Magic house rules

[Cardinal Thor]

Greetings again,

I am posting my house ruled magic system for comments and criticism. I'm always trying to improve my game so please be liberal with both if you're so inclined.

These rules were designed with the goals of having casters attempt to cast spells more often both in and out of combat, keeping a cost associated with casting spells, and eliminating the need for casters to rest to recover their spells.

Spells and Spell Casting
A caster must make a successful Spell Check to cast a spell

The difficulty of the spell check is determined like so: 10 + Spell Cost + Target’s HD

Target’s HD is not added if the target wants the spell to be cast on them (ex: healing spells) or if the spell has no target (ex: a spell that creates a magic weapon does not target a specific creature, even if the magic weapon will be used against that creature)

Spell Costs are as follows:
Lvl 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
SC 0 1 2 3 5 8 11 14 18 23
The formula I used was spell lvl x (spell lvl + !) / 4.

Spell casters get to add their Level and their Intelligence or Wisdom modifier to their roll.

Again, comments and criticism welcome

-CT

[Breakdaddy]

So a level 20 wizard trying to cast a level 9 spell on a 15hd giant would have a target number of 48 (base 10+23 for casting a level 9 spell+15 for the HD of the giant)? And said caster would roll a D20 + 20 (his level) +3 (for an 18 Int)? So he could never successfully cast this spell against this giant ever? Am I misunderstanding this?

[Cardinal Thor]

You are correct. Hopefully a 20th level magic user will have a few magic items to increase his spell casting prowess. Just as a +1 weapon adds to the to-hit roll, I could see a +1 staff or holy implement adding to the spell check for a caster.

Honestly though I didn't give the high end of the scale that much consideration as I've never had a C&C game go above 12th level before I or the players wanted to switch gears. Can you offer some suggestions as to how to tweak it for higher level play? Should I just get rid of the "+ target's hd" entirely?

-CT

[Breakdaddy]

Well here is a level 12 example:

Let's take a level 12 mage with 17 Int. He casts a level 6 spell at a 10 HD baddie. So he has to roll 10+11+10=31. He rolls D20+12+2 (max roll 34). He has a 15% chance of casting this spell against this baddie. THEN the baddie gets a saving throw. This renders the Wizard laughably useless against the party's most crucial enemies with his most coveted powers. On the other hand the cleric, whose powers tend to be more support-oriented, enjoys his full range of powers by virtue of not having to add the HD of the characters he is casting many of his spells on to his spell check because they are willing targets.

If my analysis is correct then I would have to say that the answer may be to either remove the HD of the enemy from the equation (it will come into play with saving throws anyway), or maybe halve their HD. That's just off the top of my head though, so it would probably need a bit more tweaking. Your idea is sound, but the math just needs a bit of tweaking. I wouldnt rely on magic items for boosting these numbers because then it becomes the whim of the GM to provide or deny properly earned magical powers which may be off-putting to some players. I'll give it some thought, but initially I would think taking the spell's level and multiplying it by two for the target number would be better than an arbitrary table. Level 9 spells would add 18 to the target number, level 6 would add 12, etc.

[nwelte1]

You should take a look at the Wheel of Time RPG. On page 162-63 they provide a system for "overchanneling". The basics are if the caster makes a concentration check (the challenge level determined by what is attempted) then they can cast the additional spell if they are out of spells. If they fail, then the spell fails and they need to make a Fort. save (I would suggest Con for C&C). If they pass they are fine, if they fail bad stuff happens depending on how much they fail by.

For the Con check, I would recommend setting the CL based upon the spell level being cast or some multiple there of. For example:

0-Lvl --- CL 0
1-Lvl --- CL 1
Etc.

However, I think that is too easy and would want the chance of overcasting to be very difficult because the caster is exhausted. So I would be more inclined to use the following:

0-Lvl --- CL 5
1-Lvl --- CL 6
etc.
or
0-lvl -- CL 0
1-lvl -- CL 1
2-lvl -- CL 4
3-lvl -- CL 9
etc.

