Try making a character! Go for it!
Do as much as you can without my help before asking questions. I want to know how intuitive chargen is here.
I just remembered another of the important design goals:
All stats matter to everyone. You can dump, and doing so is legitimate for various concepts, but it's never without consequence.
Maybe tomorrow after work.
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Strong: +2 Strength
Hardy: +2 Fitness
Dull: -2 Cognition
Intimidating: +2 Coercion
Night Vision: Lighting penalties to Perception are reduced by 3.
Starting XP: 80
Mage Initiate (cost 5)
Proficiency: One-Handed (cost 3)
Remaining XP: 72
Increase Strength to 10 (cost 12)
Increase Agility to 10 (cost 12)
Increase Fitness to 10 (cost 12)
Increase Willpower to 10 (cost 12)
Remaining XP: 24
Athletics +1 (cost 1)
Grappling +1 (cost 1)
Ride +1 (cost 1)
Stealth +1 (cost 1)
Knowledge Magic +1 (cost 1)
Knowledge Nature +1 (cost 1)
Acuity +1 (cost 1)
Magic Sense +1 (cost 1)
Tracking +1 (cost 1)
Coercion +1 (cost 1)
Remaining XP: 14
Proficiency: Two-Handed (cost 3)
Increase Perception to 9 (cost 4)
Increase Cognition to 9 (cost 4)
Knowledge Animal Care +1 (cost 1)
Remaining XP: 0!
Value is shown first, with Bonus in parentheses.
Strength: 12 (4)
Fitness: 12 (4)
Agility: 10 (4)
Dexterity: 8 (3)
Cognition: 7 (3)
Perception: 9 (3)
Willpower: 10 (4)
Psyche: 8 (3)
Initiative: 17
Speed: 22
Evade: 18
Physical Resistance: 22
Mental Resistance: 18
Health: 24
Energy: 22
Stability: 18
Athletics: 13
Grappling: 13
Ride: 11
Stealth: 11
Knowledge Animal Care: 8
Knowledge Magic: 8
Knowledge Nature: 8
Acuity: 10
Magic Sense: 10
Tracking: 10
Coercion: 12
Mage Initiate: Nature
Proficiency: One-Handed
Proficiency: Two-Handed
Night Vision
Bear Strength
Regenerate Injury, Minor
Regeneration, Minor
Stubborn Flesh
Erosion
Battle Axe
Breastplate (Full Plate covering only Chest, Abdomen and Groin)
Accuracy: 10, Power: 1d6+17, Precision: 2, Spread: 6, Cap: 3, Reach: 2m
Anytime there is a before world, you can have adventures loosely based on "Image of the Fendal" from Dr Who. Basically soulless horrors that had a hand in the previous worlds destruction, tried to escape using time magic/tech. Some fool finds an artifact they cast forward as a bridge anchor. It gives them power, but the things they summon only pretend to be under any control. A bridge anchor can be cast into an orb of oblivion to put it outside of the multiverse, where normal matter comes apart into it's component concepts, but these things hopefully fall into someone else's gameworld.
Primordial wraiths already fill that role. They didn't destroy the old world (current theory is that it was a natural phenomenon) but they are horrifying ancient things that can be summoned.
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Hmm. Right now I'm thinking magic initiation should cost more and proficiencies cost less. Learning 5-ish spells is probably a lot better than a couple of weapon proficiencies.
I'd agree to that.
Another option is to leave the talent costs the same but grant no initial spells. Instead, a mage has to purchase initiation to unlock spells then buy spells individually. It makes mages more scaleable, and someone could make a dabbler with only one spell. It would mean starting level mages would have to put a higher investment into magic to make it worthwhile.
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Another design goal, now that I remember: Player characters should never reach a point where, without influence, they can bully low-level NPCs without consequence.
At level 10, you might be twice as tough as you were at level 1!
I'd accidentally written that wrong. Fixt!
So yeah. If you piss off the town guard, it doesn't matter that you're a 10th level master of magic. You might make a stand and take out a few but unless you've got help, you're going to end up full of crossbow bolts.
Document has had a few changes!
The mage talents now only grant one spell. You must buy additional spells separately. Note that the option to buy additional spells appears a level later than the initial talent that unlocks them.
Shields have been changed from an active opposed roll vs attacks to a passive effect (which may be improved by talents).
Shields now grant cover. Cover works somewhat differently to Pathfinder, in that powerful enough attacks can penetrate it and damage the target anyway.
