POW tweaks

[Lloyd Dupont]

Seeing how expensive some spell are I think one need to give extra power point boost to magician.

Yet I don't like the Staff or Familiar tropes.

I came up with this alternate idea, what do you think:

Each Stunt know give +x (1?) magic point bonus

Each spell (at, say 30%?) give extra +x (+2? +1? +skill%/10?) magic point bonus

 

What do you think?

[g33k]

What kind(s) of magic?

I think it's relatively easy to slip over the line into making "I cast..." be the default action for everybody.

Tweak until you get what suits you and your table, but beware the temptation to make magicians into a better-than-everyone-else category.

[Lloyd Dupont]

My particular problem are the Blast/Lightning/Frost/Fire spell in the Magic section
(I am not going to use the other "advanced magic" inspired by RuneQuest /Mythras they seem to favor magic users too much to my liking.)

I have conflicting relationship with them. I like to have used more often... with the caveat that they are not too deadly. Or maybe they should be boss fighting aces.

 

So.. On one hand hand you can cast any level you want very easily. On the other hand spell can be just dodged or parried easily (though you can game it, wait until your target has done 1 or 2 parry already) and they are prohibitively expensive. So far that seems almost fair...

 

But now the "problems" starts:

One comparative advantage between spells:
A 4D6 Fireball (1mR) costing 12 POW for one single attack, whereas 12 POW can give you a Weapon +8 with ByPass armour 4 for 15 minutes that make Fireball totally uninteresting by comparison.
Also a control spell will cost only 3, or a change spell costing only 4 and will be totally game changing
I think the idea is those spell are not really worth it, but I guess they are good attacks against high POW target (because no save), distract them with some fighter, and cast it at them after they already use their defensive move or 1 or 3 times. Might be intended and OK. I guess it's a toss up.

Problem 2, is the big Blast spell a good Boss spell anyway?
Let say you meet a Dragon. Perfect opportunity for Blast to shine, to fire your 9D6 Blast.
But first problem, your dragon problem didn't bother dodge anything else so he can dodge that one (thankfullly he only has 35%), then if it fails your 27 magic point spell that does an average of 31 damage is reduce by 12 armour point = 16. It's barely a scratch. And also you can NOT cast it again because it's 27 magic point.

 

To recap I am happy about the price.. But something feels not quite right... maybe damage should scale up non linearly?

 

BTW, Magic already has optional rule of Familar and Staff, which I am going to remove, so this is equivalent
This is the bonus I am settling on:

Total Mana, used to power all power, is equal to POW plus skill modifier. For a maximum of 2xPOW

Skill modifier is as follows:
Each (Magic) spell, or Psionic Ability at 26% +1
Each (Magic) spell, or Psionic Ability at 51% +1 (for a total of +2)
Each Stunt: +1

Edited August 5, 2019 by Lloyd Dupont
added some extra infos

[Lloyd Dupont]

I am thinking to change Blast,Fire,Frost,Lightning as follows

First, cosmetic change, pillar now become floating ball thrown by the caster instead of pillars. Each level can be used to add one “one dice” ball or add an additional dice of damage to an existing ball.

Also the damage dice use increase with level, as follows:
Level 1-3: 1 magic point ~= 1 damage, Dice is D6
Level 4-6: 1 magic point ~= 1.5 damage, Dice is D8
Level 7-9: 1 magic point ~= 2 damage, Dice is D10
Level 10-12, 1 magic point ~= 2.5 damage: Dice is 2D6
Level 13+, 1 magic point ~= 3 damage: Dice is 2D8

Now a Blast 9 would cost 27mp, and do 9xD10 for an average of 49 damage, or in average:
 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Lloyd Dupont
add one (last) record to my damage increase table

[Lloyd Dupont]

Mm..... another idea for those damage spell

Cost per level: 1
Damage: 1D6+1/level

1 target obviously (doesn't work so well for area effect )

Edited August 5, 2019 by Lloyd Dupont
rephrase it differently

[Mugen]

18 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Mm..... another idea for those damage spell

Cost per level: 1
Damage: 1D6+1/level

1 target obviously (doesn't work so well for area effect )

I agree 3 MP for 1d6 is too much, but I think 1 MP is extremely cheap for 1d6+1 damage. The Disruption spell in RuneQuest costs 1 MP and deals 1d3 damage, for instance. Its main strength is that it's not affected by non-magical armor.

Maybe 1d3+level-1 ?

In Sandy Petersen's Sorcery rules for RQ3, damage for instant damage spells was 1dX, where X was the Intensity of the spell, which is even less than 1d6 per 3 MP.

But RQ3 had Sorcery Matrices, which allowed a sorcerer to cast spells with base Intensity equal to the POW sacrificed into into the enchant, which allowed for very effective 1 MP spells... Edit: oh, I forgot Sandy Petersen also changed Sorcery matrices. Those either only added 10% to the caster's skill, thus allowing to put more MP into the spell, or allowed to cast non-modifiable versions of the spell. Less awfully overpowered.

Edited August 6, 2019 by Mugen

[Lloyd Dupont]

Since yesterday I got an idea....

I have 2 changes.

Cost is the same (i.e. no change)
Dice per level is 1 1/3, i.e. level 3 = 4D6

And also I created some Magical Enchantment Ring Of Power (1-4) (spell)
Each ring will target a specific spell costing 3pow/per level. Making the first (1-4) level costing 2 instead of 3. Level 1 and Level 3 are the most common.

 All together it's working out nicely, I think. At any rate I like it gotta test it!
Will have to test that...

Edited August 6, 2019 by Lloyd Dupont
changed a few words

[Lloyd Dupont]

I got another idea, haha!

No bonus MP after all.. POW is POW is mana, no change.
However Skill mastery remain to reduce spell cost. 61% => -1mp, 71% => -2mp,... 101% and above -5 mp to spell casting