How in the absolute fuck do I limit magic in my system? I can create a system for magic succeeding or failing, but how do I define the limits of magic for characters so that they don't outshine other characters while still allowing them to have a "broad" ability?
To clarify, how do I allow creation as a magic ability and being able to make something out of nothing, but limit WITH MUH STATS AND NUMBERS that they can't create a new entire city out of the ground? Shows like FMA limit this by having the rule ofor equivalent exchange, but how the fuck do other settings do it?
BONUS QUESTION
True or false?
>all magic in any fantasy or setting can be broken down into : creation, destruction, augmentation, or divination.
It takes a lot of concentration and at some point the magic user just gets exhausted, with a chance of backfiring if he still uses magic.
>>48242228
But with numbers you have to decide when they get exhausted.
>>48242144
Limit it by the duration created objects last
or
Limit it by having expensive/rare material components required to insta-build out of magic
or
Limit it by having the process of creating something out of "nothing" being personally debilitating.
or
Limit it by having it cause undesirable effects on the environment.
>>48242259
And the problem is...?
>>48242144
My personal favorite system for this is Ars Magica. There's 5 groups of what you're doing and 10 groups of what you're doing it to, so a mage who can find the location of everyone in a city might not even be able to light a campfire. Additionally, creating anything permanent requires vis, a generic magical reagent, and can only be done in a ritual spell.
And for the bonus question, false: you forget diminishing, moving, and weirdening.
>>48242144
In order to create something you require the same amount of energy and material it would require to build manually, only it's done instantly.
Every wizard "level" you take 10% off of those costs.
>>48242276
>Limit it by having the process of creating something out of "nothing" being personally debilitating.
>or
>Limit it by having it cause undesirable effects on the environment.
I like these mixed together. What about a warp table-esque thing where it always effects the caster in some physical way? Creating a sword may give you a cold. Starting a fire might break a finger.
But how do you decide how exhausting creating something out of nothing is? At what point does creating something become too large to create without extremely debilitating yourself? How do you measure that? Maybe by having it be a scale of mass? If what you're creating has more mass than your body does then it will kill you to try to create it?
>>48242329
False, all of those are augmentation.
>>48242302
The problem is finding a way to calculate what is too much.
>>48242360
But that's almost nothing but speeding up time. How do you measure for making a book float, or creating and throwing a fireball?
>>48242386
>augmentation
>moving
>>48242453
Augmenting something to move or float yes.
>>48242144
OP: It's a super fucking hard problem. Virtually all of the proposed solutions I've seen (and I've been at this for 35 years) have been either broken, frustratingly underpowered, or super complicated and fiddly. It's reached the point that now when someone says they hate Vancian casting and want to make a new magic system I just sigh and shake my head. I'm long past getting my hopes up at this point.
The aforementioned Ars Magica manages to be frustratingly underpowered at low levels, where the rules basically tell you you're not allowed to do anything at all ever, yet broken at higher levels where you can do just about anything imaginable, with virtually no middle ground between the two. It's also super complicated and fiddly to boot. The last, I suppose, is fine if you're playing a game about wizards where everyone's a wizard all the time, but may suck if you've got one wizard trying to figure out his shit at a table of non-wizard players who want to get on with it.
Maybe look at the GURPS magic supplements? I hear they're good, but bear in mind I hear that from GURPS players who have a high tolerance for complicated horseshit.
>>48242144
Make magic heavily tool focused. Which is to say, every individual spell you want to cast first requires building or acquiring a tool that contains an imprint of that spell. In nonmagical hands, its worthless. But to someone able to channel energy into it, its a re-useable device that generates a single specific spell over and over again.
In this way you can provide wizards with a wide range of possible options (there are sooo many different kinds of tools) without running into the problem of a single wizard being able to do everything. Even an especially knowledgeable wizard simply won't be able to carry around a tool for every single spell they know. Rather, they would carry around the ones they use often/expect to need, the materials to make a new tool or two out on the road to deal with an unforeseen problem, and the rest of their tools would be left at home or in a bank somewhere.
