House Rules

Thursday, May 25, 2017

STILL not dead....

Whoops. It's been years since I had time to even think about this. But I recently had an opportunity to revisit it. Here's a teaser.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Not Dead

It's been some time since I posted anything here. Real life has been interfering, keeping me very busy. In the meantime, here's a late Christmas present for you:

I haven't forgotten about this blog. I still have much to write here. I just need to find the time to do it.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Spell-Casting Classes and Sub-Types: Wizards (Conjurers & Augurs)

(It’s been a busy week, but I’m back at it)

The generic Wizard class template and rules should be used except where modified below for these sub-classes.

SUB-CLASS: CONJURER

Symbol:
Magic Type:	Conjuration/Summoning
Color:	Yellow
Orientation:	East

Conjurers summon magical forces, entities, and beings directly from the supernatural realms into our plane, and seek to control and direct them.

They gain an effect multiplier on mana cost for conjuration/summoning magic. They cannot cast augury/divination-based spells and suffer saving throw penalties vs. enchantment/charm, augury/divination, and abjuration/protection magic.

Conjurers must have a minimum intelligence of 12 and a minimum constitution of 12.

At the third level of experience and above, Conjurers gain the ability to discern if a creature or being is magical by rolling less than their combined INT and experience level on 1d100.

Magic Type	Mana Cost Multiplier	Saving Throw Penalty (Bonus)
Animation/Necromancy	1	-
Invocation/Evocation	1	-
Conjuration/Summoning	1/2	-4
Alteration/Transmutation	1	-
Illusion/Phantasm	1	-
Enchantment/Charm	1	+2
Augury/Divination	n/a	+4
Abjuration/Protection	1	+2

SUB-CLASS: AUGUR

Symbol:
Magic Type:	Augury/Divination
Color:	Purple
Orientation:	West

As specialists in divination magic and arcane lore, Augurs have the ability to Detect Magic and Read Magic as the spell, but with no mana cost, succeeding on a roll of their intelligence stat or less on 1d20. (Note that reading some kinds of magic without taking precautions can be very hazardous to your health, so this ability to freely read magical writing can sometimes be a curse). At the third level and above, Augurs also gain the ability to Identify as the spell, but with no mana cost due to their extensive knowledge of magical lore, succeeding on a roll of their experience level or less on 1d20. Augurs will gain one additional language proficiency level for each level of experience attained.

Augurs must have a minimum intelligence of 14, and a minimum wisdom of 14.

They gain an effect multiplier on mana cost for augury/divination magic. They cannot cast conjuration/summing-based spells and suffer saving throw penalties vs. invocation/evocation, conjuration/summoning, and alteration/ transmutation magic.

Magic Type	Mana Cost Multiplier	Saving Throw Penalty (Bonus)
Animation/Necromancy	1	-
Invocation/Evocation	1	+2
Conjuration/Summoning	n/a	+4
Alteration/Transmutation	1	+2
Illusion/Phantasm	1	-
Enchantment/Charm	1	-
Augury/Divination	1/2	-4
Abjuration/Protection	1	-

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Spell-Casting Classes and Sub-Types: Wizards (Elemental Mage & Enchanter)

The generic Wizard class template and rules should be used except where modified below for these sub-classes.

SUB-CLASS: ELEMENTAL MAGE (INVOKER)

Symbol:
Magic Type:	Invocation/Evocation
Color:	Orange
Orientation:	Northeast

Specialists in invocation/evocation magic must be attuned to a specific elemental or primal force to work their magic (Fire, Water, Earth, Metal, Lightning, Wood, Weather, Stone, etc.). Spells worked by these wizards must take a form that is congruent with their elemental attunement. For instance, an Ice Mage casting Magic Missile will result in an ice shard projectile, and the spell may be learned as Ice Shard (Magic Missile).

Elementally-tuned spells may gain enhanced effects when in the presence of a major source of that element (e.g. a Fire Mage casting Fireball next to a lava flow might get double range or +2 damage), and interact with other elementally-tuned magic according to a reality-based logic at the GM’s discretion (e.g. a Water Mage’s Rain Shield might have double effect against a Fireball).

As noted, elemental mages will refer to themselves by specialty and title using their elemental attunement (e.g. Fire Mage, Ice Wizard, Servant of the Deep Waters, etc.)

Magic Type	Mana Cost Multiplier	Saving Throw Penalty (Bonus)
Animation/Necromancy	1	-
Invocation/Evocation	1/2	-4
Conjuration/Summoning	1	-
Alteration/Transmutation	1	-
Illusion/Phantasm	1	+2
Enchantment/Charm	n/a	+4
Augury/Divination	1	+2
Abjuration/Protection	1	-

“I am the Servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor! Go back to the shadow! The Dark Fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun! YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

SUB-CLASS: ENCHANTER

Symbol:
Magic Type:	Enchantment/Charm
Color:	Blue
Orientation:	Southwest

Enchanters deal in mind control, suggestion, and charm magic. They gain an effect multiplier on mana cost for enchantment/charm magic. They cannot cast invocation/evocation-based spells and suffer saving throw penalties vs. invocation/evocation, animation/necromancy, and conjuration/summoning magic.

