Learnable vs. Inborn Magery - Page 3

Raeder · 10-26-2006, 10:58 AM

I considered this problem many years ago and concluded the best solution was to allow a modified form of magery called "potential magery". This is bought at character creation and represents an inborn talent for magic use that has never been developed.

As I defined it, each point spent on potential magery allows the character to eventually add four experience points to it to "trade in" the point of potential magery for 5 points of magic aptitude.

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Its not really germane to this topic but I'll mention the system I developed was actually more complex than the above, as I allowed magery levels to be bought at reduced cost with limitations (such as applying to a single college or a short list of colleges or only if the moon is out or only if the spell does/doesn't harm someone [black or white magic] and so on). Players could buy both limited and unlimited levels on the same character for more flexibilty, e.g. M1 for everything but M3 when casting fire spells.

To keep the math elegant, I wanted all magery levels to have the same cost. I accounted for the extra 5 points that M1 costs vs M2 and M3 by saying that buying any level of magery has a built in 5 point unusual background cost requirement, but actual levels of magery are always 10 points before limitations are applied.

To keep the bonuses from getting out of hand, I ruled that players could buy as many levels of magery as they wanted, as long as they had enough potential magery to start with, but only the first 3 levels gave a full +1 bonus. After the initial +3 each additional +1 to skill required two additional levels of magery be applied.

This was developed for a setting I called the University of Arcana. I wanted players to start as weak teenage students (we started with 75 points) but eventually to be able to become very powerful mages indeed. It worked well for that setting, but in other settings this version of potential magery may be too cheap to be well balanced if you are running mages and non mages in the same group.

No, I didn't crib from Rowling, this was developed long before the first Potter movie came out. I do find it interesting how many parallels there are between the U of A and the Hogwarts setting.

DrTemp · 10-28-2006, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrTemp

That's, of course, another approach: Make it inborn, but make it more expensive, too, so as to mirror the actual rarity. How expensive was the UB you'd charge for a "Very Rare Magery" campaign such as, say, one with 1/0.1/0.01/0.001% distribution?

How about additional 20 CP per level, so that it's usually cheaper to by up IQ in order to raise your effective skill with spells? Such as:

M0: 25 CP (5 CP Magery + 20 CP UB)
M1: 55 CP (15 CP Magery + 40 CP UB)
M2: 85 CP (25 CP Magery + 60 CP UB)
M3: 115 CP (35 CP Magery + 80 CP UB)

Or would this be over the top?

What, no opinions?

10-26-2006, 10:58 AM	#21
Raeder Join Date: Sep 2006	Potential Magery I considered this problem many years ago and concluded the best solution was to allow a modified form of magery called "potential magery". This is bought at character creation and represents an inborn talent for magic use that has never been developed. As I defined it, each point spent on potential magery allows the character to eventually add four experience points to it to "trade in" the point of potential magery for 5 points of magic aptitude. ------------------ Its not really germane to this topic but I'll mention the system I developed was actually more complex than the above, as I allowed magery levels to be bought at reduced cost with limitations (such as applying to a single college or a short list of colleges or only if the moon is out or only if the spell does/doesn't harm someone [black or white magic] and so on). Players could buy both limited and unlimited levels on the same character for more flexibilty, e.g. M1 for everything but M3 when casting fire spells. To keep the math elegant, I wanted all magery levels to have the same cost. I accounted for the extra 5 points that M1 costs vs M2 and M3 by saying that buying any level of magery has a built in 5 point unusual background cost requirement, but actual levels of magery are always 10 points before limitations are applied. To keep the bonuses from getting out of hand, I ruled that players could buy as many levels of magery as they wanted, as long as they had enough potential magery to start with, but only the first 3 levels gave a full +1 bonus. After the initial +3 each additional +1 to skill required two additional levels of magery be applied. This was developed for a setting I called the University of Arcana. I wanted players to start as weak teenage students (we started with 75 points) but eventually to be able to become very powerful mages indeed. It worked well for that setting, but in other settings this version of potential magery may be too cheap to be well balanced if you are running mages and non mages in the same group. No, I didn't crib from Rowling, this was developed long before the first Potter movie came out. I do find it interesting how many parallels there are between the U of A and the Hogwarts setting.