Tag: magic system (Page 2 of 16)

This is the third post in a series about adapting the Words of Power system.

• The first post that introduces the system as I understand it is here.
• The second post that covered types of effect words is here.

In the previous post, twenty-five effect words were reduced down to eight. This includes one I created for temporary magic weapons. For the Change effects, I added a house rule that you can only gain the form or abilities of creatures you have encountered and taken a sample of. Instead of listing possible form or function modifications, the list is generated by the creatures the spellcaster has encountered.

Since damage is damage, I condensed all the energy types down to their damage effects. There were fire and cold effect words that did the same amount of damage. so now regardless of energy source, there are three types of damage that can be done. The spellcaster is free to use whatever energy type they want as it makes no difference in terms of damage. (It also allows more than the standard five energy types.)

Body Effect Words

That said, what separated the energy types was that a given effect word did damage and placed a condition of the target(s). That is meaningful, so I have separated the condition effects out and placed them with the Body effects words. This will add back another fourteen effect words if I borrow the fifth edition conditions, but it is worth it. These Body effect words would be separate from Energy words. Adding the conditions gives you paralysis, petrification, charm, invisibility, and so much more. They are powerful words on their own.

That said, these Body words combined with Energy words allow you to duplicate the WoP words, but also invent some fanciful and scary options. What if an acid cloud didn't blind you, but grappled you instead? As a player, a creepy green acidic fog that damaged me, stopped me in place, and nullified speed abilities would terrify me. What if a Flame Dart also stunned me? A sonic wave that also knocked me prone? A gust of wind that charmed me? These are the kinds of spells that interest me because it's more than just whitling down an opponent's hit points.

The Rest of the Body Effect Words

There are a few more Body effect words that are more than conditions. Two of the words, Energy Resistance and Energy Immunity would be moved to the Energy effect words. They were already energy type agnostic, so the specific type is determined at the time of casting the spell.

The Enhance and Perfect Form effect words are identical to those in the Modify effect words from the previous post. Boosting ability scores is handled by those effect words. Yes, this means that a spell caster has to gain a sample to boost a target's ability scores. The Enhance Ability spell ties each of the ability scores to an animal, so it fits with this system pretty well.

That leaves Fortify, which I will simplify to simply add temporary hit points equal to the target's Hit Dice or level.

Like the Energy Immunity and Energy Resistance effect words, it's important to add the Physical Resistance and Physical Immunity effect words. Resistance offers a +4 bonus or rolling advantage to Saving Throws against a specific Body Effect word. Immunity would simply make the target immune to a specific Body Effect word. (It makes me think of a spell that makes the target immune to the effects of being knocked prone like the  Instant Stand ability I've read about somewhere.)

The Fear, Wounding, and Healing Effect Words

There are two Fear effect words that aren't needed anymore now that Frightened is a part of the Body effect words. Fear is simply placing the Frightened effect on a creature.

All but one of the Wounding effect words basically deal damage like energy effect words with the side effect that undead creatures gain hit points. I'll make these reversed healing spells instead.

This brings us to Bleeding Wounds, an effect word that does 1 point of ongoing damage per round. I'll leave that effect word as is.

Healing spells restore hit points, but remove hit points from Undead creatures. Healing spells also remove one or more conditions a target is suffering. Why not have them place the condition on Undead targets as well? It may not make sense in a narrative way and some of the conditions will have no effect, but why not? Stunning Zombies have a meaningful effect, especially if the Cleric is out of commission or otherwise occupied.

This adds two Healing Effect words, Heal (1d6 hit points per caster level) and Cure (remove one Body effect from the target). Healing effect words have the side effect of Harming undead creatures by reducing hit points or placing a Body effect on them.

Adding one more effect word, Harm, is essentially the reverse of Heal.

Progress So Far

In all my posts so far, I've covered 42 effect words from the Pathfinder Words of Power system. So far, I've reduced that down to 23 Words of Power and added what I think is some wild effects.

