Mindspace: A New Magic Approach

[Lich-Loved]

Purpose

This magic system is intended to replace the 3.5 magic system in its entity. The goals of this system are:

• to establish a magic system that does not make beatsticks useless beyond the first few levels of play
• to stretch the "sweet spot" of the game
• to remove the concept of the 15 minute adventuring day
• to reduce spell obsolescence
• to address some of the loopholes in the current spell system
• to remove the concept of dump stats or at least try to make every ability useful for every class
• to remove the reliance upon buff spells and the associated bookkeeping
• to remove the christmas tree effect where stat boosting items are the rule.
• to remove wealth=power as a fundamental aspect of the game
• to prevent the fantasy genre to devolving into the supers genre
• to recreate the types and feeling of magic I have read about in books
• to return a sense of heroism to adventuring rather than the paranoia and risk adversity seen in games today

The problem with caster power reduction (as exhibited in 4e) is that casters become bland to play. I wanted to keep the spells more or less intact while still toning down the wizard. I want casters to be able to do anything, not everything. Of key importance to this long term design goal is that fighters must be capable of invalidating the magic they encounter either by solving problems using their own skill set or by actually invalidating opposing magic using the strengths of their class (eg batter down a wall of force with their weapon).This system is designed to facilitate creation of rules of this nature.

In my examination of casters in D&D, it dawned on me (and I do not claim this as a unique thought, but it is an original thought from my point of view), that one of the greatest advantages casters had over melee types is that their signature abilities are gifts that keep on giving. If a fighter swings his sword, he does so and the results are determined. Next round he needs to do the same thing to effect the same change; he is limited to action and reaction being in lockstep. Not so for the lofty caster types. They can perform an action and keep gaining the benefit of that action over and over and over again based on spell duration, and each round adding atop their last round's effort with some new, long lasting effect. The core of this change then, is that spell durations are going to change in a fundamental way and casters will lose the greater part of their ability to use this reaction multiplicity to overshadow those that must rely on action and reaction each round. Rather than say more, I will let the rules speak for themselves. Read on.

A couple of final points to keep in mind about this magic system:

• If I wanted to improve fighters and leave the casters alone, then I don't need to do anything - that is what the Tomes are for. Yes, there are big changes for magic here, that is the point.
• If your view of a wizard-type is a person soaring above the earth, able to circumnavigate it in a heartbeat and shoot laser beans from his eyes you are welcome to that view and there are at least two games for you - 3.5 and Champions - to play out this vision. If you think this sounds too much like Superman, then this system may be more to your liking.
• This system is incomplete – really really incomplete. Since the topic on how magic would work has come up in my other thread, I am posting this now. I know there are problems, some of them large, but the kernel of the system is here.
• Since I am building a system in which wealth does not translate to power, I also need to change magic item creation and will likely be doing away with it or...something. At this point you can assume that there are no magic items in existence, no magic item creation creation rules, and no one is carrying magic swords, armor, potions, scrolls, wands or anything else to supplement their core class abilities. This may eventually change, but for now it is off the table.
• Yes, I am introducing MAD into every class in D&D. This is to combat the “maximize one caster stat and rule” concept that would break this system just as readily as it breaks 3.5
• This is a non-Vancian system. All casters will be sorcerer-like with a limited number of spells known and an unlimited castings of spells known per day.

Definitions

Mental power: (Wis bonus + Cha bonus)/2
Physical Power: (Dex bonus + Con bonus)/2 or (Str bonus + Con bonus)/2
Conscious Spell Power: Mental Power x caster level
Subconscious Spell Power: (Conscious Spell Power or Int bonus - which ever is lower) x caster level
Spell Mindspace: Spell level (typically)
Available Mindspace: Int bonus +1/3 caster levels

General Rules – all Spells

1. Spells are either Instantaneous in duration or Sustained by the caster.
2. Sustained spells are sustained either Consciously or Subconsciously.
3. Only one spell can be maintained Consciously; the caster can maintain as many spells Subconsciously as he has Mindspace available.
4. A spell can only be cast if sufficient Mindspace exists to cast the spell, even if the spell is Instantaneous or is to be maintained Consciously.
5. At the moment a spell with a duration of Sustained is cast, the caster determines whether or not the spell will be maintained Consciously or Subconsciously
6. Spell effects are based upon Spell Power which typically varies depending on whether the spell is sustained Consciously or Subconsciously.
7. Spells are resisted by comparing the appropriate Spell Power against the target(s) appropriate power (in the case of opposed tests) or have an effect dependent upon Spell Power in the case of unopposed effects. The exact mechanic for this is not yet defined (though I have more on this in the Spells section). Saving throws are quite likely a thing of the past. This needs a crapton of work I know. Please, no eggs and tomatoes on this one yet. I do see the loss of saves as we know them as an essential of component of this system.

Instantaneous Spells

1. Instantaneous spells have no need to be maintained and take effect the moment they are cast.
2. Instantaneous spells operate at a power equal to the caster's Conscious Spell Power

Consciously Sustained Spells

1. A spell being sustained Consciously can be Interrupted when the caster is damaged. The caster must make a concentration check of DC 20 + damage dealt to maintain the spell. Other types of events will cause the caster to make a concentration check as well [TBD]. All spell effects for the Interrupted spell immediately end on a failed check
2. The caster can terminate a Consciously sustained spell as a swift action
3. While a spell is being maintained Consciously, the caster can cast no other spells without first terminating the current Consciously-sustained spell or making the spell Subconsciously sustained.
4. A caster can move a spell from Conscious to Subconscious sustainment as a Move Equivalent Action. Sufficient Mindspace must exist prior to this move for the move to be possible.
5. Sustaining a spell Consciously requires a move-equivalent action each round.
6. If the caster is knocked unconscious, the spell being maintained Consciously is lost.

