The Campaign Builder's Guild

After a comment on the boards here (I won't mention LordVreeg by name... oops. ;) ) mentioning how my muse has been suffocating because I haven't built my own magic system, and because my Arcanists, to be truthful, really, really need one, I decided to do so.

As an aside, it seems that everything I start here begins with an apology for why I'm starting it... Anyway. Comments, suggestions, etc.



What I want to accomplish, in no particular order:
1. Have a clear mathematical scale of power, which doesn't leave non-casters in the dust.
2. Integrate a form of ritual magic ala 4e.
3. Simplify and streamline the creation of one-use items and magic items.
4. Utilize an MP system.
5. Make the underlying mechanics straightforward, allowing additional classes to be bolted on post creation with little fuss. Additionally, allow this system to bolt into other RPGs with simple changes performed to numeric values alone.  
6. Allow for a variety of thematics without punishing or rewarding the player for a specific choice.

I'll cover my initial thoughts in order.


Considering WOTC, by my knowledge, hasn't been able to do this yet, I'm biting off a lot (or a litte, depending on your view of Wizards). Since my base is 3.5, that's what I'll be using.
   
the first thing I'm doing is taking a look at damage scale relative to average hitpoint scales. Keeping the concept of level-based spells, this should be an easy way to figure out what the current system has. I'll be considering maximum damage, so the scale will be from minimum damage at the first level available to maximum damage at level 20, for one round to one creature. Sorc/Wiz lists only, so as not to complicate matters further.
[th]level[/th][th]Damage Range[/th]

0	1-3 (Acid Splash/Ray of Frost)
1	1-30 (Burning Hands)
2	4-72 (Scorching Ray)
3	5-60 (Fireball)
4	5-30 (Shout)*
5	9-90 (Cone of Cold)
6	22-240 (Disintegrate)
7	13-120 (Delayed Blast Fireball)
8	15-120 (Polar Ray)
9	24-192 (Meteor Swarm)

Now this, despite what it may seem, doesn't actually tell you much that's concrete. With the exception of the anomalies at levels 2 (higher than scale), 4 (lower than scale), and 6 (higher than scale), damage does get progressively better as you increase in levels. Unfortunately, this table doesn't break down for you the percent of the potential target's hp you would be removing at each specific level, nor does it average the amount of damage a non-caster is dealing, as that can very wildly depending on build and type of critter being attacked). Ideally, I think the damage should be based on a percentage of the average hitpoints a character of equivalent level could be expected to have. Off of the top of my head, the highest level castable should be ~50%, and taper off in five percent increments until the lowest becomes ~5% from a 0th level spell at level 20. This would create a concrete, concise, and most importantly scalable damage range which each level should abide by. Now, the hit point totals I'll be using to figure this out will be ((level-1)*5)+10, the average one would get by averaging all the class ranges together (roughly) and adding one to represent constitution, two at first level for rounding purposes. Using the principle established above, we get... something very strange.

the damage spread a particular spell requires is a parabolic line. going across we have the damage every three levels from 1 to 17. going down is the spell level from zero to nine. If someone can figure out what the hell these equations are, I'd be grateful.

05-08-10-12-13-12-11-08-05
05-09-12-14-15-15-14-12-09
xx-10-14-16-18-18-18-16-14
xx-xx-15-18-20-21-21-20-18
xx-xx-xx-20-23-24-25-24-23
xx-xx-xx-xx-25-27-28-28-27
xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-30-32-32-32
xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-35-36-36
xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-40-41
xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-45

I've suddenly discovered why direct damage scales with caster level; it preserves the front half of the parabola. WOTC numbers are skewed higher, no doubt, to counteract creatures and other non-humans with obscene amounts of hitpoints from a high constitution or an outrageous amount of hit dice.

In any case, this makes magic, as you can see, far less powerful in terms of raw damage. Under this, a rogue's sneak attack can and (at higher levels) most likely will outstrip anything a spellcaster can dish out.

Quote from: Stargate52505-08-10-12-13-12-11-08-05
05-09-12-14-15-15-14-12-09
xx-10-14-16-18-18-18-16-14
xx-xx-15-18-20-21-21-20-18
xx-xx-xx-20-23-24-25-24-23
xx-xx-xx-xx-25-27-28-28-27
xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-30-32-32-32
xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-35-36-36
xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-40-41
xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-45

I'd be glad to help you with the mathematical equation part if you can clearly explain what these numbers represent.

le table, we meet again...

