Quote from: RPGPundit;1037009The ritual for invisibility was especially amusing to me.

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Quote from: Mike the Mage;1037279[ATTACH=CONFIG]2456[/ATTACH]

Yup. It's just hysterically funny that the way to become invisible is by first making a huge spectacle of yourself.

To the unimaginative player, this would appear to "nerf" invisibilty.

However

1) A duration of 10 minutes per level means that even a low level character has the ability to set this effect up and then act.
2) Once in effect, anybody with harmful intent would lose sight of the magister, so that means he could walk through an enemy camp, past guards, through a thieves lair etc and once they saw him and decided to apprehend him, he would vanish from their sight.
3) The effect could be used to determine who intended the magister harm. If the magister sits down at a court dinner and Lord Badguyshire says, but where is "Magister Saputello?" then the Magister has just revealed the ill intent.

A clever Magister could get around an enemy Magister infiltrating his lord's castle by being equally wily.

If a guard reported that the dastardly Bargle the Black Magister was spotted in the keep but then vanished, it would be useless to set the guards to look for him. But if the Good Gandalf Magister sent a page to deliver him a message of welcome, and then report his location he would catch the Bad Magister quickly.

Unless of course, Bargle recognised the "welcome message" as the trap that it was...

And so magic turns the world on its head.

Very fitting.

Oh yes, Invisibility is an enormously useful magical power in Lion & Dragon. And one of very few that requires relatively simple actions and no great expense.

Unknown Armies does it just about perfectly for me.

I generally like magic to either work as indicated or not work. The idea of 'something totally different happens' is what I don't dig.

I like something like this:

1. doesn't work
2. doesn't work enough (duration too short, range too short, effect less potent)
3. works but some parameter is other than intended (range, target)
4. works too much, usually to caster detriment
5. has the opposite of the intended effect (cold instead of heat, harm instead of heal, taunt instead of charm)
6. A combination of 2-6 or a complete backfire.

For example.

I like something like this:

1. doesn't work
2. doesn't work enough (duration too short, range too short, effect less potent)
3. works but some parameter is other than intended (range, target)
4. works too much, usually to caster detriment
5. has the opposite of the intended effect (cold instead of heat, harm instead of heal, taunt instead of charm)
6. A combination of 2-6.

For example, for whatever reason your spell system determins, your caster "fails" a casting roll.

Charm Person (S&W)

1. Your spell fails. Nothing happens.

2. Your spell succeeds but unknown to the caster, the target gets a new saving throw every hour and will remember having been charmed.

3. Your spell targets another random creature within range (friend or foe). If the caster is affected the caster is Charmed by the intended target.

4. The target is affected by the spell but is so dominated that they will not act of their own accord but must be ordered to take any action. All orders are interpreted literally. If there is no common language, this will be a problem. This will continue until dispelled.

5. The target of the spell  will lose any caution and tactics, and furiously charge at the offender intent on killing him/her. The effect lasts for 1d4+1 level. After which the target regains control of its faculties but will hate the caster forever (or until dispelled) and seek him/her out in order to casue harm.

6. As  effects 3 and 4,  or effects 3 and 5 together.

Well, there's also some creativity to that.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1038159Well, there's also some creativity to that.

Having read your material, that is high praise. Thank you.:cool:

I think the challenges of introducing this kind of system into retro-clones or earlier editions of D&D, are as follows:

1) Avoiding too many extra rolls and/or math in the process.

There are already one or two dice rolls in play with most spells. Saving throws (Charm Person), durations (Hold Portal), number of hit dice effected (Sleep), and adding any more inevitably slows down the game. I would probably choose one roll chart and stick to it.

DC   Casting Situation
0---------Non stress situation (practice)
5---------Stressful. Counting on this.
10--------In combat or heavily fatigued or wounded
15--------No free hands or no voice
20--------Taken damage while casting
25--------No free hands and no voice

Modifiers
Spell level   -1/level of spell
Ability score   Score modifier
MU Level   +1 per 2 levels of MU
Cleric Level   +1 per 3 levels of cleric

A natural one is always a failure.

In the event of a critical (natural 20) the following could be applied

1. duration/damage/ or HD effected rolls are maximum.
2. the target would receive a -5 on the their saving throw.
3. the spell is not forgotten (i.e. may be cast again).
4. the caster may begin researching a new but related spell chosen after the current adventure ends

2) The chance of failure reduces the effectiveness of a MU so something should perhaps compensate for that.

I have added some "compensation" in the chart above so now casting a spell while not being able to move or speak is possible (but very dangerous and difficult), ann also being hit while casting does not automatically ruin the spell, but it probably does unless the MU is casting a spell which is relatively low level for him or her. (i.e. a MU of 12th with 16 INT level is struck while casting Magic Missile would need the dice to roll a 13 or better in order not to fall the casting.

3) The effect on regular casting each day while not in a dungeon must be accounted for.

While travelling my players often used to cast spells that they cast daily which they can recover each rest/sleep. On example is the the first level "Armour" spell. Players with clerics used to "heal up" other PCs in the downtime with Cure Light Wounds by counting days and rolling d8s. While I have no problem with that, some DMs get irked by it. A system like the one described above in which a natural 1 is a failure would mean that after about ten days or so the PC starts to push his/her luck. Personally I would not ask for a roll unless the situation was stressful (i.e. there was something at risk) but if the enviroment or situation was anythinf less than ideal, I would require a roll. (e.g. tire and hungry ,at sea, under siege, freezing weather, dehydrated, in hostile territory, underground - except dwarves/gnomes).

Finally I would say that for the failure roll in my earlier post, there could be a few options on determining the critical.

1) DM chooses
2) Roll 1d6
3) For every five points  (round up) under the DC the caster rolls, the number moves from 1 to 2 to 3.

e.g. The 12th level caster in the example above that needed to match a DC of 20 rolled a 4 (-1 spell level, +6 caster) and is therefore 11 points short of the DC would fumble using option 3 and accidentally target his own henchman.

Anyway, if you have read all this  rambling, thanks for your attention!

Well, for Lion & Dragon I used a spell-casting roll mechanic that's fairly similar to that in DCC.

I am looking forward to trying it out. How did you find the magic skills worked in play?

Did your players who had previous experience with the classic spell system have to take time to adjust to it?

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1038534I am looking forward to trying it out. How did you find the magic skills worked in play?

Did your players who had previous experience with the classic spell system have to take time to adjust to it?[/QUOTE

Maybe a little, though my players are pretty experienced gamers.

The main thing was getting the fact that:

a) Magisters are as much lore-masters as spell-casters. A lot of their worth isn't about what they can cast, but what they know.

b) magic needs to be front-loaded, not in the sense of memorizing spells but in the sense of expending the resources to perform the magical rituals to make the artifacts or other material that will be of use to them later on.