Mechanics (Magic System)

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Post Post #25 (ISO) » Wed May 30, 2012 8:37 am

Post by Yaw »

This doesn't need to correspond with some "accepted" idea of rpg magic. We're making it, it can have our own flavour. There's no requirement for white or black magic, or anything else.

inspiratieloos wrote:Divination, I love the flavour, we should definitely try to get this working. My suggestion: You can look for something specific (the more absolute/detailed the harder it is) you either pass or fail, or you can look in general and you see something depending on your MoS, different methods/races are better for finding different types of things. Yeah you can look up the exact wwwwwh of a PCs death but it's going to be Legendary+++ difficulty.

Just thinking through the modding, I'd be a bit more careful with the implementation. Vague is usually better here. As soon as you start getting into specific predictions, you either give the prophecy the chance to go wrong, or force the mod into railroading the player into a specific outcome.

inspiratieloos wrote:Conjuration, meh, too much trouble and how does it even work, most other types of magic you can just say use mana get effect, for conjuration you are drawing out an item from an astral realm (what is it? does everything exist there?), if I can summon a small pellet, can I also summon a small pellet filled with the most deadly poison known to man?

Well, the conjurer would have to go into a trance, so would either need a bodyguard or would have to do it pre-combat. That said, yes, everything does exist there. The player could summon a demon, if he/she really wanted. But the time allowed for the item to manifest is directly proportional to how big it is, and how dangerous it is. So the pellet alone would last longer than the poisoned pellet. Just give mods discretion with a few guidelines, and let players go wild. It's perfectly balanced, because anything too unbalancing won't stay long enough for the player to use it, while also knocking the player out for a while.

inspiratieloos wrote:Alchemy, possibly combine this with enchanting, anything that (semi-)permanently alters the properties of an object.

Yes, this originally included both enchanting and potions. Sort of like magical chemistry.

I like the nature idea, but we'd need an idea of how it works. (I like the flavour of druids, but I hate the DnD shapeshifting. I think this gets into the larger question that should be determined first -- how big an influence is magic? How powerful and accessible is it?)
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Post Post #26 (ISO) » Wed May 30, 2012 9:36 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

Divination, I'd imagine that if you see something absolute it is 'this would happen if you hadn't had this vision'. Trying to find something specific through this method is of course very hard.

Conjuring, why is summoning a few drops of a deadly poison harder than summoning a few drops of water? How does
everything
exist in some sort of astral plane? Conjuration is just so much different/so much more complicated than other kinds of magic. Not to mention exploitable.

Like I said, I don't think you can get around making magic equal in power to other skills without negatively impacting other aspects of the game.
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Post Post #27 (ISO) » Wed May 30, 2012 9:52 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

I think divination would be very hard to implement. The mods would have find an almost impossible balance between giving clues that aren't too vague, but also aren't too specific.

As for conjuration, how about we say that difficulty is not just based on size, but also the form the object is in. Solids are easier than liquids which are easier than gases. A drop of poison is just as easy to conjure as a drop of water, but a drop of water is pretty hard to conjure. Something that is a mix of different stages of matter would be even harder to conjure, such as a demon. So conjuration would mainly be used to summon weapons, rather than impossible-to-stop poisons.
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Post Post #28 (ISO) » Wed May 30, 2012 10:12 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

If conjuration is so hard, how does a water/fire/earth mage work? What is preventing me from summoning bars of gold? (almost) any substance can be a solid/liquid/gas at the right temperature/pressure, as a solid you even usually summon more.
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Post Post #29 (ISO) » Wed May 30, 2012 11:13 am

Post by Bub Bidderskins »

true
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Post Post #30 (ISO) » Wed May 30, 2012 5:41 pm

Post by T-Bone »

Conguration is about summoning creatures to fight for you.
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Post Post #31 (ISO) » Thu May 31, 2012 1:56 am

Post by CooLDoG »

In post 30, T-Bone wrote:Conguration is about summoning creatures to fight for you.
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Post Post #32 (ISO) » Sat Jun 02, 2012 12:57 pm

Post by DeathNote »

What about spell usage? Obviously I will not be telling you what spells you have availble to you but we can't just have players say something like, "I make an explosion." The spells need to be detailed and explained so how will this work?