[th]Avg. Dmg
@ level[/th][th]Avg. HP
@ lvl[/th][th colspan='10']Spell level[/th]

-	-	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
01	10	5	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
03	20	8	9	10	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
05	30	10	12	14	15	-	-	-	-	-	-
07	40	12	14	16	18	20	-	-	-	-	-
09	50	13	15	18	20	23	25	-	-	-	-
11	60	12	51	18	21	24	27	30	-	-	-
13	70	11	14	18	21	25	28	32	35	-	-
15	80	8	12	16	20	24	28	32	36	40	-
17	90	5	9	14	18	23	27	32	36	41	45

Notice how the damage outputs in each column form a curve? If you've got questions on deciphering that, feel free to ask me.

Anyway, on to...


the wrench in this nice, neat picture is that the majority of combat-related spells don't actually do hitpoint damage, they perform some other effect, usually (but not always) allowing some sort of avoidance in the form of a save and sometimes (but not often) are equatable to a hitpoint total (finger of death, for one.).

The first type are penalty spells. These effects are numerous and varied, and to maintain game balance, the best bet would most likely be to rip these spells straight out, modify them to account for damage totals (if they do hitpoint damage as a secondary) and leave them untouched. Specific examples of unbalancing items, please stand up.

The second are buff spells. I personally don't use them, so we'll leave them be.

This area, in particular, is the one I will need the most help on, assigning some sort of value to each kind of effect, and creating a table to determine what level a certain grouping of effect (a spell) should be at.


[/b]

The rituals are one of two things that I liked in 4e (the other having nothing to do with magic). For those of us who don't know yet, I'll debrief a bit. Rituals are what's left of all spells that take time (expressed in something other than a combat action) to perform. They are cast from books made especially for rituals, or from one-time use scrolls. All of them cost money in materials, and it incorporates non-caster participation (in the form of materials, energy, or sacrifice).

Prepping this system is relatively easy. All we do is rip out the spells that have a casting time of a minute or more, as well as all spells with costly material components or foci, and make them rituals. This gives us, in essence, two spell lists; one for combat and quick utility, one for long utility or epically large damaging spells.

Balancing this system, however, will be slightly less easy.  

I've looked over your arcanist, but I recommend you answer several more questions before you start designing a magic system:

1. Does your system utilize a spells-per-day system or something similar? Magic Points per day would be the same as this. There are two alternatives I've found: an unlimited caster (I use this system) or the regenerating magic point system, where a caster might gain x number of magic points per turn or another set amount of time.

2. Do you use spell levels, do your spells become more powerful as your characters level, or both? D&D does both, and it can become a little convoluted.  

I think as you get further and further into design you'll be surprised at how little unmodified damage means. Compare the second level Scorching Ray to the third level Fireball. Those two spells don't resemble each other at all and therefore shouldn't be compared. A fireball can deal up to 60 damage to 44 squares (and, therefore, 44 characters).  On the other hand, the top scorching ray shoots 3 rays that each deal 24 damage, which is up to 24 damage to 3 characters or 72 damage to one.  Damage comparison? The fireball wins at 2,640 damage to the scorching rays' 72.

(I won't even talk about meteor swarm.)

With that, I'm just saying that you really cannot compare area of effect to ray spells as a general rule.

My recommendation is that you find the average damage you want to do per level.  You should find the average hit points per level (In D&D, that would be around an 6 to 7 average hit points per level) and decide how much of that you want to take away from with each spell.  If a single spell took an average of 20% of the health of an equal-leveled character, it would probably be a fair spell, but that depends on how you want to game.

While you design your system, I would recommend that you first look at how much damage you want a single target spell to do.  After that, the damage dealt by an area of effect spell should be anywhere between three-quarters and a quarter of that, depending on its radius.  

Those are my recommendations.

Quote from: JharvissI've looked over your arcanist, but I recommend you answer several more questions before you start designing a magic system:

Fair enough.

Quote from: Jharviss1. Does your system utilize a spells-per-day system or something similar? Magic Points per day would be the same as this. There are two alternatives I've found: an unlimited caster (I use this system) or the regenerating magic point system, where a caster might gain x number of magic points per turn or another set amount of time.

When I get down to item number four, this would have been fleshed out, but since you asked...

I'm planning on making it the first one. However, you wouldn't gain your entire arc(my name for mp) total back in a single night. It would work more like hitpoints in that regard, making 'going supernova' a much costlier option. As far as an unlimited caster system, I would like to see it, hast thou a link?

Quote from: Jharviss2. Do you use spell levels, do your spells become more powerful as your characters level, or both? D&D does both, and it can become a little convoluted.  

