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dj2145
2007-02-02, 05:43 PM
Ok, I have devised a concept to keep spellcasting at a minimum. This is a rough draft so I encourage feedback as Id like to see what you all think. The basic premise is that the world was once your normal d&d type world but an event occurreed that made magical energies somewhat "wild". Spellcasters will be limited on the number of spells they can take per level, including clerics, so that will slow the process even more. Let me know what you think.

Thanks!
DJ

* * * * *
Spellcasting:

In order to cast a spell a spell caster must first make a Spellcraft check. The difficulty class of casting said spell is ten plus the spell level squared. Thus, in order to cast a second level spell a Wizard must make a successful Spellcraft against DC 14 (10+22). This formula creates an exponential increase in the difficulty class of the spell.

DC = 10 + spell level squared

So, the base DC* to cast a given spell is as follows:
0th 10 + 02 = 10 06
1st 10 + 12 = 11 06
2nd 10 + 22 = 14 08
3rd 10 + 32 = 19 10
4th 10 + 42 = 26 12
5th 10 + 52 = 35 14
6th 10 + 62 = 46 16
7th 10 + 72 = 59 18
8th 10 + 82 = 74 20
9th 10 + 92 = 91 22
*A roll of 1 for the Spellcraft check is always a fail.

The difficulty to cast each successive level is exponentially harder. So difficult is it to control higher level spells, in fact, that it is rare for a spell user to ever attempt anything beyond 3rd or 4th level. Even a Mage who has dedicated his life to magics and achieves 20th level would be hard pressed to attempt to cast a spell anywhere beyond the 5th level.

Spellcasting Mishaps

If a spell caster fails his Spellcraft check two things happen. First, the spell is cast (or fails) and the effects are modified as indicated on the table below. The number to use is determined by subtracting the spell casters Spellcraft check result from the DC for the spell cast. A roll of 1 is treated as a -10 and is deducted from all modifiers for the purposes of this table. That number is then used to determine the mishap on the table below.

Mishap Table
# Effect
01 Spell functions, but it backlashes slightly, causing 1 point of temporary ability damage (determined randomly)
02 Spell functions at -1 caster level
03 Spell functions at -2 caster level
04 Spell transforms, roll randomly for a new spell of same level and caster type. Ignore duplicate result.
05 Spell functions, but it backlashes, causing 1 point of temporary ability damage to all attributes.
06 Spell fails
07 Spell fails, and the caster is Slowed (no save) for d4 rounds
08 Spell functions, but it also backlashes onto the caster causing d6 damage/spell level cast (reflex save DC 15+spell level for half damage)
09 Spell rebounds on caster
10 Spell affects a random target within range
11 Spell affects a random ally within range
12 Spell fizzles, but instead all creatures within 30' (including caster) are Healed or Harmed randomly.
13 Spell instead conjures a monster per the summon monster table. The monster will be from the table of the same level as that of the spell cast and will be a diametrically opposed alignment. It will also be hostile to the spell caster and will spawn at the point of attack of the original spell.
14 Spell rebounds on caster at twice the maximum effect. If the spells intent was beneficial the effects are reversed. (i.e. A Magic Missile spell would reverse and do damage on the caster. A Bless spell would reverse and confer a -2 penalty rather than a +2 penalty. )
15 A dimensional rift is created which sucks caster in (treat as dimension door). Caster is transported in a random direction at the maximum allowed distance and reappears “safely” the next round. No save allowed.
16+ Spell caster gets 1 point of taint. Take result, subtract 15, and consult table again.
31+ Spell caster gets 3 points of taint. Take result, subtract 30, and consult table again.
46+ Spell caster gets 5 points of taint. Take result, subtract 45, and consult table again.
61+ Spell caster vaporizes and is killed instantly.

