Xth Edition: Spells

[MGuy]

I've finally gotten around to spells in my system (Again for the 4th time). I've got a basic style for how I want spells to go. I am planning to have a large list of spells and have resigned to spend the ass loads of time to create them one by one. Now it seems I am missing a bit of inspiration to create said spells. I have a general idea of the balance point I'm looking for with spells so that's no problem I just need some inspiration.

Here's a list of things I would want to make a mage around I have filled in some of it and if anybody has any more to add please do so.

Fire: Fire of various shapes and sizes, smoke, napalm (DoT), steam, searing light (beams), explosions, fire shield, lava (changes terrain and has effects ranging around the terrain), rocket (self propulsion), and fire resistance

Ice: ice beams of various shapes and sizes, reduce area temperature (reduce fire damage in area + DoT), ice floor, ice spikes, freeze targets, cold resistance, ice shield, ice sculpting

Sound: damaging sonic waves of various shapes and sizes, destabilizing ground waves, deafening noise, shatter, ventriloquism, silence, mind affecting sounds, sonic resistance

Electricity: electric jolts of various sizes and shapes, magnets, lightning stun, teleportation via lightning, speed increase, lightning shield, lightning resistance

Air: various wind effects (pushing, blocking ranged attacks, self propulsion/flight)), suffocation effects, storms

Water: Production of water, douses flames, can be used to push, pull,and self propulsion

Transmutation - morphing various parts of yourself (no transmuting the environment), when different transformations are used its called polymorphing

Light: Produces light, flashing lighting effects, beams of light

Poison: fatigue, pain, stunning, fear, petrification inducing effects

Heal/Construction: removes debuffs, replenishes hp, quickens regeneration, repairs objects, allows the transfer of hp/mana

Death/Destruction: causes damage, undeath related powers (raising, healing, and bolstering undead) vampiric powers that siphon vitality and/or mana from targets,

Warp: Teleportation spells and effects, generally things dealing with quick and maybe inter dimensional travel

Shadow: Illusion spells (invisibility, fake images, ETC), misdirection (counters divining spells)

Mind: mind affects (fixation, domination, suggestion, daze)

Force: telekinesis, moving things without your hands (pushing, pulling, self propulsion/flight, constriction)

Telepathy: Communication without words, mind reading

Divining: Scrying, augury, locating, revealing (counters shadow spells)

Protection: increased DR, SR, able to block specific things when combined with other spells, dispels ongoing effects.

From here on I just need more ideas that would add something to the game. I'm trying to make spells that all scale well. I'm using a spell points and spell augmentation system. I've got most of the details on it hammered out and with it I only need one fire spell to make a burning hands and fire ball spell as they both do the same thing just have different ranges and damage dice. What I need are (maybe) more basic categories to put spells under and more unique abilities that utilize the primary theme in each category.

[Orca]

If you want to categorise spells and get some inspiration, I recommend Ars Magica. The 4th edition was available as a download for free at one time, don't know if it still is.

[Kobajagrande]

Earth is suspiciously missing from your list.

Anyways, I'd really cut down on the categories. I know magic system is a part of RPG where you can let your imagination run wild, but the thing is, if you let it run too wild, it will again bring the old "Mage overshadows Fighter" thing, preventing which I recall was one of your goals

[MGuy]

Ahh I skipped Earth accidentally: Earth spells mostly deal with changing terrain.

The categories are just things I'm using to brain storm. I'm planning on having a lot of spells and according to my audience (my regular players) they are keen with short handing magic but they don't want it to actually DO less otherwise they'd have another situation like in 4e. So instead I am taking a different approach by changing da rules of magic.

1) Everyone, no matter what class they have, can get access to magic via feats. Though traditional spell casting classes can get more through class abilities. At most any one character (going from level 1 to 20) can get a maximum of 20 individual spells (1 feat every odd level and 1 class ability every even one).

2) There are two types of magic: Rituals and Spells. All permanent or semi permanent magical effects are Rituals and don't require Mana. Spells are more short term and depend on Mana Points.