If the players ever try to use the tool for something that stretches beyond what you would allow, the tool burns out. Sometimes it can be repaired, sometimes it can only be replaced. This gives you the wiggle room to let players use spells in creative ways but gives GMs an easy out to slap the player for trying to do anything thats too bullshit. At least, too bullshit without an especially powerful plot tool...
>>48242144
Don't tell me, your system has a set list of stats for all characters, and checks are made by rolling dice and comparing the results to your character's attributes.
If you really want to make an interesting and useful system, you need to break out of the shackles of Strength-Dex-Con design.
>>48243011
The opportunity is specifically asking about a broad ability. That is wildly limited
Give everyone magic, based on their Awesome.
>>48243034
No actually, it assigns die types to different skills. But thanks for being a dick anyways.
>>48242144
This is why I like Rune Quest; everybody can learn some sort of magic, and it's just a skill set that you have to buy into like anything else.
Classless systems, ironically, are the classiest.
>>48242144
> How in the absolute fuck do I limit magic in my system? I can create a system for magic succeeding or failing, but how do I define the limits of magic for characters so that they don't outshine other characters while still allowing them to have a "broad" ability?
I don't know. How does magic works in your system?* (Cont)
> all magic in any fantasy or setting can be broken down into : creation, destruction, augmentation, or divination.
Teleportation, Conjuration, Influence, Illusion and Mind Control?
>>48242259
>ITT: OP doesn't know what is playtesting
>>48243190
>>48242144
> How in the absolute fuck do I limit magic in my system?
Shadowrun's drain works rather well. Of course, character with high stats / ungodly luck can shake the world, but there is a real, tangible cost.
Mage the Awakening's system is also DEEPLY flawed, but brings an interesting quirk. Mishaps. Cast the wrong spell at the wrong time and you get anything from feedback to a Balrog summoned and coming after you. And the stronger the spell...
It also avoid the not-immersive messes of Vencian (or whatever it is spelled) magic and Mana points.
>>48243277
>implying I don't live in a remote rural area with limited people even INTERESTED in tabletop much less interested in playtesting. I tried asking here before but no one was interested.
>>48243297
>Implying you need meatspace for playtesting
>>48243190
>Teleportation
Augmenting space
>Conjuration
Creation
>Influence
Augmenting disposition
>Illusion
Creation of an illusion or augmentation of perception
>Mind Control
Augmentation of will or thoughts.
>>48243367
>meatspace
What?
>>48243134
That doesn't help when it comes to quantifying power levels with numbers and math.
>>48243134
Of course everybody can learn some magic. Runequest is a system where magic is distinctly better than non-magic options by a huge degree. It's caster supremacy writ large. If you don't take the magic options n Runequest, you're fucking up.
I don't think RQ is an example of doing it right.
>>48243400
"Meatspace: the physical world, as opposed to cyberspace or a virtual environment."
nice dubs
>>48243384
>Teleportation
>Augmenting space
Creation of instantaneous movement
>Conjuration
>Creation
Creation
>Influence
>Augmenting disposition
Creation of influence
>Illusion
>Creation of an illusion or augmentation of perception
Creation of sensations
>Mind Control
>Augmentation of will or thoughts.
Creation of thought-overriding forces
> destruction
Creation of absence/nothingness
> augmentation
Creation of additional energies
> divination
Creation of the future / Imagery of the future / Sensation of the future
Fuck off and die.
>>48243638
Yes, but no one I've asked in cyberspace was up for helping. So either propose an alternative or stay here and complain, I can't stop you. plz no bully
>>48243650
>Creation of absence/nothingness
Breaking apart carbon bonds in whatever mass is before you. No creation at all
>Creation of additional energies
Shaping mass you already have is not the creation of anything. No creation
>Creation of the future / Imagery of the future / Sensation of the future
What about divining water in a desert?
