08-18-2015, 09:57 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Making Thaumatology Sorcery feel academic
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
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08-18-2015, 10:04 AM | #12 | |
Banned
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Europe
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Re: Making Thaumatology Sorcery feel academic
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One solution is skill-per-College. Another is skill-per-sub-College. But trying to go more fine-grained than per-sub-College gets wildly expensive. |
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08-18-2015, 11:08 AM | #13 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Making Thaumatology Sorcery feel academic
Yes. You do get the Requires (Attribute) Roll discount to help pay for the skill. But you get that same discount even if all spells use the same skill, or you have path/college skills, and have to sink fewer points into the skill(s). On the bright side, most skills will need only reasonable activation-roll levels, rather than having to be raised into the 20s and 30s to soak difficulty penalties a la Ritual Magic. But skill-per-spell is going to be the priciest option in most cases.
But then, some people find the expense of spells-as-powers to be one of the attractions. |
08-18-2015, 11:11 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Making Thaumatology Sorcery feel academic
Require a prerequisite for various levels of Sorcery. You can't have more levels in Sorcery than you have in Thaumatology-12. Or some other skill. You need a grounding in magic theory before you can use the more powerful spells.
__________________
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
08-18-2015, 03:01 PM | #15 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Making Thaumatology Sorcery feel academic
The decanic modifiers system is excellent for making thing seem complicated and academic. Unfortunately, it does this by being fairly complicated, but it could be useful if spells are learned with limitations which are gradually paid off.
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08-18-2015, 10:05 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Dec 2004
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Re: Making Thaumatology Sorcery feel academic
You could swipe some ideas from GURPS Arabian Nights. The rules for mages required scholarly training - you had to have skills in appropriate ancient languages or scholarly knowledge totaling at least 50.
(For those not familiar with 3e, Languages used to be bought as skills rather than Advantages, e.g., you could have Latin-13.) So require would-be sorcerers to buy whatever skills you consider appropriate - Research, Philosophy, Naturalist, obscure languages etc. Limit points in Sorcery advantages to the total of relevant skills, counting each level of Language as 4 or 5 points. Possibly require relevant skills as prerequisites for spells, e.g. Physician for healing magic, Naturalist for animal magic, etc. That would play up the academic element without forcing character to buy skills that are basically point sinks. |
Tags |
academic, sorcery, thaumatology, wizard |
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