peterb

I've just uploaded an revised wizardy document on my website (see links in the first post of the thread) to address the omission of rules for casting time.

Hey Peterb

I just read your system and it sounds really interesting. It might even be a fit for what I'm looking for (converting a world that was in d&d to brp).

Couple of questions that I think I missed in the read:

1) What is the base cost of a spell in FP? Is it only 1 regardless of the spell level?

Yes. It used to be Spell Level + any manipulations. But as I read the conversions I did a few years back and did a few new ones I realized that all spells basically had the same default effect (10 m range, 10 min duration and 1 pt of damage). So it made more sense to give all spelsl a basic cost of 1fp + any manipulations. Some spells are more complex than others, that's way they modify the art skill.

2) What is the casting time of a spell?

I noticed that I forgot to add a note about that, so I need to update the text. The rule is found in the Spell Properties chapter of "Wizardry Spells":

The base casting time of any spell is the number of FP used times one second. Since the casting time is the same for all spells it’s not noted in the spell description. Depending on the Strike Rank system used you would calculate the total casting time by counting from the DEX SR and up or from the DEX value and down. In any case each FP used increases the casting time with one SR. The skill quicken can be used to reduce the casting time of a spell.

You should check out the GORE rules in the downloads section of this site. GORE has all (I think, or at least almost all) of the D&D spells converted to BRP terms.

BRP Central - Downloads - GORE

It might be interesting to compare and contrast the two efforts.

GORE have made quite a few translations, but not all spells are translated. The translation is also not done the same way, or to put it another way, does not follow the same algorithm. The authors of GORE has chosen a different way of translating d20 spells to d100 standards. Their way is not better or worse than my way. There are many roads that leads to Rome...

Hmm, I've just checked the RFT spell file and it didn't look that nice... I've updated my first post with a link to a zip file with all the spells in MS Word (2003) format if people happen to prefer that format...

As some of you may have noticed, I have in a few threads been fiddling around with how one might go about when transforming d20 spells into a d100 and BRP compatible format. I actually started a similar project several years ago and forgot all about it I wrote a rules set called Wizardry (published on the RQ and BRP mailing list in July 2004) and even made a rough mechanic transformation of quite a few D&D spells. I've picked up the trail where I left it and has edited a few more spells (at the present I'm on on the letter "E"). In any case I'd like to share my progress so far. Below you'll find links to a zip file with a rtf-file containing the converted spells. You'll also find links to my wizardry rules.

I'd like some feedback (if anyone would be so kind and take the time) on the conversion so far. I've edited A to D, so there should be quite a few examples of how I convert spells. I'm also posting this in the hope of recruiting some editing help. If we could assemble a group of people, each editing one letter (all the S's, T's and so on), we could fairly fast and easy get one set of converted spells done. If someone else would want to change the spell data (adding some of the data I removed for example) to fit their idea of an d20 conversion, it would make their task easier if they had a batch of spell descriptions that where already transformed and adapted to d100 and BRP.

Well, anyway here are the files:

• Wizardry Spells zip file (document is in rtf format)
  
• Wizardry Spells zip file (document is in MS word format)
  
• Wizardry rules (in pdf format)
  
• Wizardry rules (in openoffice format)
  
• Wizardry rules (in MS Word format)
  

Note: Wizardry was updated 2008-05-03

I just found out that I'm absent minded

A few years ago I wrote an short rulesmodule called "Wizardry" which details an alternative wizardry system. It was partly designed with the porting of d20 spells in mind... I had completely forgotten about it. I even wrote three editions, moving from MP use to FP use... I'm getting old...

Here's a link to a copy in pdf-format and here's a link to the same document in openoffice-format. The document is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

And yes, I almost forgot, I've added a d100-Compatible logo...

Close, but not quite. AFAIK, Chaosium made no effort to get the RuneQuest trademark. They were too busy with other things.

Oh, they did, they did... they even tried to claim the Glorantha trademark...

Mongoose was able to write MRQ for the sole reason that the rules of a game cannot be copyrighted. Greg's background with RuneQuest and BRP had no bearing on the situation.

Well, Stafford made some comments on the Glorantha-L list that would lead you to think otherwise and if you study the copyright notice in the MRQ SRD:s OGL, the SRD is claimed to be based on "original material by Greg Stafford".

