As I have noted, I really want the magic in Athanor to feel more like magic in pulp stories. However, I have come to realize after years of play and my experiences with D&D Third Edition that playing with the magic rules in D&D (or a simulacrum game) can really go wrong rather quickly.
The original rules, after all, have a balance of infrequent magic use with very powerful effects. Once you start making magic more frequent (like in Third Edition), then spells that made sense before start to seem less sensible. Magic-using characters begin to be capable of doing things better than almost anyone else, and their spells will be completely reliable. This gets worse if you also add in easy-to-make scrolls and wands and the like. In the end, Third Edition's magic rules suffered from one major flaw: it didn't change enough, and it didn't keep enough the same.
Frankly, I don't want to come up with a new magic system. At that point, I might as well as pick a different rule set. So how to fiddle with things for mood while keeping things essential the same? I'm pretty sure the idea is playing with fluff while leaving the rules intact.
I know where you are coming from, but I am an unrepentant magic system tinkerer. I love mages, when I used to play I was always a mage, and for better or for worse I always seem to add more mechanical gewgaws and things to do for mages than for any other class.
ReplyDeleteI imagine you have probably seen this, but it seems like it fits the bill quite well. I like it because it ditches the cleric and has the pulp feel of magic that corrupts, but if you want to stick to something lighter than that then you aren't as affected.
I really hope you keep the idea for sorcerous servants and flesh out the intelligent weapon rules for use with it. (I'm yoinking the idea, myself.)
I'm still hoping for as few subsystems as possible, partly because I'm just lazy. I'm actually looking more at a system that I think was posted on Grognardia for corruption as something gained each level as a magic-user advances to create some of the feel of wizards I want, or maybe a more ambivalent version of Philotomy Jurament's minor magics idea. I'm already tossing out clerics, and still thinking of sorcerous servants based on intelligent weapons... but other than that, I'm still cogitating on the way to get the right flavor with a minimum of adjustments to the actual rules in play....
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