A different take on magic

[cadriel]

I've been thinking a lot about the Blackmoor magic system, where spells were researched and prepared (with associated costs and/or hard-to-find ingredients) instead of being memorized, and also the thread here about Dropping the Cleric. It strikes me that both of these could work well together, if magic-users are pretty much able to research any of the spells in Men & Magic. I'm thinking that M-U research would be fairly expensive, with crafting a new spell costing a few hundred GP per spell level, and taking calendar time as well. Finding scrolls and spellbooks can be a shortcut in this process, of course.

What I'm less sure about is how to set spell costs. My instinct is to go for 50-100 GP per spell at 1st level, and have higher costs (or ingredients that have to be found rather than purchased) for higher level spells.

The other thing I'm thinking is to have some cheap healing available, allowing say 25 GP to be used for a poultice of herbs that can restore 1 HP, but characters are only able to restore a low number (say 2 or 3) of HP per day by this method.

Commentary and ideas from people who've used similar rules would be helpful.

[jakdethe]

I've been considering doing something similar, except I'm going to cut all of the classes and just have an "Adventurer". Then it will be the players choice what they spend their gold on: magic, miracles, henchmen, castles, etc. I'm either going with the OD&D prices for research and scrolls, or the B/X costs (as I've read them in Basic Fantasy). The B/X costs are more expensive, so if the OD&D prices prove to cheap I'll go with them. I haven't read the Cleric thread, but I'm going to make Cleric's function the same as the Magic-User, except they'll "buy miracles from the church". It will give them a more historical feel, and the Cleric will obviously have to follows rules of the church, alignment, etc.

If you do need help with costs and don't have the LBB's or B/X available, I can pull up the costs and post them here.

[Stormcrow]

Apr 25, 2014 4:29:09 GMT -6 jakdethe said:

I've been considering doing something similar, except I'm going to cut all of the classes and just have an "Adventurer". Then it will be the players choice what they spend their gold on: magic, miracles, henchmen, castles, etc.

OOP: Object-oriented plundering

[cadriel]

Apr 25, 2014 4:29:09 GMT -6 jakdethe said:

I've been considering doing something similar, except I'm going to cut all of the classes and just have an "Adventurer". Then it will be the players choice what they spend their gold on: magic, miracles, henchmen, castles, etc. I'm either going with the OD&D prices for research and scrolls, or the B/X costs (as I've read them in Basic Fantasy). The B/X costs are more expensive, so if the OD&D prices prove to cheap I'll go with them. I haven't read the Cleric thread, but I'm going to make Cleric's function the same as the Magic-User, except they'll "buy miracles from the church". It will give them a more historical feel, and the Cleric will obviously have to follows rules of the church, alignment, etc.

Yeah, I thought about putting everything down to one class, but all the quotes I've read from Arneson are pretty clear that there were separate magic-users and fighting types very early on. I'm still kicking ideas about but I'm pretty confident on the fighting-man / magic-user split.

My instinct is to use the OD&D costs for scrolls at early levels and then maybe go up as the PCs go up in level. I really need to look at the differences in wealth assuming GP-for-XP to make it workable at different levels.

If you do need help with costs and don't have the LBB's or B/X available, I can pull up the costs and post them here.

Oh, no worries about that. I have plenty of LBBs and B/X manuals.

[Deleted]

In my game I have decided to treat each spellcasting class and their method of spell casting separately. For magic-users I treat their spellbooks as magical items which allow them to cast those spells within without prior preparation at a rate of 1 round per spell level. Though I do allow magic-users to prepare spells from their spellbooks as per normal spellcasting rules, this is in part due to the spellbook infusing the magic-user with the power to cast said spells. Spell scrolls thus do not exist as one shot items but instead contain the formula for which a spell is to be inscribed and thus cannot be used to cast a spell lacking any magical power themselves.

 

Elves are treated much as the sorcerer class in third edition is, as a spell caster that can cast any spell they know at any given time as long as the appropriate level spell slot is available. Also elves can only know a number of spells equal to their spell slots, thus an elf Thaumaturgist would know four first level spells, two second level spells and one third level spell.

Clerics however must perform certain tasks to appease their gods and curry favor with them before obtaining spells. Depending on what it is the cleric does effects what spells are granted and how many times the spells can be used before that favor is fully accounted for. Also as in Men and Magic clerics do not gain the ability to cast spells until second level.

 

I generally use the vancian spellcasting system as a guideline for how many spells can be readied though only strictly follow this for elves. Additionally I make use of varied spell lists for each class. For example I have adopted the Vancian Supplement located here: gorgonmilk.blogspot.com/2013/03/vancian-supplement-spell-haunted.html for magic-users to use, while Clerics use the spell list from the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rules and Magic book (though I have decided to include the "Summon Spell" as a cleric only spell). Elves also use the magic-user/elf spell list from the LotFP book though with a small number of spells being omitted or replaced.

 

Overall while not an entirely different take on spellcasters, I feel as though each has been given enough of a twist to provide a distinct flavor for the different classes.

[jakdethe]

I forgot to mention, part of the reason for slimming it down to one class, is I like to include multiple magick systems in my game: Sorcery from various sources (Crypts & Things, Microlite20, Call of Cthulhu d20, etc.), Rituals from Carcosa (and sometimes 4E), etc. Tough I suppose it could work just fine having a defined Magic-Using class.

[LouGoncey]

Sounds a lot like Basilisks & Bandits, from the creator of Terminal Space.

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