Magic the Gathering: d20 System

[mithrawnudo]

In a stunningly nerdy move, I am attempting (and actually working on currently) a D20 system based on Magic the Gathering. I foresee this move relegating me to the underworld of even this board. However, in an attempt to solicit help or to in order to boost my self-esteem, I am asking for and offering a few things. These are in order of most wanted to least wanted.

HELP:
1. With the rules. - I would like to ask anyone who can or wants to help me with the rules for the game. Not just the over-rules but the more obscure ones, like when you counter a spell, if or how should the countered wizard be able to nullify the spell.
2. Making monsters. - This one is a biggie. It will most likely be the easiest part, but with the number of creatures covered and the limits of my time, I can't make many at a time.
3. Balancing things. - Spells, creatures, abilities/feats.
4. Making spells. - Same as monsters.
5. Anything else you can think of. - Criticism or whatever.

OFFERING:
1. Everything that I've done so far.

Thanks for anyone who wants to contribute or wants the material.

CLASSES

Spoiler

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CLASSES

Soldier
Abilities
Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are the soldier most prized abilities.
Alignment
Any
Color
None

HD: d10
Soldier
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|

+1

|

+2

|

+0

|

+0

|Bonus Feat.

2nd|

+2

|

+3

|

+0

|

+0

|Bonus Feat.

3rd|

+3

|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

|

4th|

+4

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

| Bonus Feat.

5th|

+5

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

|Exalted +1.

6th|

+6/+1

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

| Bonus Feat.

7th|

+7/+2

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|

8th|

+8/+3

|

+6

|

+2

|

+2

| Bonus Feat.

9th|

+9/+4

|

+6

|

+3

|

+3

|

10th|

+10/+5

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

| Bonus Feat and Exalted +2.

11th|

+11/+6/+1

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

|


12th|

+12/+7/+2

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

| Bonus Feat.

13th|

+13/+8/+3

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

|

14th|

+14/+9/+4

|

+9

|

+4

|

+4

| Bonus Feat.

15th|

+15/+10/+5

|

+9

|

+5

|

+5

|Exalted +3.

16th|

+16/+11/+6/+1

|

+10

|

+5

|

+5

| Bonus Feat.

17th|

+17/+12/+7/+2

|

+10

|

+5

|

+5

|

18th|

+18/+13/+8/+3

|

+11

|

+6

|

+6

| Bonus Feat.

19th|

+19/+14/+9/+4

|

+11

|

+6

|

+6

|

20th|

+20/+15/+10/+5

|

+12

|

+6

|

+6

| Bonus Feat and Exalted +4. [/table]


Class Skills: A Soldier’s class skills are: Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str)
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifer) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier

Weapon and Armor Profiency: Soldiers are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all armor, and all shields.



Knight
Abilities
Strength, Wisdom, and Constitution make a Knight great.
Alingment
Good.
Color
Non-black and usually white. Bound to up to 2 colors.

HD: d8
Knight
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|

+1

|

+2

|

+0

|

+0

|Exalted +1, detect Black Alignment, Smite Evil 1/day, Oath of the Light.

2nd|

+2

|

+3

|

+0

|

+0

|Lay on Hands.

3rd|

+3

|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

|Aura of Concentration, Gain 0 Mana.

4th|

+3

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

|Exalted +2, turn undead, Gain 2 Mana.

5th|

+4

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

| Smite Evil 2/day, Knight Mount, Gain 2 Mana.

6th|

+5

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|Aura of Honor, Gain 0 Mana.

7th|

+6/+1

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|Gain 2 Mana.

8th|

+6/+1

|

+6

|

+2

|

+2

|Exalted +3, Gain 2 Mana.

9th|

+7/+2

|

+6

|

+3

|

+3

| Aura of Health, Gain 0 Mana.

10th|

+8/+3

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

| Smite Evil 3/day, Gain 2 Mana.

