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> High Fantasy magic??, I am brain storming a new way of doing..
Primal Paladin22
Posted: Mar 7 2004, 03:43 AM
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I have never liked the way magic is handled in the D&D game. I mean it is cool from the point of view of game balance, but the fact is that in a novel game balance does not exsist. In the WoT, can you imagine what it would be like if some blademaster passed his Ref Save and walked though some Aei Sadie's hardened air? It just is not gonna happen. I think that games where magic is more powerful and more fluid are cool, I think that before anyone says but the other characters won't have any fun they should condsider that every character in the novel has a role.

What I have come up with so far is a dual mechanic idea. First there is the matter of how much power is needed. I define this as the magnitude of the effect. This defines the cost in power points. Next there is the intracacy of the effect, I am going to have channneling skills, This defines how high the DC to pull off the effect is. For instance, a puff of Air might blow out a candle, and is very simple while requireing very little power. It would be significantly more complicated to cause the flame to become calligraphy suspened in the Air, not to mention the use of the actual element of Fire, Creating a sixty mile per hour gust of wind would not be any more complicated than blowing out the candle, but it would reqiure channeling a good bit more power.


I will post more of my ideas as they come to me but I was hoping that you all might have a view. I want to keep the rule compatable with the D20 system but I really want to come up with something that represents High Fantasy.


Peace
J.


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Guest
Posted: Mar 7 2004, 07:59 AM
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One way of doing this while keeping it fairly realistic is to have the player roll a D20 and if they get under 13+ their level - the level of weave or power used. if they do make it thenthe weave goes off as usual but if they don't then the next time that they try a weave they do the same but with -1 to it or more if they fail it badly. If they fail real bad they could even take overchaneling damage. 20 is also automatically a failure. The negatives heal like normal damage would.

You could also have it that if they rest a while (eg 5min) then they can temporarily suspend the minisus up to a point. ie. moriane rests a bit before healing Rand's dad as she is really tired out from channeling so much.
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MagusRogue
Posted: Mar 7 2004, 02:46 PM
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The easiest way is similar to what the Guest said. But just a bit different, really. I'd go with a Spellcraft roll, dc 15 + twice the spell level. spell points works great in this system as well.


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Entropic_existence
Posted: Mar 8 2004, 06:55 PM
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Personally I like the ideas of fluid and mechanic magic systems, but not removing ref saves etc for characters targetted by One Power effects. Sure the liklihood in the books of someone evading the grasp of an Aes Sedai using hardened air is slim to nill, but in a roleplaying game balance has to come into effect. All classes need to essentially balance each other out statistically in order for the game to be viable and fun. Remember the rules are flexible when your the DM. The reflex save doesn't necessarily have to be that the Blademaster in question "dodged" the Aes Sedai's weave. I prefer to explain away these issues by looking with a different perspective if required. Perhaps the Aes Sedai simply wasn't able to weave quick enough and accurately enough? Perhaps her weaves didn;t come together properly and failed to take hold, etc.


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Aleshandre
Posted: Mar 8 2004, 07:27 PM
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To some extent, I agree with entropic. There does need to be balance, but I believe that the balance is created more by the style of play than the mechanics of the game. In truth, while it is possible for an armsman to kill an initiate of same rank, the likelyhood of that happening if applied realistically are low. Realistically, the initiate would have time to bind the armsman with arms of air and take the armsman's sword and use it to cut off the his head. Even multiweave becomes obsolete, when tying off weaves comes into play (in turn based play anyway). This kind of situation could be compared to a person with a machine gun with large quantities of ammo fighting against a swordsman. There is no way that a swordsman would last even 6 seconds. In truth (although it is great for entertainment value) the swordsman is dead by the time he draws his sword. All of this can be negated by simple play style changes. A channeler may be far more powerfull than an armsman, but if the armsman is cautious and fights strategically, he can win...with minimal damage to himself. The problem with this is that the armsman has to take advantage of cover and concealment (like one would in a gunfight) and waith for the right moment to strike. Archers are feared by channelers for good reason. They can attack from concealment and leave before their position is discovered.


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Freya
Posted: Mar 8 2004, 08:07 PM
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Not to weigh in too much into the subject at hand. I can say that in our game (we did not use d20), channelers had a skill called Finesse which they used when 'aiming' a weave (acts like base attack). The DC of the skill check was the target's Defense rating with a variable number depending on whether the target was standing alone, surrounded in melee combat, on horseback or heaving ground conditions, etc. If the channeler failed to hit the DC, they had misjudged the distance or failed to pick out the target from the dense grouping of people, etc. Of course, in some cases, the weave can still go off (lightning, fireball) and have a chance at hitting someone accidentally. It allowed for channelers to be falable, and non-channelers to escape on occasion.
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Axel
Posted: Mar 8 2004, 08:51 PM
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Well, you could look at it as simply the channeler missing. Like even a Blademaster is fallible so to is a channeler. The target ducks out before the weave can be completed, the channeler misjudged the distance, made a mistake in weaving, any number of things can go wrong.


