I'm sorry for the recent spam. I got overwhelmed by the spam when I didn't update my hashcash filter.
I have been working on a few things. I'll update the current development page soon. Really.
I stopped the football project long enough to actually play Statis-Pro Football again. I have a pretty good team with a few holes to fill in the draft. I made the questionable call of not keeping a good RB. I am afraid that will haunt me.
Anyway, I have used yould to generate most of the Lenga language. This is the last piece in creating all the crunchy bits for the backstory of this world.
I have also stumbled upon an old usenet posting of a spell description language. I have modified it, adding an element and a few actions. Using it, I am translating the OGL spells from the SRD into the magic system I have created. It's not as straight-forward as I would like. There is a bit of fuzziness in some of the descriptions. It also takes a while. There are even a few spells that do not translate, like Air Walk.
The goal is to have something that is more or less systematic in determining difficulty and power of a spell without making the player use a lot of math to create their own. I think this has been done. In the player's book, it will basically show a spell, a description of the effects, a mana cost and a TN. To make a spell, a player must use simple sentences to describe the effect of the spell. Conjunctions cannot be used, only one verb per sentence.
For example, the Aid spell is described in the SRD this way:
Aid grants the target a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls and saves against fear effects, plus temporary hit points equal to 1d8 + caster level (to a maximum of 1d8+10 temporary hit points at caster level 10th).
This translate to:
Give target bonus against fear.
Give target temporary LIF.
Using the rules, the GM then figures out the Mana Cost (11) and TN (24).
One rule about Magic is that it is easier and cheaper for spells to do one simple thing. If a person casts two spells instead of a combined one, the breakdown would be:
Bonus against fear spell: Cost 5, TN 20
Give temp LIF points: Cost 5, TN 18.
If someone has time to cast two spells instead of a combined one, it is 1 point cheaper and about 10% more likely to work as intended.
Other spells demonstrate this more dramatically, like Animal Messenger, which I'll detail later.
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