11th|

+9/+4

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

| Gain 2 Mana

12th|

+9/+4

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

|Exalted +4, Aura of Energy, Gain 0 Mana.

13th|

+10/+5

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

|Gain 2 Mana

14th|

+11/+6/+1

|

+9

|

+4

|

+4

|Gain 2 Mana.

15th|

+12/+7/+2

|

+9

|

+5

|

+5

| Smite Evil 4/day, Aura of Power, Gain 0 Mana.

16th|

+12/+7/+2

|

+10

|

+5

|

+5

|Exalted +5, Gain 2 Mana.

17th|

+13/+8/+3

|

+10

|

+5

|

+5

|Gain 2 Mana

18th|

+14/+9/+4

|

+11

|

+6

|

+6

| Aura of Endurance, Gain 0 Mana.

19th|

+15/+10/+5

|

+11

|

+6

|

+6

|Gain 2 Mana

20th|

+15/+10/+5

|

+12

|

+6

|

+6

|Exalted +6, Smite Evil 5/day, Gain 2 Mana. [/table]

Oath of the Light: A Knight must be good. A Knight must do no Evil. A Knight must strive to uphold the tenants of goodness. A Knight must protect innocents and those who walk in the Light. A Knight must never work with those who do not walk in the Light. A Knight must obey the Lord of the land, unless this interferes with the earlier tenants.

Detect Black Alignment: At will a Knight can use the spell Detect Black Alignment without paying its mana cost.

Smite Evil: Anytime before an attack on an evil object, a Knight may add his Wisdom bonus to his attack roll, and if the attack hits, he may add his Knight levels to his damage roll.

Lay on Hands: Starting at the 2nd level a Knight with a Wisdom score of 12 or higher can heal wounds by touch. Each day he can heal an amount of health equal to his Knight level X his Wisdom bonus.

Turn Undead: A 4th level or higher Knight gains the ability to turn undead 1 + his Wisdom bonus per day. He turns the undead as a Priest of 3 levels lower than would.

Aura of Concentration: A Knight becomes immune to fear and fascination, and all allies within 10 feet gain a +4 bonus on saving rolls against fear and fascination. This ability functions only when a Knight is conscious.

Aura of Honor: A Knight can no longer kill an unarmed opponent, but gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls against creatures of equal or greater level. In addition the Knight takes a -4 attack roll on enemies of lesser level. Allies within 10 feet gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls against creatures of greater level. This ability functions only when a Knight is conscious.

Aura of Health: A Knight is immune to all diseases, magical or otherwise. Allies within 10 feet gain a +2 bonus to all saving rolls against diseases. This Aura does not effect poisons or sleep. This ability functions only when a Knight is conscious.

Aura of Energy: All spells a Knight casts cost 1 color-less less. This ability functions only when a Knight is conscious.

Aura of Power: A Knight gains a +2 bonus to damage rolls against creatures of equal or lesser level. Allies within 10 feet gain a +2 bonus on damage rolls against creature of lesser level. This ability functions only when a Knight is conscious.

Aura of Endurance: A Knight remains conscious at health less than 0, but can only make one standard action per turn. Allies within 10 feet gain a +4 bonus on stabilization rolls. This ability functions only when a Knight is conscious.

Class Skills: A Knight’s class skills are: Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spell Craft (Int)
Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifer) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier

Weapon and Armor Profiency: Knights are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all armor, and all shields except tower shields.

Color Bindings: Knights are bound to 2 or less colors, non-black. A Knight must declare those colors at the beginning of the game, and cannot choose mana or spells from any other list. A Knight may not cast color-less spells. A Knight gains a spell level starting at the 3rd level and every 3 levels after that. Ex. 3, 6, 9…

[Ellye]

First things first, what setting are you wanting to use? The entire cosmology of MtG is just too big, it's better to start small. I suggest Ravnica, since Dominaria is also too big. This narrows down a lot on what creatures and spells you'll want to "convert".

Unless you want the players to be Planeswalker, which I personally don't think would be a good idea...