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Primal Paladin22
Posted: Mar 11 2004, 05:20 AM
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Thing is guys I can think of all kinds of nasty things to do with the one power. Things that should be low level effects if it is based on the amount of juice I actualy had to channel to pull it of. I mean, in the novels channelers use air gags all the time, well bush that air eight inches further and it is blocking the air way. In a few rounds the poor soul is done in. It is sort of the way tae kwon do stacks up againts brazillian jiu-jitsu, the jiu- jitsu guy tangles his body with the tae kwon do guy buy wraping his arms around him and going limp, the two fall. After that all the struggleing the tae kwon do guy does just gets him tighter and tighter until he gets choked out. Without at least a rudimentary knowledge of jiu-jitsu the poor tae kwon do guy is virtually helpless. It is the same way for the armsman unless he gets the element of suprise he is gonna get done in. At least that is what would happen in the novels.


Game balance is cool for certain genres, WoT ain't one of the ones where it is represented in the origonal context. I just gotta say, remmber Arse Magika. It was the first white wolf game.


Peace
J


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Entropic_existence
Posted: Mar 11 2004, 06:53 PM
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I think your martial arts reference is a gross simplification, since I'm sure if you talk to most MArtial Arts masters they will tell you all martial arts have their strong points and weak points, and no matter the martial art two evenly matched oponents will never have that lopsided of a match. However this is a wheel of time Board and I don't want to start a flame war so I'll move on smile.gif

The Channeling system isn't broke...it follows the same guidelines as both the DnD Magic System, the SW D20 Force System, etc. Personally I would have made the system more like d20 Psionics but thats personal preference and a love of point based systems. Savings throws, etc are there to preserve game balance. Yes with the One Power you can do all sorts of obscenly easy, lower power weaves that easily kill a person in the setting. And yes, in the books non-channelers don't really have alot going in their favour if a sneaky channeler decides to choke them off with bands of air wrapped around a throat. Although you'll notice we don't see these things happening in combat very often. Seems like Channelers would rather toss a fireball at someone then take the time to stuff a ball of air in their throat and let them suffocate. In virtually any setting that features higher forms of magic, psionics, or whatever the people with those abilities can generally find ways to kill people without expending that much energy. But you'll notice when it comes to heroes...heroes usually do better than the avergae person. And in roleplaying games your players are playing the part of the hero. In my opinion it just wouldn't do to have them die the first time a Channeler comes up and decides to "choke them out." Like I said before, I prefer to explain away amde saving throws in ways that make sense for the weave and the setting. Without them your asking for players that all start making channelers thinking they can toast any enemy they come across with a level 1 variation of harden air or whatever.


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Axel
Posted: Mar 11 2004, 09:08 PM
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hmm... I was just thinking about this strategy game, Majesty, and how wizards work in it. hmm...
Looking it it like this I think a channeler's biggest problem may be archers. No matter how you look at it a swordsman has to get close, but archers can handle at a distance, giving the channeler much less time to take them down. You've also got rogues who will get channelers where they can't see. You've also got to see that a channeler is helpless at a short distance, an armsman could easily cut them down unless the channeler has already prepared a weave.

I was also looking through some very old Dragon magazines, one of them... issue 20-something or other, had an interesting article about magic and trying to keep some of the fantasy mystery around the stuff. I'll see if I can find it, give me a minute.
here it is, issue #200. pg. 26, "the color of magic." hmmm... maybe it won't help as much as I thought... oh well. The article basically suggests that to return to magic (and therefore channeling) the aura of mystery it deserves what is needed is to change the appearance but not the effects. Work backward from the mechanical effects so that you end up with something that does the exact same thing but is individual for the caster. Well, it won't make channelers any more powerful, but it will make them more mysterious.


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Primal Paladin22
Posted: Mar 12 2004, 04:02 AM
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"I think your martial arts reference is a gross simplification, since I'm sure if you talk to most MArtial Arts masters they will tell you all martial arts have their strong points and weak points, and no matter the martial art two evenly matched oponents will never have that lopsided of a match. However this is a wheel of time Board and I don't want to start a flame war so I'll move on"


I am a practitioner of various forms of realistic combat, including Brazillian jiu-jitsu based grappeling, kickboxing and Society of Creative Anachronism Heavy weapons, and Fencing. I am not recognized by the SCA folks because they have a hole lot of red tape but I love to put on armor and boang away when I get the chance. If I may, my example is very prudent in that BJJ is a way of fighting whose techniques involve taking an opponent to the ground, hemming him up and then applying either a choke or a joint manipulation. Tae Kwon Do is a system of fighting composed of srtiking techniques and verticle stances, mostly useing the feet as TKD does not allow strikes with the fist to the face. The point is that for the TKD guy fighting on the ground is like fighting in 0-G. He is in an alien environement and has little or no real understanding of what to do. TKD has its srtong points but taking it in its most common form in the region were I live TKD schools don not cover the ground game. Movement on the ground is not natural and doom is as unrecognizable as some of my spelling. It is the same for a swordsman fighting a channeler only more so. He has no understanding of what he fights, no practical understanding anyway. In any conflict a channeler must be dealt with as quikly as possible hopefully by another channeler but baring that from a position of suprise or a missile atack or both.