Simple example:
Let's say a guy is holding a shield with Cover 3 and Armour 5.
An attack that does 4 damage misses him by 3 or less! It hits the shield. The Armour 5 soaks the hit.
Another attack that does 10 damage misses him by 3 or less! It hits the shield. The Armour 5 reduces the hit, but the remaining 5 hits the guy! His own armour can reduce it further.
Okay, so Gulak needs a bit of a tweak now. Instead, he knows a single spell (Stubborn Flesh), which when running puts his limb and head armour up to 8.
He also doesn't have Bear Strength, so his two-handed battle axe power is now only 1d6+14.
Yeeeeah, your gimping the mages, and magic is the whole point of fantasy gaming. I'm hiding the topic, so react however you like.
I will accept constructive criticism, but I don't understand this. I'm sorry to have offended you.
Additional notes, since I'm working on detailing the magic rules right now.
Mages in Archmage work rather more like D&D Warlocks. They have few abilities, but can use them almost indefinitely. Stability Points (formerly Stress Points) do limit their magic 'per fight', but recovering them is trivial during moments of rest.
Our friend Gulak here can put Stubborn Flesh on himself and many of his allies. He can maintain all of these effects for as long as he's awake. The cost is that for each instance of Stubborn Flesh he is maintaining, further casting and SP damage he receives is increased by 1.
If he's leading a band of nine warriors and put Stubborn Flesh on himself and each of them, each time he casts a spell or encounters something that smacks him in the sanity, he takes +10 stability damage. A couple of hits of that will force him to roll on the Breakdown chart and additional casting could make him Overload.
Higher level spells have higher casting costs and higher maintenance costs. The risk of maintaining lot of buffs can add up fast.
Although, I am considering putting a limitation on number of simultaneous instances of a spell. Based on Cognition Bonus or something? I dunno. The heightened sanity risk might not be enough.
Or maybe, an individual can only be affected by a number of friendly buffs equal to or less than his or her Cognition Bonus. That would limit a buff caster's ability not by how many buffs he or she can hand out, but by how many his or her allies are able to receive.
The dumb fighter can't be buffed much but the intelligent fighter can?
I should really put these all in one place. Oh well, at least I'm usually mindful of them when writing.
More design goals! These ones are a bit more specific.
- Long range teleportation is hard or impossible and very limited in where you can go. It should never be trivial, even for max level parties. I want travel to be an important part of adventure.
- Long range instant communication doesn't exist. A nature mage with 'form of the hawk' might make a handy messenger. Politics, spies and intrigue are all the more fun when messages can't be sent telepathically over great distances.
- Real skills are never replaced by magic. They can synergise with magic. Example: Invisibility doesn't give a bonus to stealth. Instead, it grants the ability to use stealth as though you are always concealed. A lesser form of it (Glamour spell, used as camouflage) allows you to treat any adjacent obstruction as concealment, even if it's not between you and the observer. I haven't worked out the mechanics for flight spells yet, but the distance you can fly for a continuous period may be a multiple of your jump distance or your natural speed. Indefinite flight in human form won't be a thing. Flight as a bird is fine, since you can't use your other abilities while birding.
Ask me about other clasically 'overshadowing' traits of magic and I'll address how I'm handling them here.
For those that haven't dug into the rules yet, here's an example of a spell and how it works with skills instead of replacing them.
Decriptors: Enchant Creature, Illusion
Action: Single
Cost: 3 SP, Maintain 1
Range: Touch, Creature
You weave a subtle illusion around yourself or another, creating an instant disguise or camouflage.
Glamour has two options. You may disguise a willing creature or grant it camouflage. You must decide when casting and cannot change this decision unless you recast the spell on that target.
Disguise – You create a visual disguise over the target, using your Deception skill. The disguise may make the target be up to one size smaller or larger. The target must still use his or her own Deception to act appropriately.
Camouflage – You cloak the target in shifting colours and shapes that match the environment. The target has partial concealment from all creatures further than 2m away while he or she is adjacent to an opaque obstruction of his or her size or larger.
I am tempted to use sophonts as a term for nonspecific intelligent humanoids on Deutero. Is that too science-fictiony? I've already used a lot of words influenced by Ancient Greek, but this one has already appeared in a lot of SF stories and not so much in fantasy.
Sophonts sounds fine UR. Sorry I haven't had time to dig into your ruleset.
It's okay.
What about psuche?
Is it North Korean for "exemplary behavior in sight of one's adored natural and immortal leader?"