For the fatigue check (borrowed heavily from the WoT RPG):

Fail by 1-5 -> -1 to all rolls need 8 hours rest before being able to cast any (racial too) spells again
Fail by 5-10 -> -2 to all rolls, +1d6 damage, need full 8 hours rest before casting again.
Fail by 11-15 -> -3 to all rolls, +2d6 damage, unable to cast spells for a full 24 hours.
Fail by 16-20 -> -4 to all rolls, +3d6, unable to cast spells for a full 48 hours.
Fail by 21-25 -> -5 to all rolls, +4d6 damage, comatose for two weeks (hydration and starvation become a serious problem)
Fail by 26+ -> death or some other horrible affliction such as the permanent loss of one spell slot of the highest level. Maybe the caster is sucked into a random plane and left helpless (i.e. the plane of negative energy, fire, earth, etc.)

[Treebore]

I would suggest not even requiring checks until they go beyond what they have memorized by the base rules. When they go beyond that have them make a check.

I have a rule already in place for this kind of casting so casters can do Divine or Arcane Blasts. Judging by how things go with that I think the base formula of 10+spell level=CL is fine, since I think it should be on the easy side of things for a spell caster to do their thing, cast spells. Yet they will still have a significant chance of failure to keep it unreliable enough, but not in a crippling way.

I think a 20th level caster should only fail casting a spell only on a 1. They are an Archmage, a master of the mystic arts, so should rarely fail.

[Cardinal Thor]

Well here is a level 12 example:

Let's take a level 12 mage with 17 Int. He casts a level 6 spell at a 10 HD baddie. So he has to roll 10+11+10=31. He rolls D20+12+2 (max roll 34). He has a 15% chance of casting this spell against this baddie. THEN the baddie gets a saving throw. This renders the Wizard laughably useless against the party's most crucial enemies with his most coveted powers. On the other hand the cleric, whose powers tend to be more support-oriented, enjoys his full range of powers by virtue of not having to add the HD of the characters he is casting many of his spells on to his spell check because they are willing targets.

If my analysis is correct then I would have to say that the answer may be to either remove the HD of the enemy from the equation (it will come into play with saving throws anyway), or maybe halve their HD. That's just off the top of my head though, so it would probably need a bit more tweaking. Your idea is sound, but the math just needs a bit of tweaking. I wouldnt rely on magic items for boosting these numbers because then it becomes the whim of the GM to provide or deny properly earned magical powers which may be off-putting to some players. I'll give it some thought, but initially I would think taking the spell's level and multiplying it by two for the target number would be better than an arbitrary table. Level 9 spells would add 18 to the target number, level 6 would add 12, etc.

I'm sorry, I didn't make it clear that those rules I posted are the entirety of what I use for spell casting. I did not mention saving throws or spell resistance because I don't use em. In essence I wanted the target's hd to "make up for" the saving throw and spell resistance. From what I'm hearing it may be too harsh at higher levels.

In my imagining I added the spell level and the target's hd because it is more difficult to manipulate more advanced magics and it is more difficult to overcome higher hd monsters with those spells. I'll take a look at dropping target's hd or halving it.

To Treebore:
One of the reasons I wanted to get away from the memorization list is to make it easier to plan encounters. I just populate the enemies spell book and don't worry about what they have memorized.

To all:
I haven't seem any comments on the fact that a +1 staff or holy symbol would add to the spell check rather than the BtH. To me that seems pretty significant as I would expect a level 12 adventurer to have around a +3 or +4 primary weapon. Is that not in order?

Thanks for all the responses so far, this is very helpful.

[Treebore]

OK, so change it a little bit to here no checks required for memorized spells, but anything beyond that they have to roll a check.

[Breakdaddy]

To your point about magic items boosting the ability:

Magic items are always cool to have but if you have a fighter with a +4 sword and he loses it; he can pick up a regular sword and still be very combat effective against most enemies. If the mage loses his +4 magic boosting item then he is back down to being completely unable to cast his best spells against any significant enemy (with the current system as-written). The net effect is discouraging wizards in your campaign and, to a lesser extent, clerics. I'm with Treebore in this regard: the high level mage has earned his power. If you neuter him or make him highly ineffective, then what's the point of going through all of the hassle and level grinding required to become a wizard? I think the best thing to do is to find out what you want the base chance for a wizard casting the highest level spell he can cast to be, then making sure the math stays on that target percentile consistently.

[Treebore]

I also would not allow items to boost your spell casting ability. They are reservoirs of spell power, not casting ability. Knowledge is not ability. You may know about building a book shelf, but doing it is a whole different ball game. Magic would be much more so since it requires great precision.

