Looking for a Magic System

[Otogi]

I'm looking for a game with a magic system. No problem, right? I'm obviously not talking about D&D, you think, so go with something like a point system. That's not it, though. I'm looking for a system that doesn't use points or slots. Does anyone have an idea?

[lsfreak]

If you're willing to experiment with existing D&D stuff, warlocks, dragonfire adepts, and homebrew invocation classes might work. Binders and Truenamers (with appropriate fixes) from Tome of Magic. Arcane swordsage from Tome of Battle, with appropriate changes. d20Rebirth's sorcerer-with-spell-seeds. With a bit of tweaking, you can replace normal spellcasting with those and similar for a much less broken, at-will-type magic system.

[wormwood]

Shadowrun uses skills with a target number that can impact fatigue.
True20 uses a similar skills/fatigue system.

Those are the first two I thought of. Anything else you can think of that you'd like... maybe that would help focus my thoughts.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Define "points" ? They can be used in so many different ways.

The Riddle of Steel has a spell system with no spell points or slots - you age when you use magic. Shadowrun, too - using magic causes fatigue. Same in GURPS and Decipher's Lord of the Rings.

[Sinfire Titan]

Warhammer Fantasy uses a skill system. WW usually uses a psuedo-point system when it comes to spells.



I suggest the Warhammer Fantasy system though. Much harder to break, provided you are not using 1st edition's spells. 2E on up.

[Otogi]

Actually, I do like that option, but I already have psionics covered as a rapid, small area, point based rank system that recharges per encounter. I was thinking of making them into feats that are either used a couple of times per day, or with a sacrifice of different stats.

Do you have any ideas?

[Otogi]

Define "points" ? They can be used in so many different ways.

The Riddle of Steel has a spell system with no spell points or slots - you age when you use magic. Shadowrun, too - using magic causes fatigue. Same in GURPS and Decipher's Lord of the Rings.

Sorry, I meant like a D&D psionics thing. Age thing sounds to specific and probably unused, fatigue is interesting. How does it work?

Skills also sound kind of interesting. Do you know which ones are the best?

[only1doug]

I saw a D20 product called sovereign stone. Its magic system has 5 elements and each spell has target numbers for the elements involved in casting it (max of 2 elements in a spell) (earth, air, fire, water & Void).

Casters would roll d20 + skill, if they haven't achieved the target number they note the total and continue casting the next turn adding the previous result to the total for each turn until the spell is cast. fortitude save each round prevents subdual damage for strain of multiround casting.

any good for you?

[Tsotha-lanti]

Unused? What do you mean? The idea in TROS is that magic can do anything - including disintegrate your opponents with pretty much zero effort - but every time you use it you age months or years.

Fatigue-based casting systems involve becoming progressively more fatigued as you use magic, getting penalties (and making it harder to cast more spells and resist the subsequent fatigue). It wouldn't really work great in D&D, since no one else becomes fatigued from exertion, really.

[Satyr]

Obligatory Witchcraft link.
In Witchcaft, Magic (of the traditional kind; there is ore than one set of supernatural powers) isbased on skills - your witch or wizard learns one school of spell - for example Fire or Illusion Magic - and can freely their abilities within the schools they have mastered, based on how skilled tey are with it. There are no single spells, but the player can create pretty much every effect which suits to a school, which is great from a creativity perspective and allows for very individual and custom "spells" - and the best the system is very easy at the same time.

And Witchcraft is generally an awesome game, and certainly the best game you could get for free.

[Cedrass]

I guess there is always Mage from White Wolf (nWoD). Never played it though, so I can't really comment. But having read a good portion of the book, I think it's a nice system as far magic goes.

[kamikasei]

I do believe the Slayers d20 system handled casting by dealing nonlethal damage for each spell cast. Or something. I don't know the system, just remember it being discussed. Spells themselves may also have worked off a skill system.

[Sinfire Titan]

I guess there is always Mage from White Wolf (nWoD). Never played it though, so I can't really comment. But having read a good portion of the book, I think it's a nice system as far magic goes.

Like most things WW prints, there's some serious brokenage in that system. Most of it is intentional too.

[kc0bbq]

Like most things WW prints, there's some serious brokenage in that system. Most of it is intentional too.

Throw a fireball with some homeless guy close enough to see? Paradox ahoy! Drop a meteor on your opponent's noggin during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? Unlikely, but not exactly impossible, possibly no paradox!

