Mana System

[rdreilly]

I am very interested in this game, but I never liked the old D&D style magic system. The other day, however, a I was reading a review on Amazon.com, and the reviewer mentioned that the Castle Keeper's Guide contained an alternative mana-point system for magic. Can anyone tell me what this is, or how it works?

[Lord Dynel]

Hello, rdreilly, and welcome to the Crusade!

The system in the CKG is pretty simple, and gets the job done as far as spell point systems go. All casters know four 0-level and and two 1st-level spells. There's a table that shows how many points a character receives per level (this is adjusted by attribute bonus). Then spells cost their level +1 spell point. You can cast or learn any spell half your level with no issue, but spell levels over half your level come with some chance of failure for either learnign or casting. So you can have a 4th level wizard trying to learn a 3rd level spell. The downside is that there's a check involved and a failed check for learning it means the caster has to wait a level to try to learn again and a failed casting check means the spell fizzles and burns double the spell points. Recovey of points is on a per hour basis (your level in spell points/hour).

I would suggest that you make spells that do additional die damage cost additional mana. How you do that is up to you, though. I would make it a base cost +1 additonal pont per die. So if you're a 7th level wizard casting a fireball, I'd make it 6 points to get the full effect (4 points for the 5d6 fireball, plus 2 more points to make it 7d6).

[rdreilly]

I like the sound of that, and I think my players probably would too.

Thanks Lord Dynel!

[Lord Dynel]

I like the sound of that, and I think my players probably would too.

Thanks Lord Dynel!

Not a problem, sir...glad I could help!

[Andred of Albans]

The alternate system given in the CKG is pretty good - I tweaked it a little for use in my own game but it plays fine as is too (I just brought it more into line with what the medievals believed about magic)

[bigironvault]

I actually house-ruled magic in C&C into a system very much like DCC RPG, where Wizards had to make spell checks to cast spells difficulty 12+Spell Level vs, d20+INTmod+Level ... 1's were critical failures (and I made up a great chart, somewhat borrowed from Warhammer Fantasy 2ed) and 20's were maximized spells.

[rdreilly]

The alternate system given in the CKG is pretty good - I tweaked it a little for use in my own game but it plays fine as is too (I just brought it more into line with what the medievals believed about magic)

O.K. Now I'm curious. What did the medievals believe about magic, and how did you change the system?

[mediapig]

The Mana system was one of my favorite rules from the CKG, actually... I definitely plan to use it if I ever get a C&C game off the ground!