Smoke Bomb
Poor Ninja. Dude is having yet another weapons malfunction. Shō ga nai, I guess. That’s what happens when you try to substitute science for magic.
Today’s comic may look like a Daffy Duck homage… and I suppose it is. Alchemist’s business practices are despicable after all. But what I’m really looking to talk about are weird corner cases. Namely, the ones that crop up when you try to invent effects that function “like magic.” In my experience, they tend to blow up in your face.
This isn’t just an issue for bomb-chucking Jekyll and Hyde types. We could just as easily discuss the difficulties that arise when you go nuts the homebrew and ignore psionics-magic transparency. We might talk about the difficulty of balancing weeaboo fightan magic. But this issue reared its head at my own table in the form of a Pathfinder 1e alchemist, and so it serves as my example.
From a flavor perspective, I love the idea of drinking crazy tonics and tinctures to mimic spells. That’s mad science 101. But back when I started out in the system, trying to make rulings that didn’t annoy seven hells out of my alchemist was all manner of difficult. How did those spell-adjacent “extracts” function? Did they work in anti-magic zones? Did drinking one provoke an attack of opportunity? Could those delicate glass vials be sundered as you “cast” them? Is an alchemist a spellcaster for the purpose of crafting magic items? Can I put multiple “spells” in a beer bong and chug?
Don’t get me wrong: It’s fully possible to find the answers to these questions via close reading and helpful FAQ posts. But the fact that we had to pause the game and run a rules lookup just to “cast” a basic-ass spell got old in a hurry.
So here’s the question for you goodly residents of Handbook-World. What is your favorite magic-like system? Did it interface seamlessly with an existing magic system, replace it, or leave you scratching your head in rules befuddlement? Sound off with all your own weird corner cases down in the comments!
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yeah, the alchemist sucks rules wise.
„infuses the concoction with a tiny fraction of his own magical power“
no „casting“ in an anti magic zone for you either!
IIRC I houseruled that away in exchange for a nerfed Bomb usage of 3+INT mod rather than Lvl+INT mod.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/3ohuAD0aHve3dmxoty/200.gif
It feels like a designer wanted a system completely divorced from magic, then was asked to make it compatible with magic again after the first draft.
One thing I really like about the Pathfinder 1e Alchemist is that they decided to tie the mechanics so closely to potions. The rules can be summarized as “potions you brew each morning and which only you can drink, unless you take the selectable class-feature that removes that restriction”.
Since I had already mentally absorbed those that meant that it was easy for me to use. Though if potions are only something you are used to using post or pre-combat to heal/buff (or to sell for wand money) then that wouldn’t be all that helpful.
On a sidenote I’d like to point out that in addition to it being possible to sunder/disarm an extract vial as they try to cast it, you can do the same to those free flavor material components the enemy wizard pulled from their spell-component pouch. I call it “the fighters counterspell”. (you want reach before trying this trick to prevent them from just 5-ft stepping away before casting).
You still get in trouble though. The second you take potion-related options like “accelerated drinker” you’ve got to tell your player, “Well no, technically. They aren’t really exactly potions.” And that’s a feels-bad moment.
That is true. I dislike that FAQ for exactly that reason even though I understand the balance reasons for why they did it.
3.5 has a lot of great subsystems, honestly all of which I enjoy more than Vancian casting, but for me the winner has to be incarnum (from Magic of Incarnum, natch). Chanel the power of souls to mimic the powers of their previous owners, whether you’re an Incarnate becoming a master of skills and aligning your self with an extreme alignment, a Totemist taking on the powers of magical beasts, taking one of the various prestige classes themed around magic hunting or light or shadow or rage, or just dabbling with a feat or two to expand your repertoire. The system is surprisingly comprehensive in scope, wildly different to traditional magic mechanically (choose a number of “soulmelds” you can (mostly) use all day long, and you can adjust their relative strength as a swift action), supports a large number of character concepts, and perhaps best of all, plays nicely with most of the rest of 3.5’s subsystems, with soulmelds, feats, or prestige classes dedicated to making possible characters that use a little of both. Heck, even some of the really niche ones like (Dragonblooded) got some sweet exclusive soulmelds.
