|
Post by thedragonmaster on Dec 14, 2006 0:55:45 GMT -5
As some of you may know, I have been working on a "Character Creation Guide" style compilation of the actions. While typing in all the additions, and modifications, and new options listed in the two Guides that were released I became... annoyed with the descriptions of Magic in the game.
The first thing that bothered me was that in describing some of the styles, the differences were mostly flavor, there wasn't any real difference that required a new Action being defined.
The next was the cost. For a power which is nearly the same as Mastery of Elements, you are paying only 2 levels more. I can accept it as a separate Action, based on the differences between how Magic and the other Elements are handled, but why is the cost so different?
In the next couple of days I plan to rework it to fit in better with the way the rest of the Actions, as well as to clean up the descriptions of it. I'll post what I come up with here for peer review.
|
|
|
Post by Neros on Dec 14, 2006 3:29:08 GMT -5
Well, heres a house rule which i belive Pirate Spice (one who has created many usefull house rules) posted some time ago... This information might have been edited... Not sure... been such a long time ago... As i recal, you dont need Mastery of magic anymore, know you just need to build the magic type you want (or what your character has learned).
I also rule that those actions that are bought with the discount, will have some limits to it... For exampel, someone who has Shamanism as magic and also has summoning, wont be able (or should have a VERY hard time) to summon demons.
I havent tried it out yet, since none of my players have made magical characters yet, and i havent made one myself.
MASTERY OF MAGIC/"INSERT BRANCH OF MAGIC NAME" Cost Level = Action Number + Options
Description This is the basic ability to manipulate magical energies for a variety of effects.
As with Mastery of Elements, all your effects should be related to your branch of Magic. Use the Options below to construct your Mastery. Note that often, the stones of damage done by Magical Actions don’t have an impact on white stones, but rather represent the effectiveness and duration of the magic. When they do have an impact, then magical stones of damage are just the same as non-magical stones of damage. Unless otherwise specified, all effects are Range: 4.
Manipulation of Magic: These are all the minor spells, effects, etc., that magicians in books (including comic books) are able to achieve with little or no effort. It is used to manipulate energy into shapes, effects and other materials — create ice sculptures, make fire (or fireworks), blow smoke rings and the like.
Options • Magical Barrier (+1 to Cost Level): A specific example of Manipulation of Magic that you may use quite frequently. You may describe your barrier however you wish. Stones spent = effect. If you make a 3-stone wall of ice, it will take 3 red stone for somebody to overcome its Resistance. (And if you made it out of flame, then people would take flame damage if they tried to come through it.) Stones spent for Duration or Range don’t count towards effect. Like Force Field, but without double defensive stones. • Magic Blast (+1 to Cost Level): Force Blast of raw, magical energy. For +2 to Cost Level, you can use any raw, natural element for your Force Blast (fire, ice, etc., but not plasma, radiation, etc.). • Illusion/Prestidigitation (+1 to Cost Level): Stones vs. Intelligence (area effect). (Not limited by Restriction #1, below.) • Astral Travel (+1 to Cost Level): As the Action. • Flight (+2 to Cost Level): As the Action. • Phase Shift (+2 to Cost Level): As the Action. • Teleportation (+2 to Cost Level): As the Action. • Invisibility (+2 to Cost Level): As the Action. • Scrying (+1 to Cost Level): Find direction or exact location of specific people/objects, or simply spy on them (Magical Defense will add Resistance to this). Gain Situational Bonus if you use a scrying device/method (crystal ball, scrying pool, tarot cards, tea leaves, entrails, etc.) • Sleep (+2 to Cost Level): Stones vs. Intelligence + Mental Defense. May not be used in