[Breakdaddy]

Here is an example of a shake-and-bake rule that will allow for fairly consistent target numbers. Variables will need to be changed to suit your campaign:

target number 10+spell levelx2+HD of enemy

roll:1d20+caster level+ability mod+6 (ability is a prime)

Most rolls will be somewhere in the range of 10(base)+level+2(for an ability of 16-17)+6(prime)

So a level 6 caster would likely roll something like a 24 (we are pretending that his ability is 16-17 for a +2 here).
He is casting a level 3 spell (his highest allowed), so he needs a 22 (10+6 (spell levelx2)+6(enemy HD)) against a 6hd monster. He just barely made this roll (by 10% margin) with an average d20 roll.

This means he has a slightly better than 50% chance to cast any given top-level spell against a foe that is equal to his level. Mix up the numbers a bit to get the percentile you want.

[Treebore]

Do you mean x2 or +2 in the line of target number?

[Breakdaddy]

x2 so that a level 3 spell would be a +6 to tn. The +2 in the line in question (if I understand you correctly) is for an ability mod of +2 (16-17). Sorry, I know that was unclear.

Ive edited the post for clarity

[Treebore]

The big problem with that is the HD will likely scale with the level of your game. So for a level 12 game that will be, for lets say a Fireball, a 6 + 12, so final target of 28, on average, for a 12th level game. So a 12th level caster would have to roll a 13 or higher to get off the spell, assuming an 18 INT/WIS for a +3 bonus. That is a 65% chance of failure for every third level spell cast by the 12th level caster. Way too high in my opinion. It may work better to just go by the HD of the opponent, make it essentially an opposed roll that replaces the saving throw.

You shouldn't even take Prime into account because your already setting the base line below 12, at 10. If you want to take Primes into account then the base should be 18, not 10. Starting at 10 and then adding Prime Makes the 10 effectively a 4.

[GameOgre]

No save is deal breaker for me. If you skip saves for spells the game breaks down. Think about it.

Your players 12th warrior who has taken two years of playing to level to this mighty level is in a fight verse a evil wizard. The wizard makes a lucky break and goes first! The evil mage then has another lucky roll and casts Disintegrate on the fighter.

The fighter dies. No save,no hp damage....he is just dead.

Too many spells have drastic results if you fail your save but at least the pc or npc have some chance to have some effect on the atempt. Remove the chance and your players will be left feeling cheated and helpless in the face of(your percieved mechanizations).

[Breakdaddy]

A 12th level caster would roll 1d20+12+attribute bonus+6. Casting a level 6 spell for this caster against a level 10 baddie would be 10+12+10= 32. So if he rolled a 10 he would have a 28, so he wouldve missed it by 4. Yeah, the scaling needs tweaking. I mentioned this before so hopefully it's not a surprise. Since I don't use this kind of system I havent given it a great deal of thought, so my quick and dirty rule was a spur of the moment thing and does require some tweaking. The problem is the X2 for level to the TN. This number should be static. A better way might be:

target number 10+[spell level+2]+HD of enemy

roll:1d20+caster level+ability mod+6 (ability is a prime)

So then a level 12 caster casting a level 6 spell has a TN of 28 vs a 10hd baddie. His roll of 10 would equal 30 (again, with an attribute bonus of +2).

Same scenario, level 6 caster, level 3 spell, vs level 6 baddie:

TN= 21
Rolls of 10 on d20= 24

This is a quick fix for the problem.

[GameOgre]

How about half the bonus for level and remove the HD mod? Leave spells saves in game as normal.

To cast a fireball roll 1D20 +Int mod+1 per 2 levels in wizard. The target number would be 12(as your int would be prime) with a CL of 3(for being 3rd level). So a 6th wizard casting fireball would have a TN of 15 and roll 1D20 + 3(18 int) +3 for being 6th. This still gives a healthy penalty for being able to cast spells all day long but gives a ok bace chance of getting powerful spells off.

At 20th level casting a 9th spell the wizard rolls 1D20 +3(int) +10 verse 12+9(spell level).


You can even juggle the numbers if you want so that differant levels of spells have differant penalties if you want a higher chance of spell failure. 1-4th spells add a CL of level +1 5-8 spells add a cl of level +3 and 9th spells give a CL of level +6.

Bah you see what I mean.

I think the two important things are to still give a save and to give a penalty for being able to cast all day long but to still leave mages able to effect monsters and creatures durring combats.

[Breakdaddy]

GameOgre, LISTEN. Saves are for suckers! I say TPK the entire level 20 party and apologize by way of paying for the pre-ordered pizza! DIE PLAYER CHARACTERS, DIE!!!!!