In 4E? Martials. 4th edition did a great job of making martials feel flavorful and powerful. You’re not just flinging lots of daggers, you’re filling the air with flying blades to the point that it blinds foes. You’re not just hitting for a lot of damage, you’re firing an arrow through the boss’s knee, crippling them and doing ongoing damage until they can tough it out (make the save). You’re not just imposing a penalty with a hard blow, you’re throwing them off balance and working with your team to keep them that way, letting your party take advantage to reposition themselves every time someone hits that enemy again. And all of these are available at 1st level, by the way. 4E has its flaws, and not everyone likes the way they made martials more similar to casters, but I respect and appreciate the cool things they let martials do right out of the gate.
As I understand it, the 4e solution was “everybody is casters,” right? As in everything gets boiled down to “powers” that you can activate like other editions would active a spell.
More or less. A closer analogy is probably a 5E Warlock, which was mostly based on 4E’s power system. You’ve got at-will powers (cantrips), 1/encounter powers (spells), and 1/day powers (Mystic Arcanum).
I think I begin to see the issue: “powers” feel like spells. A segment of players want magic to feel like magic. If you want expendable, self-contained abilities that produce discrete effects, it’s hard to make that feel like not-spells. After all, why can you only “split the tree” once per day as a 4e archer?
That leaves designers in the uncomfortable position of trying to distinguish “powers” from Vancian-style magic. I suppose that ritual magic is one solution, but that doesn’t really help in combat. The 5e battle master is another potential solution, as is the pf1e “grit pool” for gunslingers.
I don’t see why everything feeling like magic has to be a bad thing. D&D is high fantasy, what’s wrong with saying “Yes, some of the barbarian’s superhuman abilities are in fact magical”?
Incarnum is also good for making NPC gnomes seem more magical. Their constitution bonus means that fifty percent them can qualify for the Shape Soulmeld feat and so gain a powerful magical ability such as Airstep Sandals even if they’re a level 1 commoner
This one is “magic-like” in the sense that “Any sufficiently advanced technology…” Our 3.5 campaign allowed some use of features from D20 Modern or Pathfinder (with DM approval). Not wanting to spend a level or a couple of extra feats picking up spellcasting ability just so my halfling Rogue could take Craft (Alchemy), I purchased Craft (Chemistry) instead. The D20 skill allows you to “create acids, bases, explosives, and poisonous substances.” Explosives, incendiaries/accelerants, acid flasks, and poison. What more does a Rogue need?
Sure sunrods, tanglefoot bags, and thunderstones are nifty, but the meat and potatoes of skullduggerous craftables is right there in those four categories. Though the halfling had the Intelligence stat to honestly mutter “I coulda been a wizard” now and again, it was a point of pride to him that he didn’t have to learn “all that hand-wavy stuff” to make things go BOOM at a distance.
I think that’s a big part of the appeal for “mundane” characters. The discourse about martials vs. casters breeds a certain stubbornness in players: I don’t have to rely on that magic crap! It’s just nice when the game actually supports that.
I think most of these systems exist purely to be an alternative to magic (since not everyone will want to use it), which then need an extra stipulation to not make them superior to magic or otherwise balanced. The alchemy might not be reliable, or is dangerous, compared to magic being efficient but expensive. There might be downsides to chugging potions mixed with booze. And so on. From a literary standpoint, all magic needs a balancer or ‘cost’ (moral, economic, bodily or otherwise) to exist without being as commonplace as electricity.
Now we’re talking about intent rather than execution.
Or you can just make magic as common as electricity. Lots of fun settings go that route. I’m particularly fond of ones where, for one reason or another, a magical “industrial revolution” is taking place in the present tense; dynamic settings like that offer so many possibilities, and it allows you to lean more heavily on historical societies to inspire the base of the world that new magical innovations are being built on top of.
I’d say that Mother of Learning is a damn good example of that kind of world. It’s hard to say just how common magic is in general, since most of the story takes place in possibly the most mage-heavy city on the continent, but the author has clearly put time into considering how magic might affect ordinary people.
