This idea literally popped into my head fully-formed as I was waking up this morning. I've been thinking on and off about my simple-minded initiative rules, whereby there's never really a chance that a caster will get their spell disrupted. Under my present refereeing spellcasting is pretty much an instantaneous affair. I don't do a round of declaring intentions before initiative, so no one ever finds themselves in a situation where they are casting a spell when the baddies win inish and wreck their plans.
Your spell getting blown is a risk that I want magic-users to have to consider without messing up my super-simple initiative rules and I think a back corner of my brain was working on it will I was asleep last night. Fully conscious Jeff wasn't smart enough to look at MERP's spellcasting system for inspiration, but I eventually got it.
Under this proposal, spellcasters can continue to use instantaneous magic if they are willing to accept a risk of fumble equal to the spell level or less on d20. E.g. a third level spell thrown instantaneously fumbles on a 1, 2, or 3 on 1d20. Power Word spells would count as 1st level for these purposes, as would anything on cast from a scroll.
As an alternative, the caster can state "I begin casting [spell]". The following round the caster can throw the spell at -1 to the fumble chances, state "I continue to cast [same spell]", or state an all new action (i.e. canceling a spell is penalty-free). If the caster is hurt between beginning the spell and actually casting it, the spell is lost. Each additional round of casting lowers the fumble chance. As I woke up it was an additional -1 per round, but that really slows down casting higher level spells safely. Now that I'm thinking slightly rationally, perhaps each round should double the reduction of fumble chances: -2 for 2 rounds prep, -4 for 3 rounds, -8 for 4 rounds prep, etc.
Since I just woke up a wee bit ago I don't have that fumble chart yet, but obviously some bad stuff can happen. However, there would be a few escape hatches built into the chart: results that would allow the fumble to be avoided or diminished with a successful Int or Dex roll, or maybe a level check or something like that. I like systems with built-in narrow escapes like that.
Mince Pie Fest 2024: M&S Collection
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I do not like the pastry on these mince pies at all. AT ALL. Crunchy and
far too sugary (which doesn't help with the crunch), I suppose at least
it's not t...
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This sounds similar to 2E in the casting time. We added a house rule that if they were interrupted or interfered with and failed a spellcraft check there was a 50% chance of a wild magic effect.
ReplyDeleteWhile it's only tenuously related, I'll mention that a system for spell complexity and possibly delayed/failed casting has been put forward for Knockspell #2 by myself.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't cover interruption or botching magic specifically, but could easily be used for similar situation.
If that's something you'd like to look at ahead of time I can supply it, and if you've got old copies of chainmail then it's worth mentioning that it is based on the magic-user's old casting matrix in that (if heavily revised and expanded).
As described your system has the side effect of dramatically lowering the rate of casting doesn't it? A third level spell would take three rounds to cast to have no chance of fumbling. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but something you might want to think about.
ReplyDeleteSomething I toyed with was having the spell level deducted from their initiative score. If their initiative was 12 and they cast Fireball, the spell goes of on 9, which is their new initiative.
ReplyDeleteIf you roll initiative for the whole encounter instead of round by round, you could have a standard action "Take Initiative" which let's them roll a new initiative, which would have to be used once their initiative bottomed out.
I've tried a few different methods of fumbled/fizzled/interrupted spellcasting over the years, none of which have really made me happy. As you point out, simplified initiative (and simplified mechanics of "old school" in general) make it tough to do it well without getting overly-complicated.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm using the "declare actions before initiative roll" system, which allows for interruptions. But I'm not sure I want to stick with that.
I'll be looking to hearing more on this, as well as seeing Brendan Falconer's system.
My problem with spell casters losing their spells is that they already get *so few* spells per day in the lower levels, that it could put a real damper on what could/should be the spell caster's one bright moment for the day.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather say that the casting was interrupted and fails to go off due to the disruption, but that the spell is not lost and may be tried again in a later round.
I really think for the same basic sort of effect you could use a system where you begin casting, and each round you roll against a target number on d20, modified with a penalty for the level of the spell. If you succeed, your spell goes off; if you fail then you keep casting, but each additional round of casting you get an additional bonus to your roll (so even high level spells go off or fumble eventually).
ReplyDeleteOf course, a roll of 20 is instant success (and maybe they don't even lose the spell?) and a roll of 1 is instant failure (spell fizzles, backlash, wild effect, whatever).
Sounds similar to GURPS. The defaults Magic system defaults to higher skill = lesser casting time, less change to fumble. However in one of the optional rules they break out the math and show how you can treat faster and more quiet casting as modifiers to the rolls. The reason for this was to give more options to the casters for various situations.
ReplyDeleteAlso in GURPS magic there ways always that chance if you roll a fumble (18) and roll another 18 that a nasty demon will pop out and take you out. Then there are all the intermediate result make the life of a caster so fun.
I like the simplicity of it and I think it's good that fumble doesn't automatically mean crappiness. Though you could have a "fumble save" of say [caster level + dex bonus] chance in 20, where you avoid the fumble and try again next round at the same fumble chance.
ReplyDeleteAlso, instead of tracking the increasing negative modifier, may be easier to say that if you wait before casting, you halve the fumble chance (round down) each round waited.
(Now if this were a 3E idea all you'd have to do is crank out the new feats, skill addenda, and prestige classes to implement it!)
What is the goal here? To make spell casters even less useful in combat than they already are? If so, you'll definitely achieve that, with mages doing even less in battles than they already do, as they will be stood there, round after round, not contributing anything to the fight at all.
ReplyDeleteIt might be simpler to tell your players that you don't like magic in your campaign - so don't use it!