Darker / Grittier Magic


Advice


Can anyone point me to a (mostly?) compatible magic system/subsystem with a slightly darker flavor? I'm looking for something where arcane spells take a toll on the Spellcaster, or the player has the option to make some sort of sacrifice to cast stronger spells. Also interested in being able to reduce other caster's spell casting for the day. Think spells/abilities that drain spell levels from the target, etc.

Open to 3rd party material as well as any existing 3.5/pathfinder spells, feats, classes, etc.

Thanks!


Burn is an absolutely terrible mechanic but if you gave it to all casters it may be interesting. Just make it so casters take damage as they cast, depending on the spell level.. Or take the Dark Heresy route and make it so casting a spell and rolling say doubles or something triggers unintended consequences, like, raining blood, or an angry Balor just appearing.


Add temporal negative levels for spells above level X, where X is the spell level you feel confortable with.


How about this?


Heretek wrote:
Burn is an absolutely terrible mechanic but if you gave it to all casters it may be interesting. Just make it so casters take damage as they cast, depending on the spell level.. Or take the Dark Heresy route and make it so casting a spell and rolling say doubles or something triggers unintended consequences, like, raining blood, or an angry Balor just appearing.

Can you link to any examples of Burn?


RaizielDragon wrote:
How about this?

Surprised I didn't already know about this. Very, very cool. Thanks for the option.


Worm Wound wrote:


Can you link to any examples of Burn?

Oh sorry, figured you knew. It's the mechanic for kineticists. You basically hit yourself with nonlethal damage to do anything fun.

Burn (Ex):

At 1st level, a kineticist can overexert herself to channel more power than normal, pushing past the limit of what is safe for her body by accepting burn. Some of her wild talents allow her to accept burn in exchange for a greater effect, while others require her to accept a certain amount of burn to use that talent at all. For each point of burn she accepts, a kineticist takes 1 point of nonlethal damage per character level. This damage can't be healed by any means other than getting a full night's rest, which removes all burn and associated nonlethal damage. Nonlethal damage from burn can't be reduced or redirected, and a kineticist incapable of taking nonlethal damage can't accept burn. A kineticist can accept only 1 point of burn per round. This limit rises to 2 points of burn at 6th level, and rises by 1 additional point every 3 levels thereafter. A kineticist can't choose to accept burn if it would put her total number of points of burn higher than 3 + her Constitution modifier (though she can be forced to accept more burn from a source outside her control). A kineticist who has accepted burn never benefits from abilities that allow her to ignore or alter the effects she receives from nonlethal damage."

Scarab Sages

Heretek wrote:
Burn is an absolutely terrible mechanic

It's really not. Having played a kineticist, I've found that your ability to accept burn does increase as you level up, and you are far less likely to die when you have a heavy burn active than you are to die from rage ending on a barbarian.

Because you are CON-primary class, you still have more effective HP before unconsciousness from HP loss than other casters.
The non-lethal damage gives you a large buffer between unconsciousness and negative hit points, meaning you only really risk from dying if you were facing a TPK.


Also: Bloodmage

The psionic Wilder also balances some risk/reward.


Also take a look through here. This specifically might interest you.


Using Spheres of Power with either Addictive casting, Draining casting or Painful magic drawbacks might work; plus the advantage of removing a lot of narrative destroying spells (or at least putting them behind talent investment) would allow the DM to maintain the gritty feel for longer.


Conan the Roleplaying (d20) game has some very gritty spellcasting mechanics, and would fall into the "mostly-compatible" side of things.

Here's a snippet from one of the reviews (this is very accurate) "...the magic system is modeled after HP Lovecraft and Howard's works at the time. Magic is evil, dangerous, diabolical, and there's not really many good reasons for good PC's to use it."

Edit:
Here's a link describing some of the mechanics, from its SRD.

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