments about whether energy to make impossible possible and create something from nothing really comes from within, or whether it is only borrowed from an external source, there also are heated discussions on nature of body, mind and soul trying to discern how exactly it appears), but functions the same for every type of playable character. This source, usually called the Second Breath, can be increased by repeatedly pushing oneself to the limits of your current abilities (such as having battles to death with opponents who can actually threaten you), or by stealing from others, but the latter path warps the user irreversibly, and is meant for monsters, or which only a few, like vampires, are even theoretically playable.

Second Breath is dormant in most humanoids (i.e. members of NPC classes), and the act of "awakening" it for consciuous use roughly doubles your sum total of physical and mental abilities, compared to a normal person (in other words, you get a PC attribute array). Advancing your Second Breath use (leveling up) makes you passively more capable in everything - you gain higher HPs and greater base action bonus. But the real advantage of Second Breath is the ability to use distinct superhuman powers. There are as of now, three main ways of channeling Second Breath into these powers in the game, each requiring a certain mindset above all (though accidents of birth or awakening can also give specific shape to a character's power). These ways are transformative personal enhancement, supernatural martial arts, and your more standard DnD magic.

Then magic is classified by a caster's personal method of accessing it, of which there are four, by number of spellcasting classes. Clerics gain their magic from faith, shamans from pacts and ritual observance, sorcerers from natural talent, and wizards through scientific learning of formulas. To what degree these differences are products of a specific individual's mind and magical tradition upon which he stumbled, and to what degree they are objective is a matter of discussion in-setting. Clerics are the only class with access to unique spells unavailable to others.

Then spells themselves are divided into thirteen spheres, all but two of which are class-agnostic. The specific number of spheres is tied to the prevalent cosmology in the specific corner of the Multiverse where the campaign is taking place (two spheres of good world-preserving magic, two of evil magic, and one for each of the nine major deities). In other universes the number of spheres and distribution of spells between them may vary. Clerics and sorcerers are supposed to have very strong sphere specialization, wizards have wide sphere access (less wide than even specialist DnD wizards, though), and shamans are in-between.

[Foxwarrior]

Oh yes, then of course later on I made Psychics. Speculation about suitable replacement resource management systems for the pseudo-vancian casting I had didn't lead to anything I wanted to replace casting with, but it did happen to coincide with my FEAR binge, and I hit on something that followed movie psychic dramatic arcs pretty well. I also felt pretty smug about how my psychics are based on old school spooky stuff, not new age crystal protoss magic. Needless to say, when I realized my metaphysics for psychics described lord of the rings and harry potter pretty well, I wrote a Picture of Dorian Gray psychic item.

[deaddmwalking]

I've touched on this in the damage thread because everything is related, but I'll try to answer specifically regarding magic in a more focused way, here.

First off, everyone has a Caster Level - 1/2 level minus 1 - so at 3rd level everyone has a Caster Level of 1. It doesn't matter to most people what their Caster Level is if they don't learn any spells, but it does refer to the highest level spell they can learn. There are two ways that you can raise your Caster Level; if you do both you can get a CL of 2 at 2nd level - usually in a single school of magic (and be 1st level with all other schools). Most characters who choose to focus on Magic have a higher Caster Level in one or two schools than in general.

While we like the idea of a 'specialty caster' like a Beguiler, we found that we could give an incentive to pick specialty spells, but we didn't RESTRICT access to other schools - it's just that usually they won't offer anything better than what you can get within your specialty.

We divided schools into nine schools: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Astral, Biomancy, Necromancy, Shadow, Thaumaturgy. These spells are tied into planar metaphysics. There's another school that represents the Mythos magic - stuff from an alternate dimension that specifically breaks the established rules of magic generally, but is existentially bad for the world. You have all kinds of evil necromancers in our world, but even Skeletor and Moonra will turn on an Abyssal caster (we use Abyss to mean the Outer Dark and not Hell). We have had PCs use Abyssal Magic - it's not an NPC only schtick, but it is bad news...

Regarding the schools, I listed the elemental ones first. They all have damaging effects, but they also include utility spells related to their element. A water spell, for instance, might let you create a weapon of ice or breathe water. A fire spell might let you rocket across a pit or cure a disease by causing fire damage. An air spell might let you use echolocation or steal someone's voice. An earth spell might let you disrupt metal armor or weapons, or magnetically defend you from attacks, or animate a statue. When designing a spell, we often ask if it can be elemental FIRST - we want a lot of varieties and we think Elemental Wizards are fun and easy to describe. We've had several fire-mages and such; we all like Avatar and having the various elemental Benders is fun for us.