However, Chaosium lost the rights to RQ when they sold it to Avalon Hill. They got the rights to the RQ system, but not Glorantha, when Avalon Hill stopped publishing for a number of years (as I understand it) but Greg Stafford's Issaries gained the RQ Trademark and commissioned a new version of RuneQuest. Chaosium brought out BRP which is based on their own rules system.

Just some notes for the record(s)...

Chaosium never lost the copyright to RQ, they sold the trademark to Avalon Hill. And then they licensed the contents of the game (under an exclusive license one has to presume) to AH. Avalon Hill was bought up by Hasbro at the end of the 90's and was transferred to Harbro's fully owned subsidiary company WotC. Someone at Hasbros legal department failed to renew the trademark registration for Runequest, so the trademark lapsed and Issaries (Greg Stafford's company) nicked the trademark just under the nose of Chaosium.

So that's how Issaries and not Chaosium got the trademark Runequest. Since the rules of a game is not copyright protected and since Stafford had some part in writing the original Runequest rules, Mongoose was able to reproduce large parts of RQ II and III in MRQ, which is why the games are so similar.

/Peter

One could also say that the runes associated with a god gave you a good idea of what domains (in d20 terms) a god was associated with. The main god of a domain had a double runes. The main death god thus had two death runes, the Red Goddess had two moon runes, etc.

/Peter

But AikiGhost's "d100 Rules System" (linked upthread) uses characteristics in the 1-100 range. It doesn't seem right that a system even more d100 than usual would be excluded.

Instead of drawing up regulations dividing (perhaps only slightly different) rules-sets, I'd rather efforts were spent uniting them. Devising mechanisms as easy as possible to convert between systems would be a better use of our time.

Obviously starting with conversions to BRP, because they should be the most used...

The idea of a d100 system definition is meant to create a larger compatible body of works. AikiGhost's "d100 Rules System" is quite nice but it actually has a few "non d100" features. Stats in the 1-100 range is one, rolling above a threshold (as in d20 but using a d100) is another. In fact the system system seems to me as a blend between BRP and Rolemaster. Nothing bad about that, I'm not trying to bash AikiGhost's system in any way, but the game system is quite far from what I perceive as the common definition of a "d100-system", and that makes the system quite incompatible with other d100 material.

Again the idea is to create a symbol indicating compatibility and to define what is meant by the statement: "compatible with the d100-system".

OK. Here is a suggestion for a very basic d100-charter, based on Simon's post up-thread:

***********

This publication is d100 compatible. That may not mean much to the reader, which is why the d100-Community has created a d100 charter, a document detailing what the community believes is meant by a “d100 game”.

A d100 compatible game contains game mechanics that, at the very minimum:

• Uses a D100 as the prime die when resolving situations,
  
• Uses Characteristics that are based on a Dice Roll but not solely random,
  
• Defines human characteristics as being typically in the 3-18 range,
  
• Uses Hit Points being derived from Characteristics,
  
• Defines damage as being weapon + personal – armour,
  
• Defines previous Experience being Background/Profession based rather than based on a Class,
  
• Uses no Character/Race Classes,
  
• Uses no Experience Levels,
  
• Uses percentage based skills,
  
• Make use of incremental experience,
  
• And resolves skill rolls and task resolutions by rolling below a target number on a D100.
  

Of course you can use it. The logo is not of the very best quality, I do have a logo in higher resolution (also in PNG format) that you may have if wish. As I think of it, maybe I should release the logo under a CC license (or even public domain) just so that people understand they may use it freely. To be frank, IMO, the logo lacks originality and is therefore public domain. I see what I can do about a PD-declaration...

The minimal characteristics would have to include both Mongoose RQ and BRP. They would probably have to include systems such as Blood, GORE and SimpleQuest. Clearly the charter couldn't refer to those games explicitly, but the wording would have to be so that those games are not excluded.

So, you would have to have, at the very minimum:

• D100 being the prime die when resolving situations
  
• Characteristics being based on a Dice Roll but not solely random
  
• Human characteristics typically in the 3-18 range
  
• Hit Points being derived from Characteristics
  
• Damage being weapon + personal - armour
  
• Previous Experience being Background/Profession based rather than Class Based
  
• No Character/Race Classes
  
• No Experience Levels
  
• Percentage based skills
  
• Incremental experience
  
• Skills resolved by rolling below a skill target on a D100

Sounds good. The "d100-Compatible" definition should, just as Simon says, be kept to a minimum IMO. The reason being that it's better to be somewhat to inclusive than to exclude. And as Simon wrote in another post, and as several others have pointed out, I agree that the "big" companies would probably not be particularity interested in such a logo. But that's not the main purpose. My idea was to create a community standard and a logo that the community, fanzines and hobby-publishers can use to indicate what type of game they are supporting.

