Alternative Realm Magic

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Simpler Realm Pricing

I like matching the pricing of individual realms to their scope. This makes having a mixture of Realm scopes much more practical. It also makes it easier to use Realm Magic in a low point game without bloating the number of Realms/Limitations on magic to bring down the price.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Choose Your Own Progress

I personally prefer fixed progressions. Fixed progressions make it feel like the mage is honing their craft and increasing their power over time. And this feels like how you would learn magic if it actually existed. On the other hand, if you are invoking spirits, it would make sense to learn each Verb separately.

I don't think this approach will create any more balance issues than flexible magic does. You could theoretically build a battle mage by taking Fire(Create). But this would be balanced by the point costs for the Realm, Realm Skill, and energy cost of the spell.

Also, a mage would be limited by the Realms they don't have. In my opinion, this is a fair price for being able to buy the verbs piecemeal. However, this will lead to player questions regarding what they can do. For example, does throwing a fireball require Fire(Create) or Fire(Create) + Fire (Control)?

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Protocols

You could do it this way. The trick will be choosing Realm levels that are easily memorized by players or GM. Otherwise, play will grind to a halt every time they need to be looked up.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Effect-Shaping and Energy-Accumulating Realm Magic

This looks good. I'd probably use Effect-Shaping over Energy Accumulation to speed play and minimize the number of rolls required for a spell.

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Effect-Shaping is slightly harder: take the Time to Cast in seconds and read that as steps on the Duration scale to determine how long the ritual will take; then subtract two from the energy cost and read it as a skill penalty instead of an energy cost.

I'm confused. How is this supposed to work? Could you please provide an example?

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Realm Magic and Sorcery

This is an interesting approach. It would certainly allow Sorcerers to be much more flexible. Buying Sorcerous Empowerment by college is more complicated than just having a single advantage. Buying Sorcerous Empowerment by college also means you will have to spread points around multiple colleges. So I'd expect to see more specialists.

I'd prefer to use Realms and Sorcery separately within the same setting. Realm magic would represent the magic of scholarly wizards, while Sorcery would represent the magic used by intuitive magical savants.