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  1. - Top - End - #241
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by EdokTheTwitch View Post
    Well, took me long enough to read through the thread that the interest in it managed to wane. I fought through the superhero VS guy at the gym, 4th Edition, and even random game system sidetracks, only to arrive at the finish line too late. Hopefully it doesn't fade too quickly, the topic is incredibly interesting.

    I noticed that there is a lot of focus (and push-back) on the subject of even introducing a cost to magic. Many people mention that the costs are either prohibitively high (unreasonable fumble charts mostly), purely narrative and thus easily ignored (losing life expectancy or signing away your soul), or just unfun (long casting times or severe magic nerfs). And, to be honest, I definitely agree. Most of these feel like they're intended to slap a band aid on the problem of caster supremacy (Of course, talking about D&D) and punish the player for daring to play a caster.

    I've been thinking, though. I DO believe that magic should have a cost. Unless it's a setting where magic is commonplace (Harry Potter, Eberron, Avatar), as a mystical, unknowable force, there should be some price for using it.

    I've got a couple of ideas that I've been using in my own (heavily WIP) system:
    1. Magic is dangerous,but only until mastered. In this idea , learning new spells is the dangerous segment, not actively using them later. For example, every time the caster needs to learn a new spell, they seclude themselves, and go through a risky process of trial and error. This is mostly flavorful in the end, but it can provide some interesting moments for the player, as they struggle to master a particularly complex spell.

    2. Magic is toxic/not suitable for mortals. In this system, channeling magic is not too complicated, but it carries the drawback of making a character weak. Every time they learn a new level of magic, they roll on a table to see how it weakens them. For example, they lose 5 ft of movement speed, drop one die size when rolling for hp, lose a point of strength and constitution, etc. In this system, the mages grow in power, but lose themselves and their health along the way. Of course, the drawbacks are easy to compensate with spells, but that is a win-win, as the player gets to use more spells, and get to experience the transition into a more magical being, as they rely less and less on their physicality.

    3. Magic is severely draining. Here, the mages should definitely not be pure spellcasters. Whenever a player casts a spell, they accumulate a point of exhaustion (or a similar effect in other systems). This limits the impact of powerful magic in individual encounters, and encourages players to be more selective in their casting. Of course, this does not mesh in any way with the Vancian casting system,so that would have to go as well. My idea here is that players would be something like "field mages", adventurers who use magic alongside other skills, such as climbing, investigation, and social skills. And, if it seems too harsh, characters could get several (2, 3) spells for free each encounter before being forced to suffer the penalty.

    Of course, all of these systems are heavily system- and setting-reliant. As a matter of fact, with the exception of 1 and 3, I don't really think I would combine them with each other. However, all of them provide an interesting way for the players to interact with the magic in the game, and give off a feeling of an otherworldly force.

    Any thoughts?
    Of these, (1) is the one that is most usable in a game. It actually does a lot to explain why a class-based system has spellcasting classes, rather than just allowing any old commoner to learn to read and figure out the right finger-waggles and tongue-twisters to make that twist of straw jammed into a cow pie conjure a flock of barbarian hens to do his bidding.

    (2) has the same sort of problem that other narrative "costs of magic" do: it either does very little to impact the game, or rapidly makes a character unplayable. Tying the "horrible fumble table" to leveling up limits the damage, a bit, and enables a bit more inflictions of weakness that are real before the character stops being playable, but it still is pretty problematic. It's noteworthy that the Wu Jen of 3.5's Compete Arcane had taboos they added as they leveled up. These were mostly cosmetic, though could get problematic to play if the DM and players paid too close attention to them, and were a bad idea mechanically because the wu jen wasn't any more powerful for having them, but they also were about as severe as such costs can really get before the class is unusable.

    (3) is really just a variant mana system with a high cost for spending mana. "The cost of magic" is already in every edition of D&D except possibly 4e by this standard: it costs you spell slots. Now, I know the actual proposal here is that there be a cost that is more than something "knowing magic" gave you, and everybody - mage or not - recognizes "being tired, possibly to the point of death" as a cost rather than a new extra resource. But it rarely matches "the cost of magic" narratively, which tends to be some grand thing that comes due or subtly accumulates.

    (3) is a workable mechanic, in other words, for exactly the reasons that it doesn't quite match what most people mean when they say "the cost of magic" in a narrative sense.

  2. - Top - End - #242
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Of these, (1) is the one that is most usable in a game. It actually does a lot to explain why a class-based system has spellcasting classes, rather than just allowing any old commoner to learn to read and figure out the right finger-waggles and tongue-twisters to make that twist of straw jammed into a cow pie conjure a flock of barbarian hens to do his bidding.

