Replacing Vis as a concept - Game Design

Oh, I forgot!!

There are 2 things we didn't do! Vancian Magic, and Energy Pool magic (where casting a spell takes energy from a pool).

Here they are, with options being mostly interchangeable:

VANCIAN: Characters can prepare spells up to 5 times their rating in a given art. Preparing a spell takes as long as a ceremonial casting.
Option: Trading Arts: you can convert slots from other arts on a 1-to-1 basis. That is, you can use a rating of 10 in aquam to prepare 10 levels of Terram spells, not 50.
Option: Long Prep Times: preparing a spell takes as long as a ritual casting
Option: Dying Magic: Preparing a spell requires the expenditure of vis: 1 pawn per 10 levels. Double the cost of rituals

ENERGY POOL: You've got a pool of energy points equal equal to twice your total rating in arts. To cast a spell, spend energy equal to its level.
Option: Fire for Fire: You have separate pools for each art, following the rules for Vancian Magic, above.
Option: Building inner magic: Add 5 times your Warping (or Corruption! ^^) score to your Energy Pool. You can also use this as "free slots" for vancian magic, above
Option: No Free Lunch: Spells are cast with Pen 0. If you want more penetration, you must spend 1 energy for 5 pen, up to your Penetration total
Option: Places of Power: An aura contributes energy points equal to its bonus to spellcasting.
Option: Dead Magic: If the aura gives a malus to spellcasting, you must spend as many energy points.
Option: Items of Power: An enchanted item can store energy points. Use ReVi to build a spell container. Each EP takes 5 levels. Recharge may vary: 1pawn per 2 EPs, sunrise, season, year... You may want to tie this to an aura, like Aura bonus per day
Option: Divine Magic: Energy Points must come from a god or spirit, who spends might. An interesting option is to make these come from the familiar only, making one a requisite for spellcasting

To regenerate your energy pool, you may spend 1 fatigue (gives 5 points of energy) or rest an entire night.

As a matter of taste, I like the No free Lunch option (One thing I'd love to see in a magic system is 2 pathways: raw force or skill, with some ways to trade one for the other. Arts mostly embody both, which, IMO, is a loss), Places of Power, and Items of Power.

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The Black Wizards of Cathay, an infernal tradition of bad guys doing bad things and worshipping satan because they think it's cool.

Being Evil wizards that do Bad Things, they use Accelerated abilities named... (looks up at some metal music... Ok, I got it):

Wintermoon: PeIg, as well as creating light up to moon level of illumination. ReIg wards.
Darkness: PeIg against light, ReVi against Dark Faeries.
Goat: Animals traditionnaly associated with the devil, infernal beasts. Also, CrVi warping guidelines on animals only
Evil : Mentem relating to destroying good emotions/virtues or promoting bad ones. So you can’t confer Brave to your grogs, but « Murderous Rage » will do.
Satan : Vim related to summoning demons and protecting against them. No control, though. Sucks, but they all love it.
Forest : Herbam related to woods and trees. Duh!

They must choose 4 of these abilities as Accelerated. The other are either barred, or act as normal abilities if you're feeling generous

Their abilities are all Corrupted, as per RoP: tI

They also use Corruption, the "something else" version, with the following options:
Tempting Evil (Corruption Score adds to Casting Totals)
Hidden Evil (Their corruption is visible to spiritual sights)
Demon amongst Demons (their Corruption acts as a Hierarchy score)

As an alternative, they can choose to use the Magic Requires Life force rule (point 2) with the No Blood Slaves option save if they use the Killer Magi option (In short, they must either take wounds, or kill someone)

EDIT: Oh, and obviously, they use Vancian magic ^^

To cast rituals, they can't use Vis, but use the following 2.1 Ritual Options instead:
Places, Athas option (Aura can give vis, but this decreases the aura)
Times (Special times provide vis)
Mundane Assistance (Flunkies provide vis)
Casting Time (spending more time on casting provide vis)
As well as 2.2 Ritual Options (Add Penetration/5 to the ritual's magnitude to known lenght of casting on arts XP chart)
This makes them Yummy for Bad Things

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This method also reminds me of magic in the Dark Sun setting, where it is fueled by depriving the living environment of their sustenance and wellbeing.

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Thinking a little more about this.

As stated above, tidied up and organised differently, this could form a basis on a "Create your tradition", in a similar fashion to how I did the Red Black wizards of Cathay. Just more serious :smiley:

The one thing this doesn't do is help with Arts / Abilities selection.

Sadly, Arts are difficult (^_^)

I find this hard, but not impossible (I can, for example, imagine the arts of Split, Merge, Accelerate, Slow, Living, Dead, Fluid, Solid) but the real problem comes with guidelines: Either we require people to, each time, look into existing lists to see if something fits under their combo, which ain't practical, or we have to write up guidelines for each pair. Urgh, please, no.
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It's thus probably easier to instead use the Method and Powers version, with existing guidelines.
Each method becomes a type of casting seen above (For exemple, Blood Magic as a Difficult art, and Vancian Magic as a normal art, can coexist in the same tradition) that is combined with existing Form guidelines (so you could combine your Blood Magic Method with the Fire Power, directly using Hermetic guidelines)

Abilities are kinda between the 2. They require some imagination, like inventing new arts, but that's about it.
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One can create supernatural abilities akin to magical foci, and give them to the tradition. You can even combine several minor foci for that purpose.
This is, in short, what I did above with, say, the Goat ability (Minor focus in animals associated with the devil + minor focus in infernal beasts + Minor minor focus -yes, that's a double minor- in Warping animals)

I would do this all myself, and maybe I will, but I doubt it: If this year proves similar to the 10 previous, I will soon be swallowed up by work :sweat_smile:

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Magic only working at auspicious times also seems thematic, but I'm not sure how you could implement that mechanically.

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The Faerie book has a table of auspicious times and their relative magical power. You could jerry rig that or something like it into maximum spell magnitudes during each time. So mechanically during a new moon you could cast 1st magnitude spells and during a full moon 3rd magnitude spells, but you could only cast powerful 9th magnitude spells during an equinox twice a year. And maybe for particularly potent times like a solar eclipse any spell at all could be cast.

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Not sure if it's been mentioned...

Magonomia has the concept of Grand Enchantments... Now, Magonomia is Fate-driven, so it doesn't rely on any of the lab total concepts we have in Ars Magica, so there's a big difference to take into account, but Grand Enchantments can be rituals, magical devices, the gaining of a familiar, etc. They have the power to make lasting magical changes to the world, to the wizard, or to the target of the enchantment.

They are "powered" via quest. The wizard researches what's needed, which may be to visit a certain place at a certain time and offer a certain sacrifice, and if they do all that right, then they have the Grand Enchantment (I'm sure I'm paraphrasing to all heck). So these are all potentially unique effects with unique triggers.

Given the TTRPG engine differences, this probably doesn't help for things like rituals (healing, etc.), but could be used to empower enchantments, familiars, longevity rituals, etc.

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