[mithrawnudo]

For the story it will be entirely my own. So all creatures and all spells are go. For the conversions it will on a need basis, like a damage spell, I will convert Fireball, Volcanic Hammer, Flame Javelin, ect...

And no PC planeswalkers. The Planeswalkers will be in the campaign, just NPC.

[Baron Corm]

Could you be more specific with what help you need? And could you just edit everything you've done so far into your first post? That would make it easier for us to know where to start.

[Athaniar]

Magic the Gathering d20, huh? This sparks my interest.

No PC Planeswalkers is a good decision. Let PCs be normal characters. There are already plenty of classes in MtG, use them. Also, non-setting-specific is good, too. And I definitiely think you should use the five colors instead of alignment, I like them much better. Then it'll be alignment that effects your spells... Interesting to see how that would work, but I'm sure it's possible.

For your information, the existing classes, according to the Gatherer, are Advisor (NPC class?), Archer, Artificer, Assassin, Cleric, Barbarian, Berserker, Druid, Knight, Mercenary (this one also NPC?), Minion (probably NPC, too), Monk, Mystic, Ninja, Nomad, Pirate, Rebel, Rogue, Samurai, Scout, Shaman, Soldier, Spellshaper, Warrior, and Wizard.

[Ellye]

And I definitiely think you should use the five colors instead of alignment, I like them much better.

Seconded. The five colors of magic do a much, much better job at categorizing characters and actions than the D&D Alignment system.
Read the five articles about the five colors philosophies by Mark Rosewater, if you hadn't already:
It's Not Easy Being Green
The Great White Way
True Blue
In The Black
Seeing Red

[Kornaki]

I'll help. I tried doing this before, but I could never really get the magic system to work well. My idea was it would work a bit like psionics... you have a mana pool that gets replenished every day, and spells cost mana. And just like in the card game, the spell costs, e.g. two red mana and three colorless mana. Each time you level up you can choose what type of mana you gain (possibly with certain restrictions, e.g. maybe you can only gain a new color every five levels or so).

Most of the spells in the player's handbook don't really fit in as MTG type spells, and the divine/arcane divide needs to be broken. This is the most troubling part to me, that casters who take for example red and white would essentially be a cleric and a glass cannon. Also, counterspelling needs to be considered carefully to make sure it's good, but not overpowered (actually, in true MTG fashion it should be the most broken spells in the game).

One thing to consider is that alignment could affect your ability to cast spells. For example:
Black - evil
Red - chaotic
umm.... white -lawful
green - good (these ones are a bit fuzzier)
blue - neutral

And you can cast spells up to one alignment away at full power, but casting spells on your alignment gets a boost. So for example if you were lawful good, you'd be better at casting green and white spells, but be unable to cast black and red spells. Lawful neutral would be good at white spells, and be able to cast green, black and blue spells, but no red. It doesn't quite work as written, but it feels like it could have good flavor and prevent five color cheese while still allowing a class that "permits" casting any color

[Xvos]

For your information, the existing classes, according to the Gatherer, are Advisor (NPC class?), Archer, Artificer, Assassin, Cleric, Barbarian, Berserker, Druid, Knight, Mercenary, Minion, Monk, Mystic, Ninja, Nomad, Pirate, Rebel, Rogue, Samurai, Scout, Shaman, Soldier, Spellshaper, Warrior, and Wizard.

I'd trim this list by seperating it out a bit into NPCs (which won't need full classes, or neccessarily anything) and PCs which will.

My Suggestions:

NPC/Null
Advisor
Berserker
Minion
Nomad
Rebel
Scout

PC
Archer
Assassin
Cleric
Barbarian
Druid
Knight
Mercenary
Monk
Mystic
Ninja
Pirate
Rogue
Samurai
Shaman
Soldier
Spellshaper
Warrior
Wizard

Then split them up further into "basic" and "advanced classes" (Think prestige classes or paragon paths). I'd seperate the "advanced classes" based on prerequisite "basic" classes (again similar to paragon paths).