For Example: A 4th level Wizard is attempting to cast Melf’s Acid Arrow. The caster has a +2 Int modifier and 7 ranks in Spellcraft for a total modifier of 9. His DC for a second level spell is 08, normally a sure bet! Unfortunately the wizards die roll is a 1 which, for the purposes of the mishap table, is treated as a -10. Subtracting 10 from his modifier of 9, the wizard consults the Mishap Table for the effects of his mishap. In addition, he rolls % to determine if he collects a point of taint from the failure. See below for more on Taint.


Extraordinary Success Table
Much like a mishap, a spell caster who passes his Spellcraft check with an extraordinary result could potentially be rewarded with greater than expected results. The very nature of the eddies and currents of magical energies on Mal Nahg present just such an opportunity. When a spell caster attempts to form a spell these energies begin to grow at the point of effect. Much like a magnet attracts metal a spell caster is attracting these energies with the hope of controlling them and forming them to his preference. At times, if properly manipulated, the results can be fantastic.

As with the mishap table the spell caster takes the difference of the roll, this time the number of points over the DC, and consults the table below. A natural 20, for the purposes of this table, is treated as a 30.

# Effect
21 Spell functions at twice caster level for radius and damage purposes.
22 Spell functions at +1 caster level.
23 Spell functions at +2 caster level.
24 Spell is Maximised and gives a -2 penalty to saves against it.
25 The target automatically fails any saving throw against the spell.
26 The target makes any saves at a -4 penalty, and the spell is Maximised and Empowered.
27 Spell instead conjures a monster per the summon monster table. The monster will be from the table of the same level as that of the spell cast and will be the same alignment. It will also be friendly to the spell caster and will spawn at the point of attack of the original spell.
28 The spell transforms into any spell of one level higher than that cast, wether the caster could normally cast that spell or not. If this effect is not desired the caster may instead use the effects for 21.
29 The spell is as that listed in effect 26 but chains to up to three additional targets within the spells radius of effect. If the spell is a touch spell the effect jumps to one additional target within 30’
30 The spell is that listed in effect 26. In addition, the spell caster experiences a chanelling of energies commonly referred to as a mystic surge where he has inadvertently tapped into a large surplus of energies. All Spellcraft rolls for the remainder of the encounter will be at +10.
31+ Spell functions in any way desired above and additionally grants a 1 point temporary ability boost to all attributes.

Taint
Taint is a sort of latent energy that attaches itself to a caster. It is the remaining energy of a failed spell that is not manifested into the effect of the casting. This taint, in small amounts, is unnoticeable. As more and more accumulates, however, the caster will begin to suffer the effects in a variety of ways. Ultimately the caster may resist these effects but only at the expense of becoming a beacon for a far greater danger, the Matholich!

Feeding on inert arcane and divine energies, the Matholich is attracted to such carriers like a Moth is to a flame. The more taint that a caster builds up the more he becomes a target for the Matholich’s hunger. In order to expend these energies a caster has a variety of options, none of them good, but they are the lesser of two evils for certain. In effect the caster may spend his taint to acquire flaws and penalties. These hurt the caster for certain but do expend the taint and make life far safer. All of these options may be taken multiple times and the effects do stack.

Taint Effect
1 Permanent loss of 1 Hp
1 Age by 5% of life expectancy.
2 Hemophelia, lose +1 Hp per round when below 0.
2 Clouded thoughts, -1 on all WILL saves.
2 Hip joints deteriorating, -1 on all REF saves.
2 Chronic sickness, -1 on all FORT saves.
2 Physical deformity (scar, loss of hair, etc.) -1 on all CHA based skills.
2 Deteriorating Vision, 10% miss chance on all ranged attacks.
3 -1 penalty on Spellcraft checks
3 Permanent loss of 1 Attribute point
5 Permanently lose access to known spell.