Indeed it can. As I said above, I think one of the reasons they used both was to preserve that front half of the parabola I discovered in the calculations. It's a thought. I probably won't do that, to better keep with item number five of things I want to accomplish. So straight damage it will most likely be, with spell levels.

Quote from: JharvissI think as you get further and further into design you'll be surprised at how little unmodified damage means. Compare the second level Scorching Ray to the third level Fireball. Those two spells don't resemble each other at all and therefore shouldn't be compared. A fireball can deal up to 60 damage to 44 squares (and, therefore, 44 characters).  On the other hand, the top scorching ray shoots 3 rays that each deal 24 damage, which is up to 24 damage to 3 characters or 72 damage to one.  Damage comparison? The fireball wins at 2,640 damage to the scorching rays' 72.

well yes, if you're looking at raw potential damage. Damage seems to work somewhat like energy in that you do need to look at the context. While the fireball contains an energy potential of 2,640, you can only bring 60 of that to bear against any one particular subject, in no way control how much the target gets beyond a simple all or none, and a great deal of that energy is wasted on empty space (large targets taking damage once, lack of densely-packed targets, etc.). With scorching ray, the potential is less, but the entirety of it hits a target, and you can control the degree to which a target gets the energy. A fireball is far more powerful, but scorching ray is more efficient.
 

Quote from: JharvissWith that, I'm just saying that you really cannot compare area of effect to ray spells as a general rule.

It accounts for the error in the line, I know. However, I was looking at a particular type of energy, namely how much you could bring to bear against a single target. Multiple targets and area effects will come later, although it might be interesting to look at it from a total energy standpoint...

Quote from: JharvissMy recommendation is that you find the average damage you want to do per level.  You should find the average hit points per level (In D&D, that would be around an 6 to 7 average hit points per level) and decide how much of that you want to take away from with each spell.  If a single spell took an average of 20% of the health of an equal-leveled character, it would probably be a fair spell, but that depends on how you want to game.

Did you READ past the first table? That's what I was trying to sketch out in the remainder of the post.

Quote from: JharvissWhile you design your system, I would recommend that you first look at how much damage you want a single target spell to do.  After that, the damage dealt by an area of effect spell should be anywhere between three-quarters and a quarter of that, depending on its radius.

Good guideline. Something I'd like to do is actually attach a ratio to it so that you have little to no guesswork, when designing your own spell, on what level it is.

Quote from: JharvissThose are my recommendations.

Duly noted.

Yeah, I read past the first table. ^_^

Eventually my post just got onto a tangent about what I recommend for everyone when designing a system.

The main reason I point out fireball's potential (which my co-designer calls the F-Word) comes from a setting design standpoint.  Indeed, from a player's perspective, the damage potential will never be in the thousands. Most fireballs will hit 4, 5, maybe more targets. My biggest issue is the fact that, in a war or a crowded area, like a marketplace, a  church, or even more, the casualty rate could be enormous. Most people don't sit or stand 5 feet apart in a crowded area.  If you fireballed a crowd, you could take out well more than 44 people - it would be at least a 100.

But fireball's also the system anomalies.  It makes no sense when compared with the rest of the D&D 3.5 rules. I'm just recommending against it. ^_^

I see. That makes much more sense. :P

As for the F-bomb (much closer analogy, methinks), I've had it happen to me as a DM. On numerous occasions. In fact, I took my players out to a football field so I could show them exactly how big this thing was in its footprint alone.

It's now banned in one of their games.

And you're not even counting its 3 dimensional footprint.

Like you said though, it's an anomaly, not the norm. I've got a feeling that most radius effect spells are similarly bloated. I mean heck, look at the potential damage output from chain lightning.

Jharviss
[blockquote=SG525][blockquote=Jharviss]1. Does your system utilize a spells-per-day system or something similar? Magic Points per day would be the same as this. There are two alternatives I've found: an unlimited caster (I use this system) or the regenerating magic point system, where a caster might gain x number of magic points per turn or another set amount of time.[/blockquote]


When I get down to item number four, this would have been fleshed out, but since you asked...

I'm planning on making it the first one. However, you wouldn't gain your entire arc(my name for mp) total back in a single night. It would work more like hitpoints in that regard, making 'going supernova' a much costlier option. As far as an unlimited caster system, I would like to see it, hast thou a link?[/blockquote]

I use a variation on the system you are talking about. I'm going to describe it all at once, though it sounds more complicated than it is.
In Guildschool/Celtricia, there are 11 types of spell points/mana.  In general, (unless a player has the very rare subskill of Spell Point reclamation), a character gets back 1/20th of their spell points per hour.  
However, a character can only get back spell points in 1-2 spell point types in any given hour.

