Ars Magica with BRP

[Ganriki_Medis]

I've stumbled upon Ars Magica on wikipedia and, as I don't much care about the setting elements, have been thinking about ways of adapting the magic system to brp.

Now, I haven't read the book, and only know what I've read on wikipedia but would this work:

Take the five techniques (Creo, Intellego, Muto, Perdo, Rego) and the 10 forms (Animal, Auram, Aquam, Corpus, Herbam, Ignem, Imaginem, Mentem, Terram, Vim) and make them separate skills.

To cast a spell a PC would need to succeed in his technique and his form rolls. For example to make a fire cold a spellcaster would need to succeed in both Muto and Ignem rolls (more powerfull spells would require more rolls, I imagine a fireball as "Creo * Ignem * Rego"). The thing is that this would make untrained spellcasters absurdly weak and magic unreliable.

The next thing I came up with is this: One could create a separate spell that had that one use only ,but could be improved separately from the forms and techniques. That would still leave room for improvisation ,but would also grant access to some more reliable magics.

The problems I'm facing are these:

1. I would like to have mastery over forms and techniques improve with regular use of magic, but can't figure out the mechanics for it.

2. How would one use power points to "fuel" spells? I'm thinking about something like "1pp for 1 point of something(be it damage, healing or siz amount of water being summoned) or 3pp for 1d6 points of something"

3. How would this system break when skills start to approach 100% ?

Any and all ideas will be appreciated. Especially if someone who has actually read Ars Magica could comment.

[Jarulf]

If you want to read the rules, 4th edition used to be free to download. I think I got a copy from e23.com, but other shops may have it as well.

The rules give descriptions of what each technique and form combination can handle at various levels of skill, so you could probably use that as a guide for adapting the system to BRP.

[kaddawang]

I too played with this idea. But couldn't get it to work within the BRP-framework.

ArsMagica is a great game, and as Jarulf said, you can download 4.ed for free from Atlas Games. Use it as inspiration. if you want to BRPyfi the magic system, you'd better be prepared for some work, though.

The easiest route would probably be to not convert the system, but instead use the Ars-magics as a separate add-on.

[Ganriki_Medis]

I've fliped through the pdf...

And I've realised that my current system crumbles if I put duration/area of affect/... into consideration.

As I understand BRP spells are mostly defined by their cost and the roll. So I've guess I need to somehow tie these elements.

I suppose if I could work out a base cost for a small/personal/momentary spell all I would really need to do is apply a multiplier.

Maybe the spell levels could be converted into a percentage modifier to be applied to the roll after multiplication using level 15 as a baseline? For example a creo ignem spell at level 20 would be "(creo skill * egnem skill ) - 5%"

All I really want to do is to create a solid framework so that my players can create the spells ,doing all the work for me

[gevrin]

Have you read the Elric/Stormbringer supplement, The Unknown East? It describes an alternative magic system based on freeform magics similar to ArsMag which has the mage combine "Spheres of Influence" and "Runes of Power" to create an effect, as follows.

THE SPHERES OF INFLUENCE:

EARTH

FLORA

FAUNA

WATER

SPIRIT

FIRE

FLESH

AIR

THE RUNES OF POWER

INHIBITION

DIMINUTION

SUMMONING

CREATION

DIRECTION

ENHANCEMENT

DISMISSAL

TRANSMUTATION

The spheres and runes are arranged in circles and the difficulty is based on how far from a known sphere/rune the required sphere/rune is, depending on what the caster is attempting (if that makes any sense). :confused:

Haven't tried it in practice but it looks promising, and it is BRP already. May be worth checking out.

Cheers

Dave

[kaddawang]

Ok, I finally got the package from the Chaosium-sale(thrice damned norwegian customs!), with a lot of good stuff. One of which were Corum - a supplement for Stormbringer. This book, apart from being overall awesome, also had a brilliant, freeform magic-system. The system works as it stands, and it is also very tinker-friendly.

If you can, get one while they still have any left. Now.