Thread: Magic Heavy Fantasy Supplements

UPDATE: I've picked up a huge load of supplements for high fantasy, high magic settings and wanted to share my findings. My original inquiry saved at the bottom of this post with my findings being posted below with the most useful at the top. All inclusive means it's a complete overhaul to the BRB for a fantasy setting containing Character Generation, Magic, Combat, Equipment, Spot Rules, Creatures, and in some cases Settings:

BRB: Well, you wouldn't be reading this if you weren't a BRP core book holder would you? For obvious reasons, It's a great idea to pick this up first!

Classic Fantasy: (All inclusive) Pick this ASAP if you're running a fantasy campaign. It's got a magic expansion, some rules and spell adjustments, and great overall content. It also contains rules for turning BRP more like D&D without levels. It's a bit more broad with little setting help but that's also what makes it great. You can plug something from this book into any fantasy setting!

Michael Moorcock's Elric!: (All inclusive) This book is fantastic. The BRB contains the sorcery system found in Elric! but Elric! expands everything about demons, binding elementals, and some great darker fantasy setting information as well as a great "good vs. evil" backbone that drives lots of high fantasy settings. If you don't like the sorcery rules or darker settings, put a bit lower on your buy list.

Runequest 6th Ed: (All inclusive) I feel this is a really good book. Like Classic Fantasy it contains adjustments to all aspects of the game but unlike Classic Fantasy I find it less modular. The rules are meant to be used together. Great new magic options, combat styles, and includes some setting options Classic Fantasy intentionally ignores.

The Green: (All inclusive) I have not purchased the main book yet but the Venturer's Guide supplements the existing BRB magic systems wonderfully. I can't imagine that The Green brings any less amazing adjustments / additions, plus it adds a highly regarded setting. I wouldn't pass on this one if you enjoy the magic presented in the BRB and Classic Fantasy.

The Bronze Grimoire: This is an Elric! supplement that expands upon sorcery immensely. You don't need the Elric! main book to find it useful as the entire base sorcery system is included in the BRB. Elric! just provides more setting and summoning / binding information. Again, if you don't really enjoy the Sorcery system put this a bit lower on your to buy list.

Unknown East: This is another Elric! supplement but this time the focus is on a more eastern setting. The main reason to buy this is the free form magic system. If none of the BRB power systems really inspire you this one should. If you're looking for something far from the BRP norm, put this very high on your to buy list.

BRP Witchcraft: This is actually one of my favorite fantasy BRP additions, but I put it at the bottom as it's very narrow in scope. If you want hermetic magic, stereotypical witches, or divine aligned (white and black) magic then this is absolutely the book for you. It adds some great adjustments to casters that make them INCREDIBLY fun to role play and with many more options at the cost of less raw power. It gives different options for achieving your goals like killing targets slowly with diseases instead of fireballs and ways to pervert, subvert, and convert society to your whims even when playing a white aligned warlock or witch. It's just a great supplement, pick it up.

The Magic Book: This is basically a copy of the RQ3 magic rules and you'd probably be better served finding a copy of the entire RQ3 ruleset. RQ6 does everything this book tries to do only slightly better but if RQ6 is too expensive for you then this could be useful. I find using them side by side to be useful as RQ3 magic was more restrictive but could be more powerful. Having a copy of both allows me to pick and choose parts of the systems I enjoy.

Note: Magic World is coming out in 2013 as well as a supplement named Advanced Sorcery. These should cover most of Elric! and the Bronze Grimoire, but in a more colorful high fantasy setting instead of the dark setting of Elric!. It may be worth waiting for Magic World to come out and I'll update this post as I acquire Magic World and a few other books suggested in the thread.

Hey guys,

BRP's magic system has left a little to be desired for my current campaign. I'm doing a magic / divine heavy fantasy campaign. Since Chaosium is having a huge sale I was wondering which supplements would be worth picking up.

