Magic as Skills?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I'm working on a system based very loosely on D20, and I'm trying to do something different with magic. Specifically, I don't want spellpoints, Mana, Vancian or anything like that.

What would the result be mechanically if, given this is a classless system, individual Magic Spells were added to the Skills list and treated as Skills?

[Morty]

That really depends on, well, how the system works. "Loosely based on D20" can mean a lot of different things.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Few questions.

1. Are characters defined solely by what skills they have, or are there other parts to a character like Feats or Aspects or something? If so, why put magic into the skill system instead of into these other areas?

2. How do you handle spells that are strictly more powerful than other spells? There's not much point in investing in Polymorph if you can buy Shapechange for the same price.

3. How many spells are there compared to non-magical skills to invest in? Do you have to invest in magic at the expense of other skills, or do they use separate resource pools?

4. How accessible is magic supposed to be in this game?

[Gahrer]

In GURPS each spell is basically a skill, you could look into that for inspiration. As for the results - it would depend on how many skills a character can get and how powerfull each spell are. As long as you don't need any special perks to learn magic then gish-characters would probably be more common as non-mage characters easily can pick up a few buff spells or utility spells during character creation.

[Frozen_Feet]

If you're making invidual spells into skills, pick only a handful of spells which:


scale in effect, to easily determine how skill points interact with them
have broad utility. Niche effects should be folded into similarly themed spells.
are not redundant. To comment on one above posters, DO NOT have separate Polymorph and Shapechange (or the like). Have one skill for one basic funtion - so one skill for transformation, one for creating fire, one for summoning etc.


It might suit you to take a look at Psionics, because Powers are already built with a point-based augmentation mechanic in mind, and are (generally) less redundant in comparison to each other.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

That really depends on, well, how the system works. "Loosely based on D20" can mean a lot of different things.

Ah, good point. Well, it's classless except for races (you advance in a Racial Class at a staggered rate, gaining powers and bonuses slowly as your people do such as Vampires or Elves). It uses the basic D20 roll resolution, and health die and skill points are determined via racial class (ie; Humans get more skill points than everyone else, but those other races get free magic or bigger bonuses to a limited number of skills).

I'll try to think of more if it's helpful.


1. Are characters defined solely by what skills they have, or are there other parts to a character like Feats or Aspects or something? If so, why put magic into the skill system instead of into these other areas?

Characters are defined by their Stats/Attributes and Skills. There are no Feats in this system. Most feats just add a number to a skill or attack, or something. I want to make magic something that takes time to build up (like a skill), and while magic may not be amazing at level 1 (almost all magic is utility with nearly zero offensive spells), a character near to then of their career who spent their skill points on magic should be truly respected for the power they wield (not that it can stop a bullet, but oh well).


2. How do you handle spells that are strictly more powerful than other spells? There's not much point in investing in Polymorph if you can buy Shapechange for the same price.

I've more or less rewritten the spells allowed (Polymorph and Shapechange are basically the same thing), and am going with a very loose interpretation for how they work (at the moment). See below.


Elemental
Fire - control fire
Water - control water
Wood - manipulate wood
Wind - control wind

Hoodoo
Bless - +# to given stat or ability of ally
Curse - -# from given stat or ability of enemy
Shadow - manipulate shadows
Control - forcefully take control of another's body

Psionic
Telepathy - mind control/communication
Divination - see future events, present events far away
Illusion - create false images and sounds
Astral Projection - project intangible form across space and time

Esoteric
Force - telekinesis, force push
Shapeshift - transform self
Teleportation - magical transportation
Transmutation - transform other person or object('s quality)

Universal
Energy - electricity (no fine control)
Summon - conjure ally/weapon/item from another plane
Life - heal, shield
Flight - fly speed



3. How many spells are there compared to non-magical skills to invest in? Do you have to invest in magic at the expense of other skills, or do they use separate resource pools?

There are 20 magic spells so far, and 38 or so other skills. They all use the same Skillpoint Pool, so the equivalent of a Wizard in this setting can either be very skillful or very magical, but not really both as how they usually are in D20 systems.


4. How accessible is magic supposed to be in this game?

The idea I'm currently using is that a lot of races have some amount of magic naturally. For everyone else, they must learn the spells in-game from a teacher or book or whatever before they can devote skill points into a specific spell (although they can reserve skill points between levels to put down towards these spells). Of course, the main setting is operating under Magic-Prohibition, so that might be more difficult...


In GURPS each spell is basically a skill, you could look into that for inspiration. As for the results - it would depend on how many skills a character can get and how powerfull each spell are. As long as you don't need any special perks to learn magic then gish-characters would probably be more common as non-mage characters easily can pick up a few buff spells or utility spells during character creation.

Gish characters would be very common, and I kind of like that. I'll look into GURPS for some more info, thank you.

[Terumitsu]

I asked this exact question a while ago and was directed to Ars Magica. Really great for inspiration. Plus, you can make up quite a lot of pseudo-spells on the fly for when you need a certain effect but only if you have the proper points in a given skill. It'll take a bit of work given that it uses d10s but it isn't terribly difficult as a basic idea.

[Grac]

If keeping with the D20 thing, you might want to check out the Star Wars Revised d20 game to see how it handles force powers, specifically the way it generalises and divides powers to make it fit with the normal skill system.

[Kane0]

So its kind of like truenamer? But more skills instead of one?

It could work, i mean have a skill for each spell school and possibly a seperate progression for progressing them and it makes it easier to manage.

[GolemsVoice]

I think it's a great idea, but I'd make sure that even a small investment already proves useful, under the given circumstances. If you have to sink a ton of points into, say, fireball jsut to reliably be able to cast it and do more than neglegible damage, it will feel like a chore that you're required to go through before the thing your "class" is about, casting, get's viable.