Fuck you m8
>>48243671
>no one I've asked in cyberspace was up for helping
Sometimes even gamefinder thread groups flourish. Keep asking.
Or just use a dice-throwing program to test the crunchy random bits.
>>48242144
Casting spells is physically exhausting. Going for little cantrips doesn't mean much, but casting giant "fuck you" spells is a great way to faint.
>>48243818
That's already been discussed. Read the thread.
>>48243635
>>48243573
Thing is though, even if you take magic options in Rune Quest, you don't have to be a "Wizard" - the world is innately magical as is everything and everyone in it.
You just happen to be a warrior with the supernatural ability to fly through the air or kill with a single blow or breathe fire or some shit.
I guess a guy who goes around collecting runes and getting powers out the Wazoo could make a claim to some title of magical authority like "Wizard", though that being distinct from the Wizards of the Malkioni West, who use Sorcery, which is basically just another alternate magic system like Spirit magic.
It helps that most man-sized creatures (players often included) can be killed with a single well-placed axe-blow as well as they can with a Humakti instant-death effect, so the power gap between combat casters and folks lacking direct battle magic on a kill-per action level is lessened.
In Rune Quest there's no reason a "warrior" can't pick up some cult magic to improve his fighting skills, say, become an initiate of Urox to detect chaotic beings and enter a magically powerful berserk rage.
It's just got so much more versatility for characters when there isn't an arbitrary caster/non-caster divide imposed by class systems.
>>48242843
I think you're missing the point of Ars Magica; the entire system revolves around the player party being made up of wizards and their lackeys, there is a reason why the combat section of the core book is 3-5pages while the magic sections (plural) are a good 80% of the book
>>48242144
Make your magic system out of pieces that fit together. Players would need to find good synergies; the better they match pieces together, the more efficiently they can cast. By this I mean that individual spells would be rather weak but strong together with the right other spells. (example. One spell that turns normal damage into fire damage and another that makes things light on fire when they take fire damage)
Then you make the pieces, the spells, so that to make a build that does one thing, you have to give up another (meaningful) thing.
>>48242144
Make it require the same amount of energy from the caster. Creating a huge fireball requires a fuckton of energy, more than most people have. The components can act like fuel, and offset this cost.
Also, follow basic relativity. If you want to create a small 1 gram ball bearing out of thin air, it would require a couple trillion joules of energy. Magicing up a sword would be nearly impossible, but shaping a lump of metal into a sword might be possible.
>>48243718
>Influence
>Augmenting disposition
This is a change in direction, not acceleration/deceleration.
>Conjuration
>Creation
This is the transportation and influence of another being and therefore not creation.
>Mind Control
>Augmentation of will or thoughts.
Again, you can modify it so it goes in a different direction. It's more of an alteration.
>Creation of the future / Imagery of the future / Sensation of the future
>What about divining water in a desert?
Congratz, you divined 0.00000000001 second in the future.
>>48242144
GURPS: Ritual Path Magic would be a great guide for you.
Why not tie spells to skills?
Rather then a spell giving you a skill the spell simply allows you to do things with a skill you wouldn't normally be able to do. You can use a divination spell to get visions but you still have to do some kind of test to puzzle out the meaning of it or you have a spell that makes you partially invisible but if you go pimp walking around naked thinking no one is going to spot you then you deserve that sword in your gut.
Make magic like playing music. Made up of several basic elements that allow something greater to emerge when done right. A novice might need to rely on 'sheet music' equivalent to produce even simple spells, while, while a more adept mage would memorise it. However they'd still use 'sheet music' to help with casting complex magic despite being. Improvisation is also possible if you are skilled enough and understand the risks. Perhaps this is also how wild magic works. Mages can combine together in 'orchestras' to produce powerful ritual spells, although new requirements for practice and coordination come into play. The environment could effect the magic 'acoustics' with areas dampening or boosting magic.
