Well, after reading the Iron Heroes magic rules again, I felt like they were almost impossible to use, especially in combat. I have this vague feeling that successfully casting magic is so difficult in the system, there would be no Arcanists around (too many major failures = death).
I wanted to keep the parts I liked, such as the flexibility aspects of each school of magic.
So, I started a stab at making a new system. I switched to a Spellcraft DC based system (this was before I found about True Sorcery) and worked off the assumption that most spells start with a base effect (which I cleverly call "Spell Effects" and consist of such items as Damage, Drain, Movement, Curse, etc) could be broken down in to multiple components, such as Range, Duration, # of Targets, Dice of Effect, etc ("Spell Modifiers"). I bought True Sorcery and incorporated a couple of ideas from there, but tried to keep it more simple and streamlined (not the TS is bad, but not in genre with IH).
The heart of the system is a single table that outlines the different Spell Modifiers and thier "cost" in increasing the Spellcraft DC. More Modifiers, or better ones make the DC higher. Better/more powerful Spell Modifiers require higher mastery Ratings in the school. I kept the schools idea, but broke it down into 4 schools; witchcraft, wizardry, sorcery and thaumaturgy. Each of the 4 schools has 5-6 of the Spell Effects.
I have the base DC for each spell = 5. This may be too low, and I need to tinker some more to see if a base DC 5 is appropriate for IH.
To give an idea, here is an example Spell.
The Spell Effect is "Damage"
Lets call the spell "scorching ray", and it makes a 30' line attack from the caster, causing 2D6 fire damage (RFX save for half).
The caster rolls 2D6 for damage (+2 DC for increasing die size from D4 to D6, +2 DC for the second die), using a standard action to cast (+0 DC), to a single target (in this case, an adjacent square, +0 DC), targeting a 30' line (+2 DC), with an immediate effect (+0 DC).
The total Spellcraft DC to cast = 5 (base)+2+2+2 = 11. This spell requires a Mastery Level of 2 or more to cast (several of the modifiers require this level).
I did away with the mana limits, and instituted an Arcane Stress Pool, similar to what Harry Pratt and Mike Nigh did in thier system (thanks guys). Now, every time a caster casts a spell he can gain a point of Arcane Stress. If the caster blows his roll, or makes succeeds by 0-9, he gains a token of Arcane Stress that goes into his pool. If he succeeds by 10 or more, he gains no Arcane Stress token.
Each point of Arcane Stress adds +1 DC to every spell cast thereafter. The only way to rid yourself of Arcane Stress is to rest for at least 4 hours (4 hours gets rid of half the AS, 8 hours gets rid of all your AS).
I found I was able to incorporate most the effects you can find in the D20 books. At the moment there some things I would like to add, such as animating dead, but I have to think about those.
I also tried to keep a IH flavor, in that the table has a lot of empty spaces, which means there is lot knowledge out there that the known world does not know about. There is also room to further spell effects and modifiers if the players can find them.
The draft I link to is pretty rough, but you should get the idea. If you have any comments or questions, let me know. I have played around with it a bit, and havnt found any fatal exploits, but there might still be some.
mywebpages.comcast.net/gionpeters/newspell.htm
Mad Dog
I wanted to keep the parts I liked, such as the flexibility aspects of each school of magic.
So, I started a stab at making a new system. I switched to a Spellcraft DC based system (this was before I found about True Sorcery) and worked off the assumption that most spells start with a base effect (which I cleverly call "Spell Effects" and consist of such items as Damage, Drain, Movement, Curse, etc) could be broken down in to multiple components, such as Range, Duration, # of Targets, Dice of Effect, etc ("Spell Modifiers"). I bought True Sorcery and incorporated a couple of ideas from there, but tried to keep it more simple and streamlined (not the TS is bad, but not in genre with IH).
The heart of the system is a single table that outlines the different Spell Modifiers and thier "cost" in increasing the Spellcraft DC. More Modifiers, or better ones make the DC higher. Better/more powerful Spell Modifiers require higher mastery Ratings in the school. I kept the schools idea, but broke it down into 4 schools; witchcraft, wizardry, sorcery and thaumaturgy. Each of the 4 schools has 5-6 of the Spell Effects.
I have the base DC for each spell = 5. This may be too low, and I need to tinker some more to see if a base DC 5 is appropriate for IH.
To give an idea, here is an example Spell.
The Spell Effect is "Damage"
Lets call the spell "scorching ray", and it makes a 30' line attack from the caster, causing 2D6 fire damage (RFX save for half).
The caster rolls 2D6 for damage (+2 DC for increasing die size from D4 to D6, +2 DC for the second die), using a standard action to cast (+0 DC), to a single target (in this case, an adjacent square, +0 DC), targeting a 30' line (+2 DC), with an immediate effect (+0 DC).
The total Spellcraft DC to cast = 5 (base)+2+2+2 = 11. This spell requires a Mastery Level of 2 or more to cast (several of the modifiers require this level).
I did away with the mana limits, and instituted an Arcane Stress Pool, similar to what Harry Pratt and Mike Nigh did in thier system (thanks guys). Now, every time a caster casts a spell he can gain a point of Arcane Stress. If the caster blows his roll, or makes succeeds by 0-9, he gains a token of Arcane Stress that goes into his pool. If he succeeds by 10 or more, he gains no Arcane Stress token.
Each point of Arcane Stress adds +1 DC to every spell cast thereafter. The only way to rid yourself of Arcane Stress is to rest for at least 4 hours (4 hours gets rid of half the AS, 8 hours gets rid of all your AS).
I found I was able to incorporate most the effects you can find in the D20 books. At the moment there some things I would like to add, such as animating dead, but I have to think about those.
I also tried to keep a IH flavor, in that the table has a lot of empty spaces, which means there is lot knowledge out there that the known world does not know about. There is also room to further spell effects and modifiers if the players can find them.
The draft I link to is pretty rough, but you should get the idea. If you have any comments or questions, let me know. I have played around with it a bit, and havnt found any fatal exploits, but there might still be some.
mywebpages.comcast.net/gionpeters/newspell.htm
Mad Dog
