Author Topic: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system  (Read 30518 times)

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B.T.

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #200 on: August 25, 2009, 12:39:21 AM »
Oh, and is there a decent way to bring tables from another program (such as Microsoft Word) into the forums?  I'm having difficulty figuring out how to format my tables and things.

AlterFrom

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #201 on: August 25, 2009, 12:49:45 AM »
1: Printscreen
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3: ? ? ? ?
4: Profit!

(i.e.: I don't know of any way to directly bring the formatting into the forums)
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bogsnes

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #202 on: August 25, 2009, 10:20:27 AM »
Can we get some more discussion on how the Seeds system would work again, please? I have a lot of stuff bashed out as far as mechanics for the At-Will/ENC/Daily allotment system which takes a lot of the ideas expressed in this thread that weren't about spell seeds/spell points and puts them together, and I can produce what I have sometime soon in a pretty coherent block of text, but I still don't have an idea as to where the spell seeds idea should be going, other than I don't want an Area seed, and I DO want uniform augment options across the board rather than augment options set for individual seeds. Again, IMO, a spell seeds system needs to be super streamlined for extra ease of play.

Here is a seed system that looks very good... maybe base something off that? (it is from Fax Celestis' d20 rebirth project...)

bkdubs123

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #203 on: August 25, 2009, 01:46:57 PM »
I disagree. Fax Celestis' seeds system, while it is complete looking, is exactly the kind of seed system I feel we should NOT design, or even close to it. His is incredibly complex, with varying degrees of augmentation for each seed, varying augments, a whole Secrets subroutine layered on, AND he's designed it to be used spontaneously, creating spells from these seeds IN GAME, ROUND BY ROUND.

Anyway, I'm now going to explore the seeds in the Epic Handbook and see what can be done of streamlining them and evaluating their effects for low level play. Can we all still agree on the basic principles that Spellcasters have these areas to work with: Powerful healing, area effects, debuffs, ranged attacks?

Okay, seeds have a base effect of some kind. Do/should seeds have a base range, save DC, target, etc? If they do, would they be able to be cast as the seeds themselves, perhaps as a sort of "cantrip" or "orison?" Should spellcasters have access to all spell seeds, or should a Wizard have it's own list of available seeds and a Cleric have another list? Just some thoughts.

Animate and Animate Dead are two separate seeds in the Epic Handbook. This is because Animated Objects and Animated Dead are two very statistically different creatures. However, part of me wants this to become streamlined so that they can both be a part of the same seed, I'm just unsure how to do it. Of course rules could be altered to make Animated Objects and Animated Dead more closely resemble each other statistically wise, but that seems like an extreme solution.

The Armor seed, while awesomely better than Mage Armor, seems superfluous as a seed all its own. All it does is buff AC. Seems like it could be a part of a Creation or Conjuration seed. Shrug.

The problem I keep having while I look through these effects is that I want a streamlined system that is very easy to pick up and play, but then it becomes difficult to justify some more esoteric spell effects that really seem like they belong in the game like Banishment. That's one whole seed in ELH. Thoughts on this?

Idea on streamlining seeds: Perhaps a good idea would be to limit the system to 8 seeds total. Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation. The base effects of each seed we would need to discuss, but I imagine them as whatever we come to agree upon being the "basic essense" of, say, Divination. Or perhaps each seed can have up to three separate "base" effects for a virtual total of 24 seeds. I can see this working fairly well with a very uniform system of augments.

As far as augments go, I'd start with the Epic Spell Factors table (the one that modifies the spellcraft DC). So there would be an augment to modify casting time, an augment to eschew components, an augment to alter the duration, another to increase the range, another to change/add targets, another to alter the area, etc, etc.

dither

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #204 on: August 25, 2009, 02:34:13 PM »
For Animate/Animate Dead, you could just assume for all "skeletons" and "zombies" as essentially being magical constructs that use dead people for the sake of convenience (magic only has to animate dead muscle tissue, rather than creating magical muscle tissue from scratch).
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bkdubs123

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #205 on: August 25, 2009, 02:47:36 PM »
For Animate/Animate Dead, you could just assume for all "skeletons" and "zombies" as essentially being magical constructs that use dead people for the sake of convenience (magic only has to animate dead muscle tissue, rather than creating magical muscle tissue from scratch).

I could see that. Mindless undead, isn't really undead at all, instead it is merely a transmutation-animated corpse or skeleton. Real undead, is created, through necromantic effects, and given sentience of its own.

dither

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #206 on: August 25, 2009, 03:00:59 PM »
I could see that. Mindless undead, isn't really undead at all, instead it is merely a transmutation-animated corpse or skeleton. Real undead, is created, through necromantic effects, and given sentience of its own.

