AlderMorment
2015-08-08, 12:19 AM
(As a heads-up, I'll totally admit that most of my ideas here were inspired by, modified from, or straight up knicked from other games. Heck the main idea here started as me thinking about incorporating the MtG idea of spells having different effects based on certain conditions, and one of the names for them is literally a Magic mechanic from a few blocks back)
TL;DR- I'm adding Magic the Gathering style 'keyword' effects to spells in order to make them fit my world better, and don't want it feeling like its just DM cheese, or breaking my game.
So I've been building a setting for a (hopefully) long term campaign, and have been aiming for a very Arthurian 'The Once and Future King' vibe with a bit of Tolkien for good measrue. A universe where wizards are noble scholars or hermits deep in the forest, where the land is scattered with organizations of noble knights, mercenary rangers, and druid clans, where dark sorcerers lurk in the shadows of ancient mountains and where the legends of kings, knights, and great mages of antiquity live on in the great relics they've left behind.
A core part of this setting has been the idea that magic should feel very different for each kind of class, so I've spent a decent amount of time outlining why magic exists for each class.
Wizards and Sorcerer's take their power from the stars, whose light shines down from the far reaches of the Astral Plane (in this case a very literal kind of Astral, a dimension with ground the color of the night sky and stars within arms reach). The learning of the wizard and the instinct of the sorcerer are what lets them call down power from the stars in larger and larger amounts.
Clerics and Paladins gain power from a pair of christian-like gods, the Mother and the Father, who are concerned for the maintenance of 'good' (empathy towards living creatures, respect for free-will, living by the "Natural Order" of things), and who for our purposes are basically your average NG/LG gods. They are opposed to two other gods, Silence and Shadow (presiding over death, and chaos respectively); the planes these gods hold over are the heavens, and the underworld (I think you can guess which gods hold sway where).
Druid's and Rangers gain their magic from Gaia. In this setting, the way a druid sees it, the world, every tree and every mountain, is part one giant god that is itself the earth, and that god is Gaia. Gaia technically holds sway over the Prime Material Plane, but her presence is unchallenged in a world that the Druids only call "The Dreams of Gaia". It's a twisting, gigantic, and surreal realm where mountains are seen flying, trees grow to be the size of titans, and the land can be perfectly vertical and a river will still flow up it.
Now as I was trying to make magic feel different for every set of classes, and trying to make a universe where magic should (on occasion) feel like the kind of awe-inspiring miracle like it is in the books (For example, Gandalf's fight with the Baulrog). So while trying to tackle those two problems, I found a solution that addresses both have a system where every kind of caster has a special condition under which certain spells have an increased effect.
For example, the first one of these conditions I dreamed up was 'Fateful Hour', the cleric's condition. So you'd have a spell like Cure Light Wounds, but after it's normal description it'd read:
"Fateful Hour"
The Target of this spell changes to all allies within 30 ft. in addition to yourself.
If this spell targets a defeated ally, they instantly rise to their feet, return to 0 health, and are then healed as normal
"Fateful Hour" basically means that whenever the character is in the most dire of need (usually meaning member(s) of the party have to have fallen, the party is facing certain defeat, etc.) AND they're doing a great service to their god(s), then the effects listed under "Fateful Hour" are a part of the spell.
Wizards and Sorcerer's have a condition called "The Star's Aligned", under which a certain class of spells become much more powerful because the stars of the Astral Plane are aligned to dole out a certain kind of energy much easier. But in addition the stars are granting more power than the caster can effectively control, so spells always go a little haywire (Illusions so good that the caster can't disbelieve them, evocation spells doing damage back to the caster, divination spells that show 'too much', etc.)
Druid's and Rangers have "Gaia's Will", which triggers when the character is using magic to but nature back into it's default state (i.e. removing unnatural monsters from forests, undoing manipulating magic, regrowing a forest that was destroyed, etc.), or when they're fighting in woodlands against foes that mean harm to nature. Noted that this trigger is much weaker than the other two, because a lot of things that would start this effect are things that happen much more often in D&D adventures (when are you not getting rid of monsters that don't belong somewhere, or fighting against evil sorcerers corrupting the land?)
Now I chose to use the old MtG 'keyword' system here, rather than just telling casters they have this power, because the point of the system is to point out what fuels a character's magic. The idea being that the Wizard might tell the party to wait a few days, because he can tell that the constellations of destruction will align in 4 days and his fireball will do so much more; or the Cleric might have a moment when the party is on the verge of defeat where he closes his eyes, and prays to his gods that they will save him this one last time as he puts his hand to his holy symbol, or the Druid feels like its her job really is to steward nature through the strains that humanoid kind puts on it. The wizards feels more like a scholar/madman who's waiting for the right stars, the Cleric legitimately has the feeling that her fate may rest in the hands of gods that can't always save her, and the Druid feels like the woodlands are his home turf and it's his job to watch over it.
This system has three problems I can see so far:
1. As a DM, I've got to stay consistent to the rules of these mechanics because they're really part of the world. Meaning that if a player starts finding exploits in them I can't just say "no" (this is mostly a problem with "Gaia's Will"), and I don't want to deal with curbing power-gaming at all.
2. I want to avoid this feeling like a mechanic in the game just so I have an excuse to stop a TPK. Most of my players are experienced and cynical enough to assume that I'd put in a mechanic like this to have a way out if I accidentally start wiping the party. I really want this to feel like a genuine function of magic in this universe.
3. I'm kind of worried this'll make magic seem too powerful, or even make it mechanically over-powered, but I'm not certain in the slightest.
I'm putting this up on the forums so you guys can send me what you think of this, suggest alterations that might fix some of it's issues, or warn me if stuff along this lines has tripped up campaigns ahead of times. Really, I'm just looking for the words of DM'ing Wizards that have a lot more skill than me to tell me if this would work out.