Here are a few example spells:

Shape Liquid (Force around a cup of liquid to take a shape for 30 seconds) - Spell level 1
Shape Liquid Level 2 (Force around a gallon of liquid to take a shape for 45 seconds) - Spell level 2
Boil Liquid (Bring a gallon of liquid to the boiling point instantly)- Spell level 1
Ice Light (Shape water in a sphere, hollow in the middle, and draw heat energy from the water to freeze the water solid, while having the heat manifest as a flame in the middle of the ball. Spell lasts as long as it takes for the ball to melt or shatter, which is around 90 seconds.)- Spell level 2
Ball of Fire (Make a ball of fire and toss it at something)- Spell level 2
Spit Fire (Spits a gob of flaming spittle at something) - Spell level 1
Ice Light Level 2 (Shape water in a sphere, hollow in the middle, and draw heat energy from the water to freeze the water solid, while having the heat manifest as a flame in the middle of the ball. Spell lasts as long as it takes for the ball to melt or shatter, which is around 3 minutes.)-- Spell level 3

Spell level was going to be associated with Magic level which would be increased by picking magic as your aspect but that is why we have this thread, to fix issues and make everything as smooth as possible.
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Post Post #33 (ISO) » Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:28 pm

Post by T-Bone »

That's more in line of what I was suggesting.
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Post Post #34 (ISO) » Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:56 pm

Post by DeathNote »

In post 33, T-Bone wrote:That's more in line of what I was suggesting.


yeah i know, just highlighting it
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Post Post #35 (ISO) » Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:16 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

Something that occurred to me when making my character for the test quest.
Can we make it so that you can have an Average skill in a single magic discipline without an Aspect? For example it would make some sense for my test character to know a bit about magical healing without ever really being trained in it enough to be an Aspect.

In any case, recap:
- There are an amount of yet to be determined disciplines within magic, each discipline has a certain amount of domains you can focus on.
- To use a discipline of magic you need to have at least one Aspect in it, for every Aspect you also choose a domain to be adept in.
- You can cast any spell within any of your domains, difficulty is determined by the mod, then roll to determine success.
- If you are adept in the domain of the spell you are trying to cast and it's difficulty is equal or lower to your skill in the discipline you succeed without a roll.
- Magical stamina is to be determined (personal suggestion: a separate skill for stamina that works for all types of magic. Any spell below a certain level in relation to your skill is free, the rest costs a point. Points regenerate at a yet to be determined rate)
- The place in the skill pyramid is yet to be determined (personal suggestion: Place it in the pyramid just like other skills)
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Post Post #36 (ISO) » Mon Jun 18, 2012 12:00 pm

Post by DeathNote »

Yeah I can see that working. It would limited of course, but I dont see why that wouldn't be ok.
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Post Post #37 (ISO) » Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:25 pm

Post by T-Bone »

That recap sums up a decent system. Just need to hammer out the details.

Anyone want to help me build the magic disciplines?
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Post Post #38 (ISO) » Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:46 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

Fire: Balls, walls, shaping, dispelling, heating, ...
Water: Spears, walls, shaping, dispelling, cooling, ...
Earth: Boulders, walls, shaping, dispelling, ...
Wind: Blades, gusts, push, dispel, ...
Divination: Seeing, reading, dowsing, ...
Conjuring: Animals spirits, demons spirits, afterlife communing, ...
Alchemy: Potions, enchantments, creation, transformation, ...
Nature: Healing, growing, life shaping, communing, ...
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Post Post #39 (ISO) » Sun Jun 24, 2012 3:38 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

Anyone else?
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Post Post #40 (ISO) » Mon Jun 25, 2012 5:49 am

Post by quadz08 »

how do balls, walls, spears, boulders, etc. differ from 'shaping'?

Also, for disciplines such as fire, water, earth, etc., is this only manipulation of those elements? Or should creation of those elements be involved / be a skill in and of itself?
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Post Post #41 (ISO) » Mon Jun 25, 2012 6:07 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

Ball/boulder/spear: Making a [shape] of [element] in your hand (conjured, movable).
Wall: Making a wall of [element] spring up near you from the ground (conjured, static after casting).
Shaping: Manipulating the form of a [element] some distance away from you. (works better on non-magical [element])
Dispelling: Removing (others') magical [element].
Heating/cooling(/hardening/sharpening?): Changing the properties of an object using [element]. (obviously)
, ...: Suggestions welcome.