Subconsciously Sustained Spells

1. Spells sustained Subconsciously occupy Mindspace equal to their level (in most cases)
2. A spell being sustained subconsciously can be sustained without conscious effort and cannot be Interrupted
3. A caster can move a spell from Subconscious to Conscious sustainment as a Move Equivalent Action
4. If the caster is knocked unconscious, spell being maintained Subconsciously remain in effect.

Spells

Given the above, the spells are going to need to change while still maintaining the vast majority of spells and their current effects. Some changes you can expect are:

• Spells are classified as either Instantaneous or Sustained
• Spells are placed in a single spell pool and are grouped not by class, level or domain but by a new grouping called a Discipline. You can think of a Discipline as a group of like-acting or themed spells (all fire spells are part of the Fire Discipline and all spells that compel or alter the mental state are grouped in the Charm Discipline for example). Right now, these Disciplines are a design tool that I will use to build specific caster classes, but I am also using them in the only caster class I present in these rules, the Scholar, which is a general make-of-it-what-you will caster class
• Spells will be changed to operate on Spell Power rather than caster level. Direct damage spells will use some sort of appropriate formula scaled for the system's hitpoint mechanic while spells that alter of buff will be adjusted to make use of the power mechanic. (eg invisibility can be cast, but its effect is to “fade” the caster by spell_power x 10%, creating a situation where a caster is not truly and fully invisible unless he has a Spell Power of 10).
• Some spells are altogether removed from the game because they violate one or more of the goals stated in the Purpose above or are so powerful as to be difficult to keep in the game and still create fighter capabilities to deal with them (example: Blasphemy). My preliminary spell list contains 591 spells (basically all unique spells in 3.5 less any typos I might have made) of which only 47 (about 8%) have been removed. I hope to reduce this number once the design is more fully underway and I can come up with a way to have these problem spells added back into the game. Ideally, all of these spells will be re-added to the game, albeit changed in some way to fit the system I am developing.
• Some spell levels may change to make the spells more useful over a broader range of levels (Cone of Cold does not have to be 5th level, its effectiveness is largely based on the caster's power. The same goes for Animate Dead – why wait until 3rd level for this spell? I can use spell power to allow 1st level casters to raise an appropriate minion – especially since the caster will need to use some of his Mindspace to Sustain the thing).

I have all 591 spells broken out by level and Discipline but I do not have much more. I do not have a decent way of posting this list yet; I will see if I can find a way to do so.

The list of spells out of the game is below, just to get you in the proper “i hate this” mood

Excluded Spells (for now)
Arcane Eye: Invisible floating eye moves 30 ft./round.
Awaken X: Animal or tree gains human intellect.
Bear’s Endurance, Mass: As bear’s endurance, affects one subject/ level.
Bear’s Endurance: Subject gains +4 to Con for 1 min./level.
Blasphemy: Kills, paralyzes, weakens, or dazes nonevil subjects.
Bull’s Strength, Mass: As bull’s strength, affects one subject/ level.
Bull’s Strength: Subject gains +4 to Str for 1 min./level.
Cat’s Grace, Mass: As cat’s grace, affects one subject/level.
Cat’s Grace: Subject gains +4 to Dex for 1 min./level.
Clone: Duplicate awakens when original dies.
Comprehend Languages: You understand all spoken and written languages.
Dictum: Kills, paralyzes, slows, or deafens nonlawful subjects.
Eagle’s Splendor, Mass: As eagle’s splendor, affects one subject/level.
Eagle’s Splendor: Subject gains +4 to Cha for 1 min./level.
Find the Path: Shows most direct way to a location.
Fox’s Cunning, Mass: As fox’s cunning, affects one subject/level.
Fox’s Cunning: Subject gains +4 Int for 1 min./level.
Freedom of Movement: Subject moves normally despite impediments.
Glibness: You gain +30 bonus on Bluff checks, and your lies can escape magical discernment.
Glitterdust: Blinds creatures, outlines invisible creatures.
Hideous Laughter: Subject loses actions for 1 round/ level.
Holy Word: Kills, paralyzes, blinds, or deafens nongood subjects.
Imbue with Spell Ability: Transfer spells to subject.
Limited Wish X: Alters reality—within spell limits.
Mage’s Disjunction: Dispels magic, disenchants magic items.
Mage’s Lucubration: Wizard only. Recalls spell of 5th level or lower.
Mind Fog: Subjects in fog get -10 to Wis and Will checks.
Miracle X: Requests a deity’s intercession.
Mnemonic Enhancer: Wizard only. Prepares extra spells or retains one just cast.
Owl’s Wisdom, Mass: As owl’s wisdom, affects one subject/ level.
Owl’s Wisdom: Subject gains +4 to Wis for 1 min./level.
Passwall: Creates passage through wood or stone wall.
Prying Eyes, Greater: As prying eyes, but eyes have true seeing.
Prying Eyes: 1d4 +1/level floating eyes scout for you.
Shades: As shadow conjuration, but up to 8th level and 80% real.
Shadow Conjuration, Greater: As shadow conjuration, but up to 6th level and 60% real.
Shadow Conjuration: Mimics conjuration below 4th level, but only 20% real.
Shadow Evocation, Greater: As shadow evocation, but up to 7th level and 60% real.
Shadow Evocation: Mimics evocation below 5th level, but only 20% real.
Shapechange: Transforms you into any creature, and change forms once per round.
Teleport Object: As teleport, but affects a touched object.
Teleport, Greater: As teleport, but no range limit and no off-target arrival.
Teleport: Instantly transports you as far as 100 miles/level.
Tongues: Speak any language.
Transformation: You gain combat bonuses.
Word of Chaos: Kills, confuses, stuns, or deafens nonchaotic subjects.
Zone of Truth: Subjects within range cannot lie.

