Alternate Sorcery System (inspired by Promised Sands)

[Uncle Twitchy]

Awesome. Thanks, Pundit.

[RPGPundit]

The basic spells from amber in the new system:

1. Mind Touch: mind + target + direction + shadow
-direction can be "line of sight" or it can be specified as any place in the same shadow.

2. Quell: target + consciousness + snuff + shadow

3. Cardiac Arrest: target + life + snuff + shadow

4. Stone Binding: target + time + snuff + shadow

5. Invisibility: target + alter + element (light) + shadow

6. Attribute Drain: target + attribute + snuff + shadow

7. Magic armour: alter(clothes) + time + snuff + shadow
(this would let you change your clothes to be "invulnerable to normal weapons)

8. Defensive barrier: Create + element (inertia) + direction (radius around you) + shadow
(this could also have "target" added to create either a magical barrier to protect another, or have a second direction (inversed) to create a force field of entrapment)

9. Psyche ward: alter + magic + direction + shadow

10. lightning bolt: create + element (lightning) + direction + shadow
(replace element with "lava" to create a lava spell, or with any other element for a similar attack spell)

11. self- teleport: time + target + direction + shadow
-direction would be the desired location of the teleport. Target would be "self" or it could be another individual; if so you'd need a second "Direction" to indicate the person's current location.
-teleport would only work to transport you (or someone in the same shadow as you) to somewhere else in the same shadow.

RPGPundit

[Nihilistic Mind]

Sweet! Thanks for that!

I have a quick question about how you (and others) look at sorcery in Shadow. If one of the words pertains to the Shadow itself, is it sufficient to make your spell work in a Shadow not prone to magical effects to begin with?

Would it take a bit longer? End up with reduced effect? Force the sorcerer to use an Empower keyword?

[RPGPundit]

There are certain shadows where Sorcery doesn't work. Someone with Sorcery can't really do anything about that; it would take someone with advanced pattern altering the fundamental laws of that shadow to change things. (that, or putting points into the shadow so you can control contents).

There are, of course, shadows where there's little or no magical tradition but sorcery still works (like our own earth).
The number of shadows where sorcery doesn't work at all are very few.

RPGPundit

[Nihilistic Mind]

Cool. That's pretty much how I run stuff too. For the most part, if a Shadow has low-magic, it simply takes much longer for spells to function, or finding a ley line or some sort of magic nexus (potentially these could link Shadows or have been Shadow paths or something of the sort). That's usually how I run things.

I like this combo system, it really meshes with how I run sorcery in my Amber games (more fluid, more intuitive, less time consuming depending on Shadow magic fields).

I think what I like a lot about it is the potential to make very complex spells with it and end up with the equivalent of rituals and such.

[jibbajibba]

I made up an Amber CCg which ranked each shadow in terms of tech and Magic from 1 - 5. 1 Innert - technology in Amber, 5 uber - Magic in wonderland.

Amber came out as a T1 M3 Shadow and Chaos was a T2 M5 shadow. Earth was T3 M2 which meant that Cyberpunk would work on earth but not Star Wars (T4) or Transhuman (T5) and that there were magicians who would perform some limited Sorcery given extensive rituals and preparation.

You could easily take this and add it to Pundy's Sorcery system by modifying the ranks and using it as a multiplier to the casting time.

[jibbajibba]

I made up an Amber CCg which ranked each shadow in terms of tech and Magic from 1 - 5. 1 Innert - technology in Amber, 5 uber - Magic in wonderland.

Amber came out as a T1 M3 Shadow and Chaos was a T2 M5 shadow. Earth was T3 M2 which meant that Cyberpunk would work on earth but not Star Wars (T4) or Transhuman (T5) and that there were magicians who would perform some limited Sorcery given extensive rituals and preparation.

You could easily take this and add it to Pundy's Sorcery system by modifying the ranks and using it as a multiplier to the casting time or even a minimum pyche level to cast in that environment or get a mulitiplier ... you get the idea

[Nihilistic Mind]

Thanks, JibbaJibba. That sounds really good, actually. Modifying casting time (additional words for example) to compensate for a magical level difference in Shadow.

