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da prophet
2013-05-25, 05:00 PM
well two of my Three favorite fantasy books have gotten an rpg (Wheel of time and a song of ice and fire) so what more could i ask for?
well i want to homebrew Eragon and my thoughts is, let Magic be op but not availabe if you do not spend sick much xp on it (and then only weak Things)
and my issue is, how would you guys suggest making the Magic system? i want something true to the book, not like what they did to Wheel of time!

LordErebus12
2013-05-30, 06:50 PM
well two of my Three favorite fantasy books have gotten an rpg (Wheel of time and a song of ice and fire) so what more could i ask for?
well i want to homebrew Eragon and my thoughts is, let Magic be op but not availabe if you do not spend sick much xp on it (and then only weak Things)
and my issue is, how would you guys suggest making the Magic system? i want something true to the book, not like what they did to Wheel of time!

its an interesting concept. it would make casting much harder to do.
If casting a spell dealt nonlethal damage to you in return for casting, as well as requiring a check (similar to how my "Casting as a Skill" link in my signature does it), it would dramatically change how magic funtions.

[3.5] Maginomicon's Vitalizing Subvariant Fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=285871) has some neat concepts that might work in part as well.

redfeline
2013-05-30, 07:02 PM
I would suggest the same, perhaps on damage even a 1 to 1 ratio. nonlethal damage is definitely the way the book is.

I would probably break the system into two options, dragon rider level and Roran level. That way people are on the same page. Magic at Roran's level will be like Cram small but usable effects at great risk. Dragon rider level would be a post story setting, characters would be elves with advanced experience or Riders and fight shades.

Magic I would break into 2 or 3 skills or attributes. First we have vocabulary, you know the word or you don't. Next we have power, how easy it is to grab your magic (separate from how much you can do before exhaustion), lastly I might figure a number to represent a persons skill at making word to spell jumps. (Say ice to make a diamond was an example, albeit one that doesn't make sense the rest of the series.)

LordErebus12
2013-05-30, 07:04 PM
I would suggest the same, perhaps on damage even a 1 to 1 ratio. nonlethal damage is definitely the way the book is.

I would probably break the system into two options, dragon rider level and Roran level. That way people are on the same page. Magic at Roran's level will be like Cram small but usable effects at great risk. Dragon rider level would be a post story setting, characters would be elves with advanced experience or Riders and fight shades.

Magic I would break into 2 or 3 skills or attributes. First we have vocabulary, you know the word or you don't. Next we have power, how easy it is to grab your magic (separate from how much you can do before exhaustion), lastly I might figure a number to represent a persons skill at making word to spell jumps. (Say ice to make a diamond was an example, albeit one that doesn't make sense the rest of the series.)

perhaps being dragon bound simply gives you a non-lethal damage pool for magic, allowing you to use more.

also, remember that you can steal life from everything to fuel magic.

sounds like Dark Sun's Defilers

Grinner
2013-05-30, 07:57 PM
I've only read the first two books, but I recall that there were at least two other forms of magic as well: herbalism and summoning.

redfeline
2013-05-30, 09:36 PM
Those are not all that fleshed out herbalism and summoning, but I would expect from context herbalism gives the option to bypass drawing from ones magic pool. Summoning from context adds power so probably a higher nonlethal pool, until you fail a check and have it turn on you.

I forgot in my skill list before. Mind reading and mind fighting are a skill. Some magic users only have this form of magic and no other skills.

bobthe6th
2013-05-30, 10:34 PM
Among the amazing number of lose ends amassed in the series(even with an entire book devoted to carefully tieing them all up...), summoning and herbalism are pretty much unexplained(summoning only really seems to be good for getting yourself killed, and herbalism's only shown practitioners are insane and seem to be using no magic...).

Really, E6 would be the way to go... with elves being a non-PC race. Really, magic is utterly insane and unbalanced if done properly. Save or Dies as dirt cheap, and healing as impossibly expensive.

As long as the adventures stayed human sized, you could get away with it. Treat "magical" creatures as eldrich horrors that mean a TPK, and it would play like a normal RPG.

atomicpenguin
2013-05-30, 11:02 PM
The way magic works in the Inheritance series is one of the only things that Paolini impressed me with. It's still not the most clever system I've ever read about but it was well thought out and interesting. Essentially, magic is simply magic. Paolini never goes into the mechanics of it and honestly that suits a fantasy series just fine. So the real question is how it is done. For most, magic is performed by speaking the Ancient Language, a language which all things speak (except when they can't because they're too busy trying not to fall into plot holes) and in which all things are named. If you can't find a machanic to play around with this (I'm pretty sure there's one in 3.5's Unearthed Arcana), you should make a system where magic is based on the words of power you know.

The dragon riders are an obvious point to include here. In addition to using the Ancient Language, riders have a form of sponsored power from their dragons, which are inherently magical. Any concerns about dragon riders being OP are justified and any attempts at balancing riders with other magical classes would just ruin them, because the allure of riders is how powerful they are. The way I see it, you can either keep players from playing them, make them some really hard to get prestige class, or take inspiration from how slayers were handled in the Buffy RPG.

Magicians are similar to riders in every way magically except that they don't have dragons to sponsor them, meaning that they can only use their own internal will. As a result, magicians are comparatively weak. This can be done fairly simply by transplanting the arcane class of your choice, with the words of power mechanic if you desire.

Sorcerers gain power by making deals with spirits. However, these spirits rarely want to play nice and, if overpowered, a sorcerer can be possessed by the spirit and become a shade. For this, I would say that, before doing magic, a sorcerer must perform a ritual (how long it takes is up to you) and perform some kind of contest with a spirit (you can make a table to roll on to see how strong/malicious the spirit is). Once completed successfully, the sorcerer can behave like the sorcerer class in DnD, maybe with a power boost for his trouble.