[Orion]

What do you think the Sweet spot of D&D is?

Also:

Remember, D&D casters were problematic for the following reasons, all of which should be seriously examined:

Too Powerful in Combat -- they simply are too effective at killing monsters; fortunately this is the easiest part to fix, as it's not too difficult to crunch numbers and make sure your Fire Mage does the same damage with his fire bolts that a ranger does with his arrows, or whatever. Crowd control effects are more complex to balance, but still basically doable.

Not Playing by the Rules -- magic by and large didn't interact with the regular rules of the systems. There were a lot of absolute effects without numbers that couldn't be dealt with by any nonmagical means. For instance, Invisibility is only countered by See Invisibility -- unless you can play some crazy race with tremorsense, no nonmagical perception ability counters it. Similarly Spider Climb gives +infinity to climb rolls.

Too World Altering This is a matter of taste, but many people find that D&D Wizards simply have too many noncombat powers to the point where instead of facilitating stories and roleplaying it actually limits them. Telling a story about a guy who can fly or walk invisibly among the people or make plants grow or fabricate goods could all be interesting. Telling a story about someone who sees the future, can go anywhere in an instant, can fly anywhere invisibly, can feed and equip an army with his own powers... it gets difficult.

While the amount of story-power in the setting is a matter of taste, as well as what powers you should give out I think it's fair to say that casters in D&D have an unfair advantage over noncasters outside of combat.

---

Not also that these are separate scales that can advance differently. You could make a Fire Mage with the firepower to nuke a balor who still have to ride around on a horse or a griffin and convince farmers to sell them turnips.

Likewise, you can have adventuring mages who know clairvoyance, plant growth, fabricate, teleport, plane shift, and permanent image who still have to run from ogres in groups of more than 2.


[/b]

• EDIT: Also buffs and buff stacking of course

[Lich-Loved]

As an addendum to these rules regarding monster spell-like abilities.

I of course need to look over each monster, but my initial plan is to allow any monster to use any of its granted SLAs even if the creature lacks sufficient Mindspace to do so. However, all such spells must be sustained Consciously. This too needs work, obviously. But, for example, the CR5 barghest can still use blink (although it lacks the Mindspace to do so with its 14 Int), but it can only do so consciously, which prohibits it from blinking in battle.

A 5th level caster with an Int of 16 could blink as well, but since he cannot cast another spell (he lacks the Mindspace to sustain blink Subconsciously and still have room to cast another non-cantrip spell) he isn't going to be doing much else. Even a 10th level wizard with an Int of 16 faces this same dilemma.

It is this sort of interaction between melee and magic that I believe will fundamentally change the landscape between melee and casters.

[Lich-Loved]

@Boolean: I believe that this system addresses each of these issues, at least it appears to contain the seeds to do so:

Power in Combat: direct damage scaled appropriately, other effects counterable (perhaps by Combat Token), resisted by the target's relevant Power or capable of being overcome through mundane means (battering down a Wall of Force, which might have a HP total equal to spell power of the caster)

Outside the Rules: Invisibility has been addressed directly here as an example of how I see this shaking out. My plan for other spells is to have them operate on a Power basis, so nothing is certain/guaranteed. The "fire and forget" nature of effects as well as the certainty of results (FoM anyone?) really hurts non-casters in 3.5. If you think FoM = bonus at Power then you are thinking in the same way I am thinking.

World Altering: Far fewer spells available should help here. No one can do everything, unlike it is today. I still want wizards to do Great Things so it feels like a real wizard, not a WoW or Diablo caster where fireballs might as well be arrows with status effects attached.

Buffs: name a wizard that will want to dedicate Mindspace to buffs beyond what he absolutely needs to personally get by. Buffs really really suck for a lot of reasons (RNG ruination, bookkeeping, table time wasted planning, adding and removing). This system says: go ahead and buff yourself and...do nothing else. Now with that said, I imagine some wizard friendly buffs being of reduced Mindspace. I also see some spells that are Mostly Harmless (floating disk, unseen servant and the like) occupying less space because they give the caster Cool Things.

[TarkisFlux]

A quick note: you're going to want to revisit concentration. If skills scale the same way as 3.x and your damage doesn't (as it appears not to from the combat thread), that check will quickly become meaningless and impossible to fail.

A concern: with a +4 int mod, a level 20 wizard only has a 10 mindspace. At the extremes, he can subcon maintain a single level 9 thing and cast level 1 stuff, or the opposite. That's a pretty big reduction in power even before you rework spell effects, is that intended?
[Edit] Looks like it is. Carry on then.

