d20 Spell Conversion

[peterb]

I've just uploaded an revised wizardy document on my website (see links in the first post of the thread) to address the omission of rules for casting time.

[peterb]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Magic Missile, Sleep and Fireball are the absolute classic D&D spells... The acid-test of a converted system would be how it handles them, I'd say.

Well, this is my translation of Fireball:

Fireball

Manipulation 3

Ranged, Passive, Temporal

This spell creates a fist sized ball of fire in the palm of the casters hand. The Wizard can "throw" the fireball at any target within range and sight, the ball will explode when it hits the target, doing 1 pt of general hit-point damage to the target and any other being (or item) within a 1 m diameter. As with all other cases when damage is applied directly to the general hit-points of a character, use the lowest armour value, e.g. a character which wears a closed helm and a chainmail hauberk has no armour on the legs and therefore takes full damage from the fireball, if he had worn leather boots he would have had one point of armour.

The target must be within the direct sight of the caster and the ball will fly straight at the target. The fireball is very instable, if the ball strikes something solid, such as a gate, en route to the target, the ball explodes. Throwing the ball at a target standing behind a bush or something similar will set the explosion of when the ball strikes the branches of the bush. If the target has moved, fallen down, died, etc. before the ball reaches him or if the tar-get managed to dodge the fireball, the ball will continue its flight in a straight line until it hits something solid, else if the ball passes outside the spells range the ball just disappears in a puff of smoke.

If the caster wants to cast the ball through a narrow opening, such as an arrow slit or down a chimney, then the caster needs to succeed with a Throw skill check. If the check fails the ball explodes when it hits the wall, chimney, roof, etc.

The damage done by the explosion can be increased by amplifying the intensity of the spell, see the amplify skill description for more details. The diameter of the explosion can also be increased by using the volume skill; each level of volume used increases the diameter by one meter.

The explosion can set fire to combustible items, use common sense, a weak fireball wouldn't set fire to a wet roof but a large (3d6 damage or more) would have a good chance of setting fire to almost anything combustible. Very strong fireballs can melt metals or even glass. The heat of a fireball (for the purpose of determining if an item catches fire) is halved when outside its radius; it is halved again outside more than 2 x radius in meters etc.

Spell Props: A tiny ball of guano and sulphur.

[Chaot]

Hey Peter. I must sheepishly admit that I've just printed out your pdf. First glance through looks good. I'll have a chance to really read it and comment latter.

[peterb]

Originally Posted by Chaot

Hey Peter. I must sheepishly admit that I've just printed out your pdf. First glance through looks good. I'll have a chance to really read it and comment latter.

Great! Thanks. The version on the web is edited up to "F", I believe. In the copy I have at home I'm on "G".

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Chaot

It worked really well.

EDIT: For the skill system:

Special: Spell goes off, no MP loss.
Critical: Spell goes off, 1 MP loss.
Success: Spell goes off, normal MP loss.
Failure: Spell doesn't go off, no MP loss.
Fumble: Spell doesn't go off, normal MP loss.

Pretty close to mine:
SUCCESS Normal effect, normal PP cost (1PP/level)
SPECIAL Normal effect, no PP cost
CRITICAL One effect doubled, no PP cost
FAILURE Half effect, normal PP cost
FUMBLE Roll on Magic Fumble Table (typically the spell fails and is lost from memory)

Originally Posted by peterb

Well, this is my translation of Fireball:

It's just fine. But couldn't your system work without having to do this laborious translation?
Each 'level' of Amplify would give it another d6 of damage, for example. Is the non-linear scale of damage Amplification really necessary?