    (2) has the same sort of problem that other narrative "costs of magic" do: it either does very little to impact the game, or rapidly makes a character unplayable. Tying the "horrible fumble table" to leveling up limits the damage, a bit, and enables a bit more inflictions of weakness that are real before the character stops being playable, but it still is pretty problematic. It's noteworthy that the Wu Jen of 3.5's Compete Arcane had taboos they added as they leveled up. These were mostly cosmetic, though could get problematic to play if the DM and players paid too close attention to them, and were a bad idea mechanically because the wu jen wasn't any more powerful for having them, but they also were about as severe as such costs can really get before the class is unusable.

    (3) is really just a variant mana system with a high cost for spending mana. "The cost of magic" is already in every edition of D&D except possibly 4e by this standard: it costs you spell slots. Now, I know the actual proposal here is that there be a cost that is more than something "knowing magic" gave you, and everybody - mage or not - recognizes "being tired, possibly to the point of death" as a cost rather than a new extra resource. But it rarely matches "the cost of magic" narratively, which tends to be some grand thing that comes due or subtly accumulates.

    (3) is a workable mechanic, in other words, for exactly the reasons that it doesn't quite match what most people mean when they say "the cost of magic" in a narrative sense.
    Most narrative limits/costs require the developers, the GM, and the rest of the players, to be fairly on the same page as to how to apply those limits, or they end up being perfunctory or onerous.
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  3. - Top - End - #243
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Most narrative limits/costs require the developers, the GM, and the rest of the players, to be fairly on the same page as to how to apply those limits, or they end up being perfunctory or onerous.
    Yeah. And tend to constrain the possible adventures and worlds tremendously. Which may be a good thing or not depending on taste and purpose of the system.

    My big concern is that they're like mechanized flaws tend to be--if you up-shift the power to compensate for the cost, then people who figure out how to avoid or mitigate the cost now have extra power with no cost.
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  4. - Top - End - #244
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    Of these, (1) is the one that is most usable in a game. It actually does a lot to explain why a class-based system has spellcasting classes, rather than just allowing any old commoner to learn to read and figure out the right finger-waggles and tongue-twisters to make that twist of straw jammed into a cow pie conjure a flock of barbarian hens to do his bidding.

    (2) has the same sort of problem that other narrative "costs of magic" do: it either does very little to impact the game, or rapidly makes a character unplayable. Tying the "horrible fumble table" to leveling up limits the damage, a bit, and enables a bit more inflictions of weakness that are real before the character stops being playable, but it still is pretty problematic. It's noteworthy that the Wu Jen of 3.5's Compete Arcane had taboos they added as they leveled up. These were mostly cosmetic, though could get problematic to play if the DM and players paid too close attention to them, and were a bad idea mechanically because the wu jen wasn't any more powerful for having them, but they also were about as severe as such costs can really get before the class is unusable.

    (3) is really just a variant mana system with a high cost for spending mana. "The cost of magic" is already in every edition of D&D except possibly 4e by this standard: it costs you spell slots. Now, I know the actual proposal here is that there be a cost that is more than something "knowing magic" gave you, and everybody - mage or not - recognizes "being tired, possibly to the point of death" as a cost rather than a new extra resource. But it rarely matches "the cost of magic" narratively, which tends to be some grand thing that comes due or subtly accumulates.

    (3) is a workable mechanic, in other words, for exactly the reasons that it doesn't quite match what most people mean when they say "the cost of magic" in a narrative sense.
    Yeah, the first one is the one I think most people would see as the best. However, in my eyes, it's the most dangerous, as the studying process should be LETHAL.

    Magic as toxin is the one I personally love. The mage begins fairly normal, maybe with a slight disadvantage. But as the weaknesses grow, the mage's power grows as well. A mage with a weakened CON constantly recasts Bear's Endurance to keep up, a slow one is on permanent expeditious retreat, or even fly, while a reflex-lowered one lives blurred

    Yeah,the last one IS a modified mana system, but it relates to much more than spell power, as it damages the character's functionality overall. Maybe as they grow, they can learn to use lower-level spells without cost.

  5. - Top - End - #245
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    I'd say the point of narrative costs of magic just shouldn't be about game balance in the first place. Costs in general aren't a great balancing tool compared to changing what something actually does, for reasons that have been stated already (namely, that those who are willing to organize their concept and build around negating the impact of those costs can often escape them). If balance is really the point, go with stricter limits on what magic in general as well as specific subtypes of magic is capable of, and have those limits correspond to something fundamental and common to how magic works in the setting rather than just 'a way around this hasn't been invented yet'.

    E.g. things like 'magic cannot itself create any permanent changes to the world, it can only create opportunities for non-magical things to create permanent consequences or leave impressions sentient minds capable of dreaming'. So a building raised by magic falls apart in a day even if the materials were mundane, but it could give travelers shelter from a storm; if the materials had been magical too, those travelers would find themselves suffering the consequences of having been exposed to the weather a day later. Therefore no magical healing, no magical creation of food, teleportation would only be useful for information gathering, you can't even kill something with magic (though you can knock it out temporarily), etc.

    But narrative costs can help make the properties of magic in a setting more specific, and can bring about interesting choices and even create interesting skill-based play.

    Take something like the way magic works in Pact (from the author of Worm). If you become a practitioner, karma becomes a real force in your existence, where it's less about being a good person and more about taking responsibility for what you promise and for the consequences you make others bear. It's not made fully mechanical, but this has effects like small lies removing power from the character's workings for a bit, violating an oath or certain traditions like hospitality protections rendering the person unable to resist hostile magic on their own behalf (so they need to explicitly stay under the protection of a supernatural sponsor or will quickly get possessed or worse), and certain things like overt murder or causing accidental supernatural harm to unawakened individuals (or harms without particular ritualized forms of authority or right to cause harm) creating even generational karmic debts that make out-of-sight alliances and friendships tend to decay or turn to betrayal.

    If everyone is on the same page to play within those limits (everyone is at least aware of the supernatural if not a practitioner) then there's new gameplay considerations like 'how do we get the right to harm our enemies?' and even new roles such as 'hey you're not in the karma system, can you take care of things when we need to kill?' and so on.

  6. - Top - End - #246
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by EdokTheTwitch View Post
    Magic as toxin is the one I personally love.
    If the system supports it you could also use it just to explain: Why are the wizard's stats lower than a normal person's? The only thing I would caution is letting magic directly make up the difference. And I'm not talking about balance (you can still make up the difference other ways) I just mean a wizard who is cursed to slow down and then buffs their speed... I mean if you like it go for it but it feels like a complicated circle to me.

    I once played a super disabled wizard (I had every physical disability the game would let me take) who would have trouble operating in day-to-day life let alone an adventure. But they were an extremely talented summoner and had a bunch of helpful caretakers for the things they could not do themselves. The magic as toxin later became the basis for a base building game I sketched for fun.

    Yeah,the last one IS a modified mana system, but it relates to much more than spell power, as it damages the character's functionality overall. Maybe as they grow, they can learn to use lower-level spells without cost.
    I've done that, except all character had mechanics where they could spend their energy for things. It was baked into the resolution system and there were other abilities that used it, not just spell casting. It probably needed a lot more tuning though.

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    But narrative costs can help make the properties of magic in a setting more specific, and can bring about interesting choices and even create interesting skill-based play.
    The best solution is make the cost something people want to engage with. Not the characters no, but the players.

  7. - Top - End - #247
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    On the "magic is a poison" concept of a cost, there's the Oracle and their curses in Pathfinder.

    If you want "the cost of magic" to be something painfully obvious/crippling, you can have it be paid more-or-less up front just for getting the power(s). But you have to make the magic worth the cost. The upside of this method is that you can make the cost a defect that is just the right level of inconvenient, and not worry about it making using the magic intractable. You have the magic; the cost is just something you perpetually live with rather than something you pay for overuse.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    I like it when the magic system has three different kategories of cost :

    - Character building cost. People not learning magic get other fun things. When made gradual (the more magic you buy, the less other stuff you can buy) it provides all kinds of hybrid characters like gishes without any extra rules

    - Cost of use in regular play. That is the combination of casting time and mana points/spell slots and how those refresh. This dictates how often magic gets used which makes it the major balancing factor. Without such a cost magic effects would have to be near irrelevantly weak to be balanced to nonmagical options.

    - Cost of extraordinary magic. This is for the large scale game/setting changing rituals as well as for things like permanent buffs or crafting permanent magic items. All those need a further reason to be in limited use. It is important that the magic user does not use all his downtime to provide permanent things with his magic points he has no further use yet and people ask why the world is not flooded with such stuff if everyone can do so. Special rare components might work because that is less a thing where the system has to say how often it can be done and more a thing the setting and the GM decide.


    I don't like the risk for magic thing. Do you really want to roll the dice whenever a PC advances to learn if he kills themself ? And then what happens ? He dies and the player makes a new character or he is lucky and can as reward have overpowered magic that he paid for with the risk ?

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    frown Re: The cost of magic

    I once heard of a ridiculous magic system where wizards could cast their spells endlessly, no mana point cost, no spell slots. But every time they cast a spell they had to roll dice to see if they succeeded. Failing that die roll, something horrendous may happen to the caster. High risk, but high reward. Still, not a magic system I would prefer.
    The GM would simply ask the player of the wizard, "Okay, what spell effect do you want to do?" And the wizard could tell them the most ridiculous spell you ever heard of, and the GM would actually allow them to attempt it, no matter how ridiculous it was. The GM would have to on the spot come up with a Target Difficulty Number based on the chosen effect.
    I don't like this system. It is ridiculous. In my younger days I experimented with a system like this and it always ended in disaster and wasn't fun.
    That's why I prefer mana point systems. Spell slots are fine too.
    Now I'm a Human Fighter so I typically don't worry too much about magic systems. Still, I'm getting sick and tired of being outshined by wizards. At least in 4th edition I had a decent set of powers. LoL!
    Last edited by HumanFighter; 2021-03-06 at 12:36 PM.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by HumanFighter View Post
    The GM would simply ask the player of the wizard, "Okay, what spell effect do you want to do?" And the wizard could tell them the most ridiculous spell you ever heard of, and the GM would actually allow them to attempt it, no matter how ridiculous it was. The GM would have to on the spot come up with a Target Difficulty Number based on the chosen effect.
    What's the issue? That's the D&D 5e approach to everything that isn't combat, a spell, or a pc class ability. Tell the DM what you want to do, DM decides on a number and tells you what modifiers apply, you roll, if you roll high enough you get what what you want otherwise you fail with any penalties the DM decides on.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    What's the issue? That's the D&D 5e approach to everything that isn't combat, a spell, or a pc class ability. Tell the DM what you want to do, DM decides on a number and tells you what modifiers apply, you roll, if you roll high enough you get what what you want otherwise you fail with any penalties the DM decides on.
    Because different DM's have different opinions on the difficulty of a task. If the DM doesn't like the effect you want he can set the target number so high you can't do it, passive aggressively telling you No. Another DM can say the effect is fine and give a lower number for a reasonable chance.

    Someone needs to come up with the parameters for a magic system on the effects that PCs can do and the difficulty of doing them. That someone should be the game designers. One can like or dislike what those parameters are, but they are the ones who need to do it. In D&D, those parameters are class level, spell slots, and defined effects of specific spells. In GURPS each spell is a skill check which has a specified target number based on how many build points you invested in a particular spell for a modifier on your Intelligence score.
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    What's the issue? That's the D&D 5e approach to everything that isn't combat, a spell, or a pc class ability. Tell the DM what you want to do, DM decides on a number and tells you what modifiers apply, you roll, if you roll high enough you get what what you want otherwise you fail with any penalties the DM decides on.
    The issue is that that's fundamentally "Mother May I", and Mother May I is not a terribly fun or interesting game. There certainly is a niche for ruleslight games where the answer to everything is "make some stuff up", but A) those games don't really benefit from notions like "rolling" or "DM" and B) trying to spot-weld a game like that to D&D's highly-involved combat system produces dissonance. Asking "why do you want rules for magic" is like asking why you want rules for combat or exploration or cooking. Maybe you find that a difficult question to answer, but the amount of money that has been made selling rules for stuff suggests that people in general find some value there.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    The issue is that that's fundamentally "Mother May I", and Mother May I is not a terribly fun or interesting game.
    I prefer to call it "Collaborative storytelling". You're not that much playing a game, but more enjoying the creation of a story in which you get to make a significant number of suggestions. Which IMO is fun and interesting, but definitely a different kind of fun and interesting than playing a game.

    And on the subject of magic, this debate is quite alike soft magic VS hard magic from fiction. On the softer side, magic is just a plot device, out of the grasp of the characters (and controlled by the players and/or GM at meta-level). On the harder side, magic is a strict set of rules where every flaw is and should be exploited and abused by the the PCs and NPCs.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    I prefer to call it "Collaborative storytelling".
    It's not really "Collaborative" when everything goes through the DM, who has the power to decide whether or not you fail and what happens if you do. Collaborative Storytelling is a totally valid thing to do (though, frankly, I would consider it a category that includes both things like D&D and more ruleslight exercises). But the specific paradigm being discussed is, at best, a really bad implementation of it.