;P
It is Ancient Greek for 'sensory being'.
In other news, I'm adding the mechanics for shield-mounted firearms, the first of which is the Rhuz Shield Mortar.
It's a metal tower shield with a short-barreled mortar mounted in the middle and a slot cut out for aiming through. It's miserably inaccurate but makes up for it with a lot of damage and a short, wide spray. It is, however, quite the impediment on mobility due to both its awkward shape and huge weight.
Shield-mounted weapons work like this:
You may fire and reload a weapon mounted to a shield with both hands, without losing the coverage granted by the shield while doing so. You cannot fire a shield-mounted weapon with both hands; one hand must hold the shield while the other operates the weapon.
The additional size and weight of the shield makes it reduce your Evade and increase your Speed Penalty by a greater degree (to be determined; likely based on the size of the mounted weapon). The weapon itself suffers a penalty to hit due to its fixed mounting.
Facing!
It's a troublesome subject and can lead to awkward situations. That's why I'm using Flexible Facing. Inspired by Warmachine facing rules, it means that your facing is not fixed outside of your turn and opponents can't take advantage of facing simply by walking around behind you.
You have a Front Arc, 90° left and right from the direction you are currently facing. The rear 180° is your Rear Arc. An attack only counts as attacking your Rear Arc if the attacker has been in your Rear Arc the whole times since the end of your last turn.
Basically, you have to deliberately turn your back on someone to let them backstab you. This can happen if you're surrounded, but that guy in front of you that walks around to your back still counts as in your Front Arc until you end your turn facing away from him.
There may also be a number of circumstances in which you can turn around as a reaction, but I'm still working on it.
I added a date to the PDF, noting when that version was published. Given how often I add changes, I might consider putting a time on it, too!
Yeeeeah, your gimping the mages, and magic is the whole point of fantasy gaming. I'm hiding the topic, so react however you like.
I will accept constructive criticism, but I don't understand this. I'm sorry to have offended you.
I think this is just the natural reaction of the status quo to a system that actually makes magic-users and martial characters on-par with one another.
I'm considering adding another component to the game, possibly a separate module:
Spell Tricks
Since the spell knowledge of spellcasters in Archmage is rather limited, I'm thinking of adding a set of 'alternate spell effects' that can be produced by existing spells. A caster pays 1 (initiate), 2 (adept) or 3 (expert) XP to learn a spell trick for a spell he or she knows.
For those familiar with Mutants and Masterminds, this is a lot like an 'alternate power'. It's a somewhat different effect that's thematically similar to the original power. It could also be considered to be a sort of metamagic.
For example, a mage that can cast fireball might be able to learn the following spell trick for 2 XP:
Burning Pit: Your fireball does half damage (round up) and no precision damage, but any creature that enters or ends its turn in the area takes that damage again. The burning pit disappears at the beginning of your next turn. Multiple burning pits do not stack.
If there are enough good options, it might encourage mages to be quite flexible with their short list of spells rather than having to know a huge list like PF spellcasters. It could lead to strong themeing amongst mages! I count that as a good thing.
Nobody wanted to try making a character? :(
Okay! So.
This isn't working. What if I ran a PBP or Roll20 game of Archmage with the rules only a little bit more developed than they are now (mostly I'd fill out the details for low level spells and the injury tables)?
I could develop the rules as was done in ye olde days of Gygax; finding out how what exists plays with actual players and developing the rest to fit!
That said, I don't plan on making it a mess of hodge-podge things thrown together. I still plan for it to be a much more cohesive system than the first D&D was.
Who would be interested? What kind of characters would you like to play and what kind of adventure would you like to go on?
Well I was up in the sic-fi version Recruitment, but sadly I'm looking to cap or even drop some PbP's as life gets busier/school year approaches.
Yeah, while working on the science fiction one I got even more depressed. That, and it was turning out harder than I expected to build the required modules for the game. I ran into some design quirks that the SF one had that were not present in fantasy.
Understood. I really liked what little I saw of the sick fi, but the flavor of Archmage is what is compelling.
I'd tried to start a game before that one. My old Pathfinder PBP didn't take off, either. Partly due to depression and also because a couple of players I wanted to get involved were hard to get in touch with regularly.
I'll try to create character tomorrow.
Cool. Let me know if you need any help. :)
I may have to read this more. Especially the fantasy setting. Have some ideas for a mesoamerican kingdom.
