Spell Cards & Powers/Psi

[Highland_Piper]

I'm currently working on Spell/Power/Psi cards and I could really use some input on what people would most like to see on the cards. These will be blank form pdf's that you enter in your own data.

Currently I'll make a front of the cards for each College of Magic, Ritual Path, Psi, Powers. Any suggestions for a colour for each is also helpful.

Currently the permanent info will be Page, Cost, Duration, Time to Cast then I can add up to 6 more blank info panels that you can add your own title like Area of Effect, Damage. Or should I leave them all blank for the user to fill in?

There are two blank info panels on the top. Largest one I'm assuming people would us for the title. The second can be used for player name, or relative skill level, etc.

The more input I can get the more useful I can make these for the whole community.

Here is an example of the style I'm using

Thank you.

[Anaraxes]

The various GURPS stat blocks are probably a place to start. You might well want to select information or format them differently, but that's usually the information that people find necessary and are used to seeing.

For RPM, see the "Specific Definition" box on page 19, which lists the attributes of a spell that make it uniquely that spell, and those that are varied on the fly. The two categories probably deserve separate listings. The second might be absent, or might have a summary of the effect of common changes.

Paraphrasing that box, the spell card should show:

• Name of the ritual
• The specific spell effect(s) (pp. 15-16); e.g., “Lesser Strengthen Body and Lesser Destroy Chance.”
• What those spell effects do. (Freeform non-mechanical text describing the spell. There’s a clear difference between (e.g.) “Lesser Sense Mind
  to send my thoughts” and “Lesser Sense Mind to locate the nearest sapient being with IQ 5 or less", so listing just the mechanical spell effects alone is insufficient.)
• Modifiers which define the ritual, cannot be changed: Afflictions, Altered Traits (you must list the traits; number of levels can be varied), Bestows a Bonus (you must list the rolls affected, strength varies), Bestows a Penalty, Damage (you must list what type of damage and any enhancements; amount varies)
• Which of the following modifiers are used, though these can be varied on the fly: Area of Effect, Healing, Meta-Magic, Speed
• Don’t bother listing Duration, Extra Energy, Range, or Subject Weight – or Traditional Trappings – as these can be varied freely with any spell.

[ericbsmith]

For Magic Colleges color scheme I'd suggest you use the same colors as the page borders for the college - at least, from the PDF and pre-B&W print books (which, for the most part, actually do correspond to traditional colors - blue for Water, Red for Fire, Grey/Black for Necromantic, etc). I'd probably start out using those colors as the background and then add some themed surface overlay - i.e. a flame surface for Fire spells, waves for Water spells, air gust for Air spells, wolf face for Animal spells, tree for Plant spells, etc.

EDIT: Here are the Hex codes for the College colors:
00709C Air
AC4218 Animal
C26E20 Body Control
00796B Communication And Empathy
894C34 Earth
7D3192 Enchantment
ED1846 Fire
C26E20 Food
A50575 Gate
00796B Healing
647BB9 Illusion And Creation
405642 Knowledge
4C5965 Light And Darkness
2E3896 Making And Breaking
00709C Meta
7D3192 Mind Control
C26E20 Movement
006630 Necromancy
009855 Plant
AC4218 Protection And Warning
647BB9 Sound
00A05A Technological
0082C8 Water
00709C Weather

[wmervine4]

As a user of the core magic system, I second the idea of using the colors from each chapter in Magic for the colleges. It could just be my eyes, but I will note there appear to be some duplicates, for example, the shade of blue used for the Air, Meta-Spells, and Weather colleges.

It would also be cool to have a symbol for each college in addition to using the colors from Magic and a thematic background. Some examples would be a tornado for Air, a drop for Water, a shield for Protection and Warning, a tree for Plant, and an ear for Sound.

As far as what fields should be included, I would suggest the following for standard magic:

Name of the Spell
Skill Level - This may be best represented as a small box or bubble next to the spell's name similar to how a spell is written on a character sheet, e.g., Stone Missile-15
Class (Blocking, Missile, Regular, etc.)
Duration
Cost
Time to Cast

If there is space, it would be great to have a Description field also, but I have a feeling with all of the fields that apply to most spells, there won't be a lot of real estate left to describe how the spell works.

For those that use potions, it might be fun to have potion cards as well.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by wmervine4

As a user of the core magic system, I second the idea of using the colors from each chapter in Magic for the colleges. It could just be my eyes, but I will note there appear to be some duplicates, for example, the shade of blue used for the Air, Meta-Spells, and Weather colleges.

There are, and that shade of blue is one of them. Which is why I suggested using some thematic textures, and your idea for icons isn't bad either, to further differentiate the colleges.

Originally Posted by wmervine4

For those that use potions, it might be fun to have potion cards as well.

Actually, that gives me an idea for some general Equipment cards and, specifically, Weapon Cards with stats. Keep in mind that for weapons they often times have multiple use modes - Thrown vs Slash vs Stab, or Bodkin vs Barbed-head, standard and AP bullets, possibly with a Grenade Launcher or Bayonet.
Player: "I pick up the M16"
GM: <hands player M16 card>

[Highland_Piper]

These are great suggestions and I will use them!

Here is what I have for, I'll be changing the border colour as suggested except I'll take a screen clipping from the pdf and match the colour with the eyedropper tool.

• Air College
• Animal College
• Body Control College
• Path/Book
• Communications and Empathy College
• Earth College
• Enchantment College
• Fire College
• Food College
• Gate College
• Healing College
• Illusion & Creation College
• Knowledge College
• Light & Darkness College
• Making & Breaking College
• Meta-College
• Mind Control College
• Movement College
• Necromantic College
• Plant College
• Protection & Warning College
• Ritual
• Sound College
• Symbol College
• Syntactic College
• Technological College
• Water College
• Weather College
• Wild Magic

Also I am replacing the word "Spell" with "College"

[ericbsmith]

Those are really nice. As wmervine4 mentioned, I would like to see the info boxes labeled with the standard spell info such as Casting Time, Cost, Duration, class, page, and even skill level and character points.

[Highland_Piper]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Those are really nice. As wmervine4 mentioned, I would like to see the info boxes labeled with the standard spell info such as Casting Time, Cost, Duration, class, page, and even skill level and character points.

The blank areas before the info boxes will be a user filled text box so you can place whatever you want in front of them. Text colour will be white for easy reading, just as the the word 'Page' on the bottom. There is too much diversity in spells to make for a good standard set up, and I think this way is best as you will get three to six info boxes (not including the 'Page' box) to place what you want. this way you can add damage, bonuses, penalties, Area of Effect, or whatever you want.

[Pragmatic]

For the custom spells (RPM, psi, sorcery, etc.), I'd recommend having a reverse-side that includes the costing as seen at the bottom of each spell's entry. Or maybe on the front page as a footnote (in smaller font).

[Highland_Piper]

That is all of the Colleges done from the Magic Book (see links in above post). I'm going to work on those now and come back for Wild Magic, Syntactic, Symbol, Book/Path, and the Psi stuff.

*edit*

Here is a link to a screen capture of Air College card filled out