Thread: [Magic World] Let's talk about it!

Originally Posted by Scout

Will there be something similar to feats in 3.5?

I use the term feats reluctantly because it immediately put most people off, but I don't mean anything like the sheer amount of feats in 3.5, or necessarily the amount of detail they go into.

To soapbox a bit, I think the main failing of feats was that many of them fell into three categories:

• You get a +N to blahblah.
• You can ignore a fiddly rule that's hard to remember anyway.
• You can do something that anyone could do given enough strength/speed/luck. (Iron Heroes' skill challenges did a better job of representing this.)

The idea of mundane characters having an equivalent of spells -- stunts, techniques, what have you -- is decent enough, but having played in a Spirit of the Century game I prefer conflicts where players can try crazy maneuvers on the spur of the moment, and maybe make them part of their regular repertoire.

That this big surprise is in Advanced Sorcery makes me think it's more like the cult gifts in Mongoose's Elric of Melnibone or RQ6. I prefer heroes to be larger than life but not overtly magical ... but we'll see.

Originally Posted by zomben

Yup, Nick has taken the "Ki" system from LoN, and rebuilt it as "Arete". That'll be in the Advanced Sorcery book, and it's really excellent stuff.

Oh, that's cool! It's been years since I've read through Land of Ninja. I need to take a relook at that.

Originally Posted by fmitchell

The idea of mundane characters having an equivalent of spells -- stunts, techniques, what have you -- is decent enough, but having played in a Spirit of the Century game I prefer conflicts where players can try crazy maneuvers on the spur of the moment, and maybe make them part of their regular repertoire.

It's really not like Spirit of the Century stuff, honestly. The way these work, is that once your skill in something rises past 100%, you start being able to do really neat things with it. Like, paint a perfect picture, or compose an epic poem that will be remembered through the ages. While there are a handful of combat-oriented abilities, it's really a chance to give fun results for non-combat skills.

Originally Posted by fmitchell

That this big surprise is in Advanced Sorcery makes me think it's more like the cult gifts in Mongoose's Elric of Melnibone or RQ6. I prefer heroes to be larger than life but not overtly magical ... but we'll see.

Not really. It's available to anyone who gets their skills up high enough. We'd toyed with the idea of putting it into the core book, but opted against it. If it goes in the core rules, it's essentially 'canon' for a game. By putting it in the AS book, it's clearly optional, and you can use it or ignore it at your leisure.

If Nick's on the thread, he can explain more how this stuff works. I would, but have to run out the door in a moment.

Still impatiently waiting for Magic World. :-)
I want to rationalize my RPG collection down to a few books, and I'm hoping that MW will be able to replace half a dozen other BRPish books I don't have space for, like Stormbringer 5 and RQIII, MRQII, which are great, but looks like MW will actually be more useful to play in the future.

Originally Posted by fmitchell

...That this big surprise is in Advanced Sorcery makes me think it's more like the cult gifts in Mongoose's Elric of Melnibone or RQ6. I prefer heroes to be larger than life but not overtly magical ... but we'll see.

It's in Advanced Sorcery but it's explicitly NOT a magic system. One of the things I decided when I first started looking at the idea was that it should be something other than "magic" in any mechanical sense - so NONE of the options I've come up with use Magic Points, nor rely on POW.

Inspired by (rather than directly and solely adapting) the ki skills idea from Land of Ninja I've created a number of different options for GM's to allow truly exceptional skills. There are options that allow characters to use a success with their exceptional skill to create an opportunity that benefits another skill (theirs or someone elses); options that allow chracters with skills over 100 to do extraordinary things that those with skills under 100 simply cannot; and options that allow the exercise of exceptional skill to have lasting effects.

What I wanted were options that let characters of over 100% to do amazing things without being Sorcerers, or reliant on enchanted items and magic point batteries. It's always bothereed me that, for example, people described Anduril as a "magic sword" - my image of it was that it was certainly well made, but that rather any specific enchantments or spells (which I know ARE mentioned in the text), what gave it its "power" was that it was forged from the shards of Narsil, it was the actual sword Isildur used to cut the ring from Sauron's hand - it was a weapon of fate and destiny, that had played a crucial role at a pivotal moment in momentous events.

Whether I succeeded is for the readers to decide for themselves, but I will say that I was reasonably pleased with the variety of options I managed to devise without falling back on magic points or POW based mecahnics. If I'd had more time I'd liked to have worked at more options for exceptional "powers" for skills over 100 - some skills in the Magic World skills list just stumped me, as I was trying to chart a happy balance between exceptional powers and OTT "wuxia" that would be fun to play but not wildly over powered. In particular, the interpersonal skills (Bargain, Fast Talk for example) I struggled to come up with specific options that didn't seem wildly OTT and potentially game breaking... so in the end, not all skills got every option, but GM's can of course devise their own additions and alternatives.