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I haven't got strict real world analogues, but if I were to attach some styles to things, we'd probably get:
Krodanoi: Northern Inner Asia. Mongol, maybe influences from Siberian cultures.
Syldanar: More fantastical, but I could build some of their stylings around Southern and Eastern Asian cultures.
Myrdanar: Almost entirely fantastical. No real world correlate.
Rhuz (Khazan): Middle-African.
Rhuz (Rhayud): North-African, Egyptian and Middle-Eastern.
Human: Upper Middle-Eastern, Byzantinian, Ottoman.
The connections won't be particularly strong. I definitely want to avoid a 'These guys are short, beardy Egyptians' kind of trope.
Is there room for ancient alien mesoamerican-esque nationstates?
No ancient aliens.
No prob. I'll think of something that fits the setting a bit more once I sleep. Long shift and tired.
Good luck.
I'm not really looking for additions to the setting. If you want to help, right now I'd like people to try making characters using what I've posted. You're still welcome to discuss and ask about anything else I've posted here.
Some impressions during character creation:
Statistics levels needs more description in the future, both individual statistics and values (is 8 an average value of humanoid creature or is it bare minimum?)
Psyche - which I understand to social statistics seems to be too important to mages - what about stereotypical asocial black mages?
I also think that spell costs could be paid from any pool, not only stability, maybe being a bit higher. Or this could be an ability gained through a talent.
Well, third level myrdanar mage... Here it comes.
You don't necessarily need psyche to be a good mage. It's your magic to-hit score (and partly contributes to Stability). If you aren't concerned with the accuracy of your spells, you can do fine without it. Notice that Gulak put no points in his Psyche and he's a mage. His spell is a buff spell so accuracy is not an issue.
This system is designed to make sure all stat dumping has consequences, regardless who you are. Casting relies on three of the eight stats: Cognition (spells known + precision damage of magic attacks), Willpower (Stability and base damage of magic attacks) and Psyche (Stability and accuracy of magic attacks).
Okay!
Stats go from a possible 6 to a maximum of 15, counting racial modifiers.
6: Terrible
7: Bad
8: Poor (minimum without racial penalty)
9: Average
10: Okay
11: Good
12: Very Good
13: Exceptional (maximum without racial bonus)
14: Incredible
15: Legendary
I've thought about alternate casting costs through talents. 'Blood magic' might let you cast from Health, risking Injury instead of Overload. Still, I'm not sure if I want to allow many 'stat-swapping' abilities.
Another note:
The mental stats that are good for being a mage are the same stats that are good for being a leader. This is deliberate.
Myrdanar elementalist
Strength 8 (bonus 3)
Fitness 8 (bonus 3) [12 XP]
Agility 10 (bonus 4)
Dexterity 8 (bonus 3)
Cognition 10 (bonus 4) [12 XP]
Perception 10 (bonus 4) [12 XP]
Willpower 10 (bonus 4) [12 XP]
Psyche 13 (bonus 5) [24 XP]
XP Spent: 72. More than half of the available XP used on statistics.
Skills: Acuity 2 (14), Athletics 1 (9), Coercion 1 (14), Craft: Alchemy 2 (12), Deception 2 (15), Intuition 1 (11), Knowledge: Magic 1 (11), Knowledge: Nobility 1 (11), Logic 1 (11), Magesense 2 (12), Persuasion 1 (14), Riding 1 (11). [20 XP]
Talents: Create Mana Crystal, Mage Initiate (Elementalism), Minor Spell Knowledge x3, Spellpower I [26 XP]
Derived Statistics
Initiative: 18
Speed: 18
Evade: 18
Physical Resistance: 18
Mental Resistance: 23
Reserve Pools
Health Points: 16
Energy Points: 18
Stability Points: 23
Spells: Firebolt, Frostblade (spell trick - non-weapon application allowing it be used to chill items upon which it is cast), Summon Sprite (spell-trick - warming servant, the fire sprite keeps close enough to warm single creature without causing harm), one more initiate spell to be picked in the future when elementalist selection will be expanded.
Looks good. :) Do you have any questions?
When I write up mechanics, summon sprite creates a floating 'mine' that can be laid to guard an area. It floats about harmlessly until it sees an enemy, whereupon it will rush at them and explode!
If you have any suggestions for initiate Elementalism/Chaos spells (or any other school), feel free to post them!
Maybe all elemental attack spells should be based on one choosen element and have additional elemental type being tricks? So the mage would learn as one of fire/ice/lightningbolt at first and then bought its other elemental variations without having to learn a new spell?