Basic
Mystic
Rogue
Warrior

Advanced

Mystic
Cleric
Druid
Shaman
Spellshaper
Wizard

Rogue
Archer
Assassin
Monk
Ninja
Pirate

Warrior
Barbarian
Knight
Mercenary
Samurai
Soldier

Now focus on ideas for the basic classes first, what kind of mechanic are you looking for?

Basic
Mystic
Rogue
Warrior

I'm willing to help with rules stuff, especially if you are iwlling to let me see what you have done so far. I'm reasonably solid on making rules (I've built several rules systems ground up, one of which an old group of mine is still using).

[Baron Corm]

The five colors of magic do a much, much better job at categorizing characters and actions than the D&D Alignment system.

Actually, the five colors of magic are pretty close to the 5 "extreme" alignments (excluding NG, NE, LN, and CN). If you read the philosophy articles, they fit pretty well in this manner:

Black - Chaotic Evil ("Black wants what it wants and will use any means necessary to get it.")

Red - Chaotic Good ("If red is happy, it celebrates. If red is sad, it cries. If red is angry, it smashes things. Life is very simple for red. It does what it feels.") ("Red cares about others. At least the ones to which it has some emotional ties. And red will go to great lengths to help or protect its loved ones. This doesn't mean that red isn't somewhat selfish. Emotions, by their very nature, do put one's own needs first, but it does mean that red at times will think about others.")

Green - Neutral ("At times nature is gentle and loving. At other times it is fierce and harmful. While every other color fights to change the world, green battles to keep it the same.")

White - Lawful Good ("By making strict rules and laws, white can ensure that things stay in control.") ("White wants what is best for the whole.")

Blue - Lawful Evil ("Blue is a slow, methodical, passive color. Those that rush to action without giving proper time to think through their actions gnaw at blue’s very core. When blue encounters such sophomoric behavior, it does what any good parent would do, it attempts to assert control to try and make the creature in question act they way blue knows it should.") ("Blue also uses its intellect to trick the opponent. Blue has no qualms with winning through confusion.")

[Xefas]

I would say that each color holds 3ish separate tenets within it. You can be Black without being stab-stab-die-die rape the corpses by focusing on the Independence part of it, rather than the Sadism part of it.

White's lone tenet is Goodness, but its tenet that connects to Green is Interdependence, and its tenet that connects to Blue is Order.

(You can be White without being good, by being more Blue-minded or Green-minded)

Blue's lone tenet is Progression, but its tenet that connects to White is Order and its tenet that connects to Black is Subterfuge.

Black's lone tenet is Maliciousness, but its tenet that connects to Blue is Subterfuge, and its tenet that connects to Red is Independence.

Red's lone tenet is Destruction, but its tenet that connects to Black is Independence, and its tenet that connects to Green is Savagery.

Green's lone tenet is Naturalism, but its tenet that connects to Red is savagery, and the tenet that connects to White is interdependence.

[Waspinator]

Modeling it after psionics sounds like a good idea, or at least going with the similar spell point system rather than spell-slots-per-day. Maybe have there be five base classes, with each getting its own mana pool that do not stack? You would not just have power points or spell points. You'd have blue or red or whatever mana, just like in MtG. You could even encourage multi-classing by having the maximum level of spell you can learn limited by character level, not any individual class level. Then have it so that there would be, for example, level 9 white spells that you could access to by staying single-class with the white mana user but also level 9 red-white spells that you would need to have levels in both colors' classes in order to have the correct mana to use.

In terms of what kind of spells and abilities each color could get to spend their mana on, here's some ideas:

White: Healing and melee combat. Similar to standard cleric.
Green: Heavy on melee combat and a little healing. Similar to fighter, crusader, warblade, paladin, psychic warrior, etc..
Red: Direct damage. Stick all of the blasting spells here
Blue: Control. This and red would have many standard wizard spells split between them.
Black: Necromancy and sneakiness. I suggest something like a necromancy version of the beguiler class.

