Mixing kinds of Magic

[Plane]

I like the idea of mixing Threshold magic with FP magic, but think the 50-point advantage for getting both sources is sort of prohibitive to low-level casters, so like the ideas more of a setting feature.

I like the idea of synergistic spell interaction, which Ritual Magery (you buy up college skills basic on thaumatology, spells become techniques defaulting to that, instead of skills) most closely resembles...

The only thing I wish there was was that building prereqs mattered more to the ones later down the chain. In normal Magery magic, prereqs are just to get access to the later ones but then you can abandon building them... and in Ritual Magery it's just the prereq count which matters... but you can then pump points into the high-level spell techniques and not buy up the lower level ones.

I wonder if maybe there was some kind of cap like you can't have a spell at a higher proficiency than any of its prereqs to emphasize building lower-level spell techniques up?

That would make it more expensive both for normal magic or using the Ritual Magic system to get high-tier spells at high proficiency, and also not have weirdness like a fireball tossing mage who only knows the basics of Create Fire or Shape Fire.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Plane

I wonder if maybe there was some kind of cap like you can't have a spell at a higher proficiency than any of its prereqs to emphasize building lower-level spell techniques up?
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This would not effect default Magic and usually not its' derivative systems like Threshold or Ritual Magic as outlined in Basic either. The efficient build will have 1 pt only in each Spell. Maybe 2 in Enchant.

It's probably even worse for systems where you actually do buy "spells" as Techniques. You very, very quickly reach a point where it will always be cheaper to buy up the Skill everything Defaults from.

If you want to change that and make people spend more cp and/or jumpt through a lot of hoops to be able to do magic you run the risk of everyone saying "I'm going to play a Barbarian! Or maybe a Swashbuckler.".

[Plane]

[QUOTE=Fred Brackin;2287943]
This would not effect default Magic and usually not its' derivative systems like Threshold or Ritual Magic as outlined in Basic either. The efficient build will have 1 pt only in each Spell. Maybe 2 in Enchant.

It's probably even worse for systems where you actually do buy "spells" as Techniques. You very, very quickly reach a point where it will always be cheaper to buy up the Skill everything Defaults from.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If you want to change that and make people spend more cp and/or jumpt through a lot of hoops to be able to do magic you run the risk of everyone saying "I'm going to play a Barbarian! Or maybe a Swashbuckler."

I guess the problem is there isn't really a way to stop people from taking the "I'll just pump my IQ" or "I'll just pump my magery" or "I'll just pump my college" approaches unless those are made more expensive too.

"Extending the Rule of 20" (T73) at least is an option for stopping the "I'll just pump my Thaumatology" long-term approach for casters.

Maybe since -4 to cast a spell for missing a prereq entirely, some smaller penalty could exist if you have a prereq not trained up? Like -3 if there's only 1 point in it, -2 if 2 points, -1 if 4 points and -0 if 8 points?

One major hole in the skill system is how One Spell Magery costs 2/level so it's the cheaper investment (with other side benefits, like extending effect) past the initial 1 point in a skill. The only limits are whether or not the GM allows it to be purchased, and also that Magery can be targeted by different spells (like Drain Magery) than spells which target skills, though it seems like the Magery-targeting spells are harder to cast than the Skill-targeting spells...

The downside of the Ritual Magic system I guess is that a skill-targeting spell could target your College Skill and kill ALL of its techniques in a single go... whereas against traditional magic you could just target 1 prereq spell low on the chain and give all its dependent spells a -4.

[Michael Cule]

I'm also thinking of using this as part of a 'school of magic' setting where the pupils enter as Mage-O and earn their higher magic by an initiation that realises the Magery-1 (RPM) or Magery-1 (Threshold Magic) or whatever.

There might be one or two Archmages who have the ability to use more than one sort of magic... But I'd make it a Bad Idea, possibly with the risk of death if you try to initiate to two different ways of doing things.

[AlexanderHowl]

RPM caps skill at 12 plus Magery and does not add Magery to IQ to determine skill, but it gives an energy reserve equal to 3×Magery and allows practitioners to have conditional rituals up to Magery plus Thaumotology. Similar drawbacks and benefits could apply to any magical system.

