Realms of Chaos
2013-11-01, 12:30 PM
For about a year, I have been working on a large mega-project out of making a mundane magic system. While creation is still far off, I have run into a potential issue that I wanted to ask you guys about.
Namely, do you guys consider it essential that players can only affect the world through the actions of their character?
In D&D and Pathfinder, this seems to be the assumed norm. Magic can do whatever it wants because it is magic but players of mundane characters are only capable of what can be done mundanely.
Well, you may wonder, what is the alternative? Well, the basic idea is that through the proper "spells" or class features, a player could "know" or "notice" things in the world, making them true in the process. Here are a couple of specific examples:
An ability that lets you state a minor fact (following some pretty harsh restrictions) and makes it true (obtained at very high level).
An ability that lets you notice certain details about any nonliving climbable surface to make climbing the surface more interesting.
The ability to read certain flaws in the stance of your opponent to grant you bonuses in combat.
Abilities that allow you to hone in on the location of sources of food and water (early level) or on the location of natural planar portals (high level) in the environment, though you may still have to search a large area to find the desired object.
I don't think that any of the abilities are broken or that they inherently derail adventures more than spellcasting but they rely on the player putting something into the world beyond what the character does directly.
Would you allow that type of class feature in your games? :smallconfused:
Namely, do you guys consider it essential that players can only affect the world through the actions of their character?
In D&D and Pathfinder, this seems to be the assumed norm. Magic can do whatever it wants because it is magic but players of mundane characters are only capable of what can be done mundanely.
Well, you may wonder, what is the alternative? Well, the basic idea is that through the proper "spells" or class features, a player could "know" or "notice" things in the world, making them true in the process. Here are a couple of specific examples:
An ability that lets you state a minor fact (following some pretty harsh restrictions) and makes it true (obtained at very high level).
An ability that lets you notice certain details about any nonliving climbable surface to make climbing the surface more interesting.
The ability to read certain flaws in the stance of your opponent to grant you bonuses in combat.
Abilities that allow you to hone in on the location of sources of food and water (early level) or on the location of natural planar portals (high level) in the environment, though you may still have to search a large area to find the desired object.
I don't think that any of the abilities are broken or that they inherently derail adventures more than spellcasting but they rely on the player putting something into the world beyond what the character does directly.
Would you allow that type of class feature in your games? :smallconfused: