Magic as a D&D Edition Setting

[CatharzGodfoot]

How much extra annoyance would it be to 'draw' mana each turn?

What is the point of this?

To create a disadvantage for multi-colored characters that scales for arbitrary color combinations and reflects the mechanics of the card game.

[RadiantPhoenix]

To create a disadvantage for multi-colored characters that scales for arbitrary color combinations and reflects the mechanics of the card game.

In that case, it runs counter to your prior claim that you would never choose hybrid -- hybrid abilities are abilities you can count on regardless of which of your two colors you draw. (You would also be interested in it for "color matters" effects)

That said, I don't see any inherent need to weaken multicolor. Restrict it, yes, but not weaken it.

[Whatever]

The way multicolor cards work in Magic is that you accept certain deckbuilding constraints, and in exchange you get to play with cards that are more powerful, and, sometimes, harder to cast.

But that's not going to fly in a tabletop game. Players aren't playing decks, they're individual cards. And plenty of players will want to be multicolor cards. Instead, you have to re-create the feeling of multicolor--getting some "good stuff" from both colors, at the expense of missing out on other colors/depth within a single color. But you don't want to be mean about it. You want to limit player options without making them feel like they're being punished. I suggest:


Multicolor players must select abilities from all of their colors.
Multicolor players must "spend mana" (or whatever) on at least one ability from each of their colors.


So if you are a Red/White Dragoon-type Knight, you have to have red and white abilities (possibly at the expense of useful colorless abilities, but also limiting how much 'red stuff' and 'white stuff' you can do). And once you have abilities, you can't spend all your mana on Firebreathing--some of it needs to go to Warding. For characters that don't allocate mana every round, this will be even easier to manage.

I realize that this seems pretty close to a definition of what a multicolor creature is (if you do 'green stuff' you are Green, if you do 'red stuff' you are Red, if you do both you are Red/Green). That's the point. It feels like a definition, so that players don't notice that it's a restriction, and potentially a severe one.

Incidentally, hybrid abilities would be excellent and highly desirable for such a character.

[CatharzGodfoot]

To create a disadvantage for multi-colored characters that scales for arbitrary color combinations and reflects the mechanics of the card game.

In that case, it runs counter to your prior claim that you would never choose hybrid -- hybrid abilities are abilities you can count on regardless of which of your two colors you draw. (You would also be interested in it for "color matters" effects)

Hybrid abilities, sure. They're just more restrictive colorless abilities (outside of 'protection from X' type abilites). But as I already said, choosing a type that "limits you to the intersection of the abilities available to each color" is shooting yourself in the foot.

That said, I don't see any inherent need to weaken multicolor. Restrict it, yes, but not weaken it.

You say potato, I say that when you restrict a character, you are weakening them.

---

But the hybrid Vs "gold" setup could add some depth to drawing mana.

If you had, say, a goblin shaman, you could make them Red 1 and Green 1, or Red 1 and Green/Red 1, or Green/Red 2. In the first case, you'd always get 1 Green and 1 Red. In the second case, you'd always be assured to get 1 Red, and you'd flip a coin to see if the other was Green or Red. In the third case, you'd draw two cards from a 'deck' of 2 Green and 2 Red.

Since the first character would never be able to play 2-mana Red or Green powers, they might be pointless. But that would really depend on the rest of the game.

[Username17]

Having mana drawn each turn is a way to organically allow abilities from multiple colors without making multi-coloring "too good" or five-coloring be an obvious thing to do. If you allow a certain number of superior mana cards that are worth more than a normal colored mana point, or special cards that give you bonus reactions but don't provide mana, you can also use it as an organic resource limit on super moves.

That being said, that would be kind of a pain in the ass, and a lot of players wouldn't want to play a turn of Dominion every turn of RPG combat. So such a system would best be segregated to a single base class. Possibly the Clerics get to work like that.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

Having mana drawn each turn is a way to organically allow abilities from multiple colors without making multi-coloring "too good" or five-coloring be an obvious thing to do. If you allow a certain number of superior mana cards that are worth more than a normal colored mana point, or special cards that give you bonus reactions but don't provide mana, you can also use it as an organic resource limit on super moves.

That being said, that would be kind of a pain in the ass, and a lot of players wouldn't want to play a turn of Dominion every turn of RPG combat. So such a system would best be segregated to a single base class. Possibly the Clerics get to work like that.

-Username17

That makes sense. Say the Cleric draws each turn from a deck of mana, super mana, and reactions. The Shaman might just draw from a deck of normal mana. You'd have four possible tiers of analysis paralysis:
[*] The Black/White cleric has to choose which powers to use each round based on how much mana they have, which powers are available (i.e. which color color(s)), and how many reactions are available.
[*] The Black cleric has to decide based on how much mana and how many reactions are available, but not which powers.
[*] The Green/Red shaman has to choose which powers to use each round based on color.
[*] The Green shaman can choose from any of their powers.

I'm not sure how you'd balance the other multicolored classes, but there are probably a lot of options.

[...You Lost Me]

If you give a class X mana and have them draw a new hand of X mana to spend every turn, you can easily flavor it like the crusader or someone else that runs on divine inspiration.

