Corporate M
2010-06-24, 10:21 PM
I was kind of thinking about making a campaign based off this concept. Sortof like The X-Men where people suddenly emerge who have powers, but it's less about genetics and more having to do with solar alignments. (Though genetics could play a role...) I even thought about trying the concept out in different time periods. (Obviously allowing some history revisionism... Steampunk, different results, etc.)
The idea here is if you had the option, which sortof spellcasting type ruling would you prefer to be stuck with? First we'll talk about mental stats, then the actual type.
STATS:
Intelligence:
Benefit: Skillpoints and in RP, actually knowing a little about how and why you have magic. Perhaps bringing it down to a science.
Trouble: Most people don't realize that the highly intelligent are also socially awckward and for good reason. Alot of their ranting just sounds like gibberish, and they tend to get annoyed because they feel completely alienated noone understanding their gibberish. Intelligent people don't even get along with eachother as they'll just talk eachother's heads off. (You wouldn't believe the number of physics forums I've gotten kicked off for suggesting mass has a direct involvement with gravity...) I may have high int cause penalties in cha based skills. Something like -X equal to half your int modifier rounded down. (So +1 or lower=-0. +2 to +3=-1. +4 to +5=-2, etc.)
Wisdom:
Benefit: Will saves and five senses skill. It'll be nice to have that extra edge in sight, smell, hearing, etc. And be well grounded which you'll need to not become overwhelmed by the magic.
Trouble: Wisdom doesn't make you smart, it just makes you capable. Animals instinctively know when earthquakes and crap are coming, but they can't tell you, they don't even understand what an earthquake is. "Gut feeling" is not enough to win a court case or even do your taxes. How effective wisdom is depends vastly on the time era of this magical upsurge...
Charisma:
Benefit: Having a buff to those cha based skills will be a God send when you try to reason with people that you're not going to hurt them. (Even when you are) As well, I think charisma should also improve your will save. Because someone with enough confidence and ego is not going to be suspetable to mind control or fear the same way a normal person would be. Be it sociopaths are revolutionaries. If they could experience fear or the power of suggestion, they wouldn't do the things that they do.
Trouble: Charisma can grant fame. And fame is not always a good thing. Especially when you want to keep a low profile. Charisma can result in crazy obsessed followers, police at your doorstep, or even hatred from others as your strong personality intimidates instead of entices!
Physical Score: (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution)
Benefit: Though only suggested in the extraorindary bad psionics 3.0, and in fourth edition was done more tastefully but still kind of lame... Using physical stats for spells has obvious advantages. Improved health, more flexbility, more combat options, etc.
Trouble: What's the point of your magic being an extension of your high metabolism or washboard abs if you can't think your way out of a situation? More importantly, alot of spells would probably rely on mental stats anyway indirectly. (You'll need to have some idea of what's going on inorder to more accurately control your spells. I don't think a dog would have the intillect required to assess he's dealing with powerpoints) Granteed, I'd obviously have to give players some kind of metagaming leeway. But not when their mental scores are in the single digits!
MAGIC TYPES:
Vancian Magic: (Spells per day)
Benefit: Can cast spells pretty liberally. Are only confined to an arbitary number. In most situations, you'll have higher level spells and spam lower level spells otherwise.
Trouble: Reaching a point where vancian magic is abusable is unlikely. Only high level sorcerers get to really enjoy it. (I'd probably keep it at spontanous casters, but if it did require preperation, that would make it even worse needing somewhat decent memory capabilities... IE: a moderate intelligence, and decent will saves to not be lazy and keep yourself disciplined enough to meditate or read for an hour)
Mana Magic: (Powerpoints or spellpoints from unearthed arcana)
Benefit: Not limited to "per day" or any sortof time base. A spellcaster can determine for himself how many powerpoints is worth investing in the spell he is currently casting. Allowing him to make educated decisions rather then guessing and hoping for a good dice roll.
Trouble: Mathamatically, powerpoints is worse then the other forms of magic. You exhaust alot of energy to cast a powerful spell. Even with greater potential for "novas", depending on the situation, this could "spell" disastor!
Recharge Magic: (Recharge magic from unearthed arcana)
Benefit: No points, no daily limits. Just spam and cheese, all day long! In theory, it doesn't matter the setting, as you'll be making the rules with spells being used over and over and over again.