Oh...

[Cardinal Thor]

No save is deal breaker for me. If you skip saves for spells the game breaks down. Think about it.

Your players 12th warrior who has taken two years of playing to level to this mighty level is in a fight verse a evil wizard. The wizard makes a lucky break and goes first! The evil mage then has another lucky roll and casts Disintegrate on the fighter.

The fighter dies. No save,no hp damage....he is just dead.

Too many spells have drastic results if you fail your save but at least the pc or npc have some chance to have some effect on the atempt. Remove the chance and your players will be left feeling cheated and helpless in the face of(your percieved mechanizations).

Disintegrate would require a check of 10+11(spell cost)+12(fighter's hd) for a total of 33. The caster would need to be at least level 11th level to cast the spell, and since he's fighting a 12th level fighter lets say he's at level 15. That gives him a d20+15 to succeed at a spell check of 33. He succeeds only on a roll of 18 or better, a 90% chance of failure in other words. And every time he fails that check he takes 6 subdual points of damage. Doesn't really seem that unfair to me. If it hits the fighter got really unlikely, just like he would if he had failed his save. In fact, he might have a higher than 10% chance of failing his saving throw making what I proposed less likely to end in disaster for him.

I don't disagree with my what I have needing some tweaking, but for my money not having saving throws is not a deal breaker unless there is no balancing factor. As I wrote it, the balance is that the character's hd acts as his defense against the magic.

-CT

[Breakdaddy]

Its just two different ways to get at a similar outcome. I do see GameOgres point though. You take control over the character away from the player (since he could be killed by a random GM roll with no way to stop it or even a chance to roll against it). You would be well advised to only use this rule with a group that has been consulted. There are folks who would be angry that their character was arbitrarily taken out of a fight or even killed without a chance to save. It all depends on your group dynamic.

[Cardinal Thor]

Its just two different ways to get at a similar outcome. I do see GameOgres point though. You take control over the character away from the player (since he could be killed by a random GM roll with no way to stop it or even a chance to roll against it). You would be well advised to only use this rule with a group that has been consulted. There are folks who would be angry that their character was arbitrarily taken out of a fight or even killed without a chance to save. It all depends on your group dynamic.

That's certainly true enough. For example, I don't have enemy wizards cast disintegrate at the players.

I'm going to do some play testing based on the suggestions so far in this thread because I don't want to be too hard on players at higher levels. Indeed, my whole idea behind the change was to make it easier to cast magic more often. I guess I also want to give tougher opponents an inherent defense against spells that doesn't require another role to remember on my side of the screen.

The thing with spell resistance and saving throws is that there is a wizard in the party, which means I have to deal with those every fight. The party only fights a wizard or other magic caster once every four sessions or so.

[GameOgre]

Yeah its not that no save but with a casting roll needed is in all actuality any more unfair to the players. It is only that it can seem that way from the players point of view. I mean either way it is a twenty sided die roll. If the odds are the same no matter who rolls then it is only that the player himself did not get a chance to save his character.

That's certainly true enough. For example, I don't have enemy wizards cast disintegrate at the players.

If you remove spells that would cause issues then some of the trouble goes away. But once again you unbalance play with players now having save or die type spells and npc's left out. If you remove them from the game then suddenly you lose a lot more spells. No more Polymorphs,Power words,ect.. with a lot of other spells being effected in smaller amounts.

With the right players you could handwave all the changes and get along just fine. But the same could be said if you just had the npc's do all the rolling. The players dont roll to hit but the npc's roll to dodge ect... A lot of people just would not be happy with it.

That said....if it floats your players boat as well as yours then more power to yas!

[GameOgre]

I do think if you are going to count NPC or monster HD into how hard it is to cast on something then you would need to also count the spell level of the caster.

If you give a 10 HD monster a +10 to resist then I think a 10th caster should get a +10 to effect.

A simple system would be to award a + or a - of 1 depending on level differances.


A 5th wizard with 18 Int, casting magic missle on a 3HD Goblin would need to need to beat a TN of 13(12 for prime +1 for 1st level spell) with a roll of 1D20 +3(for Int), +2(for level differance ).

Hmmm I just don't like it. I'll think on it.

[Cardinal Thor]

I do think if you are going to count NPC or monster HD into how hard it is to cast on something then you would need to also count the spell level of the caster.