To use D20 magic effectively you have to have levels, which can be used in BRP games by having different degrees of membership of a particular magical organisation. So, you have Lay Member/Initiate/RuneLevel in RQ, there's no particular reason why a certain order doesn't have Member/Master/GrandMaster or whatever series of levels you want. So, levels aren't really an issue.

A big issue with D20 spells are that the higher level ones are incredibly powerful. They can seriously unbalance a game. But that is a problem for the GM.

Another issue is that D20 magicians can only store a certain number of spells and can only cast a certain number of spells per day, and both limitations are defined by level. That is against many of the BRP values. Is there a way around it? Almost certainly. Do I know the way? Nope.

The method I devised and posted up-thread is in fact designed to deal with some of these problems. All the methods I've posted are intended to be used in a automatic conversion routine that converts d20 spell data into BRP (or d100 if you want) spell data. One problem one cannot handle programmatically is very powerful spells. The only thing one can do is to mark them as problematic and alert a GM about the potential problem.

But, I'd love to see a conversion of OGL D20 Spells to a D100-style system. Since BRP is definitely and absolutely not OGL then you can't convert them to BRP. You'd have to look at another D100 system that is OGL-based. I'm trying to think of one, it's on the tip of my tongue ....

Well, I wouldn't be using MRQ if I made a conversion. There's absolutely no problem converting d20 spells to BRP, legal wise. The game system in it self is not owned by anyone. The terms being used in any given game system (hp, AC, magic points, fatigue points, SR etc.) are for all purposes public domain.

To clarify, a 15fp Magic Missile (i.e. expanded twice) would do 3 dice of damage, but a 15fp Fireball (not expanded) would do 1 die?

Yes... but a fireball is an area spell. Some spells would probably need a bit of tweaking. I would, for example, downgrade Magic Missile to 1d3 damage (but ignoring armour, needing a POW v POW win). Essentially it would become an improved Disruption spell.

Also, I'd suggest that school-skills should all contribute individually to the Spell Buffer, so you don't have to worry about the odd %'s, only when any skill crosses a 10% barrier.

Good idea. I wouldn't complain, the method that is easiest to use should be used.

As a response to the comments above, I wrote this bare bone alternative wizardry system:

Fatigue and spell buffer

• Each school of magic is a separate skill.
  
• Spells need not be memorized.
  
• Spells can be cast from books, at double the casting time.
  
• Each spell has a difficulty rating of 0 to 45 which is subtracted from the school skill level (d20 spell level x 5).
  
• Casting a spell is tiring. Each spell has a FP cost equal to its difficulty rating. Spells with DR 0 costs 1 FP to cast.
  
• Spells can be manipulated by expending more fatigue points. Each expansion of area, range, duration or additional targets or missiles costs 5 fatigue points each. Example: by default the spell magic missile creates one magic missile, adding three extra missiles costs 15 additional fatigue points, for a total cost of 20 FP.
  
• As the mage improves her skills she will become less fatigued by casting spells. This improved ability to manipulate magic energy is represented by a Spell Buffer. A wizard’s Spell Buffer is equal to one tenth of her combined magic skill values (rounded to the nearest whole number). A wizard with a total of 93 points in three skills thus has a Spell Buffer of 9 points. The Spell Buffer can be only used instead of FP to fuel spells. The mage recovers the buffer at the same rate as she recovers FP.
  
• A wizard can only manipulate an amount of fatigue points equal to half her school skill level, drop the reminder, at any given time. Thus a wizard with a skill of 63 can only manipulate a maximum of 30 fatigue points at any given time. She couldn’t expand a fireball (a 15 FP spell) more than 15 points and she couldn’t cast a spell with a higher DR than 30 (a 6th level spell in d20 terms), in effect a wizard cannot cast spells with a d20 spell level higher than the 10s digit of his spell school skill.
  
• Expanding fatigue points to rapidly could be dangerous as the wizard runs the risk of exhausting himself, possibly even killing himself.
  
