Musing on magic system nerfs

"So I'm still trying to figure out the best way to deal with magic in the campaign world. I don't want characters to just be throwing around heavy and dangerous spells without consequence. Everything should be a measured use. Somethings I know will be severely limited, like resurrections and wishes, but I'm not a very good judge of these things since I don't like playing casters in 3.5. So instead of cutting out spells one at a time to keep the feel of my campaign world right I want to work a system out that will help enhance the feel and keep the casters reigned in.

Some suggestions I've heard are the spectacular failure system suggested by Clint and a halved spell list that only reaches 5th or 6th level spells but with an expanding number of spells per day. I like both of them for different reasons. I'm leaning more towards the spectacular failure system at this point, at least until I started leafing through Unearthed Arcana and..."

And the original post is lost to a technical glitch. I started this post on my phone and when I opened up the Blogger app after finishing and publishing the post from my laptop the app uploaded and saved the locally saved version that was on my phone completely wiping out the one I had published. All that you see above is what was recovered, and for those who read it before the issue happened you know it was a lot longer than that. So here's a second attempt and maybe I'll be smart this time and save a back-up somewhere...

Like I said, I was leafing through Unearthed Arcana and found the Sanity mechanics and it got the wheels turning in my head. I've worked on the concept a little bit more and still need to run numbers but I think I'm getting a good grasp on a flavor that might work for the setting. The setting is supposed to be low-magic which is extremely hard to do do right. I'm just trying to find a good balance without having to go through each and every spell and deciding if it should be allowed or not.

So if I want magic to be a dangerous and coercive element the Sanity rules make a good fit. Every spell caster will start off with a Sanity score. Starting Sanity is Wisdom Score multiplied by 5. (Wisdom 13 = 65, Wisdom 18 = 90) Everytime a spell caster casts a spell they lose some sanity points due to allowing their wills to be touched by the otherworldly essence of magic.

The rules state that any loss of more than half of your Wisdom score requires you to make a Sanity Check. This is done by rolling d% and comparing the result to your current Sanity score. If it is higher than your current score you suffer a temporary insanity. If the loss is more than your Wisdom score you suffer a long-term insanity. If you reach 0 Sanity you take on a permanent/significant insanity. If you reach -10 (I'm probably going to alter it to your negative Wisdom score) the character is no longer playable, you're a gibbering/catatonic/whatever lunatic who cannot function in any capacity.

These mechanics are probably going to be altered because I want to get the flavor right. What the flavor is I'm not quite sure yet. Maybe I should talk about the point loss options first before getting into that.

Now the amount of points is up for debate because I'm not sure how painful I want spellcasting to actually be yet. I've been playing with the concept a little bit more and running some basic numbers to get a mechanical feel for it. Since the system is only going to apply to spellcasters casting spells I can be a bit heavier on the sanity loss since they won't be losing it any other way.

My initial thoughts were leaning towards the Extreme amount, which is 1D6 lost per spell level which is an estimated loss of 32 points on average for a 9th level spell. That could be a little too extreme unless I add in a natural resistance that can be bumped up by a feat. This would also make spellcasting a very big liability that would lead to minimal usage. So more than likely you would see casters only as multiclass characters or as one of the hybrid classes. Would that fit the low-magic feel? Yes, but it would also limit a lot of player choices as well as what I could throw at them. Is that what I really want?

Moderate loss levels are 2 points per spell level. If I went with this option it would still be a severe enough loss that it would be threatening and I would have to have some type of resistance available to allow spellcasters to function, that is unless of course I want to force pure casters out of the game. The resistance here would probably be a gained trait or a general feat that allowed your Wisdom modifier to act as a buffer.

Low point loss is 1 point per spell level. With this option I would offer no resistance because the sanity loss is very low. You also wouldn't see any sanity checks until the higher levels unless I altered the rules. And if you've guessed I have thought of how to alter them for this you'd be right. I would change it to making a check everytime you've lost 1/2 of your Wisdom score. So if you've got a Wisdom of 12 and have cast 6 1st level spells you would have to make a Sanity check after casting the 6th spell due to losing his sixth point.

With this system I was trying to think if there was a way to confer some type of advantage to casters to off-set this handicap. I think offering them the ability to cast extra spells by taking an Extreme loss (the 1D6 per spell level) and have to make a sanity check afterwards would be a fair mechanic. At least it would be at the Moderate and Low loss levels.

Now since this is only for casting and not a Cthulhu Mythos game I'm going to offer a daily recover rate of sanity. What that is exactly I'm not sure. I'm thinking a base rate of 1D8+Wisdom Modifier. This could increase based on a mechanic like +1D8 per 3 levels or something like that to reflect a growing resistance to the corrupting influence of magic.

Oh and yes, your maximum score will be allowed to increase either at a rate of 1D6 or 3 per level. Haven't decided yet.

I was also wondering if I should include Taint mechanics into this as well. Maybe instead of taking a temporary insanity you have the option to take a point of Taint. But then I'd have to get into dealing with Taint, and I'm still debating whether or not I want to deal with it in general. It does have a place in this campaign but I don't want to make too many special rules for the campaign world.

So this entry is a bit more coherent than the last one at least. As always, any ideas or thoughts are appreciated. Let me know via Facebook or in the comments. Like it or hate it let me know.

More Warmahordes!

My recent foray back into reading up on Warmachine/Hordes has prompted me to start looking at the old Iron Kingdoms RPG. That's never a good sign. It means I'm going to be coming up with a basic outline for yet another campaign that will never be.

Always with the ideas, never with the follow-through. Not always my fault, right now I don't have the players to run anything I already have, let alone a newly forming campaign idea in a setting that might not be people's first choice to play in.

Anyways, enough about of my problems. I'm really on here to talk about something I was doing for fun last night because of this WM/H reading. I brought up my old work on a conversion for WM/H stats from the game to the D20 version. There is still a lot of estimations and guess work involved in designing the weaponry and abilities but the statistics are pretty easy to work with.

It's a very simple thing to convert on some things. Like Hit-Die for 'jacks, very easy conversion, you just take the number of Hull boxes they have and change that directly to Hit-Die. From there you can easily extrapolate the Base Attack Bonus and Base Saves. All of this is in the Liber Mechanika as I later found out... which made some of the things I was doing easier. It still didn't answer specifics on weaponry or abilities and since I don't have any of the older issues of No Quarter that have the d20 conversions for Warjacks and such in them I still have to make do with my best guesses.

Which isn't to say that I don't have fun doing these things. It gives me a better feel for the mechanics of the game and lets me be able to play with new concepts and ideas for a campaign.

Okay, I really just need to get the new Iron Kingdoms RPG as soon as I can, that will just make things easier...

Warmachine, Hordes and the Iron Kingdom RPG

While I was out in Washington for this last install I did something I haven't done in a long time. I bought a new issue of No Quarter Magazine, Privateer Press' official propaganda periodical. Guess I decided to pick up the right one because it showed me things that made me want to play again. It also had in it a generalized set of rules for the new version of the Iron Kingdoms RPG in it.

I didn't stop playing Warmachine due to lack of interest or money, I stopped playing because I don't have a place to play or people to play with. Since I can't play it I don't keep up with it like I used to. That annoys me. I have only been able to play a handful of games since MK 2 came out and I wish I could play more because of how much that revamp killed the power creep that had taken hold. It made everything simpler and brought 'jacks back into the limelight.

Now they took the next step to appeal to those who like 40k's sets of giant models by implementing exactly what I have been predicting since I first read about them in the fluff, Colossals.

Source: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/427713.page

That makes me want to get back into it with the quickness. Can't justify the money I'd to spend though to catch back up with all the things that have changed in the 2 1/2 years (Holy crap, really!?!) I've been out of it. Can you imagine what Kraye, Stryker, and Darius could do with that guy in that pic? How many POW 10 Damage rolls can I inflict? Is there anything Lightning can't solve? I also want to see the new Epic version of Nemo, that intrigues me. New epic versions of casters? This should be interesting.

And here I am without money for hobbies like this, let alone time and places to do them...

Anyways, the other thing that caught my eye was the new Iron Kingdoms RPG. They created a brand new system from scratch based upon the system used in Warmachine/Hordes. In fact, this reeks of a system that could easily be used for a Vehicle Design Rules type of system for the IK/WM/H setting. 