I'm looking for:

Magic system adjustments
I heard bad things about brp witchcraft, basic magic, and the magic book. They are $5 right now (pdfs) so are they still worth picking up for that cheap? Why are they so bad? Would it be better to wait for magic world and the other supplement book (those look GREAT)

Creature / NPC expansion
Is basic creatures worth picking up? Are there any other type of monster manual type books that would be good for a high fantasy campaign?

Magic item additions
I'd like a good list of some magic items I could use in my campaign. Magic weapons, amulets, the like. Any suggestions?

General good fantasy books
Is Classic fantasy worth picking up? Also, although they may not be available from Chaosium, would a core setting book like Runequest be good to pick up, read, and adapt to my campaign?

Thanks for your time.

There is a section here on the upcoming Magic World for BRP. I have not been following it, but that might be what you are looking for. I do have the Basic Creatures PDF and it is handy versus sorting through my collection of BRP PDFs and printed RPGs.

Robsbot, for $5 I don't think you could go wrong with Witchcraft, its pretty good for what it sets out to do, describing psuedo-historical witchcraft magic, I personally quite like the product. Its not really vanilla fantasy though, its aimed at a more serious market, so it depends on what flavour you want your fantasy setting to be.

Basic Magic is the old RQ3 magic system, its okay for fantasy campaigns, but if you are after this you'll find it is portrayed better in the more recent versions, MRQ2/ LEGEND or RQ6. If you are only after the magic system I'ld buy the LEGEND pdf as its always extremely cheap (its still only $1 for the pdf at DrivethruRPG) as you'll get a better version of the RQ3 magic (in my opinion) as well as the whole LEGEND core rules for such a cheap price in case you want to try it out.

RuneQuest 6 is a more recent edition of those rules and designed to be played in the fantasy setting, its the best current product as far as content goes for a BRP fantasy variant, but it will be more expensive, or you could just wait for Magic World.

As far as creatures go, if you're sticking with BRP as opposed to LEGEND or RQ6 then you can't go past the Basic Creatures book, it is the old RQ Creatures book and covers alot of ground. Also possibly of interest may be the Call of Cthulhu creatures books which are easily ported over for dark sword and sorcery fantasy settings. The most recent publication was called 'Malleus Monstrorum", although early versions may be cheaper, such as the "Ye Book of Monstres Vol 1 & 2"

If you are after D&D style fantasy with BRP rules then it appears that Classic Fantasy has been well received by many in this forum. So I guess its up to whatever your tastes are ...

Thanks guys. The PDF's are so cheap right now I think I'm going to go ahead and pick up The Magic Book, Basic Magic, Basic Creatures, Witchcraft, and Classic Fantasy. At the very least they could give me ideas for how to add to / tweak the current system in the big gold book. Plus I saw that Magic World was coming early 2013 and the supplements not until some time in 2013. As I don't want to wait that long I can always adapt my campaign after they come out or scrap it and start a new one. Thanks again for the advice guys.

Edit: I will also be picking up Runequest 6th Edition as it is only $25 at drivethrurpg.com at the moment. Hard to pass that up! Even if I don't add any of the systems the ideas always help.

Has anyone ever tried to run a fantasy campaign with just the magic from the big gold book, and if so how did it work out?

Oh and I forgot to add that Mythic Iceland is an exceptionally good product, well worth the outlay. It is perfect for Norse sagas and such, but much of it can be used in other fantasy settings with some minor tweaking. I really dig the use of Allegiance with the Gods, that concept can easily be ported over to fantasy pantheons to good effect. There's also a great little section on Creatures as well as Icelandic Rune Magic, lots of fantasy goodies to be had in this product, more than I have time to describe.
As far as BRP BGB Magic goes I have only used Psychic Powers for a Mesmerist character in my Pulp Cthulhu setting and they work well. For my fantasy setting I tend to use my Gloranthan resources and as such the RQ magic, or a variant of it.

