House Rules are always a GMs favorite tool. Today I am going to talk
about the house rules for the Talislanta setting and Omni system that
are going through my head.
Magic is such a large part of any fantasy genre game that special attention must be paid.
First,
I use a combination of 4th and 5th edition Talislanta. I use the modes
from 4th edition, with the changes from 5th edition for the calculation
of spell levels, range, etc.
Per my standard house
rules, characters receive a number of spells in each mode equal to their
Mode Rating, or Skill Level in that mode, plus an additional number of
spells equal to their Magic Rating. The bonus spells from Magic Rating
do not have to be in any particular mode.
For example,
Azadim, a Cymrillian Magician has the following modes: Attack +3,
Influence +2, Defend +3, Alter +4, Heal +3 and a Magic Rating of +5.
This gives him a starting spell list consisting of 3 Attack, 2
Influence, 3 Defend, 4 Alter and 3 Heal spells. The bonus starting
spells he receives from his +5 Magic Rating he decides to put 2 into
Alter (total 6 Alter), 2 into Attack (total 5 Attack), 1 into Heal
(total 4) and the last into Influence (total 3). Altogether, this gives
our intrepid adventurer 18 spells in his repertoire. Not too bad,
really.
Now, I have to make a choice. Flavor text
describes Talislantans as always being on the lookout for new spells,
especially Archean (ancient) spells that do not fit into the modern
magic system. Another section talks about how Talislantans have
hundreds of spells. Even another section describes players coming up
with spells on the fly.
Yeah...not so much my cuppatea.
I
have already limited the number of spells each character has, now its
time to put them to work. If we look at magicians in our standard way,
and realize that this is a post-apocalyptic setting, then it would not
be too far of a stretch to say that magicians do not spill all their
secrets.
So...the choice is Dynamic vs Static spells, or Dynamic vs Semi-Static spells.
Common
practice dictates that anything that is bound to Spell Level is
scalable. So for the Heal mode, you would only need 4 spells: Heal,
Harm, Cause Disease and Cure Disease.
And to make matters worse, with scaling involved, you would only need a few of each mode.
Attack: 3 spells; Bolt, Blast and Melee
Alter: 4 spells; Increase Attribute, Decrease Attribute, Increase Skill, Decrease Skill
Conjure: 2 spells; Conjure by Mass, Conjure by Area
Defend: 4 spells; Aura, Flat Barrier, Cone/Cylinder Barrier, Dome/Sphere Barrier
Heal: 4 spells; Heal, Harm, Cause Disease, Cure Disease
Illusion: 1 spell
Influence: 1 spell
Move: 1 spell
Reveal: 3 spells; Reveal, Scrying, Conceal
Summon: 2 spells; Summon, Banish
Transform: 5 spells; Trivial Change, Minor Change, Major Change, Radical Change, Complete Change
Ward: 2 spells; Ward, Hex
But,
if all the spells are the same, and there are only 32 distinct
spells...what about all that searching and secrecy that wizards are
known for?
How about if only the Spell Level effects
are scalable and everything else is static, like range or number of
targets? Okay, that helps a little, but still leaves us with basically 3
attack spells and 4 heal spells. Still seems rather weenie in the
grand scheme of things.
So let us take a look at the
flip side, NOTHING is dynamic and the spell creation system is just
that, a way to create static effect spells. Now we have something to go
on: a bunch of not-too-happy players.
Well, we never want unhappy players.
There
is a middle ground. Scalable effects, those that effect Spell Level
only, can only be scaled up or down a number of levels equal to the
Magic Rating of the caster from the base spell.
Hey!
Now that sounds like a good plan! The GM is happy because he sees the
wizard PCs scrambling for new spells and the PCs are happy because they
get to do some cool scaling effects.
I have not playtested this yet, or mentioned it to my players, but you can expect me to test it before too long.
(This has been playtested since I originally wrote it, the happy medium was found: players get all basic skills in each mode they have; Spell Level is scale-able, everything else is static)
Enjoy the game!
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