The system wants you to be subtle, not creative.

[hamishspence]

Warlocks and dragonfire adepts use neither points nor slots- all magic powers at will.

[Otogi]

@only1doug: Thanks for the advice, but I was thinking of something more expansive than just the elements.

@Cedress: While I do like the creativity and interesting things you can do with it, I want something more concrete and less situation/description based than Mage.

@Kamikasei: I was thinking of that, but I'm using a classes system where you choose your own HP, and I wanted a more "squishy caster" thing.

@hamishspence: Useful, but I wanted to make magic into something larger and slower in comparison to the fast and small psionics.

I'm looking at Witchcraft, and it is a good, skill based system, but it offers too many options for free that I think should have a cost. It's a good base, but not something I'd use by itself.

[Satyr]

I'm looking at Witchcraft, and it is a good, skill based system, but it offers too many options for free that I think should have a cost. It's a good base, but not something I'd use by itself.

Interesting. Can you name an example or two?

[hamishspence]

Urban Arcana has incantations- basically, the epic magic system, but not as cheesed out (it would be hard to be as cheesed out as epic ) and with multiple skill checks over time- minimum 60 minutes to cast.

Unearthed Arcana has a similar system.

Both fit the "long drawn-out casting" role.

[only1doug]

@only1doug: Thanks for the advice, but I was thinking of something more expansive than just the elements.

The elements cover a broad range of spells:

Direct damage & Wall of (element) obviously straight from the element.

Necromancy school spells from Void. create undead etc, Vampiric touch and stat draining spells.

Charm and compulsion spells through Air (i think)

Healing spells through water

rock to mud through earth

Any spell from any system could be converted once you have understood the interaction of the elements (which i don't completely recall but could look up if you are interested in more detail).

[Aux-Ash]

Eon, a swedish roleplaying game, has a very complex yet fun magic system. Magic exists in three forms basically: Spells, Rituals/Ceremonies and improvised (there's also alchemy but it works a bit differently). Each of these consists of three parts: Channeling, Transforming and Weaving/spellcasting.

Channeling means drawing units of power from the "source of magic". For every unit drawn the difficulty of the roll increases (by adding one more dice. The difficulty system is based on multiple d6 and that you roll under your skill value).
Every aspect/element (heat, cold, fire, stasis, chaos, time, death, life, etc.) of magic requires it's own skill when it comes to channeling.

Transforming means that you transform units of power from the aspect one channeled into units of other aspects needed for the effects. It is not always required (for instance, if one wants to light a flame in the hand all that is needed is fire. No transformation necessary) but for most advanced magic it is (multiple channeling is not possible due to the units dissipating)

After magic having been channeled and transformed all that remains is weaving the effects. The more units that one have the more potent the effect is and the more difficult the effect will be to weave. Each effect has a specific aspect it is tied to, for instance a fireball that flies towards the target and explodes would need:
Range (chaos), Movement (chaos), Fire (fire), Explosion (heat). After all those have been woven, the fireball flies away to whereever you pointed it towards and explodes.

I am fond of the system because it allows magic to do virtually anything, but at the same time it is very exhausting to use and very dangerous. For instance, the fire ball mentioned above will require one channeling, 2 transformations (one chaos to fire and one chaos to heat) and 4 weavings. It is under normal circumstances considered to be a difficult spell, if improvised for greater effect it'd be even worse. But it's very effective in combat if successful and would most likely scare the few survivors away.

[J.Gellert]

I am partial to the magic system from Monte Cook's World of Darkness. It's d20, halfway between skill-based and mana-based. The cool thing about it is how you essentially create your own spells (so no two mages are exactly the same) and it handles things like cursing people from miles away.

It's not very simple to use, however.

[Sebastian]

Ars magica, you can download the 4th edition for free, just google 'ars magica pdf'.

essentially is fatigue based, you have 5 techniques (verbs) and 10 forms (names) and you combine them to do almost anything.

It is not meant to be balanced, wizards are more powerful that any other kind of characters, but in its case is a feature, not a bug.

[Oblivious]

Ars Magica is also pretty free-form. It's very similar to Mage, actually (I think OWoD Mage was an offshoot of Ars Magica back when White Wolf owned it). You could always modify the rules of either game by saying "you must purchase individual spells" (i.e. rotes in Mage).