Or, if you consider the that "real" undead are bodies infused with essence from the "plane of negative energy," they're actually more like aberrations or even "native outsiders."
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bkdubs123

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #207 on: August 25, 2009, 03:12:43 PM »
Right. Basically, I see it as the difference between an animated suit of armor, and a Warforged.

AlterFrom

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #208 on: August 25, 2009, 03:21:22 PM »
8 seeds seems far too small a pool to select from. Not necessarily because of the number of spells possible (2-seeds makes 56 or 64 spells; 3-seeds make 350+ spells), but rather because of the lack of definition of effects. Abj/Evoc doesn't immediately suggest a tangible effect; Personal Abjuration/Force suggests some sort of protective spell made of force energy.

24 seeds (8 sets, 3 per set) seems more workable, especially if we add a "Universal" set with seeds like "+range" or "+die size." Do you guys see the spellcaster player putting these seeds together themselves for spells they learn and/or cast, or that we will put them together and interpret them into 24 * 23 = ~ 550 spells (assuming 2 seeds and Universal augment seeds unincluded)? The former puts the onus primarily on the DM to cull any obviously unbalanced spells (and this can work; it's just not a paradigm native to DnD on such a basic level), while the latter puts the onus us, who can create a rigid list of spells to choose from.

Re: Animation:
The way I see it, animating a table and animating a corpse are the same thing. Transmutation magic harnessed to force the target to move according the spellcaster's intent at the time of casting. Reanimating a corpse, on the other hand, would be a Trans/Necro combination which uses necromantic energies to toughen the target beyond its innate hardiness.
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Soda

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #209 on: August 25, 2009, 03:33:22 PM »
There's a lot of seed talk happening. I'm not sure how you imagine it, but I can't grasp how it would be possible to take these seeds and combine them into spells. I think the idea of "this seed increases range" or "this seed increases duration" is just metamagic.

I'm still thinking about just boiled down, scaling spell effects.

For example, there wouldn't be charm person, charm monster, dominate person, and dominate monster. It would just be charm, and it would scale by level on who you can target and how much control you have.
There wouldn't be dimension hop, dimension door, teleport, and greater teleport. It would just be teleport, and it scale on how far you can jump, if you need line of sight, and who you can target.

Evocations would be the easiest. It would just be energy ray, energy blast, energy cone, and energy radius-around-caster. The energy types would have slightly different effects like psionic energy powers.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2009, 04:03:41 PM by Soda »

dither

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #210 on: August 25, 2009, 04:40:20 PM »
Right. Basically, I see it as the difference between an animated suit of armor, and a Warforged.

Iron Golem = construct
Zombie = construct?
Skeleton = construct?

Warforged = aberration?
Ghoul = aberration?
Vampire = aberration?

Hadn't thought of that before but I do like it.
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RobbyPants

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #211 on: August 25, 2009, 04:58:48 PM »
I can see that idea, but you'll probably want to track some sort of subtype, or something to differentiate those three aberrations.  Something like Aberration (Construct) or Aberration (Living Construct), and Aberration (Undead).

Personally, I'd just keep ghouls and vampires as the Undead type, and perhaps give them some sort of (metabolism) subtype, because they eat.  Meh...
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dither

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #212 on: August 25, 2009, 05:01:27 PM »
Personally, I'd just keep ghouls and vampires as the Undead type, and perhaps give them some sort of (metabolism) subtype, because they eat.  Meh...

...sometimes. Meh.
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B.T.

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #213 on: August 25, 2009, 06:55:58 PM »
I think that perhaps creating the Undead (metabolism) subtype is worrying too much about the minutiae.

bkdubs123

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #214 on: August 25, 2009, 07:40:04 PM »
24 seeds (8 sets, 3 per set) seems more workable, especially if we add a "Universal" set with seeds like "+range" or "+die size." Do you guys see the spellcaster player putting these seeds together themselves for spells they learn and/or cast, or that we will put them together and interpret them into 24 * 23 = ~ 550 spells (assuming 2 seeds and Universal augment seeds unincluded)? The former puts the onus primarily on the DM to cull any obviously unbalanced spells (and this can work; it's just not a paradigm native to DnD on such a basic level), while the latter puts the onus us, who can create a rigid list of spells to choose from.

Things like +range, or +die size are augments. NOT SEEDS. Seeds are not put together like puzzle pieces. Rather, seeds are very basic effects which can be built upon through augmentation to produce unique effects. Right now, as far as I can tell, the Spell Seeds crowd wants to create a bare system, with the seeds, the augments, and any other relevant information (feats, etc), with which the players create their own spells. If done right, there shouldn't be any unbalanced spells, because we'll be watching for that and designing against it as we go.

