rsanford

All, I have updated these rules to the latest 1.7 version. As before these rules are inspired by Deep Magic and Ars Magica and tweak Deep Magic's spheres and glyphs and add rules for specifying spell range, area of effect and duration as well as for affecting mass, affecting character condition and casting spells against multiple targets. For maximum benefit I highly recommend readers purchase Chaosium's excellent Advanced Sorcery book. The are a lot of small changes in this update but the bigger changes include: Added to the laws of magic section. Added costs for enhancing or diminishing armor, protecting against fire & frost, creating planar gates and accessing the past and future to the common modifiers & cost table. Added rules for extended casting times for complex creations to the optional rules section. Added the chronicler notes section. Added a sample spell index. Clarified and expanded sample spells. You can find the rules in the download section at Please let me know if you find errors or typos. Thanks!

Hi all, While I REALLY like the deep magic rules published in Advanced Sorcery, I have been tweaking (some people might call it an overhaul) them in preparation for a Magic World campaign that my group will start later this year. The tweaks are to provide the following: Mutable parameters for elements like spell range, duration and area of effect. A “more” intuitive way to define spells. An expanded set of possibilities for spell casters in terms of the type spells they may cast. Potential for the spell caster to affect things on a grander scale. Rules aligning categories of spell effects, such as creation, transformation and control with power levels. The homebrew rules developed address 1-4 above by changing the spheres and glyphs used by Deep Magic and by supplying costs for various spell ranges, area of effects, and durations. However addressing 5 above has been more difficult. Currently the way I am doing that is to provide two tables the first of which supplies costs for creating, transforming or controlling various amounts of mass and the second which provides common spell modifiers (like curing insanity, curing magical disease, opening a portal, etc...) along with associated costs. I can't reproduce the tables here (I tried - any suggestions?), but you can download the rules at if you like. The tables are number 5 and 6 on pages 14 and 15. For example table 5 deals with the costs of creating, transforming or controlling various amounts of mass and goes from 0MP costs to 13MP costs in increments of 1 MP. As an example it specifies: Controlling (lift, move, resist) a mass of 35 pounds would cost 1MP while transforming the same mass would cost 3MPs and creating the same mass would cost 4MPs. Controlling a mass of 554 pounds would cost 4MPs while transforming the same mass would cost 6MPs and creating the same mass would cost 7MPs. Controlling a mass of 8,652 pounds would cost 7MPs while transforming the same mass would cost 9MPs and creating the same mass would cost 10MPs. Controlling a mass of 135,181 pounds would cost 10MPs while transforming the same mass would cost 12MPs and creating the same mass would cost 13MPs. Etc, etc... Similarly table 6 deals with the costs of common spell modifiers (like curing insanity, curing magical disease, opening a portal, etc...) and goes from 0MP costs to 10MP costs in increments of 1 MP. It specifies that: For the costs of 1MP you can affect (add or remove) 2D4 hit points, 2 armor points, 2 MOV points, 10 skills points, 1 characteristic point, 1 POW point or 1 MP point. For the costs of 2MP you can affect (add or remove) 3D4 hit points, 3 armor points, 3 MOV points, 15 skills points, 2 characteristic point, 2 POW point, 2 MP point or cure or cause disease. For the costs of 5MP you can affect (add or remove) 7D4 hit points, 7 armor points, 7 MOV points, 35 skills points, 5 characteristic point, 5 POW point, 5 MP point or cure or cause hearing loss or blindness, create a planar gate, access the future by 5 minutes or access the past by 5 days. For the costs of 6MP you can affect (add or remove) 9D4 hit points, 9 armor points, 9 MOV points, 45 skills points, 6 characteristic point, 6 POW point, 6 MP point or cure or cause insanity, frost or fire protection, access the future by 6 minutes or access the past by 6 days. Etc, etc... I have two challenges. 1.) Identify and address common game situations where a spell (costs) modifier might be called for BEFORE I get into a game and have to hand wave it. 2.) Rationalize some of the modifiers I have already identified. With that in mind I have a couple of questions for you folks: The conditions & special occurrences listed in column 3 of table 6 equate things like disease, hearing loss, planar gate and magical disease to MP costs. These are the costs to create, provide or cure these things with a spell. Do the values I have assigned for the various effects look reasonable? Are there other conditions or special occurrences that I’m missing? What improvements would you make? One of my players proposed the spell “Raise Newly Dead”. He designed it comprising two parts. The first part used the spirit sphere and the control glyph to force the recently deceased spirit back into its body (subject to a POW:POW contest on the resistance table). The second part used the body sphere and the control glyph to heal the body of 5D4 hit points. It seems to me that forcing a spirit back into a body is much more difficult than curing insanity (or something like that) and should require some additional costs in MP points. What are your thoughts? How many points should something like this cost? I was leaning towards an extreme amount like 16 MPSs (which has the benefit of making raising the dead much harder). Also do you see a problem using a similar approach (without the healing part) to create a spell to capture someone’s soul and put it in a jar (Magic Jar)? So that’s it! What suggestions would you have? Thanks! PS - Sorry for the missing tables. I couldn't copy them over...