• Learning a spell is a two week task that has a chance of success equal to school skill – difficulty rating. A wizard with 55% skill would need to roll 40 or lower to learn the spell fireball (DR 15). A wizard may add a week to his studies and increase his chance of success by the average of his INT and POW (rounded to the nearest whole number) percentiles. Our wizard, with INT 14 and POW 15, could thus add 14 percentiles to his chance of learning the fireball spell.
  

OK. This is my take at a revised fatigue system. It's based on the RQ III system but I've "imporoved" it. You may not agree of course... Comments are welcome - as always.

Fatigue

All characters have a fatigue point pool equal to the sum of the characters STR and CON. Doing things that makes you tired, such as running, swimming, fighting and climbing, reduces the available fatigue points. Each melee round of hard work (running, hasty swimming or swimming in rough sea, etc.) reduces the FP pool by 2 points. Each melee round of medium work (fighting, swimming, climbing, riding at full speed, etc.) reduces the FP pool by one point. Wearing stuff also reduces the FP pool.

When a character carries stuff the sum of the ENC values of the tings carried are deducted from the fatigue point pool. However the ENC value reflects how cumbersome it would be to carry a thing in ones arms or on the back. Some items, most notable armour, do not encumber as much when worn as when carried on the back. The ENC of armour is halved (round up) when worn. An option would of course be to recalculate all armour ENC and rule that when not worn a piece of armours ENC is doubled.

When a characters FP pool reaches zero (0) the character becomes fatigued. Every new FP lost reduces all skills by 1 percentile. A fatigued character may not run or do any other hard work. He may fight, cast spells and ride at normal speed, etc. When a characters FP pool is so depleted that it has reached (0 – (STR + CON)) or less the character becomes exhausted. The character must make a CON x 5 (-FP) roll or collapse, if the character succeeds he may still do nothing but walk. Any physical activities (including casting spells) requires another CON x 5 (-FP) roll or the character collapses. If a character drives his FP pool below (0 – (STR + CON + CON)) he may die as a result of the strain. The character must succeed with a CON x 5 (-FP) roll or he dies…

A suggestion to simplify play: only count negative FP in chunks of 5. That is if a character has -6 FP, give her only -5 in all skills until she drops below -10. This will lessen the bookkeeping burden somewhat.

A character that falls unconscious because his HP total drops below 2 hp looses all positive FP (his FP pool drops to zero). Failing a shock roll, loosing all HP in the head or having a limb severed (i.e. the limbs take twice the normal hp value in total damage) also reduces FP to zero.

A character recovers FP at a rate equal to CON /2 rounded up per 5 melee rounds (i.e. per minute). The average character with CON 11 and a FP of 22 thus recovers in slightly more than four minutes. As an other example, a very well trained Dwarf character with STR 16 and CON 22, fully recovers in slightly less than four minutes.

It would seem that all character would fully recover in about four minutes. Only characters that are relatively speaking weak but has high cardio (CON) fully recovers faster. But very fit characters manages to recover more FP in a given time frame, which might be crucial in some circumstances.

/Peter

I don't have the BRP-zero book so I don't know if there's a fatigue system in the new book. I'm fiddling with a set of conversion rules for d20 spells and is contemplating using FP instead of MP. The RQ III fatigue system sucks and the RQ II system is a bit to basic, so it would be nice to know if there is such a s system in the new book or if I have to devise one of my own.

/Peter

Doesn't your browser render smileys?

Oh. Sorry, I misinterpreted your smiley...

Ive had a system called d100 up on my personal website for at least 6 years, so I hereby claim ownership

No offence intended but... Having written (and published) a publication called "d100" does not by itself create a trademark. It really doesn't. Sorry.

/Peter

In principle, it does of course make sense.

However, at least here in Germany the authorities would only react if a

German publisher would misuse the logo, and even then they would hard-

ly do more than send the publisher a letter to ask him to stop it. He could

safely ignore the letter for a year or two.

And the idea to complain as a German citizen to, for example, the Italian

authorities about something an Italian publisher has done ...

Unless you put a lawyer behind it, complaints of that kind usually do not

go very far.

Sad, but you are most probably right... :ohwell:

Anyway, I just made two prototypes for logos that we could at least recommend the community to use... and it appears as I see them side by side that they didn't turn out at the same size... Well, anyway, you get the idea.