3) A spell's effectiveness (such as its save) is tied to how many ranks you have in various skills. IE: Flight spells are generally tied to Acrobatics or Jump, Teleportation spells are associated with your ranks in Escape Artist.

Along with other things. As for right now I'm just brainstorming to get ideas on the table as I continue developing my system I'll put them up on the chopping block. The categories are just being used to organized my thoughts though I am planning on having a lot of spells and am willing to spend the time combing over them.

[Username17]

I'm planning on having a lot of spells and according to my audience (my regular players) they are keen with short handing magic but they don't want it to actually DO less otherwise they'd have another situation like in 4e.

If you want to shrink the power discrepancy between magic and sword characters you have two (and only two) choices:

• Make magic do less.
• Make non-magic do more.

Seriously, there is no option 3. If you are unwilling to cut what magic is capable of, and you don't want "Tome Style" army-slaying swordsmen, what do you think you are going to accomplish by moving numbers around?

-Username17

[Ice9]

Well, making there not be any non-magic characters would also solve it. Whether access via feats does that, I'm not sure.

[TavishArtair]

That does not resolve the discrepancy. It merely eliminates the need to address the discrepancy. It would still be hypothetically possible to have a non-magical character, they just would suck forever. Kind of like being the Rock Lee of Naruto, except you don't even get the Gates, since those are Rock Lee's special magic power still... it just is one that happens to work even if you have "banned spells: all types" on your character sheet.

[RobbyPants]

I suppose one option could be to have non-caster classes be something like three levels long, after which point, you have to multiclass out into a casting class.

The idea would be to have casters do less at this point, to be balanced, but you have to be a caster afterward to stay level-appropriate. That literally means that non-casters are only level-appropriate at level three or lower. Period.

It will piss off people who are used to D&D games and want to see 20-level classes called "Fighter", but as Frank said, if you want that, you either have to nerf casters or make fighters crazy-awesome.

[MGuy]

@Frank: I am going with option 3. I plan to make magic do less AND make non-magic do more. There's no need to make it seem like there are only 2 extremes. What's more is I DO want army destroying swordsmen. The thing I don't like about the Tomes is the chosen balance point (wizard). I don't like the wizard's balance point and would rather see them made worse while others are made better.

@Tavish: Yes that is what I was thinking exactly when I started down this road. My target audience doesn't want mundane magic and so I have to change it up so that they can get their goodies while giving something manageable to people who don't want to use magic.

I took your skill system and ramped up the skill abilities quite a bit and I think that will be a big step in eliminating a significant amount of the discrepancy problem. I am, as I continue this project, determined to make sure that none of these power resources (skills, feats, class abilities, spells) step on each other's toes. That is to say a spell will not overshadow a skill or a class feature. For example all the spell "Invisibility" does is allow you the chance to hide in plain sight while being observed by creatures that utilize visual perception. So it doesn't make the "hide" skill useless just by casting it (in fact you still need the hide skill in order to resist it being dispelled and to actually hide well). Additionally there are no spells that give you extra actions only certain Class Abilities allow you to give other people extra actions.

My system is far, FAR, from completed however. I can't properly defend or even explain it because much of it isn't done or finalized. Before I even have what I'd be confident enough to call a first draft is a complete list of spells, skills, feats, classes w/ abilities. I write up various mechanics as I encounter them while making these. The only thing I have even close to draft ready is the skills and I don't even know what I am going to do with the fucking craft skill, at all. So for now I'm just brainstorming ideas for spells that can be associated with my brainstormed categories.

[Mask_De_H]

@Frank: I am going with option 3. I plan to make magic do less AND make non-magic do more. There's no need to make it seem like there are only 2 extremes. What's more is I DO want army destroying swordsmen. The thing I don't like about the Tomes is the chosen balance point (wizard). I don't like the wizard's balance point and would rather see them made worse while others are made better.

@Tavish: Yes that is what I was thinking exactly when I started down this road. My target audience doesn't want mundane magic and so I have to change it up so that they can get their goodies while giving something manageable to people who don't want to use magic.