Astral Spells affect peoples minds and dreams. There's a major metaphysical conceit about the Astral Plane. Mortal races are connected to the Astral - it's the dream world. Animals and constructs aren't generally connected to the Astral. Being Astrally connected has some advantages (it lets you cast these spells) but it makes you vulnerable (you can be affected by these spells). If you like Beguilers, you'll like the Astral spell list.

Biomancy spells affect living things including plants and animals, but it also has a lot of buff spells that may you stronger or faster. We don't have spells that make you smarter. The best healing spells are also in Biomancy.

Necromancy creates and controls undead, as well as withering flesh and giving you a bunch of powers similar to undead creatures.

Shadow spells allow you to attack with shadows, potentially control their actions by manipulating their shadow (different than Astral spells where you control their mind) and create illusions (some of which are partially real because they draw on shadow-stuff). Shadow also lets you get to the shadow plane which is a place for low-level planar adventures.

Thaumaturgy Spells can block extra-planar creatures, possession, has a lot of good divinations and can break enchantments and curses. It's not all defenses - you can also lock people away outside of time and space.

Every character basically does magic in the same way - they know a relatively small number of spells (like a Sorcerer) and they can cast them as long as they have mana to do so.

Mana is a resource that is depleted quickly in combat, but can come back relatively quickly between fights. A 5th level wizard in one of our campaigns has 13 mana and 3rd level spells. A spell costs it's level in mana. Some spells have an upkeep cost - you can avoid spending upkeep if you concentrate on the spell, but if you want to keep casting new spells, you have to pay it. This wizard is a Wind specialist; she can cast the 2nd level spell Flying Weapon, which I like because it brings more weapons into the fight - they don't do a lot of damage, but they count as flankers. It would cost her 2 mana and a full action to cast that spell; if she wants to cast other spells she'll spend 1 mana per round on upkeep.

It's very possible for a wizard to use all their mana quickly during a fight.

It's also possible to recover mana during a fight (similar to how a character can recover VP). Spending an Action Point and a move action recovers mana; for this character they can get 7 mana back with each Action Point. Since the most powerful spells typically require a full action, recovering mana limits the spells you can cast. As you advance in levels as a wizard, low-level spells that used to cost a full action eventually become a standard action (and sometimes less).

Wizards try to make sure they have spells have different action costs; full action spells provoke, so they're hard to use in melee. It's good to have some touch spells (that require a standard action) and potentially other spells that don't require a full action.

Compared to 3.x D&D, we don't have teleportation normally. All the spells that let you move through space instantly are part of the Abyssal spells and rely on brain-breaking geometry. If you want to get from point A to point B quickly, you might fly, or you might enter the shadow-realm where time works differently to cover distance more quickly.

The number of spells a character knows is relatively small. It's possible to cast a spell you don't know from a scroll - they're basically extra spells known but they take even longer to cast.

It's also possible to cast a spell that is higher level than you, but you need to increase your Caster Level temporarily to do so. You can do this by sacrificing people - the best sacrificial victims are spell casters; the higher the Caster Level they have, the more benefit it provides. Victims must have a CL of at least 1 to provide a benefit; you can't sacrifice 1st and 2nd level people or animals. Alternatively (or in addition) you can try to cast a spell as a group. Each assistant (with a CL of at least 1) provides a +1 bonus to your CL; but you're limited to a number of assistants equal to your CL. If you're a 5th level caster, you can have 5 assistants. If they are all 4th level, they can each provide a +2 bonus. That means you could be effectively 13th level for this spell. While these things are mostly used to create dramatic encounters where you interrupt the BBEG's ritual, we sometimes use group casting outside of combat to boost a CL for the purpose of increasing the amount of healing you get. In 3.x terms, Cure Light Wounds does 1d8 + CL; increasing your Caster Level would do more healing. Most of our spells are more like 1d8/CL, so a +1 CL would be +1d8 healing.