[Tyrrell]

I'm looking for a game with a magic system. No problem, right? I'm obviously not talking about D&D, you think, so go with something like a point system. That's not it, though. I'm looking for a system that doesn't use points or slots. Does anyone have an idea?

I haven't read the rest of the thread so I might be repeating the words of others (in fact I sure hope that I am). Ars Magica 5 has an incredible magic system more rich and flexible than any other I've seen. Because of the detail you've got in some ways more options than even something like hero system.

You've got all the flexibility of Mage the Ascension and you don't have to add the flavor yourself.

there really isn't anything at all like it.

(Of course it hardly qualifies as rules light)

[Tyrrell]

Ars Magica is also pretty free-form. It's very similar to Mage, actually (I think OWoD Mage was an offshoot of Ars Magica back when White Wolf owned it). You could always modify the rules of either game by saying "you must purchase individual spells" (i.e. rotes in Mage).

Order of Hermes magic in Ars Magica (the "main system" there are many others) does allow charaters to create spells on the fly but the spells are quite weak in comparison to spells that are known. (in fact about 1/3 the level - barring exceptional circumstances).

old WoD mage was in some ways an offshoot of Ars Magica but not systemwise. The systems really have very little in common.

[Otogi]

@only1doug: That's something I'm describing as a sort of "source" thing (a list I stole from M&M) that I'm not sure as to leave as an actual change in style or just fluff.

@hamishspense: That's actually the base of the Fundaments system. You would take ability damage to raise another stat for a while with the Fortify fundament, or take Dexterity/Strength damage to increase/decrease size with the Size fundament.

@Aux-Ash: It's sounds good, but I'm more into fluid instead of complex for this. I tried to make the game more bear-and-pretzels than long term, although it can be played that way. So I was looking for a more one-step system than what Eon has.

@Sebastian: Unfortunately, balance is key, and since fighters and mages will be together, I'd like to keep it equal.

EDIT: Well, since there is a lot of support for it, I'll give it a look.

[Sebastian]

@Sebastian: Unfortunately, balance is key, and since fighters and mages will be together, I'd like to keep it equal.

EDIT: Well, since there is a lot of support for it, I'll give it a look.

If you are not afraid to tinker around you could give wizards less points to buy Arts/spells with, and try to find a new balance point.

In any case is a very good and solid system, even if you want a magic-less campaign, IMHO and it is worth a reading.

[wormwood]

I'll second the system in WFRP 2nd Edition. The first edition system was all about "Wizards Win"... especially if they didn't mind going to the dark side. Necromancers in 1st edition WFRP were actually SCARY.

Derailment to necromancers aside, WFRP 2nd Ed has a pretty good magic system based on the stats and skills of the caster. It is fairly well balanced with non-casters by the horrible things that can happen to casters who abuse magic (the god of magic is EVIL and likes to roast humans who get his attention). Also, until much higher levels, the spells aren't that powerful compared to the abilities of the non-magical characters.

A character has a Magic attribute that equals the number of 10-sided dice he is able to roll to cast a spell. He aims for a target number. If he rolls doubles, something nasty happens to him (whether or not the spell works). If he rolls triples, something even more horrific happens. This leads to casters trying to roll as few dice as they can in order to succeed on a spell. Rolling 5d10 to hit a target number of 5 is a guaranteed success but it is also a far better chance of getting doubles, triples, quadruples, or (gods forbid) quintuples. It basically means that even the most powerful mages hold back unless they absolutely have to cast those nasty spells.

[Tsotha-lanti]

horrible things that can happen to casters who abuse magic (the god of magic is EVIL and likes to roast humans who get his attention)

A bit inaccurate... there's no "god of magic," it's just that magic is all Chaos (and this is proper, evil, destructive Chaos - basically a totally evil version of Moorcock's Chaos) - you're harnessing it every time you use magic. And you don't need to abuse magic, it's enough to try to use it, as you described the chance of doubles etc.

[Sinfire Titan]

A bit inaccurate... there's no "god of magic," it's just that magic is all Chaos (and this is proper, evil, destructive Chaos - basically a totally evil version of Moorcock's Chaos) - you're harnessing it every time you use magic. And you don't need to abuse magic, it's enough to try to use it, as you described the chance of doubles etc.

Actually, their mages harness the Aethyr, not Tzeentch's power. Tzeentch just screws with them when they use it.