Author: Bear (Page 56 of 212)

    Just an aside.

The only reason I don't post more Ars Magic stuff is because of the Ironbound Tome.

Seriously. Hundreds of cool Ars Magica spells. Lots of other stuff, too.

https://ironboundtome.wordpress.com/

    Had to write this down so that I can come back to it later:

Modifying Zak's 3d20 resolution mechanic for FASERIP games for The Black Hack:

Attributes range from 3 to 20. Roll 3d20 and count the number of dice that are less than (but not equal to) the attribute. 0 is a failure, 1 is a success, but barely. 2 is a solid success. 3 is a critical success.

For ease of reference, we can keep the colors, White (0), Green (1), Yellow (2), Red (3).

Adjectives are not needed, but 3 to 20 will map to the ladder from the FASERIP advanced rules from Shift-0 to Beyonder. Using 4c rules for simplification, maximum human ability is an 8. This conveniently works out that the range of human ability is 1d6+2 (3 to 8).

Anything that is not cosmic is limited to 13 (FASERIP's Unerathly). This conveniently works out to 2d6+1 (3 to 13). Almost every character in FASERIP had nothing greater than Unearthly. The Hulk and Professor Xavier were notable exceptions.

Anything cosmic like deities, primordial forces, the tarrasque(?) ranges to all the way up. However, in all my FASERIP research, I only saw Class-5000 (a 19 on my proposed scale) once. It pertained to the Hulk making a critical success to increase his Endurance up to that level. Fitting into my old school roots, I'm happy to limit that at 18, reserving anything 19 and 20 for very unique artifact-like things. This scale works out very nicely to 3d6 (3 to 18).

    One of the things I learned from my FASERIP expedition into magic was that spells didn't really change based of the Rank, your chances of success were based on Rank.

For example, Alteration -- Appearance would let you change your face and appearance to anyone else. Anything beyond changing to someone with a similar build and face required a roll.

So if I had this spell at Feeble rank, the weakest rank, I could change at will to anyone with a similar build and face. I would be very unlikely to do more than that, because of the required roll.

For Red Concordant, I though about a different form of magic as a player option. All spells have a free relatively weak effect, but anything beyond that would require an level test (roll d12 under, but not equal to your character level). Spell descriptions would be per my Alteration -- Appearnce example.

I like it because it introduced a new kind of simple to magic. In other words, spell description are still terse, but greater effects work, or they don't. More powerful spellcasters will have better chances of success. At level 13, success becomes automatic.

This would also simplify spell slots. Essentially, a spell caster can cast X spells per day. No table, no varying spell levels, just a number that can be tracked by tick marks.

I'm beginning to feel like I will need to make a book of magic after I finish the RC project. 🙂