In my first real campaign, there was an Alchemist who we reflavored (pun very much intended) to be a master chef whose extracts were all food things. Coincidentally, he mostly used the extract Polypurpose Panacea to make alcohol for all the PCs and NPCs who were shipwrecked on the island. (He also kept using Detect Secret Doors, which actually found something – twice!) His chili peppers that caused him to breath fire were much more directly useful (though he essentially acquired a group of cohorts by giving all the NPCs alcohol). When he washed up on the island, I had him do so clutching a crate of magic spices, to justify his access to extract components.
In a Carrion Crown campaign that unfortunately didn’t last very long, I played a reflavored Alchemist whose abilities were more like those of a Spiritualist, Medium or Summoner – she had bonded with a very powerful psychopomp, and all of her abilities were manifestations of that. It helped that she had the Metamorph archetype, so most of her extracts were replaced with shapeshifting, but her mutagen ability was reflavored as “spend a standard action to channel even more psychopomp strength”, rather than “spend a standard action to drink a thing to gain more strength”. The plan was for her to eventually go into the Master Chymist prestige class to further emphasize her nature as two beings fused together.
In terms of magic-ish systems, there is the Pathfinder Kineticist, which is a cool (if terribly explained) class that manipulates probably-magical energy without needing spell slots. I’ve always thought that Monk Ki was an interesting idea, and found it weird that no one else but the Ninja ever uses it for anything. Shouldn’t a fundamental fact of all biology, you know… come up more? I guess that’s an unavoidable consequence of the kitchen sink fantasy approach, but still, where are the ki-manipulating monsters?
Heh. Had some of those in my dragons campaign. Your breath weapon gets bonuses is your pass your “spicy pickle” save. If you fail you’re flaming out the wrong end.
Just had a discussion with Laurel this weekend about whether her kinetic blasts interacted with Spell Resistance. Unintuitive stuff, that!
I like Magicka’s magic system. You get eight elements (fire, water, cold, electricity, rock, arcane, life, shield) which you can mix and match, up to five at once. Some of them combine (e.g. water and fire make steam), or clash (water & lightning) and you then release them as a laser, charged blast, shield, or cast it on yourself. The effects then depend on what elements you used.
What balances this system is that you’re squishy as heck, and your spells are perfectly capable of backfiring and killing you if you do something stupid (e.g. cast a lightning spell whilst standing in water).
Noita similarly lets you tinker with wands, grabbing spells from other wands and making a magical machine gun wand or magical nuke launcher. Just be careful not to kill yourself with it, or use spells that are outright suicidal.
I’ve heard good things about Ars Magica, but never had the chance to play. From what I hear it’s a system that rewards creativity.
Ninja should look on the bright side – he probably gets a stealth bonus from all that soot covering his face.
And odd enough that he needs Alchemist to acquire a Smoke Bomb. Don’t ninjas use Ki points to spontaneously pull them out of their pants? Or get evasion?
Does being any of the rogue-like classes curse you with bad luck in the Handbook verse (just look at Thief, Swash & Buckle…)?
What, did you think there was literal hammer space? Quasi-real ki bombs? You gotta have a vessel to store your ninja powers, bro!
How’d Alchemist stuff that octopus into a potion bottle?
Charisma (persuasion).
Once the octopus decides the bottle is home, the question is how will you get it OUT?
https://media1.giphy.com/media/m6ppwP5rMlBjq/giphy.gif
Wait until it gets hungry? Maybe dangle some treats a few tentacle-lengths away from the bottle?
Our GM’s pseudo-Victorian “Steampunk” setting ran on Pathfinder rules, but was in principle zero-magic. Many of the characters certainly didn’t believe in magic, being children of the Enlightenment and scoffing at superstition in every form. But physics was weird there, so while full casters were nonexistent, we had a lot of half-caster types doing “science” that in the real world would count as magic. Lots of Alchemists both as PCs and NPCs, Summoners reskinned as roboticists/clank builders, and martial artists channeling “the highest potential of human function” rather than anything so gauche as ki.