I appreciate and support your intentions, but I have serious doubts that your idea really would work.

For example, we could hardly prevent the use (or misuse) of "our" logo by any

publishers, unless we would in some way become a legal entity, and would be willing to file lawsuits against anyone using "our" logo without our permission.

Since there are (as far as I know) still no rules for European (= EU-wide) non-profit organizations, we probably would have to establish legal entities in all of the EU member states to be able to "protect" our logo in any meaningful way.

And without protection the logo would not really be useful for customers, I think.

In my opinion it would be easier to use something more personal, perhaps a short line written by the forum administrator or thelike, instead of a logo. To copy and use a logo is rather easy, to copy and use a personal opinion under a certain person's name is illegal in any case and any legal system.

Ah, but the idea is that we needn't do the dirtywork - we could leave that to the authorities. One of the tasks of the consumer protection agencies is to act against misleading commercial practices. A misleading actions is an action that deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer about, for example, the main characteristics of the product (see the EU directive concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices, art. 6.1 for more details).

What we would do would be to complain to the authorities that a publisher uses the logo in a misleading way, deceiving the consumers about the nature of his product, and then let the consumer protection agency do the work for us.

The purpose of the charter and the logo is to establish a proof of what is it that the consumer expects from a d100 compatible product.

Does this make sense?

/Peter

Unless you do something to dramatically increase the Wizard's MP, using that formula will make Wizards even weaker than their d&d counterparts, which is to say that they'll start being able to cast several spells a day, and each time they gain access to new spell levels, their number of spells drops dramatically.

Well, the average cost of the average spirit magic spell is probably 1.5 mp. A RQ 3 shaman could only cast some 10 spells a day... and as the average sorcery spell costs quite some mp in RQ3 (due too intensity, range and duration manipulation) a sorcerer would only be able to cast two or three spells a day...

The solution is mp storing devices, mp spirits and self-powered magic devices. Also a mage in d100 needs to use magic in other ways, as a information seeking device, to improve defences and so on. Sorcery and the like really takes to much time to cast to be very valuable in combat, in such situation spirit magic rules (and you don't need many of those spells).

Sure, one could device means to deal with the problem. One way would be to use Fatigue Points instead of mp, possibly combined with a "spell buffer" that increases with skill. Assume that a mage would be allowed STR + CON FP which he could use to cast spells and that he could add a "buffer" equal to (sum of all magic skills / 10) rounded up that he could spend before tapping into his own strength reservoir. Of course you'll have to increase the cost of the spells by about x 5. But as you may recall FP are recovered faster than MP... Of course for every 10 FP the mage would loose 10 percentiles in all skills. You could also device a spell that allowed the mage to recover 5 FP per MP or 15 FP per point of permanent POW. In a ditch the mage could sacrifice MP and even POW to recover his breath.

/Peter

Most members of this board probably understands what is meant with the term “d100-system”, a system of rules designed to facilitate role-playing, which is class less, level less, has no arbitrary limits on what a character can do and which resolves in-game tasks by rolling a d100 under a threshold value.

I'm contemplating a few conversion projects in which material written for use with the d20-system are converted so that they may be used with the d100-system. This means that I'll have to use the open gaming license (OGL). That license forbids any kind of compatibility statements with existing products, product lines or trademarks, unless you have a separate license to do so. It then becomes quite interesting to sort out if d100 is a trademark, and if it is – who owns it?

Having searched the trademark databases of both the EU and the US I'm fairly certain that “d100” is not a registered trademark (for games in any case...). I have a very vague recollection of having seen a d100 logo on one of Chaosium's products but now I cannot verify that. Chaosium does not these days, as far as I can see, market BRP as anything else than “Chaosiums d100 system” or possibly “The Chaosium system”, which makes sense. There are quite a number of companies that also have or still does publish game systems that are similar to Chaosium's and it would therefore be very difficult to claim such a trademark and in the EU, due to our trademark laws, it's quite impossible. In the EU the mark “d100” (and d20 as a matter of fact) would be seen as generic descriptors of a certain type of game mechanics and also as the name of a specific type of dice. In both cases, using a dice designation as a trademark, would be “devoid of any distinctive character” because it “consist exclusively of signs or indications which have become customary in the current language or in the bona fide and established practices of the trade.” (First Council Directive of 21 December 1988 to Approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks (89/104/EEC), art 3.1 b and d) It would therefore seem safe to use a “Compatible with the d100-system” and even using a d100 logo on any OGL publication. Which, from my perspective, is a good thing.