Edit: Typo

[Kornaki]

I like it... I hadn't really considered trying to mix in multi colored spells, but obviously that should be a goal.

I strongly disagree with the characterization of black as chaotic (see: Phyrexia, the Cabal). More often than not, black ends up being the big bad organization, which is LE. And blue definitely isn't evil. The more I think about it the warier I am of assigning alignments to green blue and red, since they're kind of supposed to be the more wishy washy colors alignment-wise. OTOH white is pretty much (emphasis on pretty much, there are exceptions) supposed to be good, and black is pretty much supposed to be evil, so something there could be done.

Xvos, I don't think the advancement system is really that great here because it gets hung up on MtG's unique spellcasting system (how do you advance to a druid? By casting green spells? Which you already were doing as a mystic... the line is not so clear cut as it is in many other settings)

[Eldan]

I'd say that certain colours certainly tend towards alignments, but are not entirely defined by them.

Still... in my opinion, and going by MaRo's descriptions:
Red is chaotic neutral, with sometimes destructive evil tendencies.
Black is neutral evil, with tendencies changing towards either lawful or chaos, depending on the creature or organisation in question.
White is Lawful Good, not much of a question here, with some of it tending towards more neutral good.
Blue is most often lawful neutral, but sometimes has true neutral tendencies.
Green can't really decide if it wants to be true neutral or chaotic good.


And now something constructive:
The class idea suggested above is a good one, and you could start with something close to D20 moderns basic classes. (Except those are boring.)

Now, this being MtG, most players will probably want to have some magic, but I suggest dividing abilities in basically three parts:

Magic, Special abilities and Combat abilities, with one of the archetypes (Mystic, Rogue, Warrior) being especially good in one of them.

[EENick]

Is the goal here to just adapt the feel of magic IE: Pyrixians, Spirit Wars, Guilds, color wheel or are we trying to adapt the cards to D&D or create an MTG type magic system, all three or something more then that?

[Kornaki]

The main goal would be to implement the base class/magic system; everything after that's just filler

[Lady Tialait]

Hmm, and interesting approach.

I group of my friends play a MTG game that we play the Planeswalkers. Playing the monsters seemed kinda silly after all even the books are about the big powerful planeswalkers.

[Kornaki]

Hmm, and interesting approach.

I group of my friends play a MTG game that we play the Planeswalkers. Playing the monsters seemed kinda silly after all even the books are about the big powerful planeswalkers.

That's not true... the books include planeswalkers, but most of the time it's just about... people

[Ellye]

I would make it something like this (just a quick sketch):

Color Wheel Alignment System: each characters chooses a primary color and a secondary color. Those choices should be in line with the character concept, and it will affect his special abilities.
Characters start each combat with a complete mana pool (amount of mana depends on character class and level - for multiclass characters use the highest one).
To use an ability of her primary color, the character must spend the amount of Mana listed in the ability cost. To use an ability of her secondary color, the character must spend the amount of Mana listed in the ability cost plus one. To use an ability of other colors, the character must spend the amount of mana listed plus two.
A character may replenish X mana points with a full round action (X is a number that would need serious playtesting to be determined).
Some abilities (specially abilities that can be useful outside of combat) have a limit on how many times they can be used per day.

----
The class Scout/Rogue (one single class, the title depends on the primary color) for example could have improved feinting abilities as a white abilitiy, sneak attacks as a black ability, landwalking (negates movement penalties) as a green ability, invisibility as a blue ability and first strike (initiative bonus) as a red ability.

[Flickerdart]

And elves. So many elves...