Lastly are witches and wizards, who get their power through potions, bone readings, and other such means. Not much is known about this kind of magic and it is probably in your best interest to keep it that way. I guess the key thing is to emphasize potion making and make the rest feel ritualistic and occult-y.

Grinner
2013-05-30, 11:25 PM
Hey, that one sorceress at the...dwarf fortress, was it? What was that snake armband thing she had? She said something about it being a familiar. Was it actually a bound spirit?

redfeline
2013-05-30, 11:58 PM
No it was not a bound spirit. Turns out spirits scare her for good reason. As such in the rebel group she has summoned a spirit only once. The familiar is something else tied to her magic training.

da prophet
2013-05-31, 07:27 AM
I would suggest the same, perhaps on damage even a 1 to 1 ratio. nonlethal damage is definitely the way the book is.

I would probably break the system into two options, dragon rider level and Roran level. That way people are on the same page. Magic at Roran's level will be like Cram small but usable effects at great risk. Dragon rider level would be a post story setting, characters would be elves with advanced experience or Riders and fight shades.

Magic I would break into 2 or 3 skills or attributes. First we have vocabulary, you know the word or you don't. Next we have power, how easy it is to grab your magic (separate from how much you can do before exhaustion), lastly I might figure a number to represent a persons skill at making word to spell jumps. (Say ice to make a diamond was an example, albeit one that doesn't make sense the rest of the series.)

that was very clever, thanks that may be very cool to try out, but as With most fantasy, Balance would be painfull, so maybe something With having to use xp to start as an elf or something, as an epic human is like the most lame elf ever:smallbiggrin:

redfeline
2013-05-31, 01:37 PM
that was very clever, thanks that may be very cool to try out, but as With most fantasy, Balance would be painfull, so maybe something With having to use xp to start as an elf or something, as an epic human is like the most lame elf ever:smallbiggrin:

Sounds to me like you need to use a point buy system like gurps or maybe a tiered system like savage worlds.

I disagree on the epic humans. The epic humans kill elves and better in the series. Angela, the herbalist, is an epic human and it is hinted that the elves respect her to the point of fear. Her master is likely a similar level. Lord Bras or what ever the one guys name was had magic gear and kicked the butt of the elves.

I see it as a system where the magic user, if clever can beat the nonmagic user. That is the defining separation. To be an epic human noncaster requires a shell of wards or magic items, not to different from DnD.

da prophet
2013-05-31, 05:25 PM
Yes, an idea starts to form around m&m (point buy)

And I think you are into something with how nonmagicians may survive, I may try this out on my gaming group, if they are interested:)

Pyromancer999
2013-05-31, 06:38 PM
If you don't mind Pathfinder, Super Genius Games has the Dragon Rider, which could be at least a good start.

redfeline
2013-05-31, 07:20 PM
Yes, an idea starts to form around m&m (point buy)

And I think you are into something with how nonmagicians may survive, I may try this out on my gaming group, if they are interested:)

M&M = mutants and masterminds? Because I have the dc variant and may be able to help more mechanically.

CinuzIta
2013-06-01, 03:58 AM
If I remember well, in Tome of Magic there is a class called True Namer, that bases his spellcasting abilities on learning the true names of things in the universe in order to bow them to her will..At the moment I don't remember how this system works at all, but you may consider taking a look at it, to me it seems to be fitting the theme! One of the point of the class, for example, is learning your own true name (Eragon himself comes to mind).

Anyway Dragon Rider should definitely be a prestige class with quite high prerequisite, while magic as a skill could work. In the end, everyone has the potential to use magic in the Inheritance world, Roran himself start to practice with the stone ("stenr reisa", am I correct?:) ) and after a while he was able to use a little bit of magic if I do remember well! And he surely didn't do a dip in a spellcasting class:)

In my humble opinion, to be honest, every spellcasting class (apart from a base one) should be a prc, reflecting how the spellcaster decide to specialize himself (summoning, spirit bounding and that kind of things). Lastly, about herbalism, someone some years ago started a thread (unfinished) called The Laboratory: Alchemy and Herbalism, when he was proposing a new subsystem..with a little bit of google fu you can easily find it. In my opinion this could be another good way to introduce Angela's herbalism.:)

Hanuman
2013-06-01, 06:15 AM
Magic used to be OP, and to be honest even with saves and SR, concentration checks, ACF, ect. it still is.

If you're saying "I cast X spell so you are X now" kind of thing try shadowrun4.0, even at low level you can cast resistance-or-useless on them in a variety of different ways.

redfeline
2013-06-01, 10:53 AM
Roran never manages to do magic. He just fights balls to the walls while still out thinking his opponent. Earagon may be better educated, but I suspect Roran is smarter.

I personally feel magic in that world is less op then it at first seems. Yes you can draw power from the environment and yes there are 7 or 12 spells that kill with nearly no energy, but both of those and most similar feats are secrets that nearly no spell caster knows. Even the main villain didn't know magic could be used with out words.

Zweisteine
2013-06-01, 03:26 PM
Warning: I didn't read the rest of the thread, so this may have been suggested already.


If you're considering HP costs for magic, look into psionics (D&D 3.X-style). If you took the 3.5 Psion, gave him a different system of powers known (I'm trying no to to get distracted by those details), and gave him fewer power points (as few as half, or fewer, even), you could say that after he's out of PP he has to spend HP to use magic.