The more powerful a spell is, the more points and the more types of spell points needed to cast it, in general.  (Also, by laying in more points, a caster increases the spell success.)  This obviously translates to the desired effect of those who cast lower level spells getting their points back somewhat quickly, but those who cast more difficult spells may take longer to regain the spell points.

Do you want an equation for each spell level, or an over-arching thing?

LV:
I've glanced at that one, and it does look interesting. However, I'm not entirely certain that I want to get that complex.

Higgs:
Each level should be a different equation. Whichever you want, really, as knowing the equation is not crucial to what I'm trying to do.

These two items have always seemed to be exactly the same thing disguised as different objects. They are, quite simply, spells that don't need to be cast.

I don't like XP costs. Period. There's no reason that brewing a potion or scribing a scroll should make you less experienced at what you're doing. XP costs are gone. To maintain balance, replace the x with a g, multiply by five, and add that into the cost for materials.

Similarly, I never liked the idea of restricting scrolls to casters only. I was introduced to scrolls via Elder Scrolls, where they were not a method by which to pad a caster's powers (which it hardly needs in D&D), but a way to give magic to characters who otherwise wouldn't have it. I'd like to see my scrolls serve the same function.

The one problem with this is that it's now possible to arm an entire army with fireballs, lightning, and other powerful artillery spells. This is bad for obvious reasons. Since anyone can cast them, there needs to be some sort of restriction or balancing agent for doing this. Currently, casting from a scroll is a standard action, regardless of the casting time of the spell that's on it. I propose making it a full round action. The time differential will be offset twice in that most longer-casting spells will be rituals, and that many spells will now take longer to cast in scroll form. Trading off speed for versatility, and that's good. However, that still won't stop battles devolving into artillery skirmishes between thousands of peons with scrolls of fireball.

Casting a scroll will also drain your arcs or your hitpoints, as if you had cast the spell. Since arcanists are already able to cast spontaneously, the only benefit they now gain from scrolls are ones that contain non-arcanist spells, and they pay for them normally. Versatility at a cost, just like it should be. For non-casters, the scroll will drain your lifeforce at a rate equal to the arc cost, so one for one. This will make scrolls for non-casters an emergency use, and is another sacrifice for the extra versatility. Is this going too far?

Other than scrolls, nothing else really changes.

I'm going to have to abandon this mathematical project for now due to more interesting, cooler mathematical projects. I will get back to it.

Quote from: Stargate525

3. Simplify and streamline the creation of one-use items and magic items.
Part one: potions and scrolls

These two items have always seemed to be exactly the same thing disguised as different objects. They are, quite simply, spells that don't need to be cast.

I don't like XP costs. Period. There's no reason that brewing a potion or scribing a scroll should make you less experienced at what you're doing. XP costs are gone. To maintain balance, replace the x with a g, multiply by five, and add that into the cost for materials.

Similarly, I never liked the idea of restricting scrolls to casters only. I was introduced to scrolls via Elder Scrolls, where they were not a method by which to pad a caster's powers (which it hardly needs in D&D), but a way to give magic to characters who otherwise wouldn't have it. I'd like to see my scrolls serve the same function.

The one problem with this is that it's now possible to arm an entire army with fireballs, lightning, and other powerful artillery spells. This is bad for obvious reasons. Since anyone can cast them, there needs to be some sort of restriction or balancing agent for doing this. Currently, casting from a scroll is a standard action, regardless of the casting time of the spell that's on it. I propose making it a full round action. The time differential will be offset twice in that most longer-casting spells will be rituals, and that many spells will now take longer to cast in scroll form. Trading off speed for versatility, and that's good. However, that still won't stop battles devolving into artillery skirmishes between thousands of peons with scrolls of fireball.

Casting a scroll will also drain your arcs or your hitpoints, as if you had cast the spell. Since arcanists are already able to cast spontaneously, the only benefit they now gain from scrolls are ones that contain non-arcanist spells, and they pay for them normally. Versatility at a cost, just like it should be. For non-casters, the scroll will drain your lifeforce at a rate equal to the arc cost, so one for one. This will make scrolls for non-casters an emergency use, and is another sacrifice for the extra versatility. Is this going too far?

Other than scrolls, nothing else really changes.

Let me add my hopefully helpful 2 cents, as I went through these mental gyrations once already.

