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Tag: Action! (Page 1 of 5)

Back Up

A few years ago, I found the Action! System and fell in love with it. I had hoped to develop it into something, but I got bogged down in the campaign world I was creating for it.

Mnemosyne was the name of the system. MUSE was going to be the quick rules.

The pmwiki site has been spammed hundreds of times over, but I spent some time restoring the site.

So, Mnemosyne is back up. MUSE might be up soon.

Meanwhile, I plan on updating the rest of the site as well.

Recent Work on Projects

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.

Alternate Magic System

Let's say you have a magic system similar to Lenga in your Action! System game. Using magic adds three new attributes, spells are skill rolls based on one of those three attributes. Like other attributes in the Action! System, there is an attribute that represent raw power, magic control, and magical defense.

In Lenga you would roll 3d6 and add the attribute and skill to the roll For example, let's say a spell that turns a pound of lead into a pound of gold has a TN of 30. This spell relies on the control attribute which for your character is 6. Your skill with this spell is an 8. Rolling attribute (6) + skill (8) + 3d6, the total needs to meet or exceed 30. In other words, you need to roll a 16 or better. Instead of using 3d6, consider the following to add to the attribute + skill roll:

Roll nine dice and arrange them in a 3 X 3 square. You don't get time to pick and choose, just quickly group them. You have the possibility to get up to 8 successes. How you determine those successes will change depending on the attribute related to the spell. Consider the dice positions below:

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

If the power attribute was the base of the spell, your eight chances would be determined by eight lines. Namely: 123, 456, 789, 147, 258, 369, 159, 357.

If the control attribute is the base of the spell, your eight chances would be determined by corners. Namely: 412, 236, 698, 874, 426, 842, 684, 268.

If the defense attribute is key, total all nine dice and divide by three. Round up the result to the next whole number. Yes, this gives defensive spells a slight advantage, but it's not as much as you would think.

The number of successes will determine how many dice are rolled to add to the effect. I haven't worked out exactly how many successes equals a number of dice, but let's say that:

1-2 Successes yields One Effect Die

3-5 Successes yield Two Effect Dice

6-7 Successes yield Three Effect Dice

8 Successes yield Four Effect Dice

Using the same example spell above, your attribute is 6, your skill is 8, you roll nine dice in this pattern

3 4 2
5 1 6
2 6 5

Because it is an aptitude based spell, use the corners to determine the 8 rolls added to your attribute + skill. The results are:

5+3+4 or 12
4+2+6 or 12
6+5+6 or 17
6+2+5 or 13
5+4+6 or 15
6+5+4 or 15
6+6+5 or 17
4+6+6 or 16

Since you need results of 16 or greater, you have three successes. This means you get two extra dice for the spellĀ  effect.

Give it a shot.

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