Journey
2007-02-02, 05:57 PM
I think that's a pretty poorly conceived way to reduce spell casting. The first problem is that even with very powerful intelligence and Spellcraft skill enhancing feats and magic items (this latter is highly unlikely in such a world) no character is ever going to make a DC 91 check without DM fudging or reaching far into the epic levels (we're talking 40+ at minimum). Your table is incomprehensible, so I might be misreading it. Here's what I gather from it: DC = 10 + (spell level)^2. So your example is flawed. The DC for a 2nd level spell isn't "08", it's 10 + 4 = 14.

There are much more clever ways to impose low magic that also allow you to add flavor to a campaign. What I have always done to contain spell casters in D&D is to strictly enforce material components rules, restrict available components by geography, and be very parsimonious with handing out spell scrolls and tomes (thus requiring the character to conduct magic research in order to gain power). Edit to add this: I also am very stingy with the "automatic" spells at each class level--the character absolutely doesn't get this unless he's been exposed to the spells he wants in some way in the game (and I don't mean as a target; he has to have researched them, run across hints at their nature; trained with some wizard who knows them; etc.). This is usually sufficient without burdening everybody with yet more rules and charts to look up.

Matthew
2007-02-02, 06:04 PM
You might also want to take a look at the Low Magic Campaign - Arcane Scholar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28033&page=4) thread and the Skill based Magic System (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32687&goto=nextnewest) thread.

Shadow
2007-02-13, 12:57 AM
This was from another thread.

I'm very tempted to try a game where there are no full spellcasters.


I've done this. I was inspired by a book I read once.
There were no wizards/sorcerers/clerics/druids/bards, etc. No casters at all actually. Any class that would have had limited casting available later was required to take the non-spell casting variant.
All of the players started play with a special ability, similar to the way psionic wild talents were run in AD&D. Some were actual spells or psionic powers. Others were crafted my me. All of these "gifts", as I called them, were decided by me (based on character concepts and so on) and given to the players in secret.
Each was unique and each was usable a certain number of times per day, or at will, depending on the power of the gift.
"Sorcerer" was an evil-required prestige class. Sorcerers sought out and killed those special individuals that had "gifts", trapping thier souls to harness the power of these gifts for thier own use.

It was a great game, and the players loved the change.
Not having the use of healing magics (unless that was your gift) really put the players on the edge of thier seats.
I've been wanting to play it myself for a long time, seeing how much they all loved it.

thought you'd like to read it.

kamikasei
2007-02-13, 02:18 AM
In general I am opposed to weakening people by making their abilities unreliable. Leave the use of the abilities as-is but tone down the power level of the abilities directly.

I'm reminded of a passage in a book (either "Trigger Happy" by Stephen Poole or "Hackers" by Stephen Levy) describing how one of the first computer games, "Spacewar", was modified to make the missiles you fired randomly miss sometimes, however well you had them targeted: for "realism". It was terrible; people weren't playing for realism but to exercise and develop skill, and the new rule was endlessly frustrating to them. Similarly, this idea seems to me a recipe for driving magic-users to break down and stab the DM in the head. With a fork.

A better idea I think for your 'magic disaster' world would be to weaken everything magic-related, spells, weapons, items etc. Say that nothing more powerful than a +1 item or 2nd-level spell is available. Make the unlocking of more powerful abilities the subject of quests. Above all, let the players use the abilities they have reliably.

Inyssius Tor
2007-02-13, 03:08 AM
First, you need a lesson in homebrew phrasing:

1. Read the Guide to Homebrewing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10313).

2. What are all these numbers in your table?
0th 10 + 02 = 10 06 What? "0th" I understand. "10" I understand. "+ 02" is incorrect and probably a typo, as 0 squared is obviously not 2 [Wait, did you mean + 0^2?] "= 10" is correct. "06" ... what is this number? Is it the minimum roll required to cast a spell of that level? If so, it is also incorrect.

