"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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment