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2014-06-13, 01:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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[Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
So, a discussion arose in another thread about how to make keeping track of material components feasible (i.e.: meaningful without being a chore). Which just goes on to show you that a useful discussion might arise in the most unlikely of threads.
We were basically discussing a solution based on "crystals", in which standard material components would be substituted by the "solidified essence' of... Something. I first thought about crystals corresponding to each of the inner planes, which would bring us to six crystal varieties, but eggynack brought up the idea of a crystal per terrain type, which corresponds to a total of eight crystal varieties and has a nice symmetry to the number of spell schools.
Spoiler: The discussion so far
Please note that this discussion presupposes a couple of things: Eschew Materials doesn't exist (or is at least converted into a +1 metamagic feat), and costly (and unique; see Ice Assassin) material components are unchanged. Furthermore, this variant isn't incompatible with Metamagic Components.
So, without further ado, and to stop cluttering the other thread, let the discussion continue! A few questions to get us started:
1) Should each school of magic be intrinsically tied to a type of crystal?
2) Should wizard specialization by school be ditched in favor of a specialization by crystal type?
3) Should "gathering potential" be tied to class level? Should "crystal stock" be tied to character level?
PS: Come to think of it, this isn't all too different from Final Fantasy's treatment of crystals, specially regarding VII's and XIV's materia/Lifestream. So if you need inspiration to think about this variant, this might help.Metal Perfection - a template for creatures born on Mirrodin.
True Ferocity - a simple fix for Orcs and Half-Orcs.
Monastic Magus - a spiritual successor to the Unarmed Swordsage.
Pathfinder-ish Synthesist - a simple fix making Synthesist Summoners follow polymorph rules.
Sword & Sorcery for Sneaky Scoundrels - rogue archetypes/fixes that aim to turn the rogue into a warrior/caster.
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2014-06-13, 01:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
1) maybe. there are a lot of ways it could be hashed (by subschool, descriptor, element, fluff...)
2) probably not; if so anyone is one feat (or two) away from being a generalist, with the benefits of specialization.
Alternative specializations are viable (CM talks about them IIRC) but tying the specialization to gear is a bit odd. You'd have to better define what is meant
3a) Depends on the mechanic used for gathering. I would recommend not: these things are gonna be market available I presume? If so, then commoners and experts are probably gonna be the main collectors.
3b) seems a bit odd but sure why not. I myself would be against it, but it can work.
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2014-06-13, 01:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2013
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Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
Probably make the crystal stock based on Caster Level/Magic Rating under the pretense that the 'mana crystals' must be maintained with near effortless magic on the part of the caster to be usable.
And make is scale/operate similar to the Packrat Feat?
Benefit: You may carry up to a maximum of 10(change to suit)/[caster] level [crystals]. This allows you to - assuming you retain access to your gear - [cast spells]. You must spend 8 hours shopping in town to replenish [these crystals].
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2014-06-13, 01:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
That's the thing, in my opinion, the stuff is better thought as a kind of "mana equivalent". It isn't exactly palpable (though there might be items/"materia" that could replenish the resource; see above), though it is limited. It isn't equipment. I know this can feel a little "video-gamey", but think of it as an "external power source" that is internalized.
Come to think of it, maybe even mundanes could use the resource to power (new) supernatural stuff (though they probably wouldn't care about the crystal's type; think colorless mana here). Likewise, psionics might use the crystals just as well, which could limit the availability of powers without changing the manifesting mechanics much.
Hmmm, gear that can hold the crystals/essence. That might work too.
Regarding the crystal/school parallel, in my opinion it would be best if each spell specified, individually, which and how many crystals it needs for power. But is that feasible?Last edited by Larkas; 2014-06-13 at 01:54 PM.
Metal Perfection - a template for creatures born on Mirrodin.
True Ferocity - a simple fix for Orcs and Half-Orcs.
Monastic Magus - a spiritual successor to the Unarmed Swordsage.
Pathfinder-ish Synthesist - a simple fix making Synthesist Summoners follow polymorph rules.
Sword & Sorcery for Sneaky Scoundrels - rogue archetypes/fixes that aim to turn the rogue into a warrior/caster.
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2014-06-13, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2014
Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
Love this idea. I feel that perhaps if replacing the existing components, some sort of gp value per crystal would need to be established, and it would need to be low/high enough to not utterly break an economy. Much seems dependant on DM discretion, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
1) Be careful with it, for the reasons outlined in previous discussion. Maybe ease of access would prevent "mana screw"?
2) I'm gonna say no, especially if tied to terrain type. Although I feel that Magic: The Gathering's whole land system is starting to seem familiar.
No idea about 3, I suck at balance.
EDIT: Thinking about it, I'd adore an alternate system based around this, as mentioned in the above post. Like WOTC's armor / weapon crystals, but better.Last edited by Omoikane13; 2014-06-13 at 01:58 PM.
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2014-06-13, 02:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
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2014-06-13, 02:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2007
Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
Hm. Since these crystals are essentially crystallized magical energy, it doesn't seem unreasonable that there could be other sources besides terrain.