[Kornaki]

I would make it something like this (just a quick sketch):

Color Wheel Alignment System: each characters chooses a primary color and a secondary color. Those choices should be in line with the character concept, and it will affect his special abilities.
Characters start each combat with a complete mana pool (amount of mana depends on character class and level - for multiclass characters use the highest one).
To use an ability of her primary color, the character must spend the amount of Mana listed in the ability cost. To use an ability of her secondary color, the character must spend the amount of Mana listed in the ability cost plus one. To use an ability of other colors, the character must spend the amount of mana listed plus two.
A character may replenish X mana points with a full round action (X is a number that would need serious playtesting to be determined).
Some abilities (specially abilities that can be useful outside of combat) have a limit on how many times they can be used per day.

So there wouldn't be any distinction between different colors of mana inside of the character's mana pool?

[Waspinator]

I haven't had a chance yet to read this in full so I can't judge it too much, but Google searching found me this:
http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2007/1...-rpg-download/
http://www.box.net/shared/d8xsciptbp

[Kornaki]

I actually found that on google about half an hour ago and determined it to be useless. You use actual MtG cards to help determine your character's power, after that I stopped reading

[Ellye]

So there wouldn't be any distinction between different colors of mana inside of the character's mana pool?

Yes, I prefer it this way, to minimize bookepping.
Just a suggestion, though.

[Athaniar]

FYI, official descriptions of all colors' tendencies:

White
”You value law, order, community and light. You love to protect the social order and the rule of law. At your best, you are just and protective. At your worst, you are authoritarian and dogmatic.”

Blue
”You value knowledge, logic, and deceit. You love to pursue wisdom but also to manipulate and deceive. At your best, you are brilliant and progressive. At your worst, you are treacherous and cold.”

Black
”You value power, ambition, and darkness. You love power at any cost, and are a corrupting influence on those around you. At your best, you are resourceful and unashamed. At your worst, you are parasitic and amoral.”

Red
”You value freedom, impulse, emotion and fire. You love instant gratification and acting on your gut feeling. At your best, you are passionate and decisive. At your worst, you are shortsighted and destructive.”

Green
”You value growth, life, adaption and nature. You love to hunt, mate, kill, and eat - to you, that’s all there is. At your best, you are instinctual and unpretentious. At your worst, you are vicious and unthinking.”

[Dienekes]

You know Satyr made a usable magic point system for his Serpents and Sewers game that could probably be retooled as a mana pool system.

[EENick]

Well it seems to me there are two basic factors that are hard to over come.

Usually in D&D you start with a stock amount of power and slowly drain it. In MTG you build power. Themeatically a problem.

Two most of the mechanics of MTG are based around the deck and hand size.

Sure a few abilities like Kicker are pretty easy to do.

But what about Flashback, Cascade, Domain etc?

Well to solve this I'd suggest we force walkers to memorize spells (ala put them into there deck) and still spend mana/spell points to cast them. That way you could capture some of MTG's spell mechanics but keep it close to D&D's system of magic.

So Billy Redmage is level 13 and (among other spells) Billy has Firebolt, Urza's Rage and two Glacial Rays prepared and he can draw up to 13 red mana per turn.

So this turn he could....cast firebolt and use flashback to get a quicked second spell even though he doesn't have it memorized anymore. Use Urza's Rage with Kicker, or cast Glacial Ray and splice the other onto it.

Under this system I could see the following mechanics working to various levels of success.

Cycling - The Wizard looses his spell for something akin to a wild surge.

Entwine - Pretty much stay the same. Comes and spells with two effects and lets you get both.

Kicker - Mostly the same, just lets you spend extra mana on spells each turn.

Madness - Lets you cast the spell in place of a spell that fizzled.

Buyback - Same as before lets you keep a spell after casting it rather then loosing memorization, though I would suggest we not use this one if they get mana per turn instead of a mana base.

Flashback - Lets them use a quickened version of the a spell they just cast this round.

Storm - I suggest in storms case we scale it down to add one to your caster level for each other spell level cast this turn. IE a someone casts fire ball at Billy Redmage. Billy lives and fires back magic missle storm. Billy casts that spell at +3 levels so as it her were a 16th level caster instead of a 13rd level one.