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Re: Animation:
The way I see it, animating a table and animating a corpse are the same thing. Transmutation magic harnessed to force the target to move according the spellcaster's intent at the time of casting. Reanimating a corpse, on the other hand, would be a Trans/Necro combination which uses necromantic energies to toughen the target beyond its innate hardiness.

And for you there is a differentiation between animating and "re"animating, correct? Reanimating meaning to bestow a new semblance of "life" to the subject, whereas animating is just forcing the corpse to move.

dither

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #215 on: August 25, 2009, 08:05:15 PM »
Mmm, so examples of "seeds" would be, like:
  • hurt, kill
  • heal, protect
  • move, teleport
  • confuse, control
  • animate, infuse life

Examples of "essence" would be, like:
  • fear, love, hate
  • acid, fire, cold

Examples of "augments" would be, like:
  • touch, close, long range
  • ray, line, cone, burst
« Last Edit: August 25, 2009, 08:07:01 PM by dither »
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AlterFrom

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #216 on: August 25, 2009, 08:31:30 PM »
Things like +range, or +die size are augments. NOT SEEDS. Seeds are not put together like puzzle pieces. Rather, seeds are very basic effects which can be built upon through augmentation to produce unique effects. Right now, as far as I can tell, the Spell Seeds crowd wants to create a bare system, with the seeds, the augments, and any other relevant information (feats, etc), with which the players create their own spells. If done right, there shouldn't be any unbalanced spells, because we'll be watching for that and designing against it as we go.

I see. I think the "seed" vocabulary got me thinking about the Epic Spell Seed system (where seeds are like puzzle pieces), as opposed to something more similar to Psionics (with some effects automatically increasing and some requiring investment). An Enchantment seed might look like this, then? (basing off Veekie's example last page; completely arbitrary spell effects)

[spoiler]
Charm
[Mind-Affecting]
Range: Close
Effect: Will Save
Base Effect: Target is charmed on a failed save. The target takes a [NUMBER] penalty to attack rolls against the caster until [EVENT]. The caster may spend spell points to increase the Range(+CL ft per spell point expended), or increase the penalty to attack rolls (1 additional point per point spent).

Basic Augmentations:
The caster may spend spell points to add allies to the effect. For every 2 spell points the caster spends, he may add one willing ally within range to the effect of the spell; when the target attacks this ally it takes a penalty on attack rolls equal to the penalty it takes against the caster.
The caster may spend spell points to increase his favorability with a creature within range of the spell. For every spell point he spends, the caster receives a +2 bonus on the diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, or gather information checks he makes on the target. Using the above augment to add allies to the spell's effect bestows the bonus upon allies included in the effect; if one ally uses the bonus it is not expended for the other allies in the effect.
Greater Augmentation:
By spending a mana point(arbitrarily named Daily point), the spell grants temporary dominion over the target's higher level thought processes. For every 3 mana points expended as part of this spell, the caster may dictate 1 action of the target. Dictating the action does not require an action on the caster's part, and may be performed at any time during the target's turn (or another creature's turn in the case of immediate actions). The target is aware of whether or not the caster has any actions left to dictate, but not the exact number of actions.
[/spoiler]

Quote
And for you there is a differentiation between animating and "re"animating, correct? Reanimating meaning to bestow a new semblance of "life" to the subject, whereas animating is just forcing the corpse to move.

Precisely. That is not, of course, intended to mean that is how it should be done; rather, that is one interpretation of the difference between "animation" and "reanimation," and the one that I can most easily justify in my mind.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2009, 08:38:47 PM by AlterFrom »
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bkdubs123

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #217 on: August 25, 2009, 08:44:29 PM »
I see. I think the "seed" vocabulary got me thinking about the Epic Spell Seed system (where seeds are like puzzle pieces), as opposed to something more similar to Psionics (with some effects automatically increasing and some requiring investment). An Enchantment seed might look like this, then? (basing off Veekie's example last page; completely arbitrary spell effects)

Well, the way I see it, is that it's something like Epic Spell Seeds meets Psionics, using the best of both worlds. Veekie's example veers off into a new idea, it seems like, and he also seems to want to have LOTS and lots of spell seeds. We have yet to come to any sort of consensus on the exact nature of spell seeds, augmentations, or whatever. When I say that Seeds are not puzzle pieces, I guess I don't mean that they can NEVER be used together, but that you don't have a seed for the effect, another for the subtype, another for the school, another for the casting time, another for the duration, etc, etc, ad nauseum. But I do think that it's very important to create and balance the system at first without combining spell seeds, and then come up with a way to do that later.

Quote
Precisely. That is not, of course, intended to mean that is how it should be done; rather, that is one interpretation of the difference between "animation" and "reanimation," and the one that I can most easily justify in my mind.

Of course. I'm ignoring your Charm seed design for the time being, because Veekie's Spell Seed concept hasn't been discussed or evaluated by anyone at all yet, let alone anyone else who is supposedly in support for a Spell Seeds system. I suppose I should get to that.