Me too! The AD&D monster manuals Chris converted are great but I would love to have a polished product with a lot of depth!

All, I have updated these rules to the latest 1.6 version. I apologize for having two versions (1.5 and 1.6) but I wasn't sure how to delete the previous version 1.5. As before these rules are inspired by Deep Magic and Ars Magica and tweak Deep Magic's spheres and glyphs and add rules for specifying spell range, area of effect and duration as well as for affecting mass, affecting character condition and casting spells against multiple targets. For maximum benefit I highly recommend readers purchase Chaosium's excellent Advanced Sorcery book. The are a lot of small changes in this update but the bigger changes include: Changed the rules for wizardry skill rolls to account for spell level and wizardry skill penalties. Added optional rules for spells causing multiple effects. Revised and expanded wizardry fumble table. Added a description for the sample spell Shape Change. You can find the rules in the download section at Please let me know if you find errors or typos. Thanks!

Hey - thanks a lot! I really appreciate the call out! You might want to click follow on the file as I will soon post a minor update that addresses how to handle spells that create more than one effect and there may be other updates as well. Also you might want to check out Deep Magic Rebuilt which takes a different approach but addresses many of the same concerns. Moonowl67 has uploaded his rules to this site as well. Happy gaming!

I have only been playing BRP (Magic World specifically) a few months (and have very little experience) so take this for what its worth... My longtime, seasoned, highly intelligent D&D group moved over to BRP and I took 15 minutes of game time to stress that this was a different game and that it was much more realistic. I told them if you would avoid a fight in real-life you should avoid it in the game world as well. I even explained the various tactics available to them in combat... It didn't do one bit of good. In the second game they attacked a party that I meant for them to avoid. Two of the party members got killed, one was captured, and two ended up running. Now after putting a new party together they are much more careful and never blindly rush to battle. I am just sorry it took two character deaths for them to figure that out. Since I want my characters to be a bit tougher than normal we use the rule for heroic hit points. It basically doubles the number of hit points and it still didn't save the party in their first battle. You might want to consider doing the same.. Good luck, I am REALLY enjoying BRP...

I already liked the page. Btw - nice job! I think Chaosium offers something like a quick start guide for Magic World. Maybe it would be a good idea to link to it on the Facebook page? By the way guys check out my home brew rules for free style magic Magic World style. I would love to get your thoughts! Best, Ronnie

Hi all, I have uploaded rules that tweak Deep Magic's spheres and glyphs and adds rules for specifying spell range, area of effect and duration as well as for affecting mass, affecting character condition and casting spells against multiple targets. For maximum benefit readers will want to purchase Chaosium's excellent Advanced Sorcery book. You can download the file at Please message me if you find typos or unclear rules. Best regards, Ronnie Sanford

Hi all, Any news on the Chronicler's Companion? What about the new monster manual? Best, Ronnie

You are awesome! Thanks so much! Ronnie

Hi all, I am a BRP noob that after reading Magic World still finds himself with a few questions. If any of you gurus would contribute to my education I would really appreciate it! 1. Assuming a battle is occurring in an open field what is the largest number of attackers that may engage a single target hand-to-hand? In other games my group uses a hex-delimited mat for battles and 6 attackers may engage any target at one time. Is the same applicable for Magic World? 2. How much are actions that affect allegiance worth? For example how many points are incurred when someone is murdered or healed? How many for sharing your lunch with a beggar? How many for building a bridge? 3. What type of actions generate balance points? The book suggest tending trees and building bridges, any other (more practical) examples? 4. If I understand the rules correctly (page 62) characters casting spell in combat may not both move and cast in the same round. Is that correct? 5. Page 85 of Magic World indicates that to disengage from an attacker, an adventurer should use an attack successfully, dodge successfully, or turn and run. Page 62 indicates that to disengage from combat an adventurer must declare his intent at the beginning of the roud, make no attacks, and successfully dodge all attacks made against him. Any insight into how this is supposed to be handled? 6. The weapon length rule on page 92 makes me think that adventurers with long weapons go ahead of adventuers and npcs with shorter weapons despite DEX rank. Is that correct? The same rule suggest that a player using a long weapon cannot be attacked by a player using a shorter weapon until the player using the shorter weapon makes a successful dodge to slip inside the guard of the player with the longer weapon. This implies to me that the player with the longer weapon will get at least one free attack. Is that correct? The rules also seem to indicate that once the player with the shorter weapon is within the guard of the player with the longer weapon he is no longer in immediate danger (assuming the guy with the longer weapon doesn’t move back). Do I have that right? If so why is that true? Couldn’t the guy using the spear just move his hand-hold further up the weapon? Is it accurate to think that weapons such as the quarterstaff and greatsword have significiant advantages because they can be used at short, medium, and long distances (page 72)? PS - I recently posted a review of Magic World on rpg.net at http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16300.phtml. It will likely all be old hat to people on this site but I would love to get your feedback if you have the time! Any help is much appreciated! Thank you! Best regards, Ronnie