Enchanters must have a minimum charisma ability stat of 15, and a minimum intelligence of 14.

At the third level of experience and above, Enchanters gain the ability to discern if a creature is charmed or under some form of mind control by rolling less than their combined INT and experience level on 1d100. At fifth level and above, they gain the power of Suggestion, by which they gain a bonus on reaction rolls equal to their intelligence plus experience level minus the intelligence plus experience level or hit dice of their target. Monsters and characters immune to Charm will be immune to Suggestion as well.

Magic Type	Mana Cost Multiplier	Saving Throw Penalty (Bonus)
Animation/Necromancy	1	+2
Invocation/Evocation	n/a	+4
Conjuration/Summoning	1	+2
Alteration/Transmutation	1	-
Illusion/Phantasm	1	-
Enchantment/Charm	1/2	-4
Augury/Divination	1	-
Abjuration/Protection	1	-

Grima Wormtongue: “You see much, Eomer son of Eomund. Too much. You are banished forthwith from the Kingdom of Rohan, under pain of death.”

Eomer: “You have no authority here! Your orders mean nothing!”

Grima Wormtongue: “Oh, but this order does not come from me. It comes from the King. He signed it this morning.”

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Spell-Casting Classes and Sub-Types: Wizards (Animator & Illusionist)

This begins a quick series of sub-class descriptions for Wizards, presented in opposite pairs.

The generic Wizard class template and rules should be used except where modified below for these sub-classes. Once chosen, a Wizard’s sub-class specialization can only be changed to another sub-class specialty that is adjacent to the original in the Magic Octagram (e.g. from Animator to Abjurer or Elemental Mage). However, in changing sub-class, the character loses two experience levels (the magical shift causing something like a minor stroke) and retains the saving throw and casting penalties from the original sub-class (but does NOT retain the bonuses).

SUB-CLASS: ANIMATOR (NECROMANCER)

Symbol:
Magic Type:	Animation/Necromancy
Color:	Red
Orientation:	North

Animators specialize in Life Force and Death magic. They gain an effect multiplier on mana cost for necromantic and life-force related spells (such as healing and animate dead). They may not cast illusion-based spells and suffer saving throw penalties vs. illusion, alteration/transmutation, and enchantment/charm magic.

Animators must have a constitution ability stat no less than 13, since their own personal life force needs to be strong enough to stand up to the rigors of the magic they practice.

Note that, despite the notoriety of several infamously evil necromancers, animators can be of any alignment or inflection. Dark animators (necromancers) will usually only cast death-magic spells (which does make an impression on folks) but can cast light-inflected life force magic as well. Light animators will usually only cast life-magic spells, but can also use necromancy. Generalist animators do both without preference.

Magic Type	Mana Cost Multiplier	Saving Throw Penalty (Bonus)
Animation/Necromancy	1/2	-4
Invocation/Evocation	1	-
Conjuration/Summoning	1	-
Alteration/Transmutation	1	+2
Illusion/Phantasm	n/a	+4
Enchantment/Charm	1	+2
Augury/Divination	1	-
Abjuration/Protection	1	-

SUB-CLASS: ILLUSIONIST

Symbol:
Magic Type:	Illusion/Phantasm
Color:	Cyan
Orientation:	South

Illusionists specialize in creating simulacra, veiling, and manipulating perception. They gain an effect multiplier on mana cost for illusion magic. They cannot cast animation/necromancy-based spells and suffer saving throw penalties vs. animation/ necromancy, abjuration/protection, and invocation/ evocation magic. Note that illusionists must save against these types of magic even if the effects might be beneficial (such as healing spells).

Illusionists must have a minimum intelligence of 15 and minimum dexterity of 16.

At the third level of experience and above, Illusionists gain the ability to detect illusions by rolling less than their combined INT and experience level on 1d100.

Magic Type	Mana Cost Multiplier	Saving Throw Penalty (Bonus)
Animation/Necromancy	n/a	+4
Invocation/Evocation	1	+2
Conjuration/Summoning	1	-
Alteration/Transmutation	1	-
Illusion/Phantasm	1/2	-4
Enchantment/Charm	1	-
Augury/Divination	1	-
Abjuration/Protection	1	+2

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Spell-Casting Classes and Sub-Types: Class Matrix

Before I dig into the specific Wizard sub-classes, I need to give a little big-picture orientation on how the magic cosmology represented in the Octagram…

$C:\Documents and Settings\gwharton\Desktop\personal\RPG\Arcane.dwg$

…translates into the division and sub-division of spell-casting classes. I’ve prepared a handy reference chart you can use to keep track of how the various sub-classes break out with respect to their areas of magical focus (these tables are getting a little too complicated for my rudimentary HTML skillz, so I’ve started generating them as images).

There are a lot of new names in there, but some familiar ones as well. The previously-separate Illusionist, Druid, and Monk classes are all going to be subsumed by this system and adapted to it (as is the Paladin, which will merge with the Paragon sub-class, and the Ranger, which will merge with the Druid/Shaman sub-class…but I’m getting way ahead of myself). You’ll also notice something funny with the Priest/Cleric classes and their magic type specializations (an overlapping of categories). That will be explained when we get to talking about divine magic and priests.