0-level spells don't cost mana to cast, but you must have mana in order to cast them. If you've spent all your mana, you can't cast any spells until you get more back. Every character (even if they don't have spells) has things they can do with their mana. Some Feats require the expenditure of mana; some class abilities require it. A berserker spends mana to rage - wizards and specialty casters tend to have more mana both because of their prediliction to favor attributes that contribute to mana and they have special abilities that increase the amount of mana (and how fast they recover it) compared to non-casters. My rogue has 9 mana (not 13) and gets 3 back for an AP (not 7).

[DrPraetor]

https://youtu.be/jXAcA_y3l6M?t=1576

his second law is actually a much bigger challenge in cooperative storytelling, and relates deeply to the need to divide magic into pie slices in order to protect some ability of the fighter to contribute.

So - flaws are more interesting than powers. It tells you that the Magic Users are the white cis hetero males of D&D, that "cannot raise people from the dead" is considered a weakness of magic users, but characters in stories are given flaws in order that they come up.

So if I want to play a socially awkward or simply unlikable character (and I do) then I want that character to get into social situations where his disadvantage will matter. Likewise, Hobbits can't show off how courageous they are if they never get into swordfights, and so on.

This is a problem for ensemble storytelling that involves problem solving because this is something that the player characters will strategize to avoid both in and out of character.

[Username17]

First off, everyone has a Caster Level - 1/2 level minus 1 - so at 3rd level everyone has a Caster Level of 1. It doesn't matter to most people what their Caster Level is if they don't learn any spells, but it does refer to the highest level spell they can learn. There are two ways that you can raise your Caster Level; if you do both you can get a CL of 2 at 2nd level - usually in a single school of magic (and be 1st level with all other schools). Most characters who choose to focus on Magic have a higher Caster Level in one or two schools than in general.

Everything about that makes me want to kill myself. It's all the joys of doing your taxes, while at the same time obviously presenting unbalanced characters and trap options. I mean, there's just no fucking way to Have characters be different levels for purposes of comparison to different abilities to determine whether they can use them and have that produce level appropriate results. Like, obviously no way for that to not work out horribly.

So this is basically the Arcanist from Iron Heroes, right? And that was a confusing mess and also horribly unbalanced. And the reason no one has ever "fixed" that is because the entire concept is intrinsically a confusing mess that is also never going to output balanced results.

If Ability X might come online at Level 5 and might come online at Level 8, it's definitely not going to be a balanced offering. Maybe it will be OP at level 5, maybe it will be underpowered at level 8. Maybe both, but it's literally impossible to thread the needle where it is neither because 8 > 5.

-Username17

[DrPraetor]

I suppose I should answer the direct original question.

For reasons related to Isaac Newton and linguistic mumbo jumbo about bible translations, my personal heartbreaker divides magic into SEVEN flavors, which is theme first and heavily inspired by magic the gathering, as well as a lot of similar "color wheel" systems like 2nd edition Warhammer that I mentioned.

I've got Red magic, which is thematic and metaphorical fire; so it is fireballs and also passion and anger.
I've got Brown magic (dark orange), which is thematic and metaphorical earth; so it is wall of swords and also stoicism.
I've got Gold magic (shiny yellow), which is thematic and metaphorical agriculture; so it is heal wounds and also inspire loyalty.
I've got Cyan magic, which is thematic and metaphorical air, sky and openness; so it is flight and also inspire honesty.
I've got Green magic, which is thematic and metaphorical forests or jungles; so it is animal-form and also inspire awe.
I've got Indigo magic, which is thematic and metaphorical twilight; so it is invisibility and also inspire sleep or confusion.
I've got Violet magic, which is thematic and metaphorical flesh; so it is animate dead, vicissitude, and inspire hunger or lust.

Gold and Violet carry a lot of thematic attributes from MtG White and Black, with notable exceptions including angels and demons, per se. The Judeo Christian sky god is split between Gold and Cyan, as an acknowledgement there are a lot of themes of that sort which your players are going to bring into the game even if you try to hedge them out.

You may want spirits affiliated with your magic categories (I do), but then I don't want the Gold/Cyan spirits to be angels and the Indigo/Violet/Red spirits to be demons. I have spirits all around the color wheel, which are always dangerous beings and they can be so bad that they're demons in any color. YMMV, but I think that's the only way to handle it (or, you don't have spirits at all, or the spirits only relate in marginal ways to how your magic system is divided up.)

VII? SEVEN. 7!