It took some trust in the GM; his guideline was “If it wouldn’t be out of place in a Jules Verne or Mary Shelly novel, then it just might be real here.” Not every “spell” or class ability was gonna work, and because a lot of the setting’s science was just being discovered, driving that timeline’s equivalent of the industrial revolution, we really had no idea what was possible until we tried. Alchemists’ mutagens, for example, were quite powerful, but also turned out to be an addictive and brain-damaging scourge on society in ways the Pathfinder rules had not prepared us for! Science Hero PCs seemed more like Walter White by the end…
Several players did opt out of that campaign on the quite reasonable basis that they preferred to know how the rules worked. The rest of us found it great fun, a throwback to those glorious confusing days when we were all first learning the game and had no real idea how anything worked.
My own character kept charting a course Full Science Ahead, and damn the moral ambiguity, driven by a story as old as Mad Science itself. “Leah is NOT dead. Granted, her injuries are severe, and I was forced to amputate all extracerebral organs, but a full recovery is yet within the reach of Science!” Mechanically he took Pathfinder’s Clonemaster Alchemist archetype, but whether and how its capstone features would actually WORK — and whether he could hold off the ravages of cognatogen addiction long enough to complete the research — remained uncertain, in-universe and out.
“Journal of Doktor Ludwig Krauss, 8 November, 1863. The Omicron-Twelve clones are not recognizable as rattus norvegicus except on the cellular level, but I am encouraged that several specimens demonstrate approximate bilateral symmetry, along with an altogether more reasonable number of eyes…”
I want you to know how amused I am by the prospect of spending “the highest potential of human function” points from my “the highest potential of human function” pool.
I do think I set about learning wrongly. In the early days, I wanted to go slow and get the rules right, figuring we could have an easier time later. That made the “glorious learning” phase a drag.
As PLAYERS we might have cheated and simply said “ki”, but the CHARACTERS would have been aghast at our lack of rigor and precision! “By the Two, are we men and women of Science, or wooly-headed mystics?”
Sounds similar to the Girl Genius setting. Which is finally getting a GURPS version, BTW. One of the few Kickstarters that I couldn’t resist.
I actually started running my first Exalted game after being inspired by reading the fluff of Wonders of the First Age at the same time as I was catching up on the Girl Genius webcomic, and thinking, “What if the Spark was just a type of Exaltation?”
For the Google-impaired:
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
This is part of why I like Pathfinder 2es Alchemist, they just flat out said “You don’t use magic, your Elixirs, Poisons, and Bombs are not magical even if they have magical effects (unlike potions). One of the most complex classes in 2e, being one of if not the only one you can really mess up your build on, but so fun when played right.
I really do need to try a proper 2e game at some point.
How does one go about dispelling an extract in 2e?
I don’t think you can, you have to wait for it to wear off. You can’t even try to break them with spells like dispel magic since it doesn’t effect them. Since most last for around a single combat.
Mutagens are balanced by the fact that the stronger versions have longer times so their penalties have a longer amount of time to kick in. A combat were you down a STone Body elixir will keep you alive, but post battle your gonna be more vulnerable to traps and slower in exploration.
Or, as Doktor Krauss would assert (though we never actually tried Pathfinder 2e), “With a second extract, of course!” And if the mixture produces unforeseen side effects, why, there’s an extract for that too!
In terms of “Magic-like systems” I was really offended when WotC decided to abandon the Mystic’s system completely and make psionics “Spells but different”. The system behind the Mystic was interesting! Abilities in it may have been overpowered, but that can be fixed by tweaking numbers. Tossing it is just wasteful.
Which old PDF should I be looking at for reference?
https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UAMystic3.pdf
On a related note, I was annoyed when I realized 5e warlocks didn’t have their 3.5 mechanical hook of being able to use their magic however much they like. (I really like being able to casually use any ability at my disposal without worrying that I might end up running dry before an important fight or really great prank opportunity or something.)
Sure, they’ve got cantrips, but so does everyone else, and only some of their invocations are usable at-will. Their short-rest-recovery mechanic theoretically lets them cast more high-level spells, but it also restricts their ability to freely cast low-level spells and makes them feel more “Vancian” than other classes.
Warlocks went from one of my favorite classes to one of my least favorite because of design choices that I don’t see much benefit from. If the fighter or rogue can use basically all of their abilities at will, why not the warlock?