Fading - Basically all summoned creatures in D&D already have this ability. We just lets our mages manipulate the turns the creature can stay to activate special powers. IE: Billy Redmage summons a goblin that will last for 10 round. Billy can force the Goblin to spit fire in exchange for shortening the durration by 1 round.

Cascade - Allows you to cast a second spell from a lower level at random.

Convoke - Allows allies to give up there turn in order to add a meta-magic feat to your spell.

Conspire - Allows allies to give up there turn in order to copy the spell.

Dredge X - Allows you to call a forgotten spell in exchange for X spell levels. IE: Billy wants to remember a spell with dredge 5 so he forgets a 3rd and 2nd level spell.

Prowl - If the wizard did melee damage to a foe then they can cast this spell quickened for its prowl cost.

Replicate - Basically same as the original ability allowing you to copy the spell so long as you have mana to pay for the copies.

Retrace - Same as flashback but doesn't need to be played on the same turn as the spell was cast.

Ripple - 7% chance of the spell copying itself.

Splice - Possible to add this spells effect when casting a second spell. Possibly a meta magic feat.

Suspend - Basically it already exists in magic as Delayed Blast Fireball.

Transmute - Allows you to swap the spell for a spell of the same level.

Grandeur - Burn multiple memorizations for a larger effect.

Unadaptable
Most Creature only abilities
Scry X
Threshold - Adaptable but lame in D&D
Echo - Adaptable but lame in D&D
Imprint
Affinity
Indestructible
Phasing - Adaptable but lame
Amplify
Aura Swap
Delve
Epic - Adaptable but lame
Forecast - Adaptable but lame in D&D
Gravestorm
Haunt
Hideaway
Imprint
Recover - redundant with buyback
Split Second
Hellbent

As for the class.

I suggest they are mostly like the wizard class with the exception each level or maybe every other they gain an ability that ads one more mana to their mana pool they color having to be chosen at the time they level.

[Dienekes]

I don't think they're gonna change everything as is from one system to another. As I don't think they're trying to make the characters the all-powerful mages that play the deck, but rather play an rpg that is based on the mtg world.

Hell if they did it the other way certain spells would be way too powerful *terminate would rock even more than it already does*

One of the things that would have to be accounted for is that in the stories is that most seem to be at least partial casters.

So I would give 3 varying levels of spellcasting, but every class games some spell abilities.

[EENick]

I don't think they're gonna change everything as is from one system to another. As I don't think they're trying to make the characters the all-powerful mages that play the deck, but rather play an rpg that is based on the mtg world.

Hell if they did it the other way certain spells would be way too powerful *terminate would rock even more than it already does*

One of the things that would have to be accounted for is that in the stories is that most seem to be at least partial casters.

So I would give 3 varying levels of spellcasting, but every class games some spell abilities.

Nope I asked just to be sure about that.

The main goal would be to implement the base class/magic system; everything after that's just filler

Really Terminate is really pretty close to Dismissal in D&D terms since it only effects summoned creatures. Keep in mind, creatures are not players for terms of conversion. Only spells that effect Walkers would likely be able to effect PCs.

[Jogi]

I've got some ideas from the ideas everyone had:

- On character creation the player choses one color. He will be able to cast spells of chosen collor and of those colors that are adjacent to the chosen one. Example: if you choose green, you'll also be able to cast red and white spells, but not black or blue.

- Characters have mana acording to their level. This value should be defined by level and class. This way, a fighter would have mana, but not as much as a wizard.

- On character creation the character must distribute his level-class amount of mana beetwen his avaliable colors. Example: lets say a lv 1 Fighter gets 3 mana. If the chosen color is blue, I could give my fighter 1W, 1U and 1B.

- On lv-up characters distribute the new mana gained amongst their avaliable colors. Example: if my Fighter goes to lv2 and thus receives one new mana, I could make it have 2W, 1U, and 1B. Example 2: my wizard lv 1 (which has 2U, 2W and 1B) receives 3 new mana when he lv's up, and thus he distributes it like this: 4U, 2W and 2B.