Cheers,

Nick

I was thinking about the Magic World. As stated before I am a fan of really gritty combats so when MW arrives I plan to use it as is but import the Hit Location rules from the BRP book to satisfy my violent side.

Well since I understand MW will be Stormbringer with the Michael Moorcock stuff filed off and RQ stuff thrown in. That assumes Random APs will be used and that is not recommended to be combined with Hit Locations. If that is the case will all the armors being used be the same that can be found in the BGB. That way I can just find the fixed APs to replace the Random APs?

The armors in the game are the same as what was in Elric. That being said, if you want to use Hit Locations and static armor, just use the armor from RQIII or the BGB instead. Most of the time, in converting APs from their RQIII equivalents to MW (for the Bestiary, let's say) I just look up an item in the BGB with AP equal to the armor I'm trying to convert. Then, just look at the equivalent random armor, and use that.

Shouldn't be a problem at all to reverse that.

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

Inspired by (rather than directly and solely adapting) the ki skills idea from Land of Ninja I've created a number of different options for GM's to allow truly exceptional skills. ... What I wanted were options that let characters of over 100% to do amazing things without being Sorcerers, or reliant on enchanted items and magic point batteries.

This does sound cool. (A little misplaced in a Sorcery book, but cool.) It reminds me of Iron Heroes (d20) in which characters can take a hefty skill penalty to try something cool ... although in BRP a) special and critical successes after-the-fact can replace skill penalties up front, and b) everything is a skill, or very nearly, so combat, non-combat, and "class" abilities use the same elegant framework.

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

It's always bothered me that, for example, people described Anduril as a "magic sword" - my image of it was that it was certainly well made, but that rather any specific enchantments or spells (which I know ARE mentioned in the text), what gave it its "power" was that it was forged from the shards of Narsil, it was the actual sword Isildur used to cut the ring from Sauron's hand - it was a weapon of fate and destiny, that had played a crucial role at a pivotal moment in momentous events.

Thank you. One thing I hate about certain other RPGs is the "Christmas-tree syndrome", where high-powered characters need "magic items" hanging off them to reach their full potential. (BTW, Iron Heroes explicitly rejected this philosophy: "it's not the sword but the hand that wields it." If it weren't for the plethora of class abilities and point pools I might be playing it now.) Imagine Narsil or Excalibur were exceptionally well-made swords that give exceptional fighters an edge (literally), hardly worth bothering with in high-magic games; their power to influence events flowed from the exceptional people who wielded them and those who believed in them.

Originally Posted by fmitchell

Thank you. One thing I hate about certain other RPGs is the "Christmas-tree syndrome", where high-powered characters need "magic items" hanging off them to reach their full potential. (BTW, Iron Heroes explicitly rejected this philosophy: "it's not the sword but the hand that wields it." If it weren't for the plethora of class abilities and point pools I might be playing it now.) Imagine Narsil or Excalibur were exceptionally well-made swords that give exceptional fighters an edge (literally), hardly worth bothering with in high-magic games; their power to influence events flowed from the exceptional people who wielded them and those who believed in them.

This does sound cool, lots of examples in fiction of "magic" weapons that fit this description.

Originally Posted by fmitchell

This does sound cool. (A little misplaced in a Sorcery book, but cool.)

Arete was originally intended for a different book, but plans changed and Ben and Chaosioum was generous and flexible enough to find it space in Advanced Sorcery.

It reminds me of Iron Heroes (d20) in which characters can take a hefty skill penalty to try something cool ... although in BRP a) special and critical successes after-the-fact can replace skill penalties up front, and b) everything is a skill, or very nearly, so combat, non-combat, and "class" abilities use the same elegant framework.

I do know Iron Heroes, albeit it wasn't consciously in my thoughts when writing Arete and I have to say it's one of the d20 variants I like the least - but that's because I think the concept was excellent but the execution way too fiddly and involved... Which, funnily enough was probably my biggest fear with Arete, to be honest: allowing the abilities to scale up sufficently whilst keeping some mechanical control of them, all within the same ethos of rules framing as MW/BRP.

Thank you. One thing I hate about certain other RPGs is the "Christmas-tree syndrome", where high-powered characters need "magic items" hanging off them to reach their full potential. (BTW, Iron Heroes explicitly rejected this philosophy: "it's not the sword but the hand that wields it." If it weren't for the plethora of class abilities and point pools I might be playing it now.) Imagine Narsil or Excalibur were exceptionally well-made swords that give exceptional fighters an edge (literally), hardly worth bothering with in high-magic games; their power to influence events flowed from the exceptional people who wielded them and those who believed in them.

Arete, as presented, won't let a high skill character match a highly skilled practitioner of Deep Magic or Sorcerer - but they WILL give a good accounting of themselves - and my thinking is that in general one should pick and chose between all these options for ones campaign. Which "powers" / systems / options are available defines the world that chracters operate in at a fudnemanetal level to me, so I'd always think carefully about each option before I decided whether or not to include it for a specific setting.

Cheers,

Nick