Help me build the spellplague

[OracleofSilence]

while perusing the books of Faerun, i found that the spellplague is never mechanically described. I am involved in a campaign that occurs during this undocumented period of history period, and have given up finding the mechanics in the books. are there any suggestions on the forums as to what the spellplague should do?

the party is currently 6th level. Members are a Drow (modded for 0 LA) Warblade, a Human Factotum/Marshal, and a Human Psion. (Psionics and magic only effect each other with a successful psicraft/spellcraft check), with a human (i think) druid joining soon.

what are level balanced effects to mirror the spellplague for this group? any and all idea's are appreciated.

[herrhauptmann]

Here's the basics I'd use for Time of Troubles:
Clerics and other divine casters: No casting unless within X miles of the avatar of your particular deity.

Arcane Casters: Spellcraft check each time you use an item or cast a spell to avoid it going awry. DC gets worse the higher level the spell is, and the higher level the caster is. This will justify Elminster and Kelben being afraid to cast Light at the very end of the ToT in the novels.
DC also gets worse as the ToT continues.
DC gets easier when within X miles of a deity. Particularly Mystra.
If a spell goes awry, consult random effect table.
Should have it similar to an encounter table, with things like "roll twice and combine" But the random effect tables should alter depending on how powerful the spell was, and how bad you failed the spellcraft check.
Should always have at least a 20% chance of failure for that check.


The problem with the Spellplague/Returned Abeir, that's how WoTC justified shifting to a different pantheon, new casting system, AND adding so many other things to Faerun. But you knew that already.

Perhaps take my ToT guidelines, and include a lot of junk with aberrations in there too. Or Arcane casters have to make a difficult spellcraft check to cast their spells. The check DC increases as time goes on, and the higher level the spell is.
And since magic items are created with at certain casterlevels, the DM would have to make a check for each item used. That wand of magic missile at CL 1? Not likely to work when needed. Another wand of Magic missile, at CL 9, better chance of it working. Ditto for potions, and even permanent magic effects like weapons and armor.
If an item or spell fails badly enough, it could create a bit (a lot) of blue fire. Reflex save to avoid (no avoiding if you drank a potion that failed).
Then if someone gets touched with blue fire, consult another table to determine what happens to them.
I know, a lot of rolling. But you can make it easier to make all the tables if you give your players the guidelines, and have them help you in making the tables.