As somebody who grew up playing AD&D version 1.0 and then later 3.5 but first encountered the Warlock class when playing Neverwinter Nights, they always seemed a little munchkiny to me. “Yeah, I want to play a sorcerer with some unlimited use spell slots who can use a sword and has a special relationship to a powerful Outsider.”
I realize that in a gaming era where there is a prestige class for every sub-fandom and tiefling and aasimar PCs are so common as to be unremarkable, that made me Grumpy Old Man Gamer, but back in my day, half-ogres were the hot new edgy PC race and cavaliers were the overpowered new class that everyone wanted to play.
I remember when a friend asked me to run a 3.5 game for her kid and his friends because they wanted to try this D&D thing but none of them knew how to run a game. I had played a bit of 3.5 years ago, and had the core books, but most of the campaigns I played were with similarly OG DMs who didn’t allow prestige classes and usually didn’t allow non-human PCs. We’re discussing character concepts and making characters and all of these high school kids who have never played before are throwing out these ideas like “I want to be a half-aasimar/half-catfolk mystic archer/weaponmaster/psionicist with a t-rex animal companion/steed and a rod of many things” and I’m like, “LOL, wut?!?” and “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just learn to play Exalted?”
My wife, and me too for that matter, really love the magic system in Castle Falkenstein. this is a game with cards instead of dice. And each suit gets its own magical effects. You have to construct a spell, based upon what you want/need to do. And if it’s a spell that needs lots of magic you have to gather that from the ambient magic that is all around. And this takes time. Every two minutes game time you can turn a card of the spell/magick deck. When you have enough energy in the suit that you need, you can cast the spell. there are some complications though. If you do not have enough time, you can substitute other suits to get to the required value sooner. However then you get harmonics in the form of spell effects that are associated with the non-“suit”able suit. And if you turn over a joker, the spell succeeds brilliantly, but you get a lot of wild magick energy, and spell effects in every suit at once.
Also, magic might be everywhere, but the amount of magic within a certain space can be limited. And ALL magick users within a certain area use that same magick. And they all notice the others using it. So building a giant spell in the middle of Paris, might be a little difficult, what with all the other magick users there also trying to get to the same limited resource (although magick does replenish slowly). And there are also countries (the USA for instance) in which you have to have a license to practice magick…
One last way of getting that spell out pronto, is to use your own body as a source of magick. According to the theory about what magick is in the CF universe, everything is made of magick (knots in the weave of magick). you use magick by untying those knots, that you, as a magickuser, can see. Which then leads to you, also being made of those knots, being able to untie some of your own knots, thereby suffering physical damage, to get to that elusive last smidgen of magickal energy.
Right. Just reread the question and turns out I totaly misread it.
So here goes: Alternative for magic system, to get the same effects? That is easy: Cybernetics. Almost anything you can think of that you can do with magic, you can do with “iron”. Boost your skills, armour, area effects, you name it, there is some augmentation for it, with or without drones or other help. All of this is of course a little difficult within a fantasy world, but within Shadowrun it works.
No worries. I got to learn about Castle Falkenstein. Sounds like a blast.
It works flavor-wise, but making these systems interact can get dicey. My Shadowrun experience is limited, but my GM pals seemed to struggle with putting together runs that challenge deckers and mages simultaneously.
“my GM pals seemed to struggle with putting together runs that challenge deckers and mages simultaneously.”
Now that can indeed be a problem, but that was not the question (now that I did read it correctly). The question was about Magic-like systems that produce equivalent effects.
My Shadowrun GM usually did manage to put challenges for both, or all three (decker, boosted, mage), so we almost always needed both a tech guy, and a magic guy to get through to the target, and usually some cyberboosted guy too.
In Exalted, that was one of the things I liked about the Alchemical Exalted. They were like magical cyborgs whose charms were like steampunk mad science modules they could swap in and out to give them various enhancements or powers. Never got a chance to do more with them than read the sourcebooks, but the idea of magical cyborgs/robots was definitely enticing.