3. This is the important one. Around here, tables look like this:
{table=head]Spell Level|Spell Level[br]Squared|Total DC

0th|
0|
10

1st|
1|
11

2nd|
4|
14

3rd|
9|
19

4th|
16|
26

5th|
25|
35

6th|
36|
46

7th|
49|
59

8th|
64|
74

9th|
81|
91
[/table]
The HTML for that:
{table=head]Spell Level|Spell Level[br]Squared|Total DC

0th|
0|
10

1st|
1|
11

2nd|
4|
14

3rd|
9|
19

4th|
16|
26

5th|
25|
35

6th|
36|
46

7th|
49|
59

8th|
64|
74

9th|
81|
91
[/table]


I'll post an actual critique later, at a sensible hour. I am not very sane at the moment.

Spasticteapot
2007-02-13, 03:18 AM
Y'know, the whole "Spellcraft" check thing is cake if you play a wizard with a high enough intelligence. All you need to do is pump all the resulting skill points into Spellcraft, combine it with your already high ability score modifier, and you can whip out spells of levels 1-3 without fail.

Jade_Tarem
2007-02-13, 03:32 AM
Nice taint penalties. 20 failures later, the caster dies of old age and is unable to be ressurected ever! Sign me up!

I'ma have to agree with the others on how to make magic less prevalent - make it harder to access, not unreliable. Omnithus the Wizard, on the Coast of Sabers, an elven sage who has been casting for 753 years, really shouldn't have a chance of blowing himself to hell on cantrips, which is possible under your system. I think. Might want to clear up the tables just a bit.

You also run into some serious problems with plot. You restrict anything and everything that has anything to do with powerful magic of any sort by making it highly chaotic and dangerous (which is incongruous with all prepared casters, btw.). That's no problem in lower level games, when Grokgnash the Ogre Chief is the bad guy, but when you get to higher levels you'd better not have a plot that features:

"Looking through the notebook of the recently slain Hartais, you see, in detail, a plan through which a planar portal will be opened and summon powerful demons under the command of..."

Because one of your players is going to find the incongruity:

P1: "Wait, this ritual is going to open a portal to summon demons? That's a pretty big risk, there..."
You: "What?"
P1: "This portal will open if we don't stop Leskron, right? I mean, he's just gonna do the ritual, no, like, safeguards or anything?"
You: "I still don't follow..."
P1: "Well, I mean, Gate is one of the few things that can do that, and that's just for one demon, and it must have a huge percent failure rate. Here he has this spell that can summon more of that, so it's failure rate must be even higher!"
P2: "Yeah, just yesterday I casted Scorching Ray and wound up 4500 feet in the air with 7.3 Charisma damage and my underwear inside out! I bet this guy's head spins and explodes!"
P3: *Senses Shinanigens* "Sounds to me like the best plan is to just let Leskron get himself killed, then."
You: "No no no... It doesn't work like that. This is, uh, demonic magic, completely failure proof."
P1: *also senses Shinanigens* "Great, this guy has foolproof magic, how are we supposed to take him on?
P3: "We'll be wiped for sure... unless there's something we're missing."
Random NPC: "Sirs, I come from the (insert place PCs have aided before), with a gift! The wizards in the area have successfully researched a spell that can seal the portal forever, equal in power to the UltraGate spell!"
P2: *catching on* "Is it demonic?"
RNPC: "Er...no?"
P2: "We don't touch it."
You: "No, no, wait!..."

If your players are still at the table, then you've got some good friends there, or at least a crew of players without rides home. Perhaps my example was verbose and unfair, but I think it gets the message across: Making magic so amazingly random (yet consistantly negative) will close off options that merely restricting the magic will not.

Assuming that you go ahead with this anyway, try to remember that the casters should get something in exchange for this monstrosity, as players tend to handle a straight nerf (especially an incomprehensibly complex straight nerf) by simply avoiding the nerfed area of the game. You're going to end up with a crew of barbs, fighters, monks, and rogues if you aren't careful.

Jack Mann
2007-02-13, 03:48 AM
Once again, I must point someone to Arcana Evolved, by Monte Cook. The magic system there is consistent, but still quite a bit weaker than the spellcasting system in D&D. It's not low magic, really, but it shows the lines to go down. What you'll want to do is create a new spell list for casters, and rewrite spells so that they're not as powerful. It's a lot of work, but it's probably the best way to make this work.