Looking at Magic: the Gathering for inspiration, lands are obviously the most common source of mana, but there are plenty of other things (creatures, devices, spells, and the like) that generate mana. For example, I could easily see a no-cost Necromancy spell that extracts necromancy crystals out of freshly-dead corpses using their fading life energy or something, or a device that converts any kind of crystal placed into it into a transmutation crystal.
Dual-school spells are easy- you can spend a crystal of either school to pay for it. Like hybrid land costs in M:tG. Actually, Magic seems like it might make for a decent conceptual basis for this, with obvious adjustments for the increased number ofcolorsschools.
As for the number of crystals you can carry, you need precise mechanics and consequences for what happens. Say if you've got more than X crystals of the same type within five feet of each other, or more than Y crystals of any sort within five feet of each other, they start to glow and hum ominously, and otherwise make it obvious that you've got too many (magic resonance overload, or something). So a mage wouldn't be in danger of accidentally exploding himself. Then, within, say, 1d4 rounds, they explode violently, with the power of the explosion being based on how much you've exceeded X or Y by. This might even open up some interesting tactics, using them as improvised explosives.
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2014-06-13, 02:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
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2014-06-13, 02:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2007
Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
Naturally. And, just to avoid penalizing low-Str spellcasters, make them have negligible weight. But you can't just eliminate the problem of magical resonance or whatever it is that means you can't have more than X crystals by sticking them in a bag of holding or something similar. Say that the opening of the extradimensional space still allows the resonance to propagate into the material.
Perhaps some skill or item would allow you to increase the number of crystals you can safely carry? Allows you to dampen or draw energy from the interactions so the threshold of explosive doom is higher?
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2014-06-13, 03:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
This looks like a conservation of magic system I have been working on (not quite happy with it yet). I have been trying to justify why spellcasters charge 50 days worth of labour for a cantrip that takes 6 seconds when they make up over 1% of the population. It basically requires every spell to use either a material component that costs 10*sl*cl gp or burn xp equal to that amount divided by 12.5. What the component is is mostly irrelevant, except for some particular spells like resurrection and animate dead, and the value of most items is primarily determined by the magic power that can be derived from it. The introduction of crystals which could only be used for particular spell schools could be a really cool addition, giving DMs a way to tie different forms of magic to the setting, and reward players that try to fit the world fluff.
In this type of setting the crystals would appear no more magical than gold, completely containing the magic until it is released. A vault full of them would behave no different from a vault full of gold or art. Otherwise I would be building critical masses of crystals as soon as I got the chance.
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2014-06-13, 03:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2010
Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
What is the design goal of this, with respect to the kind of gameplay that it is trying to create?
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2014-06-13, 03:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
Well, there're a couple of things, I think. The primary design goal was somewhat increased balance, if I'm not mistaken, but right now, it feels a bit more like the motivation is increased variety in school usage. You have basically unlimited casting capacity of a particular spell school when you're in a specific region, and perhaps limited access to other schools. Thus, if you're hanging out in the plains (if that's what we end up using for evocation, by the list in the OP), then you might have an actual incentive to prepare some evocation, above and beyond what you normally would. A tertiary goal could be eliminating the silliness inherent in material component pouches, because they're really silly. It also feels like this might have more cohesive theming than the current joke based component model.
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2014-06-13, 04:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
From a world design perspective this would influence societies based on regions in a whole new way. Planes dwelling societies might be more inclined to have a raiding culture, or be more militaristic in general.
Dascarletm, Spinner of Rudiplorked Tales, and Purveyor of PunsThanks to Artman77 for the avatar!
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2014-06-13, 04:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2010
Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
Well I think one should separate these things out and pin it down.
As far as 'removing the silliness of...' then you could just get rid of cheap material components altogether. They don't do much in the system right now.
As far as 'balance', that poses a problem since broad strokes like this tend not to do anything about the imbalance of the magic system since that imbalance stems mostly from particular broken spells. So you'd have to do something very drastic to pursue that (which you could), but my guess is that people would get bent out of shape of the problems it'd pose to someone casting e.g. fireball or some other less-broken spell.
As far as promoting diversity in casting, that's an interesting take. I'd target that specifically with this design. What about, rather than making this about carrying around bags of crystals, all different terrains simply have a different set of ambient magical energies available to them, which casters usually tap into in order to make spellcasting easier. These different energies correspond to different schools or whatever, and basically whenever you're casting a spell that doesn't match an available energy in the surrounding terrain you have to sacrifice an additional spell slot of the same level (or two spell slots to cast in an 'opposed'/'drained' environment). In a highly rich terrain of a certain type, you'd have a 50% chance of not using up the spell slot when casting. Would that achieve the design goal?
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2014-06-13, 05:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2010
Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
But if we're using crystals as material components, how am I going to find excuses to throw tarts at people and eat live spiders in combat?
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2014-06-13, 05:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: [Idea] Substituting Material Components with Crystals
Last edited by Rijan_Sai; 2014-06-13 at 05:24 PM.
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