I also like the idea of requiring multicolored classes (that don't use the draw mechanic) to spend at least 1 mana of each kind.

[Prak]

I also like the idea of requiring multicolored classes (that don't use the draw mechanic) to spend at least 1 mana of each kind.

...what? why?

[Whatever]

Because otherwise you can have a character who only does stuff that's one color, but claims all five colors. If you're multicolor, you shouldn't get to be Green today and Blue tomorrow. You should be Green/Blue all the time.

[Prak]

Right, but you should have access to abilities of both (all) colours. If you're a Green/Blue Ninja then you should have both U: your next attack against a flatfooted opponent causes your target to lose a spell they have prepared and G: If your next sunder attempt breaks your target's shield, you deal any damage in excess of the shield's hp to your target*.

Edit: as opposed to only UG: your next attack against a flatfooted opponent destroys a piece of their equipment or dispels one active magical effect on them.

*I've never played a sunderer, so I'm assuming that you don't normally get to do this.

[Whatever]

Not at least one mana of each kind per ability, just at least one mana of each kind. The game isn't going to have many (any?) multicolor abilities, so if you're a UG creature, you'll have a mix of U, G, and colorless abilities. My point was that multicolor characters should NOT:

1) get to choose zero abilities of one of their colors
2) get to use zero abilities of one of their colors

[Prak]

The way ...You lost me put it was just a bit confusing.

[...You Lost Me]

It appears I lost you.

[Prak]

Little bit, yes, but I was resisting that phrasing.

[Whatever]

Well, whatever.

A quick google search for "magic card" suggests that Serra Angel might be the most iconic card. Is there going to be a way for players to run (high level) characters as a marquee race with no subclass? Angels, Dragons, and Shapeshifters have a lot of traction as magic cards. Those kinds of creatures should be a part of the game somehow.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I think designing the game would be made simpler if we required such characters to have classes, and just made Angels and Dragons and stuff have level minimums.

Alternatively, we could make them class/race combos, but we'd still need a level minimum, because even baby dragons are CMC 2, and only the weakest of angels are CMC 2.

[...You Lost Me]

Why not do like the Tome of Fiends and make angel/demon classes?

[Prak]

That's probably the best bet.
Out of 104 angels, only one has a class, Warrior Angel (appropriately enough, an Angel Warrior). There are a handful (<10) Angel Spirits, and one Angel Horror

Demons show a bit more variety, with 1 Demon Hound, 1 Demon Illusion, 1 each Demon Beast and Demon Child in the Un- sets, 11 Demon Spirits, 1 Demon Dragon, 2 Demon Minions, Fungus Demon, and a single Demon Ninja. The Demon Spirits and Demon Ninja seem to all come from the Weeaboo block. Similar to angels and dragons, the lowest cost demons are 2 CMC.

As I understood it, there was thought of some sort of CMC:Level correlation, was there not? Basically this means that normal elf/human/dwarf/whatever start at level 1 and are something you might logically expect to spend 1 CCG mana to summon, or rather that any given 1 CMC card would be reasonable to expect to see as a level 1 character, and that a 2 CMC creature would be logically higher powered.

However, looking at demons, the cheapest ones have heavy drawbacks to make up for a low cost for a powerful creature. In fact the first one which isn't pulling weird, hard-to-replicate-in-an-rpg CCG board zone shit to be artificially cheap is Desecration Demon with a CMC of 4. Basically it's a demon with the Barghest devour ability with a compulsion to consume proffered sacrifices. I'm not entirely sure what level this would be appropriate at, but at a guess I'd say it's probably around a seventh or eighth level character, between that and it's flight speed (And the fact that it's a pretty beefy creature on it's own).

The lowest cost angel is CMC 2, would have a flight speed, and possibly some kind of resistance to magical items (protection from artifacts in the CCG). It's otherwise on par with a human (being a 1/1) and so is probably fine as a level 2, maybe three character.

[RadiantPhoenix]

The Demon Ninja is actually from a supplemental set (Planechase 2012), not the Kamigawa block.

Also, on the details: Assuming level = cmc

• Angelic Curator would probably be appropriate as a one-mana creature (note that its protection means it can't use equipment). It's comparable to Suntail Hawk (probably worse in any real deck other than Angel tribal), and Judge's Familiar is almost assuredly better.
• Soulcage Fiend would probably be an appropriate 3-mana character, because it's basically Python with a mutually-assured destruction ability.

[Prak]

Huh. The fact that it's called an "oni" in it's name, as well as the fact that the Ninja type has only otherwise popped up in the Kamigawa block, ties it to the plane of Kamigawa, though.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Yes.

It's clearly intended to be from Kamigawa, but it didn't actually appear in the Kamigawa block.