This post and the previous one should have covered everything that can be done to a target's physical form. In the next post, I'll cover effects that cover the mind before moving on to other effects.

Thanks and a Link to Recap

I owe a debt to both Keith J Davies and CTP from Giant in the Playground. CTP provided a wonderful guide to WoP in 2013. Keith shared a lot of good thoughts to my post on MeWe. Unfortunately, there is not a good way to link to my post there. (There is no API for posting, either, but that's a story for another time.)

My previous post on the Words of Power system is here.

Keith Always Has Great Ideas

Keith brought up a very good point that the HERO System does a very good job of building powers and could be a useful guide. He suggested changing the Effect Words around Acid, Fire, and Lightning to have certain advantages and limitations. This allows a spellcaster using those words to think carefully about the words being used and not just make Fireball with Complications spells. Here's what he said:

So, lightning might have armor-piercing (in D&D/PF, perhaps a bonus to the save DC), acid is uncontrolled (i.e. does damage for a brief time after the initial attack... fire could work here, but acid arrow exists as precedent), fire might be inherently explosive (does diminishing damage around the target... or in this case, is always an area effect -- small, unless overridden), and so on.

Limitations, lightning might have a side effect or backlash (caster takes damage), acid... dunno offhand, fire might have decreased accuracy (always uses the grenade tables), and so on.

I really like this for a number of reasons. One is that keeping a larger number of Words to use creates more interesting combinations. Another is that by saying that an energy has advantages and drawbacks, the system as a whole encouraging more thoughtful spells and provides a real choice to compare specializing in an energy type or using all of them.

I Do Not Always Have Great Ideas

One of the goals of using Words of Power as some kind of framework to create spells is to make it simpler. However, the system is not difficult now and I've been given advice that would make building certain spells interesting. I'm also concerned that making effects simple makes spells bland. This conflicts with another goal to make spells interesting.

So in the face of so many good things, I'm going to attempt to go a different path.

I love spells that go beyond different ways to damage a target or targets. However, I want to start with them because they feel easier to explain. I'll get into relative values and spell levels later; bear with me to work through the effects. The effects will be fairly generic at first with an ability to specialize and fine tune the spell later.

The Energy Spells

To simplify the Effect Words that center around damage, I generalize damaging spells to 1d6 damage per spellcaster level (max 10d6). Wall spells do 1d8 damage plus the level of the spellcaster to anyone running through the wall (Max 10 points).

This provides two effects words instead of 10: Energy Blast and Energy Wall.

I also want to add another, Energy Weapon. This creates a weapon that does 1d4 damage and lasts a number of rounds equal to the spellcaster's level. The shape of the weapon is irrevelant, it provides a way for a spellcaster to create a temporary magic item that can help the caster or anothe member of the party to temporarily do a specific type of energy damage.

I'll talk about boosts later, but I did want to mention that one of the Meta Words will boost an energy spells by increasing the die type. I plan to use Keith's Dice Progression. (I told you he has good ideas.)

The Change/Enhance/Modify Spells

The Change effect words in WoP focus on partial or full transformations into a beast. The type of beasts are not stated, but based on the effects available to choose, it is obvious that there is a serpentine form, an avian form, and a feline form. Change spells can also increase Armor Class and grant abilities like trip, swimming, darkvision, etc.

To simplify this, the limitation of a partial or total transformation spell effect can only use a creature actually encountered, not researched, but the spellcaster. I'm not ashamed to say that this was inspired by the Wild Kratts. Despite tons of research, the brothers gain no creature powers without fur, feather, or some small sample of an animal. (They traveled in time to gain the powers of a Dodo bird, but that's another story.)

The original WoP has three change effects, but I will name them Modify spells instead and there will be five.

Again, there must be an encounter with a creature and a sample taken before these take effect. If your 3rd level spellcaster survived getting a sample of a dragon, congratualtions.

Part Two Coming Later

I'm over 1000 words, so I'll leave off here. More about Divination and Armor spells next time.