And a question: since spell effectiveness is tied to spell power instead of level, it looks like you're keeping the bigger spell level = bigger power thingy. Just to tie this back to the other thread, why do this for mages with their spells but not warriors with their tokens?

[Username17]

Let's go through your goals and seriously evaluate them, because that makes more sense than arguing about numbers.

# to establish a magic system that does not make beatsticks useless beyond the first few levels of play

Consider why this happens. In the first few levels of play, a Wizard can Sleepnuke a couple enemy squads a day and a Fighter can fell a kobold with every sword swing. At higher levels, the Wizard can Charm lock one enemy or Solid Fog delay an entire squad several times per day... and the Fighter can only very painfully grind down an Ettin and may not live long enough to do it. So seriously, what is magic doing that is invalidating the Fighters here? Both Merlin and Lancelot are losing relative effectiveness over time, it's just that Lancelot is losing more. So seriously, how is this part even a magic related issue?

# to stretch the "sweet spot" of the game

The game changes as it progresses. This is a fact, but what changes you regard as good or bad are entirely subjective. Don't even talk abut "sweet spots" - just figure out what kind of adventuring and battlefield dynamics you want to have and then go with that for your whole supported level schema.

# to remove the concept of the 15 minute adventuring day

This is easily done by embracing any resource model that doesn't encourage people to go home after every fight.

# to reduce spell obsolescence

Why? This is a serious question, by the way. While I can see the appeal of having a spell "Monster Summoning" that scales to your level, this is not objectively superior or more interesting than having "Monster Summoning IV" that replaces "Monster Summoning III."

# to address some of the loopholes in the current spell system

Why? You aren't even going to be using the 3e spell resource model. What the hell do you care about loopholes in the current system? Don't fight the last battle, fight the next one. Don't address loops from a game you aren't making, address the loopholes in the game you are making.

# to remove the concept of dump stats or at least try to make every ability useful for every class

Not to put too fine a point on it, but why do you even have the D&D stats? Seriously, why put Constitution and Charisma on the sheet at all? You don't seem to like what they do, why not just erase them?

# to remove the reliance upon buff spells and the associated bookkeeping

That's two different things. If you want to get rid of constant buffage (the "reliance" part of the equation), you're going to increase the amount of book keeping. If buffs come and go, there's more math to do. If buffs sit around all the time, then there is less math to do. It's that simple.

# to remove the christmas tree effect where stat boosting items are the rule.

2e made that a reality. Although it had its own christmas tree effect.

# to remove wealth=power as a fundamental aspect of the game

Take the market price off of magic items globally and you're done. This is by far the easiest of your stated goals.

# to prevent the fantasy genre to devolving into the supers genre

Uh... OK. But that means that the spells, even the names of the spells, pretty much have to go. You're living in a Dr. Strange universe when anyone has access to "Dimension Door."

# to recreate the types and feeling of magic I have read about in books

Like the "Sweet Spot" you're going to have to be more specific. Rand Al Thor teleports armies, stops time, and nukes cities with his mind. Elric tosses around hordes of demons and dragons and takes entire universes and reduces them to ash. Those are books. Fantasy books even. What I think you mean is the magic in very low key books and series like Rusalka, The Curse of Chalion, or Protector of the Small.

Which is fine. But you aren't getting anywhere if you just make magic "like magic in books" - because there is some crazy shit in books.

# to return a sense of heroism to adventuring rather than the paranoia and risk adversity seen in games today

Only two ways to do that:

• Make failure no big deal.
• Make character generation really fast.

Because honestly, you know who really throws caution to the wind and adventures hard regardless of personal risk? Superheroes. In capes. They do this because if they are defeated by supervillains, their story does not end. They don't die, because they are living in a four color world. The four color world that you explicitly don't want.

Conan is actually super cautious and spends all his time poking shit with sticks to find traps and pulling hit and run attacks on enemies and shit. Heedless adventure is usually found in the exact opposite genre than that which you imply is your goal.

-Username17

[Lich-Loved]

A quick note: you're going to want to revisit concentration. If skills scale the same way as 3.x and your damage doesn't (as it appears not to from the combat thread), that check will quickly become meaningless and impossible to fail.

Yes this oversight is a product of not working out the interaction at all between the rule sets. I worked magic, then melee and now I am doing both, I guess.

A concern: with a +4 int mod, a level 20 wizard only has a 10 mindspace. At the extremes, he can subcon maintain a single level 9 thing and cast level 1 stuff, or the opposite. That's a pretty big reduction in power even before you rework spell effects, is that intended?

In a word: yes. This is the intent though I have not done any testing for reasonableness. If a caster is allowed to run 10 spells, he can get up to 10 actions in per round of one sort or another at an extreme. This completely invalidates the melee guy, who is left to slog it out one action at a time. This entire system needs to be scaled; it is not in any way scaled right now. When I say this, I mean that I have not placed any of the described progressions on a curve and asked myself how realistic it is. Maybe there are breakpoints and gains casters get every so often (like extra Mindspace or the like) to help offset the limitations that are undoubtedly currently in the system.

And a question: since spell effectiveness is tied to spell power instead of level, it looks like you're keeping the bigger spell level = bigger power thingy. Just to tie this back to the other thread, why do this for mages with their spells but not warriors with their tokens?

This is a failure in the combat system I plan to rectify. I am just not sure how yet.

