Hey there everyone,
For the last four months, I’ve been building my own Champaign world from the ground up. Political strife between elementals shatters mountains and creates rivers in the desserts in the south, while in the grasslands to the east, the veil between the Waking world and that of dreams is almost unnoticeable.
I’ve got plenty of little hacks to spice up adventuring, from pools of points that are used to accomplish the impossible, to materials that can be scavenged from monster carcases to make better items.
Magic however, is just as it is. I can’t think of any way to change the base system (Which I find quite balanced, when Held up over all,) without unbalancing it. I want a little bit of verity in how magic is performed in different areas. Fluff and Flavour wise..... I’m all over it, I’ve got some mages who use complex arcane formulae, others who use magically charged thread to weave their spells, and a group of centaur necromancers who channel their magic through songs played on flutes made of willow and bone.
What I’m stuck with is the actual mechanics; I want the flavour of the magic to pour through into game play.
ON a completely different note, I was interested in somehow making some sort of pact system with spirits. Yes, I know of Binding magic, I love it, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for.
These spirits exist on some of the overlapping planes in my cosmology, they are strange, alien, and have their own motives for these deals. Some might play out like Faustian bargains, granting large amounts of power or wealth in exchange for the character’s soul (inability to be resurrected in game terms). Others might involve the opposite, great sacrifices of gold and blood in exchange for immaterial things. My challenge is like the one above... creating a concrete system that won’t break the game, while creating a system specifically for breaking Reality.
I’m going to keep thinking about this, but any help would be Greatly Appreciated.
If you want to change magic without breaking the game you could consider adding a focus component to all spells and all spell casters have to choose an object to be their focus, for instance the centaur necromancers have to play their flutes in order to cast spells, the magically charged thread could also be the same case for people that use it. You could then get rid of material, somatic, and verbal components and the caster only has uses whatever method it has to cast spells. Metamagic spells would still work the same you'd just get rid of some. I'd also consider getting rid of eschew materials possibly.
On another note, maybe only prepared spell casters have to focus on something and Sorcerers can cast spontaneously because they are imbued with magic from birth (much like the flavor text in the core rulebook says). Bards spell components could simply be their performances and so on and so forth. I'm just kind of throwing out ideas.
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I’m all over it, I’ve got some mages who use complex arcane formulae, others who use magically charged thread to weave their spells, and a group of centaur necromancers who channel their magic through songs played on flutes made of willow and bone.
What I’m stuck with is the actual mechanics; I want the flavour of the magic to pour through into game play.ON a completely different note, I was interested in somehow making some sort of pact system with spirits.
Tying together these ideas, perhaps a type of caster considers all spells to be conjurings, with a sort of 'living spell' conception. When they cast fireball, they are calling up a fiery elemental creature, for a brief moment, and when they cast glitterdust, thousands of tiny faeries appear and flit around the affected area.
The bit about magically charged thread reminds me of a 2nd edition 'kit' that we created, soon after the Complete Shair's Handbook came out (as it also had a mageweaver kit, where the wizard wove together the spell, and then tore the fabric to release the magic during 'casting').
Combining that with the Realms concept of 'gem magic,' and other ideas, we designed a Craftsmage kit that performed some sort of craft activity in the morning to 'prepare' spells, and then manipulated whatever they'd created later in the day to unleash the spells. One would fold paper into origami constructs, and unfold them to release the spell. Another would brew up 'potions' and either toss them to the ground or imbibe them to activate the spell. Another would work out complex mathematical formula on scrolls, and read them to activate. Yet another would construct clockwork devices and use them to discharge the magic. Each had subtle variants, as it obviously would be vastly cheaper to fold up origami spells than to carve gemstones or build clockworks, so we gave up on trying to make some three-dimensional matrix of time to prepare vs. time to activate vs. materials costs and just sort of 'winged it,' so that someone who crafted clockwork devices would be able to re-use his expensive toys (although he'd still have to spend X amount of time 're-charging' them) while someone who carved runes on things might have to prepare his spells *as he needed them* to compensate for his much cheaper spell preparation abilities.
A kinda insane magical character that I wouldn't mind seeing as a variant, or just throw at the party as an adversary (even if I just kludge it up as a Warlock variant, rather than deal with the rules it uses)...
Magic however, is just as it is. I can’t think of any way to change the base system (Which I find quite balanced, when Held up over all,) without unbalancing it. I want a little bit of verity in how magic is performed in different areas. Fluff and Flavour wise..... I’m all over it, I’ve got some mages who use complex arcane formulae, others who use magically charged thread to weave their spells, and a group of centaur necromancers who channel their magic through songs played on flutes made of willow and bone.
What I’m stuck with is the actual mechanics; I want the flavour of the magic to pour through into game play.
Already, deciding who works magic and how, will have a huge influence over the campaign over the default "elves turn a few more mages than the other races". Even if the PC have a bit more freedom than the 'common folk' in their choice of class and spells, the world will be immensely affected by the availability (or lack thereof) of ready magic items/spellcasters.
As for the mechanic, you said it yourself: its hard to change anything without affecting the precarious balance. Your best bet is to change the fluff and keep the mechanic unchanged. A 'spell slot' may be a physical thing, like a bone or a stone that the necromancer must wear on a necklace or on its staff. Bardic music may be something entirely different, but turn out the same result as the default bard ability etc.
good luck
'findel