    And on the subject of magic, this debate is quite alike soft magic VS hard magic from fiction. On the softer side, magic is just a plot device, out of the grasp of the characters (and controlled by the players and/or GM at meta-level). On the harder side, magic is a strict set of rules where every flaw is and should be exploited and abused by the the PCs and NPCs.
    Plenty of soft magic settings have magic in the hands of the characters. Soft magic just means magic doesn't follow well-defined rules. Harry Potter is a soft magic setting, and the protagonists, antagonists, and (most of) the side characters of that story are wizards.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    I prefer to call it "Collaborative storytelling". You're not that much playing a game, but more enjoying the creation of a story in which you get to make a significant number of suggestions. Which IMO is fun and interesting, but definitely a different kind of fun and interesting than playing a game.
    ( Which is part of why some of us twitch and grumble when someone says "All RPGs are collaborative storytelling"... )


    Quote Originally Posted by MoiMagnus View Post
    And on the subject of magic, this debate is quite alike soft magic VS hard magic from fiction. On the softer side, magic is just a plot device, out of the grasp of the characters (and controlled by the players and/or GM at meta-level). On the harder side, magic is a strict set of rules where every flaw is and should be exploited and abused by the the PCs and NPCs.
    It is.

    Either is fine, but part of the thought process needs to be "what do we want magic to do in this game, as part of the gameplay".
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Plenty of soft magic settings have magic in the hands of the characters. Soft magic just means magic doesn't follow well-defined rules. Harry Potter is a soft magic setting, and the protagonists, antagonists, and (most of) the side characters of that story are wizards.
    They do however tend to either a) have relatively clear limits on what individual characters can do, or b) introduce new abilities relatively rarely. I think Gandalf is a good example of the latter, both setting pinecones on fire and his knowledge of unlocking spells pretty much come out of nowhere, but they're not entirely unexpected for a wizard and actually don't solve the situations they're used in (but both do help).

    To represent that in a game I think you'd have something similar to The Burning Wheel's Art Magic, where you have a bunch of rather broad basic effects that the wizard player can then customise on the fly, with some wizards being better at some effects and others proficient at others.

    Actually I really like magic in The Burning Wheel. It's not balanced, It's intentionally not balanced. The whole game throws out the idea of balance in favour of realistic power levels, which also means that a noble sorcerer will be the most powerful*, followed by one with noble patronage, followed by a 'working wizard', followed by hedge mages, entirely due to Resources being what you buy spells and the like. But it's not a be-all and end-all, even with the more versatile systems because there will be some areas of magic that you either cannot do or are rolling really small dice pools for.

    * Assuming they concentrate on magical and not political power.
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    They do however tend to either a) have relatively clear limits on what individual characters can do, or b) introduce new abilities relatively rarely.
    It's really more the opposite. If you look at a story like Mistborn, the set of things people can do is well-defined from fairly early on. In terms of magical abilities, you can figure out even most of the stuff from the sequel books by partway through the first one. Conversely, in something like Harry Potter, the protagonists just get whatever powers the plot demands. The nature of "soft magic" is that it does whatever the plot demands, and while some plots (like LotR) don't ask very much of their magic others (like the MCU) ask a whole lot.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    It's really more the opposite. If you look at a story like Mistborn, the set of things people can do is well-defined from fairly early on. In terms of magical abilities, you can figure out even most of the stuff from the sequel books by partway through the first one. Conversely, in something like Harry Potter, the protagonists just get whatever powers the plot demands. The nature of "soft magic" is that it does whatever the plot demands, and while some plots (like LotR) don't ask very much of their magic others (like the MCU) ask a whole lot.
    It depends, I remember some rules from Mistborn not coming up until later, especially a lot of stuff to do with Hemalurgy which isn't even really discussed until the third book despite being key to some setting elements important to book 1. In fact we still don't know half the things it can do, although that'll likely be explored ,ore in the next book.

    Heck, there's still a bit more to Allomancy and Feruchemy than revealed in the books, there's likely a reason for Aluminium and Duralumin Mistings, seeing as pre-Lerasium Mistborn apparently didn't exist, and things like Identity and Investure Ferrings have barely been explored (we know one, very specialised thing that Identity can do). New interactions and limits come up much more often than in something like Harry Potter, especially in dramatic situations, and spells generally have to be introduced earlier.
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    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    Because different DM's have different opinions on the difficulty of a task. If the DM doesn't like the effect you want he can set the target number so high you can't do it, passive aggressively telling you No. Another DM can say the effect is fine and give a lower number for a reasonable chance.

    Someone needs to come up with the parameters for a magic system on the effects that PCs can do and the difficulty of doing them. That someone should be the game designers. One can like or dislike what those parameters are, but they are the ones who need to do it. In D&D, those parameters are class level, spell slots, and defined effects of specific spells. In GURPS each spell is a skill check which has a specified target number based on how many build points you invested in a particular spell for a modifier on your Intelligence score.
    I occasionally ask questions to see if people can express and examine the thought processes for a given statement, either because I don't understand their statement or I think the statement lacks either context or connection. And sometimes I play devils advocate just because I appreciate a well reasoned challenge to my own biases and assumptions.