Next up, I’ll be discussing each sub-class of Wizard in mutually antagonistic pairs.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Spell-Casting Classes and Sub-Types: Wizards (General)

Now the rubber hits the road. Let’s look at class types for Wizards.

First off, I much prefer the term “Wizard” to “Mage” or “Magic User”. It’s got that certain old-school feel to it, and you know I’m OldSkool.

As a general class, Wizards are specialists in the use of arcane magic. They are the technologists and scholars of the supernatural. As such, intelligence is their prime attribute, and wisdom their secondary attribute. Unlike in the core rules, Wizards in this schema do not have any minimum ability stat requirements. However, low-intelligence or low-wisdom Wizards face many disadvantages and can be a threat to themselves as well as others. For specifics, see below.

Dealing in magic is dangerous business. Spells draw their power from planes of existence outside our own, and don’t follow our tidy physical laws. Learning and using magic requires strict discipline and care: even the most casual mistake and innocuous spells can drive you insane, take over your mind, kill you, or unleash unspeakable horrors. Wizards can gain access to unmatchable powers, but risk everything to do so. For this reason, as much as they may be admired for their accomplishments and power, they are also feared and reviled for the danger they present to everyone around them. Wizard pogroms are distressingly common. Thus Wizards tend to be somewhat secretive.

The master class template for Wizards applies to all sub-types that follow, modified only by the information provided for each sub-type specifically.

You may notice some changes with the level titles. These don’t get used a lot in real game play because the core rules titles don’t make a lot of sense. I’ve changed them to reflect a kind of pseudo-scholastic apprentice-master system by which Wizards organize and train themselves. Every Wizard except an Arch Wizard will have a higher-level teacher with whom they study/train and to whom they owe some sort of allegiance (and possibly tuition), whatever that may be. The student will always refer to their teacher as “master” regardless of the teacher’s actual experience level title, except that Grand Wizards, Grand High Wizards, and Arch Wizards are always referred to by their whole title (we doubt you’re on a first-name basis with the likes of them, anyway).

Wizards may not advance in level if they do not currently have a teacher. A wizard who finds him or herself without a teacher needs to find another one of sufficiently high level in the relevant area of specialty with a willingness to take him or her on as a student to allow further experience progress. To determine if a teacher’s level is high enough to allow advancement, take the character’s current level plus three (+3) until level 10, and from level 10 on, the current level plus one (+1). Note that this means a Wizard teacher of at least 12th level is required for promotion from Professor into the ranks of the full Wizards (from level 9 to 10).

Also, there’s probably an exam.

WIZARD

EXPERIENCE & LEVEL PROGRESSION (Chart 1)

NOTES for Chart 1:
* Player characters typically do not progress beyond 20th level, as their powers, responsibilities, and entanglements prevent them from doing much more than ruling their domains and settling squabbles among their clients and students. Higher-level Wizards are certainly possible, but nobody’s seen one in thousands of years (and thank goodness for that).

** “Wizard” is the generic title used by all Wizards above level 9. Specialist sub-classes will typically substitute the name of their specialty title in place of the generic (e.g. “Grand Necromancer” instead of “Grand Wizard”) or modify the generic with the color designation of their specialty (e.g. “Forauld, the Yellow Wizard”)

SPELLS KNOWN BY LEVEL (Chart 2)

A Wizard’s experience level determines the maximum spell level they are capable of safely knowing and using (i.e. putting in their head and thinking about).

Exp. Level	1-2	3-4	5-6	7-8	9-11	12-13	14-15	16-17	18+
Max Spell Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

If a Wizard attempts to memorize, read, or use a spell of a higher level than they are “rated” for by experience level, the Wizard must save versus spell magic on every attempt (e.g. reading it, memorizing it, using it, or even forgetting it) with a penalty calculated as follows:

(Level of Spell – Max Spell Level allowed) x 3

Regardless of penalty, a critical success (natural 20 on 1d20) on a saving throw always saves (see rule: Heroic Saves). Failing this saving throw will result in the following effect (roll 1d100):

SPELL MEMORIZATION

A Wizard can only know a spell if he or she has access to it in some written form and has made the effort and taken the risk to memorize it. All Wizards record their spells in spellbooks using Write Magic (see note below).

The number of spells that may be known (i.e. memorized, or contained within the head of the Wizard) is determined by the following calculation (all fractions rounded down):

Maximum Spells Known = {(INT-6) / 2} + Experience Level

So, for instance, if Forauld is Level 10 and has an intelligence stat of 13, he can have up to 13 spells memorized at any given time [{(13-6)/2)+10=13.5 rounded down to 13]. A Wizard may also know as many cantrips (minor magical tricks rather than major magical effects) as spells if cantrips are used in the campaign.

To memorize a spell requires both time and success roll, modified by conditions. Doing so is not just a matter of learning words and gestures in the correct order. Memorizing a spell involves imprinting the spell itself on the structure of the Wizard’s brain. The base time it takes to memorize any spell is the level of that spell in days. For instance, the base time required to memorize Dispel Magic (a 3rd Level spell) is three days. This assumes optimum conditions for concentration and study (a quiet, private place without interruption).

