Making Thaumatology Sorcery feel academic

Infornific · 08-18-2015, 11:05 PM

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.

08-18-2015, 11:05 PM	#14
Infornific Join Date: Dec 2004	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.