    In the post I responded to I think the poster didn't like the freeform style of magic, but without comparison to the rest of that system I don't know if the complaint involved that entire game system being that way, if the game was intended as a loose Ars Magica style where only the magic users are important, or if they took something like AD&D and turned casting into a D&D 5e skill system clone.

    While I feel relatively save working with the assumption that everyone here has experience with at least one version of the D&D magic system I also know that many tend to work from second hand and TVTropes levels of knowledge about other magic systems. One thing I'm offhand interested in but absolutely don't have time to do, would be to build each magic system in the GURPS or HERO point buy systems. See how their relative effect levels stack against each other and against a "good with a sword/gun" power set worth the same points.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    I occasionally ask questions to see if people can express and examine the thought processes for a given statement, either because I don't understand their statement or I think the statement lacks either context or connection. And sometimes I play devils advocate just because I appreciate a well reasoned challenge to my own biases and assumptions.

    In the post I responded to I think the poster didn't like the freeform style of magic, but without comparison to the rest of that system I don't know if the complaint involved that entire game system being that way, if the game was intended as a loose Ars Magica style where only the magic users are important, or if they took something like AD&D and turned casting into a D&D 5e skill system clone.

    While I feel relatively save working with the assumption that everyone here has experience with at least one version of the D&D magic system I also know that many tend to work from second hand and TVTropes levels of knowledge about other magic systems. One thing I'm offhand interested in but absolutely don't have time to do, would be to build each magic system in the GURPS or HERO point buy systems. See how their relative effect levels stack against each other and against a "good with a sword/gun" power set worth the same points.
    I don't mind GURPS idea on how to do spells, but I'm not a fan of its implentation. Skill checks are fine, and I like having to invest build points to get you better at casting a spell. There is also prerequisite spell knowledge to learn more powerful spells. What I don't like is critically failing to cast hurts you, but that's a GURPS thing, not GURPS magic specifically. Critically failing any skill can hurt you. I hate critical failures for everything, anything, any game system. It's enough to just fail at a task, no need to add insult to injury but I digress rant. That is where summoning a Demon has a small chance of happening. Anyway, some prerequisite spells are almost useless, but I'm more bothered that for some powerful spells you have to waste turns. For example, there's a fire attack spell where you can cast it the same round to do 1d6 damage. Fine. If you want to do 2d6 damage, you cast it, do nothing for the round, then throw the spell next round. If you want to do 3d6 damage you cast and do nothing, do nothing again the next round, release the spell the third round. The fight could be over by then, the target you wanted to attack is dead, or some other reason you've wasted turns doing nothing for no benefit. The game mechanical logic of it sounds cool, but it fails me in practice. I'd rather the number of d6 damage the spell does depend on how many build points you invest in it.
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    I don't mind GURPS idea on how to do spells, but I'm not a fan of its implentation. Skill checks are fine, and I like having to invest build points to get you better at casting a spell. There is also prerequisite spell knowledge to learn more powerful spells. What I don't like is critically failing to cast hurts you, but that's a GURPS thing, not GURPS magic specifically. Critically failing any skill can hurt you. I hate critical failures for everything, anything, any game system. It's enough to just fail at a task, no need to add insult to injury but I digress rant. That is where summoning a Demon has a small chance of happening. Anyway, some prerequisite spells are almost useless, but I'm more bothered that for some powerful spells you have to waste turns. For example, there's a fire attack spell where you can cast it the same round to do 1d6 damage. Fine. If you want to do 2d6 damage, you cast it, do nothing for the round, then throw the spell next round. If you want to do 3d6 damage you cast and do nothing, do nothing again the next round, release the spell the third round. The fight could be over by then, the target you wanted to attack is dead, or some other reason you've wasted turns doing nothing for no benefit. The game mechanical logic of it sounds cool, but it fails me in practice. I'd rather the number of d6 damage the spell does depend on how many build points you invest in it.
    Nitpick: You can put more build points into your magic to increase your charge rate. You can charge 1 point per round per Magery level you have, so if you have Magery 5, you can charge up to 5d6 in a single round. However, no matter how much or little you charge in a turn, you always have to wait until your next turn to throw the spell. Casting the spell is your action, so you aren't really doing nothing.