I played Stormbringer and the magic worked well for that setting, and BGB Sorcery is based from that so it should work. I see no reason why the BGB Magic won't work. No doubt you will want to grab the Advanced Sorcery sourcebook for Magic World once its published, I think it will have a few goodies for you.

Picking up RuneQuest was a good move, you'll be happy you did, its a great fantasy game (in all its editions).

So I picked up all the supplements and have spent some time going through them.

Witchcraft is AMAZING. Talisman rules (not exactly anything exceptional, but still cool), potion rules (again, pretty intuitive but nice to have a guideline), and hermetical magic with an alignment system? Awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to spice up magic items, potions, or the casting system from BRP.

Classic Fantasy seems to unbalance casters a bit, but I can always pick and choose what I let my PC's have access to. I had crafted several spells (notably animate dead) myself that are pretty spot on with Classic Fantasy did and I like some of the class specific small abilities it gives. Plenty of monsters as well. It's just overall a great book to buy for people looking for a fantasy campaign.

Basic Creatures does what it's supposed to. It's a pretty solid book of bad guys for your romps in the fantasy world. Good buy.

The Magic Book was actually INCREDIBLY disappointing as I expected the most mileage out of it. The magic "classes" seem clunky and Classic Fantasy seems to handle magic classes much better. Some of the spells just seem terrible or borderline unusable. The restrictions on the magical classes are just horrid and really unjustified, although they could easily be ignored. However, the Ritual magic is really cool. I like the idea of group ritual magic as that's something that I feel a lot of mainstream RPG's don't touch but they seem useful, thematic, and fun to RP. Since I got the PDF so cheap the book was almost worth it for that section alone and the few other spells I'll use for inspiration / tweaking.

I haven't actually purchased RQ yet, but is the magic section similar to The Magic Book or did they tweak it significantly? I've read a few reviews and it seems they did some decent changes from the RQ3 The Magic Book is based off of but I'm not sure if it works similarly or not.

What edition of stormbringer would you suggest I pick up? I really like the sorcery system from BRP and any expansion of that would be great.

Originally Posted by Robsbot

Witchcraft is AMAZING.

Yes. It really is. I don't know who was saying bad things about it. Also note that it was written to work in conjunction with Classic Fantasy. One thing that I really like about it is that it's stated up for both Magic and Sorcery, so that one can choose the one's preference.

Had I seen this earlier I would have told you to skip the Magic Book and Basic Magic. Creatures is decent for the critters, but tracking down a copy of the rq3 boxed would at least give you something that has some quality production value.

I've more thoughts on the subject, but alas, they must wait. I'm being summoned for errands most mundane.

I would love to hear any thoughts you have on any supplements that would be worthwhile. Even if I don't use the entire setting / world rules the magic supplements and some odd rules here and there are always useful for inspiration at the very least. Every little bit helps.

The Magic Book was semi-worth what I paid for it, but I just can't believe how bad it was. While BRP's magic system is rather simplistic it's rather elegant at the same time. The Magic Book just takes a hammer to the whole thing for very little benefit. I would have been much happier with just a big book of new spells and rituals for the styles presented in BRP and maybe the addition of spirit and divine spells without all the junk they threw in with it. But for ~$6 I can't be too upset.

Current books I'm considering: Runequest 6th ed., Stormbringer 4th ed., Mythic Iceland, and Elric!. I keep seeing references to the Bronze Grimoire. Is this part of the Elric! supplements and would it be useful by itself or should I purchase both it and Elric!?

There are also some nice things in the forum's download section, one I would
recommend is Fergo's work on Middle Earth magic, which has a somewhat dif-
ferent feel than most BRP based magic:

ME-BRP - Chapter 7 - Magic-image free version - Downloads - Basic Roleplaying Central

At the risk of being self-promoting; the Green has a slightly different take on magic while using the basic idea of the BGB. You can get the just of it in the Adventurers Guide for free here:
Venturers Guide (The Green) - Downloads - Basic Roleplaying Central
The basic take on magic is at the end of the supplement.
The Green Monograph has a number of similar traditions in it as well .