[4e] Custom Magic for a Custom Setting

[Rabek]

Originally Posted by ericthered

A couple of questions:

Are practitioners of natural magic specialized? is each elemental pair learned separately, is a basic theory learned and then you have various levels of skill with the pairs, or do you just learn magic and you are equally good (or bad) at making fireballs, healing the sick, and flying?

Current plan is to have each pair be a separate specialty, though they aren't mutually exclusive beyond the time it takes to learn them. I'd be happy with each pair being their own skill, or each pair being a specialty of some fundamentals skill. The basic idea of manipulating energy, from the fluff side, is probably the same between all three, but beyond that there isn't much knowledge to take between different specialties. It's kind of like linguistics, I suppose. Learning a second language makes learning further languages easier, but there's still a pretty big gap between learning, say, English and Mandarin Chinese.

When you say you want to avoid rituals, do you mean specific spells, spells that take a long time, or simple spells that require a very specific set up?

Rituals exist as an aid to help mages focus better and clear their mind of distractions. It shouldn't be necessary as a rule, but it may be required for bigger effects and for less skilled mages. I basically want rituals to be a crutch, more or less, that's optional. What I want to avoid entirely is pre-defined spells where you go "I cast fireball", which is basically what basic set utilizes.

Will the symbols of the farmers growing crops be specific effects? as in set spells? what distinguishes the simple crop-enhancing farmer from the full-time enchanter from the effect wrecking mage?

Symbols are also a form of crutch, albeit a more effective one. To use the symbol magic in Thaumatology as an example, a farmer might know 'enhance' and 'plant' to strengthen the wooden part of tools and make their crops hardier, but they wouldn't know much more than that simply because the time and effort to learn symbols takes away from farming. A full-time enchanter may know a dozen or so more common symbols, as well as crafting skills to etch them into tools, armor, weapons, charms, and the like. Full-fledged mages generally have more freedom and can cast more quickly due to not having to draw complex sigils, but the effects are generally weaker (due to being less focused) without rituals. They also can't enchant without knowing symbol magic, as the symbols provide a sort of grounding for the energies and willworking involved.

What is the difference between a novice and a master? the amount of control? the amount of raw power? the ability to wring water magic from a stone? what is easy for a novice to do? a small effect with decent control, or a large effect with poor control?

Control defines it best. That control also has to do with the amount of energy they can wrangle and what they can wrangle it from. A novice might be able to create a fog from a lake or sense water energy, but a master could pull water energy from damp soil and plants and fill a waterskin. Neither can create or destroy energy, though. Only move and sense it with increasing amounts of control. Novices are probably better at large effects (in the sense of size) with poor control. Natural Magic should reward skill mostly, though I did find the skill penalties in Thaumatology to be a little ridiculous.

How vauge are the effects behind life/death? can I animate a corpse? a tree? kill an enemy from afar? suck away a foe's life energy? kill a goat and distribute its energy to the wheat to make them grow? Sustain life without food? turn the warrior into a super-strong behemoth for a short time? cause infertility? create a plauge? heal a broken arm? raise the dead?

This gets a little trickier! Especially since you cannot create/destroy energy in this system. I originally wanted it to be so that you could not harm without healing or heal without harming. Something that is dead stays dead, though you could bind a spirit into it to animate it. Something nearly dead could be healed by taking life from nearby plants, animals, and people. Sustaining life without food would be similar, but you could do it with less. Probably killing nearby foliage/insects in the process. Buffs and healing would work. Plagues would not, but debuffs/rotting flesh/damaging organs for various effects would. Life/Death magic is honestly one of the ones I've had the most trouble with, since it doesn't really work much like the other forms. I may have to ditch the idea and allow you to transfer death to life and vice-versa, but at a cost of some kind. I think that's a good plan in general. Converting between life and death or heat and cold or heaven and earth should be costly.

I would advise looking at powers, particularly the 'control' advantage. This won't work for life and death, but may for some of the others. Book/Path magic is NOT what you want. It IS what you want to look at for the ritual bonuses.

Thanks! I'll check this out.