combat. Duration: 5 minutes/stone of “damage.” • Stun (+1 to Cost Level): Stones vs. Durability. May be used in combat. Duration: 1 Panel/stone of “damage.” • Curse (+2 to Cost Level): Afflict target with Bad Luck for 1 Panel. “Modifier Number” is equal to stones spent. • Luck (+2 to Cost Level): Grant target Good Luck for 1 Panel. “Modifier Number” is equal to stones spent. • Turn Others Into Beasts (+3 to Cost Level): Stones vs. Durability + Intelligence; Duration = 5 minutes/stone of damage. • Fear (+2 to Cost Level): As the Fear Action. • Herbalism (+1 to Cost Level): By evoking magical properties of herbs, grant target Fast Healing Modifier for 1 day/stone spent. • Potions (+1 to Cost Level): Love, sleep, control and more. Stones vs. appropriate Ability. • Familiar (+1 to Cost Level): You have a psychic link with a small animal that you can communicate with telepathically over any distance, use familiar’s senses. • Commune With Nature (+1 to Cost Level): Can communicate with the forces of nature, be they beasts, birds or even some wise trees (effect similar to Social Skills). This can include spirits and minor powers, like Summoning, but is more like “requesting their presence” than “Summoning.” • Weakness (+1 to Cost Level): A curse which can cause the victim to suffer from inexplicable loss of energy. Requires 1 Panel to prepare for each stone of effect. Stones of effects vs. Durability. The victim loses the use of one red stone of energy for every stone of damage. (e.g., 5 stones vs. 3 Durability makes 2 red stones sick and weakened, and will not regenerate until the victim recovers.) Range: 2, Duration = stones affected on Duration Row of the D&R Chart. • Accumulate Energy (+2 to Cost Level): Add energy to a proposed effect each Panel (storing the stones in your Mastery Action Box), then unleash it all at once. For each additional multiple of AN (round up) you will be stunned for 1 Panel. • Rituals (+1 to Cost Level): For every hour of preparation, you get 1 free stone to use in any Mastery of Magic Action, up to 2x Action Number. (Not limited by Restriction #1.) • Necromancy: May purchase any Mastery of Death Options (but not Mastery of Elements Options) for Mastery of Magic. • Love Charm (+1 to Cost Level): Stones of effect vs. Intelligence for success. Stones of “damage” determine initial duration (on the D&R Chart). Stones may be added subsequently for additional duration. The Enchanted Kiss used by the Enchantress is an example of a Love Charm. • Transform Others at Range (+3 to Cost Level): Into just about anything you want. Stones of effect vs. Durability. Duration = stones of “damage” on D&R Chart. • Transform Self (+2 to Cost Level): May assume the form of any existing creature or object. Intelligence, Mental Defense, Magical Defense do not change. Difficulty/Resistance = Durability or Hardness of creature you are changing into. Duration is at will. • Endowment (+3 to Cost Level): The granting of extreme Abilities, Actions or Modifiers to others to a maximum of Action Number. Spell is temporary or permanent at GM discretion. It can be broken or not, usually a function of story line. • The following Actions and Modifiers are not included as Options for Mastery of Magic, but may be bought at a discount of -1 to Cost Level if magical in nature: Clairvoyance, Energy Absorption/Reflection, Healing (Magical), Hex-Spheres, Metamorphosis, Shape Shifting, Summoning, Telekinesis, Telepathy (Mesmerism), Magical Defense, Transform Self, Transform Self by Touch, Transform Others.
Restrictions The following 4 restrictions are very important to the practice of Magic in this game. These apply to everything you do with Mastery of Magic. 1. For Duration of effects, except where specified, add stones according to the Duration row on the D&R Chart. These stones don’t count towards effect. 2. For range or area of effects, except where specified, add stones according to the Range or Area row on the D&R Chart. These stones do not count towards effect. 3. No effect of Mastery of Magic may use more than 6 stones, including Bonuses or Modifiers, unless otherwise specified. 4. You must spend 1 Panel in preparation for any effect.