Another system that I know of, but have not played, but found intriguing, is the one in the Dutch RPG called “Queeste”. This works with Words of Power. These words are from the ancient language of the Elves (of equivalent, not sure about that). Each word has a special effect and/or meaning. And the way you put those words together made the spell. So the words placed like A B was a different spell then when placed like B A. Every level\grade the wizardy types got one or several new word, with which they could make new combinations and thus new spells.
Well that’s pretty neat. I bet it would be a bitch to translate though.
Well, as the words are in an “ancient” language, and there are rules about the placement, and what the effects would be, I don’t think that would be such a problem.
I actually found the rules just now, and it contains a fairly extensive list of words, and the way you can use those words to form spells. Translating the meaning of the words might be a problem, though.
In Pathfinder, I really love the “Iron Caster” Fighters. Essentially, they become so skilled with their magical weapon of choice that they can bend the magic in that weapon to do other, unrelated things, like Fly or Fireball or Dispel Magic or Dimension Door or Breathe of Life! The spells they can get their weapon to use is based on their Fortitude save, and the spell DC is based on their Constitution. It’s not only really cool mechanically, but it also makes Fighter feel less like a normal dude with a sword and more like the one true master of weapons.
I remember being enamored of those builds when they were first discovered. Never had the chance to play one though. Had do they handle in actual games?
Pretty fantastic, maybe even too well. Played a mutt of a build with a bunch of classes, so the Iron Caster thing was just a dip. Three levels of Weapon Master Fighter, one level of Brawler (which counts as Fighter) and you can take Advanced Weapon Training as many times as you want with your bonus feats, which considering all the other things you get from it (Martial Flexibility, Weapon Training w/ Gloves of Dueling, Bonus Feats, Full BAB) makes it incredibly easy and worthwhile to slot into another martial build.
Now, besides the spells, it also provides some fantastic bonuses to hit and damage. Martial Flexibility can be used for your spells, or any other combat feat including Dedicated Adversary for +2 to hit and damage. The Warrior Spirit Advanced Weapon Training can also give a +3 enhancement bonus to your weapon, which either means +2 bonus plus Bane or any other weapon quality you need like Ghost Touch, or Training that gives you a bonus feat like Advanced Weapon Training, meaning more spells.
Believe it or not, being able to turn invisible and deal or resist any kind of energy damage and everything else as needed ended up almost always being useful, and considering it was practically free and nobody expected me to do any of that, it felt amazing. It’s just a better Fighter, one that actually has interesting options and choices to make besides who to stab next.
“we had to pause the game and run a rules lookup just to “cast” a basic-ass spell got old in a hurry” there is the problem. When using alternate systems best thing to do is to test run things before the game. Player says he is gonna use an alchemist grab the book explain interactions to him and then if they arise on the game to the other players. If he just presents to the game with an alchemist when the DM isn’t prepare then it’s his problem for halting the game 🙂
As for magic systems anything, ANYTHING, but Vancian magic is great 😀
My conception of RPG magic isn’t necessarily Vancian, but it does consist of “spend limited resource, get discrete effect with its own little rules.” So when you say non-Vancian, do you mean something as simple as “power points,” or are you imagining something more complex?
Anything that isn’t a copy of D&D magic system 🙂
One of my characters is an alchemist. I took the Gun Chemist archetype, trading bombs and potions for guns. But when he bought a bar, I wanted him to be able to sell potions alongside the beer. But since alchemists aren’t casters, they don’t qualify to get the feat back. Luckily, my DM’s were kind enough to house-rule that he did. Which was nice.
Good ruling on your GM’s part. I have similar issues with alchemists not qualifying for Craft Construct.
I think they did it because they knew how much I had been hoping for the bar. The hard part now is remembering to do the actual potion crafting.
My most favorite magic-like?
Probably Focus Spells and Innate Spells from Pathfinder 2E. So much better than SLAs from PF1E. Much more streamlined, too. Granted, it’s usually very limited, to just a few per day instead of actually being casting, but with Refocus it’s more of a once per battle, twice if you really have to thing. I haven’t had the chance to give Alchemist a chance, but I think it would be a contender if I could give it said chance.
