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Looking to make magic powerful but very dangerous to the caster.


Belgath

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I’m looking to start a new campaign. Where I want magic powerful  But very dangerous for the caster with consequences for the use of magic. 

Some ideas I have so far.

Pow Is essential for life. When rolling up the character I will use 6+2d6. 8 Pow Being the minimum you can have to sustain life, Being the energy that binds your spirit to the body. As a result a pc must have at least 8 mana. If a player where to cast a spell Resulting in them going below eight would Immediately cause of your problems for the PC. Some ideas I have for the problems that it would cause.

    1. The players spirit  would Immediately try to Restore the shortage of manna bring it back to 8. Restoring deficit in MP by ?

             A. Pulling that energy from the physical body resulting in   Physical damage. I’m thinking 2 hp for every MP restored. 

             B. By Aging the character. 

             C. Damaging the characteristic STR INT DEX exc

             D. Your body becoming Temporary Vampiric Drawing energy from People you have a connection to physically damaging them.

             E. As the 8 MP Is what is needed To connect to your Spirit to the body. For every magic point below 8 Roll d 20 For location That part of the body ceases to        work Untill mana is restored.

Would love to hear more ideas no consequences of low MP.

I have a lot more I want to post about how magic behaves on this world. But I will have to finish up Tomorrow as I jest Noticed that it’s after 12:00 am and I need to be at work 5:00 am .

Edited by Belgath
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I would tie the risk to MP-expenditure, rather than (solely) to POW of caster.

Make spells & magic a skill-roll.

The more MP spent, the bigger the risk.  Failing a roll costs 1.5x MP-cost, for example.  Fumbling invokes some sort of "special" downsides (such as you have above); the more MP, the more/bigger the penalties.

Other ideas --

fall unconscious until normal healing restores MP

Penalties to various senses (sight / hearing / etc) up to and including blindness/deafness/etc.

Psychological quirks -- phobias, obsessions, etc.

 

Edited by g33k

C'es ne pas un .sig

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Your idea that pow is essential for life is effectively the same as the stock draining your hit points when pow reaches zero, just that you’ve shifted it to 8. That really jut makes for a smaller pow pool, rather than increase risk. I’m with g33k on the notion of cost of failure being higher - a really easy one could be just to have hit points tied to magic points, then failure cost a random amount, so going too low has a chance to burn you.

Monster island has a great table for dangerous magic. Slower casting times reduce risk, faster ones increase it. Consequences can be quite serious. It’s a pretty full set up, and worth a look.

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