For example, we could translate the conditional rituals to spell maintenance in the default system. Mages could 'store' up to (Magery plus Thaumotology) spells for future use, triggered by a specific condition. For example, they could cast Teleport as a conditional ritual and have it activate if they ever suffer enough damage to go unconscious.

[Plane]

T41's "Magery-Based Limits" is probably the solution I'm looking for to the "I just pump single-spell magery" approaches, since it makes Magery no longer add to IQ and just set the limits.

Since it doesn't stop the "I pump IQ instead of skills" approach though, so maybe a modified version could be that rather than limiting overall skill to 10+Magery, instead the amount of IQ that can count towards a skill could be 10+Magery?

This means you wouldn't need to buy magery to train up skills directly, only to get more benefit to them from IQ. Sort of like B173's Rule of 20, but not just for defaults, but for benefitting from the base attribute even when you have put points into it.

T30's Calculated Bases / Lower of Two Bases options could also be ways to make IQ still matter but pumping it being a less attractive thing than buying up skills directly, since you'd need to buy up other attributes too, making it more expensive.

Combined with petering-off penalties (-4 with 0 points in a prereq, -3 with 1 point in a prereq, -2 with 2 points in a prereq, -1 with 4 points in a prereq, -0 with 8 points in a prereq) you'd have high skill in prereqs mattering more than just putting in the token 1 point.

To incentivize putting points 12 or more points in, perhaps you could do a bonus of +1 per additional 4 points? However that would make pumping the top-tier spell directly from 4>8 unattractive, so maybe it should be +1 per 2 levels like the damage bonus you get from combat skills?

Originally Posted by Michael Cule

There might be one or two Archmages who have the ability to use more than one sort of magic... But I'd make it a Bad Idea, possibly with the risk of death if you try to initiate to two different ways of doing things.

One interesting way might be, rather than to allow a generalized magery, to require all magery to have "One College Only" limitations? You could still of course construct "I have Magery 1 in everything" by buying it for all colleges, but that would ultimately be much more expensive...

For interfering with the other, sort of like how Aspected Mana (F43) works, but for an individual?

In that case though, you'd have to solve the problem of people just buying up IQ instead of Magery, possibly by having "10+Magery" instead of "IQ+Magery", which I remember seeing suggested somewhere...

IQ should still have some kind of subtle impact, but maybe some other formula like getting a bonus of IQ/2 or IQ/5 ? Or maybe having maximum magery capped at IQ-10?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Plane

One major hole in the skill system is how One Spell Magery costs 2/level so it's the cheaper investment (with other side benefits, like extending effect) past the initial 1 point in a skill. The only limits are whether or not the GM allows it to be purchased, .

I've never seen One Spell Magery even bought. Probably because I seriously doubt that it's legal to buy it more than once.

So if you have One Spell Magery you will be a Johnny One Spell by definition.

[Plane]

You're right, I took a second look at Thaumatology 25, didn't remember the "nobody can buy One-Spell Magery multiple times for different spells" part. This makes "One College Magery" and "Power Casting" (Magical Styles 29) a lot more distinctive I suppose.

Of course there is the tiered option to do stuff like "3 Spell Magery" -70% or "5 Spell Magery -60%", which is actually a BETTER deal than taking One Spell Magery twice if you specify this for your favorites.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Plane

You're right, I took a second look at Thaumatology 25, didn't remember the "nobody can buy One-Spell Magery multiple times for different spells" part. This makes "One College Magery" and "Power Casting" (Magical Styles 29) a lot more distinctive I suppose.

Of course there is the tiered option to do stuff like "3 Spell Magery" -70% or "5 Spell Magery -60%", which is actually a BETTER deal than taking One Spell Magery twice if you specify this for your favorites.

If Magery is a learnable advantage, it might be interesting in a 'magical school' game for a lot of mages to start out with One-Spell Magery, and need to develop it to less limited forms, or possibly to decide whether they want to proceed in widening their capabilities, or limit themselves to being more powerful in one college, or one section of a college (e. g. 'Lightning Spells Only' or 'Acid Spells Only').