Least favorite is from the same system, Wave Casting, since it’s not really being a caster – to the point I think Martial with a multiclass dedication into casting is a better representation.
Although, from Pathfinder 1E, the optional Words of Power thing was both a little confusing and a lot more sense-making than Vancian in a how magic should work sense. Seriously, Vancian Magic needs to die. The gimmick made for a decent what if for the books, but for roleplaying games… I’d be glad to see it gone.
I’m assuming claiming World of Darkness’s Mages getting to make up their own magic systems would be cheating, for this question.
I tried to read the Mage core book once. But then I got tired and had to lie down.
For serious though, I’ve heard nothing but praise for Mage as an outlet for magical creativity. I haven’t had the chance to give it a shot though.
I’ve only played the original Mage, but the problem with that was that there were basically no rules so it required an enormous amount of work and off the cuff ruling on the ST’s part. (Also it makes no sense that Vampires or Werewolves or whatever still exist in a world that has Mages because any half-baked starting Mage character could obliterate any Vampire of any power level as long as the Mage acts first. “Acting first” includes “knowing Vampires exist and taking basic precautions.”)
Personal favourite, no magic at all so let’s play Game of Thrones or Starship Troopers, I have the D20 rules for those. But if magic is must Only War and Dark Heresy 2.0 had relarively easy rules for “magic” but the hilarious misscast effects.
Me: “You see a deamon holding a sword as long as it is, manifesting in front of you.”
Psyker: “Wait I’m inside a Chimera.”
Guardsman: “Can I throw the psyker out of here before that thing turns us into red paste?”
Didn’t Starship Troopers have “detect thoughts” as a spell? 😛
https://y.yarn.co/c6d11d8c-6203-41fb-a6b2-02fb222fabe1_text.gif
Yeah they have the psyboys though what they can do is rather limited. No fireballs and such. Big guns, Morita included, serve you far better than some wierdo with mind tricks. Maybe expect for the dude in tge book that was able to sense bug tunnels and how they were located underground, that guy is good, just drop couple drillheaded nukes at coordinates he provided for some pest control.
Oh man… the infamously bad movie…
I can barely bring myself to look at it– only good thing that came from it is the mockery of it.
Funny story… When I was in the film commission world, Starship Troopers was my boss’s claim to fame. “Hell’s Half Acre” is in the middle of nowhere Wyoming:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_Half_Acre_(Wyoming)
They had to bring up rattlesnake wranglers from Texas to make the place safe for filming. And apparently you can still find spent shell casings all over the place.
I mean… of all the possible book-movie conversions, Starship Troopers has almost none of the original content in, no matter what it was. It’s shouting Dumbledore on a movie level.
But for all that, the movie is still glorious in how it takes apart the more… unreadable sections of the book.
Game of Thrones game unfortunately (or hilariously), was also the one where a single PC could be somehow minmaxed to fight a battalion of 100 knights successfully.
PS, the details of this are pretty hazy though, IIRC.
I know I’ve said it here before, but I’ll gladly say it again.
I absolutely LOVE the Spheres system from Drop Dead Studios.
They managed to tone down casting so it no longer feels like gods vs peasants, but the martial spheres improve the balance for the non-magic side too. I also like the overall availability of everything without all those pesky spell levels. My favorite part has to be customization though. I could spend all day thinking up builds for fun.
Do martial spheres manage to feel significantly different from magic?
I feel like they do. They focus more on what the character is doing in the moment, rather than what they are changing around them. The closest sphere to “magic” is the Tech sphere, and it’s about to get a MASSIVE overhaul, so I have no idea where it will be in the near future…
Since you mention how different systems interact, it occurs to me that although a barbarian can’t use spells or item creation feats whilr raging, but there’s no rule that says they can’t use artificer infusions
Personally, I am creating a custom magic system (and RPG system) that adheres to a central system, and that also includes many different variants of magic, allowing for different users to interact and learn variants of magic.
This also allows me to work “older/antiquated” magic systems (5e, PF1e) and “different” magic systems into the metaplot of my setting.
Another important factor is making magic less exclusive, more specifically in creating abilities that grant “non-caster” classes awesome and powerful abilities as well.