[Lich-Loved]

Damnit Frank your logic is not needed here

Right so, as I posted in the Combat Token thread, the magic system came first and most of this post was already written, including the goals. I have already learned a lot from your comments in that thread and some of the goals here are clearly out of sync with those learnings.

As far as my use of 3.5 terminology, you are right, it isn't really needed. However, I am changing so much I want to keep the vernacular to something we all understand well even of that causes some cognitive dissonance at times. For example, in my handwritten notes, Wisdom is actually listed as Willpower because it better represents what the stat means in the game I envision. I use Wis here because the two are close enough that it doesn't matter for the granularity of the current examination. Similarly, I want force of personality (Cha) to continue to matter in the game I build, and I made a conscious choice to try and include all stats in the core of the game in ways that affected the character's survival so that no stat was seen as insignificant and "dump-able".

Regarding spell obsolescence, I felt it was important in a limited spell-selection system that every spell remain useful. I could do what 3.5 does and swap spells out, but I wanted first to try and keep the spells relevant. Also, I believe that lower level spells will be a real boon to higher casters because they occupy little Mindspace, so making sure they scale is critical. If casters have useless spells they won't use them and if they have to trade away useless spells for more useful but higher-level spells then they lose the ability to manage their Mindspace effectively.

Regarding loopholes, I wanted to keep the basics of the 3.5 spells around so I have a reference from which I can copy text and I can provide the players of the game with a wide selection of spells of all kinds without having to do what you once warned against, which is create hundreds of new powers. If I am going to do that, then I need to address the shortcomings in that spell list as I convert the spells.

Regarding buffs, I cannot see many buffs being cast. They are there and the bookkeeping with their rise and fall is there (well buffs are either Conscious or Subconsciously sustained. If the former, they are very temporary but only one is running and the latter means they don't ever go away until dropped). I am shooting for a much smaller buff tree with corresponding less bookkeeping and time sunk.

Regarding magic items, christmas trees and stat items, I am really at a loss here. I have been following the board's discussion on this topic very closely, looking for answers. I have already stated all magic items are currently gone from the game and expressed the intent to return them, but I have no idea of how. At all.

Regarding my comments on the supers genre and the magic in books: Point taken. I am obviously looking to do the non-Elric thing here. We already have that or his first cousin now and it plays well enough to keep me entertained for 30 years, but I am looking for a new thing. I kept Dim Door in because I like the idea of wizards popping about without "about" being defined as "anywhere they have ever been or seen through means mundane and magical".

Regarding failure. This is a tough one based upon the latest board talk on this topic regarding causality. I see the utility and logic in your approach. Maybe I just want to believe there is a third option where, if the party is always healed after a battle, is never "out of spells or items", and is pressing toward their goal and the DM has done his part in not making the challenges too hard then the heroism will follow. Now I would wager you rankle at this and before you think I am going all "sword of my father / Strum's Mustache" on you, let me assure you that I see the failure in my reasoning, but.. a guy is allowed to dream the players will take up the chorus, isn't he?

[TarkisFlux]

If you don't want players to dodge failure and whatnot, you need to 1) either reward failure or not explicitly reward success and 2) minimize the game stopping effects of failure. For the first part, you can just reward 'the attempt' in some way, and players will try shit that they might not succeed at because that's how they advance in the system. Removing XP from the game is a way to do this, since you only level when someone feels it's appropriate, and it can be appropriate after you have attempted some number of reasonable things, succeed or fail.

Minimizing the effects of failure is a bit harder, but since most failures just involve the game moving on in a different way than if you'd succeeded we're really only worried about game ending failures. Of those only player death is worth the effort, since the game just ends for only one player, while major plot failures may end the game for everyone while you sort it all out and keeps everyone on the same page. How you mitigate it really depends on your setting and goals. You can incorporate a ransom culture where death is uncommon but capture-and-return likely; your complete lack of magical gear means that might even work. You could make character generation easy and quick, so losing a guy isn't a huge time investment. A character tree where people had advancing backup characters to bring in would also work. You could build in some sort of PC desperation mechanic so that failure is much less common (but having to resort to such a mechanic would be seen as losing the encounter). You could armor them in plot and just not let them die easily. Lots of options.

[Psychic Robot]

This system seems rather complicated. Why not just change the 3.5 spell progression tables, remove or alter the "trouble" spells, and slap MAD on the casters.

You could do varying combinations with the classes--have one stat be the required casting stat, where you have to have a score equal to 10 + spell level to cast spells, and have the other be the spell power stat, where it determines save DCs and such.

[Orion]

Bear in mind that if you make buff spells this punishing to use, you can and should write new and extremely powerful buffs.

Like in Shadowrun where running two buffs effectively removes you from the fight, but will also double the effectiveness of the person buffed.

[Lich-Loved]

This system seems rather complicated. Why not just change the 3.5 spell progression tables, remove or alter the "trouble" spells, and slap MAD on the casters.

You could do varying combinations with the classes--have one stat be the required casting stat, where you have to have a score equal to 10 + spell level to cast spells, and have the other be the spell power stat, where it determines save DCs and such.

I like the second part of your post more than the first. Using a single stat rather than an average would simplify things and may not lead to the creation of a dump stat.