Also, if you do seriously down-grade magic, consider creating new classes to use magic. A greatly weakened spellcasting system might not be enough to sustain a class entirely, so you may want to give them other class features to make up for it. Otherwise you may as well make all spellcasters NPCs.

kamikasei
2007-02-13, 03:59 AM
Y'know, the whole "Spellcraft" check thing is cake if you play a wizard with a high enough intelligence. All you need to do is pump all the resulting skill points into Spellcraft, combine it with your already high ability score modifier, and you can whip out spells of levels 1-3 without fail.

Let's work that out.

We'll take a Wizard starting at level 1 with 18 Intelligence, keeping max ranks in Spellcraft and putting each point of ability toward Int as he levels. (Item bonuses won't factor in here, for simplicity - anyway, it's a low-magic world, right?)

At each level the highest Spellcraft check he can make is a 20 + his level + 3 + his Int modifier.

{table=head]Level|Int|Max DC|Max Spell|Spell DC


1|
18
|
28
|
1
|
11

2|
18
|
29
|
1
|
11

3|
18
|
30
|
2
|
14


4|
19
|
31
|
2
|
14


5|
19
|
32
|
3
|
19

6|
19
|
33
|
3
|
19

7|
19
|
34
|
4
|
26

8|
20
|
36
|
4
|
26

9|
20
|
37
|
5
|
35

10|
20
|
38
|
5
|
35

11|
20
|
39
|
6
|
46

12|
21
|
40
|
6
|
46

13|
21
|
41
|
7
|
59

14|
21
|
42
|
7
|
59

15|
21
|
43
|
8
|
74

16|
22
|
45
|
8
|
74

17|
22
|
46
|
9
|
91

18|
22
|
47
|
9
|
91

19|
22
|
48
|
9
|
91

20|
23
|
49
|
9
|
91

[/table]

This means it's not just rare but completely impossible for a caster to ever cast a spell higher than 6th level; and he can only cast that on reaching level 17. Past level 10 it's impossible for the player to cast the highest level of spells that he ought to have access to; and indeed, from 10-20 he gets precisely one power increase, when 6th level spells open up at level 17. And remember, these are when he's rolling twenties.

So, yeah, this scheme pretty much totally destroys spell progression.

edit:

Thus, in order to cast a second level spell a Wizard must make a successful Spellcraft against DC 14...


A 4th level Wizard is attempting to cast Melf’s Acid Arrow. ...His DC for a second level spell is 08...

So uh, how does this work?

More basically, what's the point in an exponential progression in spell DC when the wizard's abilities all increase linearly?

spotmarkedx
2007-02-13, 06:00 AM
I'd be cool with this exponential progression and backlash thing if the following changes were made:

1> Remove the "natural 1 = backlash" for reasons stated above. Gah. If you must have an element of more chance on the die roll, at least do the "roll of 1 = -10, roll of 20 = 30" Consider doing this for all skills for consistancy.
2> Allow these checks to be accumulated over multiple rounds. Make the player state at the beginning how many rounds they are allocationg to make sure they cast their spell, but allow them that option.

So if Bob McWizard, level five, tries to cast fireball, he can risk it all to try to get that spell off immediately. Lets see, +4 int, 8 ranks, skillfocus +3 is a +15 bonus, so he's only got a 15% chance of hosing himself there. If the need is dire he could take that risk. Or if things are less dire, let him take the extra round to accumulate the necessary "magic energies". Gives the enemies time to attack and break his concentration, or if they've spellcraft, at least mitigate the damage ("it's a fireball! spread out, men") Even with his lower level spells he's better off taking a couple rounds just in case he rolls a one, meaning a reasonable wizard almost never will be casting a spell a round.

Of course this makes counterspelling way easy.