It uses 2D6 that can be enhanced up to 4D6 with abilities and special points that you spend during gameplay. You add that to whatever important stat is required for the action you're taking to determine success. HP is done similar to Hordes' Life Spiral system for Warbeasts. So you have 3 aspects (Body, Mind, Spirit) that determine the penalties that you may receive from damage. Easy to understand, easy to pick up, and I bet the War game stats translate over very easily so you can setup encounters on the fly without much effort (as long as you know the tabletop game).

The book is supposed to come out at some point this summer, and boy do I want it. I love the setting and feel of the world. I'm loving these teaser mechanics. I love the overall story going on in the world that can give you plenty of inspiration to draw off of. The only problem I have is the same one I have right now, no matter how awesome a system or setting (or both) is I don't have players or someone to run a game. 

I've run into the same problem with a few other systems, like the Dresden Files RPG. Love the system, love the setting, no one to play with. That's life though. I mean I'm loving the current Pathfinder group I'm in. It's the most fun I've had with any D20 style system in years, and we're only 2 sessions in. I'm not a fan of D20 systems in general because of the tendency towards less Role Playing and more Roll Playing, but it's generally the automatic flavor that people will default to. 

We might not like it, but everyone can agree on it. Pathfinder is better than vanilla DnD but, still, just something about it still doesn't sit right with me. That's what I get for starting with Everway and the World of Darkness for my first games I guess. 

Campaign Setting

So by popular demand (by that I mean 2 or 3 people, more than half my readership), I'm going to write out the campaign setting and some basic themes of the campaign concept. I don't want to give away too much of the opening of the campaign so I'm going to try my best to give as much as I can without describing the starting scenario in too much detail.

I haven't come up with a name for the setting yet so for now it will be known as Generic Fantasy Setting #4. The numbering is arbitrary. The time period is similar to the historical Golden Age of Sail. So we're looking at flintlock weaponry being common and the early beginnings of what we see as modern industry. The steam engine hasn't been invented yet but may be less than a century away.

The size of the currently known world is an area approximately the size of Europe and Asia with a little bit of North Africa. So about a hemisphere's worth of area to explore. The edges of it are blocked by various things that prevent exploring out of this area at this time. Some are very clearly natural, like the polar regions of the North and South. Others are more suspicious, like the storm that has been raging for over 2000 years at the western edge of the world and the unnaturally large area of windless doldrums at the eastern edge.

Most of the world is covered in oceans. This means that ships and sailing have been one of the most important things in this setting's history. Every major nation/civilization has had a major commitment towards their navies. Typically this means that most of the major advancements in technology have been applied to the ships of the fleet or merchant vessels first. There are only 5 "large" continents where the major civilizations are. None of these continents are larger than Australia. There are multiple island systems (Similar to Japan/The Philippines) and a few Greenland sized islands scattered about the world. Of course there are random volcanic islands scattered about every once in a while too, so you never know if you'll happen upon an unclaimed one.

I'll go into more detail later on those lands when I have my little green book where all the information is written down at. I'll also upload a map with that information.

Like I mentioned earlier the Western Edge has a perpetual storm raging that no one has heard of anyone passing through while the Eastern Edge is basically nothing but a windless doldrums patch that no one has passed yet. The Eastern Edge is also known to see some bizarre colors in the skies and waters inside of it whenever people actually try to traverse it. Basically think of the Auroras only more magical script/geometry like. With this huge difference between the 2 sides of the world you see a very clear change in ocean weather patterns. The further West you go, the more skilled a sailor you need to be as the storms and winds get stronger and more common.

Because of this, Eastern world ships tend to be larger and less maneuverable because they have an easy time sailing and don't need to worry too much. Their armaments and armor are heavier too. You will see the 60+ gun ships similar to what Western Europe used during the Golden Age of Sail as their ships of the line. The further West you go the smaller and more maneuverable the ships become. Built for speed for riding the edges of storms.

The world is made up of your typical fantasy races for a DnD setting. Humans, Orcs, Elves, Goblins and such are pretty common. Even the lesser seen savage races are pretty common in civilization, so seeing Minotaurs, Gnolls, and other such races isn't rare. Races outside of the 1st monster manual and the core rulebooks require approval to be used, but only because I need to work out how they fit into the world first.