[Red_Rob]

So I was looking at the idea of base classes, with colour creating 'sub-classes' and the way I see it you want something like the following to start with:

Base Class	White	Blue	Black	Red	Green
Berserker	Zealot	-	-	BattleRager	Savage
Cleric	Healer	-	Cultist	-	Supplicant
Druid	-	-	Blight Druid	Feral Animist	Treespeaker
Knight	Paladin	-	Death Knight	Blood Knight	-
Monk	Devout	Ascetic	-	-	Dervish
Rogue	-	Spy	Cutthroat	Arsonist	-
Shaman	-	Brine Shaman	-	Battle Shaman	Omen Reader
Wizard	Mystic	Sorceror	Necromancer	-	-

Your base class would give you some standard abilities and your power schedule, which you'd customise with the colour options. So the Berserker writeup would detail how your Rage abilities worked, then the Zealot would get Divine Fury type powers and the Savage would get to grow claws or turn into a Bear.

Now, this creates something of a problem in that you obviously want people to be able to be multi-coloured, which means you are effectively allowing free multiclassing within the base class, which is fine. But then you also want some flavour of multiclassing between base classes, which throws up additional complications. I think you'd probably want to keep the sub class pretty simple - maybe have it as a feat-equivalent that gives you some flavour of the second class without anything too complicated mechanically?

I think 10 levels would be enough discrete advancement points to go from a Benalish Hero to a Berserker Cleric Legend without each level being too big a jump in abilities.

So, thematically do we want picking multiple classes and colours to be the norm, or should a "Blue/White/Red Cephalid Berserker-Wizard" get you the same looks as a "Fighter 2/Ranger 1/Paladin 2/Blade Master 3/Initiate of the Unspeakable Truths 5" did in 3e?

[Almaz]

An emphatic "No" on multiple classes and colors being normal. I do not view multiclassing as desirable at all in Magic's mythology. We merely need to not succumb to overly narrow classes (i.e. "wizards are dudes with robes and sticks"), because there is lots of diversity within classes. But frankly, characters do not often change classes (except into Planeswalker, and then they are upgrading to a power tier which makes their previous class irrelevant), and are often quite distinct in their role.

Characters are way, way more likely to pick up secondary colors, or switch colors, than to actually stop being their class and become a new one. During the "Planar Chaos" or whatever event, most of the color-switched cards retained the same basic identity, and that affected characters too. For various narrative reasons characters are shifted over and into and through colors, but aside from a backstory note about how they were a vapor farmer before, they don't take up new professional identities.

[Red_Rob]

An emphatic "No" on multiple classes and colors being normal. I do not view multiclassing as desirable at all in Magic's mythology. We merely need to not succumb to overly narrow classes (i.e. "wizards are dudes with robes and sticks"), because there is lots of diversity within classes. But frankly, characters do not often change classes (except into Planeswalker, and then they are upgrading to a power tier which makes their previous class irrelevant), and are often quite distinct in their role.

Well, firstly multiclassing &#8800; changing class. Although we don't actually know whether that Samite Healer is a reformed assassin, we do know that plenty of characters in Magic have more than one class. Just looking at Cleric as the base class we have the following multiclass options represented:
Cleric Shaman
Cleric Soldier
Cleric Archer
Cleric Monk
Cleric Mercenary
Cleric Druid
Cleric Knight
Cleric Wizard
I think telling a player they can't be a Knight and also a Cleric is going to fly in the face of their expectations.

Secondly, I disagree that Planeswalker overrides other class features. If anything it turbo-charges them. Garruk was a Druid and Elspeth was a Knight and that tells you more about their abilities than that they are a Planeswalker. If we include Planeswalker as the (or even just a) high level option, it is pretty clear it builds on your existing abilities rather than replacing them outright.

Talking of Planeswalker apotheosis, I found an interesting comment on this MTG wiki that originally you could become a Planeswalker by "incredible amounts of mana being hoarded" before this was retconned away. It strikes me that makes for a far more reasonable transition of low level > high level > Planeswalker than saying every PC has to have the Planeswalker spark and yet somehow you always end up travelling together, WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

[Almaz]

Well, firstly multiclassing &#8800; changing class. Although we don't actually know whether that Samite Healer is a reformed assassin, we do know that plenty of characters in Magic have more than one class. Just looking at Cleric as the base class we have the following multiclass options represented:

You have like two examples that were printed at-all recently, and all the fucking rest were printed ages ago and got retconned into having two class names when they were re-released for Online purposes. You can card-fish for support for any singular character concept you want, given enough time and a sufficiently stretched definition, the problem is that Magic, in terms of cards, aggressively prefers and selects for single classed characters with only one or two colors.

And the existence of some multiclasses in Magic card terms suggests more that those types are blurred definitionally in some way than actually that they are separate things that were combined. There is, after all, a "cleric wizard" but no "cleric berserker." Hell, in spite of there being an entire game named after that particular combined archetype, there is no Wizard Knight card that I can find.

Secondly, I disagree that Planeswalker overrides other class features. If anything it turbo-charges them. Garruk was a Druid and Elspeth was a Knight and that tells you more about their abilities than that they are a Planeswalker. If we include Planeswalker as the (or even just a) high level option, it is pretty clear it builds on your existing abilities rather than replacing them outright.

My hypothesis was more that planeswalkers have the option of reselecting their classes upon their ascension. Whether they do or do not is up to them.