And theres also a whole variety of 'instruments and 'genres' out there which affect your result.
>>48244746
Literally what to all of those. Especially the conjugation one. I mean, not all conjuration is something from somewhere else. You can "conjure" something from thin air, like a djin.
>>48245131
That really doesn't help with deciding on power levels at all or mechanically answer the question posed in the slightest
>>48242144
I tired that once, and I came up with this mess. Unlike the standard D&D wizard that can do a thousand different things, I designed it to be powerful within a narrow area.
Otherwise, you might have it require consumable mediums, like science/industry does, or build-in limitations like WoD that prevents permanent changes to thing. Maybe every permanent effect requires upkeep, so a single wizard can't produce an unlimited amount of stuff, which is also why the wizard's castle crumbles when you kill him.
>>48245252
This is how magic in Burning Wheel works. When you're making a spell you choose the action and the thing being acted on from two lists of options
>>48245252
The problem with consumable mediums is having to come up with the amount consumed with every spell cast. Unless you have a list of spells or a formula (which is what I want) then you have to make up an amount with every spell cast and risk being wildly inconsistent.
>>48242144
manapoints are limited , but still regenerate over the course of a fight
using more than a certain amount per day causes sickness via magical byproducts (something like radiation poisoning)
>>48249058
But if you do mana points, how do you calculate how much mana it costs to do something? We're not talking about using specific spells here. We're talking about something like extended telepathy or something. Or just conjuring something out of nothing. How do you assign a point value to that?
>>48242368
Sure, if you don't mind the best wizards in your setting being very fat. You're the author, there's no wrong answer, just pick a number and see where it leads you.
I would personally limit by rarity of materials (a cubic meter of pure francium should not be easy to create) and complexity of shapes in addition to mass.
>>48249185
Well that would explain them having NO physical prowess at all.
>>48242144
>How in the absolute fuck do I limit magic in my system?
>How do I allow creation as a magic ability and being able to make something out of nothing, but limit WITH MUH STATS AND NUMBERS that they can't create a new entire city out of the ground?
As much as people love to hate on it, check out D&D 4E. Casters and martial characters are pretty much equal in combat; a Rogue and a Warlock are both Striker-type characters so they'll both do decent damage and have useful, but different, utility powers.
Out of combat, magic generally requires Rituals that are costly and take time, so casters aren't able to do that kind of powerful crap until they're WAY high level. I find that, to compensate and make non-casters stronger, non-casters get better Skill usage and can do more impressive things with Skills than casters can. So while a mage can cast a Divination spell to learn about a place or magical artifact, a rogue might be able to get in contact with someone who has a rare tome written about the place or thing. A mage can talk to the dead, but a ranger might be able to examine a dead body Sherlock Holmes-style and get the answers he needs through observation.
Basically, casters can -sometimes- do -amazing- things by spending resources, time, and making one or more skill checks or tests, while martials can -always- do -useful- things by making a quick skill check that costs them nothing. Kind of like the difference between getting a +2 to damage rolls with weapons all day long, or being able to cast Fireball once per day. It makes the classes distinct without gimping martial types.
Oh, and if you feel like casters can do something that's so amazing or useful that no martial version could ever even come close? Don't let the casters have it. There are plenty of games where casters can't teleport, bring back the dead, or summon huge monsters to fight for them. Always remember that you're the arbiter of how strong magic is in your campaign.
>>48251222
Yeah but that doesn't give them a broad ability.
>>48251364
Sure it does. Broad doesn't mean infinite or limitless, you can have a wide variety of magical options without needing a freeform or build-your-own-spell system. 4E has a broad set of Rituals if you add all the books together.
>>48242144
Make using a ray less damage than using a sword, make magicking a wall more expensive than building it and a bit weaker, etc. etc.Just make magic less effective but more versatile