Conjuration and manipulation are different domains of the same discipline, any fire mage can conjure a flame, but some are better at it, while others are adept at other things (of course if you have 5+ aspects in fire magic you can be good at all of them).
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Post Post #42 (ISO) » Mon Jun 25, 2012 6:20 am

Post by quadz08 »

Again, I'm not sure that we need separate domains (is that the right word?) for what shape the element takes. Shaping covers ball/boulder/spear and wall, and it doesn't make sense that it wouldn't.
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Post Post #43 (ISO) » Mon Jun 25, 2012 6:28 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

I was just being fancy with a standard projectile spell for each element. Dynamic conjuring or something works for all of them.

The difference with shaping is that you need the element already there, while the throwable objects and walls can be made at any time (mana permitting) and in almost any environment.
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Post Post #44 (ISO) » Mon Jun 25, 2012 9:56 am

Post by quadz08 »

See, that doesn't make sense to me. The order of events should be thus:

1- Does (element) exist nearby?

If yes:
2 - shape.

If no:
2 - conjure.
3 - shape.

Shaping is a separate action from the creation of the element, regardless of if the magician created the element or nature did.
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Post Post #45 (ISO) » Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:01 pm

Post by inspiratieloos »

The difference is that if you want the element in a different shape than you conjured it in you'd need to cast a second spell. You can control the size/shape in which the conjured element comes into existence. Only if you want to conjure something highly complex or change the shape after firing it you'd use a second spell.
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Post Post #46 (ISO) » Tue Jun 26, 2012 3:26 am

Post by quadz08 »

But in that case, I don't see why you'd have to learn a separate spell for conjuring water in a ball vs. conjuring water in a spear. It's still just conjuring.
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Post Post #47 (ISO) » Tue Jun 26, 2012 3:40 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

In post 43, inspiratieloos wrote:I was just being fancy with a standard projectile spell for each element. Dynamic conjuring or something works for all of them.
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Post Post #48 (ISO) » Tue Jun 26, 2012 4:25 am

Post by quadz08 »

Oh.

Well ok then!
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Post Post #49 (ISO) » Tue Jan 15, 2013 7:10 am

Post by inspiratieloos »

Executive decision:
1. Each school of magic consists of an overarching type and has 3-5 domains within that.
2. To use a school of magic you need to have at least one Aspect in it, for every Aspect you also choose a domain to be adept in.
3. Your skill in magic relates to the school, the same skill is used for all domains within the school.
4. You can think up and cast any spell (within one of your schools) on the spot, difficulty is determined by the mod, then roll to determine success.
5. If you are adept in the domain of the spell you are trying to cast and it's difficulty is equal or lower to your skill in the discipline you succeed without a roll.
6. The Mana reserves skill governs how many spells you can cast in a time period, your usable mana grows according to the triangular numbers sequence
(1, 3, 6, 10, ...), it regenerates at the same rate as aspects.
7. Casting a spell that is two levels or more below your skill level is free, a higher level spell costs 1 mana, a failed spell may cost mana depending on the situation (mod discretion)
8. When using a magic aspect to influence a roll only the school matters, you can use an aspect for a different domain to increase your roll or re-roll.
9. You may create a new school of magic for a character as long as you include 3-5 domains (even if you only use one, try to have at least 4), pending mod approval it will be added to the list of magic schools and be usable by any character. You may also create a fifth domain for any school that has 4.

The current magic schools are:
School: domain 1, ... , domain 4-5
Fire: Projectile, conjuring, shaping, dispelling, imbuing
Water: Projectile, conjuring, shaping, dispelling, imbuing
Earth: Projectile, conjuring, shaping, dispelling, imbuing
Wind: Projectile, conjuring, shaping, dispelling, imbuing
Nature: Healing, growing, communing, life shaping.
Someone should really use rule 9 to create alchemy/divination/conjuring etc.

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