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King_Kull
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Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Wed 14 Feb 2018, 02:06

But paying WP means that the caster has paid for the points in misery. And that penalise him for a while. And therefore magic should not be harsher than it is. But that’s only my opinion ;)
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Fragpuss
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Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Wed 14 Feb 2018, 12:58

I'd agree with Kull that given the overall lethality of the system, making magic much more dangerous or upping the WP cost to mitigate mishaps makes it overly harsh. But I do quite like Klas's idea of Willpower being used to mitigate failure. I'd visualise a sort of hybrid system where any spellcaster can tap into the mysterious arcane energies, but Willpower doesn't 'power' magic, instead it is used to shape and constrain it to achieve the desired effect.

Mechanically it would work something like this:
  1. Every spell has a base power level of 1
  2. The caster rolls 1 die for each level of the spell + up to 1 die for each tier they have in the relevant discipline (casters choice)
  3. Successes boost the power level while banes trigger mishaps
  4. The caster also invests a number of willpower points at the time of casting, each of which would allow a bane to be converted to a success (or nullified), reducing the risk of catastrophe. Having the correct focus (ingredient) would be like a bonus WP.
  5. Any left-over banes....well it would suck to be the caster.
So the caster would have to risk disaster by trying to generate a powerful effect, but could reduce that risk through bending the arcane forces to his will. Either that or maybe spellcasting should be treated like a skill, e.g. Wits + Talent tier and WP used as described in 4 above.

I suspect there are 101 holes in what I've written above, but hey, that's what this forum's for...  I'm an analyst in real life, so I enjoy binomial probability calculations as much as the next man, but it's also Valentine's day and I have to prepare lunch for the love of my life - so I'll leave those to someone else  ;)

The whole WP cost thing does point up a slight inconsistency in the current magic set up though. Some spells require the power level to exceed, e.g. the target's Wits in order to deliver a relatively minor effect (Entice), so the caster will probably have to invest 3 WP to have a fighting chance of success whereas Weight of Ages will kill pretty much any adult for only 2 WP (only one if you have the required ingredient) with no means of resisting.
 
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Blatifagus
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Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Wed 14 Feb 2018, 13:00

But paying WP means that the caster has paid for the points in misery. And that penalise him for a while. And therefore magic should not be harsher than it is. But that’s only my opinion ;)
Exactly!
Magic IS dangerous! To the recipient. As it should be.
Why would you get a save from a lightning strike just because a wizard made it happen?
Why would a wizard spend 30 years studying magic and learning powerful spells to smite his enemies, if a crossbow is just as effective and less prone to damaging himself?
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Klas
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Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Wed 14 Feb 2018, 21:14

The answer would have to be, for me at least, that even first level spells are often overwhelmingly powerful in this game. Within our group we quite agree that magic needs to be a bit more of a last resort and/or less easily within reach. We e.g. house ruled it that ingredients are mandatory and I'd say we are quite likely to work out a balance for ourselves regardless of what the final official rules look like. I agree though that my first suggestion was numerically a bit absurd.
 
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Blatifagus
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Location: Marjura

Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Wed 14 Feb 2018, 22:50

I like mandatory ingredients. That's absolutely something that I'll consider in my games as well.
But the WP mechanic is quite restrictive as it is for magic. It'll make a good spell a rare event. One or two per session. Believe me. I've played all of the M:Y0 iterations and I'm quite familiar with the system.
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Jizmack
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Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Thu 15 Feb 2018, 21:01

I agree that the simplest and most efficient way to mitigate overly powerful magic is to make spell ingredients mandatory.
However, most spell ingredients are simple common items and Rune Magic doesn’t use ingredients.
You would first have to make spell ingredients exotic/rare items and include some in Rune Magic for this approach to be effective.
 
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GoblinLoveChild
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Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Wed 07 Mar 2018, 17:35

 I would rather see something along the lines of the critical injury tables.
roll a single "1" then you roll on a Light mishap table
roll two "1"s then you roll on a moderate mishap table
etc etc
 
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9littlebees
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Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Wed 07 Mar 2018, 19:12

 I would rather see something along the lines of the critical injury tables.
roll a single "1" then you roll on a Light mishap table
roll two "1"s then you roll on a moderate mishap table
etc etc
I was thinking something exactly along these lines, too.  The more dice you use, the higher the chance you have a mishap.  Still might not be deadly enough, though...
I make YZE games (https://drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?author=Matt%20Kay) and produce predominately Free League content on my YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/@3skulls)
 
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Klas
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Re: Spell casting doesn't seem risky enough

Wed 07 Mar 2018, 23:09

That depends on the table, doesn't it? I like the general idea.

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