[Grek]

People obtain magic by forging a connection with one of the three disembodied cosmic principles from which the universe emanates, collectively known as the Powers. Options include:

The Hidden Flame, which is responsible for fire, love, mystery, eggs, the sun, flowering plants, teeth, thunder and darkness. It manifests itself via the creation of divinely inspired works of art and can be accessed via ecstatic dance. Practitioners can command flowering plants and egg-hatched beasts, conjure flames or thunderclaps, weave illusions and turn invisible, but can only channel magic via continuous physical exertion - all of their accumulated power disappears if they stop moving. In practice, this means a great deal of leaping around, sword-swinging and leading serpents around pied piper style.

The Silent Pattern, which is responsible for minerals, eyes, prophecy, limbs, digits, wind, desire and violence. It manifests itself via naturally occurring geometric patterns and which can be accessed via the manipulation of carved symbols. Practitioners can know the future, conjure telekinetic limbs, turn intangible and view distant scenes, but if the target of their power has been marked by the proper rune or enclosed within a specially prepared runic circle. In practice, this means being a diviner who can telekinetically stab people with flying daggers.

The Dreaming Dark, which is responsible for roads, locks, alien life, water, caverns, birth, technology, death and decay. It manifests itself through shared dreams and can accessed through meditation. Practitioners share dreams with other practitioners, including ones from alien worlds where a different combination of Powers hold sway. They trade for knowledge and alien technologies which can be put to use in the waking world. In practice, this means being an artificer who has access to laser pistols and radio communicators in a setting which only just invented the cotton gin and the repeating rifle.

[Emerald]

I've been playing around with a system based on the elements and metaphysical stuff, like several systems described thus far, but instead of having separate elemental and metaphysical spheres like DDMW's or spheres with one element and metaphor each like DrPraetor's, the elements and their metaphysical associations are split into seven spheres apiece with their own spells/powers, secondary elemental themes, spirits, and such.

For instance, the element of fire (the only one I've fully fleshed out thus far) has the following spheres:

• The Beacon: Represents the blazing flames that light the night and warn against encroaching monsters. Gives fire magic with large areas, light-related magic, long-distance communications, and wards against sneaks and trespassers. Is associated with spirits of communication and watchfulness.
• The Candle: Represents the guarded flames that illuminate late-night pursuits like research binges or discreet affairs. Gives fire magic with precise targeting, shadow-related magic, divinations that locate things, and wards to strengthen the mind. Is associated with spirits of guile and knowledge.
• The Forge: Represents the steady flames that smelt iron and temper blades. Gives fire magic that enhances objects, metal-related magic, object-creation/-fabrication spells, and wards to toughen creatures and objects. Is associated with spirits of artifice and discipline.
• The Hearth: Represents the warm flames that burn in the fireplace of a family home. Gives fire magic that isn't meant to harm, positive energy-/healing-related magic, emotion/morale buffs, and wards against cold. Is associated with spirits of health and protection.
• The Pyre: Represents the smoldering flames that consume the remains of the deceased. Gives fire magic that deals damage over time, ash- and desiccation-related magic, curses and vitality-sapping spells, and wards against the undead. Is associated with spirits of death and sorrow.
• The Spark: Represents the tiny flames that ignite kindling and serve as the fantasy "lightbulb over the head" equivalent. Gives fire magic that ignites objects, lightning-related magic, divinations that reveal information, and wards against illusions. Is associated with spirits of passion and inspiration.
• The Torch: Represents the strong flame carried to light one's way and scare off hostile beasts when exploring the unknown. Gives fire magic that affects single targets, smoke-related magic, mobility-enhancing magic, and wards against animals and plants. Is associated with spirits of curiosity and courage.

Spheres of the same element have enough distinction that someone who has access to multiple (or all) of them doesn't see too much redundancy, but enough overlap that having access to any one sphere gives enough thematic heft to feel like a themed caster of that element. Spheres of different elements also interact somewhat in that each element has a kind of "cycle" going on (e.g. fire goes Spark -> Candle -> Hearth -> Forge -> Beacon -> Torch -> Pyre -> Spark in terms of a metaphorical fire getting lit, blazing high, going out, and getting re-lit from embers), so spheres at a similar point in a cycle have similar themes; for instance, Torch for fire and River for water both have themes of exploration and travel so someone with access to both would be a good skirmisher, Pyre for fire and Cairn for earth both have themes of death and endings so someone with access to both would be a good debuffer, and so on.