I took your skill system and ramped up the skill abilities quite a bit and I think that will be a big step in eliminating a significant amount of the discrepancy problem. I am, as I continue this project, determined to make sure that none of these power resources (skills, feats, class abilities, spells) step on each other's toes. That is to say a spell will not overshadow a skill or a class feature. For example all the spell "Invisibility" does is allow you the chance to hide in plain sight while being observed by creatures that utilize visual perception. So it doesn't make the "hide" skill useless just by casting it (in fact you still need the hide skill in order to resist it being dispelled and to actually hide well). Additionally there are no spells that give you extra actions only certain Class Abilities allow you to give other people extra actions.

My system is far, FAR, from completed however. I can't properly defend or even explain it because much of it isn't done or finalized. Before I even have what I'd be confident enough to call a first draft is a complete list of spells, skills, feats, classes w/ abilities. I write up various mechanics as I encounter them while making these. The only thing I have even close to draft ready is the skills and I don't even know what I am going to do with the fucking craft skill, at all. So for now I'm just brainstorming ideas for spells that can be associated with my brainstormed categories.

Good luck, because you need to know what you want your casters and your non-casters to do before you can adequately buff/nerf things. Also, saying you want army slaying swordsmen, but also not wanting to balance to the Wizard (who can also slay armies) is a worrying dichotomy that you're going to have to stare down if you want your system to make sense and are going off of the paradigms of 3.X.

This isn't TV Tropes, there's rarely a third option to take that isn't just a roundabout way of taking the ones you already have.

[MGuy]

I don't know whether you are considering the fact that I am not just remodeling 3rd edition but building my own game from the ground floor up. I only have a rough idea as to what I want the classes to mean. There are no non casters in the game because everyone has access to spells. Wizards weren't the only army slayers in the game.

I don't know what the TV Tropes statement is supposed to mean, but in real life there very few times where there are only two options and there is absolutely no reason why I can't do both in this case.

[CatharzGodfoot]

So you're making up a new RPG, you don't want magic to be the balance point, and the first thing you're writing is the magic system. Hmm...

Maybe you should try to come up with what you want the balance point to be first. This does look like a good start for a 3e magic system revision (mainly to boost evokers).

[Edit] "You've finally gotten around to spells". What else have you done? Is is posted on the Den? [/Edit]

[MGuy]

So you're making up a new RPG, you don't want magic to be the balance point, and the first thing you're writing is the magic system. Hmm...

Maybe you should try to come up with what you want the balance point to be first. This does look like a good start for a 3e magic system revision (mainly to boost evokers).

[Edit] "You've finally gotten around to spells". What else have you done? Is is posted on the Den? [/Edit]

Yes I am making a new system but I have not stated what is or isn't my balance point. When I say i don't want wizard to be my balance point I was meaning, in reference to the Tomes, I'm referring to 3e's wizard. I have a general idea what I want my balance point to be but as I said I am far from done and it is not finalized. This is not a revision on magic this is a different system all together I am making. I've done skills, basic combat, movement (at least when walking), hp, healing, blah blah blah as they've come about. However everything is still being created and is underdevelopment.

I am not asking for mechanics in this particular thread I'm just looking for inspiration so when I started making abilities that would allow you to be a Sonic Mage I have a list of spells that are all related to sound.

[CatharzGodfoot]

How are you going to deal with regions of overlap?
[*]Sonic sounds vs. Shadow sounds
[*]Light light vs. Shadow light
[*]Light light vs. Fire light
[*]Fire steam vs. Water steam
[*]Fire lava vs. Earth lava
[*]Air suffocation vs. Water suffocation
[*]Shadow illusions vs. Mind illusions
[*]Identical effects with different flavor

If you use a tagging system, you could allow the overlap to some extent (Geyser is [Fire, Water]), but some areas a always going to be problematic. My first instinct is to kick Abjuration to the curb (as a flavor of magic), because it has no flavor.

[MGuy]

the Fire+Water thing is in fact exactly what I'm doing. That is how I'm going to handle the overlap as well.

[CatharzGodfoot]

I see, so rather than having icicle [Cold, Water], you'll have impale [Cold, Earth, Water].

[MGuy]

Holy crap! Are you looking at my notes?! I have EXACTLY that!