    Also weapon users often have to waste turns as well, whether just spending a turn moving towards the enemy, drawing a weapon, or reloading. The theory is that each turn is a second long so turn order goes by really fast since you're only doing one action in a round. In practice, this only happens if the whole group is experienced with the system.
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    I don't mind GURPS idea on how to do spells, but I'm not a fan of its implentation.
    Not what I was talking about.

    I was thinking of building the different magic casting systems as character powers in point buy game systems to see how they compared. Not a simple task and not one I have time for these days. But something I'm interested in looking into some day. I know that the HERO system boards have implementations of a couple different systems for Fantasy Hero, but it would take time to find them and check their matches to the original.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Morcleon View Post
    Nitpick: You can put more build points into your magic to increase your charge rate. You can charge 1 point per round per Magery level you have, so if you have Magery 5, you can charge up to 5d6 in a single round. However, no matter how much or little you charge in a turn, you always have to wait until your next turn to throw the spell. Casting the spell is your action, so you aren't really doing nothing.

    Also weapon users often have to waste turns as well, whether just spending a turn moving towards the enemy, drawing a weapon, or reloading. The theory is that each turn is a second long so turn order goes by really fast since you're only doing one action in a round. In practice, this only happens if the whole group is experienced with the system.
    Fair enough. I wouldn't doubt my knowledge of GURPS magic is rusty. Still, I don't like the idea of my turn being casting a spell this round to have it do something next round. I could possibly get over it if it were specific spells rather than all spells. 3E D&D Summon Monster spells were like that, but most spells had their effects the same round you cast it. You are correct non-spellcasters have the same problem. I remember playing a game where another player wanted to be an archer. I don't remember what it was but in building his character he didn't purchase Something, maybe a certain Advantage. Because of that it took him three rounds to fire an arrow from his bow. First round to pull the arrow out of his quiver. Second round to load his bow with the arrow. Third round to fire the arrow. He resented having to purchase that Something. Having to spend build points for everything a character can do is not everyone's cup of tea.
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    Fair enough. I wouldn't doubt my knowledge of GURPS magic is rusty. Still, I don't like the idea of my turn being casting a spell this round to have it do something next round. I could possibly get over it if it were specific spells rather than all spells. 3E D&D Summon Monster spells were like that, but most spells had their effects the same round you cast it. You are correct non-spellcasters have the same problem. I remember playing a game where another player wanted to be an archer. I don't remember what it was but in building his character he didn't purchase Something, maybe a certain Advantage. Because of that it took him three rounds to fire an arrow from his bow. First round to pull the arrow out of his quiver. Second round to load his bow with the arrow. Third round to fire the arrow. He resented having to purchase that Something. Having to spend build points for everything a character can do is not everyone's cup of tea.
    There are specific spells that come into effect once you finish casting and that's actually most spells work. The only spells that need to be cast on one turn then thrown on another turn are Missile spells which create a ball of magic damage that you then physically throw. There's plenty of non-Missile spells that just function instantly.

    GURPS does run with a sort of weird "verisimilitude is the main goal except only sometimes and other time it's handwaved". Combat turns and such are one of those places that they go hard on verisimilitude. Buying various advantages and skills to make drawing an arrow faster just represents training to do so faster (as opposed to a relatively untrained person's fairly realistic rate of being able to shoot an arrow every three seconds). It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but between the one-second-long rounds and the focus on appearing realistic, it's actually a surprisingly specialized system in terms of the intended audience, despite the supposed "Generic Universal" name.
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Morcleon View Post
    There are specific spells that come into effect once you finish casting and that's actually most spells work. The only spells that need to be cast on one turn then thrown on another turn are Missile spells which create a ball of magic damage that you then physically throw. There's plenty of non-Missile spells that just function instantly.