Trouble: In reality, recharge magic doesn't work this way at all. Essentially what a vancian caster could do three times per day back to back, or a powerpoint user could split down to a tolerable amount, you have to wait an hour inbetween castings to do. Even the cheapest spells may take a minute to cast again. And depending on the situation, that could be a minute too long!
Binding Magic: (Skillbased magic like the binder or truenamer class)
Benefit: Alot of diversity in that can change what spells can cast (rather then a "known spell list") and most are not limited to daily use, recharge time, or points.
Trouble: Binding is a difficult and often times sketchy proccess. In short term, it can fail based purely on badluck (failed roll), or not doing the binding ritual right. (I'm sure remembering incantations or visualizing complicated demonic sigils isn't easy) In the longterm, it can do something even worse then the other spellcasting types. Where as most just ditch you, this one can actively hurt you by leaving you possessed, insane, or extremely fatigue!
Shadow Magic: (Like shadowcaster or warlock class)
Benefit: All the delightful spam of recharge magic, without any of the downtime.
Trouble: Remember how I said wisdom doesn't help you file taxes? Well thats going to be a problem if you take shadow magic. Shadowcasters are much worse then warlocks in that if you take shadow invocation A, you must follow a spell-tree that only permits you to take shadow invocation D or I as you level later. Otherwise, you'll need to start from a lower level invocation like C and work your way up to another tree like K or Z. What the hell is B doing there all by itself?! It's either that, or the warlock version. Where you get maybe four spells your whole life. Most of which will be low level spells. Sickening Blast sounds fun at first, making someone who used to pick on you in highschool crap his pants, but after a while it gets pretty redundant and useless. Especially when you have nauseating blast which can leave him bed ridden and his best friend is a bucket to puke in.
I just want to see what people would think of such a campaign concept. What combonation would you choose? Would rolling a dice to see what combonation you get be alright with you if you knew your "team-mates" had to roll dice too and could be just as screwed as you are? (I know that would make me feel better... Hell, I'd take the dice option just so everybody else had to do cause I'm a prick!)
What time period would you prefer to be stuck in with all these spells at your disposal? More modern eras might be more accepting and not immideatly seek to kill you, but then modern eras also have the technology to put a stop to you for whatever violation they think you've done. (Charm person=the new rape?) Not to meation the government coming after you to poke and prod you yelling "FOR SCIENCE!!! INCAPCITATE THE METAHUMANS!!!" hardly sounds more attractive then the inqusition riding their hoses toward you yelling "FOR THE EMPEROR!!! KILL THE HERECTICS!!!"
The idea here is if you had the option, which sortof spellcasting type ruling would you prefer to be stuck with? First we'll talk about mental stats, then the actual type.
STATS:
Intelligence:
Benefit: Skillpoints and in RP, actually knowing a little about how and why you have magic. Perhaps bringing it down to a science.
Trouble: Most people don't realize that the highly intelligent are also socially awckward and for good reason. Alot of their ranting just sounds like gibberish, and they tend to get annoyed because they feel completely alienated noone understanding their gibberish. Intelligent people don't even get along with eachother as they'll just talk eachother's heads off. (You wouldn't believe the number of physics forums I've gotten kicked off for suggesting mass has a direct involvement with gravity...) I may have high int cause penalties in cha based skills. Something like -X equal to half your int modifier rounded down. (So +1 or lower=-0. +2 to +3=-1. +4 to +5=-2, etc.)
Wisdom:
Benefit: Will saves and five senses skill. It'll be nice to have that extra edge in sight, smell, hearing, etc. And be well grounded which you'll need to not become overwhelmed by the magic.
Trouble: Wisdom doesn't make you smart, it just makes you capable. Animals instinctively know when earthquakes and crap are coming, but they can't tell you, they don't even understand what an earthquake is. "Gut feeling" is not enough to win a court case or even do your taxes. How effective wisdom is depends vastly on the time era of this magical upsurge...
Charisma:
Benefit: Having a buff to those cha based skills will be a God send when you try to reason with people that you're not going to hurt them. (Even when you are) As well, I think charisma should also improve your will save. Because someone with enough confidence and ego is not going to be suspetable to mind control or fear the same way a normal person would be. Be it sociopaths are revolutionaries. If they could experience fear or the power of suggestion, they wouldn't do the things that they do.
Trouble: Charisma can grant fame. And fame is not always a good thing. Especially when you want to keep a low profile. Charisma can result in crazy obsessed followers, police at your doorstep, or even hatred from others as your strong personality intimidates instead of entices!