When attempting to memorize a spell, the Wizard must first determine whether or not he/she has a memory slot available to fill, the level of the spell to be memorized, the conditions under which the study is to take place, and then make a roll for success on the following table using 1d20:

The following modifications to the success roll for spell memorization should be observed:

It is not possible to memorize spells while engaging in other tasks. Obviously, trying to memorize spells in less than optimal conditions is something that should be carefully avoided. It’s also a very time-consuming process (it could take months for a high-level wizard to forget and re-memorize all his spells). Fortunately, once a spell has been memorized, it is not easily forgotten. Unfortunately, if you wish to forget a spell, a special effort must be made to do so, similar to the memorization process above. If all memory slots are full, a spell will have to be forgotten before a new one can be memorized.

SPELL CASTING & MANA

To cast a spell, it must be known (already memorized) and the Wizard must have enough available mana (magical energy) to power its operation. Mana is the underlying fuel for all magic. Without mana, magic doesn’t work. No matter how many spells you know, a lack of mana will leave you waving your hands around and mumbling for nothing.

All living things generate mana internal to themselves as a renewable source of magical energy. The measure of how much mana a being generates daily and has available for use is called basal mana. Except for elves, most player character races generate three (3) basal mana points at level zero (without any further development and training). Through physical and mental training, Wizards are able to increase their basal mana reserves by three (3) points for each level as they increase in experience.

The cost in mana points to cast a spell depends on the level of the spell and the level of the caster, as illustrated in the following chart:

Up Next: Wizard Sub-Classes

Friday, October 15, 2010

Spell-Casting Classes and Sub-Types: Introduction

Now that we’ve developed a schematic cosmology for how magic works in the D&D world, we can start to categorize the sorts of beings who traffic in such things.

Every spell-casting character has to begin with three basic choices:

Which type of magic will the caster specialize in?
(Animation/Invocation/Conjuration/Alteration/Illusion/Enchantment/Divination/Abjuration/Generalist)
Which inflection of magic will influence the caster
(Light/Dark/Both)
What is the source of the magic the caster utilizes
(Arcane/Divine/Both)

Why should a caster need or want to specialize by type? Remember that some types of magic are incompatible or antagonistic to each other. To the extent that a caster specialized in one type, he or she will gain advantages using that type along with disadvantages using the antagonistic type. Generalists don’t get the disadvantages, but they don’t get the advantages either. Plus, generalists still have to deal with the incompatibilities as they come up. Generalists will have fewer overt weaknesses, but will progress in experience at a slower rate (much like multi-classing characters in the core rules).

Why choose an inflection? Partly by necessity: the inflection of a character’s magic use should closely match the character’s alignment in ways that are consistent with the campaign (the GM should rigorously enforce this). Also, light and dark forms of magic are somewhat antagonistic to one another. Specializing in one gains advantages and disadvantages versus the other.

The need for choosing a source of the character’s magic use should be obvious, since this is already built into the core rules via the distinction between clerics and magic users. We’re gong to tweak that a little bit here and throw in some curve balls, so I’m handling that same divide via the choice of source rather than exclusively by class.

Once these three choices are made, they are represented on the character sheet with the appropriate symbols and notes (the symbol for a Generalist caster, by the way, is an eight-pointed star…for reasons which ought to be obvious at this point). Which way these choices have gone then determines what the character’s class will be (of course, a player can just choose a class, which be default answers these three questions).

The first distinction we can make right off is one of general character class according to source of magic, like this:

ARCANE MAGIC
General Class: WIZARD

DIVINE MAGIC
General Class: PRIEST

DEEP MAGIC
General Class: MYSTIC

Okay. Hold on a second. “Wizard” is obviously the same as “Magic User,” and “Priest” is obviously the same as “Cleric,” but what the heck is “Mystic” all about? This is starting to look suspiciously like 3.5e D&D, and them’s fightin’ words!

Fear not! I am not leading you astray. I pulled a bit of a fast one on you there, but believe it or not, we’re still within the scope of an Oe/1e campaign with a partially-customized magic rule set.

I’ll continue by looking at each one of these, and the variations within.

Alternative Magicks: The Sources of Magic

Following on the last post, in which I laid out my thoughts on the spectrum of spellcasting types in a Oe/1e context, there are some immediate implications for spellcasting character classes that directly follow.

One last note on the Octagram I showed you as a handy graphic reference to the relationships of the various flavors and inflections of magic in this schema before I start talking about character classes. In addition to the magic types arranged radially in a spectrum, and the inflections from light to dark to indicate value, we must also consider the source of the magic in the world.

The core D&D rules contemplate two fundamentally different sources for magical power: the Arcane and the Divine. Those who deal in arcane magic are magic users, who study magical forces accessible in the world and learn technical methods for manipulating them. Those who deal in divine magic are clerics, who pledge personal obedience to divine sources of power and receive magical abilities in return, channeling the divine magic. This is a fundamental divide that represents a profound difference in approach.