The reason I did not just change the spell progression tables is that the underlying problem is not the number of spells available at any one time, it is that the caster can use the spells in conjunction with one another (since they have overlapping durations) to do far more than what a melee type could do with a single action. Tentacle rape + Stinking Cloud is the kind of thing that makes melee types unneeded. In the time that a fighter could swing his sword twice, the wizard has destroyed the encounter. Mindspace was my solution to move the caster back toward the one action, one reaction realm of the fighter. Even if the caster's actions had a greater area of effect (creation of a tentacle field), the wizard was bound to spend his future actions maintaining the effect rather than doing something else entirely. If you have an idea for another mechanic that does this, that would be great. I am not married to this idea at all and it has its flaws.

From a complication standpoint, I know it seems complicated, but in reality, calculations for Mindspace and spell power are simple to do and will not need to be carried out regularly. It would be about as complicated as calculating AC or initiative and once done would not need to change often.

[Lich-Loved]

Bear in mind that if you make buff spells this punishing to use, you can and should write new and extremely powerful buffs.

Like in Shadowrun where running two buffs effectively removes you from the fight, but will also double the effectiveness of the person buffed.

I hadn't thought about this approach at all, so thanks for the idea. Now that I am free of the concept of sticking to 3.5 other than as a source of inspiration (I can see I am writing a new game now), I can do this sort of thing. I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary, but perhaps it is.

[Amra]

Hmmm... instead of excluding the likes of Zone of Truth, why not go to opposed attack/defenses? You want Charisma (or "personality" or whatever) to remain important, don't you? Then maybe Silk or the Grey Mouser could "parry" such a spell because they're just so damn good at lying, whilst Barak or Fafhrd couldn't.

Zone of Truth is just an example, but keeping a spell in the game that prevents most people from lying in its radius is more interesting - in my opinion - than having a spell that prevents everyone from lying, and more interesting than having no such spell at all. Again, just a thought

[Lich-Loved]

Hmmm... instead of excluding the likes of Zone of Truth, why not go to opposed attack/defenses? You want Charisma (or "personality" or whatever) to remain important, don't you? Then maybe Silk or the Grey Mouser could "parry" such a spell because they're just so damn good at lying, whilst Barak or Fafhrd couldn't.

Zone of Truth is just an example, but keeping a spell in the game that prevents most people from lying in its radius is more interesting - in my opinion - than having a spell that prevents everyone from lying, and more interesting than having no such spell at all. Again, just a thought

This is a great idea, and is the kind of thing I intended when I said I wanted to find a way to put the Excluded spells back into the game. The systems are both so mushy at this point that I am trying just to find solid ground, first on their own, and then between them before I try to do any building.

[Amra]

I think a related way of introducing some of those spells back into the game is by introducing *degrees* of failure. At the moment, if you're hit by a spell that basically kills you by making you unable to act for a round per level, it's all or nothing. If your degree of opposition to the magic can reduce the effect even when you fail to avoid it entirely, it's another matter.

Maybe round/level effects should be - dare I say it - a bit more like 4e and get the target to oppose every round instead. Or maybe their duration is greatly curtailed by a defence that is almost good enough?

[Amra]

Another thought, sort of a corollary to the first. At the moment, the people in the D&D game who have access to magic are the elite. Your village yeoman guard won't have anyone who can cast Zone of Truth to interrogate prisoners with. In this scenario, it's turned around. When the spell is merely effective on, say, 80% of people it's less valuable than a guy trained in interrogation techniques who has Sense Motive out the wazoo.

Magic becomes the low-rent, jack-of-all-trades option that works a lot but not all of the time, whilst the real high-fliers have access to specialists who are damn-near infallible. Hmmmm.

[Lich-Loved]

I think a related way of introducing some of those spells back into the game is by introducing *degrees* of failure. At the moment, if you're hit by a spell that basically kills you by making you unable to act for a round per level, it's all or nothing. If your degree of opposition to the magic can reduce the effect even when you fail to avoid it entirely, it's another matter.

Maybe round/level effects should be - dare I say it - a bit more like 4e and get the target to oppose every round instead. Or maybe their duration is greatly curtailed by a defence that is almost good enough?

Actually, you have touched on one of the key points of this system. I plan on doing this very thing. Here is an example off the top of my head:

===========================
Spell: Black Tentacles
Discipline: Conjuration
Level: 2
Mindspace: 2
Type: Sustained
Range: Medium
AoE: 20 ft spread
Opposed: Special

This spell conjures a field of rubbery black tentacles, each 10 feet long. One tentacle is created per point of spell power and each tentacle has a Dodge rating and HP equal to spell power (so a caster with spell power of 6 creates 6 such tentacles with Dodge of 6 and HP of 6). These waving members seem to spring forth from the earth, floor, or whatever surface is underfoot—including water. They grasp and entwine around creatures that enter the area, holding them fast and crushing them with great strength.

Every creature within the area of the spell and attacked by a tentacle must make a grapple check, opposed by the grapple check of the tentacles. The tentacles have a Strength of 19, perform a melee touch attack (10+spell power) to initiate the grapple, provoke an attack of opportunity in doing so and have a grapple check of 8 + spell power.

Once the tentacles grapple an opponent, they may make a grapple check each round on your turn to deal spell power/3 (round down) points of bludgeoning damage. The tentacles continue to crush the opponent until the spell ends or the opponent escapes.