Physical Score: (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution)
Benefit: Though only suggested in the extraorindary bad psionics 3.0, and in fourth edition was done more tastefully but still kind of lame... Using physical stats for spells has obvious advantages. Improved health, more flexbility, more combat options, etc.
Trouble: What's the point of your magic being an extension of your high metabolism or washboard abs if you can't think your way out of a situation? More importantly, alot of spells would probably rely on mental stats anyway indirectly. (You'll need to have some idea of what's going on inorder to more accurately control your spells. I don't think a dog would have the intillect required to assess he's dealing with powerpoints) Granteed, I'd obviously have to give players some kind of metagaming leeway. But not when their mental scores are in the single digits!
MAGIC TYPES:
Vancian Magic: (Spells per day)
Benefit: Can cast spells pretty liberally. Are only confined to an arbitary number. In most situations, you'll have higher level spells and spam lower level spells otherwise.
Trouble: Reaching a point where vancian magic is abusable is unlikely. Only high level sorcerers get to really enjoy it. (I'd probably keep it at spontanous casters, but if it did require preperation, that would make it even worse needing somewhat decent memory capabilities... IE: a moderate intelligence, and decent will saves to not be lazy and keep yourself disciplined enough to meditate or read for an hour)
Mana Magic: (Powerpoints or spellpoints from unearthed arcana)
Benefit: Not limited to "per day" or any sortof time base. A spellcaster can determine for himself how many powerpoints is worth investing in the spell he is currently casting. Allowing him to make educated decisions rather then guessing and hoping for a good dice roll.
Trouble: Mathamatically, powerpoints is worse then the other forms of magic. You exhaust alot of energy to cast a powerful spell. Even with greater potential for "novas", depending on the situation, this could "spell" disastor!
Recharge Magic: (Recharge magic from unearthed arcana)
Benefit: No points, no daily limits. Just spam and cheese, all day long! In theory, it doesn't matter the setting, as you'll be making the rules with spells being used over and over and over again.
Trouble: In reality, recharge magic doesn't work this way at all. Essentially what a vancian caster could do three times per day back to back, or a powerpoint user could split down to a tolerable amount, you have to wait an hour inbetween castings to do. Even the cheapest spells may take a minute to cast again. And depending on the situation, that could be a minute too long!
Binding Magic: (Skillbased magic like the binder or truenamer class)
Benefit: Alot of diversity in that can change what spells can cast (rather then a "known spell list") and most are not limited to daily use, recharge time, or points.
Trouble: Binding is a difficult and often times sketchy proccess. In short term, it can fail based purely on badluck (failed roll), or not doing the binding ritual right. (I'm sure remembering incantations or visualizing complicated demonic sigils isn't easy) In the longterm, it can do something even worse then the other spellcasting types. Where as most just ditch you, this one can actively hurt you by leaving you possessed, insane, or extremely fatigue!
Shadow Magic: (Like shadowcaster or warlock class)
Benefit: All the delightful spam of recharge magic, without any of the downtime.
Trouble: Remember how I said wisdom doesn't help you file taxes? Well thats going to be a problem if you take shadow magic. Shadowcasters are much worse then warlocks in that if you take shadow invocation A, you must follow a spell-tree that only permits you to take shadow invocation D or I as you level later. Otherwise, you'll need to start from a lower level invocation like C and work your way up to another tree like K or Z. What the hell is B doing there all by itself?! It's either that, or the warlock version. Where you get maybe four spells your whole life. Most of which will be low level spells. Sickening Blast sounds fun at first, making someone who used to pick on you in highschool crap his pants, but after a while it gets pretty redundant and useless. Especially when you have nauseating blast which can leave him bed ridden and his best friend is a bucket to puke in.
I just want to see what people would think of such a campaign concept. What combonation would you choose? Would rolling a dice to see what combonation you get be alright with you if you knew your "team-mates" had to roll dice too and could be just as screwed as you are? (I know that would make me feel better... Hell, I'd take the dice option just so everybody else had to do cause I'm a prick!)
What time period would you prefer to be stuck in with all these spells at your disposal? More modern eras might be more accepting and not immideatly seek to kill you, but then modern eras also have the technology to put a stop to you for whatever violation they think you've done. (Charm person=the new rape?) Not to meation the government coming after you to poke and prod you yelling "FOR SCIENCE!!! INCAPCITATE THE METAHUMANS!!!" hardly sounds more attractive then the inqusition riding their hoses toward you yelling "FOR THE EMPEROR!!! KILL THE HERECTICS!!!"