However, the source of the magic doesn’t affect the types or value of the magic as I’ve already outlined them. Some spells are purely wizardry – accomplished by a sort of technological means and tapping into deep underlying forces – while others are purely miraculous – accomplished by commune with the divine. But there are many spells that will derive from either source, and some substantial areas of overlap.

So there is one last distinction that is symbolically recorded in the Octagram above: Arcane vs. Divine:

ARCANE MAGIC

Signified by a square.

DIVINE MAGIC

Signified by a diamond.

Which, of course, combines in the Octagram like this…

…to represent the source of all magic (the Octagram being the symbol for magic of all kinds in this system I’m cooking up). Look familiar?

Now, this probably seems like a lot of effort to go through for some dubious reasons, and far off the track of superimposing a mana-based magic system on D&D. In my next post, covering spell-casting character classes and variants under this system, it will become a little more clear why I’m doing all this cogitating and diagramming. However, there are several aspects of the exercise of creating all this symbolism that should not be underestimated.

These symbols can be used by a GM to add a lot of flavor to a campaign. In fact, any GM could use this magical cosmology without any of the mana-based rules and it would work just fine. The players won’t necessarily know what all of this means when they’re first exposed to it. Spell-casters should be given some of the basics, but not all of it. They will know the meaning of symbols associated with their own realm of magical contact (and should treat them as profound secrets), but little else. Every piece of knowledge associated with it should be a puzzle (it being arcane knowledge, after all). Scrolls and magic items will almost certainly have some of this symbolism integrated into them. Having learned about while campaigning, players will learn how to begin decoding some of the mysteries of their world and take pleasure from doing so.
Visual symbols are a very efficient way to communicate a lot of information in a very economical way. Once the players learn that wizards wearing yellow are prone to conjuring horrors from mid-air or that a faint magenta glow likely means some sort of protection spell at work, they will start to pay attention to details in their environment and pick up a lot of information by doing so.
One of the biggest problems with many game mechanics is that they are conceived as game mechanics first, and don’t always have the sort of logical, holistic consistency and integrated complexity to them that we expect from a fully realistic world. They’re fundamentally arbitrary, and this is especially problematic when it comes to inherently non-realistic areas like magic. By having a clear cosmological framework for how magic works in the game world, especially when this can be summarized consistently in some symbolic ways, with add to the realism and satisfaction of the game.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Some Closure on In-Game Accounting

It's been five months, but I'm back. Honestly, I didn't think anybody was paying attention to any of this, but recent comments have proved me wrong on that. My attention had wandered, life intervened and my other obligations called me away from my hobbies and into more immediate endeavors. Apparently I have a reader now (note the singular) who has noted my absence and complained, so here we go again. If you are here reading and find this interesting, I encourage you to drop a quick comment to let me know your interest and how you found me. I don't need money to keep this up, but knowing somebody is interested doesn't hurt.

---

When last I was discussing my thoughts on the implementation of a mana-based magic system for Oe/1e D&D, I wandered off into a discussion of in-game accounting systems and why they're so important to the smooth running of a game in which we aren't using the background computing power of information infrastructure to track complex information.

To finally give you some closure on that before continuing with my thoughts on a mana-based magic system for OD&D that still retains its essential Vancian character, here is a quick visual matrix for tracking basal mana levels, mana regeneration rates, and expended mana on a non-elf character sheet:

There are a couple of things to note about this graphic. First, each box in the grid represents one point of basal mana. It has a slash through it because some spells and cantrips will use half-points, though this complexity can be avoided by simply rounding all fractions up if the GM prefers.

The numbers in the grid represent experience levels. So, as previously discussed, a zero-level character will have a base mana of 3, and each additional experience level will increase that by three points, up to the 20th level. There's a big eight-pointed star in which the current basal mana level can be recorded as a number, just like hit points. The significance of the eight-pointed star will become obvious in a future post, but for now you can pretend it's a graphic affectation.

Below that, there are four boxes in which to record mana regeneration rates. These numbers note how fast basal mana expended will refill on an hourly basis (mana points per hour) and to maximum (by number of hours), depending on whether the character is resting or active. That should be fairly obvious, but we'll cover that in more detail in the future as well, since there are some issues which affect it (such as background mana levels).

Finally, at the bottom of the matrix, you'll see something new and previously undiscussed: Life Force. This is a teaser for a future topic, in which we will connect basal mana to emergency mana expenditure to so-called "negative hit points" to undead/negative energy plane life force draining to necromancy in a Grand Unified Theory of character life force.

Next up, I'll give a similar simple graphic system for recording known spells, mana costs, and associated spell-specific information on a character sheet.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Digression: In-game Accounting

One of the big advantages of using a rules-light RPG system like Oe/1e D&D is simplicity of information tracking. The record sheet for an Oe character can easily fit on two sides of a 3x5 index card, though we usually use larger paper because index cards don't fit in laser printers and copiers all that well. 1e character sheets are a little more complex, since the rule set is a little larger, but still models of concision compared to the multi-sheet booklets needed to track all the various skill levels and other arcana associated with characters in later rule sets (3.5e being the most heinous example).