As mentioned earlier briefly, the tech level puts guns as pretty common weapons. They are all not much more advanced than flintlocks right now. Humans were the ones to discover gunpowder. Dwarves and Gnomes took to the use of it quickly while Elves despise it. Orcs are starting to use them more. Goblins are just starting to use them but their use is growing rapidly among them because of how powerful and equalizing guns are. Anyone else is basically on an individual basis. Elves despise the use of it so much that they still haven't equipped their ships with modern cannons and because of this have suffered a massive loss of territory around their homelands and territorial waters.

So that's the basic setting overview, now let's go over some gameplay related items.

The gameplay is going to be semi-sandbox style. By that I mean something along the lines of Mass Effect. There will be objective based, railroaded storyline, but with the ability of the players to choose their path navigating it. The increases in storm occurrence is a limiting factor for the players as to how far they're going to be able to travel. I have to be careful how much I scale it though because I don't want NPC characters to be easily sunk by weather (how the hell would they have commerce if it took being a level 14 PC class in order to just be a merchant?). So I'm still tweaking the weather tables for the right balance.

Because this is such a heavy nautical campaign setting I'm going to have to create a ton of ships using the rules found in the Stormwrack book. (Also, if anyone has a good suggestion for a D20 Nautical source book that has ships from the time period I'm using I would love to know about it) I'm also modifying some of the rules for ships and combat to fit an increase in the number of weapons on board a ship. The Stormwrack rules are just too medieval for the flavor I want. I'm kicking around a few ideas that need to go through balance tests for the high level gameplay. Almost all designs and classes of ships will be based on real world counterparts.

Because of the sandbox gameplay I'm going to create a simple trade system for each of the major islands/continents/etc that way the PCs can choose a peaceful seagoing career if they feel like it, or a profitable pirating one. They won't be given a chart and social skills will have an impact on the prices of goods. Prices will have a natural variation based upon a random chart upon their arrival in port which will contain random economy variables for the area which will have further variance based upon character social interaction rolls. This system is still in development and I will post it when I'm finished making it. (Maybe simple isn't the best way to describe this one...)

As I've mentioned before, I don't like the power scale of magic in DnD so I've been struggling on exactly how to go about dealing with it but still allowing it. I'm still debating this over and over. Some of the stuff is pretty easy, make resurrections difficult by requiring it in specific locations of religious power and providing damn good reasons why the character wouldn't want to be in their afterlife or why a deity would allow that character's resurrection. That type of thing is a really big deal when you're talking about it from a religious perspective. Most gods/religious figures in our own real world religions would be mid-leveled DnD characters after you stat them out. Some might get as high as the low 20's. Plus, bring the threat of perma-death to a character generally helps players think before they make a decision.

As far as magic itself is concerned I'm now leaning towards a catastrophic failure style system. If I allow for Psionics they'll probably have to have the same type of system to maintain play balance between the two systems. I don't think the setting is a good fit for psionics though so I'm leaning towards not allowing it. I'm still not entirely sure what I plan on doing with the magic system though and it may change 3 or 4 more times before I finally decide on it. Since I'm debating the magic system I'm also in debate over the magic item system. Not sure what I want there yet since everything is under going creational flux right now.

Now, as I mentioned in the previous post, I'm keeping the player characters at a particularly high level of statistical power. This is to put them at a far above average potential capability. The characters are meant to be quite a cut above the norm which is why they are "selected" for what they are doing at the start of the campaign. They are truly destined for something amazing and will be facing down a great many more and much stronger than normal foes for characters of their level. They need to have a major advantage to go up against what they will be eventually facing. They don't know anything about any of this, but that's why I've set it up this way.

They will be given their own ship early on, it won't be much, but it'll work for the beginning. Plus they will be given ample opportunity following the first module of the campaign to earn enough to either upgrade it or buy a new one.

The characters will spend just as much time on land as they do at sea. So being a purely aquatics/seaborne character archetype is not going to be a good idea.

I think I've written enough on it for now, if anyone has questions, comments, ideas, etc I'd be glad to hear them.