If you give a 10 HD monster a +10 to resist then I think a 10th caster should get a +10 to effect.

A simple system would be to award a + or a - of 1 depending on level differances.


A 5th wizard with 18 Int, casting magic missle on a 3HD Goblin would need to need to beat a TN of 13(12 for prime +1 for 1st level spell) with a roll of 1D20 +3(for Int), +2(for level differance ).

Hmmm I just don't like it. I'll think on it.

The player does get to add their level to the check. Base d20 + caster level + Int or Wis mod + Item or misc bonuses

[Cardinal Thor]

Just thought I'd let you all know, since you contributed so much to the discussion, that I did some more testing earlier this evening with the wizard character's player. It looks like 10+spell level+target's hd makes for a more fair target number than the spell costs that I had come up with. It's a little easier on the low end but more manageable on the higher end.

A 1st level wizard casting a first level spell at a 1hd target:
Target number = 10+1(spell level)+1(target's hd) = 12
Caster rolls 1d20+2(int mod)+1(level) and succeeds on a 9 or better.

I looked back on some early combats and the fighter was hitting the 13AC opponents on a 9 or better with his +3 strength and +1 BtH.

A 12th level wizard casting a 6th level spell against a 12hd opponent:
Target number = 10+6(spell level)+12(target's hd) = 28
Caster rolls 1d20+2(int mod)+12(level)+2(magic staff or wand) and succeeds on a 14 or better.

Bear in mind that the caster doesn't necessarily have to cast his highest level spell available on every target. If he were to cast a level 4 spell he'd succeed on a 12 or better.

Also, a Devourer (first 12hd opponent I turned to in M&T) has an AC of 24. How hard a time would the average 12th level fighter have hitting that, assuming a +2 weapon as the wizard in the example? (That's a serious question as I don't have my player handbook book in front of me for the next couple hours).

Again, using this system I wouldn't use spell resistance or saving throws and the caster has no limit on spells per day, only spells known.

[Lord Crimson]

Also, a Devourer (first 12hd opponent I turned to in M&T) has an AC of 24. How hard a time would the average 12th level fighter have hitting that, assuming a +2 weapon as the wizard in the example? (That's a serious question as I don't have my player handbook book in front of me for the next couple hours).

I'm pretty sure Fighters get a BtH of +1/level. So the fighter would have a +12 BtH at level 12. + Str Bonus (I'm going to assume +2). And a +2 Weapon. So that's a total of +16, meaning the fighter would only have to roll an 8 or higher to hit AC 24 (roll 8 + bonus 16 = AC 24).

[Breakdaddy]

Also, a Devourer (first 12hd opponent I turned to in M&T) has an AC of 24. How hard a time would the average 12th level fighter have hitting that, assuming a +2 weapon as the wizard in the example? (That's a serious question as I don't have my player handbook book in front of me for the next couple hours).

I'm pretty sure Fighters get a BtH of +1/level. So the fighter would have a +12 BtH at level 12. + Str Bonus (I'm going to assume +2). And a +2 Weapon. So that's a total of +16, meaning the fighter would only have to roll an 8 or higher to hit AC 24 (roll 8 + bonus 16 = AC 24).

That's correct. A fighter is generally going to have better than a 50% chance per swing to hit a creature that's of equal HD to him and at really high levels, where the AC of the enemies don't scale that well, the fighter is going to own the battlefield. A level 20 fighter with his +20 to hit and probable magic arsenal (plus weapon specialization) isn't going to break a sweat against enemies with 30+ AC most of the time AND gets two swings per round.

[Breakdaddy]

Bob, a level 20 fighter, is fighting a Giant with AC 35. Bob has weapon specialization and is at a level (above 7 as I recall) where his sword of awesomeness gets +2/+2 just for being specialized. Bob has a str of 16. His sword of awesomeness is +3. He gets +27 per hit for each of his two hits per round. He needs to roll a 8 or above to strike the mighty giant. Even with the almost-unimaginable AC of 40(!!!) he needs a 13 to strike the giant on either attack. If Bob were a Ranger he would still have +24 (no specialization and -1 to his BaB) to hit, AND would get +20 damage against the giant (ON TOP of his strength and magical sword bonus for a whopping +25 BASE DAMAGE-more than making up for only having one attack per round). Bob the Ranger is a human wrecking ball against this type of enemy and the party mage should just step aside and let the man do his work.

[serleran]

If we can have 20th level characters, my money is on the druid.