D&D: the Gathering

[Yakk]

As has been done many times before, and will be done many times again, here is an attempt to inject some M:tG feel into a D&D magic system.

Lands By Caster Level
{table=head]Level|Lands|Innate[br]Mana|Hand[br]Size|Draw[br]Speed

1st|
2|
0|
1|
1

2nd|
3|
1|
1|
1

3rd|
4|
1|
2|
1

4th|
5|
1|
2|
1

5th|
6|
1|
2|
2

6th|
7|
2|
3|
2

7th|
8|
2|
3|
2

8th|
9|
2|
3|
2

9th|
10|
2|
4|
2

10th|
11|
3|
4|
2

11th|
12|
3|
4|
3

12th|
13|
3|
5|
3

13th|
14|
3|
5|
3

14th|
15|
4|
5|
3

15th|
16|
4|
6|
3

16th|
17|
4|
6|
3

17th|
18|
4|
6|
4

18th|
19|
5|
7|
4

19th|
20|
5|
7|
4

20th|
21|
5|
7|
4[/table]

I'm using a deck, but it is only used for land cards.

Total Lands: The number of lands you can have linked to you. Aka, your deck size.

Innate Mana: The mana that is innate to yourself, not drawn from lands. This mana is always single-coloured.

Hand Size: The number of cards from your deck you have pre-drawn, and your max hand size. If you pass this limit at the end of your turn, place the extra lands on the bottom of your deck.

Draw Speed: How many lands you can draw per turn from your deck.

Deploying your Lands:
Deploying the link to a land card (playing it) is a move-equivilent action that does not provoke an AoO.

Detecting a Land being deployed within 50' is a DC 20 check. If one can see the person deploying the land, one can take 10 on this check. Note that (other than taking 10) this does not need line of sight -- one can feel the land being deployed even through a wall or a door. If someone has land deployed and enters within 50' of you, you can also detect it.

Keeping land deployed is about as fatiguing as engaging in combat.

Casting Spells:
To cast a spell, the player must have sufficient mana availiable. You don't burn the mana to cast the spell -- rather, your magical resources flow through the mana to shape the spell.

Each spell needs to have a "mana requirement". This is the tough part of this job, and it hasn't been done by me. :)

The "total mana" for a spell is equal to (spell level+1). A cantrip is a 1 mana spell, a L 9 spell is a 10 mana spell. As an example, fireball might be RRR1 (3 red mana and 1 other), arcane mark would be 1, Animate Dead would be BBB, Magic Missile would be R1 and Mage Armor would be W1.

Black: necromancy, death and unholy
Blue: water, thought and divination
Red: destruction, fire and chaos
Green: nature and physical enhancement
White: protection, healing and order

You don't tap mana -- simply having it accessable (either innate mana, or "played" like a land) is sufficient to cast the spell. But you have to have enough of the right colour. Your spells/day or spell points limit how many spells you can cast.

Spells mostly require coloured mana. Most spells should be about 2/3 to 1/3 coloured -- ie, a L 9 spell should be 3 to 7 coloured mana, and 7 to 3 mana of any colour. A handful of spells might require all coloured mana. Some spells require only 1 coloured mana. The universal cantrips have no mana colour requirements.

Aquiring Lands:
Lands are actual places. Forming a link with an area requires a 1 day (24 hour) long ritual and requires that the land be unlinked to anyone else. A symbol or glyph is created during that ritual which represents the link -- if the spellcaster is lacking that glyph, they cannot use the link.

Some spellcasters etch their glyphs on their staff, others tattoo it to one's body. Note, however, that if the link with the land is forcefully severed, whatever surface the glyph is inscribed upon takes 2d6 damage -- which sucks if you tatoo your land glyphs on yourself. Staffs, Tattoos, Books, Runestones, Gemstones and Metal Coins are all popular places to place land-glyphs. Inorganic items with at least one land glyph on them get 10 hardness, or the hardness of the innate material, whichever is greater.

A "Land" is about 100 yards by 100 yards (300 feet by 300 feet). Some areas have more mana, and the plots are smaller -- other areas have less. Not all terrain can be used as a "Land" -- how common such areas are should be campaign specific, but I'd propose making basic lands pretty easy to find.