Here's another cool bit for sorcery (obviously optional, but cool nonetheless):
In Otha's now defunct wiki game, the PCs were able to affect things that are real with sorcery by 'sacrificing' an item of substance. The power of the spell was determined by the PCs sorcery level and how much substance (how 'real') the item was. For instance, using a flower grown in Benedict's garden at Amber Castle will have more substance than one found in the realm of Amber (still real, but a bit less 'substance').
Same thing was used for conjuration: we would use items of substance to conjure things.

This might not be a perfect match for sorcery as described by the ADRP, but the concept itself seemed really cool to me. So, I could imagine that if you want to affect an amberite with a powerful spell, using a bit of their own blood or something dear to them would make the spell more likely to succeed. Perhaps it cannot be dispelled without a similar sacrifice on the end of the defending sorcerer, etc...

[JongWK]

I had the opportunity to try the system in yesterday's game, and it worked quite well. My character used some old and brand new spells, which surprised the hell out of his opponent. Thumbs up!

[Daztur]

Cool ideas here, also it seems like a good way to ramp of magical power with PCs only knowing a few words and then gradually increasing the number they know.

Also maybe limit the length (in words) that a spell can be in less magical Shadows.

[RPGPundit]

Cool ideas here, also it seems like a good way to ramp of magical power with PCs only knowing a few words and then gradually increasing the number they know.

Also maybe limit the length (in words) that a spell can be in less magical Shadows.

Well, those are possible ideas, but not really necessary ideas.

The system limits itself, because the more words your spell has, the more time it will take to prepare and probably to cast, since if you have a lot of words, odds are you have a lot of lynchpins.

As for "less magical shadows", that's an interesting concept, but I don't know that limiting the number of words would be the way I'd go.  It might work, sure, but I might prefer to lengthen the amount of time it takes to activate each lynchpin.  So in a low-magic shadow just saying the word of power isn't enough, you have to recite this whole bullshit incantation for each part.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

I just thought I'd post a little update to this thread to comment that I've been using this magic system in my latest Amber campaign, several of my players have learned Sorcery, and the general opinion seems to be very favorable toward this system. In my own experience, I'd say its worked out much better than the system in the Amber book.

RPGPundit

[jibbajibba]

Quoted for reference to the thrust of the question

When it comes to a power source, local Shadow things can be used if the Shadow has the right properties, but won't be as powerful as something like the Logrus or a connection to the Fount of Power.
It's the way Spikards are described power source wise: a ring that pulls from many Shadow power sources to process semi-instantaneous spells.
.

Looking at Sorcery.
I like Pundit's adapted model and am likely to use a tweaked version of it.
One thing I got from catching up on Knight of Chaos on hols was the importance of a power source for the spell.

It doesn't really appear in the ADRPG rules and even Pundy chooses not to include it.

Merlin often talks about a spell effect requiring a lot of energy. One of the real appeals of the Font is the huge amount of magical energy it offers (that and the wine cellar of course).

This would also have the effect of elminating the rather non-Amberite mass damage spells (500 feet cubed of molten lava being a good example )

So it seems then that another base requirement for a spell would be to name the energy source.

I get the impression that Logrus and Pattern mages can use the logrus and pattern as power sources and we can imply that the rate of access is determined by the usual  (proximity to the poles, level of skill etc etc). However, we could extend this to other primal planes (like the Font), The Abyss, Ygg, The Jewel of judgement etc etc ... You would obviously need an initiation to use a particular power source (especially if its sentient like the Pattern or Ygg)

It would be simple for the GM to rank power sources (say 1->X ) and to determine from that power score the ability to affect stuff say a 10 power source can create a 100 feet cube of Lava, for instance.

Crude magic use would require more power but you wouldn't really need to have much power to create more lightweight magics like a ward or a spell to enhance the beauty of a necklace.

I would lay down a marker for Pattern and Logrus of say 10 points each (nice round number) and say Logrus has a power level of 5 in Amber by means of getting an idea of scale.

Lastly I would score a shadow as having a base level of 'background' magical energy from 0-3 that could be used to power magics when no other source was available. With obviously highly magical shadows like wonderland coming in at the top level.

What do you think any comment?

[RPGPundit]

That's a very interesting concept. I might try to make use of that in my next campaign.

RPGPundit

[Xenon]

all that seems to be lacking there is 'personal' power. what do you think ranks in endurance are for?

how does this impact conjuring? power for points, or power for mass conjured? according to merlin, conjuring food to eat has a net positive benefit.