The community could in fact benefit from “marketing” a d100 logo of it's own. It's in our own interest, as consumers, that only products that really fit our, by practice, established definition of what a d100 game is, are allowed to label themselves as “d100 compatible”. The community cannot own such a trademark (since we are not one entity and we do not act in a business context) but we could establish a mark that would have a similar effect to a trademark. In the EU we have something called collective, guarantee and certification marks. These marks are used by groups of traders or by authorities to indicate to consumers (and other traders) a guarantee that a product has certain qualities, comes from a specific geographic area or is certified by the correct authorities. A consumer group, such ours could not register such a mark (we are not traders) but we could establish a standard and create a symbol for that standard and with time that symbol would acquire some of the characteristics of a trademark. A company who markets products as d100 compatible, when they are not, could then be reported to the authorities (protection of consumer authorities) and accused of misleading advertisement, which is a quite effective weapon. This could be done already at this point in time but if there's an established standard which the community follows and companies that markets the community follows then we have established a market practice.

I therefore propose that we create:

a) a d100 charter, a document that spells out the minimal characteristics that a role-playing game, labelling it self as “a d100-system” or “Compatible with the d100-system” must have.

a d100-system logo.

c) a d100-system logo license (we assume that the logo is copyright protected).

The purpose would be to establish a market standard and assign a symbol to that standard and allow, anyone, who is willing to follow the standard the right to use the logo free of charge.

Comments are most welcome...

/Peter Brink

First of all I should point out that these bare bone formulas have not been used in play. They are the first iteration in an attempt to reach a set of algorithms for standardizing the conversion of d20 spells to the d100-system. They are also a very rough set of rules for a type or arcane and divine magic that would seem familiar to a user of the d20 system and still work well within the d100 framework.

I prefer the simplicity of MP Cost = Spell Level best, and 1 MP per expansion.

I have no problem with a spell cost formula of 1 mp / d20 spell level + 1 mp per extension, as such. I was just worried that wizards wouldn't be able to do any decent manipulations, given that I want to limit the amount of manipulation a wizard can do with any given spell. I might worry to much.

Why do Mages only have more complex formulae?

The skill system (my method 1) was really only intended for arcane magic. When tinkering with the second system I realised I could link in divine magic into it. The second system is (partly) based on the idea that a wizards ability to manipulate magic increases with skill. That's nothing strange really. I wanted to simulate this increase in skill but also to avoid having to deduct mp:s when the mage became better. So instead I had wizards start with a low mp pool, simulating that at low skill levels the mage must spend, relatively speaking, more energy on each spell. When the magic-user increases his skills the relative cost decreases, the wizard becomes more resource effective.

A similar system has been implemented by Green Ronin in their publication “True Sorcery”.

Since divine magic is “programmed” into the priest, he really does not understand the spell he just, somehow, knows that if he focus on an aspect of his god he can bring forth a supernatural effect. The priest's ability to do this does not increase with skill, since no skill is used.

How do you decide what the default effect for d20 spell is?

The default effect is based on the spells description. Increasing the “caster level” is an extension and costs 1 mp per level. Some spells have bonus effects based on character level. Barkskin is an example. In such cases I would use level x 10% and allow the bonus effect at those skill levels. I use 10 as a multiplier instead of 5 because having bonus effects already at a skill level of say 30% is a bit low, IMO.

Have you found these moderate the damage of d20-style spells acceptably?

Not really. That's still a problem. One possible solution is to downgrade all dices one step. That is d6's becomes d5's, d4's d3's etc. The maximum amount of damage is also a problem. Limiting the amount of mp manipulated might be one way of dealing with that problem.

Do you use just a normal POW v POW for saving throws?

Yes. That was my intention. I don't really like the skill based approach to resistances used by MRQ, although I can see that it has some merit in some situations.

The skill-per-school is good, too - but do you use any other magic related skills for mages?

No I don't plan to do that. In any case none that would increase the chance of casting a spell or increase the mp pool. I do see uses for skills such as Knowledge [arcane lore] and such, for example when researching new spells or when analysing magic items or magical effects.

/Peter