[deaddmwalking]

Everything about that makes me want to kill myself. It's all the joys of doing your taxes, while at the same time obviously presenting unbalanced characters and trap options. I mean, there's just no fucking way to Have characters be different levels for purposes of comparison to different abilities to determine whether they can use them and have that produce level appropriate results. Like, obviously no way for that to not work out horribly.

You're not only wrong, you're provably wrong and you're absolutely mischaracterizing what I'm saying.

What spells does a 7th level caster in 3.x have access to?

Is answering that question 'the same as doing taxes'? Either it's a table look-up, or you recognize that the formula for spell level is Character Level divided by 2, rounded up. The formula is typically invisible, but it is discernible if you care. I wouldn't normally say 'a bad save is 1/3 your level', but it is demonstrably true that is the formula. I've never heard someone say 'updating their saving throws makes them want to kill themselves'. I'm sure that there are people that don't like writing numbers on their sheets, but let's be honest with ourselves - writing down numbers is something that people who play D&D do and it obviously doesn't bother them a lot.

Further, in our system, all characters have level-appropriate class abilities. If you're a 6th level rogue, you have 6th level rogue abilities. If you're a 6th level Wizard, you have 6th level Wizard abilities. I've been specifically talking about the rogue that wants to pick up wizard abilities. I've pointed out that there are at least two ways to do that...

I did have a typo - at 4th level everyone has a CL of 1; not at 3rd. That is one reason I provided the formula.

The first is to take levels in Wizard. While that means some of my 'signature rogue abilities' won't advance, the wizard abilities will 'fill in'. As an example look at a Rogue 6 versus a Berserker 6 versus a Rogue3/Berserker 3:


A rogue 6 has Sneak Attack +4d8; a Berserker 6 has Rage +4d6 - a Rogue 3/Berserker 3 has Sneak +2d8 and Rage +2d6. In terms of damage output they are right in line with a single level character (Berserker damage applies whenever you're in a rage to all targets; Rogue damage applies when you can get Sneak Attack). Compared to a single-class character there are times where they might get one or the other, or both. A single-class character also might not always get their extra damage. Effectively, both are options and one is not clearly better than the other.

Magic scales as well. Even high level casters use low-level spells a fair bit. If you want the highest level of spells possible, you'll take at least two levels of wizard, meaning you're giving up +2d8 Sneak Attack compared to a straight Rogue, but you have ways of 'getting that back', like Arcane Strike that could potentially allow you to do +5d10 fire damage on a hit (using a 1st level spell during your attack at 6th level).

I would imagine that +5d10 sounds better than +2d8 (that's 18 more average damage) but the bonus damage is typically only once per round. With two-weapon fighting and AoO, the rogue might be getting Sneak Attack damage on 3 or more attacks per round. Having the option to divide the damage over 2 or 3 targets is sometimes a better option; if you're going to deal all the damage to a single target it doesn't USUALLY matter, but it isn't clear that one powerful attack is ALWAYS better than 3 medium attacks.

Damage is relatively easy to balance.

If Ability X might come online at Level 5 and might come online at Level 8, it's definitely not going to be a balanced offering. Maybe it will be OP at level 5, maybe it will be underpowered at level 8. Maybe both, but it's literally impossible to thread the needle where it is neither because 8 > 5.

Why is personal flight overpowered at 5th level but underpowered at 8th level? Flight is an ability that is useful in a lot of situations over several levels. Getting access to flight early can represent a class ability (or racial ability) that's interesting/thematic/nice to have, but it isn't likely to make you OVERPOWERED even at 1st level. There are some problems you can solve, but it doesn't make you invincible.

Perhaps important to note as well, there could be flight that requires a full action (meaning you can't fight while flying except perhaps to drop carried objects) versus flight that requires no action and allows you to act unimpeded.

It also matters how flight synergizes with your existing abilities. In our system, Rage damage applies to melee and thrown weapons, but not projectile ranged weapons. Having flight doesn't help a Berserker who intends to enter melee with his opponents as much as it helps an archer character. Unless you know ahead of time how well an ability works with a character's existing suite of abilities, you can't say that one is simply greater than the other.

Every time you get an ability, you have to ask (and PLAYTEST) how it works in the game. In our game, most abilities continue to matter across several levels. There are some that might be marginally better at some level than another, but if they continue to be useful and relevant, that's not a problem.