In an earlier post, I briefly mentioned my experience with the Ringworld game produced by Chaosium and based on their well-conceived Basic Role Playing (BRP) system. It works, it's comprehensive, and there's much to admire in Chaosium's system, but keeping track of a character's skills and various other possessions and abilities is laborious. The 4-page character sheets that come with the game are pretty, but complicated: a warning of tedium to come.

In-game accounting is a big deal.

I've just started the process of outlining my proposed mana-based magic overlay for the Oe/1e D&D rules, and now there are a bunch of additional numbers the GM and any spell-casting player will have to track during the course of play: especially basal mana and base cost to cast a spell at each level. This requires an accounting system that is simple, intuitive, and easy to use. If I simply rely on players to jot down numbers and try and keep track of them, this whole exercise isn’t going to work.

As an architect by trade, I am strongly inclined by professional training and personal disposition to prefer graphic communication as a means for condensing large amounts of information into a compact, easy-to-understand package. A list of numbers on a page isn't going to do any of us any favors here. We should defer to the wisdom of Edward Tufte. Here are some of his rules for communicating graphic information:

Enforce Visual Comparisons - information shown should maintain a proportional scale illustrating comparative magnitude through space and time.
Show Causality - if there are causal relationships in the information beings shown, they should be graphically represented.
Try to Show Multivariate Data - more than two dimensions of inter-related information can be represented in a two-dimensional diagram.
Completely Integrate Words, Numbers, and Images - Don't make the user work to learn your system (avoid codes and other obscure reference systems)
Design Should be Content-Driven - the point of the diagram is the information, not the graphic itself.

Now, it's not practical for us to integrate sparklines into a table-top RPG. However, there are some examples that could be adapted to our purposes without too much trouble.

The first of these comes from computer interface design: the progress bar. A progress bar is a simple representation of a proportional relationship in percentage terms. When the bar is completely full, its value is 100%. Anything less than that gives a fast and accurate representation of the current scale-independent comparative level being measured versus its potential maximum. You see these everywhere in computer GUIs because they are easy and quick to understand. They're ubiquitous in computer games for good reason. In the heat of combat while running a level in a first-person shooter, you can't take your eyes off the action long enough to read your hit points as a number and calculate damage in your head. A health progress bar gives a fast, accurate, proportional read of damage and hit points.

Again, it's not practical to have continuously updating progress bars for a table-top RPG like we see in video games. It's trivial to implement when a computer is doing the work, but on paper it can become tiresome.

Which leads us to my second example. Back in my early gaming days, I was an avid player of Star Fleet Battles (originally by Task Force Games): a table-top war game involving ship-to-ship combat in space between Star Trek inspired fleets.

SFB is actually a somewhat complicated game to play, especially when compared to OD&D. Each player controls a fleet of starships with varying attributes and weapons systems, many of which have limited supplies of ammunition and the ability to carry varying payloads. Most of these ships are capable of covering vast distances in very short periods of time. You might even have "legendary officers" on board (scrupulously avoiding reference to beloved TV characters for licensing reasons), who give performance bonuses but can be killed in battle. Prior to each turn, the player has to allocate each ship's limited energy resources to ship systems (propulsion, shields, weapons, &c). Available energy resources are only rarely enough to power everything at once, so hard choices have to be made with limited resources ("All power to shields!"). Each turn is then divided into 32 "impulses" as fractional periods of time elapse during the action.

All of which sounds frighteningly complicated. It is, except that SFB uses a highly-graphical abstract accounting system to condense all of this information into a form that is easily understood and used in a free-flowing game session. Every ship in the game is controlled and tracked using a single-sided record sheet called a Ship Systems Display (SSD). Here's an example for a fan-created Federation Destroyer SSD:

Federation DXI Bullet Destroyer SSD for Star Fleet Battles

That's it. An entire starship with a crew of dozens and all of its core systems represented on one side of one letter-sized sheet of paper with lots of white space left over. In fact, the information is so simplified and condensed that there's room for several handy "to-hit" and damage tables for the player to reference without having to crack a rule-book. The SSDs that came with the original game were actually condensed to fit two on a page (cut the sheet in half or fold to use) without any loss of clarity or information.

The grid squares you see each represent one unit of system capability and damage capacity. How many energy points are available? Count the engine squares. How many hit points of damage can the shields take? Count the shield squares (which are also conveniently oriented by hex face). Handy reference numbers in the last square of each large block save the trouble of having to count lots of squares. On taking a hit, the damage is totaled up and hit locations determined on a simple chart. Then the appropriate number of boxes is crossed out to represent the damage. When repaired, the boxes are cleared.

For ease of use, we always put plastic covers on the SSDs and colored in boxes with china markers, but pencil on paper with a handy eraser works just as well if you don't mind a little mess. When all the shield boxes on a side are colored in, the shield is down and any further damage from attacks in that direction go straight to the hull and ship systems.

