Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Spell Frequency

For the world/system I am developing I want to give the magic system a kick.  Which I already did by implementing a spell point system I heavily borrowed from HackMaster, but tweaked it enough to make it flexible.  The one think I want to add, something I've been considering, but not acting on, is developing a spell system where there is a spell frequency.

The standard Vancian system has these spells and all of them are available to every mage.  I want to have a system where not all spells are available.  Some spells are uncommon, some rare.  Spells then become treasure or trade worthy if you find the right ones.  Plus, this may give the player's mage an surprise spell his opponent was not expecting.

The great thing about this system is I can implement it to fit in with my alchemy system and have similar rarities with alchemical formulas.  My recent purchase of the Wizard Spell Compendiums Vol. 1-4 is going to be a huge help.  Those will be the base for it and as I go I will make a few of my own, but its a huge advantage of having all those available.  Now I just have to buy the cleric version of them.  My total to the left is going to sky rocket!  So if anyone has them and looking to sell them drop me a line.

5 comments:

  1. Sounds cool to me. However, this might create a variant of the "everyone takes Sleep at 1st level" nonsense and have a blanding effect on choice. Know what I mean?

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  2. Greg > Absolutley. My spell point system has varients of that spell. It's not going to be the same old snooze spell. I think its too powerful in the beginning and pretty much useless at higher levels. I've got a version to level it out on both ends.

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  3. @Tim- Looking forward to see where this takes you. Very interested so far.

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  4. So, if I understand you correctly, you are controlling spell availability with "frequency" rather than spell points or spell "slots" or some other mechanism? or is this in addition to an existing spell availability mechanism?

    DaveL

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