- A character can't have a max mana of an adjacent color higher than his main color. Example: if chosen color is white, you can't have your max pool 2U, 1W and 1G; it would have to be 1U, 2W, and 1G.

- At start of day the character recovers his mana. Example: said wizard has an mana max of 4U, 2W and 2B. When he rests for 8 hours he will recover his mana fully. Also, would be nice if a small rest (like that one players might take beetwen encounters) would recover 1 mana. Meditation could also be required for some magic-oriented classes, like wizard (you could say they need to prepare themselves since they deal with much more energy [mana] than a fighter does).

About spells mana cost:

- A spell mana cost is equal to that spell's level. If that spell's color is different from your main color, it will cost +1 incolor mana.

- A multicolor spell costs +1 incolor mana per adjacent color involved.

- The color of the mana that needs to be spent is determined by the spell color. If the color of the spell is your main color you can choose to spent 1 of the required mana as incolor mana (any color). Thus, a lv 2 green spell (with main color being green) would consume 2G or 1G+1incolor. A lv3 red spell (non-main) would cost 3R.

- Mana could also be required for some feats to be used, thus allowing fightes to use their mana.

About "mana-multicassing":

- Using this model I suggested you'd never be able to cast spells from two colors (those that are direct oposing your main color). Yet this could be very limiting, althought it should'nt be easy for a character to be able to have acess to 4 colors of magic. I'd say this could be an epic level feat or maybe even limited to some prestige classes. Maybe we could create a "Wielder Of The Primordial" class, which has acess to 4 mana. Nevertheless, I think acess to all 5 colors shouldn't be given to players through game mecanics. This should be demi-god-like powers and the players should have acess to it only through campaign achievement or if his DM says so.

About mana & alignment:

- I don't think a character's color should limit his alignment. But I do belive that some colors have more to do with some alignments.

- I suggest that we say each color has a favored alignment and if a characters choses a color and his alignment is that of the color, he would somewhat get a benefit from that. This could be extra mana, or simple +1 to saves against oposite colors.

- Using this system I can easily imagine a black paladin, that uses his might to imbue death in his blows as he cuts through the enemies of justice.


Oh well, I'll post later If I have any other ideas. :D

[Lady Tialait]

Wait, I think what Jogi is doing is awesome. But, let's take a pause here.

If you are going to make a MTG system that the PCs are NOT planeswalkers, please take in to account that everyone not a planeswalker in the novels had access to Mana but only in a limited way.

Most could not cast spells, not even most main personalities.

Examples:

Jhoria was well liked, and respected by many planswalkers, and she was known to do a little bit of casting here and there. She couldn't do much, but she was very old and powerful hence she could do a load of different things. (She is pretty powerful, and almost a planeswalker. Infact she almost qualifies under the new definition.)

Then we have Gerrand, he was fantastic. His mana manipulation wasn't so much. He could use a bit of it, you could tell. He was able to channel it to do some MINOR things. To empower himself and such. (ToB anyone?)

And onto my personal favorite: Oona. She was able to wipe the mind of every creature on a whole plane of existence, and she was able to turn it into two planes that took up the same place and population! This is truly a powerful creature. But, not a planeswalker. She prolly could fight the current planeswalkers and win, pure magical force is amazing.

None of those I listed could cast spells like "Terminate" or "Giant Growth" then again they aren't black/red or green creatures are they?

Can you seriously see Gerrand summoning a 1/1 solider?

Can you seriously see Jhoira casting Cloven Casting?

Can you really see Oona casting Spellweaver Volute?

And all the examples I have given have one VERY intresting weakness, Terminate. You can do it on any of them. Because they are not Planeswalkers.

That is why if I was to make a system, the only way to make it fullfill anything beyond playing in the awesome settings made by Wizards for each set would be to play planeswalkers.

Now...my 2cp has been given.