Rules for Action Box: • Manipulation of Magic • Range: 4 • Split stones for multiple targets • (Insert Options)
|
|
|
Post by thedragonmaster on Dec 14, 2006 12:23:05 GMT -5
lol. That is almost exactly how I was going to break it down. The only difference that I can see from what I envisioned, is that I was thinking of keeping Magical Travel Separate (I'm working on a magical character now, so we'll see how it works. Thanks for finding that for me.
|
|
|
Post by Brainstem on Dec 14, 2006 12:27:02 GMT -5
I think the only problem I see with Pirate Spice's take on Magic is keeping restriction 4. While it was good to have to balance out magic as it was written in the book (flat cost of +2 for all the options), when you're paying for every option you're planning on using, the cost can build up rather quickly. For such a potentially high-priced action, it doesn't seem that the player should have to wait a panel before every use of the action. Afterall, now its just a mastery with four restrictions placed on it, but you don't see Ice Man waiting a turn to charge up his slides.
|
|
|
Post by alessandrofranzen on Dec 14, 2006 12:58:54 GMT -5
Well, Iceman isn´t a magician but Dr. Strange must speak loud (in rhymes mostly) their enchantments to tap into the magic energy and (I believe) he really spent 1 panel to charge up and throw the magic spells.
|
|
|
Post by pgholland on Dec 14, 2006 13:04:47 GMT -5
1 panel is THIRTY seconds, that's more than enough time to chant an incantation in any of the world's major 'magic' religions, in fact most of them require only a single spoken word. Plus if a Master of Magic has to wait before doing EVERY action then they are paying a lot for things that they may not be able to even do. E.g. a good nature witch discovers 3 crooks in her house (as in the description in the book) she then has to wait 30 seconds while she says, what i can only assume is an Eliot poem! Meanwhile the crooks have either beaten her senseless or have fled, thus wasting all of her time, not very comic book magic really.
|
|
|
Post by alessandrofranzen on Dec 14, 2006 14:37:22 GMT -5
Well, I had a suggestion to balance this. I know about timing, but in comics the panel in the page had the time that Writer want to expose in the situation. But when we get stuck in game mechanics, we must find a solution... so create a modifier that help the Mastery of Magic in this matter.
Power Word (Magic Modifier): Cost: 4 White The mage can activate lesser or simple spells using a single word or magic chant in one panel. No more than 4 Red Stones can be allocated in Mastery of Magic to use this Modifier in any given spell.
What do you think?
|
|
|
Post by pgholland on Dec 14, 2006 15:10:18 GMT -5
So now you're paying massive amounts for a mastery of magic, that probably won't be able to cover everything you want (unless it's like a 100 stone game) and you'll be very underpowered (even most masters can still get to an AN of 6 but with the costs of some of this stuff you'll be at a +8 mastery very quickly) now you're also having to pay an extra 4 stones to get partially rid of restriction 4. While it's a nice idea i think that at the normal 40 stones you'll never be able to create a master of magic who can do anything more than parlour tricks.
|
|
|
Post by GhostKnight on Dec 14, 2006 17:38:59 GMT -5
Mastery od Magic is an action to buy more powerful actions that themselves doesn't have the 1 panel rule.
|
|
|
Post by thedragonmaster on Dec 14, 2006 17:44:08 GMT -5
PGHOLLAND: But then won't most of the options that a Master of Magic end up using be things they learned along the way (LOE in mechanics terms)? So they won't start out being able to do everything they want but instead learn how to manipulate magic either through the process of doing so, or by being taught by another master along the way. Given the wide range of things it can be used for this method makes sense to me, though I'll have to try creating a Master of Magic with these rules to see how it actually plays out.
NIGROMANTE: The discussion here isn't just about modifying Mastery of Magic, but all of the Magic Actions. What sparked it is the number of styles of magic they describe in the books that are (basically) the same.