Any creature that enters the area of the spell is immediately attacked by the tentacles. Even creatures who aren’t grappling with the tentacles may move through the area at only half normal speed.
===========================
In this case, a 4th level caster (and yes, I lowered the spell level since I am trying to make spells scale) with Wis 16, Cha 14 Int 14 has a Conscious Spell Power of 12 (round up for Conscious power) and a Subconscious spell power of 8. This caster creates 12 tentacles with a Dodge of 12, 12 HP, a melee touch attack of +22 and a grapple check of 20. This is a pretty nasty effect. However, if the caster decides to make this a subconscious spell, he loses 4 tentacles (he would decide which - this will be spelled out in the section on Spell Sustaining and Transferring), each loses 4 hp, becomes Dodge 8 and the grapple check is lowered to 16.

Rather than creating an impenetrable barrier for a fighter, the tentacles are now an obstacle. The 4 fighter can cut his way through, use Combat Tokens (he has 5) to evade their strikes or trust to luck and suffer the AoOs by rushing through (though every attack against him that round will increase his chances of being hit). If the caster wants the tentacles to be really effective, he maintains conscious concentration on the spell but does little else (perhaps allowing his allies to deal with those trapped or just getting away - at half speed). If he is a powerful caster or just gets lucky, he can switch to subconscious concentration (2 Mindspace available) and do something else, perhaps using a cantrip to attack the trapped foe.

You can see how a fighter can batter down a wall of force in this case. I am still working on the truly opposed roll situation (for charms, illusions and other effects) and the cases where the caster is attempting a Flesh To Stone or other SOD/SOS-type spell to determine what partial success means in these cases.

[Kaelik]

First, I think this idea would probably work much better in a shadowrun type hits system then in a d20 based system.

Second, regarding, "dump stats" ect. You apparently want every character archetype to have an ideal stat array of (using PB)

8
14
14
14
14
14

With the 8 switched to other stats depending on the archetype.

What is the point of this? I assume you are going to have all stats be rolled, and support 'organic' characters. But frankly, that's dumb.

If you want stats to be that generalized you are better off just removing stats all together. Or renaming stats and using a Shadowrun type system where you might have for example 'Mindspace' as one stat that can be bought up, and 'Spellpower' as another.

As to the general idea, I actually support it (as long as you are aware you are not even close to playing D&D, which you have realized.)

A magic system where all spells have a duration of 'concentration' where concentration doesn't mean no standard action, and maybe even varying levels can be cool.

It allows the Wizard to fly for travel all the time, but if someone attacks him, it gives a plausible reason he might actually want to stop flying in order to fight.

Also, not sure how your Combat Tokens work, might have skimmed it, but if you saw PRs thread on fallout action points, it might be in line with your goals to do something similar to that. don't roll a d12 or anything, should probably be a stat to buy up like Mindspace ect, but you could have a fighter type in combat with an ogre allocate points to dodge instead of soak, and to be able to shift points between attack and damage, or to shift everything to attack and damage for a finishing blow to save a friend, ect.

I'll draw up a loose system and post it in another thread sometime later today, feel free to comment on how well it fit's your ideas.

[Username17]

I'm with Kaelik on this one. Why don't you want people to have dump stats?

Stats only exist to make one person different from another. If a specific kind of character doesn't get comparative advantage from one stat over another, why have stats? The inclusion of Attribute X in your game system allows a player to have a "high" Attribute X and immediately become "good" at all the tasks modified by Attribute X. This in turn means that you can predict that well designed characters will often invest in several Attribute X shticks or none.

If it is your intention that players should be forced to rely on Attribute X, Attribute Y, and Attribute Z to such an extent that they are incentivized to not invest in Attribute X and the associated abilities - well you're better off skipping the attributes altogether and giving everyone a level appropriate bonus on whatever it is that they do.

---

For example: let's say that you wanted Plumbers to do brutal leap attacks, break bricks, and do fungus alchemy; while you wanted Princesses to fly, summon turnips, and hide objects. A plausible way to do that (especially in a skill-based system like SR or WoD) would be to take the Plumbing Related abilities and tie them to the same attribute as leap attacking, scenery demolishing, and fungus alchemy; while at the same time tying the Princessing skills to the same attribute that lets you fly well and do legerdemain. This would incentivize the kinds of characters you wanted people to make while at the same time being nominally open.

But if you didn't want people to split up flying and mushroom eating, then you wouldn't tie them to different stats. If you didn't want to split anything up, you wouldn't tie anything to any stats. And then you wouldn't have any attributes.

-Username17

[Lich-Loved]

some good stuff

If I understand your points, if I make every attribute of equal worth (or worthlessness), then there is no point in having attributes at all.

It would seem that I have a lot of thinking to do about things I have been ignoring. I am glad I posted this stuff, because even though it is full of holes, the real gain has been to look at my goals from a different viewpoint. I am beginning to understand I am way ahead of myself in thinking about things at this level and need to go back and do my homework before leaping into this level of detail.

As an aside, I heavily considered the SR4 system as a basis (I am a big fan) but I didn't like the way the game incentivized very niche builds that generated a crapton of dice in one area of expertise. I suspected I would end up with an unbalance between classes if I let niche builds become too available. This, plus the trouble I had with the binomial distribution's (the basic math behind the SR hits system) narrow marginal success band, led me back to an attribute based system that was decoupled from the core class skills ala 3.5 and ultimately to the massive MAD you see here.

Maybe I could return to SR and put limits in place to prevent the narrow builds I see in that game. Frank, I know you know SR probably better than anyone here, so have you had any thoughts (or can you point to a link) on preventing ultra-narrow builds under SR4?