Most lands produce 1 mana of a particular colour -- white, black, blue, red or green. Some special lands work differently. (you can use MtG cards for inspiration. Convert lands that do 1 damage to you to 1d4 damage, lands that enter play tapped as lands that can't be used the turn you play them, etc.)

These special lands are highly prized by Mages.

Note that metamagic effects do not increase the mana requirements of a spell.

Innate Mana

This mana is, as noted, a mixture of single colour mana. Using a 24 hour long ritual you can change one innate mana to another colour.


...

How is that for a first pass? I believe, if one was keen, one could write up cards for spells, and draw all cards randomly. :)

The goal is to get the 'power up' feeling of magic, where as combat progresses your options grow.

[MeklorIlavator]

This is awesome. Finally, combining Magic the gathering and DnD.

[Orzel]

Nice.

I'd prefer that colors grant bonuses rather than being spell requirements. For example +1 to inate mana for every 2 green producing land. +1 to draw speed for ever 4 blue. etc...

[Legoman]

I costed out most of the first level spells, I figured spells second level and above would follow a 'spell point' progression - R2, RR3, for instance.

You can find em here: http://w71.spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?id=o06464040006618654478.3015207318808344733.1 4492408612656270025.3900557623725753018

[Yakk]

The idea would be that spellcasters spell selection would be based off of their choice of mana pools.

By mixing the druid, cleric, wizard and bard spell lists, you end up with casters which are quite different than standard D&D casters.

Note that 1st level spells require two mana under the above system (so cantrips can have a kind of mana required).

Also note that casting your top-level spells isn't possible instantly. A L 20 mage can use a move-action to play a land, then a standard action to cast a spell (up to L 6) using the land an his innate mana.

[Behold_the_Void]

Why is Chill Touch red? Shouldn't it be Black or Blue?

[coldshiftdown]

As a player of both D&D and MtG, i find this entire concept to be at best, rediculous. if you want to play Magic, play Magic. if you want to play D&D play D&D. while it would be perfectly fine to add elements from magic into D&D(creatures, spells), trying to combine the games seems redundant.:smallconfused:

[Skydiving_Ninja]

Indeed, I think it is extremely difficult to work into putting cards in D&D, but Magic planes do work as campaign settings (see the old Ravnica homebrew campaign from a long time ago)

[Yakk]

The hard part of putting cards into D&D is that you want to use D&D spells, and printing up MtG cards with D&D spells on them is hard.

But, practically, the above system gives some of the feeling of MtG -- spellcasters take time to build up to full power, the colours of mana determining what spells you can cast, links to land provide magical power, etc.

It also gives casters a unique form of treasure -- multi-coloured and other special lands -- to search for and aquire.

This change also slows spellcasters down a bit. You can't open up with your top-level spells at the start of combat.

[fireinthedust]

I like it.

here's why: the cards make you think about what you're doing in a different way. I might do it differently (and it's just more expense than I need to pay, thus wanting just Dnd; this is why I never bought mtg). the idea, tho, is cool.

so would we use the Dnd spells rather than actual cards? that's best. Excepting summoning spells, and some other rules.

and would you have a special rule for summoning creatures? are they special beasts that don't exist int he normal world (like outsiders)? Or the common ones could be magical constructs, with big dragons and things being special creatures you need to quest for the use of (like a special token, like the mana runes you've got).

also: a d20 magic setting sounds fun. What would you do with warriors and paladins?

one last thing: read Unearthed Arcana. there's a varient class system that's generic. the casters can cast any kind of spell, but you pick if you get your spells from a divine or arcane source. You could reorganize the spell lists, but think which of the 5 colours the spellcasters pick (a green mage, red mage, etc.) Mix in the Prestige classes for Paladin, Ranger and Bard (and others) and you've got a really unique setting that's still d20.

how would you play test it?

[Ajikozau]

I think it is unbalanced in costs, casting a lev 9 spell shouldn't cost just a bit more than a lev 8 one...

[fireinthedust]

I don't know if costs are the issue. by the time PCs reach 9th level spells as it is, they can typically only cast one or more 8th level spells than that.