Just throwing out another thought here, but should the action itself really be concerned with the style of magic? It seems to me that the style of magic would be defined by which options the person has picked up over the years. To use Neros's example, if you have a person originally trained in shamanistic magic, who then goes on to study sorcery, it might take them longer to learn the first few spells, but wouldn't that be the same for any new thing you are learning? For any option taken in another Action? Doesn't really seem like it should be treated any differently from anything else that you haven't learned yet.
|
|
|
Post by pgholland on Dec 14, 2006 18:03:12 GMT -5
dragonmaster: To learn even a few of those abilities would take you over a hundred lines, that's some serious time where you have a useless character who can do a few minor spells that don't affect most people because you can't have an action number high enough.
|
|
|
Post by Brainstem on Dec 14, 2006 21:15:03 GMT -5
Magic, to me, seems like one of those actions that seems broken, but really isn't. There have been many attempts to try and revise it, I'm sure, but its all rather pointless. While the actions themselves grant you a huge amount of power, they don't come without a hefty cost. For example, if a player wanted to play a character with a Sorcery of 6, he or she would have to spend 12w just to get that action, 3w of which are more or less completely useless, going into MoM, an action that serves only to counteract people from starting play with AN 8 Sorcerors. In addition to that base cost, more likely than not, the character is going to take intelligence based energy and the +5 Int mod for Sorcery. Unlimited power, yes, but not exactly an unlimited pool of resources to get the power. People just sometimes seem to overlook just how difficult it is to make a balanced, 40w magic user, but that difficulty isn't a problem. With the power magic gives a character, the hefty price is more than worth it.
Also, the point about the actions all just being different flavors of the same action... looking at the actions in the book, its all still the same deal. Close Combat and Ranged Combat could easily just be one action called Combat, but they took the flavor differences and made it into two. What difference is a Force Blast and a Firework? There's really nothing, one just explodes with a minor delay (still by the end of your panel, though) while the other is right when you fire it (at the end of your panel, essentially). Then there's also the Reflexive Dodge/Toughness deal when there could just be one "Defense" modifier. Ultimately, the book created all these actions that have the same purpose but with different flavors to help GMs and players. Now they won't have to think about how to work something because its all laid out for them.
|
|
|
Post by shigoki on Dec 14, 2006 22:54:00 GMT -5
You know? I used this rules once, it was to make a FF kind of game, I divided this options in: Black, white and blue magic. I can only tell you, Blue has WAAAAY more options than the other two and put in perspective why why dont the firepower or defensive potential of the ohter two.
|
|
|
Post by Kaimontfendo on Dec 14, 2006 23:14:35 GMT -5
Oy. I've thought up a few ways to make magic more balanced, but none that are simple enough to clairify in a few mere paragraphs. One idea was basically to have specialties in different types of magic, and apply a situational modifer if the spellcaster tries anything that doesn't fall under his specialties. (This idea was somewhat inspired by the schools of magic in D&D.)
Another idea I had was to make magic require more time to prepare based on a spell difficulty (likely determined by the GM) so that sorcerers can't go transmuting powered armor into paper whenever they feel like it. (Yes, I have had a player try that one before. Of course, this was the same player who states "Sorcery is basically the same as Power Cosmic, only a lot cheaper and requiring a panel to prepare.")
The main complaint that I have with the MURPG magic system in general is that there isn't enough detail about how these spells work. It mentions several things Sorcery can do, but states no rules for the GM to apply when a player wants to achive those effects. As if the list isn't bad enough, the secont sentence in the description states "you can pretty much do anything you can imagine." This clearly indicates that a price of AN+2 is rather cheap.
As for building a magical character for 40 stones, I think I've managed to build a few NPCs that I have been rather satisfied with. However, they aren't exactly the "Swiss Army Knife" type of Magic-users you probably usually think of. And I have to admit that "Do-Anything" characters bother me because there's no weakness to exploit.
|
|
|
Post by Brainstem on Dec 14, 2006 23:26:23 GMT -5
Sure there are weaknesses, it just doesn't come within the powers themselves. Yes, a Sorceror technically has the ability disintigrate person at sight, but why would he? Morals and other codes of ethics get in the way, which prevent characters from doing things they otherwise wouldn't do. The key to finding a weakness to exploit, then, isn't in finding an enemy's inability to hold their own in a type of combat, but to find a way to place the enemy into a situation where they have to make the difficult choice. Humanity in villains makes them more memorable and something like that will likely make the players feel like they've outwitted them more than just beating them in a straight fight would. Plus, the run of the mill sociopath gets pretty bland after a while.
|
|