[DF] Easy arcane magic for Dungeon Fantasy

[Bruno]

Aaaand this is now officially another branch of the "Skill based magic sucks!" "No it doesn't!" "Yes it does!" thread.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Aaaand this is now officially another branch of the "Skill based magic sucks!" "No it doesn't!" "Yes it does!" thread.

It's always amusing when "realism" is brought up to support or decry a "Magic" system. I know where the argument is coming from, but come on, guys. If something doesn't make sense, you can literally use the excuse that "a wizard did it." =P

Anyways, magic can work however you want it to work. Maybe it's subjective; that's what the GM is for. At some point he's going to have to decide what he wants his world to look like - either when initially designing his magic system, or during play as he adjudicates it.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Aaaand this is now officially another branch of the "Skill based magic sucks!" "No it doesn't!" "Yes it does!" thread.

I don't have a problem with a skill-based magic system, I just don't like the default one very much. I'm actually in the middle of ripping it apart and replacing it entirely with a system inspired by Ritual Path Magic, Noun/Verb Syntactic Magic, Ritual Magic, Symbolic Magic, and Threshold Magic. It's still skill-based, but in my opinion it solves many of the problems of the default system. Then again, it's also completely untested and not yet ready for primetime. I'll expand more on it later, when it's more ready to be analyzed.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Aaaand this is now officially another branch of the "Skill based magic sucks!" "No it doesn't!" "Yes it does!" thread.

Which is ironic, because I was fairly well convinced by the "just use a very small spell list and ignore the prerequisites" argument. I still have some very fundamental concerns and dislikes of the standard Magic system, but I'm trying to run a quick pick-up game and so I'm using a lot of stuff that I don't like (standard DF armor weights, etc). I can go either way, really.

And of course, the newbie player I was most concerned with decided to play the Half-Ogre Knight, making the entire concern a little irrelevant.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

And of course, the newbie player I was most concerned with decided to play the Half-Ogre Knight, making the entire concern a little irrelevant.

One of my players, during the playtest for Mirror of the Fire Demon, showed me that the real powerhouse is the half ogre swashbuckler...

[mlangsdorf]

Well, initially I had 3 players, so they went with Saint, Scout, and Swashbuckler-Thief. A reasonably balanced small party, though light on magical support. They approached the Mage to see if he wanted to join, but he blew them off, and the Saint is intolerant so the Dark Artist was a no go.

The other two players in our group tend to have attendance issues. If they show up, they'll play a Wizard-Bard or Demonologist or Shaman and the previously mentioned Half Ogre Knight. While a Half Ogre Swashbuckler would be crazy bad, the Knight has skill 19 with his flail and ST22, so it's not like he's letting the team down. Sure, Weapon Master would drive him straight into the center of Crazy Town, but he's already on the outskirts.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Aaaand this is now officially another branch of the "Skill based magic sucks!" "No it doesn't!" "Yes it does!" thread.

GURPS Magic is like AD&D, in this regard.