I treat potions as spell effects, but that anyone can use, spell ability or none.  So they are harder to make and more expensive than scrolls.  

Scrolls in guildschool infer more understanding of the spell.  So only casters can use scrolls, and casters can only cast scrolls that use less than twice that character's spell point ability.  Moreover, casting off a scoll (and that is how we look at it...you drink a potion, you cast a spell off a scroll)  still costs 1/10 the amounts.  These rules stop character's from just becoming scroll factories.

Pretty straightforward, really. Since most mp systems feel like a rather obtuse exercise in  pulling random numbers out of the designer's bum, I've decided to try and style mine more like a hitpoint system. Roll a die, add an attribute modifier, and carry on your jolly way.

Since we've got this nice pretty arc per level table laid out in the SRD, I've decided to ignore it on general principle. Instead, we'll make things easy and assign the number of arcs to be equal to the spell level, and the zero level spells you get as freebies. Easy, no?

The Arcanist gains spell levels at a rate of one spell level every two levels, so we had better figure out that the average of whatever roll we get at that level is roughly equal to two or three of the next level's spells to be cast. Already I'm foreseeing a bloody quadratic formula on the horizon. Drat.

Going from the Wizards spell point system, the sorceror tops out at about 250 points. Since the cost of the points in this system is about half of Wizards, we'll assume a top out at 150 points to account for attribute bonuses. divide that by twenty, and we get 7.5 per level. Double that and we get a 15. Which is close to 12. huzzah, a d12 per level for arcs.

But wait, that's not going to work! Since I want the arcs to slowly regenerate, we'll need more of them. 4d4 sounds nice. The bell curve is much better, but slightly lower.  To compensate, we attach the primary casting stat to it like constitution to hitpoints. Would it work?    

Quote from: LordVreegI treat potions as spell effects, but that anyone can use, spell ability or none.  So they are harder to make and more expensive than scrolls.

How is this a change from normal potions? As it is, anyone can use them.

Quote from: LordVreegScrolls in guildschool infer more understanding of the spell.  So only casters can use scrolls, and casters can only cast scrolls that use less than twice that character's spell point ability.  Moreover, casting off a scoll (and that is how we look at it...you drink a potion, you cast a spell off a scroll)  still costs 1/10 the amounts.  These rules stop character's from just becoming scroll factories.

you've completely lost me.


Some more thoughts on hit point damage.

Alright, now that we've got this interesting table...
[th]Avg. Dmg
@ level[/th][th]Avg. HP
@ lvl[/th][th colspan='10']Spell level[/th]

-	-	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
01	10	5	5	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
03	20	8	9	10	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
05	30	10	12	14	15	-	-	-	-	-	-
07	40	12	14	16	18	20	-	-	-	-	-
09	50	13	15	18	20	23	25	-	-	-	-
11	60	12	15	18	21	24	27	30	-	-	-
13	70	11	14	18	21	25	28	32	35	-	-
15	80	8	12	16	20	24	28	32	36	40	-
17	90	5	9	14	18	23	27	32	36	41	45

...of about how much damage I want to do do one person at each particular spell level for each particular character level, it's time to start breaking these down into numbers that I can actually USE.

Now I said up above that I don't want scaling damage. This is mostly to avoid my parabolas becoming freaky odd sine waves or utilizing the number i or in some other way destroying the planet and my mind. So what i'm going to do is take the median that lovely damage curve, then take 50% of that number in either direction to make my new desired damage range, then make that a die expression hopefully utilizing some amount of d6s. Since zero level spells under this system are free, I'm going to hit their number appropriately with a stupid stick. Following? Good.

I come up with the following.
[th]level[/th][th]Damage Range[/th]

0	1d6
1	3d6
2	4d6
3	5d6
4	6d6
5	7d6
6	9d6
7	10d6
8	12d6
9	13d6

I know, I know, that has nothing to do with the actual method described above, but since that method would involve a lot of extraneous tacking-on of static numbers and far fewer dice being thrown (and since I play a magic-user specifically to throw about d6s like they were beads at Marti Gras) I used this method instead. Using a complex and highly sophisticated mathematical process[downloading a probability program from the internet] I got the above d6 values by getting as close as I could to the average found by the same method in the above paragraph from table 1. This leads to the potential to do significantly more damage, as well as quite a bit less. If we add a mental attribute as a bonus to this, ala warmage, then we get something that's spot on or a tiny bit above for each level.

Here we come to;

the problem.

See if you notice it, and I'll be back.