NO flame, just trying to make my anallogy relevent. I relly don't worry about game balance very much, unless I am playing with someone who is completly new to my group. My guys are good about policing themselves. Another point is that if the one power is not as strong as it is in the books then it messes with the continuity of the setting. How could the channelers break the world if they could be brought down as easily as the current rules allow?


Entro how would you handle overchanneling in a point based system?




Please understand I am not trying to be hard headed I am just trying to make my game exactly like the novels. I am not a player, I am an experianced DM and I know what I could be opening myself up for, but I just want something more from magic in this game and I want a game mechanic that represents that.


Peace

J



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Axel
Posted: Mar 12 2004, 02:08 PM
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well, back in DnD I thought the balance primarily came from how weak mages were at low levels. Its well known that if you get one to a decent level anything else is doomed, but at level 1 with only one spell and 4 HP they don't last too long. The balance primarily came from how rare a decent leveled mage would be. Considering that Initiates have only 4HP, and Wilders are very limited in their use of higher level weaves that should still apply.

However I insist on game balance, the last thing I need is somebody screwing up my whole campaign by frying the badguy the first time they meet him.


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If I seem to hate the d20 system, its only because I hate the system. Actually I just hate 3e, its biased me against the system. I rather like WoT.
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Entropic_existence
Posted: Mar 12 2004, 11:25 PM
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Creating new Game mechanics isn't really my forte is a GM, I'm far better at coming up with good ideas and concepts that can be explored in a purely roleplay perspective, but I don't think overchanneling is any harder to handle in a point based system than in one based on slots like the channeling system in D20 WoT. I don't have my d20 psionics book anymore (lost in when I moved so waiting till the 3.5 version comes out soon to purchase that) but I believe there were ways for psionicists to gain more power points than they had, etc. Most of them involved some sort of sacrifice but again haven't looked at the book in a LONG time so I forget exactly how it was handled. Overchanneling in my opinion would best be handled much like it is now, requiring some manner of concentration check with a DC based on the number of points you wish to use that you no longer have. Failed concentration checks would require a Fortitude save and perhaps the DC's get progressivly higher the more you overchannel. Failing a fortitude save for overchanneling results in fatigues status with all that entails at the least and depending on how much you failed by could result in being knocked unconcscious and at the very worst...burning yourself out. (Although I would likely never institute that in any of my games since it would really really suck for the player involved smile.gif ).

I aplogize for your my response to your martial arts statement I believe I misread exactly what you were saying. I thought it was more along the lines of the jiu-jitsu guy winning hands down every time no matter the circumstances instead of (what I assume is your intent) of the TKD practitioner getting stomped when otu of his chosen fighting element.

In my opinion having checks and balances in the game for the sake of game balance doesn't really take away from the continuity of the setting as presented in the books. Remember the players of your game are the heroes...the Rand al'Thors and Matt Cauthon's of your game. (in most cases...not all some people play quite low key games I know). Like I said before in my opinion it is better to explain away the saving thros from slightly different perspectives than eliminate the source of balance altogether. For instance at low levels many channelers while good with the One Power do not have the degree of control and finesse that they think they do. So if the armsman makes his saving throw I would prefer to say that the Channeler attempted the weave but for some reason did not pull it off as well as intended and so did elss damage, had no effect, or whatever making the save entails. In my experience it works well, and properly played channelers are still very very dangerous. Especially at high levels. Also as a DM I feel free to grant bonuses to checks of all sorts in my games to players when I feel it is warranted to further enhance the realism of the game. These are just my opinions of course, I've been roleplaying in RJ's wonderful setting for many many years now and don't feel balance mechanisms detract from my feel of the being immersed in the game. But to each their own, we do all have our own styles of play after all.


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Primal Paladin22
Posted: Mar 13 2004, 03:29 AM
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Thanks Entro. YOu got my intent well. I was just trying to illistrate the "fish out of water" type trouble faced by someone who is used to doing something one way and has know experiance with the other elements. I am the type who bounces every thing off of others, it helps me think. I appreciate your contribution to the thread.

Peace
J


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"Me... I'm doom on two legs, and you... you're a fish among sharks." - said the submission fighter "Lancelot" to an arrogant and unnamed scrub.
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