So for casting I could tap a land maximum two per round (two move-equiv actions) plus any feats (Extra Land Tap: you may tap an additional land once per round if you do nothing but tap lands; ie: now it's 3, not additional per move but per round; take it again and you can tap 4. also Quicken Land: tap a land as a swift/immediate action once a round, plus the second one if you use your standard action, plus your Extra Land tap feat).
And magic items (something that lets you keep a land tapped at all times, or acts as a tapped land).

thing is, even with the detect radius of 50 feet, lots of spells are farther than that. If I'm invisible (2nd level?) and I stand behind some trees while a caravan approaches for a minute, even if they have their wizard with them


One issue I thought of is that the different schools would be unbalanced. I don't know for sure, but it seems that white and green would be really powerful. Protection covers about all the abjuration spells in the book, and nature (green) would seem to also include element-type spells and energy. Red would have destructive spells like fireball, and I assume also disintegration and things like that. necromancy on its own isn't that huge.

QUESTION: would mages learn spells? could they learn from different colors? I don't play magic, but I know they have themed decks, but that there is some mix and match.
Prcs: specialists, etc.

and what about bonus feats? What about Turn Undead? You may want each school to have a special ability related to it, like the Domain powers and Turn undead. Just a thought, as not having Turning reeeally changes game play.
Also: Paladins would get their spells from the white list, rangers fromt he green, or would you do something different?

Summoning spells should be changed. Make up specific spells the mages must find and learn for specific creatures. Kinda like the way there are different spells for Detect Good, Detect Law, Detect Magic, etc. and you don't just pick which one you want to detect at casting.

Armour: As you don't have clerics or Bards, would you cut out all armour-wearing for spellcasters? That would balance out versatility.

Otherwise, it's not exactly the same as M:tg. it's Dnd with a different spell system.

[fireinthedust]

and I think Scry would be powerful in this setting (allowing set up time for bringing out lands, casting protection spells, etc.).

just ruminating.

[Yakk]

I'm avoiding using mana for the cost of spells. Having mana in play lets you cast a spell -- but you still have to burn your spell/day or spell points from standard D&D.

Fire/Earth and Heat spells are all Red.

Water/Air and Ice spells are all Blue.

The mana you have in your deck, together with the mana you choose to be innate, determines what colour of caster you are. If you are smart, you should learn the correct colours of spells.

If you wanted to go further, you would print out all of your spells on cards, and generate a system for a random hand of spells at any one point.

The radius-which-you-can-be-detected playing lands needs to be tweaked. It should be less sharp -- in effect, by deploying lands, I want anyone magically sensative nearby to think "someone is preparing to cast magic".

The D&D classes might be arranged by special ability. Some would have biases on colour.

I'd leave one "full" spellcaster, and then restricted speciality spellcasters.

Maybe:
Cleric: white caster
Druid: green caster
Necro: black caster
Diviner: blue caster
Warmage: red caster

Their spells would progress slower, but in exchange they would get nice side abilities.

Alternatively, one could make colourless classes:
Channeler, Shifter, Summoner, Invoker


I think it is unbalanced in costs, casting a lev 9 spell shouldn't cost just a bit more than a lev 8 one...

The mana requirement for a spell is not a cost. Your are still paying standard D&D costs to cast your spells -- a spell per day slot or a spell point, or whatever system you want.

The extra mana requirement means that casting a L 9 spell is harder when unprepared. It takes 4 move equivilent actions for a L 20 wizard to deploy enough land to cast a L 8 spell, and 5 move equivilent actions to cast a L 9 spell. On top of this, if the caster wants to have a variety of colours of magic, they probably won't have the right colour mix for most L 9 spells from the first 10 mana they deploy.

But once you have deployed the mana, it doesn't go away next turn.

In effect, spellcasters need multiple rounds to build themselves up to using their top level spells. This makes physical protection important (go go meat sheilds).

[fireinthedust]

Alternately, you could have various spells have the usual land cost to Tap. if the Mage spends several rounds drawing Land energy (mana), he could cast a number of spells at once (quickened?). This would offset the wait time for land drawing.
Keep in mind that the time factor is a big one. I finished a game where the tank slew an entire army of minotaurs with his magic spiked chin, great cleave and Combat-reflexes attacks of opportunity. the Casters in that wouldn't have had time to use their spells if they had to gear up.
If we'd been in a dungeon setting and something swarmed the PCs, they'd have to wait four move actions to raise protective walls.