[Username17]

Frank, I know you know SR probably better than anyone here, so have you had any thoughts (or can you point to a link) on preventing ultra-narrow builds under SR4?

The number one offender in forcing people to make narrow builds is the BP/Karma split. Because it becomes relatively expensive after chargen to get high levels of ability it behooves the player to pile in as large a specialization as they can during chargen and diversify later. That's solvable by either going Karmagen or BP Advancement. In short, the largest single concern in the SR (and WoD, because they suffer from exactly the same problem for exactly the same reason) game isn't really a game mechanics issue at all - it's simply in how the character building incentives have been laid out. Change those incentives, and about 90% of that pressure vanishes instantly.

Honestly, the other things you can do to prevent narrowness in builds is have relatively little to do with personal ability mechanics. The biggest second step is to widen the focus of success. That is, if your overall success is simply winning fight after fight then obviously the characters are going to be at their best by simply buying up the biggest attack they can and spamming that until they win. If you make it mission based, where missions encourage or even require characters to throw down a lot of different abilities to deal with a lot of different kinds of challenges that are held up to be of near equal worth, then players diversify their characters. That is, if you fail the mission if you don't achieve minimum success levels on 3 different tasks rather than succeeding the mission based on how spectacularly you achieve success at one task - then you are incentivized to spread points around to cover weakness rather than stack them up to expand strength. The second part is simply having a robust aid another mechanic so that being the second best at a task in the party is still valuable.

But since SR very easily covers both of the second concepts, I find that a switch to BP Advancement by itself has people making diversified builds.

-Username17

[Lich-Loved]

One last issue on SR4, Frank. Here is a spreadsheet I built when I thought that I would use SR4's mechanics for my game. It shows the binomial distributions associated with SR4's "at least x successes" mechanic:



Trials can be equated to dice rolled for a test (dice pool). Mathematically, this is the number of Bernoulli trials
Red color represents probabilities that are not possible
Yellow color represents probabilities 0 < p < .4
Gray color represents probabilities .4 < p < .6
Green color represents probabilities .6 < p < 1

The issue I have with this is, that the region of marginal success is very narrow (the gray area). It seems that either someone easily makes the hits they need (60% or better likelihood) or they don't and the region in which the contest is "balanced" hinges on at most one or two dice.

For example, take a desired 3 successes (a "hard" task in SR4). One needs 8 dice to have a 50/50 chance at this task (not at all difficult to achieve a pool of this size). Add one die and the test is expected to be passed (62% likelihood) while removing one die drops the success rate under 50%. This makes it hard to create skill challenges around a "doable but difficult" number. That the progression is non-linear only complicates things.

A second issue is that 1-2 dice is well within the flexibility of the conditions imposed on the test itself (eg the modifiers that might apply to an otherwise static situation). So at lower pool amounts, if a character can nominally do a task (75% likelihood of success for example), a 1 or 2 dice modifier is enough to reduces his chances under 50%.

Furthermore, if I were to require, by fiat or game advantage, diversity in dice pools as you suggested above, the marginal success band becomes narrower. In other words, trim dice from a task and the fulcrum point of 50/50 becomes increasingly smaller (as indicated by the fewer gray fields as the dice pool is reduced in size).

Looking at this from another angle, the granularity of "hits" can be viewed as too narrow. SR4 supports hit counts of 1-4 (easy to extreme difficulty). Let's assume I am trying to build challenges for a group that regularly has pools of 10 dice. To make the challenge anything but an exercise in dice rolling, I need to set the number of hits to 4. I could make it 3, but the success rate is 70%, hardly something worth halting the game for to carry out.

I believe this is why SR3 and prior used different target numbers for different tests, but I am not sure. Either way, I feel constrained by the narrowness in this system.

This is less of an issue in opposed tests where you want to roll as many dice as you can and only net hits are applied. I am not certain what the "net hit chart" (eg what is the probability that a foe outmatched by 2 dice succeeds on an opposed test with at least one net hit) looks like but it is clear that I should create one before going forward with a SR4-based design to make sure that a problem like this does not arise there as well.

I am posting this in the hope that you worked on this area of the game and have some insight into this issue or, alternately, you can explain why this narrowness is not an issue in the design of higher level mechanics.

[Username17]

The issue I have with this is, that the region of marginal success is very narrow (the gray area). It seems that either someone easily makes the hits they need (60% or better likelihood) or they don't and the region in which the contest is "balanced" hinges on at most one or two dice.

Why is that an issue?

First of all, why is it in any way important for you to have players succeed or fail half the time? You might as well be playing the d2 system at that point. As discussed in that awful and endless talk about "risk" the fact remains that the story of an RPG only moves forward if the players are in fact very likely to succeed at whatever it is that they do. Therefore having a wide margin of possible character ability where they are likely to succeed but could still be noticeably better or worse and still be likely to succeed is a Good ThingTM. Iterative probability being what it is, having a mere 70% chance to succeed isn't even nearly enough unless the system is inherently forgiving (for example: SR Edge) or the setting is (for example: Champions).

Secondly, if you want to generate even chances in SR's dicepool system, you just make them opposed tests. The extra swinginess of two separate rolls heaves it to or near 50/50 territory with pretty notable regularity.

And lastly, when the player dicepool range goes from 4 to 12, a shift of 2 dice is actually a very large shift. You defined your target as less than 20% of the possible numbers, are you really surprised that you're pushing yourself through it when you increase someone's dicepool by 25% of the range?

-Username17