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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #218 on: August 25, 2009, 09:42:57 PM »
Things like +range, or +die size are augments. NOT SEEDS. Seeds are not put together like puzzle pieces. Rather, seeds are very basic effects which can be built upon through augmentation to produce unique effects. Right now, as far as I can tell, the Spell Seeds crowd wants to create a bare system, with the seeds, the augments, and any other relevant information (feats, etc), with which the players create their own spells. If done right, there shouldn't be any unbalanced spells, because we'll be watching for that and designing against it as we go.

I see. I think the "seed" vocabulary got me thinking about the Epic Spell Seed system (where seeds are like puzzle pieces), as opposed to something more similar to Psionics (with some effects automatically increasing and some requiring investment). An Enchantment seed might look like this, then? (basing off Veekie's example last page; completely arbitrary spell effects)

[spoiler]
Charm
[Mind-Affecting]
Range: Close
Effect: Will Save
Base Effect: Target is charmed on a failed save. The target takes a [NUMBER] penalty to attack rolls against the caster until [EVENT]. The caster may spend spell points to increase the Range(+CL ft per spell point expended), or increase the penalty to attack rolls (1 additional point per point spent).

Basic Augmentations:
The caster may spend spell points to add allies to the effect. For every 2 spell points the caster spends, he may add one willing ally within range to the effect of the spell; when the target attacks this ally it takes a penalty on attack rolls equal to the penalty it takes against the caster.
The caster may spend spell points to increase his favorability with a creature within range of the spell. For every spell point he spends, the caster receives a +2 bonus on the diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, or gather information checks he makes on the target. Using the above augment to add allies to the spell's effect bestows the bonus upon allies included in the effect; if one ally uses the bonus it is not expended for the other allies in the effect.
Greater Augmentation:
By spending a mana point(arbitrarily named Daily point), the spell grants temporary dominion over the target's higher level thought processes. For every 3 mana points expended as part of this spell, the caster may dictate 1 action of the target. Dictating the action does not require an action on the caster's part, and may be performed at any time during the target's turn (or another creature's turn in the case of immediate actions). The target is aware of whether or not the caster has any actions left to dictate, but not the exact number of actions.
[/spoiler]
That looks about right. Basic and Greater Augments 'snap' onto other spells you have to provide added function. Or they can snap onto themselves, aka using it straight. Theres probably also 'meta' seeds/augments, which provide metamagic like effects in granting the effect a shape(though each seed comes with a couple of defaults) or other such metamagic.

This is mainly for simplicity's sake, a full featured spell seed system can have a handful of distinct seeds, but each seed has an essay length list of options and variable costings. Thats not practical in play, consider this method a sort of compromise.
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Re: Let's Design a Non-Vancian Casting system
« Reply #219 on: August 27, 2009, 06:49:08 AM »
Hi All - recently saw the thread.  Skimmed all the previous pages.  Some thoughts:

Suggested Principles:
1)  bookkeeping should be _very_ easy
2)  It should be (sort of) balanced with Melee at many levels
3)  It should plug in well with 3.5
4)  Making it should be doable

David's opinion:
A)  Some types of spellcasters should still have lots of options
B)  We should find ways to keep real ultimate power on the table, just make it more balanced.

The above makes me think:

1)  Easy bookkeeping
  • I'm against seeds as things that players use to create spells
  • I'm in favor of At-will, Encounter, and Ritual.  Easy bookkeeping.

2)  Balance
  • Spells that are "too" powerful should become riturals with costly components.  (Action Points, EXP, Gold, Exotic Ingrediants, etc.).  Often they will have long casting times, although it might be that you cast it then can store it and "trigger" it once.  Polymorph costs an Action Point.  Gate costs an Action Point, and an exotic ingrediate tied to what you are summoning.  Etc.
  • Spells that are a little "too" powerful should become full-round actions
  • We should get rid of quicken

3)  Compatible with 3.5
  • We keep existing spell lists

4)  Should be doable
  • We try to avoid rules that require a lot of remaking of existing spells, rules or conditions.  Especially time-consuming remaking
Some Cool Quotes:  [spoiler]
Quote from: unknown
Non-PC activities like out of combat healing should be left to wands and NPCs. It's not fun to play a walking wand of CLW. Likewise, being a combat wall is not a viable PC role. A Wall of Force could do that.

-Sort of, but you left out the important note that a Wall of Force does it better.

Quote from: Runestar / skydragonknight
The most powerful character is the one that you actually get to play.

Quote from: Operation Shoestring
I often have to remind people not to underrate divination.  The ability to effectively metagame without actually metagaming beats the ability to set things on fire more times than not.
[/spoiler]
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