-Thanks for your time,
Morment
TL;DR- I'm adding Magic the Gathering style 'keyword' effects to spells in order to make them fit my world better, and don't want it feeling like its just DM cheese, or breaking my game.
So I've been building a setting for a (hopefully) long term campaign, and have been aiming for a very Arthurian 'The Once and Future King' vibe with a bit of Tolkien for good measrue. A universe where wizards are noble scholars or hermits deep in the forest, where the land is scattered with organizations of noble knights, mercenary rangers, and druid clans, where dark sorcerers lurk in the shadows of ancient mountains and where the legends of kings, knights, and great mages of antiquity live on in the great relics they've left behind.
A core part of this setting has been the idea that magic should feel very different for each kind of class, so I've spent a decent amount of time outlining why magic exists for each class.
Wizards and Sorcerer's take their power from the stars, whose light shines down from the far reaches of the Astral Plane (in this case a very literal kind of Astral, a dimension with ground the color of the night sky and stars within arms reach). The learning of the wizard and the instinct of the sorcerer are what lets them call down power from the stars in larger and larger amounts.
Clerics and Paladins gain power from a pair of christian-like gods, the Mother and the Father, who are concerned for the maintenance of 'good' (empathy towards living creatures, respect for free-will, living by the "Natural Order" of things), and who for our purposes are basically your average NG/LG gods. They are opposed to two other gods, Silence and Shadow (presiding over death, and chaos respectively); the planes these gods hold over are the heavens, and the underworld (I think you can guess which gods hold sway where).
Druid's and Rangers gain their magic from Gaia. In this setting, the way a druid sees it, the world, every tree and every mountain, is part one giant god that is itself the earth, and that god is Gaia. Gaia technically holds sway over the Prime Material Plane, but her presence is unchallenged in a world that the Druids only call "The Dreams of Gaia". It's a twisting, gigantic, and surreal realm where mountains are seen flying, trees grow to be the size of titans, and the land can be perfectly vertical and a river will still flow up it.
Now as I was trying to make magic feel different for every set of classes, and trying to make a universe where magic should (on occasion) feel like the kind of awe-inspiring miracle like it is in the books (For example, Gandalf's fight with the Baulrog). So while trying to tackle those two problems, I found a solution that addresses both have a system where every kind of caster has a special condition under which certain spells have an increased effect.
For example, the first one of these conditions I dreamed up was 'Fateful Hour', the cleric's condition. So you'd have a spell like Cure Light Wounds, but after it's normal description it'd read:
"Fateful Hour"
The Target of this spell changes to all allies within 30 ft. in addition to yourself.
If this spell targets a defeated ally, they instantly rise to their feet, return to 0 health, and are then healed as normal
"Fateful Hour" basically means that whenever the character is in the most dire of need (usually meaning member(s) of the party have to have fallen, the party is facing certain defeat, etc.) AND they're doing a great service to their god(s), then the effects listed under "Fateful Hour" are a part of the spell.
Wizards and Sorcerer's have a condition called "The Star's Aligned", under which a certain class of spells become much more powerful because the stars of the Astral Plane are aligned to dole out a certain kind of energy much easier. But in addition the stars are granting more power than the caster can effectively control, so spells always go a little haywire (Illusions so good that the caster can't disbelieve them, evocation spells doing damage back to the caster, divination spells that show 'too much', etc.)
Druid's and Rangers have "Gaia's Will", which triggers when the character is using magic to but nature back into it's default state (i.e. removing unnatural monsters from forests, undoing manipulating magic, regrowing a forest that was destroyed, etc.), or when they're fighting in woodlands against foes that mean harm to nature. Noted that this trigger is much weaker than the other two, because a lot of things that would start this effect are things that happen much more often in D&D adventures (when are you not getting rid of monsters that don't belong somewhere, or fighting against evil sorcerers corrupting the land?)
Now I chose to use the old MtG 'keyword' system here, rather than just telling casters they have this power, because the point of the system is to point out what fuels a character's magic. The idea being that the Wizard might tell the party to wait a few days, because he can tell that the constellations of destruction will align in 4 days and his fireball will do so much more; or the Cleric might have a moment when the party is on the verge of defeat where he closes his eyes, and prays to his gods that they will save him this one last time as he puts his hand to his holy symbol, or the Druid feels like its her job really is to steward nature through the strains that humanoid kind puts on it. The wizards feels more like a scholar/madman who's waiting for the right stars, the Cleric legitimately has the feeling that her fate may rest in the hands of gods that can't always save her, and the Druid feels like the woodlands are his home turf and it's his job to watch over it.
This system has three problems I can see so far:
1. As a DM, I've got to stay consistent to the rules of these mechanics because they're really part of the world. Meaning that if a player starts finding exploits in them I can't just say "no" (this is mostly a problem with "Gaia's Will"), and I don't want to deal with curbing power-gaming at all.
2. I want to avoid this feeling like a mechanic in the game just so I have an excuse to stop a TPK. Most of my players are experienced and cynical enough to assume that I'd put in a mechanic like this to have a way out if I accidentally start wiping the party. I really want this to feel like a genuine function of magic in this universe.
3. I'm kind of worried this'll make magic seem too powerful, or even make it mechanically over-powered, but I'm not certain in the slightest.
I'm putting this up on the forums so you guys can send me what you think of this, suggest alterations that might fix some of it's issues, or warn me if stuff along this lines has tripped up campaigns ahead of times. Really, I'm just looking for the words of DM'ing Wizards that have a lot more skill than me to tell me if this would work out.
-Thanks for your time,
Morment