    GURPS does run with a sort of weird "verisimilitude is the main goal except only sometimes and other time it's handwaved". Combat turns and such are one of those places that they go hard on verisimilitude. Buying various advantages and skills to make drawing an arrow faster just represents training to do so faster (as opposed to a relatively untrained person's fairly realistic rate of being able to shoot an arrow every three seconds). It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but between the one-second-long rounds and the focus on appearing realistic, it's actually a surprisingly specialized system in terms of the intended audience, despite the supposed "Generic Universal" name.
    That's where it fails in practice because one round of game play takes a much longer real world time to do than the 1 second in game universe. A lot can happen in a round. Taking multiple rounds to do something, anything not just cast a spell, means real world time sitting at the game table doing nothing then by the time you get to do it, the situation changed you can't do what you wanted to do. It's also bad if you miss/fail in the task. In D&D terms yes it's disappointing the opponent makes his saving throw or you miss your attack roll. That's the game and part of the fun, but it was an immediate result. You get to do something next round. In GURPS style play you spend X rounds doing nothing but boot up your Thing Attack. After X rounds and 20 real world minutes later you unleash your Thing Attack, but you miss or opponent successfuly negates. You've effectively wasted your time. To get back on topic, that's why having to spend multiple rounds/turns to cast a spell is not a good balancing factor/cost. It takes away the fun factor.
    Last edited by Pex; 2021-03-08 at 05:15 PM.
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    That's where it fails in practice because one round of game play takes a much longer real world time to do than the 1 second in game universe. A lot can happen in a round. Taking multiple rounds to do something, anything not just cast a spell, means real world time sitting at the game table doing nothing then by the time you get to do it, the situation changed you can't do what you wanted to do. It's also bad if you miss/fail in the task. In D&D terms yes it's disappointing the opponent makes his saving throw or you miss your attack roll. That's the game and part of the fun, but it was an immediate result. You get to do something next round. In GURPS style play you spend X rounds doing nothing but boot up your Thing Attack. After X rounds and 20 real world minutes later you unleash your Thing Attack, but you miss or opponent successfuly negates. You've effectively wasted your time. To get back on topic, that's why having to spend multiple rounds/turns to cast a spell is not a good balancing factor/cost. It takes away the fun factor.
    I completely agree with this. And I'd say the same thing for more than just spells--if you have a scenario designed so that one player has to [hold button|do ritual|whatever] for multiple rounds without any (viable) choice, you've removed that player from the game just as effectively as if they were (temporarily) dead. If that lasts 10 seconds of real player time, that's not a big deal. If each round takes 20 minutes of player time, that's 40 minutes where they just did nothing. That's a recipe for people tuning out completely.
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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
    That's where it fails in practice because one round of game play takes a much longer real world time to do than the 1 second in game universe. A lot can happen in a round. Taking multiple rounds to do something, anything not just cast a spell, means real world time sitting at the game table doing nothing then by the time you get to do it, the situation changed you can't do what you wanted to do. It's also bad if you miss/fail in the task. In D&D terms yes it's disappointing the opponent makes his saving throw or you miss your attack roll. That's the game and part of the fun, but it was an immediate result. You get to do something next round. In GURPS style play you spend X rounds doing nothing but boot up your Thing Attack. After X rounds and 20 real world minutes later you unleash your Thing Attack, but you miss or opponent successfuly negates. You've effectively wasted your time. To get back on topic, that's why having to spend multiple rounds/turns to cast a spell is not a good balancing factor/cost. It takes away the fun factor.
    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I completely agree with this. And I'd say the same thing for more than just spells--if you have a scenario designed so that one player has to [hold button|do ritual|whatever] for multiple rounds without any (viable) choice, you've removed that player from the game just as effectively as if they were (temporarily) dead. If that lasts 10 seconds of real player time, that's not a big deal. If each round takes 20 minutes of player time, that's 40 minutes where they just did nothing. That's a recipe for people tuning out completely.
    The only really viable way to do "casting times" with spells and D&D-style rounds is initiative count delay. It still goes off "this round," but 5 ticks later. (Exception: if your delay carries you to below init-count 1, it rolls over into next round.)

    This makes counterspelling a bit easier, makes attacking somebody mid-casting possible, etc. I don't know how desirable such mechanics would be, but it's a possibility.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Segev View Post
    The only really viable way to do "casting times" with spells and D&D-style rounds is initiative count delay. It still goes off "this round," but 5 ticks later. (Exception: if your delay carries you to below init-count 1, it rolls over into next round.)

    This makes counterspelling a bit easier, makes attacking somebody mid-casting possible, etc. I don't know how desirable such mechanics would be, but it's a possibility.
    It went out of vogue when they dropped gp = xp and went all in on body count = xp.

    Ironically it's also where increasing initatives were used. But math is hard and 1d10-2 is just too much work.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    It went out of vogue when they dropped gp = xp and went all in on body count = xp.

    Ironically it's also where increasing initatives were used. But math is hard and 1d10-2 is just too much work.
    Are you just pointing out a correlation, or are you suggesting there is causal relation between XP being strictly for monster-murder and the shift of casting times to starting and finishing on your turn during the round?


    Also, having run Exalted 2E combat for several years, now, I can say the increasing initiative sounds cool on paper, but is a royal pain to run well in practice.

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    Default Re: The cost of magic

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    If each round takes 20 minutes of player time, that's 40 minutes where they just did nothing. That's a recipe for people tuning out completely.
    Forget committing to multi-round actions each round taking 20 minutes sounds like a recipe for people tuning out completely. Or at least it was for me.

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