Thursday, 17 November 2022

Thinking about them spells

Internet connection is not so good these days, energy system had taken a hit from russian missiles, so it needs some fixing and rebalancing and whatever. 

Meanwhile I'm thinking about picking a magic system for my players. 

Vancian magic: spells are basically monsters that you stuff in your head, then release when the time is right. In Dying Earth wizards could remember, say, four very powerful spells or five-six less potent. Which is a nice touch. 

Things you can do when you need a quick spell: read a book. You can also write a rune on something which acts like a permanent spell, basically creating a magic item.  

Ways to learn a new spell: you don't learn spells. You collect them. 

Magic points: you have, like, 50 points, you can cast a 5-point spell 10 times or a 10-point spell 5 times or a 20-point spell twice and then you can do one 10-point or two 5-point spells, you get the math. 

Things you can do when you need a quick spell: drink a mana potion, or something like that. 

Ways to learn a new spell: read it somewhere, or have someone teach it to you - whatever, after you learn it, you know it.

D&D magic: kind of like Vancian but instead of "have four strong ones or five weak ones or eight completely pathetic ones in your head", you have "five of level one and four of level two and two of level three", and also you need to carry spell components which can be expensive or disgusting or stupid or all three at once. And also you can have more than one of the same spell in your head at the same time, which kind of follows the monsters analogy but feels ridiculous to me.

Things you can do when you need a quick spell: read a scroll, destroying it permanently (it would be kind of cool if you could do that with your spellbook pages, wouldn't it?). 

Ways to learn a new spell: you don't learn spells. You write them into your spellbook, copying them from scrolls or other spellbooks.

D&D sorcerers' magic: kind of like D&D wizards' magic but more messed up, you have the spells in your head, permanently, but you can cast this specific amount of spells of this level and then you have to rest. Kind of having your headmonsters trained, so after you release them, they come back into your head. 

Things you can do when you need a quick spell: I honestly don't remember. Scroll thing probably works, too. 

Ways to learn a new spell: you can free up some space in your head by forgetting one of the spells you know, and let another spell take its place. The more I think about it, the more it sounds like some kind of freaky Spidey-Black-Costume-like symbiosis. And it means that the spellcaster gets to do all sorts of stuff with the spells, but the spells also get something from the spellcaster. I wonder what. 

I must say I like how the sorcerer thing can be fixed and twisted. I'll probably try and go with it and see what happens.

2 comments:

  1. Hello and welcome!
    Vance is a classic, "Dying Earth" is one of my favourites. From what I remember, used spells are released from the wizard's mind and... get on with their supernatural life, I suppose, it's not described in details.
    As for "don't remember" - I believe that if your memory isn't trained and powerful enough to hold a spell, you lose it, and you have to get back to the spellbooks and memorize it again. That never happened in the books, but that's the idea I got.
    Freeform magic is fun, so are mana points, I got nothing against either of them - I just wanted to try something new and fancy.

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  2. "Inspiration" is right, D&D's magic system differs significantly (like the "this message will self-destruct" scrolls thing). People just call it "vancian magic" because people like simple things, I guess.
    Books are sort of... probably like it's described in LotFP magic system - they're instructions for inviting, or rather luring, this magical thing inside your mind. Their pages don't go blank the moment you finish memorizing the spell. And the most valuable books are those written by the greatest wizard of all times, supposedly while demons whispered into his ears, giving him tips - so probably they have the best instructions. Or at least that's what wizards believe them to be. If I was a demon, I'd leave more than a few backdoors for myself.

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Kelvin Green has a gift for summarizing things.

I don't know if there's anything that can be added to what Kelvin posted.  I can only repeat it.