Thus, a very complicated game mechanic which requires detailed accounting is rendered simple and easy to understand through graphic representation. It's a model of concision, and this method for representation was used in Task Force Games' wet-navy simulation game, Battlewagon, as well.* Here’s an entire fleet on one 5 1/2” x 8 1/2” half-sheet of paper:

Battlewagon Generic Fleet SCSs

Tracking all of this spell-casting and mana stuff is adding complexity to my rule-set. To help both players and GM track it simply and easily, I’m going to revise the basic character sheet to include some graphic tracking elements. In my next post, we take a look at the results.

* My favorite way to play Battlewagon was with 1:2400 miniature ship models (from GHQ) on the floor of my parents’ breakfast room/kitchen, finished with 2” blue hexagonal tiles. It’s a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. Incidentally, with some rule modifications for earlier technology, the Battlewagon rules are also a great way to quickly and easily simulate both small- and large-scale naval warfare in D&D campaigns.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Alternative Magicks: Mana (Scalars)

I my last post, I listed a set of guiding principles for the mana-based rules overlay I'm developing for the Oe/1e magic rules. The first major implementation issue to be addressed is that of scalars.

Huh? Scay-whats?

That's a fancy but precise way to address the quantitative and definitive answers to the following questions:

how many "points" of mana does it cost to cast a particular type of spell or use some kind of magical power?
how many "points" of basal mana does a character have available to use?

In other words, how (exactly and in detail) does this new mana thing work? Once we answer these two questions, all else is elaboration.

The two questions really need to be answered together, because a small change in one dramatically changes the application of the other. If a magic missile costs 1 mana point to cast, and a 4th level magic user has 100 points of basal mana to work with...well...watch out. Similarly, if it costs 100 points of mana to cast a magic missile, and a 4th level magic user doesn't have at least that much basal mana available at full reserve, then something is wrong with the rule set-up.

I've emphasized that I want the net effect of this new set of mana house rules to be roughly proportionate to the core magic rules in its effect. In the core rules, a 4th level magic user can cast two 1st-level spells and two 2nd-level spells, or a total of 6 cumulative spell levels, per day. However much mana those spells cost to cast and how much basal mana a 4th level magic user has should come out roughly equal to that power level.

We could just say that a spell costs as many mana points to cast as whatever its spell level is, and the level of basal mana available is equal to whatever the cumulative spell levels are. That would be simple. However, as we then try to address the basal mana supply, we'll discover that an approach like this will quickly make higher-level magic users vastly more powerful than they already are. For instance, under the core rules a 20th level mage can cast four 9th-level spells per day. That same mage also has a power level of 192 spell spell levels. 192 divided by 9 is 22. Higher-level mages are already ridiculously over-powered without being able to cast 22 Wish or Power Word Kill spells per day (or even 192 magic missiles).

If we set basal mana to be proportional to the highest level of spell available to cast (for instance, a basal mana of 36 would limit that 20th-level mage to high-level casting power equal to the core rules for her highest spell level, but dramatically reduce other spell-casting ability. That might work, except that the spell level progression chart does not follow a direct linear relationship which lets us have a smooth progression of basal mana levels along with experience level and casting ability.

For instance, at 20th level, a magic user gets to cast four 9th level spells, translating to a basal mana level of 36. At 19th level, it's three, for a basal mana of 27. At 17th level, a mage get the first 9th-level spell, suggesting a basal mana of 9. Yet at 16th level, the mage had a maximum spell-casting level of two 8th-level spells, suggesting that her basal mana was already 16. This quickly becomes a mess when we project it both backwards and forwards.

We could just say that basal mana is equal to the highest of the number of spells known at each level on the spell progression chart times that spell level. That gives us something that looks like this (with the highest multiple of spell level vs. spells available – shown bold - used as basal mana level):

Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	*Basal Mana*
1	1									1
2	2									2
3	2	1								2
4	2	2								4
5	2	2	1							4
6	2	2	2							6
7	3	2	2	1						6
8	3	3	2	2						8
9	3	3	3	2	1					9
10	3	3	3	3	2					12
11	4	3	3	3	2	1				12
12	4	4	3	3	3	2				15
13	4	4	4	3	3	2	1			15
14	4	4	4	4	3	3	2			18
15	5	4	4	4	4	3	2	1		20
16	5	5	4	4	4	4	3	2		24
17	5	5	5	4	4	4	4	3	1	28
18	5	5	5	5	4	4	4	4	2	32
19	6	5	5	5	5	4	4	4	3	32
20	6	6	5	5	5	5	4	4	4	36

This is simple, but there isn’t a whole lot of consistency or logic to the way the power levels increase here (which is actually a flaw in the original spell progression chart which is propagating forward into this analysis…but we’re trying to keep it anyway). Also note that although this keeps a spell caster from being able to cast more high-level spells than would normally be allowed, it doesn’t do so consistently either (a 17th-level mage would have 28 mana points and could could therefore cast more than one 9th level spell even though he should only have one). It also radically reduces the caster’s ability to cast both high- and low-level spells during the same day. We might want to limit that a little bit, but not so much. Nor can we increase the mana level to compensate without increase the cost to cast a spell.

Clearly, this approach isn’t going to work.

Conversely, we could say that the cost to cast a spell is the spell’s level times the caster’s level, which make high-level casting of high-level spells very expensive while making lower-level spells more accessible. Without even drawing up a chart, it’s clear that such a thing would require an exponential increase in mana at each experience level, further imbalancing the game. So scratch that idea too.

Finally, we could go with a deductive percentage system. A 9th-level spell takes 50% of whatever the basal mana level is or something like that. The proportionality of a percentage system is nice, but tracking it is cumbersome and doesn’t really allow for differing basal mana levels (for, say, a lich vs. a plain-old magic user).

What we really need is something in-between all these options.

One thing the simplistic approach does not do is take any account of the fact that as somebody practices something for a long time and gets good at it, it becomes much easier and more intuitive for them to do it. It should take less effort and energy for a 20th-level mage to cast a 1st-level spell than for a 1st-level mage to do it. Similarly, when progressing to the first spell of a new, more advanced spell level, it should take more effort and energy to cast than after mastering more or higher-level spells.

To calculate how much mana it should cost to cast a spell, we need to have a number that is both proportionate to the level of the spell and also proportionate to how many spells of that level are available to a character of similar experience level. That gives us an equation that looks like this:

				Spells Known at Level 20
Cost to Cast Spell	=	Level of Spell	x	----------------------------------
(in mana)				Spells Known at Current Level

Just as with the first approach, the mana required to cast a spell is directly proportional to the level of the spell. However, now I’m multiplying that number times a ratio of how many spells the caster knows at their current level versus a benchmark (in this case, the hypothetical maximum of spells known at level 20…more about that later).

So, for example, it would require six (6) mana points for a first level magic user to cast the 1st-leve spell magic missile (mana = 1 * 6/1), but only one (1) mana point for a 20th-level magic user (mana = 1 * 6/6). For the sake of simplicity in accounting (a subject I’ll cover in depth in a future post), the result of this equation is rounded up to the nearest 1/2 point.

Therefore we get a chart that looks like this:

BASE MANA COST PER EXPERIENCE & SPELL LEVEL

Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1	6
2	3
3	3	12
4	3	6
5	3	6	15
6	3	6	7.5
7	2	6	7.5	20
8	2	4	7.5	10
9	2	4	5	10	25
10	2	4	5	7	12.5
11	1.5	4	5	7	12.5	30
12	1.5	3	5	7	8.5	15
13	1.5	3	4	7	8.52	15	28
14	1.5	3	4	5	8.5	10	14
15	1.5	3	4	5	6.5	10	14	32
16	1.5	2.5	4	5	6.5	7.5	9.5	16
17	1.5	2.5	3	5	6.5	7.5	7	11	36
18	1.5	2.5	3	4	6.5	7.5	7	8	18
19	1	2.5	3	4	5	7.5	7	8	12
20	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Lower-level spell casters have to spend more mana to cast spells, and the cost of casting a spell at a certain level goes down at higher experience levels. This matches our intuitive sense about how such a thing should work, and provides a proportionate cost at every level.

We might also add in another column here for so-called “level zero” spells (cantrips), stating that casting any cantrip costs 1 mana point up to level 10, and 1/2 thereafter. This provides a tidy mechanism for allowing cantrips to be used in an early-edition campaign without having them unbalance the spell casting.

Note also that even though this mana cost chart has been developed from the magic user spell progression, the same equation applies to all spell-casting classes. Toward the end of this, when I’ve finalized all the details associated with these house rules, I’ll provide a handy PDF of them which includes charts for each class.

The second question hasn’t been answered yet, though. Now that we have an idea of the relative costs of casting spells at various levels, how much mana should be available?

One thing we should make sure of is that for each point at which a caster’s experience level makes a new spell level available, the caster’s basal mana level should be less than twice the mana cost for that first spell at the highest available level. In other words, since a 17th-level magic user gains the ability to memorize and cast one 9th-level spell on attaining that experience level, he shouldn’t already have enough basal mana to cast it twice in one day.

Also, when a spell becomes available to a caster, there should be enough basal mana available to cast it. For instance, a 1st-level magic user wouldn’t be much of a spell-caster if he didn’t already have at least 6 basal mana points available at first level to cast his one spell per day.

Fortunately, except for the odd little bump down in cost for the first 6th-level spell to the first 7th-level spell (which is an artifact of the core rules’ spell progression table), the numbers follow a fairly linear progression upward. In fact, if we stick to multiples of three, we get a nice, simple progression that fills all our basic requirements.

Without going into the minutiae then, we can now state a couple of simple rules for basal mana levels at any experience level:

The basal mana level for any standard human or humanoid (not including elves) at level zero is three (3).
Through training and discipline, spell-casting classes gain an additional three (3) basal mana points per experience level.
Non-casting classes gain an additional one (1) basal mana point per experience level, even if they do not have the ability to use it through spell-casting ability.

That’s it. If you’re a human or non-elf humanoid caster, your basal mana level is your experience level times three plus three. If you’re a non-caster, it’s your experience level plus three. Elves are a special case because they’re innately magical, and we’ll talk about them when we get into the implications of how this system works.

So, updating the base spell cost chart to include basal mana levels, we get this:

MAGIC USER